City · The Ghurid sultanate · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Herat

The chief city of the eastern Khurasan and of the Ghurid west, on the Hari Rud in a broad, well-watered valley of canals and villages.

Ghurid since 1175 and the favourite city of Ghiyath al-Din, who founded a college (madrasa) beside the Great Mosque for Fakhr al-Din al-Razi and will rebuild the mosque itself in 597 AH (1200-01, by most accounts) and be buried in it. Herat's metalworkers are famous: the inlaid Bobrinsky bucket was made here in 559 AH (1163). In 1198 Tekish marched on Herat from Tus and failed.

The city is a frontier fortress against Khwarazm as well as a market of the Khurasan roads.

Who holds it

Name
Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad (governor in January 1200 not pinned)
Title
City of the senior sultan
Since
571 AH (1175), taken from the Seljuk governor Baha al-Din Tughril
Confidence
high

Lord in 1200

Ghiyath al-Din. The governor that winter is not pinned; his nephew Nasir al-Din Alp Ghazi receives Herat in 1203, and Husayn ibn Kharmil governs it after 1204.

How things stand that morning

Ghurid and at peace; the frontier town against Khwarazmian Khurasan.

Council

Its headman (ra'is) and judge (qadi) in 1200 are not pinned. Strong factions: the Karramis, the Shafi'is round Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, the Hanafis.

Communities

Persian Sunnis (Karrami, Shafi'i, Hanafi); a metropolitan see of the Church of the East (whether filled in 1200 not pinned); Jews (not pinned).

Fairs and markets

Not pinned; no market days or fairs recorded for 1200 in what was consulted.

Militia

Not pinned; the townsmen defended the walls in the sieges of the period.

Walls and castle

A walled city with its citadel (quhandiz) and gates on the main roads.

Trade and crafts

Inlaid bronze and brass, textiles, and the grain and fruit of the valley; the junction of the roads to Merv, Nishapur, Sistan, Ghur and Balkh.

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. 597 AH (from about 11 October 1200)Ghiyath al-Din has the Great Mosque rebuilt after a fire (the Ghurid portal).Depends on: Peace and funds. Stopped by: War at Herat.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The city is well known; its officers in 1200 are not.

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.

Sources and studies

  1. Minhaj al-Din Juzjani, Tabaqat-i Nasiri, tr. H. G. Raverty, vol. 1 (searched on archive.org)
  2. TDV Islam Ansiklopedisi, 'Gurlular'
  3. Wikipedia, 'Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad'
  4. G. Le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate (1905), searched on archive.org
  5. C. E. Bosworth, 'Ebn Kharmil', Encyclopaedia Iranica

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.