Khwarazmian Empire

Khwarazmian Empire
خوارزمشاهیان
Khwārazmshāhiyān
c. 1077–1231
Territory of the Khwarazmian Empire on the eve of the Mongol conquests, c. 1215
StatusEmpire
Capital
Largest cityShahr-e Ray
Common languages
Religion
Sunni Islam
GovernmentAbsolute monarchy
Khwarazmshah 
• 1077–1096/7
Anushtegin Gharchai
• 1220–1231
Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu
Historical eraMedieval
• Established
c. 1077
1219–1221
1230
• Disestablished
1231
Area
1210 est.[6] or2,300,000 km2 (890,000 sq mi)
1218 est.[7]3,600,000 km2 (1,400,000 sq mi)
Population
• 1220[8][note 1]
5,000,000
CurrencyDirham
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Seljuk Empire
Ghurid dynasty
Qara Khitai
Kara-Khanid Khanate
Eldiguzids
Ahmadilis
Bavand dynasty
Ghaznavids
Mongol Empire

The Khwarazmian Empire[note 2] (English: /kwəˈræzmiən/),[10] or simply Khwarazm[note 3], was a culturally Persianate, Sunni Muslim empire of Turkic mamluk origin.[11][12] Khwarazmians ruled large parts of present-day Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Iran from 1077 to 1231; first as vassals of the Seljuk Empire[13] and the Qara Khitai (Western Liao dynasty),[14] and from circa 1190 as independent rulers up until the Mongol conquest in 1219–1221.

The date of the founding of the state remains debatable. The dynasty that ruled the empire was founded by Anush Tigin (also known as Gharachai), initially a Turkic slave of the rulers of Gharchistan, later a Mamluk in the service of the Seljuks. However, it was Ala ad-Din Atsiz (r. 1127–1156), descendant of Anush Tigin, who achieved Khwarazm's independence from its neighbors.

The Khwarazmian Empire eventually became the most powerful state in the lands around Persia, defeating the Seljuk Empire and the Ghurid Empire, and even threatening the Abbasid Caliphate.[15] It is estimated that the empire spanned an area of 2.3 to 3.6 million square kilometres.[16][17] The empire, which was modelled on the preceding Seljuk Empire, was defended by a huge cavalry army composed largely of Kipchak Turks.[18]

The Khwarezmian Empire was the last Turco-Persian Empire before the Mongol invasion of Central Asia. In 1219, the Mongols under their ruler Genghis Khan invaded the Khwarazmian Empire, successfully conquering the whole of it in just two years. The Mongols exploited existing weaknesses and conflicts in the empire, besieging and plundering the richest cities, while putting its citizens to the sword in one of the bloodiest wars in human history.

  1. ^ Babayan 2003, p. 14.
  2. ^ Katouzian 2007, p. 128.
  3. ^ Kuznetsov & Fedorov 2013, p. 145.
  4. ^ Gafurov, B. G. Central Asia:Pre-Historic to Pre-Modern Times, Vol. 2, (Shipra Publications, 1989), p. 359.
  5. ^ Vasilyeva, G. P. "Ethnic processes in origins of Turkmen people." Soviet Ethnography. Publishing house: Nauka, 1969. pp. 81–98.
  6. ^ Turchin, Peter; Adams, Jonathan M.; Hall, Thomas D. (December 2006). "East-West Orientation of Historical Empires". Journal of World-Systems Research. 12 (2): 222. ISSN 1076-156X. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
  7. ^ Taagepera, Rein (September 1997). "Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities: Context for Russia". International Studies Quarterly. 41 (3): 497. doi:10.1111/0020-8833.00053. JSTOR 2600793.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference John Man 2007. Page 180 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ "Herat iii. History, Medieval Period" at Encyclopædia Iranica
  10. ^ "Khwarazmian". Merriam Webster. n.d. Retrieved 21 October 2010.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
  11. ^ Bosworth, C. E. (1998). History of Civilizations of Central Asia. UNESCO. p. 164. ISBN 978-92-3-103467-1. Mahm ̄ud and Masc ̄ud I of Ghazna had appointed Turkish slave commanders from their own army, Altuntash and his sons, as governors there with the ancient title of Khwarazm Shah." (...) "In order to secure these important regions, Malik Sh ̄ah had appointed the keeper of the royal washing bowls (tast-d ̄ar), his slave commander An ̄ush-tegin Gharcha' ̄ı, as titular governor at least in Khwarazm. During Berkyaruk's reign, the sultan appointed in 1097 another Turkishghul ̄am, Ekinchi b. Kochkar, with the historic title of KhwarazmShah. When, in that same year, Ekinchi was killed, Berkyaruk nominated in his stead An ̄ushtegin's son Qutb al-D ̄ın Muhammad as governor, and Muhammad's tenure of power there (1097–1127) inaugurates the fourth and most brilliant line of hereditary KhwarazmShahs
  12. ^ C. E. Bosworth : Khwarazmshahs i. Descendants of the line of Anuštigin. In Encyclopaedia Iranica, online ed., 2009: "Little specific is known about the internal functioning of the Khwarazmian state, but its bureaucracy, directed as it was by Persian officials, must have followed the Saljuq model." Norman M. Naimark, Genocide: A World History (Oxford University Press, 2017), 20 "The Persian-speaking and Islamic Khwarezmian empire, which was founded in Central Asia south of the Aral Sea around its capital of Samarkand, and included such remarkable centers of trade and civilizations as Bukhara and Urgench, ..."
  13. ^ Rene Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes:A History of Central Asia, Transl. Naomi Walford, Rutgers University Press, 1991, p. 159.
  14. ^ Biran, Michel, The Empire of the Qara Khitai in Eurasian history, (Cambridge University Press, 2005), 44.
  15. ^ Bosworth, C. E. (1998). History of Civilizations of Central Asia. UNESCO. p. 164. ISBN 978-92-3-103467-1. This dynasty eventually built up, as the Seljuq empire in the east tottered to its close, the most powerful and aggressively expansionist empire in the Persian lands, in the end defeating their rivals for control of Khurasan, the Ghurids of Afghanistan, threatening western Persia and Iraq and the Abbasid caliphate itself, and only disintegrating under the overwhelming military might of the Mongol invaders in the opening decades of the thirteenth century.
  16. ^ Turchin, Peter; Adams, Jonathan M.; Hall, Thomas D. (December 2006). "East-West Orientation of Historical Empires". Journal of World-Systems Research. 12 (2): 222. ISSN 1076-156X. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
  17. ^ Taagepera, Rein (September 1997). "Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities: Context for Russia". International Studies Quarterly. 41 (3): 497. doi:10.1111/0020-8833.00053. JSTOR 2600793.
  18. ^ Abulafia, David (2015). The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 5, c. 1198–c. 1300. p. 610.


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