The Sedition in Khorezm in the Second Half of the 12th Century and its Consequences: According to pre-Mongol Muslim Sources

Abstract

This article examines the period of internecine struggle in the Khorezm state after the death of Khorezm Shah Abu’l-Fath Il-Arslan (1156–1172) between his sons — Sultan Shah Mahmud and ‘Ala’ ad-Din Tekish. Despite the fact that this episode from the Anushteginid dynasty is relatively well known to scholars, there has not yet been a single special study of how well this internecine war or the “Khorezmian sedition” was reflected in the synchronous Muslim texts of the 12th century, as well as in the writings of the early 13th century. Most of those who in their works tried to describe the struggle between these brothers for the Khorezm throne were based mainly on Muslim historical writings of the Mongol era. Here we see as our goal to consider the description of the “Khorezm sedition” in the monuments of the pre-Mongol period and compare the amount of information in them about this with the texts of a later time — this will allow not only to understand how detailed the event is described by the early authors in comparison with the later ones, but to identify possible continuity between them. Our research will also allow us to identify gaps in the description of the struggle between Sultan-Shah Mahmud and ‘Ala’ ad-Din Tekish in early texts, emphasize the facts of the “Khorezm sedition” relatively known to the authors of this period and thereby show what kind of picture of events is being built if we focus only on the writings of the pre-Mongol time. As a result, we hope to trace a certain evolution of the description of the war for the Khorezm throne in the Muslim writings of the 12th–13th centuries.

Keywords:

Khorezm, Abu-l-Fath Il-Arslan, Sultan-Shah Mahmud, ‘Ala’ ad-Din Tekish, Muslim historical writings, Ibn al-Asir, Qara Khitai, Ghurids