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Jalal al-Din Mingburnu (Template:Lang-fa), also known as Jalal al-Din Khwarazmshah (جلال‌الدین خوارزمشاه) was the last Khwarazmshah of the Anushtegin line, ruling parts of Iran and northwestern India from 1220 to 1231. He was the son and successor of Ala ad-Din Muhammad II.

Jalal al-Din only ruled his ancestral kingdom in Khwarazm briefly, until he was forced to leave for the southwestern part of the realm (roughly corresponding to present-day Afghanistan), due to facing opposition by many of his Turkic commanders, who supported his brother and original heir-apparent, Uzlagh-Shah. The following year, the Khwarazmian capital of Gurganj was captured and devastasted by the Mongols. Meanwhile, at the city of Ghazni, Jalal al-Din rallied a substantial army which consisted of Khwarazmians, Turks, and Ghurids, subsequently defeating the pursuing forces of the Mongol leader Genghis Khan at the battle of Parwan. Jalal al-Din was, however, forced to withdraw to northwestern India by the Mongol forces.

Name

The spelling and meaning of his Turkic personal name is obscure. Early scholarship spelled it as Manguburti (or similiar variants), whilst the most common variant today is Mangburni ("with a birthmark on the nose") or Mingirini ("valiant fighter worth one thousand men"; cf. Persian hazarmard).

Background

Jalal al-Din was reportedly the eldest son of the Khwarazmshah Ala ad-Din Muhammad II (r. 1200–1220), whilst his mother was a slave girl named Ay Chichek. Due to the low status of Jalal al-Din's mother, his powerful grandmother and Qipchaq princess Terken Khatun refused to support him as heir to the throne, and instead favored his half-brother Uzlagh-Shah, whose mother was also a Qipchaq. Jalal al-Din first appears in historical records in 1215, when Muhammad II divided his empire amongst his sons, giving the southwestern part (part of the former Ghurid Empire) to Jalal al-Din.

Mongol invasion

When it became known that Genghis Khan was marching towards Khwarazm, Jalal ad-din proposed to his father to meet the Mongols in one decisive battle near the Syr Darya. However, Muhammad II relied on his well-fortified fortresses and did not assemble troops, distributing them instead among the major towns of his empire. Meanwhile, the Mongols swiftly took one city after another. At the beginning of 1220, Bukhara fell, followed by Samarqand. Muhammad started to retreat west, and after a series of unsuccessful battles, was left with a handful of soldiers and his sons. The huge and undisciplined Khwarazmian army was unable to defeat the enemy, which was much inferior in number.

Legend has it that Muhammad, who fled to the Caspian Sea, being terminally ill, gathered his sons: Jalal ad-Din, Aqshah, and Uzlagh Khan and announced that he appointed Jalal ad-Din as heir to the throne, because only he could confront the enemy. Summoning the younger sons to obedience, he hung his sword on the belt of Jalal ad-Din. A few days later, Muhammad died and Jalal ad-Din was proclaimed a Khwarazmshah.

Following the defeat of his father, Ala ad-Din Muhammad II by Genghis Khan in 1220, Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu came to power and retreated with the remaining Khwarazm forces, while pursued by a Mongol army and at the battle of Parwan, north of Kabul, defeated the Mongols.

Due to the Mongol invasion, the sacking of Samarkand and being deserted by his Afghan allies, Jalal ad-Din was forced to flee to India. At the Indus River, however, the Mongols caught up with him and slaughtered his forces, along with thousands of refugees, at the Battle of the Indus. He escaped and sought asylum in the Sultanate of Delhi but Iltutmish denied this to him in deference to the relationship with the Abbasid caliphs. The cities of Herat, Ghazni and Merv were destroyed and massacred by the Mongols, for his resistance or rebelliousness.

Re-establishment of the kingdom

Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu spent three years in exile in India. He entered into an alliance with the Khokhars, Lahore, and much of the Punjab was captured. At this stage he requested an alliance with Iltutmish, the Turkish Mamluk Sultan of Delhi against the Mongols. The Sultan of Delhi refused so he could avoid a conflict with Genghis Khan and marched towards Lahore at the head of a large army. Mingburnu retreated from Lahore and moved towards Uchch, inflicting a heavy defeat on its ruler Nasir-ud-Din Qabacha, and plundered Sindh, then northern Gujarat before returning to Persia in 1224.

Having gathered an army and entered Persia, Jalal ad-Din sought to re-establish the Khwarazm kingdom, but he never fully consolidated his power. In 1224, he confirmed Burak Hadjib, ruler of the Qara Khitai, in Kerman, received the submission of his brother Ghiyath al-Din Pirshah, who had established himself in Hamadan and Isfahan, and the province of Fars, and clashed with the Caliph An Nasser in Khuzestan. In 1225, the sultan dethroned the Ildegizid Uzbek Muzaffar al-Din and set himself up in their capital of Tabriz on the 25 of July in 1225. In 1225, he attacked Georgia, defeating its forces in the battle of Garni, and conquered Tbilisi, after which allegedly a hundred thousand citizens were put to death for not renouncing Christianity.

Warfare

Jalal ad-Din spent the rest of his days struggling against the Mongols, pretenders to the throne and the Seljuqs of Rûm. His dominance in the region required year-after-year campaigning. In 1226, the governor of Kerman, Burak Hadjib, rebelled against him, but after the sultan marched against him he was again brought back into agreement. Jalal ad-Din then had a brief victory over the Seljuqs and captured the town of Akhlat in Turkey from the Ayyubids. In 1227, he battled against the Mongols on the approach to Isfahan and while he did not defeat the invaders following their great losses they were not able to utilise their victory and withdrew afterwards across the Oxus river. In 1228, his brother Ghiyath al-Din rebelled and was defeated by the Sultan. Ghiyath al-Din fled to Burak Hadjib in Kerman where he and his mother were murdered. The revived Khwarezmid Sultan by this time controlled Kerman, Tabriz, Isfahan and Fars. Jalal ad-Din moved against Akhlat again in 1229. However he was defeated in this campaign by Sultan Kayqubad I at Erzincan on the Upper Euphrates at the Battle of Yassıçemen in 1230, from whence he escaped to Diyarbakir.

Death

Through the ruler of Alamut, the Mongols learned that Jalal ad-Din was weakened by a recent defeat. Ögedei Khan sent a new army of 30,000 men under the command of Chormagan and the Khwarazmians were swept away by the new Mongol army. In the winter of 1231, in the ensuing confusion the Mongols arrived into Azerbaijan from the direction of Khorasan and Rayy. The 30,000 strong Mongol army led by Chormagan easily defeated Jalal ad-Din and occupied northern Iran. Khwarazmshah retreated to Ganja, Azerbaijan. The Mongols followed him and captured Arran. Jalal ad-Din took refuge in the Mayyafarikin mountains and there in August of that year he was killed by an unknown Kurd, allegedly employed by the Seljuks.

Legacy and assessment

Shihab al-Din Muhammad al-Nasawi, the personal secretary of the Sultan Jalal ad-Din, described him as follows:

He was swarthy (dark-skinned), small in stature, Turkic in "behavior" and speech, but he also spoke Persian. As for his courage, I have mentioned it many times when describing the battles he took part in. He was a lion among lions and the most fearless among his valiant horsemen. He was mild in his temper though, did not get easily provoked and never used bad language.

Even Nasawi, however, was unable to justify the negative impact Jalal al-Din's rule and conduct of his soldiers had on his subjects. Jalal al-Din is represented as a hero valianty fighting for "Persian independence" by the Iranian bureaucrat and historian Ata-Malik Juvayni (died 1283), who, however, was in reality aware that Jalal al-Din was fighting for his own survival and selfish motives.

Due to his reputation for resisting the Mongols, Jalal al-Din is commonly depicted on artwork resembling that of the Persian epic Shahnameh, where he is associated with the mythological warrior Rostam.

Jalal al-Din was not as successful in politics and diplomacy as he was in leadership and heroism. Although he managed to escape from the Mongols and arrive to Anatolia, and subsequently ask for help from the fellow Muslim rulers against the Mongols, his politics and attitude terrified all the neighboring monarchs and caused them to distance themselves from him. He did try to maintain friendship with the Seljuq Sultan of Anatolia, Ala' ad-Din Kay-Qubad, which could have been a turning point in his warfare against the Mongols had he succeeded, but he abandoned this policy for unknown reasons. Jalal al-Din's diplomatic attempts to cooperate against the Mongols with the Abbasid Caliphate and the Georgians also failed.

In fiction

Jalal ad-Din has been portrayed by Emre Kıvılcım in the Turkish-Uzbek TV series Mendirman Jaloliddin, created by Mehmet Bozdağ in collaboration with the Uzbek Ministry of Culture and Sports.

References

1. ^ Paul 2017, p. 142.
2. Gudogdyev, Ovez. "Historical and Cultural Heritage of Turkmenistan: Encyclopedic Dictionary". Istanbul. 2000. pages 381; ISBN 9789759725600
3. Man, John (2004). Genghis Khan: Life, Death, and Resurrection. St. Martin's Press. p. 181. ISBN 0-312-31444-2.
4. Dupuy, Trevor N.; Dupuy, R. Ernest (1993). The Harpers Encyclopedia of Military History. Harper Collins. p. 366. ISBN 0-06-270056-1.
5. Chandra, Satish (2004). Medieval India: From Sultanat to the Mughals-Delhi Sultanat (1206–1526). Vol. Part One. Har-Anand Publications. p. 40. ISBN 9788124110645.
6. Grousset, Rene (1991). The Empire of the Steppes. Rutgers University Press. p. 260. ISBN 0-8135-1304-9.
7. Pelliot, P. (1923). "Les Mongols et la Papauté" (PDF). Revue de l'Orient Chrétien. 23: 3–30.
8. Irwin, Robert (1999). "Islam and the Mediterranean: The rise of the Mamluks". In Abulafia, David (ed.). The New Cambridge Medieval History. Vol. Volume 5, c.1198 – c.1300. Cambridge University Press. p. 611. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
9. "PHI, Persian Literature in Translation". Archived from the original on March 5, 2016.
10. "Jalāl-al-Din Ḵvārazmšāh (I) Mengübirni". Encyclopædia Iranica.
11. Jackson, Peter (December 15, 1993). Čormāgūn. Encyclopædia Iranica
12. Buniyatov, Z.M (1996). Shikhab an-Nasawi. Sirat as-sultan Jalal al-Din Mankburni (Biography of sultan Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu) (in Russian). Vostochnaya Literatura, Russian Academy of Sciences. p. 288.
13. ^ Paul 2017, p. 145.
14. Lane 2012, p. 251.
15. Taneri, Aydin (1977). Jalal al-Din Khwarazmshah and his era (in Turkish). Ankara: Publications of the Ministry of Culture. pp. 85–87.
16. "New Turkish series about Sultan Jalaluddin Khwarazmshah to release in Uzbekistan". The News International. Retrieved 2021-04-07.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

Sources

• Bosworth, C. Edmund (2008). "Jalāl-al-Din Mengübirni". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. XIV/4: Jade III–Jamalzadeh, Mohammad-Ali II. Work. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 404–405. ISBN 978-1-934283-04-2.
• Jackson, Peter (2017). The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300227284. JSTOR 10.3366/j.ctt1n2tvq0. (registration required)
• Lane, George E. (2012). "The Mongols in Iran". In Daryaee, Touraj (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History. Oxford University Press. pp. 1–432. ISBN 978-0-19-987575-7.
• Paul, Jürgen (2017). "Jalāl al-Dīn Mangburnī". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd ed.). Brill Online. ISSN 1873-9830.

• Turkic rulers
• 1231 deaths
• Khwarezmid rulers
• 13th-century murdered monarchs
• 1199 births
• 13th-century Turkic people