Genghis Khan ..... A no which save INDIA

In 1215 A.D, Genghis Khan, the ruler of Mongolia, sent a pretty looking gift basket to Ala Ud-Din Mohammad, the ruler of the neighboring Khwarezmian Empire. He even inscribed the words, ‘You are the ruler of the land of the rising sun and I of the setting sun’ on it. He just wanted to be friend.

However, Ala ud-Din ordered his man to slaughter every one of the poor souls who carried the basket. And on top of the murder, Ala ud-din didn’t even return the basket.

Genghis Khan, perhaps giving Ala ud-din the benefit of doubt, sent three royal ambassadors (One Muslim and Two Mongols), to politely enquire about his missing caravan and the fate of his basket. He still wanted to be friends.

Ala ud-din, this time, shaved the heads of the two Mongol ambassadors and beheaded the Muslim one. Sending the two bald men back, with the severed head, he sent the message, ‘What can you do Genghis’?

Genghis Khan in return do which history cant forget.

With an army of 2,50,000, Genghis Khan marched into Khwarezim to avenge his dead ambassador.Which was like arriving to a knife duel with an AK-47 assault rifle.

 

What followed was a pond of blood and destruction, never before witnessed in human history. Khwarezmian cities were captured with the ease of capturing enemy cities in Rise of Nations. Six to eight million Khwarezmian civilians and 1 million soldiers were ruthlessly murdered and decapitated. The favourite Mongol game of ‘Cut off head and build a wall with it’, was played outside the capital city of Samarkand with its now dead 1.2 million inhabitants.

Genghis however reserved his worst for the city of Urgench, the birth place of Ala ud-din. Every Mongol soldier was ordered to kill at least 24 Urgenchi citizens. Once that was done and everyone was dead, Genghis demolished all the dams around the city that held back the River Amu Darya, completely wiping the city off  the face of the earth.

All because Khwarezmian’s killed one Mongol and shaved the head of two others.

Maybe as an evil joke, Genghis Khan allowed Ala ud-din to escape to a town on the Caspian sea, where he finally died. Books say Ala ud-din died of some inflammation. But it is more likely that he just dropped dead from the shock of seeing the violent dismemberment of his once glorious empire.

After what the Ala Ad-din family went through, you expect the survivors to just give up. But not his son Jalal. He ran into Khorasan, what is today’s Afghanistan, to continue the war. Not wanting to leave any loose ends, Genghis marched right after him. As the cities of Khorasan rapidly vanished before his eyes, Jalal, as the last resort, ran to India.

India was then ruled by Iltutmish, the third king of the Delhi Sultanate.

Keeping in mind the ‘Me Muslim, He Muslim, We both brothers’, he appealed to Iltutmish for help. He sought refuge and an army to wrest his kingdom back from Genghis. He was confident that Iltutmish would not let his fellow Muslim monarch and brother down against an infidel. But,

ILTUTMISH SAID NO. 

For the first time in the history of the world, a Muslim monarch had denied asylum to another Muslim monarch who was being hunted by a non-Muslim Emperor. Jalal was flabbergasted. Shocked at this blunt refusal and pretty much out of options, Jalal  went back to Khorasan disheveled, disillusioned and praying to God that his head would not become a brick in a Mongol skull wall.Genghis, by now though, was simply bored of all the bloodshed, pillage and orgy. Realizing that anyone from Khwarezim was either a skeleton or a hobo, he returned to Mongolia. Importantly for Indians though, he went back without invading India.Meanwhile, Jalal disguised himself and lived incognito for the rest of his life, forever wondering whether the annihilation of his entire empire for the killing of one man was a little over the top

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WHAT IF ILTUTMISH HAD SAID YES TO JALAL?

Indian Civilization, as we know it, would not exist. Simple.

This was the Khwarizmi Empire, before the gift basket arrived. Why do you think we don’t read about it in the History books alongside the other great empires of the time?  What happened to them?

Genghis Khan happened to them. And they were not alone. When Genghis Khan invaded Baghdad in 1258, he turned what was then fertile plain into a freaking desert. Baghdad has still not recovered, 760 years after the mongol invasion(7 centuries).

Genghis was, what the History calls, Armageddon. If Genghis arrived in your city in the 13th century, not even its dogs and cats remained alive to see the aftermath. He was unbelievably intelligent and extremely ruthless. He took the dictum ‘All is fair in war’ to an entirely new level. Hell, he was the first guy to invent biological weapons and use them in a battle.

If Iltutmish had said Yes to Jalal Ud-din, all it would have done is to show a red flag to the rampaging Genghis. Angry Genghis would have straight up marched into India with his superb, undefeated army to fight Iltutmish. Iltutmish would have had as much of a chance against Genghis as India has against Brazil in a football match. Zero.

The probable timeline would have been

Genghis Invades India —–> Genghis decimates Iltutmish —–> Genghis destroys Delhi —–> Genghis sees wealth in India —–> Genghis pushes further into India —–>  Obliterates other cities and massacres everybody else —–> Wipes out Indian Civilization, like the Khwarezmian one —–> Leaves behind Mongols to govern —–> We all become Mongols.