Hülegü khan, the son of Genghis Khan, commanded Mongolian armies breached through the wall of Baghdad in February 12th 1258, they slaughtered as much citizen they saw.
The street of Baghdad turned red of citizens’ blood and the Tigris turned black due to ashes deposition of burned scroll from the House of wisdom. There was large muslims exodus to Mamluk of Egypt and Delhi sultanate, where muslims found refuge.
The avarice muslim calif, Musta’sim bi-llāh, who was the last Abbasid calif of the lineage of Abbas, the uncle of Islamic prophet was captured by the Mongols, and was thrown into captivity for “three days”, with neither “bread nor water”.
Then, Hülegü, went to examine the caliph’s residence and walked in every direction. He found that the Calif possessed a tower full of gold, silver, and other treasures, such as had never before been seen collected in a single place.
The caliph was fetched and ordered presents to be offered. Whatever he brought, Hülegü at once distributed amongst his suite and the emirs, military leaders and [all] those present. Then Hülegü said to him: “You were called Caliph, head of all those holding the religion of Mahmet (Muhammad), yet you choked on your wealth.
Hülegü set a golden tray before the Caliph and said: “Eat”. “It is not edible”, said the Caliph.
“Then why did you keep it, and not give it to the soldiers?"
“And why did you not make these iron doors into arrow-heads and come to the bank of the river so that I might not have been able to cross it,” asked Hülegü.
“Such was God’s will”, replied the Caliph. “What will befall thee”, said Hülegü, “is also God’s will”.
Meanwhile, the Mongols’ main concern was their superstition that royal blood should not be shed nor touch the ground lest calamity would befall them.
Hülegü khan ordered his men to rap the Caliph and that of his male children in carpet and set horse to be used to stamp over them . The Caliph, and royal members were rolled in a carpet and kicked to death.
The calif’s women met similar fate as their men. One account said few of Calif women absent during the Mongol invasion of Baghdad were locked in foreign lands and never returned, and were married to foreigners. Some calif’s women presented during the invasion were taken captives to Mongol, others were drawn to death.
Other account said all Calif’s women committed suicide feared being taken captives and be exploited as they saw Mongolian armies breached into the wall of Baghdad after long besiege of the city!
The episode folds as Hulegu said: “this man caused much blood to flow through pride. Let him go and answer to God and may we be innocent”.
LESSON: Supposed the Muslim calif, Musta’sim bi-llāh, used his much gold to empower Abbassid citizens, there would have been massive scale of commercialisation creating wealthy citizens, powering innovations and networking, to whom tax been levied to build large armies strong enough to crushed Mongol armies!
