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The Mongols at BaghdadThe week to Wednesday, February 6, 1258Issue the Third

Ajami Tower brought down

Mongols hold Baghdad’s eastern walls

Reconstructed from historical sources

The Ajami Tower is down and the Mongols hold the tops of Baghdad’s eastern walls; the caliph has offered to surrender, the Khan has turned away his gifts and his son, and today sent his own envoys into the city.

Mongol troops at the wall of Baghdad with ladders and siege towers: a Mughal painting of 1596 from a copy of Rashid al-Din's Jami' al-tawarikh. Cincinnati Art Museum.
Mongol troops at the wall of Baghdad with ladders and siege towers: a Mughal painting of 1596 from a copy of Rashid al-Din’s Jami’ al-tawarikh. Cincinnati Art Museum.Photograph by Unknown Mughal painter (1596); photograph by Sailko, CC BY 3.0 · CC BY 3.0 (photograph); painting public domain

BAGHDAD, Wednesday.—The Mongols stand tonight on the tops of Baghdad’s eastern walls, and the caliph is sending one embassy after another to a Khan who will take none of them.

The walls went first. On Friday, the twenty-fifth of Muharram, the Ajami Tower on the east wall, where the Khan’s catapults have been at work since the assault began, was brought down.

The Mongols made a great breach there and broke into the city. But the citizens of Baghdad stood against them, got the upper hand and drove them out again beyond the wall.

The besiegers came back to the same place. On the twenty-seventh of Muharram they pressed against the ramparts opposite the fallen tower and cleared the tops of the wall of their defenders.

By evening the Mongols held all the tops of the eastern walls, and there they stand. The streets below them are still the caliph’s.

Rashid al-Din, Jami' al-tawarikh (tr. W. M. Thackston, Harvard, 1998) · Bar Hebraeus, Chronography (tr. E. A. Wallis Budge, London, 1932).

Caliph offers to surrender; Khan turns away his gifts and his son

Reconstructed from historical sources

BAGHDAD, Wednesday.—The Commander of the Faithful has offered to give himself up, and Hülegü Khan has sent back both his gifts and his son.

With the eastern walls in Mongol hands and no way out of the city, al-Musta’sim made up his mind: “I will surrender.”

He sent two officials of his court, Fakhr al-Din Damghani and Ibn Durnus, out to the Khan with a few gifts. Hülegü paid them no attention, and they came back.

My reliance is on the Creator, not on dirhems and dinarsHülegü Khan, on hearing the letter of Qara Sonqor, the caliph's vanguard captain

On Tuesday, the twenty-ninth of Muharram, the caliph’s middle son, Abu’l-Fadl Abdul-Rahman, came out to the camp with the head of the chancery and other dignitaries, bringing a large tribute.

The Khan would not take it.

On the road to Hulwan, before the siege, when the defiant letter of the caliph’s vanguard captain was read to him, Hülegü laughed and said: “My reliance is on the Creator, not on dirhems and dinars.”

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

Khan sends Nasir al-Din Tusi into Baghdad as his envoy

Reconstructed from historical sources

BEFORE BAGHDAD, Wednesday.—Hülegü Khan today sent envoys of his own into Baghdad: Khwaja Nasir al-Din Tusi, the astronomer who advises him, and Ay Temür.

On this last day of Muharram the caliph’s eldest son, the vizier Mu’ayyad al-Din Ibn al-Alqami and a group of courtiers came out to the camp to plead for Baghdad.

Their pleading was to no avail. When they went back, the Khan’s two envoys went with them, bound for the caliph.

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

Dawatdar’s boats driven back on the Tigris at al-Uqab

Reconstructed from historical sources

Mongol troops and catapults at the walls of Baghdad, and on the Tigris a boat trying to get away downstream: a double-page painting from a 14th-century copy of Rashid al-Din's Jami' al-tawarikh. Berlin, Diez albums.
Mongol troops and catapults at the walls of Baghdad, and on the Tigris a boat trying to get away downstream: a double-page painting from a 14th-century copy of Rashid al-Din’s Jami’ al-tawarikh. Berlin, Diez albums.Photograph by Unknown 14th-century Persian painter · Public domain

BAGHDAD, Wednesday.—The river holds Baghdad as fast as the walls do.

The Dawatdar Mujahid al-Din Aybak, the caliph’s commander, who had urged his master to leave by water, took to a boat himself and tried to slip away down the Tigris.

At the village of al-Uqab the Mongols’ river guard met him with catapult stones, arrows and vials of naphtha.

Three of his boats were taken and all aboard them killed. The Dawatdar turned about and made his way back to the city.

Rashid al-Din, Jami' al-tawarikh (tr. W. M. Thackston, Harvard, 1998) · Minhaj al-Siraj Juzjani, Tabakat-i-Nasiri (tr. H. G. Raverty, vol. 2, London, 1881).

Khan’s decrees on arrows promise safety to scholars and priests

Reconstructed from historical sources

Siege engines and a shield screen before the wall of Baghdad: a 15th-century Persian miniature from a manuscript of the Shahnameh.
Siege engines and a shield screen before the wall of Baghdad: a 15th-century Persian miniature from a manuscript of the Shahnameh.Photograph by Unknown Persian painter · Public domain

BEFORE BAGHDAD, Wednesday.—While his army fought for the walls, Hülegü Khan had six decrees written out, fastened to arrows and shot into Baghdad from six sides.

They promise safety to the men of law and religion and to all who stay out of the fight: “The lives of cadis, scholars, shaykhs, Alids, and Nestorian priests, and persons who do not combat against us are safe from us.”

For any man who takes up arms against the Khan, the decrees hold no promise.

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

In Brief

Vizier sent back to the city a second time

BEFORE BAGHDAD.—The vizier, Mu’ayyad al-Din Ibn al-Alqami, came out to the Khan’s camp again the day after his first errand. This time he brought the head of the chancery and a group of well-known citizens with him. They were sent back into the city.

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

Khan rebukes two princes at Suq Sultan

BAGHDAD.—On the twenty-seventh of Muharram, on the Suq Sultan side of the city, the men of the princes Balagha and Tutar had not yet gone up the wall while others had. Hülegü rebuked the two princes, and their men climbed.

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

Elsewhere Today

  • ROME.—The Romans broke open the prison where Brancaleone was held and made him senator again. He has driven out his enemies and hanged two of the Annibaldi, kinsmen of a cardinal. His party, under excommunication, say no pope can excommunicate them, and Pope Alexander IV has withdrawn to Viterbo.

    Matthew Paris, English History (tr. J. A. Giles, vol. 3, London, 1854).

  • LONDON.—King Henry kept Christmas in London awaiting the envoys he had sent to France. About Epiphany the French king received them civilly, but his brothers and nobles flatly refused the English demand for Normandy and the other lost lands, and the envoys have come home empty-handed. On the border the Welsh have seized towns of the Lord Edward and other nobles, carried off the stores, burned the rest and beheaded the men they found.

    Matthew Paris, English History (tr. J. A. Giles, vol. 3, London, 1854).

  • ENGLAND.—Autumn floods destroyed the year’s crops and great numbers have died of hunger. About Christmas a measure of wheat rose to ten shillings. Not one frosty or fine day came, only heavy rain and mist, until the feast of the Purification.

    Matthew Paris, English History (tr. J. A. Giles, vol. 3, London, 1854).

Start The Mongols at Baghdad from issue one tomorrow

Wayback Wire · No. 3 · The week to Wednesday, February 6, 1258