Muhammad II of Khwarazm

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Muhammad II
The Second Alexander
Terken Khatun
ReligionSunni Islam

'Alā' al-Din Muhammad (

Mongol conquest of the Khwarazmian Empire
, which resulted in the utter destruction of his empire.

Reign

After his father

Gurgan, earning criticism from Ghiyath which led to the only reported quarrel between the brothers.[2][3]

Ghiyath died at

Ghur, he was defeated in Battle of Andkhud in 1204.[4][5] Mu'izz al-Din was later assassinated in 1206, throwing the Ghurid Empire into a civil war. During the civil war, Ghiyath al-Din Mahmud
managed to emerge victorious.

However, Ghiyath's Turkic general

Ghur
, and captured Ghiyath. Ghiyath then agreed to recognize Muhammad's authority.

Ghurid capital of Ghazni
.

Muhammad II then captured

Atabegs of Azerbaijan become his vassals in 1211. He finally destroyed Western Karakhanids in 1212 and Ghurids in 1215 annexing with their remainder territories. During 1212 the city of Samarkand revolted killing 8,000–10,000 Khwarezmians living there. Muhammad, in retaliation, sacked the city and executed 10,000 citizens of Samarkand.[7]

By 1217, he had conquered all the lands from the

an-Nasir rejected his claim, Ala ad-Din Muhammad gathered an army and marched towards Baghdad to depose an-Nasir. However, when crossing the Zagros Mountains, the shah's army was caught in a blizzard.[7]
Thousands of warriors died. With the army decimated, the generals had no choice but to return home.

Fall

Gold dinar of Ala ad-Din Muhammad II, struck at the Bukhara mint

In 1218, a small contingent of Mongols crossed borders in pursuit of an escaped enemy general. Upon successfully retrieving him, Genghis Khan made contact with the Shah. Having only recently conquered two-thirds of what would one day be China, Genghis was looking to open trade relations, but having heard exaggerated reports of the Mongols, the Shah believed this gesture was only a ploy to invade his land. Genghis sent emissaries to Khwarezm (reports vary – one stating a group of 100 Muslim merchants with a single Mongol leading them, others state 450) to emphasize his hope for a trade road. The Shah, in turn, had one of his governors (Inalchuq, his uncle) openly accuse the party of spying, their rich goods were seized and the party was arrested.[8]

Rashid-al-Din Hamadani

Trying to maintain diplomacy, Genghis sent an envoy of three men to the Shah, to give him a chance to disclaim all knowledge of the governor's actions and hand him over to the Mongols for punishment. The shah executed the envoy (again, some sources claim one man was executed, some claim all three were), and then immediately had the Mongol merchant party (Muslim and Mongol alike) put to death and their goods seized.

Urgench
, followed soon after.

Ala ad-Din Muhammad fled and sought refuge in Khorasan,[citation needed] and later died of pleurisy on an island in the Caspian Sea near the port of Abaskun some weeks later.[citation needed]

References

  1. OCLC 31870180
    . Taksh's sucçessor, Alauddin Muhammnad Khwarazm Shah, styled 'the Second Alexander' (1200-20), was the last of the old type of Emperor-Sultans, for Timur does not belong to this category
  2. ISBN 81-208-1409-6
    , p182
  3. ^ Enc. Islam, article: Muhammad, Mu'izz al-Din
  4. ^ A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle, Vol. I, ed. Spencer C. Tucker, (ABC-CLIO, 2010), 269.
  5. ^ Farooqui Salma Ahmed, A Comprehensive History of Medieval India: From Twelfth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century, (Dorling Kindersley Pvt., 2011), 53–54.
  6. ^ Michel Biran, The Empire of the Qara Khitai in Eurasian History, (Cambridge University Press, 2005), 70.
  7. ^ a b Rafis Abazov, Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of Central Asia, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 43.
  8. ISBN 0-521-65704-0
    .
  9. ISBN 978-0-553-81498-9
    .

Further reading
Muhammad II of Khwarazm
House of Anushtegin
Born: 1169 Died: 1220
Regnal titles
Preceded by
Tekish
Shah of the Khwarezmian Empire

1200–1220 		Succeeded by
Manguberdi
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