In that same year, Ghiyāth al-Dīn, the Khwārazm-Shāh’s brother, marched on the region of Shiraz, seized it from Atabeg Saʿd, then mutinied against the Atabeg while holed up in a fortress; in the end the two reached a settlement.

In Rabīʿ al-Awwal 622 AH Jalāl al-Dīn arrived, took Daqūqā by the sword, and perpetrated every outrage because the townspeople had reviled him from their ramparts. He resolved to march on Baghdad, which threw the caliph—already paralyzed on one side—into alarm. The caliph spent one million dinars and distributed arms and provisions from the magazines.

Sibt al-Jawzī (1) relates: al-Muʿaẓẓam said to me, “Jalāl al-Dīn wrote to me saying:
‘Come and join forces with me so that together we may confront the caliph. He was the cause of my father’s death and of the Tatars’ coming. We have found his letters to the Khitā and his signed decrees granting them lands, robes of honor, and horses.’
So I wrote back, ‘I am with you (2)—except against the caliph, for he is the imam of Islam.’

“He (al-Muʿaẓẓam) added: The Georgians sallied out against him, so Jalāl al-Dīn wheeled round, drew up his lines, and—according to Abū Shāmah (3)—killed seventy thousand of them. He then took Tiflis by the sword, captured Marāgha, besieged Tabrīz, accepted its surrender, and, true to habit, introduced reprehensible innovations and committed injustice.

At the close of Ramaḍān 622 AH the Commander of the Faithful died, whereupon his son al-Ẓāhir Abū Naṣr Muḥammad, already a man of middle years, received the oath of allegiance. The reign of al-Nāṣir thus lasted forty-seven years.

Ibn al-Athīr (4) comments: “Al-Nāṣir spent the last three years of his life utterly incapable of movement.”