KHARASM, the ancient Chorasma and modern Khiva, is the country on the east of the Caspian Sea, the capital of which was Gurganj. The Arabs converted the name of the country into Jurjan, and that of the capital to Jurjaniya. The Mongol form of the name was Organj. Nosh tigin, a Turki slave of Malik-Shah Seljuk, was made governor of this province, and contrived to secure his independence. His son Kutub-ud-Din extended his dominions, and acquired the title of Kharasm-Shah, a name which had been borne by the rulers of the country before the Muhammadan rule. This empire of the Kharasm kings rose upon the ruins of the Seljuk dynasty, and their territories extended from Azerbijan and the Caspian Sea to the Indus, and from the Persian Gulf to above the Jaxartes or Syr Darya. A suc cession of nine princes reigned for 138 years, from Hijira 491 to 628 (A.D. 1097 to 1230) ; but in H. 618, the last of them, Jalal-ud-Din, was driven
by Chengiz Khan beyond the Indus.
Bodies of the Kharasmian troops had approached the Indus, but Chengiz Khan fell on the sultan of Kharasm, defeated his armies, demolished his cities, laid waste his country, and massacred or reduced to slavery a great part of his subjects. He himself died of a broken heart in an inaccess ible retreat on an island in the Caspian, and his son and successor, Jalal-ud-Din, was driven into the eastern extremity of his dominions. He gained a victory at Kandahar, and another farther to the east. His last battle was on the Indus, where his army was destroyed, and he swam the river with seven followers, amidst a shower of arrows from his enemies. After various changes, he was, ten years afterwards, killed in Meso potamia.—Collett. See Khiva.