Hulagu Khan & the Razing of Baghdad in 1258

[Cito Pelon]

I figured I'd start this thread for the heck of it. I was just rereading "The Road to Oxiana" and "A Secret Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina". They reminded me that the region was once very fertile, with thriving civilizations for that time. The region was one of the most progressed on the planet. Until the Mongols came.

To me, if you want to understand how the "Middle East" became such a desolate region, all you have to do is understand what the Mongols did to that region in the 13th Century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baghdad_(1258)

They destroyed every bit of civilization, murdered every scholar, murdered every male over the age of 13 in many places, destroyed the extensive irrigation systems that had been used for millenia. They really did some horrible things. Why I don't know. When they swept out of Mongolia into China proper, they were not so extensively destructive.

Those Mongols were something. They seldom get a lot of play in history books, but they sure had a lot of impact on history. They started out way up there north of the Great Wall, and proceeded to wipe out an initial Russian civilization, threatened Europe from the north in Poland, occupied all of modern Turkey and the Balkans, not to mention what they did in Persia, Iraq, the coasts of the Persian Gulf. They laid waste to Hungary. Attacked Japan twice and failed from whence comes the Japanese Kamikazai, or "Divine Wind", a typhoon that destroyed the Chinese fleet the Mongols appropriated for the attack on Japan.

http://www.budapesttimes.hu/?do=article&id=2371

The Mongols had quite an impact on Europe by the fact that Northern and Central Europe had to mobilize to combat them, meanwhile the Renaissance was gaining steam in Italy, protected by the Alps and by sea, which the Mongol horsemen were not so embracing of.

Ok, history lesson over. Carry on.

[loborugger]

If I remember my history correctly...

To prevent the murder of their own royal clans, the Mongols made the outright shedding of the blood of any royals a crime, punishable by death. Therefore, when they sacked Baghdad, they had to come up with a creative way to end the lives of the ruling family in Baghdad. So, they rolled them up in a carpet and then had a feast on them. The feast wasnt over til everyone in the carpet quit breathing. Not a drop of blood was shed.

The Mongols were a brutal bunch, no doubt. Some historian even went so far as to say the Mid East has yet to recover from the utter destruction of the Mongols - specifically cuz of the destruction of the irrigation systems.

[Cito Pelon]

Originally Posted by loborugger

If I remember my history correctly...

To prevent the murder of their own royal clans, the Mongols made the outright shedding of the blood of any royals a crime, punishable by death. Therefore, when they sacked Baghdad, they had to come up with a creative way to end the lives of the ruling family in Baghdad. So, they rolled them up in a carpet and then had a feast on them. The feast wasnt over til everyone in the carpet quit breathing. Not a drop of blood was shed.

The Mongols were a brutal bunch, no doubt. Some historian even went so far as to say the Mid East has yet to recover from the utter destruction of the Mongols - specifically cuz of the destruction of the irrigation systems.

Not only did they destroy the irrigation systems, they killed every engineer and scholar that could have led the rebuilding. Destroyed virtually every library. So I agree with that.

It's a shame in a way. This could have been a much different modern world