| The Mongol Invasion (1218 CE) |
“Attacked
by Mongols-the Tartars- in the east and by the Franj in the west, the Muslims
had never been in such a critical position. God alone could still rescue
them.”
“The
events I am about to describe are so horrible that for years I avoided all
mention of them. It is not easy to announce that death has fallen upon Islam and
the Muslims. Alas! I would have preferred my mother never to have given birth to
me, or to have died without witnessing all these evils. If one day you are told
that the earth has never known such a calamity since God created Adam, do not
hesitate to believe it, for such is the strict truth. Nebuchadnezzar’s
massacre of the children of Israel and the destruction of Jerusalem are
generally cited as among the most infamous tragedies of history. But all these
were nothing compared to what has happened now. No, probably not until the end
of time will a catastrophe of such magnitude be seen again.”
Nowhere
else in his voluminous ‘Perfect History’ does Ibn Al-Athir adopt such a
pathetic tone. Page after page, his sadness, terror, and incredulity spring out
as if he were superstitiously postponing the moment when he would finally have
to speak the name of the scourge: Genghis Khan.
The
rise of the Mongol conqueror began shortly after the death of Saladin, but not
until another quarter of a century had passed did the Arabs feel the approach of
the threat. Genghis Khan first set about uniting the various Turkic and Mongol
tribes of central Asia under his authority; then he embarked on what he hoped
would be the conquest of the world. His forces moved in three directions: to the
east, where the Chinese empire was educed to vassal status and then annexed; to
the Northwest, where first Russia and then Eastern Europe were devastated; to
the west, where Persia was invaded. “All cities must be raised” Genghis Khan
used to say, “so that the world may once again become a great steppe in which
Mongol mothers will suckle free and happy children.” And prestigious cities
indeed would be destroyed, their populations decimated: Bukhara, Samarkand and
Herat, among others.
The
first Mongol thrust into an Islamic country coincided with the various Frankish
invasions of Egypt between 1218 and 1221. But Genghis Khan finally abandoned any
attempt to venture west of Persia. With his death in 1227 at the age of
sixty-seven, the pressure of the horsemen of the steppes on the Arab world eased
for some years.
In
1258 CE, the Mongol chief, Hulegu, grandson of Genghis Khan, sacks Baghdad,
massacring the population and killing the last Abbasid caliph…