Hulagu Khan

Hulagu Khan
Ilkhan of the Ilkhanate
Painting of Hulagu Khan by Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, early 14th century.
Reign	1256– 8 February 1265
Successor	Abaqa Khan
Born	15 October 1218
Died	8 February 1265(1265-02-08) (aged 46)
Burial	Shahi Island, Lake Urmia
Consort	Doquz Khatun
House	Borjigin
Father	Tolui
Mother	Sorghaghtani Beki
Religion	Nestorian Christianity, converted to Buddhism on his deathbed

Hulagu Khan, also known as Hülegü or Hulegu (Mongolian: Хүлэгу хаан; Chagatai: ہلاکو; Persian: هولاکو خان‎‎; Chinese: 旭烈兀; c. 1218 – 8 February 1265), was a Mongol ruler who conquered much of Western Asia. Son of Tolui and the Keraite princess Sorghaghtani Beki, he was a grandson of Genghis Khan and brother of Ariq Böke, Möngke Khan, and Kublai Khan.

Hulagu's army greatly expanded the southwestern portion of the Mongol Empire, founding the Ilkhanate of Persia, a precursor to the eventual Safavid dynasty, and then the modern state of Iran. Under Hulagu's leadership, the siege of Baghdad (1258) destroyed the greatest center of Islamic power and also weakened Damascus, causing a shift of Islamic influence to the Mamluk Sultanate in Cairo.

Background

Hulagu was born to Tolui, one of Genghis Khan's sons, and Sorghaghtani Beki, an influential Keraite princess. Sorghaghtani successfully navigated Mongol politics, arranging for all of her sons to become Mongol leaders. She was a Christian of the Church of the East (often referred to as "Nestorianism") and Hulagu was friendly to Christianity. Hulagu's favorite wife, Doquz Khatun, was also a Christian, as was his closest friend and general, Kitbuqa. It is recorded however that he converted to Buddhist as he neared death,^[1] against the will of Doquz Khatun.^[2] The erection of a Buddhist temple at Ḵoy testifies his interest in that religion.^[3]

Hulagu had at least three children: Abaqa Khan, Tekuder, and Taraqai. Abaqa was second Ilkhan of Iran from 1265–82, Teguder Ahmad was third Ilkhan from 1282–84, and Taraqai's son Baydu became Ilkhan in 1295.^[4] Mīr-Khvānd mentions two more children, given as Hyaxemet and Tandon in an early translation; Hyaxemet initially served as governor of Armenia and Azerbaijan, while Tandon was given Diyarbakır and Iraq.^[5] The order of birth is listed as Abaqa, Hyaxemet, Tandon, Teguder, then Taraqai. His daughter-in-law, Absh Khatun, was sent to Shiraz to reign in 1263.^[6]

Military campaigns

The siege of Alamût in 1256

A Mughal painting of Hulagu's siege of Alamut.

Hulagu's brother Möngke Khan had been installed as Great Khan in 1251. In 1255, Möngke charged Hulagu with leading a massive Mongol army to conquer or destroy the remaining Muslim states in southwestern Asia. Hulagu's campaign sought the subjugation of the Lurs of southern Iran, the destruction of the Assassins, the submission or destruction of the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad, the submission or destruction of the Ayyubid states in Syria based in Damascus, and finally, the submission or destruction of the Bahri Mamluke Sultanate of Egypt.^[7] Möngke ordered Hulagu to treat kindly those who submitted and utterly destroy those who did not. Hulagu vigorously carried out the latter part of these instructions.

Hulagu marched out with perhaps the largest Mongol army ever assembled – by order of Möngke, two-tenths of the empire's fighting men were gathered for Hulagu's army.^[8] He easily destroyed the Lurs, and the Assassins surrendered their impregnable fortress of Alamut without a fight, accepting a deal that spared the lives of their people.

Siege of Baghdad

Hulagu's Mongol army set out for Baghdad in November 1257. Once near the city he divided his forces to threaten the city on both the east and west banks of the Tigris. Hulagu demanded surrender, but the caliph, Al-Musta'sim, refused. The caliph's army repulsed some of the forces attacking from the west but were defeated in the next battle. The attacking Mongols broke dikes and flooded the ground behind the caliph's army, trapping them. Much of the army was slaughtered or drowned.

The Mongols under Chinese general Guo Kan laid siege to the city on January 29, 1258,^[9] constructing a palisade and a ditch and wheeling up siege engines and catapults. The battle was short by siege standards. By February 5 the Mongols controlled a stretch of the wall. The caliph tried to negotiate but was refused. On February 10 Baghdad surrendered. The Mongols swept into the city on February 13 and began a week of destruction. The Grand Library of Baghdad, containing countless precious historical documents and books on subjects ranging from medicine to astronomy, was destroyed. Survivors said that the waters of the Tigris ran black with ink from the enormous quantity of books flung into the river. Citizens attempted to flee but were intercepted by Mongol soldiers.

Hulagu (left) imprisons the Caliph among his treasures to starve him to death. Medieval depiction from "Le livre des merveilles", 15th century.

Death counts vary widely and cannot be easily substantiated: A low estimate is about 90,000 dead;^[10] higher estimates range from 200,000 to a million.^[11] The Mongols looted and then destroyed. Mosques, palaces, libraries, hospitals — grand buildings that had been the work of generations — were burned to the ground. The caliph was captured and forced to watch as his citizens were murdered and his treasury plundered. Il Milione, a book on the travels of Venetian merchant Marco Polo, states that Hulagu starved the caliph to death, but there is no corroborating evidence for that. Most historians believe the Mongol and Muslim accounts that the caliph was rolled up in a rug and the Mongols rode their horses over him, as they believed that the earth would be offended if touched by royal blood. All but one of his sons were killed. Baghdad was a depopulated, ruined city for several centuries. Smaller states in the region hastened to reassure Hulagu of their loyalty, and the Mongols turned to Syria in 1259, conquering the Ayyubid dynasty and sending advance patrols as far ahead as Gaza.

A thousand squads of northern Chinese sappers accompanied the Mongol Khan Hulagu during his conquest of the Middle East.^[12][13]

Conquest of Syria (1260)

Hulagu and Queen Doquz Qatun depicted as the new Constantine and Helen in a Syriac bible.^[14][15]

In 1260 Mongol forces combined with those of their Christian vassals in the region, including the army of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia under Hethum I, King of Armenia and the Franks of Bohemond VI of Antioch. This force conquered Muslim Syria, a domain of the Ayyubid dynasty. They captured Aleppo by siege and, under the Christian general Kitbuqa, seized Damascus on March 1, 1260.^[16][17][18] A Christian Mass was celebrated in the Umayyad Mosque and numerous mosques were profaned. Many historical accounts describe the three Christian rulers Hetoum, Bohemond, and Kitbuqa entering the city of Damascus together in triumph,^[18][19] though some modern historians such as David Morgan have questioned this story as apocryphal.^[20]

The invasion effectively destroyed the Ayyubids, which was until then a powerful dynasty that had ruled large parts of the Levant, Egypt, and the Arabian Peninsula. The last Ayyubid king, An-Nasir Yusuf, was killed by Hulagu in 1260.^[21] With the Islamic power center of Baghdad gone and Damascus weakened, the center of Islamic power shifted to the Mamluk Sultans' capital of Cairo.

Hulagu intended to continue southward through Palestine towards Cairo to fight the Mamluks. He sent a threatening letter to the Mamluk Sultan Qutuz in Cairo. He demanded that Qutuz open Cairo or it would be destroyed like Baghdad. At that moment Mongke Khan died, so Hulagu, as an heir and potential Great Khan, was obliged to return to Mongolia for the election of a new Khan. Hulagu left behind only two tumens (20,000 men) under the leadership of his favorite general Naiman Kitbuqa Noyan, a Nestorian Christian. Upon receiving news of Hulagu's departure, Qutuz quickly assembled a large army at Cairo and invaded Palestine. Qutuz allied himself with a fellow Mamluk, Baibars, who wanted to avenge Islam for the Mongols' capture of Damascus, their looting of Baghdad and their conquest of Syria.

The Mongols, for their part, attempted to form a Frankish-Mongol alliance with (or at least, demand the submission of) the remnant of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, now centered on Acre, but Pope Alexander IV had forbidden such an alliance. Tensions between Franks and Mongols also increased when Julian of Sidon caused an incident resulting in the death of one of Kitbuqa's grandsons. Angered, Kitbuqa had sacked Sidon. The Barons of Acre, contacted by the Mongols, had also been approached by the Mamluks, seeking military assistance against the Mongols. Although the Mamluks were traditional enemies of the Franks, the Barons of Acre recognized the Mongols as the more immediate menace. Instead of taking sides, the Crusaders opted for a position of cautious neutrality between the two forces. In an unusual move, however, they allowed the Egyptian Mamluks to march northward without hindrance through Crusader territory and even let them camp near Acre to resupply.

Battle of Ain Jalut

Hulagu Khan leading his army.

When news arrived that the Mongols had crossed the Jordan River in 1260, Sultan Qutuz and his forces mainly Egyptians proceeded southeast toward the 'Spring Of Goliath' at Ain Jalut in the Jezreel Valley. They met the Mongol army of about 20,000 in the Battle of Ain Jalut and fought relentlessly for many hours. The Mamluk leader Baibars mostly implemented hit-and-run tactics in an attempt to lure the Mongol forces into chasing him. Baibars and Qutuz had hidden the bulk of their forces in the hills to wait in ambush for the Mongols to come into range. The Mongol leader Kitbuqa, already provoked by the constant fleeing of Baibars and his troops, decided to march forwards with all his troops on the trail of the fleeing Egyptians. When the Mongols reached the highlands, Egyptians appeared from hiding, and the Mongols found themselves surrounded by enemy forces as the hidden troops hit them from the sides and Qutuz attacked the Mongol rear. Estimates of the size of the Egyptian army range from 24,000 to 120,000. The Mongols broke free of the trap and even mounted a temporarily successful counterattack, but their numbers had been depleted to the point that the outcome was inevitable. When the battle finally ended, the Egyptian army had accomplished what had never been done before, defeating a Mongol army in close combat. Almost the whole Mongol army that had remained in the region, including Kitbuqa, were either killed or captured that day. The battle of Ain Jalut established a low-water mark for the Mongol conquest. The Mongol invasion east and south came to a stop after Ain Jalut.

Civil War

Coin of Hulagu, with the symbol of a hare.

After the succession was settled and his brother Kublai Khan was established as Great Khan, Hulagu returned to his lands by 1262. When he massed his armies to attack the Mamluks and avenge the defeat at Ayn Jalut, however, he was instead drawn into civil war with Batu Khan's brother Berke. Berke Khan, a Muslim convert, had promised retribution in his rage after Hulagu's sack of Baghdad and allied himself with the Mamluks. He initiated a series of raids on Hulagu's territories, led by Nogai Khan. Hulagu suffered a severe defeat in an attempted invasion north of the Caucasus in 1263. This was the first open war between Mongols and signaled the end of the unified empire.

Even while Berke was Muslim he was at first desisting from the idea of fighting Hulagu out of Mongol brotherhood, he said Mongols are killed by Mongol swords. If we were united, then we would have conquered all of the world. but the economic situation of the Golden Horde due to the actions of the Ilkhanate led him to declare jihad because the Ilkhanids were hogging the wealth of North Iran and the Ilkhanate's demands for the Golden Horde to not sell slaves to the Mamluks.^[22]

Communications with Europe

Temgha of Hulagu.

Hulagu sent multiple communications to Europe in an attempt to establish a Franco-Mongol alliance against the Muslims. In 1262, he sent his secretary Rychaldus and an embassy to "all kings and princes overseas". The embassy was apparently intercepted in Sicily by Manfred, King of Sicily, who was allied with the Mamluk Sultanate and in conflict with Pope Urban IV, and Rychaldus was returned by ship.^[23]

On April 10, 1262, Hulagu sent a letter, through John the Hungarian, to Louis IX of France, offering an alliance.^[24] It is unclear whether the letter ever reached Louis IX in Paris — the only manuscript known to have survived was in Vienna, Austria.^[25] The letter stated Hulagu's intention to capture Jerusalem for the benefit of the Pope and asked for Louis to send a fleet against Egypt:

From the head of the Mongol army, anxious to devastate the perfidious nation of the Saracens, with the good-will support of the Christian faith (...) so that you, who are the rulers of the coasts on the other side of the sea, endeavor to deny a refuge for the Infidels, your enemies and ours, by having your subjects diligently patrol the seas.

— Letter from Hulagu to Saint Louis.^[26]

Despite many attempts, neither Hulagu nor his successors were able to form an alliance with Europe, although Mongol culture in the West was in vogue in the 13th century. Many new-born children in Italy were named after Mongol rulers, including Hulagu: names such as Can Grande ("Great Khan"), Alaone (Hulagu), Argone (Arghun), and Cassano (Ghazan) are recorded.^[27]

Death

The funeral of Hulagu Khan.

Hulagu Khan died in 1265 and was buried on Shahi Island in Lake Urmia. His funeral was the only Ilkhanate funeral to feature human sacrifice.^[28] He was succeeded by his son Abaqa Khan, thus establishing his line.

Legacy

Hulagu Khan laid the foundations of the Ilkhanate and thus paved the way for the later Safavid dynastic state, and ultimately the modern country of Iran. Hulagu's conquests also opened Iran to both European influence from the west and Chinese influence from the east. This, combined with patronage from his successors, would develop Iran's distinctive excellence in architecture. Under Hulagu's dynasty, Iranian historians began writing in Persian rather than Arabic.^[29]

Notes

Works cited

• Atwood, Christopher P. (2004). The Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire. Facts on File, Inc. ISBN 0-8160-4671-9.
• Boyle, J.A., (Editor). The Cambridge History of Iran: Volume 5, The Saljuq and Mongol Periods. Cambridge University Press; Reissue edition (January 1, 1968). ISBN 0-521-06936-X.
• Hildinger, Erik (1997). Warriors of the Steppe: A Military History of Central Asia, 500 B.C. to 1700 A.D. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81065-4. 
• Morgan, David. The Mongols. Blackwell Publishers; Reprint edition, April 1990. ISBN 0-631-17563-6. Best for an overview of the wider context of medieval Mongol history and culture.
• Runciman, Steven (1987). A History of the Crusades. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-34770-9. 
• Jackson, Peter (2014). The Mongols and the West: 1221-1410. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-87898-8. 
• Robinson, Francis. The Mughal Emperors And the Islamic Dynasties of India, Iran and Central Asia. Thames and Hudson Limited; 2007. ISBN 0-500-25134-7

External links

• A long article about Hulagu's conquest of Baghdad, written by Ian Frazier, appeared in the April 25, 2005 issue of The New Yorker.
• An Osama bin Laden tape in which Osama bin Laden compares Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell to Hulagu and his attack on Baghdad. Dated November 12, 2002.