Ibn Kharmil

Who he is

Name

Izz al-Din Husayn ibn Kharmil

Title

Ghurid commander (salar); governor of Sialkot from 1185-86

Since

Not pinned

Born

not pinned

Family

Son of Kharmil, a Ghurid officer of Ala al-Din Husayn; of Gurziwan in Guzganan

Confidence

low

Iranica 'Ebn Kharmil' (Bosworth): Juzjani connects him with Gurziwan on the headwaters of the Murghab; governor of Sialkot after 581/1185-86; raided the Ganges plain with Aibak in 590/1194. Ibn al-Athir (tr. Richards, part 3, p. 36): with Nasir al-Din Muhammad Kharnak he destroyed the Qara Khitai army in 1198. His office on 1 January 1200 is not pinned.

Overlord

The Ghurid sultans.

What it holds

• Gurziwan, his home district (low confidence that he holds it as a fief in 1200)
• Possibly still Sialkot (not pinned; drawn under Mu'izz al-Din)

How it was acquired

Family land and the sultans' grants.

Allies and rivals

Comrade of Muhammad Kharnak; enemy of the Qara Khitai and later of Khwarazm.

How things stand that morning

His post is not pinned: the nearest dated evidence is the 1198 battle in Guzganan, which suggests he served in the west that year.

Wealth

Gurziwan's valleys and flocks.

Military

His own retainers (5,000 private troops at Andkhud in 1204, Iranica after Juzjani).

Threats

• The Qara Khitai across the Oxus.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: His career is told in pieces; nothing pins his office in January 1200.

On the map: Gurziwan's bounds are approximate.

Primary sources for Ghurids

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Chronography of Bar Hebraeus, Gregory Bar Hebraeus (Abu'l-Faraj) (about 1275 to 1286). A later compilation that for 1200 relies on Michael the Syrian and Ibn al-Athir, but adds the Jacobite church's own memory of the Jazira, Mosul, Melitene and the Artuqid and Zangid courts, and carries Michael's story past 1195: the Seljuk brothers' war in Rum, the Khwarazmian and Ghurid wars in the east, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah, and the caliph al-Nasir. Read online
• The Complete History, Izz al-Din Ibn al-Athir (about 1200 to 1231, at Mosul). The widest Muslim narrative for the years 596 to 597 AH (1199 to 1201): al-Adil's entry into Cairo and his taking of the sultanate from his nephew al-Mansur Muhammad early in 1200, the quarrels of the Ayyubid princes at Damascus, Aleppo and Hama, the Nile failure and the great famine of Egypt, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah and the Jazira under Gokbori and the Artuqids, Baghdad under the caliph al-Nasir, the Khwarazmshah Tekish's death in 1200 and Muhammad's accession, the Ghurid wars in Khurasan, the Eldiguzids and Georgia, the Almohads in the west, and the Seljuks of Rum in passing. Read online
• The History of the World Conqueror, Ata-Malik Juvayni (1252 to 1260). Written for the Mongols but with a long retrospective on the powers they destroyed. Read online
• The Life of Sultan Jalal al-Din Mankubirti, Shihab al-Din Muhammad al-Nasawi (about 1241, at Aleppo). A Khwarazmian secretary's life of the last Khwarazmshah. Read online
• The Nasirid Generations: a General History of the Muslim Dynasties, Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani (1259 to 1260, at Delhi). The Ghurid court's own history, by a man born in 1193 whose family served the sultans of Ghur and Ghazna. Read online
• The Crown of Glorious Deeds, Hasan Nizami (Sadr al-Din Muhammad ibn Hasan Nizami of Nishapur) (begun about 1205 at Delhi, carried on to about 1217). The earliest history written in Muslim India and the only contemporary account of Qutb al-Din Aibak's campaigns. Read online
• The Nasirean Generations (a general history of the Muslim dynasties), Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani (completed 1260 at Delhi). The fullest narrative of the Ghurid conquest of northern India. Read online
• The Tree of Genealogies, and the Manners of War and Bravery, Fakhr-i Mudabbir (Fakhr al-Din Muhammad ibn Mansur Mubarakshah) (the Shajara about 1206, dedicated to Qutb al-Din Aibak; the Adab al-harb in the 1220s for Iltutmish). The prose introduction to the Shajara, written within six years of 1200, praises Aibak and tells of his rise under Mu'izz al-Din of Ghur, his consecration at Lahore in 1206 and the Ghurid campaigns in Hindustan, with some notice of the Turkish peoples.

3 more in the sources library for Persia and the Eastern Islamic World.