The Khwārazmshāhi Dynasty: Emerging from the Saljuq Structure

Abstract

The Khwārazmshāhi used the Saljuq structural resources to transform their local dynasty into an empire. The lack of effective bureaucracy widened the gap in the power structure between Soltān Mohammad and his mother, Tarkān Khātun. The heterogeneity of the goals of the Khwārazmshāhi and the ʿAbbāsid Caliphate brought the power structures of the caliphate and the soltānate face to face. The unending expansionist policies of the Khwārazmshāhis in the eastern territories made them neighbors with the Mongols, who were far more militarily powerful than the Khwārazmshāhis. Soltān Mohammad’s rapid and hasty escape fastened the process of these conquests and with the death of his son, Soltān Jalāl al-Din, the Khwārazmshāhi ended in Iran.