Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu,a forgotten hero

 Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu, a forgotten hero

who first gave a taste of defeat to Genghis Khan's army.

and made Resistance until last his breath.

Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu (full name: Jalal ad-Dunya wa ad-Din Abul-Muzaffar Manguberdi ibn Muhammad), Manguberdi or Mangubarni (Turkic for "God-given"), also known as Jalâl ad-Dîn Khwârazmshâh (Persian: جلال ‌الدین خوارزمشاه‎), was the last ruler of the Turkic Khwarezmian Empire from the Anushtegin dynasty. He was the eldest son of Ala ad-Din Muhammad II by his Turkmen wife Aychichek. When it became known that Genghis Khan was marching towards Khwarazm, Jalal ad-din proposed to his father to meet the Mongols in one decisive battle near the Syr Darya. However, Muhammad II relied on his well-fortified fortresses and did not assemble troops, distributing them instead among the major towns of his empire. Meanwhile, the Mongols swiftly took one city after another. At the beginning of 1220, Bukhara fell, followed by Samarqand. Muhammad started to retreat west, and after a series of unsuccessful battles, was left with a handful of soldiers and his sons. The huge and undisciplined Khwarazmian army was unable to defeat the enemy, which was much inferior in number.

Legend has it that Muhammad, who fled to the Caspian Sea, being terminally ill, gathered his sons: Jalal ad-Din, Aqshah, and Uzlagh Khan and announced that he appointed Jalal ad-Din as heir to the throne because only he could confront the enemy. Summoning the younger sons to obedience, he hung his sword on the belt of Jalal ad-Din. A few days later, Muhammad died and Jalal ad-Din was proclaimed a Khwarazmshah.

The tragic end of his father did not discourage Jalal al-Din, rather he swore to try everything to halt the Mongols.

Having been betrayed many times before, Jalal al-Din believed only in God and himself. When he understood that the commanders of his army preferred his brother Uzlak Shah in Urgenç (capital city) and sold him out, he had to escape from the city and save himself from capture. These narrow escapes would continue until Jalal al-Din died in Elazığ, Anatolia.

After leaving Urgenç, Jalal al-Din made Ghazni a center of resistance. He formed a new army and gathered adequate power to meet a big Mongol army in 1221. After a daylong battle, Jalal al-Din both defeated the Mongol army and destroyed the myth of Mongol invincibility in the Battle of Parwan.

The Battle of Parwan was fought in 1221 between Sultan Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu of the Khwarezmid Empire and the Mongol Empire commanded by Genghis Khan's adopted brother Shikhikhutag.

Following the Mongol invasion of Khwarezm, Jalal ad-Din was forced to flee towards the Hindukush, where he began to muster additional troops to face the Mongols. Genghis Khan sent his chief justice Shikhikhutag to hunt down Jalal al-Din,  gave the rookie general 30,000 troops. Shikhikhutag was overconfident after the continuous Mongol successes, and he quickly found himself on the back foot against the much more numerous Khwarezmian force. The battle took place in a narrow valley, which was unsuitable for the Mongol cavalry. Jalal al-Din had mounted archers, whom he ordered to dismount and fire on the Mongols. Because of the narrow terrain, the Mongols could not use their normal tactics. To deceive the Khwarezmians, Shikhikhutag mounted straw warriors on spare remounts, which may have spared him from a killing stroke, but he was still driven off in defeat losing over half his army.

However, the Khwarezmian prince did not prove himself as able in victory as he had been in defeat. In a dispute over the spoils, a Mongolian white horse, between his father-in-law and a Khwarezmian chief, he sided with his father-in-law. Many of the Afghan warriors left their campfire burning and left the same night, despite being completely exhausted by the day's fighting. Having been abandoned by many thousands of men, Jalal ad-Din retreated the next day towards the east.

Jalal ad-Din left Parwan for the Punjab with only 30,000 men after the Afghans abandoned him. When Genghis Khan heard of the news of Shigi Qutugu's defeat, he immediately made forced marches to catch Jalal al Din before he escaped into India. Genghis marched with Shigi Qutugu and instructed him on where he had gone wrong at the battleground. The Shah attempted to cross Indus river to the area north of the present city of Kalabagh, Pakistan. However, the Mongols caught up with him on the banks of the Indus and defeated him what in now referred to as the Battle of Indus.

The Battle of Parwan had grave repercussions in Afghanistan and Iran since the illusion of Mongol invincibility had been broken. Cities that had peacefully surrendered rose up in arms, which forced Genghis and his son Tolui to spend extra months to subdue the revolts.

source-wikpedia,daily sabah