Mongols · 1221

Battle of the Indus

Jalal al-Din fought to the end, then rode his horse off the riverbank into the Indus and escaped. Genghis Khan is said to have praised his courage.

The site of the battle on the 1260 map. Shaded: Mongol Empire, 1260, Mamluk Sultanate.

Key facts

When: 1221
Where: Indus River near Kalabagh, Pakistan
Sides: Mongols vs Jalal al-Din Khwarazmshah
Commanders: Genghis Khan vs Jalal al-Din
Result: Mongol victory
Type: Mongols
Chapter: 3. The Abbasids, the Crusades and the Mongols

The wider picture: The Mongol storm

Genghis Khan destroyed the Khwarazmian empire between 1219 and 1221. His grandson Hulagu took the fortress of Alamut in 1256 and Baghdad in February 1258. The last Abbasid caliph of Baghdad, al-Musta'sim, was put to death on Hulagu's orders, by most accounts rolled in a carpet and trampled.

See the 1260 map Read chapter 3

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