Between the middle of the eleventh century and the end of the fourteenth the nomad tribes dwelling beyond the Oxus The Mongol Invasion. burst over Western Asia in three successive waves. First came the Seljúq Turks, then the Mongols under Chingíz Khan and Húlágú, then the hordes, mainly Turkish, of Tímúr. Regarding the Seljúqs all that is necessary for our purpose has been said in a former chapter. The conquests of Tímúr are a frightful episode which I may be pardoned for omitting from this history, inasmuch as their permanent results (apart from the enormous damage which they inflicted) were inconsiderable; and although the Indian empire of the Great Moguls, which Bábur, a descendant of Tímúr, established in the first half of the sixteenth century, ran a prosperous and brilliant course, its culture was borrowed almost exclusively from Persian models and does not come within the scope of the present work. We shall, therefore, confine our view to the second wave of the vast Asiatic migration, which bore the Mongols, led by Chingíz Khan and Húlágú, from the steppes of China and Tartary to the Mediterranean.

In 1219 a.d. Chingíz Khan, having consolidated his power in the Far East, turned his face westward and suddenly Chingíz Khan and Húlágú. advanced into Transoxania, which at that time formed a province of the wide dominions of the Sháhs of Khwárizm (Khiva). The reigning monarch, ‘Alá’u ’l-Dín Muḥammad, was unable to make an effective resistance; and notwithstanding that his son, the gallant Jalálu ’l-Dín, carried on a desperate guerilla for twelve years, the invaders swarmed over Khurásán and Persia, massacring the panic-stricken inhabitants wholesale and leaving a wilderness behind them. Hitherto Baghdád had not been seriously threatened, but on the first day of January, 1256 a.d.—an epoch-marking date—Húlágú, the grandson of Chingíz Khan, crossed the Oxus, with the intention of occupying the ‘Abbásid capital. I translate the following narrative from a manuscript in my possession of the Ta’ríkh al-Khamísby Diyárbakrí (õ 1574 a.d.):—

In the year 654 (a.h. = 1256 a.d.) the stubborn tyrant, Húlágú, the destroyer of the nations ( Mubídu ’l-Umam), set forth and took Húlágú before Baghdád (1258 a.d.). the castle of Alamút from the Ismá‘ílís819 and slew them and laid waste the lands of Rayy.... And in the year 655 there broke out at Baghdád a fearful riot between the Sunnís and the Shí‘ites, which led to great plunder and destruction of property. A number of Shí‘ites were killed, and this so incensed and infuriated the Vizier Ibnu ’l-‘Alqami that he encouraged the Tartars to invade ‘Iráq, by which means he hoped to take ample vengeance on the Sunnís.820 And in the beginning of the year 656 the tyrant Húlágú b. Túlí b. Chingíz Khán, the Moghul, arrived at Baghdád with his army, including the Georgians ( al-Kurj) and the troops of Mosul. The Dawídár821 marched out of the city and met Húlágú's vanguard, which was commanded by Bájú.822 The Moslems, being few, suffered defeat; whereupon Bájú advanced and pitched his camp to the west of Baghdád, while Húlágú took up a position on the eastern side. Then the Vizier Ibnu ’l-‘Alqamí said to the Caliph Musta‘ṣim Billáh: "I will go to the Supreme Khán to arrange peace." So the hound823 went and obtained security for himself, and on his return said to the Caliph: "The Khán desires to marry his daughter to your son and to render homage to you, like the Seljúq kings, and then to depart." Musta‘ṣim set out, attended by the nobles of his court and the grandees of his time, in order to witness the contract of marriage. The whole party were beheaded except the Caliph, who was trampled to death. The Tartars Sack of Baghdád. entered Baghdád and distributed themselves in bands throughout the city. For thirty-four days the sword was never sheathed. Few escaped. The slain amounted to 1,800,000 and more. Then quarter was called.... Thus it is related in the Duwalu ’l-Islám.824... And on this wise did the Caliphate pass from Baghdád. As the poet sings:—

" Khalati ’l-manábiru wa-’l-asirralu minhumú wa-‘alayhimú hatta ’l-mamáti salámú." " The pulpits and the thrones are empty of them; I bid them, till the hour of death, farewell!"

It seemed as if all Muḥammadan Asia lay at the feet of the pagan conqueror. Resuming his advance, Húlágú occupied Mesopotamia and sacked Aleppo. He then returned to the East, leaving his lieutenant, Ketboghá, to complete the reduction of Syria. Meanwhile, however, an Egyptian army under the Mameluke Sultan Muẓaffar Quṭuz was hastening to oppose the invaders. On Friday, the 25th of Ramaḍán, 658 a.h., a decisive battle was fought at ‘Ayn Jálút (Goliath's Spring), west of the Jordan. Battle of ‘Ayn Jálút (September, 1260 a.d.). The Tartars were routed with immense slaughter, and their subsequent attempts to wrest Syria from the Mamelukes met with no success. The submission of Asia Minor was hardly more than nominal, but in Persia the descendants of Húlágú, the Íl-Kháns, reigned over a great empire, which the conversion of one of their number, Gházán (1295-1304 a.d.), restored to Moslem rule. We are not concerned here with the further history of the Mongols in Persia nor with that of the Persians themselves. Since the days of Húlágú the lands east and west of the Tigris are separated by an ever-widening gulf. The two races—Persians and Arabs—to whose co-operation the mediæval world, from Samarcand to Seville, for a long time owed its highest literary and scientific culture, have now finally dissolved their partnership. It is true that the Arabic ceases to be the language of the whole Moslem world. cleavage began many centuries earlier, and before the fall of Baghdád the Persian genius had already expressed itself in a splendid national literature. But from this date onward the use of Arabic by Persians is practically limited to theological and philosophical writings. The Persian language has driven its rival out of the field. Accordingly Egypt and Syria will now demand the principal share of our attention, more especially as the history of the Arabs of Granada, which properly belongs to this period, has been related in the preceding chapter.

The dynasty of the Mameluke825 Sultans of Egypt was founded in 1250 a.d. by Aybak, a Turkish slave, who The Mamelukes of Egypt (1250-1517 a.d.). commenced his career in the service of the Ayyúbid, Malik Ṣáliḥ Najmu ’l-Dín. His successors826 held sway in Egypt and Syria until the conquest of these countries by the Ottomans. The Mamelukes were rough soldiers, who seldom indulged in any useless refinement, but they had a royal taste for architecture, as the visitor to Cairo may still see. Their administration, though disturbed by frequent mutinies and murders, was tolerably prosperous on the whole, and their victories over the Mongol hosts, as well as the crushing blows which they dealt to the Crusaders, gave Islam new prestige. The ablest of them all was Baybars, Sultan Baybars (1260-1277 a.d.). who richly deserved his title Malik al-Ẓáhir, i.e., the Victorious King. His name has passed into the legends of the people, and his warlike exploits into story-tellers to this day.827 The violent and brutal acts which he sometimes committed—for he shrank from no crime when he suspected danger—made him a terror to the ambitious nobles around him, but did not harm his reputation as a just ruler. Although he held the throne in virtue of having murdered the late monarch with his own hand, he sought to give the appearance of legitimacy to his usurpation. He therefore recognised as Caliph a certain Abu ’l-Qásim Aḥmad, a pretended scion of the ‘Abbásid house, invited him to Cairo, and took the oath of allegiance to him in due form. The Caliph on his part invested the Sultan with sovereignty over Egypt, The ‘Abbásid Caliphs of Egypt. Syria, Arabia, and all the provinces that he might obtain by future conquests. This Aḥmad, entitled al-Mustanṣir, was the first of a long series of mock Caliphs who were appointed by the Mameluke Sultans and generally kept under close surveillance in the citadel of Cairo. There is no authority for the statement, originally made by Mouradgea d'Ohsson in 1787 and often repeated since, that the last of the line bequeathed his rights of succession to the Ottoman Sultan Selím I, thus enabling the Sultans of Turkey to claim the title and dignity of Caliph.828