Horse left, mint name Baluqan above // Arabic inscription Al-sultan / al-azam ala ud / duniya wa ud-din Mohamed / bin al-Sultan in a number of lines. Baluqan mint. 13mm, 1.90 grams. Tye 226.

These coins were usually softly struck, with large flat areas. This piece is much nicer than most of these.

Mohamed Khwarezmshah was the most famous and powerful of the rulers of Khwarezm, though he is most known for his downfall and the story of the great expansion of the Empire of Genghis Khan. In 1218, Genghis Khan sent some emissaries to the Shah, but when he executed the Mongol diplomats in defiance of the emerging great power, Genghis retaliated with a force of 200,000 men. In February 1220 the Mongolian army crossed the Syr Darya and launched the Mongol invasion of Central Asia. The Mongols stormed Bukhara, Samarkand, and the Khwarezmid capital Urgench. The Shah fled and died some weeks later on an island in the Caspian Sea.