Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu

Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu

Jalal ad-Din (or Jelal ad-Din) (Uzbek: Jaloliddin Manguberdi) Mingburnu, also known as Mengübirti[citation needed] or Manguberdi (Turkish: Mengü verdi[citation needed]; Godgiven) or Minkburny[citation needed] in the east (Persian: جلال‌الدین خوارزمشاه Jalâloddin Xowârazmšâh) was the last ruler of the Khwarezmid Empire. Following the defeat of his father, Ala ad-Din Muhammad II by Genghis Khan in 1220, Jelal ad-Din Manguberdi came to power but he rejected the title shah that his father had assumed and called himself simply sultan. Jalal retreated with the remaining Khwarazm forces, while pursued by a Mongol army and at the battle of Pirvan, north of Kabul, defeated the Mongols.[1]

Due to the Mongol invasion, the sacking of Samarkand and being deserted by his Afghan alllies, Jalal was forced to flee to India.[2] At the river Indus however, the Mongols caught up with him and killed his forces and thousands of refugees at the Battle of Indus. He escaped and sought asylum in the Sultanate of Delhi. Iltumish however denied this to him in deference to the relationship with the Abassid caliphs.

Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu spent three years in exile in India before returning to Persia. He gathered an army and re-established a kingdom. He never consolidated his power however, and he spent the rest of his days struggling against Mongols, pretenders to the throne and the Seljuk Turks of Rum. He lost his power over Persia in a battle against the Mongols in the Alborz Mountains and fled to the Caucasus, to capture Azerbaijan in 1225, setting up their capital at Tabriz. In 1226 he attacked Georgia and sacked Tbilisi, destroying all the churches and massacring the city's Christian population.[3]

Jalal had a brief victory over the Seljuks and captured the town Akhlat from Ayyubids. However, he was later defeated by Sultan Kayqubad I at Erzincan on the Upper Euphrates at the Battle of Yassıçemen (Yassi Chemen) in 1230, from where he escaped to Diyarbakir while the Mongols captured Azerbaijan in the ensuing confusion. He was murdered in 1231 in Diyarbakir by a Kurdish assassin hired by the Seljuks or possibly by Kurdish highwaymen.[citation needed]

Notes

  1. ^ John Man, Genghis Khan: Life, Death, and Resurrection, (St.Martin's Press, 1994), 181.
  2. ^ Trevor N. Dupuy and R. Ernest Dupuy, The Harpers Encyclopedia of Military History, (Harper Collins Publishers, 1993), 366.
  3. ^ Grousset, Rene, The Empire of the Steppes, (Rutgers University Press, 1991), 260

References

  • Grousset, Rene, The Empire of the Steppes, Rutgers University Press, 1991
Preceded by
Muhammad II		 Khwarazm Shah
1220–1231		 Succeeded by
none


Stub icon This article related to Central Asian history is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. This biography of a member of a Middle Eastern royal house is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.