In autumn 1221, after being defeated by Chinggis Khan on the banks of the Indus River, Jalal
al-Din Mingburnu fled into India. Yet, Chinggis himself did not follow the fleeing Khwarezm-shah,
despite considering returning home through the Himalayan foothills. This video will not
just look at why Chinggis Khan chose not to lead his army into India, but the effect Jalal
al-Din’s flight had on the northern Indian states, particularly the Sultanate of Delhi,
which would have consequences for Mongol forces in the area later in the century.
Jalal al-Din Mingburnu was the son of the late Khwarezm-shah Muhammad, taking the mantle
of leadership as the Khwarezmian empire disintegrated under Mongol onslaught. In summer 1221 after
gathering a number of Turks, Khalaj and Ghuris under his banner, he defeated a Mongol army
at Parwan, though in the aftermath half of his force abandoned him due to a dispute over
loot. With Chinggis Khan himself now hunting him, Jalal al-Din made to withdraw to India,
but was caught on the Indus River around November and defeated. Though Jalal al-Din escaped,
supposedly by jumping off a cliff on his horse, most of his army was slaughtered or drowned.
Chinggis did not initially pursue him, turning upstream until he learned that Jalal al-Din
had crossed back to bury his dead. Chinggis despatched his son Chagatai after him, but
Chagatai lost him early and returned to Chinggis at Ghazna, where Chinggis sent Dorbei Doqshin
with two tumens in pursuit at the end of winter 1221. The accounts also have Chinggis consider
returning to Mongolia by traveling around the Himalayas, perhaps to strike the Jin Dynasty
from an unexpected direction, but the sources are not clear on how seriously this was considered,
stating he turned back for absence of a road or bad omens. The difficulty in finding, let
alone following, such a route would have been quickly established, not to mention having
to take his army through unknown and potentially hostile country, opening a whole new front
in distant territory while Khwarezm and the Jin Dynasty were still unconquered. This was
likely winter 1221, before the hottest weather had set in, so India’s heat would not have
been the determining factor in Chinggis Khan’s decision. Believing Jalal al-Din could be
captured like Kuchlug, or ran to his death like Shah Muhammad, Chinggis Khan was comfortable
leaving Dorbei Doqshin to chase him, and felt no need to personally proceed into India proper,
not while the vestiges of Khwarezmian resistance, and a known route home, were behind him, and
the states of northern India had given him no reason to attack. Diplomatic reasons may
have affected this too though, which we will note later.
Now, we will detail northern India in the early 1220s, and Jalal al-Din’s escapades
there. Since the 8th century, Muslim armies had been attacking the Hindu Kingdoms of India,
making slow gains until the 1190s when the Ghurid Sultans, the brothers Ghiyath al-Din
and Mu’izz al-Din, built an empire stretching across northern India and modern Pakistan,
Afghanistan and parts of Iran. Though they used multi ethnic armies of Ghuris, Khalaj,
Turkic tribesmen and local Hindus, the most important were their Turkic slave soldiers,
known as ghulams or mamluks. These ghulams were left in control in India when Mu’izz
al-Din turned to battle the Khwarezmians and Qara-Khitai, and when Mu’izz al-Din was
murdered in 1206, those same Ghulams declared independence. In Ghazna was the general Yildiz,
and northern India under Aybeg, but upon Aybeg’s death in 1210 Bengal’s ghulam became independent,
Qubacha took control in Multan and the Indus River Valley, and the Olberli-Qipchaq Iltutmish
took power in Delhi, while a number of Hindu Rajputs reasserted their independence. Each
competed with the other, particularly for the important centre of Lahore, all the while
the Khwarezmians advanced, taking Yildiz’s territory in 1215. Ghur and Ghazna were then
made the appanage of Shah Muhammad’s son, Jalal al-Din. By the eve of the Mongol invasion,
Khwarezmian authority seems to have extended to the Indus River, and it is easy to image
the relatively weak Muslim states of northern India could have fallen to the Khwarezmians
without Mongolian intervention.
To Qubacha and Iltutmish, the two most important ghulams in 1221, the Khwarezmians were long
standing enemies: as Ghurids they fought Khwarezm with the Caliph’s approval, and since the
Ghurid collapse the Khwarezmians had threatened them. Jalal al-Din was fleeing to states which
mistrusted and hated the Khwarezmians, and were not inclined to work with Mingburnu.
Jalal al-Din’s exact movements in India are contradicted between our two main sources,
Juvaini and Nasawi: the only firm date is that Jalal al-Din left India by 1224, so I
will rely on the reconstruction by the expert Peter Jackson. Soon after arriving in India,
Jalal al-Din was attacked by Rana Shatra, ruler of the Salt Range. Though outnumbered,
the Khwarezmians fought fiercely and killed Rana Shatra, after which many joined Jalal
al-Din. The oncoming Dorbei Doqshin caused Jalal al-Din to flee deeper into India, coming
within a few days of Delhi, and he sent an envoy to discuss both asylum and alliance
against the Mongols.
Delhi’s sultan, Iltutmish, was a wily observer. With little trust for Jalal al-Din and not
keen on provoking the dangerous foe which had destroyed Khwarezm, Iltutmish killed Jalal
al-Din’s envoy and provided an evasive response. Angered but unable to siege Delhi, Jalal al-Din
ransacked local territory and retreated to the Salt Range. Dorbei Doqshin was unable
to locate Jalal al-Din, and returned to Chinggis Khan near Samarkand in later 1222. Chinggis
was furious, and sent him back again with orders not to return without Mingburnu.
Meanwhile, Jalal al-Din’s relations with Qubacha were initially friendly, but quickly
soured when Mingburnu’s wazir and others were killed by Qubacha’s men. Jalal al-Din
married a daughter of a Khokhar chief who hated Qubacha, and with Khokhar auxiliaries
and reinforced by refugees from Khwarezm, by the end of 1222 Jalal al-Din sacked a number
of Qubacha’s fortresses and towns, forcing him and his rebellious son, stationed in Lahore,
to pay tribute. Jalal al-Din spent summer 1223 in the Salt Range, but moved once he
learned of Dorbei Doqshin’s return. Around this time Jalal al-Din and Iltutmish briefly
clashed, but exchanged friendly relations and a marriage, and Jalal al-Din bypassed
Delhi and made his way to Multan, demanding increased payment from Qubacha, who resisted.
He attempted to take it by force, but gave up and moved further down the Indus, defeating
Siwistan’s army, and Jalal al-Din rested on the Indus delta, sending raids into Gujarat.
Rumours of a coalition against him of Itutmish, Qubacha and Hindu princes finally convinced
him to abandon India, making his way to Kirman in 1224, his eye on the territory held by
his brother Ghiyath al-Din in western Iran, leaving his lieutenants Ozbeg-bei and Hasan
Qarluq in control of his Indian claims.
Dorbei Doqshin missed Jalal al-Din, sacking Khwarezmian held Nandana and devastating parts
of Qubacha’s territory, besieging Multan which Qubacha ably defended for up to three
months, until summer heat forced Dorbei to lift the siege. At this point Dorbei Doqshin
disappears from the sources: possibly he took Chinggis’ threat to not return without Jalal
al-Din seriously, and Jackson suggests he may have been the Mongol general who Juzjani
says joined Jalal al-Din, but this is not corroborated by our other writers.
The real winner of this episode was Iltutmish: the directing the depredations of Jalal al-Din
and the Mongols against his chief rival, Qubacha, and by 1230 Iltutmish was able to overrun
the weakened Qubacha and Ozbeg-bei. Some modern authors suggest more extensive diplomacy with
the Mongols and Iltutmish than the sources directly say: Chinggis sent envoys to Iltutmish
inquiring about passage through his territory, but their fate is not recorded. Rather than
killed though, perhaps they took part in talks with Iltutmish. References of Indian delegations
to the Mongol capital of Karakorum and from later Ilkhanid contacts to the Delhi Sultans,
may suggest that Iltutmish had undertaken perhaps a token submission, or was at least
seen by the Mongols as submitting. Our Islamic writers like Juzjani, who lived in the Delhi
Sultanate, or Nasawi, who worked for Jalal al-Din, would not have been happy with a powerful
Muslim ruler siding with pagans against a fellow Muslim, and may perhaps have chosen
not to comment on that matter.
Ultimately, Iltutmish acted wisely: his new and unstable state would not have fared well
directly against the Khwarezmians or the Mongols. Iltutmish died in 1236, and though his successors,
including the famed Raziyya Sultana, had short, violent reigns, when Mongol armies finally
crossed the Indus again in 1241, overrunning Hasan Qarluq, the Delhi Sultanate could withstand
the blow. The actions of Jalal al-Din and the Mongols, by weakening Delhi’s rivals,
inadvertently led to the Sultanate becoming the dominant Muslim power of much of northern
India, growing strong enough to successfully, if sometimes narrowly, repel successive Mongol
invasions later in the century and leave an important mark on India’s history.
Next time: we look at Chinggis Khan’s return journey to Mongolia, specifically in regards
to his meeting with the Taoist priest, Qiu Chiuji, better known as Changchun