Muhammad II Ala-Al-Din

Muhammad II Ala’-Al-Din 

Year of birth unknown; died 1220. Shah of Khwarazm from 1200 to 1220.

Muhammad II expanded the borders of Khwarazm. In 1207 he crushed an uprising of Bukhara artisans led by Malik Sandzhar and in 1212 an uprising in Samarkand. In 1210 he routed the forces of the Kara Kitai. In 1220, during Genghis Khan’s invasion of Khwarazm, Muhammad hesitated to engage in a decisive battle and left his army scattered in separate detachments in towns and fortresses throughout the country. He fled with a small detachment to the Caspian region and died on one of the islands in the Caspian Sea.

REFERENCES

Bartol’d, V. “Turkestan v epokhu mongol’skogo nashestviia.” Soch., vol. 1. Moscow, 1963. Pages 413–17.
Gafurov, B. G. Istoriia tadzhikskogo naroda v kratkom izlozhenii, 3rd ed., vol. 1. Moscow, 1955. Pages 271–80, 291–97.