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The Mongols at BaghdadThe week to Wednesday, January 30, 1258Issue the Second

Mongols open the assault on Baghdad’s walls

Reconstructed from historical sources

The Mongols have walled Baghdad in and shut the Tigris with bridges of boats; on Tuesday their catapults opened on the Ajami Tower, and the Khan has sent the caliph’s vizier back, demanding the vizier, Sulaymanshah and the Dawatdar together.

A Mongol siege engine before a walled city: a painting from an early 14th-century copy of Rashid al-Din's Jami' al-tawarikh. Edinburgh University Library, Or. Ms. 20, folio 124v.
A Mongol siege engine before a walled city: a painting from an early 14th-century copy of Rashid al-Din’s Jami’ al-tawarikh. Edinburgh University Library, Or. Ms. 20, folio 124v.Photograph by Unknown painter; Edinburgh University Library · Public domain

BAGHDAD, Wednesday.—Baghdad is walled in by the Mongols and the Tigris is shut, and on Tuesday, the twenty-second of Muharram, the Mongol army began to fight.

The siege lines came first. The host that has ringed the city since the middle of the month has set up a wall of its own around Baghdad’s ramparts, and the Khan’s men stand guard an arm’s length from the city wall, so that no one gets out.

By the Khan’s order, bridges have gone across the river above and below the city, boats have been made ready, catapults set up and guards posted.

Baiju’s troops tied the pontoon bridges. Between the surface and the river bed they have sunk stout fences with iron hooks and pipes, so that no one can so much as swim out of the city unseen.

Downstream, a tümen, a division of ten thousand men, patrols the routes south to Madayin and Basra to stop anyone escaping by boat.

Then, with Aries in the ascendant, the attack opened. Hülegü Khan holds the centre himself, on the Khurasan road side of the city, opposite the Ajami Tower on the east wall. His princes and commanders hold posts all round the city.

Catapults have been set up facing the Ajami Tower, and they are at work against it.

Rashid al-Din, Jami' al-tawarikh (tr. W. M. Thackston, Harvard, 1998) · Kirakos Gandzakets'i, History of the Armenians (tr. Robert Bedrosian, New York, 1986).

Khan sends the caliph’s vizier back and demands three men

Reconstructed from historical sources

Hülegü Khan seated, in a Persian painting of the 14th century in the Rashid al-Din tradition.
Hülegü Khan seated, in a Persian painting of the 14th century in the Rashid al-Din tradition.Photograph by Unknown Persian painter (Rashid al-Din tradition, 14th century) · Public domain

BEFORE BAGHDAD, Wednesday.—The caliph has tried to talk, and the Khan has raised his price: he will take not one of the caliph’s great men, but three.

Since the fighting began, al-Musta’sim has sent his vizier, Mu’ayyad al-Din Ibn al-Alqami, out to the camp with the catholicos, head of the Nestorian Christian church. They carried the caliph’s word: “The Padishah said I should send the vizier out. I have kept my promise and am sending him. Let the Padishah also keep his word.”

Hülegü answered that the condition was set at Hamadan, and that the vizier alone will no longer do. The vizier, Sulaymanshah and the Dawatdar must all come out together: “Now that we have come to Baghdad and an ocean of tumult and strife has been stirred up, how can we be content with only one? All three must be sent”.

Rashid al-Din, Jami' al-tawarikh (tr. W. M. Thackston, Harvard, 1998).

Commanders urge the caliph to take ship for Basra

Reconstructed from historical sources

BAGHDAD, Wednesday.—The caliph’s two chief commanders have begged him to leave Baghdad by water. He has stayed.

When the Mongols reached the gates, Sulaymanshah and the Dawatdar Mujahid al-Din Aybak came before al-Musta’sim and put their case plainly: “The enemy has reached the city gate, and we have but a few horsemen along with us in Baghdad, while the number of the infidels is 200,000 or more.”

They proposed that he put his family and his treasure on board ship and go down the Tigris to the islands near Basra until God sent deliverance. Both offered to go with him.

The enemy has reached the city gate, and we have but a few horsemen along with us in Baghdad, while the number of the infidels is 200,000 or moreSulaymanshah and the Dawatdar Mujahid al-Din Aybak, to the caliph

The caliph put the plan to his vizier, Mu’ayyad al-Din Ibn al-Alqami, who answered: “I have entered into a peace with the Mughals, and there is no necessity for leaving”. The caliph remains in the city.

Minhaj al-Siraj Juzjani, Tabakat-i-Nasiri (tr. H. G. Raverty, vol. 2, London, 1881).

Khan marched on Baghdad against his astrologer’s warning

Reconstructed from historical sources

BEFORE BAGHDAD, Wednesday.—Hülegü Khan came to Baghdad against the counsel of his own astrologer.

Husamuddin, sent with the Khan by the Great Khan to choose lucky times, told him: “Neither to attack the house of the caliphate nor to lead an army to Baghdad is auspicious”. No ruler who had attacked Baghdad and the Abbasids, he said, had kept his kingdom or his life.

He named the calamities to come: the horses would die and the soldiers fall ill, the sun would not rise, rain would not fall, a cold wind and an earthquake would come, and plants would not grow.

Neither to attack the house of the caliphate nor to lead an army to Baghdad is auspiciousHusamuddin, Hülegü's court astrologer, to the Khan

The Khan made him set his claims down in a written pledge. The bakhshis, the Buddhist priests, and the commanders were all of one mind that the march was the best course. “None of these things will happen,” said Nasir al-Din Tusi, the astronomer who advises the Khan.

Rashid al-Din, Jami' al-tawarikh (tr. W. M. Thackston, Harvard, 1998).

In Brief

Mongols haul rocks and cut palms for their catapults

BEFORE BAGHDAD.—There is no stone near Baghdad to feed the catapults. The Mongols have brought rocks from Jalula and Jabal Hamrin, and where rocks run short they are cutting down date palms and hurling the trunks in place of stones.

Rashid al-Din, Jami' al-tawarikh (tr. W. M. Thackston, Harvard, 1998).

Baiju’s 80,000 horse hold the west bank

BAGHDAD.—The Mongol army on the west bank under Baiju numbers 80,000 horse. It has now stood several days opposite the caliph’s Taj palace across the river.

Minhaj al-Siraj Juzjani, Tabakat-i-Nasiri (tr. H. G. Raverty, vol. 2, London, 1881) · Ibn al-Tiqtaqa, al-Fakhri (tr. C. E. J. Whitting, London: Luzac, 1947).

Learned men of Hilla ask the Khan for a governor

BEFORE BAGHDAD.—While Baghdad is besieged, several learned Alids, descendants of Ali, have come from Hilla on the Euphrates to the Khan’s camp to ask for a shahna, a Mongol governor. Hülegü has sent Tukal and Amir Nahli Nakhjiwani back to Hilla with them.

Rashid al-Din, Jami' al-tawarikh (tr. W. M. Thackston, Harvard, 1998).

Elsewhere Today

Start The Mongols at Baghdad from issue one tomorrow

Wayback Wire · No. 2 · The week to Wednesday, January 30, 1258