Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Mongol Terror, Mongol Peace
Chinggis (Genghis) Khan felt he had all the justification in the world
to destroy Central Asia. In 1218 a Khorezmian governor in Otrar
(modern-day Kazakhstan) received a Mongol delegation to inaugurate
trade relations. Scared by distant reports of the new Mongol menace,
the governor assassinated them in cold blood. Up until that moment
Chinggis had been carefully weighing the alternative strategies for ex-
panding his power: commerce versus conquest. Then came the crude
Otrar blunder, and the rest is history.
In early 1219 Chinggis placed himself at the head of an estimated
200,000 men and began to ride west from his stronghold in the Altay. By
the next year his armies had sacked Khojand and Otrar (the murderous
governor had molten silver poured into his eyes in Chinggis' presence),
and Bukhara soon followed.
It was in that brilliant city, as soldiers raped and looted and horses
trampled Islamic holy topics in the streets, that the unschooled Chinggis
ascended to the pulpit in the chief mosque and preached to the terri-
fied congregation. His message: 'I am God's punishment for your sins'.
Such shocking psychological warfare is perhaps unrivalled in history. It
worked and news eventually filtered back to Europe of the Tartars, an
army of 'Devil's Horsemen', sent from the Gates of Hell (Tartarus) to de-
stroy Christendom.
Bukhara was burned to the ground, and the Mongol hordes swept on
to conquer and plunder the great cities of Central Asia - Samarkand,
Merv, Termiz, Urgench, Herat, Balkh, Bamiyan, Ghazni - and, eventually
under Chinggis' generals and heirs, most of Eurasia. No opposing army
could match their speed, agility and accuracy with a bow.
Settled civilisation in Central Asia took a serious blow, from which it
only began to recover 600 years later under Russian colonisation. Ching-
gis' descendants controlling Persia favoured Shiite Islam over Sunni Is-
lam, a development which over the centuries isolated Central Asia even
more from the currents of the rest of the Sunni Muslim world.
But there was stability, law and order under the Pax Mongolica. In
modern terms, the streets were safe and the trains ran on time. The re-
sulting modest flurry of trade on the Silk Road was the background to
several famous medieval travellers' journeys, including the most famous
of them all, Marco Polo.
On Chinggis Khan's death in 1227, his empire was divided among his
sons. The most distant lands, stretching as far as the Ukraine and Mos-
cow and including western and most of northern Kazakhstan, went to
Chinggis' grandsons Batu and Orda, and came to be known collectively
as the Golden Horde. Chinggis' second son, Chaghatai, got the next most
The Persian
historian Juvaini
summed up the
Mongol inva-
sions succinctly:
'They came, they
sapped, they
fired, they slew,
they looted and
they left'.
From the 9th to
11th centuries
the fringes of
Central Asia saw
a baffling array of
shadowy nomadic
groups - Oghuz
Turks, Pechenegs,
Kimaks, Kipchaks,
Cumans and
Karluks, as well
as slave-trading
Nogoi Horde -
about whom little
is known.
1077-1220
Khorezmshah empire
rises from its capital
in Gurganj (Konye-
Urgench), shrugging of
Seljuq and Karakhi-
tay domination to
briely control most of
modern-day Iran, Cen-
tral Asia and western
Afghanistan.
12th century
Merv in Turkmenistan
is the largest city in the
world, known as the
Queen of the World, as
the Seljuqs reach the
height of their glory.
The Seljuq leaders
Alp Arslan and Sultan
Sanjar are buried here
in huge mausolea.
1141
The Shamanic-Bud-
dhist Karakhitay and
Khorezmshahs defeat
the Muslim Seljuqs at
the battle of Qatwan,
north of Samarkand.
The news ilters back to
Crusader Europe as the
legend of Prester John.
1220-21
Chinggis (Genghis)
Khan's army destroys
Bukhara, killing
30,000. That city
rebels and 160,000
of its inhabitants are
killed in a week.
