See SUBLIME PORTE.
KHOKAND,
Russian conquest of the Khanate of (1876).
See. RUSSIA: A. D. 1859-1876.
KHONDS, The.
See TURANIAN RACES.
----------KHORASSAN: Start--------
KHORASSAN: A. D. 1220-1221.
Conquest and destruction by the Mongols.
In the autumn of A. D. 1220, one division of the armies of
Jingis Khan, commanded by his son Tului, poured into
Khorassan. "Khorassan was then one of the richest and most
prosperous regions on the earth's surface; its towns were very
thickly inhabited, and it was the first and most powerful
province of Persia. The Mongol invasion altered all this, and
the fearful ravage and destruction then committed is almost
incredible." On the capture of the city of Nessa the
inhabitants were tied together with cords and then massacred
in a body—70,000 men, women and children together—by
shooting them with arrows. At Meru (modern Merv) the wholesale
massacre was repeated on a vastly larger scale, the corpses
numbering 700,000, according to one account, 1,300,000
according to another. Even this was exceeded at Nishapoor
("city of Sapor"), the ancient capital of Khorassan. "To
prevent the living hiding beneath the dead, Tului ordered
every head to be cut off, and separate heaps to be made of
men's, women's, and children's heads. The destruction of the
city occupied fifteen days; it was razed to the ground, and
its site was sown with barley; only 400 artisans escaped, and
they were transported into the north. According to Mirkhond
1,747,000 men lost their lives in this massacre." The
destroying army of demons and savages moved on to Herat, then
a beautiful city surrounded by villages and gardens. It
surrendered, and only 12,000 of its soldiers were slain at
that time; but a few months later, upon news of a defeat
suffered by the Mongols, Herat rebelled, and brought down upon
itself a most terrible doom. Captured once more, after a siege
of six months, the city experienced no mercy. "For a whole
week the Mongols ceased not to kill, burn, and destroy, and it
is said that 1,600,000 people were killed; the place was
entirely depopulated and made desert." At Bamian, in the Hindu
Kush, "every living creature, including animals and plants as
well as human beings, was destroyed; a heap of slain was piled
up like a mountain."
_H. H. Howorth,
History of the Mongols,
part 1, pages 86-91._
KHORASSAN: A. D. 1380.
Conquest by Timour.
See TIMOUR.
----------KHORASSAN: End--------