Downfall
The decline of the Seljuks following their defeat by the Kara-khitans allowed the Khwarezmids, then a vassal of the Kara-Khitans, to expand into former Seljuk territory. In 1207, the citizens of Bukhara revolted against the sadrs (leaders of the religious classes), which the Khwarezm-Shah 'Ala' ad-Din Muhammad used as a pretext for invading and taking Bukhara. Muhammad then formed an alliance with the Western Karakhanid ruler Uthman (who later married Muhammad's daughter) against the Kara-Khitans. In 1210, the Khwarezm-Shah took Samarkand after the Kara-Khitans retreated to deal with the rebellion from the Naiman Kuchlug who had seized the Kara-Khitans' treasury at Uzgen. The Khwarezm-Shah then defeated the Kara-Khitans near Talas. Muhammad and Kuchlug had, apparently, agreed to divide up the Kara-Khitan's empire. In 1212, the population of Samarkand staged a revolt against the Khwarezmians, a revolt which Uttman supported, and massacred them. The Khwarezm-Shah returned, recaptured Samarkand and executed Uthman. He demanded the submission of all leading Karakhanids, and finally extinguished the Western Karakhanid state.
In 1211, Kuchlug seized the throne of the Kara-Khitans. Earlier that same year the last of the Karakhanids in the Eastern Karakhanid state was killed in a revolt in Kashgar, putting an end to Eastern Karakhanid state. In 1218, Kuchlug was killed by the advancing Mongol army, and the territories of the Kara-Khitan taken. The destruction of the Khwarezmian Empire soon followed.
Read more about this topic: Kara-Khanid Khanate
Famous quotes containing the word downfall:
“Children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Show me one thing here on earth which has begun well and not ended badly. The proudest palpitations are engulfed in a sewer, where they cease throbbing, as though having reached their natural term: this downfall constitutes the heart’s drama and the negative meaning of history.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)