Persia and the Eastern Islamic World in 1200: every realm and ruler

On the morning of 1 January 1200 the Atlas records 28 realms and principalities in Persia and the Eastern Islamic World, with 89 lords and officers, 244 towns, ports and sites, 10 church lands and religious houses and 31 provinces, peoples and free lands.

The realms

The Abbasid caliphate: al-Nasir's Iraq and KhuzistanAbu'l-Abbas Ahmad al-Nasir li-Din Allah, son of the caliphCaliphate
On 1 January 1200 al-Nasir has reigned almost twenty years and is again a real prince, not a puppet in the palace.
The Uyunids of al-Hasa, Qatif and BahrainMuhammad ibn Abi'l-Husayn Ahmad al-UyuniEmirate
The Uyunids, an Arab house of the tribe of Abd al-Qays, have ruled eastern Arabia (al-Bahrayn: the oasis of al-Hasa, the coast of Qatif and the island of Awal) since they broke the Qarmatians in 1076.
Greater Lur: the Hazaraspid atabegsAbu Tahir ibn MuhammadAtabegate
Greater Lur (Lur-i Buzurg) is the high Zagros between the Isfahan oasis and the Khuzistan plain: the Bakhtiari mountains, with the upland plain of Idhaj (Malamir, now Izeh) at their heart.
Lesser Lur: the Khurshidid atabegsShuja al-Din KhurshidAtabegate
Lesser Lur (Lur-i Kuchik) is the Lur country north and west of the Dez: the valleys round Khorramabad (the old district of Shapurkhwast), Aleshtar and Kuhdasht, the Kashgan and Saymara rivers, and in principle the Pusht-i Kuh beyond the Kabir Kuh.
The Kurds of the ZagrosTribes and mountain districts
The Kurds of the central Zagros, between the Lake Urmia basin and Luristan, live under their own chiefs in the highlands west of Hamadan and round Kermanshah: the uplands of Saqqez, Baneh and Marivan, the plateaus round the later Sanandaj and Bijar, the Avroma
Fars: the Salghurid atabegsAbu Shuja' Sa'd ibn ZangiAtabegate
A Turkmen house that has ruled Fars from Shiraz since 543/1148, first for the Seljuk sultans and now, with the sultanate of Iraq gone, on its own account.
The Shabankara of Ij and DarabgirdKurdish chiefdom
A confederation of Kurdish herding and fighting tribes of eastern Fars: the Isma'ili, Ramani, Karzuwi, Mas'udi and Shakani.
Yazd: the atabegsIzz al-Din LangarAtabegate
A local house that took over Yazd from the last Kakuyids: Sultan Arslan ibn Tughril made Rukn al-Din Sam, a commander of the Yazd garrison, guardian (atabeg) of the two daughters of the Kakuyid Faramarz, who fell at Qatwan in 536/1141.
The Qufs of the Kerman hillsGoverned for the Khwarazmshah Tekish by the atabeg NusratHill tribes
Kerman was ruled by a branch of the Seljuks from Qavurt's conquest of Bardasir (440/1048-49) until the Ghuzz, driven out of Khurasan, overran it in the 1180s; the last Seljuk, Muhammad Shah, fled from Bam in 582/1186.
The kings of Old HormuzKingdom, tributary to Kerman
A mainland port-kingdom on the creek of the Minab river, a few miles from the open sea, founded in the eleventh century as a dependency of Kerman by a dynasty from Oman.
Kish: the island lords of the GulfIsland lordship
The master of the Gulf trade.
OmanCoast and chiefdoms
In 1154 the Banu Nabhan, under Muhammad al-Fallah, put an end to Seljuk rule in Oman and made themselves kings (muluk) at Bahla, while the Ibadi imamate lapsed: no imam is recorded from 1153 to 1406 (Sirhan).
Makran and the BaluchChiefdoms and tribes
The arid coast and valleys between Kerman and Sindh: the port of Tiz, the town of Kech (Kiz) and Fannazbur (Panjgur), the old capital of the province in the tenth century.
The Nizari Ismailis of AlamutNur al-Din Muhammad IIIsmaili state
The Nizari Ismailis are a state of castles and communities rather than of provinces.
Tabaristan: the Bavandid kingsHusam al-Dawla Ardashir ibn HasanKingdom
The Bavandids are one of the oldest ruling houses of Iran, kings of the Caspian province of Tabaristan, which by 1200 is usually called Mazandaran.
Gilan and DaylamChiefdoms
Gilan is the wet lowland of the Sefid Rud delta and the coast on either side, with rice fields, mulberries for silk, forests and lagoons; Daylam is the hill country behind it, the old homeland of the Daylamite soldiers who, with the Gils of the lowland, founde
The Khwarazmshah's realmAla al-Din Tekish ibn Il-Arslan ibn AtsizSultanate of the Khwarazmshah
The Khwarazmshah rules from Gurganj (Konye-Urgench) over the irrigated delta oasis of the Amu Darya (Khwarazm), the frontier town of Jand on the lower Syr Darya, all of northern Khurasan from Merv, Sarakhs and Nasa to Nishapur, Tus and Jajarm (his since the de
The Kangli and Qipchaq of the steppethe khans of the separate tribes and clansSteppe tribes
North of the Syr Darya and the Aral lie the pastures of Turkish tribes the Muslim writers call Kangli (Qangli) and Qipchaq.
The Turkmen (Ghuzz)the chiefs of the separate clansNomad tribes
The Turkmen are the Muslim Oghuz who stayed in the deserts and steppes between the Caspian and the Amu Darya when their kinsmen the Seljuks went west.
The Ghurid sultanateGhiyath al-Din Abu'l-Fath Muhammad ibn Baha al-Din Sam, atSultanate of two brothers
The Ghurids are the princes of Ghur, the high mountain country of central Afghanistan, who in one generation turned a hill chiefdom into an empire running from Herat to the Ganges.
Sistan: the Nasrid maliksTaj al-Din Harb ibn Muhammad ibn NasrMalikate, Ghurid vassal
Sistan, which the Persians also call Nimruz, is the delta country where the Helmand and the Farah Rud run out into the great lakes of the Hamun.
Lower Sindh: the SumrasKingdom
The Sumras are a Sindhi clan who have held lower Sindh, the delta and the lower Indus, since the fall of the Arab emirs of Mansura in the eleventh century.
Kingdom of KashmirJagadevaKingdom
Kashmir is a Hindu kingdom in the high vale of the Jhelum, ringed by mountains and reached from the Punjab by the Jhelum gorge at Baramula and the Pir Panjal passes.
The Qara Khitai: the gurkhan's own landsYelu ZhiluguEmpire of the gurkhan
The Qara Khitai are Khitans from northern China who fled west when the Jurchen destroyed their Liao empire in 1125.
Samarkand: the Western QarakhanidsIbrahim bKhanate, Qara Khitai vassal
The khanate of Samarkand is the old Western Qarakhanid realm of Transoxiana, a vassal of the Qara Khitai since Qatwan (1141).
Bukhara: the sadrs of the house of BurhanRule of the sadrs, Qara Khitai vassal
Bukhara, the old Samanid capital, is a great walled city of Hanafi scholars, weavers and merchants in an oasis of the lower Zarafshan.
Ferghana: the khans of UzgendKhanate, Qara Khitai vassal
Ferghana is the rich, closed valley of the upper Syr Darya, ringed by mountains, with some forty towns that have Friday mosques.
Kashgar: the Eastern QarakhanidsAbu'l-Muzaffar Yusuf bKhanate, Qara Khitai vassal
Kashgar is the great oasis at the western end of the Tarim basin, where the roads from Ferghana, the Chu valley, the Pamirs and India meet the road along the edge of the desert to China.

Self-governing peoples and other lands

Records of this region that belong to no single realm page.

Kafirs and Dards · other

Primary sources for Persia and the Eastern Islamic World

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.
History of the Observant Traveller (A Traveller in Thirteenth-Century Arabia), Ibn al-Mujawir (Jamal al-Din Yusuf ibn Ya'qub) (about 1226 to 1232). A merchant-traveller's description of western and southern Arabia a generation after 1200: Mecca and the Hijaz ports, the Red Sea crossing, Zabid and the Tihama, Aden with its customs and tariffs, the Hadramawt coast, Dhofar and Oman, Socotra, and the opposite African shore at Zeila and the Dahlak islands.
The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, Ibn Jubayr (Abu'l-Husayn Muhammad ibn Ahmad) (1185, from a diary kept 1183 to 1185). The best eyewitness of the Mediterranean world fifteen years before 1200, by a secretary of the Almohad governor of Granada: the Almohad port of Ceuta and its Genoese ships, Alexandria and Cairo under Saladin with their customs houses, the pilgrim traffic from the Maghreb, Mecca under its emir and Medina, Baghdad under the caliph al-Nasir, Damascus and Mosul, the Frankish ports of Acre and Tyre with Muslims living under Frankish rule, and Sicily under William II with its Muslim subjects and Arabic-speaking court.
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.
Journey to the West of the Perfected Changchun (Qiu Chuji), Li Zhichang (李志常) (about 1228, from the journey of 1220 to 1224). A dated eyewitness itinerary across the steppe and the Tarim twenty years after 1200: the Kereyit country and the Ongud frontier, the Naiman mountains, the Uyghur towns of Beshbaliq and the Tarim with their Buddhist and Christian communities, Almaliq of the Qarluq, and Samarkand.
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.
The River of Kings, with Jonaraja's continuation, Kalhana; continued by Jonaraja (Kalhana 1148 to 1150; Jonaraja about 1459). Kalhana's chronicle stops in 1149, so for 1200 the witness is Jonaraja, writing three centuries later and very briefly.
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.
Annals of Oman, from the Kashf al-ghumma, Sirhan ibn Sa'id ibn Sirhan (compiler), from earlier Ibadi chronicles (about 1728, from earlier Ibadi sources). The Ibadi imamate of Oman has no contemporary chronicle for 1200; the later Omani compilations (the Kashf al-ghumma and al-Salimi's Tuhfat al-a'yan) preserve a list of imams and the tradition of the Nabhani maliks who ruled the interior from the 12th century, with Hormuz and Kish pressing on the coast.
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.
Dictionary of Countries, Yaqut al-Hamawi (1224 to 1228, at Aleppo). An alphabetical gazetteer of every place Yaqut had read of or seen: he travelled as a bookseller's agent through Syria, Iraq, Persia, Khurasan and Khwarazm (about 1213 to 1220) and settled in Aleppo.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, Benjamin of Tudela (about 1173). A generation before 1200 but the only survey of its kind: the Jewish communities and their heads from Navarre through Provence, Italy, Constantinople and the Aegean, Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem, Damascus, Mosul and Baghdad to the Persian Gulf, with notes on rulers, trades, the exilarch at Baghdad, the Assassins of Syria and Persia, and hearsay on India, Ceylon and China.
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.
The Mirror of Time, on the History of Notables, Sibt ibn al-Jawzi (Shams al-Din Yusuf) (about 1240 to 1256, at Damascus). A Damascene preacher's year-by-year chronicle with obituaries, written by a grandson of the Baghdad scholar Ibn al-Jawzi, so it carries both the Baghdad view (the caliph al-Nasir and his court) and the Damascus view (al-Adil's court, the famine refugees of 1200, prices, the plague of 1201).
History of the Liao, chapter 30, on the Western Liao, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1344). The only Chinese official notice of the Qara Khitai, a few pages at the end of juan 30.
History of the World Conqueror: the Qara Khitai (Gur Khans) and the Uyghurs of Beshbaliq, Ala al-Din Ata-Malik Juvayni (begun about 1252 to 1253, ends with 1260). Juvayni's chapters on the Uyghur kingdom (its origin legend, Beshbaliq and Qocho, and the idiqut Barchuq's murder of the Qara Khitai resident before his submission to Chinggis Khan in 1209) and on the Gur Khans of the Qara Khitai are the fullest Muslim account of the Tarim and Zhetysu around 1200: the gurkhan Zhilugu's court at Balasagun, his tax collectors in the oasis towns and in Samarkand, his relations with the Khwarazmshah Tekish and then Muhammad, and the arrival of the Naiman prince Kuchlug in 1208.

The whole sources library

How these entries are made

Every entry describes one morning, 1 January 1200, and keeps later events in a dated "what the year holds" list with the conditions each depended on. Each entry names its sources, rates its confidence and says where the sources disagree. Published 4 November 2026. Corrections are welcome.