When Genghis Khan sacked Samarkand in 1220 he slit
its jugular first, damming up the canals which supplied it from the River
Zerafshan. He also 'slit open the wombs of pregnant women and killed the
foetuses,' according to a 13tfrl-century historian called lbnak-Asir. 'The
flames of the massacre spread far and wide, and evil covered everything
like a cloud driven by the wind.'
The aftermath may not have matched the initial apocalypse.
Some sources say Samarkand surrendered without a fight, that most of its
people were spared in return and that fewer buildings were razed than at
Bukhara. But according to ak-Asir's account Genghis Khan was utterly ruthless.
He waited outside the city to be joined by his sons Chaghatai and Ogodei,
fresh from the destruction of Otrar), then drove its inhabitants out, butchered
the garrison and levelled the buildings. Less than a quarter of the city's
population of 400,000 survived, and it stayed at around 100,000 afterwards
because that was all the wrecked irrigation system could support.
Samarkand bounced back. In 1333 the great Arab traveller
lbn-Battuta was able to describe it as 'one of the largest and most perfectly
beautiful cities in the world.'
No wonder Tamerlane, born three years later to a minor
tribal chieftain, chose it as his capital.
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