Khorezm Shahs
The old Iranian title Khorezm Shah ( Persian خوارزمشاه, DMG H v Arazm-Šāh) was performed as early as the first millennium BC of four dynasties (z. T. of any race, religion and language) which usually largely independent on the southern shore of the Aral Sea located large oasis Khorezm reigned.
The early dynasties were the Siyawuschiden / Afrighiden , Mamuniden and Altuntaschiden .
By far the most important and most famous dynasty was the last one to the Muslim , Turkish-born Anuschteginiden (Anūšteginiden, 1077-1231), the early 13th century both Choresmien and its environment and throughout Iran , Transoxania and today's Afghanistan dominated. Therefore, often only or primarily the Anuschteginids are meant when the “(great) Choresm Shahs” are mentioned.
The early dynasties
From the middle of the 3rd century , the rule of the Kushan over Khoresm ended and the rulers of the new Siyawuschiden / Afrighiden dynasty (Siyāvušiden / Āfrīġiden) came to power. Later, Choresm became part of the late antique Sassanid Empire for a time, but gained strength again in the sixth century. In 712 Khorezm was conquered by the Muslims, who did not occupy it permanently. In 751 a delegation of the Afrighid Shavush fern traveled to the imperial court of the Tang dynasty and asked for help against the Arabs.
In 995, the Emir of Gurganj overthrew the Afrighids, founded the Mamunids (Maʾmūniden) dynasty and moved the Khorezm capital to Gurganj. Sultan Mahmuds of Ghazna occupied Khorezm in 1017, ended the rule of the Mamunids and incorporated Khorezm into his empire.
The governor of the Ghaznavids , Altun-Tashkent, founded the dynasty of Harun, Ghaznavid Governor of Khwarezm (Altuntašiden) and could reach a certain independence. His two successors openly rebelled against the Ghaznavids and declared their independence as allies of the Seljuks . As early as 1041, however, Khorezm was conquered by Shah-Malik (Šāh-Malik), the ruler of the Oghuz , and the rule of the Altuntaschids was eliminated.
The Anushteginids
The dynasty of the Anushteginids was founded by Anush-Tegin Ghartschai , who was appointed prefect (šiḥna) of Khoresmia by the Seljuk Sultan Malik-Shah I (Malik-Šāh) around 1077 .
The traditional title of Choresm- Shah led only Anusch-Tegin successor, the Turkish military slave Ekintschi ibn Qotschqar whose government the rule of Anuschteginidendynastie in 1097 briefly interrupted before finally Anusch-Tegin son Qutb ad-Din Muhammad as a new Khorezm Shah could enforce. He was followed by his son Ala ad-Din Atsiz from 1127 (or 1128).
Atsiz 'son and successor Il-Arslan was able to rule independently of the declining Seljuks after the death of Sultan Sanjar (1157) and rose to become one of the most powerful rulers in the Islamic East.
Il-Arslan's eldest son Tekisch followed in 1172 and was able to conquer Nishapur in 1187 and later the cities of Merw , Sarachs and Tus .
His son Muhammad followed in 1200 and initially lost control of western Iran and Khorasan. But he managed to conquer all non-Indian areas of the disintegrated Ghurid Empire by 1215. In the battle of Taras in 1210 he was able to defeat the Kara Kitai together with Muslim allies and ruled almost all of Transoxania. Sultan Muhammad's victories over the Ghurids, Qara-Chitai, Qipchaqen and Qarachanids finally allowed him to advance to central and western Iran: Mazandaran , Kirman , Makran and Hormuz were conquered, and in 1217 all of Persian Iraq. Mohammed even tried to conquer Baghdad in the fall of the same year to end the rule of his arch enemy an-Nasir, but the majority of Muhammad's army was destroyed in a violent snowstorm while attempting to cross the Zagros Mountains .
The Mongols, united by Genghis-Khan , conquered western Central Asia from 1219 . The Khorezmian capital was also razed to the ground and Muhammad II fled to a small island in the Caspian Sea , where he died in the winter of 1220/1221. His son Jalal ad-Din continued the resistance against the Mongols, but was defeated by the allied Rum Seljuks and Aiyubids in 1230 and murdered by robbers a year later while fleeing from the Mongols.
This ended the dynasty of the Anushteginids and the rule of the Khorezm Shahs.
See also
- List of Khorezm Shahs (all four dynasties)
- Choresmians , choresmies and choresmies in antiquity
Sources and literature
- ʿAlāʾ ad-Dīn ʿAṭāʾ Malik Ǧuvainī : Taʾrīḫ-i ǧahān-gušāh , in the translation of John Andrew Boyle : The History of the World-Conqueror , Manchester 1958
- Ibn al-Aṯīr : Al-Kāmil fi ʼt-taʾrīḫ , ed. By Carolus Johannes Tornberg : Chronicon quod perfectissimum inscribitur , Lugdunum Batavorum (Leiden) 1867–1874
- Muḥammad b. Aḥmad Nasavī : Sīrat as-sulṭān Ǧalāl ad-Dīn Mengübirti , ed. By Hafez Ahmad Hamdi: History of Djalal el-Din Mankobirti - Shāh of Khwārazm , Cairo 1953
- Minhāǧ ad-Dīn Abū ʿAmr ʿUṯmān Ǧūzǧānī : Ṭabaqāt-i Nāṣirī , in the translation of Henry George Raverty: Tabakāt-i-Nāsirī - A General History of the Muhammadan Dynasties of Asia, including Hindūstān, from AH 194. 810 AD] AH 658 [1260 AD], and the Irruption of the Infidel Mu gh als into Islām , London 1881–1899
- Wilhelm Barthold : Turkestan - Down to the Mongol Invasion ( EJW Gibb Memorial Series ), London 1928, accessed November 15, 2019.
- Clifford Edmund Bosworth : Article " KH w ĀRAZM- SH ĀHS", in: Encyclopaedia of Islam , New Edition (edited by PJ Bearman et al.), Leiden 1960–2004
- Clifford Edmund Bosworth: Article “KHWARAZMSHAHS i. Descendants of the line of Anuštigin " , in: Encyclopaedia Iranica , Online Edition (April 20, 2009)
- Clifford Edmund Bosworth: The new Islamic dynasties - A chronological and genealogical manual (pp. 178-180), Edinburgh 2004
- Clifford Edmund Bosworth: Chapter "The Seljuqs and the Khwarazm Shahs - Part Three The eastern Seljuq sultanate (1118–57) and the rise and florescence of the Khwarazm Shahs of Anūshteginʼs line up to the appearance of the Mongols (1097–1219)", in: History of Civilizations of Central Asia , Vol. IV: The age of achievement: AD 750 to the end of the fifteenth century - Part One: The historical, social and economic setting (edited by Muhammad Seyfeydinovich Asimov and Clifford Edmund Bosworth) , Paris 1998
- Clifford Edmund Bosworth: Chapter "The political and dynastic history of the Iranian world (AD 1000-1217)", in: The Cambridge History of Iran , Vol. 5: The Saljuq and Mongol periods (edited by John Andrew Boyle), Cambridge 1968
- John Andrew Boyle : Chapter "Dynastic and political history of the Īl- Kh āns", in: The Cambridge History of Iran , Vol. 5: The Saljuq and Mongol periods , Cambridge 1968
- Lutz Richter-Bernburg : essay "On the titulature of Ḫwārezm-Šāhe from the Anūštegīns dynasty", in: Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran , Vol. 9 (New Series), Berlin 1976
- Bertold Spuler : Chapter "History of Central Asia since the emergence of the Turks", in: Handbuch der Orientalistik (Ed. Bertold Spuler), Dept. I, Vol. V: History of Central Asia (Ed. Karl Jettmar ), Leiden 1966