People & Histories
February 1258

The Mongol Sack of Baghdad

Hülegü's Mongol army storms Baghdad, kills the last Abbasid caliph and ends the caliphate's five centuries in the city.

  • The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion — Peter Jackson, Yale University Press (2017)
  • Abbasid caliphate — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization — Marshall G. S. Hodgson, University of Chicago Press (1974)

Well established wartraumaempire

In 1258 a Mongol army led by Hülegü, grandson of Genghis Khan, besieged Baghdad. After the caliph al-Musta’sim surrendered, the city was sacked for days and the caliph was put to death. The number killed is unknown: contemporary claims run from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands or more, and historians treat the largest figures as exaggerations. Libraries and irrigation works suffered heavy damage.

  • The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion — Peter Jackson, Yale University Press (2017)
  • Abbasid caliphate — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization — Marshall G. S. Hodgson, University of Chicago Press (1974)

The shock was enormous: for the first time since the Prophet, the Sunni world had no caliph in Baghdad. A survivor of the family was installed as a figurehead caliph in Mamluk Cairo, and the Mamluks halted the Mongol advance at Ayn Jalut in Palestine in 1260.

  • The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion — Peter Jackson, Yale University Press (2017)
  • Caliphate — Encyclopaedia Britannica
Within about forty years the Mongol Ilkhans of Iran had converted to Islam, and Persian culture flourished again under them.
  • The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion — Peter Jackson, Yale University Press (2017)
  • The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization — Marshall G. S. Hodgson, University of Chicago Press (1974)

Why it matters today

Islam

The fall of Baghdad is remembered as one of the great catastrophes of Muslim history, the moment a golden age ended. Yet within a few decades the Mongol rulers of Iran had themselves become Muslims, a reminder of how Islam has often absorbed its conquerors.