7. The Mongols Turn Their Attentions to the Abbasid Caliphate
The Mongols first erupted into the Islamic world in the 1220s. As seen above, that was when Genghis Khan destroyed the Khwarezmian Empire and conquered as far west as western Persia up to the edges of Mesopotamia. That outburst was followed by a decades-long lull, as far as the Middle East and the Islamic world were concerned. In the meantime, the Mongols directed their energies elsewhere, against China, Kievan Rus, Eastern Europe, and in internal squabbles amongst themselves. The lull ended in the 1250s, when a new Mongol ruler, Genghis’ grandson Mongke, turned his attention to the Middle East and sent his brother, Hulagu, to assert Mongol power over the region.
Hulagu began his campaign of conquest by first destroying the Assassins. A murderous cult led by a shadowy mystic known as The Old Man of the Mountain, the Assassins operated from a string of mountain holdfasts and had terrorized the Middle East for over a century and a half. Hulagu completed their suppression by 1256, then turned his attention to the Abbasid Caliphate, based in Baghdad. He ordered its Caliph, Al Musta’sim, to submit to Mongol suzerainty and pay tribute.