Genghis Khan

Several terms redirect here. For other uses, see Genghis Khan (disambiguation), Genghis (disambiguation), Chinggis (disambiguation) and Temujin (disambiguation).

Genghis Khan (born Temüjin; c. 1162 – 18 or 25 August 1227), also known as Chinggis Khan, was the founder and first khan of the Mongol Empire. After spending most of his life uniting the Mongol tribes, he launched a series of military campaigns, conquering large parts of China and Central Asia.

Temüjin was born between 1155 and 1167 as the eldest child of Yesugei, a Mongol chieftain of the Borjigin clan, and his wife Hö'elün. When he was eight, his father died and his family was abandoned by its tribe. He won allies such as Jamukha and Toghrul, who helped him retrieve his wife Börte. Later, Temüjin was badly defeated and then rose to power again. In 1203, Toghrul launched a surprise attack on him, but Temüjin regrouped and overpowered Toghrul. After defeating the Naiman tribe and executing Jamukha, he was left as the sole ruler on the Mongolian steppe.

In 1206, Temüjin formally adopted the title "Genghis Khan" at an assembly. He reformed the Mongols' tribal structure into an integrated meritocracy that served the ruling family, and he survived a coup attempt from a powerful shaman. Over the following years, he launched a campaign against the Jin dynasty, which ended in 1215 with the capture of the Jin capital Zhongdu. His conquests reached far beyond China. His general Jebe annexed the Central Asian state of Qara Khitai in 1218, and the next year Genghis invaded the Khwarazmian Empire, where the campaign toppled the Khwarazmian state. In 1227, Genghis died while subduing the rebellious Western Xia. His third son and heir, Ögedei, became ruler in 1229 after a two-year interregnum.

Genghis Khan remains a controversial figure. He was generous and intensely loyal to his followers, but ruthless towards his enemies. He believed the shamanic supreme deity Tengri had destined him for world domination. The Mongol army under Genghis killed millions of people, yet his conquests also facilitated unprecedented commercial and cultural exchange over a vast geographical area. He is remembered as a backward, savage tyrant in Russia and the Arab world, while Western scholarship since the 1990s has begun to reassess the previous view of him as a barbarian warlord. He was posthumously deified in Mongolia, and modern Mongolians recognise him as the founding father of their nation.

Name and title

For the uncertain meanings of the name Temüjin and the title Genghis, see the below sections Birth and early life and Kurultai of 1206 respectively.

There is no universal romanisation system for Mongolian, so modern spellings of Mongolian names vary a lot and can sound quite different from the original. The honorific most often written as "Genghis" comes from a Mongolian word that can be written as Činggis. It was adapted into Chinese as 成吉思 Chéngjísī and into Persian as چنگیز Čəngīz. Because Arabic has no sound like tʃ, writers wrote the name as J̌ingiz, while Syriac authors used Šīngīz.

"Genghis" came into English in the 18th century, based on a misreading of Persian sources. Other English spellings include "Chinggis", "Chingis", "Jinghis", and "Jengiz". His birth name, Temüjin (鐵木真 Tiěmùzhēn), is sometimes spelled "Temuchin" in English. When Genghis's grandson Kublai Khan set up the Yuan dynasty in 1271, he gave his grandfather the temple name Taizu, meaning "Supreme Progenitor," and the posthumous name Shengwu Huangdi, meaning "Holy-Martial Emperor." Kublai's great-grandson Külüg Khan later made this title longer.