9. The thirty-seventh and final ruler of the Abbasid Caliphate, Al-Musta’sim Billah was killed by the Mongols by being wrapped in a rug and trampled to death by horses
Succeeding his father in 1242 CE, al-Musta’sim-Billah Abu-Ahmad Abdullah bin al-Mustansir-Billah – more commonly known as Al-Musta’sim Billah – ruled as the thirty-seventh and final Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate. Notable for opposing the ascension of Shajar al-Durr to the Egyptian throne, as Caliph Al-Musta’sim rejected the authority of the second Muslim women to claim a crown and provided soldiers to force her abdication. However, despite enjoying a period of power and prosperity, Al-Musta’sim’s rule also saw the caliphate face the greatest threat since its creation in 632: the Mongol invasion. Having already annihilated opposition in Transoxiana and Khorasan, the forces under Hulagu Khan compelled the Abbasid to provide military aid for their campaign against Alamut in 1255.
Once completed, Hulagu subsequently invaded the reduced caliphate in 1258. Laying siege to Baghdad, those who sought to flee were massacred whilst the city was breached and sacked on February 10. Seeking to avoid the shedding of royal blood, one narrative of the event describes the Mongols wrapping Al-Musta’sim in a rug and trampling him to death with horses. An alternative and less subscribed to account, depicted in The Travels of Marco Polo, claims Hulagu locked the Caliph in his treasure room, mocking him to “eat of thy treasure as much as thou wilt, since thou art so fond of it.”