Rayy (Khwarazmian)

Who he is

Title

Governor (wali) and garrison commander for the Khwarazmshah

Since

the Khwarazmians recovered Rayy after Tekish's victory near Hamadan in mid-Sha'ban 592 (July 1196); Tekish was at Rayy in person in Rabi I 595 (January 1199)

Born

not pinned

Family

In 1194 Tekish set his son Yunus Khan over Rayy with the commander Mayajuq as his atabeg (TDV; Ibn al-Athir gives Mayajuq the command of many of Tekish's mamluks). Yunus Khan's wife was a daughter of the last Seljuk sultan, Tughril III. Mayajuq, later governor of all Persian Iraq, rebelled, fled to a castle in Mazandaran when Tekish came in Rabi I 595, was taken and imprisoned at the request of his brother Aqja (al-Durar, after Ibn al-Athir). Whether Yunus Khan or another commander holds Rayy on 1 January 1200 is not pinned.

Confidence

medium

Khwarazmian control of Rayy that morning: medium confidence (Tekish at Rayy in January 1199, his campaigns from it through 1199, his return to Gurganj only on 29 March 1200, Ibn al-Athir's obituary calling him lord of Rayy and other Jibal lands, Bosworth's massacre of his garrisons after his death). The governor's name: not pinned.

Overlord

Ala al-Din Tekish, Khwarazmshah (khw researcher's records)

What it holds

• Rayy and its plain, with the village of Tehran and the Shemiran slope
• Varamin and the eastern plain of Rayy toward Khuvar
• Saveh (dependency; holder not pinned)
• Qum (dependency; holder not pinned)
• Kashan (dependency; holder not pinned)
• The castle of Tabarak above Rayy, taken by Tekish in 588/1192 and retaken by Tughril III soon after (its state in 1200 not pinned)

How it was acquired

By conquest: Tekish's capture of Rayy (588/1192), his victory over Tughril III (590/1194) and his reconquest after the vizier's campaign (592/1196); confirmed by the caliph's diploma of Rabi I 595.

Allies and rivals

Rivals: the Pahlavanid mamluks under Kokche, whom the caliph's Diwan made lord of Rayy in 591/1195 and who seize it after Tekish's death; the Nizaris of Rudbar and Alamut, at war with Tekish in 1199; the Bavandid Ardashir I, whose castles of Firuzkuh and Ustunavand Tekish took in 1199 (cas researcher's records). At peace with the caliph since the robes and diploma of Rabi I 595.

How things stand that morning

Held for Tekish. The khutba at Rayy is presumably read for the caliph al-Nasir and for Tekish as sultan, as the settlement of Rabi I 595 implies; not recorded for Rayy itself. A modern study (Journal of the University of Duhok, 2017) dates Kokche's domination of the Jibal, with Rayy as his base, from 595, after Tekish left the province; this file follows instead Ibn al-Athir's obituary of Tekish (lord of Khwarazm, part of Khurasan, Rayy and other lands of the Jibal) and Bosworth (Iranica), who has the Khwarazmian troops in the Persian lands massacred only on the news of Tekish's death.

Wealth

Rayy is the crossroads of the Khurasan road with the roads to Qazvin, Qum, Isfahan and the Caspian; its tolls and markets; pottery (lustre and enamelled wares), cotton and silk cloth; the revenues of Saveh, Qum and Kashan if they follow it.

Military

A Khwarazmian garrison of Turkish and Kangli horse; the Rayy citadel. No figures in the sources.

Threats

• The Pahlavanid mamluks under Kokche
• The Nizaris of Rudbar, at war with Tekish since 1199
• Tekish's illness and death (Ramadan 596, July 1200)
• The hatred of the townsmen for the Khwarazmian troops

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 19 or 20 Ramadan 596 (3 or 4 July 1200)Tekish dies near Nasa, at Shahristana, on the road from Khwarazm into Khurasan, and his son Qutb al-Din Muhammad succeeds as Ala al-Din MuhammadDepends on: Tekish's illness (a throat abscess); natural death (khw researcher's record decides) Stopped by: play that keeps Tekish alive or keeps him from travelling
2. 596-597 (from July 1200), month not pinnedOn the news of Tekish's death the townsmen and the Pahlavanid mamluks rise against the Khwarazmian garrisons in the Persian lands and massacre them (Bosworth, Iranica); the Jibal towns fall to the mamluks under KokcheDepends on: Tekish's death; Muhammad turning east against the Ghurids, who invade Khurasan in 597 Stopped by: a strong Khwarazmian army kept in the Jibal; Muhammad marching west at once

Places of note

• Rayy: The governor's seat, a city much reduced by sacks and faction wars

Where the sources disagree

• Tughril III's death: 24 Rabi I 590 (19 March 1194) in Ibn al-Athir (Richards); Wikipedia's Tekish article gives 4 March 1194; TDV's Eldiguzid article gives Jumada II 590 (June 1194), which is the month of Tekish's enthronement at Hamadan (4 Rajab 590, 25 June 1194, TDV Tekis).
• Mayajuq's fate after Rabi I 595: imprisoned at his brother Aqja's request (al-Durar, after Ibn al-Athir); pardoned and sent to Jand (TDV); stormed in the castle of Ardahn and executed (Wikipedia, unsourced).
• Timing of Kokche's takeover: 595 (Duhok study) against after July 1200 (Ibn al-Athir's obituary of Tekish, Bosworth); see the record Kokche.

Evidence: Ibn al-Athir (Richards, years 590-593) and al-Durar's summaries of his years 591, 595 and 596 give the events; no source read names the governor in 1199-1200.

On the map: Drawn as the Rayy plain and the towns along the western edge of the desert; the dependencies' holders are not pinned.

Primary sources for Khwarazm

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
• Comfort of Hearts and Sign of Joy: a History of the Seljuks, Muhammad ibn Ali al-Rawandi (Ravandi) (1203 to 1204, dedicated to Kaykhusraw I of Rum). A history of the Great Seljuks from their origins to the death of the last sultan Toghril III in 1194, begun at Hamadan and finished for Kaykhusraw of Rum when the author moved to Anatolia. Read online
• History of Tabaristan, Ibn Isfandiyar (Baha al-Din Muhammad ibn Hasan) (begun 1206, extended about 1216; continued anonymously to 1349). The local history of the Caspian province and the only account of the Bavandid kings of Tabaristan: Husam al-Dawla Ardashir (reigned 1173 to 1206) at Sari and Amul, his dealings with the Khwarazmshahs Tekish and Ala al-Din Muhammad, the Nizaris of Alamut, the Eldiguzids and the caliph, and the marriages, feuds and raids of the Daylamite and Gilaki lords. 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
• Compendium of Chronicles, Rashid al-Din Fadl Allah Hamadani (1300 to 1311, at Tabriz). The official Ilkhanid history, compiled from Mongol oral tradition and the lost Altan Debter. Read online

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