Mongol conquest of the Khwarazmian Empire
- Date
- 1219–1221 CE
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- Central Asia & Persia (Transoxiana, Khorasan)
- Era
- Post-Classical / Medieval
- Significance
After the Khwarazmshah Muhammad II executed Mongol envoys and merchants at Otrar, Genghis Khan launched a devastating invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire, the dominant power of Central Asia and Persia.
Between 1219 and 1221 Mongol armies stormed the great cities of the Silk Road—Otrar, Bukhara, Samarkand, and the Khwarazmian capital Gurganj—often massacring populations and razing irrigation works that had sustained the region for centuries. Tolui's campaign through Khorasan annihilated Merv, Nishapur and Herat. Shah Muhammad fled and died on a Caspian island, while his son Jalal al-Din was pursued to the Indus. The campaign completed the Mongol conquest of Central Asia and opened the conquest of Persia. The destruction was catastrophic and enduring, depopulating entire provinces, yet it also brought the heartlands of the eastern Islamic world under Mongol control and bound them into a single transcontinental political and commercial sphere.
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Empires active in 1219–1221 CE
- Jurchen Jin Dynasty1115 CE – 1234 CE
- Mongol Empire1206 CE – 1368 CE
- Kanem-Bornu Empire700 CE – 1900 CE
- Song Dynasty960 CE – 1279 CE
- Abbasid Caliphate750 CE – 1258 CE
- Byzantine Empire330 CE – 1453 CE
Related military & conflict events
- Mongol sack of Baghdad ends the Abbasid Caliphate10 February 1258 CE
- Battle of Kirina founds the Mali Empire under Sundiata Keitac. 1235 CE
- The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople1202–1204 (sack April 1204)
- Mongol sack of Kiev and the fall of Kievan Rus'December 1240 CE
- Battle of Manzikert Opens Anatolia to the Turks26 August 1071
- Saladin destroys the Crusader army at Hattin and retakes Jerusalem1187 (Hattin & fall of Jerusalem)
Further reading
The wider story
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
The popular bestseller that reframed the Mongol legacy.
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