and eat the roots of plants, utterly unfamiliar with barley. Thus, whenever they make camp they need nothing from outside (1).
As for their religion (2), they prostrate to the sun (3) when it rises. They declare nothing unlawful and consume whatever animals—or even carcasses—they come across; may Allah curse them.
He said: Their success was made possible only because nothing stood in their way. Sultan Khwarazm Shah Muḥammad had killed the kings of the surrounding realms and had consolidated all authority in his own hands. When he was routed by the Mongols last year, lost the strength to resist, and they pursued him, he fled (faharaba); no one knows where he went. He perished on (some) islands in the sea, leaving the lands empty with no one to defend them, so that Allah’s decree might come to pass; unto Allah all matters return.
He then set about detailing what he had previously mentioned in summary. First he recalled—just as we reported last year—that Genghis Khan had sent a group of merchants with a sum of his money, instructing them to return with its value in cloth and garments (4). Khwarazm Shah seized that wealth, whereupon Genghis Khan grew enraged and sent threats (5). Khwarazm Shah therefore advanced against him in person with his troops, but found the Tatars occupied in fighting Kashli Khan. He plundered their baggage, women, and children. When they returned, having already defeated their enemy, their fury and rage only intensified. They and he, together with the son (6) of Genghis Khan, engaged in battle for three days, and a great multitude from both sides was killed. They then disengaged; Khwarazm Shah withdrew to the frontiers of his realm and fortified them, after which he turned back to his capital, the city (7) of Khwarazm.
Genghis Khan advanced and besieged Bukhara, as we have related. He captured it on terms, then betrayed its people when he stormed the citadel by force (8): he killed them all, seized their wealth, carried off the women and children, and ravaged the houses and districts. Twenty thousand fighters had been there, yet it availed them nothing. He then marched on Samarqand and besieged it on the first of Muḥarram of this year; inside were fifty thousand soldiers, who lost heart. Seventy thousand townsmen sallied forth, and he killed them all within a single hour. The fifty thousand (9) then sued for peace; he stripped them of their weapons and every means of defense, slew them that very day, and gave the city over to pillage—slaughtering everyone, seizing the wealth, enslaving the young, burning it, and leaving it a desolate waste. Surely we belong to Allah, and to Him we return. May Allah curse him; he remained there and dispatched raiding parties to other lands, sending (10) a detachment to