17. Hulagu Wreaked Havoc Throughout the Middle East
After he destroyed the Assassins, Hulagu turned to the Abbasid Caliphate. When the Caliph refused to submit, he was attacked and besieged in Baghdad. Hulagu’s army captured the city in 1258, and in a horrific sack, destroyed it along with all of its treasures, such as the Grand Library of Baghdad. Between 200,000 to a million inhabitants were massacred. A Mongol taboo prohibited spilling royal blood. To get around it, the captured Caliph was rolled into a carpet, which was then trampled by Mongols’ horses as they rode out of Baghdad. That ended the Abbasids, and the Islamic institution of the Caliphate. Hulagu then conquered Syria, and ended the Ayubbid dynasty founded by Saladin. He then set his eyes on Egypt, but on the eve of the invasion, he received word that his brother Mongke had died.
As a potential successor, Hulagu returned to Mongolia. In his absence, the Mongols he left behind under a trusted subordinate were wiped out by the Egyptian Mamelukes at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260 – the first major defeat of a Mongol army, and one that broke the spell of Mongol invincibility. Hulagu was not selected to succeed his brother as Great Khan, so he returned to avenge the defeat at Ain Jalut. Instead, he ended up in a Mongol civil war with a cousin, Berke, leader of the Mongol Golden Horde that dominated the Russian Steppe and Eastern Europe. Berke had converted to Islam, and was enraged by Hulagu’s rampage in the Muslim world. The war with Berke was Hulagu’s main focus for the remainder of his life, until his death in 1265.