(NOTE: This is Pt. 1 or 2. The Full Episode & all other bonus content is available via Patreon.com/thehistoryofchina)

Mongke has ascended as the Great Khan of the Mongols and set loose his younger brother, Hulegu Ilkhan to bring the Islamic world to heel. The Caliph of the Abbasid Dynasty, al-Mustasim, sits ensconced in his citadel city of Baghdad - the jewel of Islam - and believes that Allah above and his loyal subjects beneath will be more than a match for barbarian hordes.

He's about to learn a lesson neither he - nor the world - will ever forget...

Time Period Covered:

1258-1259 CE

Major Historical Figures:

Mongol Empire:

Hülegü Ilkhan [ca. 1215-1265]

General Kitbukha [d. 1260]

General Baiju [1201-1260]

Abbasid Caliphate:

al-Musta’sim-Billah Abu-Ahmad Abdullah bin al-Mustansir

Billah, 37th Caliph [1213-1258]

Governor Shahab al Din Sulaiman shah [d. 1258]

Vizier Ibn al Alkami [1197-1258]

Major Sources Cited:

Al-Din, Rashid. Jami al Tararikh (Compendium of Histories).

Al-Din, Rashid (tr. John Andrew Boyle). The Successors of Genghis Khan.

Chugtai, Mizra Azeem Baig. “The Fall of Baghdad” in The Annal of Urdu Studies.

Daftary, Farhad. The Isma’ilis: Their History and Doctrines.

Hillenbrand, Robert. “Propaganda in the Mongol ‘World History’” in British Academy Review, issue 17 (March 2011).

Hodgson, M. G. S. “The Isma’ili State” in The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 5: The Saljuq and Mongol Periods.

Jamal, Nadia Eboo. Surviving the Mongols: Nizari Quhistani and the Continuity of Ismaili Tradition in Persia.

Marozzi, Justin. Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood.

Paris, Matthew of (tr. John Allen Giles). Chronica Majora (Matthew Paris’s English History From the Year 1235 to 1273, Volume 1).

Saunders, J.J. The History of the Mongol Conquests.

van Ruysbroeck, Willem (tr. W. W. Rockhill & Peter Jackson). The journey of William of Rubruck to the eastern parts of the world, 1253-55, as narrated by himself, with two accounts of the earlier journey of John of Pian del Carpine.

Wiet, Gaston. Baghdad: Metropolis of the Abbasid Caliphate.