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Muhammad II of Khwarazm

Muhammad II of Khwarazm (1169-1220) was Shah of the Khwarazmian Empire from 1200 to 1220, succeeding Tekish and preceding Manguberdi.

Biography[]

Ala ad-Dunya wa ad-Din Abul-Fath Muhammad Sanjar ibn Tekish was born in Khwarezm in 1169, the son of Shah Tekish of the Khwarazmian Empire. He succeeded his father in 1200, and he went to war with the invading Ghurids, besieging Herat in 1202 before being defeated by Mu'izz al-Din and forced to retreat to Urgench. He appealed to the Kara-Khitai for aid, and they helped to repel the Ghurid siege. Mu'izz al-Din succeeded in defeating Muhammad at Andkhud in 1204 before being assassinated in 1206, leading to a Ghurid civil war. Muhammad took advantage of this civil war to conquer Balkh and Tirmidh from the Ghurids, but he was captured by the Kara-Khitai. After being released following thirteen months of captivity, Muhammad captured Herat, and he then went on to capture the Ghurid ruler Ghiyath al-Din Mahmud and force him to recognize his authority. Muhammad continued his campaigns, capturing Samarkand from the Kara-Khitai in 1207, Tabaristan in 1210 from the Bavandids, and Transoxiana from the Karakhanids. After a 1212 revolt in Samarkand left 10,000 Khwarazmians dead, Muhammad retaliated by crushing the revolt and killing 10,000 local citizens. By 1217, he controlled all the lands from the Syr Darya in Tajikistan to the Persian Gulf, and only a deadly blizzard prevented Muhammad from marching on Baghdad to force Caliph an-Nasir to recognize him as Shah. In 1218, Muhammad faced a new threat when the Mongol emperor Genghis Khan sent emissaries to his court inviting him to form an alliance and trade agreement with him. Muhammad wrongly accused the Mongol envoys of being spies and had them executed, leading to Genghis sending 150,000 men to invade Central Asia. They sacked Samarkand, Bukhara, Otrar, and many other cities, with Muhammad's capital of Urgench soon following. Muhammad was forced to flee to Khorasan, and he died of pleurisy on an island in the Caspian Sea, where he had fled after the annihilation of his cities.

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