Hulegu the Mongol

Unlike his grandfather Chinggis Khan, the Mongol ruler Hulegu Khan is little known in the West. But his destruction of two Islamic empires gave him a notoriety that persists to this day. 

The siege of Arbela in the era of Hulegu Khan, from the Jami al-tavarikh of Rashid al-Din, c. 1596. The Celeveland Museum of Art. Public Domain.

In November 2002, just months before the American-led invasion of Iraq, Osama bin Laden released a tape in which he excoriated the administration of the former US President George H.W. Bush. The leader of Al-Qaeda claimed that members of the Bush government had killed more people in Baghdad and destroyed more of the city’s buildings ‘than Hulegu of the Mongols’. He offered no further information about who Hulegu was. He may have assumed, perhaps correctly, that most people in the Islamic world knew of the great Mongol warrior. Few westerners seemed even to have heard of him.

This is not surprising, yet it should be. Hulegu was a grandson of Chinggis (or Genghis) Khan. He was also the elder brother of Qubilai Khan, himself qaghan (supreme ruler) and emperor of China, most familiar to English speakers through Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, Kubla Khan (1816). Hulegu was also important in his own right. He was the founder of the Persian Ilkhanid dynasty, which ruled much of the Near and Middle East from the mid-13th century. The Mongols, who had threatened Europe between 1237 and 1242, came close to conquering Egypt and extending Mongol rule into North Africa. The defeat of Hulegu’s forces by Mamluks, Egyptian slave soldiers, at Ain Jalut near Nazareth in September 1260 was often included in the lists of decisive battles of world history with which an earlier generation of military historians sought to titillate their readers. It has been claimed that Hulegu’s campaign offered Christendom an unparalleled opportunity to ally with him and destroy Muslim power in the region, which would have utterly transformed the history of the Middle East. There were sound reasons, on both sides, why this never became a reality.

Map by Tim Aspden.

As bin Laden’s tape suggested, it was the assault on Baghdad in 1258, rather than any alliance with Christendom, for which Hulegu became notorious. The capture of the city put an end to the Abbasid dynasty, which had ruled much of the Middle East since the eighth century. The last caliph, al-Masta’sim, was executed – reportedly by being wrapped in a carpet before being kicked to death by horses (Mongols had taboos about allowing the blood of important personages to touch the ground). The city’s population was butchered. When Mongol troops sacked Baghdad’s Grand Library, it was claimed that the River Tigris ran black from the ink of manuscripts and red from the blood of scholars. The 14th-century Persian historian Wassaf Abdallah, born decades after the event, asserted that 800,000 people had been killed and that Hulegu had been forced to move his camp in order to avoid the stench of the rotting corpses.

Hulegu’s attack on Baghdad was one of many examples of ‘frightfulness’, as the Mongols attempted to expand their empire. To contemporaries, Hulegu might have seemed just another pagan barbarian, much like those that had preceded him. There was much more to him, however, than the events of 1258 suggest. For one thing, he was better known to outsiders than earlier Mongol rulers had been, especially to Europeans, with whom he was in occasional correspondence. More surprising still, he was not universally disliked, even within the Islamic world. The Persian historian of the period, Ata-Malik Juwayni, had much to say in favour of the Mongols in general and Hulegu in particular. Juwayni was a senior official in the Mongol hierarchy and so it should not surprise us that his History of the World-Conqueror avoided implicit criticism of the Mongol bid for empire. But there was more to his approval – and that of other contemporaries – than mere opportunism.

Hulegu was probably born in 1218. His father, Tolui, was Chinggis Khan’s fourth son. His mother, Sorghaghtani Bek, was a Turkic Keraite princess. In the division of the empire that followed Chinggis’ death in 1227, Tolui was given the Mongol heartlands to rule. Though his three older brothers would all become qaghans, Tolui never attained the same rank. Yet the supreme rulership would come to be securely lodged in his family. Little is known of Hulegu’s early years, although, according to Juwayni, his brother Mongke, who became qaghan in 1251, saw ‘the indications of sovereignty and detected in his enterprises the practices of conquest’. Hulegu emerged as a significant figure when Mongke ordered him to command a Mongol army into Persia and south-west Asia. 

Silver dirham of Hulagu Khan, Tiblisi, c.  1256-1265. American Numismatic Society. Public Domain.
Silver dirham of Hulagu Khan, Tiblisi, c.  1256-1265. American Numismatic Society. Public Domain.

A major reason for renewed military activity was the consolidation of Mongke’s own regime. The Mongol imperial house had come close to collapse following the unexpected death of qaghan Guyug in 1248. Guyug’s widow, Ogul Qaimish, became regent, but she was unable to prevent Mongke from obtaining the supreme rulership in what amounted to a coup. When she attempted a counter-coup of her own, she was unsuccessful and her execution soon followed. Over the next few years Mongke proceeded, sometimes violently, to diminish the power of rival branches of the family. Mounting substantial campaigns in distant lands was an obvious way to secure his power and divert the energies of his rivals. Hulegu’s campaign in the west was to be accompanied by that of another brother, Qubilai, against Song China.

Persia had not recovered from the destruction of the Khwarezm empire during the campaigns of Chinggis. The collapse of Khwarezm authority led to the emergence of rival powers in the region, which Mongke was unwilling to tolerate. Hulegu was therefore ordered to re-establish Mongol rule in Persia and then extend it westward. Hulegu’s best general, Kitbuqa, left the capital with an advance guard early in 1253. Hulegu followed in October. For much of the next two years Hulegu marshalled and provisioned his forces for the forthcoming campaign. The army moved into what is now Uzbekistan, where it remained until the beginning of 1256.

Hulegu was already aware that his two most important potential enemies were the Assassins, based in their castle of Alamut, and the Abbasid caliphate, with its capital in Baghdad. The Assassins were Nizari Ismailis, a Shi’a sect, originating around the time of the First Crusade. A century earlier, they had been one of the major powers in the Islamic world, with a deserved reputation for murdering opposing leaders. Even in Qaraqorum, the distant capital of the Mongol empire, Mongke still felt the need to take precautions against the possibility of assassination.

The destruction of the Assassins became Hulegu’s priority. Mongol forces had already reduced some Assassin castles by the time that Hulegu arrived in person. The new Assassin imam, Rukn ad-Din, surrendered almost immediately, allowing Hulegu to save both time and manpower. The imam, however, was playing for time, always a risky strategy in the face of Mongol power. Though he surrendered some fortresses, he did not order that all of them be abandoned. Rukn ad-Din made the surprising request to visit Qaraqorum and speak with Mongke. His request was denied. By this time most of the remaining Assassin fortresses, including Alamut, had either surrendered or been captured. Assassin rule in Persia, though not in Syria, had ended. Since the qaghan had no further use for the imam, his escort was ordered to kill him on the return journey. He was ‘kicked to a pulp’.

The destruction of Assassin power made Hulegu a figure of admiration in much of the Islamic world. As an orthodox Sunni, Juwayni invariably referred in his History to the Ismailis as ‘heretics’. ‘Thanks to the glorious fortune of the world-illuminating king [Hulegu], if an Assassin still lingers in a corner, he plies a woman’s trade’, he wrote. ‘And in truth, that act was the balm of Muslim wounds and the cure for the disorders of the Faith.’ Juwayni’s view was, no doubt, widely shared across the Muslim world. Even in the face of the ‘infidel’ Mongols, deep divisions within Islam prevented united resistance.

Hulegu moved into Iraq in March 1257, issuing demands to the Abbasid caliph couched in the language of Mongol diplomacy. Caliph al-Mustas’im was reminded of the numerous kingdoms and states that had already fallen to Mongol rule. He was ordered to dismantle Baghdad’s defences and to present himself at Hulegu’s camp. Al-Mustas’im’s reply reminded Hulegu that many had tried to capture Baghdad and all had failed. He called Hulegu a young man who had just started on his career and advised him to go home.

Hulegu had clear instructions: he was to take Baghdad if it failed to acknowledge Mongol suzerainty and offer tribute. The siege of the city began in late January 1258. The Mongol forces before Baghdad were enormous; perhaps two thirds of the total available to the empire, including Chinese experts in siege warfare. Baghdad was defended by no more than 20,000 men and Al-Mustas’im could not count on the loyalty of everyone in his capital. Baghdad contained a substantial Shi’a population, which might well prefer a Mongol presence to that of the Sunni caliphate. Al-Mustas’im’s own vizier, Ibn al-‘Alqami, was a Shi’a, who was later plausibly accused of having deliberately weakened the garrison of Baghdad. Hulegu reappointed him to the same position once the siege was over.

It did not last long. After just a week’s bombardment, one of the principal gates was destroyed and the Mongols entered the city. Early in February 1258 al-Mustas’im surrendered. On Hulegu’s instructions, the caliph ordered resistance to cease. The city was given over to plunder for a week. Hulegu himself, in a letter to Louis IX of France, estimated that 200,000 people had died. The caliph and most of his family were executed.

Why did Hulegu order such immense destruction? In part, it was traditional Mongol policy and Hulegu was repeating the deeds of Chinggis Khan and his own father, Tolui. But there was more to his actions. By defeating the Assassins, he obtained the gratitude of the Sunni world; by destroying the Abbasid caliphate, he won over Shi’a Islam and – just as important – Christendom. As much as anything, Hulegu’s actions were based on the principle of divide and rule. 

A Mongol-style horseman from a 14th century facade, Kubachi, Dagestan. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public Domain.
A Mongol-style horseman from a 14th century facade, found in Kubachi, Dagestan, which was part of Hulegu’s khanate. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public Domain.

Both in the Crusader states and in Europe, Christians initially hoped to benefit from the destruction of Muslim power in the region. Hulegu himself was not a Christian; he was usually described as having leanings towards Buddhism. If so, he probably did not lean far, since his was the last major Mongol funeral to be accompanied by human sacrifice. But his armies contained many foreign Christians, including Turks, Georgians and Armenians. In addition, both his mother and his wife, Doghuz Khatun, were Nestorian Christians, as was his principal general, Kitbuqa. Christians, especially those of the Eastern Church, might well have expected protection and advancement from such powerful patrons. Some might even have hoped for the mass conversion of Mongols to Christianity.

Following the fall of Baghdad, Hulegu moved his forces into Ayyubid Syria where, in January 1260, they seized Aleppo and then raided other cities, including Baalbek and Jerusalem. The attack on Baalbek was assisted by Bohemund VI of Antioch, who accepted Mongol suzerainty, the only Latin Christian ruler in the region to do so. When Damascus fell in March, three Christian leaders, Bohemund, King Hethum I of Armenia and Kitbuqa, entered the city together. It probably seemed that Muslim power in the region had come to an end. Mamluk Egypt was now the last significant Muslim state confronting the Mongols. Its sultan, Qutuz, was given the usual choice offered by the Mongols: surrender or extermination.

Significantly, Hulegu was not present at the fall of Damascus. He had learned of the unexpected death in China of his brother Mongke in April 1259 and it is possible that Hulegu regarded himself as a possible candidate for the supreme rulership. It is more likely, however, that he supported the claims of his older brother, Qubilai. He was certainly opposed to those of another brother, Arigh Boke, who had proclaimed himself qaghan in Qaraqorum. Civil war broke out between Arigh Boke and Qubilai. It was, therefore, essential that Hulegu should return to his domain, lest Arigh Boke should attempt to remove him from it. There was in any case considerable doubt as to how far even Mongke had intended Hulegu to remain in permanent possession of his conquests. According to the contemporary Persian historian Rashid al-Din, Hulegu was told publicly by Mongke that he was to return to Mongolia after completing his mission, but informed privately that he was to stay and rule. This arrangement seems improbable. It is more likely that Mongke reluctantly accepted that Hulegu would be in de facto possession of Persia and Syria. Later reference to a secret agreement was designed to add legitimacy to Hulegu’s position. 

The title used by Hulegu and his successors was Ilkhan, ‘subordinate khan’; although later Ilkhans were to acknowledge the qaghan, the Ilkhanate was always effectively independent. Until the dispute between Arigh Boke and Qubilai was resolved, it was wise for Hulegu to return to his own power base and he moved himself and the bulk of his forces to Azerbaijan. Qubilai did not defeat Arigh Boke until 1264, just a year before Hulegu’s death. Although Qubilai was enthroned as qaghan, the title was nominal. The Mongol empire was splitting into its component sections.

Hulegu’s departure for Persia had two consequences. First, Kitbuqa was left with a much smaller force than had been available to Hulegu, but was still expected to complete the conquest of Syria and then advance into Mamluk Egypt. Second, it proved impossible to conceal the divisions in the Mongol empire from the Mamluks. Their sultan, Qutuz, took the offensive. He killed the Mongol envoys in Cairo and then advanced into Palestine. Qutuz sent a request to the Latin Christians for safe passage through their territories. The barons met at Acre to decide their response, a meeting that was regarded by some contemporaries and many later historians as the great lost opportunity for western Christendom. The barons – more or less unanimously – decided to allow Qutuz’s army to move through their lands. As a result, Qutuz was able to inflict a crushing defeat on the Mongols at Ain Jalut. Kitbuqa was killed and, within days, Qutuz was master of both Damascus and Aleppo. There was now no chance that Syria would become the seedbed of a Christian revival.

Although the barons’ decision has been criticised, there was no real alternative. To any objective observer, the Mongols were at least as much a threat to Christendom as Islam and perhaps more so. Despite the fact that high-ranking Mongols such as Kitbuqa were Christian, this seemed to make little difference to their actions in the field. It must have been clear that Mongols did not understand the concept of alliances between equal powers. By the standards of their day, they were tolerant of differing religious faiths, but only because they were unimportant to them. What mattered was the obligation, which they had accepted since Chinggis’ reign, to govern the whole world. Any ruler who had not accepted Mongol overlordship was by definition a rebel. In contrast, Christians and Muslims had been able to live together in the region, often peacefully, for long periods since 1099. To the Christians of the Holy Land it must have seemed wiser to give tacit support to an enemy who was at least familiar to them.

Hulegu Khan giving a feast and dispensing favor upon the amirs and princes, from the Jami al-tavarikh of Rashid al-Din, c. 1596-1600. The Celeveland Museum of Art. Public Domain.
Hulegu Khan giving a feast and dispensing favor upon the amirs and princes, from the Jami al-tavarikh of Rashid al-Din, c. 1596. The Celeveland Museum of Art. Public Domain.

Qutuz did not enjoy his triumph for long. He was murdered while returning to Egypt and replaced by Baybars I, who annexed Syria and was able to defeat a renewed Mongol incursion in December 1260. After this, Hulegu was occupied elsewhere for the remainder of his life. Berke, ruler of the Khanate of the Golden Horde – effectively, western Russia – had converted to Islam and was appalled by the destruction of the Abbasid caliphate. He had written to Mongke: ‘He [Hulegu] has sacked all the cities of the Muslims. With the help of God I will call him to account for so much innocent blood.’ Berke’s and Hulegu’s khanates had ill-defined common borders that were disputed in the Caucasus; it made sense for Berke to propose an alliance with the Mamluk sultanate and ambassadors were exchanged in 1261. Berke also supported Arigh Boke in his conflict with Qubilai. Warfare between the Golden Horde and Hulegu broke out the following year. Hulegu’s attempted invasion was thwarted when he was defeated on the River Terek in Georgia by Berke’s forces. 

In April 1262, Hulegu sent a letter to Louis IX of France, requesting that the French fleet blockade the Egyptian coast, while he began a renewed campaign against the Mamluks. It is unclear whether Louis received this letter. Hulegu also sent envoys to Pope Urban IV, which did not arrive, but were intercepted in Sicily and returned. The pope was aware of some of these approaches and was disposed to treat them favourably now that Baybars was emerging as a threat to Christians. Not much came of these contacts, although Hulegu’s successors would continue their efforts to seek some sort of alliance with the kingdoms of western Europe. They were never likely to be successful. It was Mongol weakness, not strength, that made Christians marginally more interested in the possibility of an alliance with them than they had been in 1260. The political reality was that an Ilkhan who was able to defeat the Egyptians would inevitably pose an equal or greater threat in due course. It was a circle that could never be squared.

Hulegu died on 8 February 1265 and was buried, along with a number of women from his retinue, on the island of Shahi on Lake Urmia, in modern Iranian Azerbaijan. He had destroyed two of the major powers of the Islamic world and reduced many of their cities to rubble. His defeat at Ain Jalut rescued the rest of the Muslim world from Mongol rule and ended the existence of the Latin states of the Holy Land, which would be overrun by the Mamluks in the decades after Hulegu’s death. He had founded a dynasty that would survive until the 1330s. He had also attempted, too late, to form an anti-Muslim alliance with European powers, when the Mongol empire has already begun the process of dissolution. As Osama bin Laden showed, there are many reasons to remember ‘Hulegu of the Mongols’. 

 

Nicolas Kinloch taught history at the Netherhall School & Sixth Form College, Cambridge.