Khwarezmiyya

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Khwarezmiyya or Chwarismier is the name given to the former cavalry troops of the last Khorezm Shah Jalal ad-Din († 1231), who after his death fought as irregulars in Upper Mesopotamia , Syria and Palestine (also Khorezmians or Khwarizmians ).

The Khwarezmiyya were feared for their ferocity and cruelty. Christian chroniclers also refer to them as Tatars (from the Greek Tartaros: "those who come from hell").

history

Around 1220, the Khorezmier Empire in Persia was smashed by the Mongols under Genghis Khan . The last Khorezmian Sultan Jalal ad-Din fled with his remaining troops to the Caucasus and tried - ultimately unsuccessfully - to establish a new rule in Azerbaijan , Georgia and northern Mesopotamia . After Jalal ad-Din's death in 1231, his leaderless cavalry troops roamed the Seljuk regions in Jazira and Syria, pillaging and pillaging for years .

After 1238 they were repeatedly recruited as mercenaries of the Ayyubid prince as-Salih , who was in the civil war against his relatives for the inheritance of the Sultan al-Kamil . In 1239 they helped him to seize power in Damascus , after 1240 they returned to the service of as-Salih when he, who had since been overthrown in Damascus but had risen to become Sultan of Egypt , was fighting for power in Syria against his uncle as-Salih Ismail . Most of their attacks concentrated on devastating the enemy hinterland and avoided risky sieges of fortified cities and castles. In 1244 they penetrated from Syria into the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem , where they set fire to a fortified city for the first time, Tiberias . In late summer they reached Jerusalem , which they captured and thoroughly pillaged. In October 1244 they had united with the main Egyptian army near Gaza and helped al-Salih in the battle of La Forbie to a crushing victory against the Crusaders and the Syrian Ayyubids allied with them, as a result of which al-Salih also conquered Damascus in 1245.

The Khwarezmiyya also served as mercenaries under the subsequent Egyptian dynasty of the Mamluks . As such, they also took part in the Battle of ʿAin Jālūt . However, due to their ferocity and their urge for independence, they never allowed themselves to be integrated into the Egyptian army as regular soldiers. Years later they were finally defeated by Mansur Ibrahim .

literature