Siege of Baghdad (1258)

Historical background

Baghdad was founded in 762 by Caliph al-Mansur, the second ruler of the Abbasid dynasty, which had overthrown the Umayyad Caliphate in 750.^[1][2] Al-Mansur envisioned a purpose-built capital strategically placed away from hostile provincial centres and adjacent to the dynasty's Iranian base of support.^[1] Designed initially as a round city flanked by concentric circular fortifications, Baghdad expanded rapidly along the banks of the Tigris River, fed by an elaborate canal network linking the Euphrates and Tigris, including the celebrated Nahr Isa.^[3][4] Controlling commercial crossroads and regional taxation, Baghdad evolved into a global metropolis and the primary hub of the Islamic Golden Age.^[1][5] Centers of scholarship, most notably the House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma), as well as astronomical observatories, hospitals (bimaristans), and prestigious colleges like the Mustansiriya Madrasah, made the city what modern historians have called the intellectual capital of the planet.^[1][6] Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, Baghdad was one of only three cities worldwide, alongside Kaifeng and Hangzhou, with an estimated population reaching or approaching one million inhabitants.^[7][8]

During the tenth and eleventh centuries, the centralized authority of the Abbasid caliphs declined substantially.^[7][9] Distant provincial governors in North Africa, Egypt, Syria, and eastern Iran established autonomous hereditary dynasties, taking advantage of expansive imperial distances and slow communications.^[9] Within the capital, caliphs increasingly relied on purchased Turkish military slaves (mamluks), an institutional transformation initiated under Caliph al-Mu'tasim to counterbalance Arab and Persian factions.^[10] Turkish commanders quickly amassed domestic influence, dominating state appointments, deposing caliphs, and reducing the spiritual leaders to political figureheads, a condition described by medieval chronicler Ibn al-Tiqtaqa as reducing the caliph to a virtual captive in the hands of his own guards.^[10][11] External powers subsequently occupied Baghdad: first the Daylamite Shi'ite Buyids in 945, and then the Sunni Seljuk Turks in 1055.^[7][12][13] Under these dynasties, the temporal authority of the caliph was largely usurped, leaving the caliphal office as a spiritual and symbolic institution throughout the broader Islamic world.^[7][14]

The caliphate enjoyed a significant political and territorial revival under Caliph al-Nasir li-Din Allah, who reigned from 1180 to 1225.^[14][15] Al-Nasir exploited the fragmentation and collapse of the Great Seljuk Empire to reassert direct caliphal rule over central and southern Iraq.^[15][16][17] His assertive foreign policy brought him into severe conflict with the expanding Khwarazmian Empire to the east.^[15] When Khwarazmshah Ala al-Din Muhammad II prepared to march on Baghdad in 1217, his expedition collapsed in a mountain blizzard.^[15] Medieval chroniclers, including Ibn al-Athir, recorded persistent accounts that Caliph al-Nasir initiated secret diplomatic contacts with Genghis Khan, the rising founder of the Mongol Empire, encouraging him to assault Khwarazm from the east.^{[8][18][19][20][21]} Whatever the reality of al-Nasir's letters, Genghis Khan invaded the Khwarazmian realm in 1219 following the murder of a Mongol trade caravan at Otrar, annihilating the Khwarazmian state within two years.^[22][23][24]

Following the downfall of Khwarazm, Mongol armies under general Chormaqan arrived in northwestern Iran and Azerbaijan in 1230 to eliminate Prince Jalal al-Din Mankubirni.^[25] Chormaqan then established Mongol hegemony over the South Caucasus and began raiding Mesopotamian borderlands.^[25] In 1236, Chormaqan struck toward Irbil, which remained subject to Abbasid authority, inaugurating almost annual raids into Iraqi territory.^{[26][27][28][29][30]} Mongol cavalry reached the vicinity of Baghdad's outer defenses in 1238, but Abbasid armies repulsed them that year and again in 1245.^{[26][31][32][33][34]} Nevertheless, the caliphs sought accommodation, paying annual tribute to the Great Khan's court starting around 1241.^[30][35] Caliphal envoys attended the imperial kurultais for the enthronements of Guyuk Khan in 1246 and Möngke Khan in 1251.^[36][37][38] Guyuk demanded that Caliph al-Musta'sim submit fully and appear in person at Karakorum, a demand the Abbasids consistently evaded.^[37]

Domestic crisis and division in Baghdad

In 1242, Abu Ahmad Abd Allah al-Musta'sim bi-llah ascended the throne as the thirty-seventh Abbasid caliph.^[16][39] Muslim chroniclers of the era characterized al-Musta'sim as weak-willed, frivolous, and politically negligent.^[16][39][40] Ibn Kathir noted that the caliph was gentle-tempered but lacked vigilance and was excessively obsessed with hoarding gold and personal wealth.^[39] The historian Ibn Aybak al-Dawadari wrote that al-Musta'sim was reckless, foolish, and easily swayed by trivial companions, spending his time playing with pigeons and riding rare Egyptian donkeys while imperial governance unraveled.^[40][41] When Shajar al-Durr was installed as sultana in Cairo in 1250 after the Mamluk victory over the Seventh Crusade, al-Musta'sim famously sent a mocking letter to the Egyptian emirs asking whether they had run out of men so that he might send them one, even as his own administration was dispatching conciliatory gifts to Mongol commanders.^[42]

Internal conditions in Baghdad deteriorated sharply in the years immediately preceding the Mongol invasion.^[43][44] In late summer 1256 (654 AH), central Iraq suffered a major flood known in contemporary chronicles as al-Gharaq al-Musta'simi.^[43][44][45] The flood destroyed numerous urban quarters, swept away residential neighborhoods and commercial bazaars, caused rampant looting, and ruined extensive agricultural tracts across central Iraq.^[44][45] In the immediate wake of this calamity, fierce sectarian conflict erupted between Baghdad's Sunni and Twelver Shi'ite populations.^[44][45][46] The confrontation was aggravated by intense factional hatred between the caliph's two chief ministers: the Sunni grand dawatdar (chancellor and military leader) Mujahid al-Din Aybeg and the Shi'ite vizier Mu'ayyid al-Din Muhammad ibn al-Alqami.^[44][45][46] Caliphal troops and armed Sunni factions sacked the predominantly Shi'ite district of al-Karkh, committing plunder and outrages that left enduring communal bitterness and destabilized civil authority throughout the city.^[44]

Baghdad's military preparedness was crippled by institutional neglect and fiscal austerity.^[39][47] Chroniclers such as Ibn Kathir stated that the regular standing army of Baghdad, which had numbered nearly 100,000 cavalry during the reign of al-Mustansir, was systematically reduced to barely 10,000 men.^[39][47] Discharged soldiers were dropped from the army registers (diwan al-jund), leaving many former professional warriors impoverished and begging in public markets and at mosque gates.^[39][47] Later Sunni writers attributed this demobilization to deliberate sabotage by Ibn al-Alqami, though other sources indicate that Caliph al-Musta'sim routinely refused to disburse funds from his imperial treasury to equip volunteer levies or hire Kurdish mercenaries.^[16][48] The city walls, which had been restored in 1229, were left unreinforced and damaged by floodwaters, leaving the caliphal capital poorly defended despite impending foreign invasion.^[49][50][51]

Hulegu's western expedition

Following the Toluid Revolution of 1251, which elevated the sons of Tolui to supreme authority in the Mongol Empire, the fourth Great Khan Möngke convened a kurultai to reorganize imperial conquests.^[52][53] Möngke assigned his brother Kublai to conquer the Dali Kingdom and wage war against the Southern Song dynasty, while his younger brother Hulegu was entrusted with command over southwestern Asia.^{[52][53][54][55]} Hulegu was instructed to establish the Ilkhanate across Greater Iran, to crush the Nizari Ismaili Assassins in the Elburz Mountains, and to enforce the formal submission of all Muslim dynasties, including the Abbasid Caliphate, the Ayyubids of Syria, and the Mamluks of Egypt.^[54][55][56] Möngke ordered that the Abbasid caliph should be spared if he submitted obediently, paid regular tribute, and provided military levies for the Mongol armies, but directed Hulegu to destroy Baghdad and overthrow al-Musta'sim if he displayed resistance.^[55][57]

To ensure Hulegu's victory, Möngke ordered a massive mobilization across the Mongol realm.^[56][58][59] Every Mongol military unit was ordered to provide two out of every ten fighting men, comprising an estimated one-fifth of the empire's core nomadic manpower.^[58][59] Modern historians estimate the size of Hulegu's core force between 138,000 and 150,000 warriors, which swelled to between 200,000 and 300,000 men when incorporating allied contingents and auxiliary levies.^{[58][60][61][62]} The expeditionary force featured princes from all branches of the imperial family, including Golden Horde princes Balaghai, Tutar, and Quli; the Chagatayid prince Teguder; and commanders such as Kitbuqa, Arghun Aqa, Baiju Noyan, and Buqa Temür.^{[58][63][64][65]} A specialized corps of 1,000 northern Chinese siege engineers and artillerists, equipped with gunpowder pyrotechnics, flamethrowers, mangonels, and giant crossbows, accompanied the army under the leadership of Guo Kan.^{[58][66][67][68][69]}

The army set out from Karakorum in October 1253 and marched at an unusually measured pace to manage supply columns, preserve pasturage, and construct permanent river crossings.^[70][71] Hulegu advanced across Transoxiana, receiving formal submission from local governors such as Arghun Aqa at Kish in November 1255.^[70] Hulegu crossed the Oxus River (Amu Darya) in January 1256..^[72] His vanguard under Kitbuqa had already laid siege to Nizari strongholds in Kohistan and Tun.^[73][74] Following the assassination of Nizari Grand Master Ala al-Din Muhammad in December 1255, his youthful successor Rukn al-Din Khurshah attempted to negotiate while Mongol forces systematically invested his mountain fortresses.^[73][75][76] Khurshah surrendered at Maymun-Diz on 19 November 1256, and under his instruction, the reputedly impregnable fortress of Alamut surrendered on 15–20 December 1256.^[75][76][77] Hulegu ordered Alamut dismantled to its foundations, executed thousands of Nizari defenders, and sent Khurshah to Karakorum, where he was subsequently murdered.^[76][78]

Diplomatic confrontation and astrological omens

During his campaign against the Ismailis, Hulegu had demanded military reinforcements from Caliph al-Musta'sim.^[79][80] The caliph had initially assented, but his ministers argued that the real purpose of the request was to empty Baghdad of potential defenders..^[79] Al-Musta'sim cancelled the deployment, a decision that deeply angered Hulegu.^[79][80][81] In the summer of 1257, Hulegu established his headquarters on the Hamadan plain, where he received reinforcements from Anatolian Seljuks, Georgians, and Armenians led by Baiju Noyan.^[82][83][84] From Hamadan, Hulegu initiated a celebrated exchange of letters with the Abbasid court.^{[81][82][84][85]}

In his first missive, Hulegu reprimanded al-Musta'sim for withholding soldiers during the siege of Alamut and reminded him of the complete destruction suffered by powerful dynasties like the Khwarazmshahs and Seljuks at the hands of the Mongol Empire.^[81] Hulegu delivered an ultimatum demanding that the caliph raze Baghdad's defensive walls, fill in its moats, cede governance to his son, and appear in person to offer submission.^[81][86] If the caliph could not come personally, he was ordered to dispatch his three supreme ministers: the vizier Ibn al-Alqami, the grand dawatdar Mujahid al-Din, and the military commander Sulayman Shah.^[81][82] Hulegu concluded with a stark threat: 'When I lead my army against Baghdad in righteous wrath, whether you hide in the highest heavens or deepest earth, I will drag you down like a lion. I will not leave a single soul alive in your country, and I will turn your city, land, and empire into flames'.^[16][86][87]

Caliph al-Musta'sim replied with defiance, dismissing Hulegu as a youthful upstart intoxicated by brief good fortune.^{[86][88][89][90]} The caliph claimed that all Muslims from east to west, from monarchs to beggars, were obedient servants of the Abbasid throne who would march at his call, threatening that any conqueror targeting Baghdad had met with divine retribution.^{[88][89][90][91]} When Mongol envoys delivered Hulegu's letters to Baghdad, angry street mobs confronted them, tearing their garments and spitting in their faces.^[88][92][93] Deeply provoked, Hulegu retorted that the caliph was like a crooked bow whom he would straighten like an arrow, vowing to march on Baghdad with an army as numerous as ants and locusts.^{[86][87][92][94]}

Terrified by Hulegu's furious response, al-Musta'sim consulted his ministers.^[95][96] Ibn al-Alqami urged appeasement, advising the caliph to send substantial wealth, valuable treasures, and thousands of fine Arabian horses and camels to satisfy the Mongol prince.^[95][96] However, the dawatdar Mujahid al-Din argued against sending gifts, accusing the vizier of attempting to empty the treasury to ingratiate himself with Hulegu.^[95][96][97] Caliph al-Musta'sim abruptly reversed his policy, sending only token tribute alongside another provocative letter warning Hulegu against testing the fate of the House of Abbas.^{[95][97][98][99]} Meanwhile, Hulegu consulted his court astrologers regarding the proposed campaign.^{[100][101][102]} The court astronomer Husam al-Din cautioned against the assault, warning that celestial portents predicted that six disasters would follow: horses would perish, armies would fall sick, the sun would darken, rain would fail, and the Great Khan himself would die.^[100][101] Hulegu then summoned the celebrated Shi'ite polymath Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, who refuted Husam al-Din's warnings, demonstrating from historical precedent that many previous caliphs had been overthrown without causing cosmic collapse, and predicting that Hulegu would triumph and replace the caliph.^{[100][101][102]}

Mongol advance and the Battle of Dujayl

In late 1257, the Mongol command mobilized its forces in a synchronized three-pronged converging maneuver designed to encircle Baghdad completely.^{[63][65][103][104]} The right wing, commanded by Baiju Noyan and Buqa Temür and accompanied by Golden Horde princes, marched from northwestern bases through Mosul and Irbil.^{[63][65][104]} The ruler of Mosul, Badr al-Din Lu'lu', formally submitted to the Mongols, providing boat bridges across the Tigris, critical supplies, and auxiliary troops under his son Ismail.^{[39][62][65][105]} The left wing, commanded by Kitbuqa and Köke Ilge, advanced from the southeast through Luristan and Khuzistan toward the southern gates of Baghdad.^{[63][65][103][104]} Hulegu personally led the central army from Hamadan, traversing Kermanshah (which was sacked on 6 December 1257), Hulwan, and Asadabad, before descending through Khanaqin onto the eastern plain of Iraq.^{[65][103][104]}

By mid-January 1258, Baiju's northern column crossed the Tigris River near Tikrit and approached the western approaches of Baghdad along the Dujayl Canal.^{[106][107][108][109]} His deputy Sughunchaq pushed an advance reconnaissance detachment to within 25 miles (40 kilometers) of the city.^[106][109] On 16 January, the dawatdar Mujahid al-Din Aybeg and Ibn Kurr led about 20,000 men out of Baghdad against the Mongol vanguard near Anbar..^{[109][110][111][112][113]} In the initial clash, the Abbasid forces pushed Sughunchaq's forces back and claimed a tactical success.^{[109][110][111][113]}

While the Abbasid troops celebrated their apparent victory in their encampment that evening, Mongol engineers executed a decisive maneuver.^{[109][110][111]} Baiju ordered his engineers to breach the retaining dykes and embankments of the Dujayl Canal and the Tigris River flume upstream.^{[109][110][111][113][114]} Floodwaters rapidly surged across the low-lying plain, inundating the Abbasid encampment and cutting off escape routes.^{[110][111][113][114]} At dawn on 17 January, Baiju and Buqa Temür launched a surprise counter-attack on the disoriented Abbasids.^{[110][111][113]} Entrapped in mud and water, approximately 12,000 Abbasid soldiers were slaughtered or drowned.^{[110][111][113]} Ibn Kurr was killed, while the grand dawatdar and a handful of survivors barely managed to flee back into Baghdad; remnants of the routed cavalry dispersed toward Hillah and Kufa.^{[110][111][113]}

The siege of the city

Following the destruction of the field army, the Mongol pincers closed firmly around Baghdad.^[114][115] Kitbuqa crossed the Tigris to the south and approached the Karkh suburbs, while Hulegu reached the eastern side of Baghdad on 18 January by one account and on 22 January by another..^{[109][115][116][117]} The Mongol investment was comprehensive: within twenty-four hours, the besiegers constructed a continuous wooden palisade and circumvallation wall encircling the entire city, accompanied by an interior trench.^[115][118] To block caliphal officials and inhabitants from fleeing down the Tigris, Hulegu ordered heavy pontoon bridges built across the river both upstream and downstream from the city walls.^{[49][109][118][119]} These river barriers were heavily garrisoned and equipped with mangonels and ballistae, cutting off all naval communication.^{[49][118][119]}

Because the immediate alluvial plain lacked quarry stone suitable for siege artillery, the Mongol forces improvised projectiles.^{[120][121][122]} Troops felled the abundant palm orchards around the suburbs, using heavy date palm trunks as battering rams and projectiles, while dismantling masonry from suburban buildings.^{[118][120][121][122]} Specialized transport units brought heavy stone blocks from the Jebel Hamrin mountains, a three-day carriage journey from the city.^[120] The Chinese artillery corps under Guo Kan erected brick mounds around the perimeter to mount catapults, heavy ballistae, and mangonels, showering Baghdad's defenses with stone, incendiary pots of burning naphtha, and primitive pyrotechnics.^[68][120]

The systematic bombardment of Baghdad's fortifications commenced on 29 or 30 January 1258.^{[109][116][119][123][124]} Hulegu positioned himself at the center of the siege line facing the Ajami Tower on the southeastern wall; commanders Köke Ilge and Farba covered the Kalwadha Gate; princes Quli, Balaghai, Tutar, Shiramun, and Arqiyu targeted the Suq al-Sultan Gate; and Baiju and Sughunchaq operated on the western bank opposite the Adhudi Hospital.^[116][117] Simultaneously, Mongol archers shot message-bearing arrows across the battlements into the city, assuring safety to judges, scholars, prominent sayyids, Christians, merchants who had maintained commercial ties with the Mongols, and any inhabitants who refrained from bearing arms.^{[114][122][125][126]} Inside the walls, despair spread rapidly.^[127] An oft-cited anecdote recorded by Ibn Kathir describes Caliph al-Musta'sim being entertained by dancing girls during the early days of the siege; an arrow pierced a window and struck a favored dancing girl named Arafa, prompting the horrified caliph to inspect the projectile, upon which was written: 'When God wills the execution of His decree, He deprives men of their understanding'.^[128][129]

The primary focus of the Mongol artillery was the Ajami Tower, where breaches were steadily opened between 1 and 3 February.^{[16][109][127][130]} Abbasid counter-attacks initially repulsed the attackers, but on 4–5 February, Mongol assault teams stormed the breached masonry, dislodged the defenders, and seized firm control of the entire eastern ramparts.^{[109][127][131][132]} Realizing that the city was lost, the grand dawatdar Mujahid al-Din attempted to escape downriver on 4 February aboard a small flotilla of boats.^{[109][119][130][133]} However, Buqa Temür's soldiers guarding the downstream pontoon barrier bombarded the ships with catapult stones, arrows, and flaming naphtha pots, sinking three vessels and forcing the dawatdar to return to the city.^{[109][119][130][133]}

Capitulation and surrender

With the eastern walls firmly under Mongol control, Caliph al-Musta'sim initiated frantic peace overtures.^{[126][134][135]} He dispatched vizier Ibn al-Alqami and Makkikha II, Patriarch of the Church of the East, carrying precious gifts and offering full financial submission, annual tribute, and the inclusion of the Great Khan's name in the Friday khutbah across all mosques.^{[109][121][134][136]} Hulegu rejected these negotiations, insisting that conditional submission had been an option only while his army was still at Hamadan, but that total, unconditional surrender was now required.^{[109][126][137]} Hulegu's uncompromising stance was hardened after an arrow fired from the city walls struck a high-ranking Mongol officer, Hindu the Bitikchi, in the eye.^[138]

Hulegu demanded the surrender of the chief advocates of resistance.^[138] On 7 February, the grand dawatdar Mujahid al-Din and Sulayman Shah surrendered themselves to the Mongol camp alongside approximately 700 of their kin and retainers.^{[135][138][139][140]} Hulegu interrogated Sulayman Shah, demanding how an astrologer of his reputation could have failed to predict his own ruin and failed to counsel his sovereign toward peace; Sulayman Shah reportedly answered that the caliph had been stubborn in his own opinion and deaf to prudent counsel.^{[135][140][141]} Hulegu ordered both commanders executed; their severed heads, alongside that of the dawatdar's son Taj al-Din, were sent to Badr al-Din Lu'lu' in Mosul to be exhibited from the city gates.^[140][141] On the same day, large contingents of unarmed caliphal soldiers and civilians poured out of Baghdad under the impression that they would be permitted to migrate to Syria, but the Mongols segregated them into groups of thousands, hundreds, and tens, and methodically executed them.^{[138][142][143]}

Having exhausted all options, Caliph al-Musta'sim formally surrendered Baghdad on Sunday, 10 February 1258 (4 or 5 Safar 656 AH).^{[39][109][144]} Accompanied by his sons Abu al-Fadl Abd al-Rahman, Abu al-Abbas Ahmad, and Abu al-Manaqib Mubarak, and a delegation of 3,000 magistrates, theologians, and notables, the caliph entered Hulegu's camp.^{[109][131][144][145]} Only seventeen companions were permitted to accompany the caliph into Hulegu's presence; the remainder were immediately executed.^[39] Hulegu instructed al-Musta'sim to order the entire population of Baghdad to deposit their weapons and evacuate the city to be registered in a general census.^{[39][144][145][146]} The inhabitants laid down their weapons and left the city as ordered, and the Mongols killed them..^{[39][144][145][147]} The caliph and his immediate family were placed under armed guard near the Kalwadha Gate in Kitbuqa's camp.^{[148][149][150]}

The sack of Baghdad

On 13 February 1258, the Mongol armies entered Baghdad and began the sack of the city..^{[109][146][151][152][153]} Rather than spontaneous rioting, contemporary and modern analyses describe the sacking as a disciplined Mongol execution of standard punitive policy applied to major fortifications that resisted unconditional surrender.^[151][154] For a full week, terminating on 20 February, troops methodically stripped neighborhoods, looting commercial bazaars, residential estates, and municipal complexes.^[152][155] Chroniclers recorded that thousands of inhabitants hid in subterranean sewer channels, dry wells, communal bath furnaces, and public taverns; Mongol search parties systematically set fire to buildings or smashed bolted doors to hunt down refugees.^{[39][156][157]} Those seeking sanctuary on flat roofs were pursued and butchered, with contemporary writer Ibn Kathir lamenting that blood ran from household rainspouts into the cobblestone streets.^[156][157]

Specific communities were spared from the devastation.^{[39][155][158]} Sayyids, prominent Muslim scholars, merchants who had maintained commercial partnerships with the Mongols, and Shi'ite delegations from Hillah were instructed to mark their doorways, ensuring that their households were bypassed.^[155][159] The substantial Christian population of Baghdad was granted royal protection due to the intercession of Hulegu's senior wife, Doquz Khatun, who was a devout member of the Church of the East.^{[39][155][158][160]} Christians gathered safely within major churches, where they were guarded by Mongol detachments; Muslim notables even deposited their remaining financial fortunes with Patriarch Makkikha II to preserve them from looters.^[136] Christian troops within Hulegu's coalition, particularly Georgian forces seeking vengeance for the Khwarazmian sack of Tbilisi several decades earlier, as well as Armenian and Cilician contingents, participated vigorously in the sacking of Muslim quarters.^{[60][161][162][163][164]}

The cultural devastation of Baghdad became legendary in Islamic history.^{[165][166][167]} Historical institutions and architectural landmarks were pillaged and set ablaze, including the Caliphal Great Mosque, the venerated shrine of Imam Musa al-Jawad, the tombs of past Abbasid caliphs, and numerous civic hospitals.^[166] The House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma) and thirty-six municipal public libraries were thoroughly plundered.^{[166][167][168]} In sixteenth-century historical descriptions, it was famously asserted that so many priceless manuscripts across medicine, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, and literature were cast into the Tigris that the waters ran black from dissolved ink and red from the blood of slaughtered scholars, with books piled so high they formed a bridge across the river.^{[165][167][169][170][171]} The historian Michal Biran has described the story as a literary metaphor for the destructive nature of the Mongols and has shown that large libraries reopened for learning and teaching within two years of the siege, while George Lane has doubted that the great library was destroyed, since learned members of the Mongol command such as Nasir al-Din al-Tusi would not have allowed it; primary sources state that al-Tusi saved thousands of volumes and moved them to a building at Maragheh.^{[165][167][172][173][174]}

Casualties and epidemics

Estimates of human casualties during the siege and sack vary widely across medieval and modern records.^{[16][175][176][177]} Syrian chronicler Bar-Hebraeus recorded tens of thousands of deaths, while early Persian historians estimated fatalities between 800,000 and 2,000,000.^{[16][169][175][177][178]} Ibn Taghribirdi and Ibn Kathir cited 800,000 to nearly two million dead, and al-Dhahabi favored approximately 800,000.^[39][169] Hulegu himself, writing in a 1262 letter to King Louis IX of France, claimed that his armed forces had slain more than 200,000 people in the city.^{[16][175][177]} Modern historians such as Martin Sicker have suggested lower casualty baselines around 90,000, while others suggest that higher figures reflect total demographic collapse compounded by subsequent pestilence.^{[16][176][179][180][181]}

The accumulation of unburied human remains in the streets and ruins generated severe secondary disasters.^{[166][179][182][183]} Mounds of decomposing corpses fouled the regional atmosphere, producing a stench so intense that Hulegu was compelled to relocate his royal encampment upwind of Baghdad.^{[166][182][184][185]} Following heavy seasonal rains, a virulent epidemic swept through the surviving population, killing thousands who had survived the Mongol sword.^{[39][179][186]} The epidemic spread along trade and military communication arteries into northern Syria, causing widespread mortality in Aleppo and Damascus.^{[39][186][187]} Recent medical historians, including Monica Green, have investigated whether this post-siege outbreak represented an early manifestation of the Second Plague Pandemic (Yersinia pestis), highlighting that the trans-Eurasian transport of millet and provisioning in grain sacks under Mongol military logistics provided optimal habitats for flea-bearing rodent vectors.^{[179][186][188][189]}

Execution of Caliph al-Musta'sim

On Friday, 15 February 1258, Hulegu entered the caliphal palace complex and ordered al-Musta'sim to disclose the hidden treasures amassed by his dynasty over five centuries.^{[190][191][192]} Terrified, the caliph forgot the locations of the treasury keys, requiring the Mongols to break open door locks.^[191][192] Al-Musta'sim yielded 2,000 robes of honor, 10,000 gold dinars, and numerous jewel-encrusted vessels, but Hulegu dismissed these as surface wealth and demanded the subterranean vaults.^[191][192] The caliph revealed underground basins beneath the central courtyard filled with solid bars of red gold, each ingot weighing 100 mithqals, alongside heaps of pearls and gemstones.^[191][192] Hulegu distributed portions of this treasure to senior commanders, including Guo Kan, while wagonloads of gold, silver, and precious regalia were dispatched to Möngke Khan in Karakorum or conveyed to Shahi Island in Lake Urmia, where Hulegu prepared his royal treasury and future burial vault.^{[190][191][193]} Hulegu then ordered the caliph's imperial harem counted; the household contained 700 wives and concubines and 1,000 attendant maidservants, of whom al-Musta'sim was permitted to select 100 kin and favorites while the rest were distributed as captives.^[191][194]

During his occupation of the palace, Hulegu staged a banquet in which he mockingly acted as host to the captive caliph.^[190][193] The polymath Nasir al-Din al-Tusi recorded that Hulegu placed a covered golden platter before al-Musta'sim and commanded him to eat.^[195] When the caliph protested that gold was inedible, Hulegu demanded why he had hoarded the metal instead of distributing it to pay soldiers who might have defended his empire, or why he had not melted down the iron palace gates to forge arrowheads to prevent the Mongols from crossing the Tigris.^[195] When al-Musta'sim fatalistically replied that it had been God's will, Hulegu replied: 'What will befall you is also the will of God'.^[195] This dialogue evolved into a popular European medieval folktale, popularized in the writings of Marco Polo and the Livre des merveilles, asserting that Hulegu locked the caliph inside his treasury tower with no food or water, leaving him to starve to death amidst heaps of gold.^{[196][197][198][199]}

In reality, Hulegu debated the ultimate fate of the caliph with his inner circle.^[200] While some advisors feared supernatural vengeance if the supreme pontiff of Islam were killed, al-Tusi and other counselors assured Hulegu that caliphs had perished in civil conflicts throughout history without divine retaliation.^{[100][101][102]} Hulegu resolved to execute al-Musta'sim to shatter the pervasive political myth of caliphal inviolability.^[200][201] On 20 February 1258, after Hulegu had halted the plundering and moved his camp away from the city to escape the foul air, al-Musta'sim was executed..^[109][184] To observe the strict nomadic taboo against shedding royal blood upon the earth, Mongol executioners rolled al-Musta'sim in a heavy woolen carpet or felt sack and trampled him to death beneath the hooves of cavalry horses, though some minority chronicles alleged strangulation or drowning.^{[39][184][202][203][204][205]}

The execution of the caliph was accompanied by a purge of the dynasty.^{[39][184][206][207]} Al-Musta'sim's eldest son, twenty-five-year-old Abu al-Abbas Ahmad, and his twenty-three-year-old middle son, Abu al-Fadl Abd al-Rahman, were executed alongside five caliphal servants.^{[39][206][207]} Caliphal daughters Fatima, Khadija, and Maryam were taken captive and distributed, with one daughter sent east to the Great Khan's imperial court.^{[39][171][206][207][208]} The caliph's youngest son, sixteen-year-old Mubarak, was spared; he was placed under the guardianship of Hulegu's wife Oljai Khatun and dispatched north to Maragheh in the care of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, where he was married to a Mongol noblewoman, fathered two sons, and lived out his life without political significance.^[206] Mongol detachments methodically hunted down surviving male members of the Abbasid lineage throughout Baghdad, extinguishing the regional branch of the five-century-old dynasty that had ruled thirty-seven successive caliphs since 750.^{[206][207][209]}

Post-siege administration and reconstruction

Following the cessation of violence on 20 February 1258, surviving residents gradually emerged from subterranean shelters.^[206][210] Contemporary observers recounted that survivors emerged pale, emaciated, and deeply traumatized, resembling disinterred corpses, with family members initially unable to recognize one another.^[210][211] Inhabitants organized work details to clear streets of human corpses and animal carcasses, bury the deceased, and reopen municipal markets.^[206][210] Several chronicles preserve a tradition that Hulegu originally intended to burn Baghdad entirely to the ground, but was dissuaded by general Kitbuqa, who argued that Baghdad remained a commercial crossroads capable of generating large tax revenue for the Ilkhanate.^[210][212]

Hulegu established a provisional administration to govern Baghdad and southern Mesopotamia.^{[206][210][213]} He reappointed the vizier Muhammad ibn al-Alqami to his administrative post; modern historians note that Mongol policy was to execute traitors and cite the reappointment against the later accusations of treachery.^{[214][215][216]} Fakhr al-Din al-Damaghani was appointed head of the state chancery (sahib al-diwan); Ali Ba'atar (a Khwarazmian commander) was stationed as the chief Mongol military governor (shahna or darughachi); Imad al-Din Umar al-Qazwini was appointed municipal deputy; and Nizam al-Din Abd al-Mun'im al-Bandaniji became chief judge (qadi al-qudat).^{[206][210][213]} Hulegu stationed a garrison of 3,000 Mongol cavalry in the city under Köke Ilge and Buqa Temür to maintain security, supervise public works, and clear debris.^{[171][206][210][213]} Imad al-Din Umar al-Qazwini rebuilt the Caliph's Mosque and the shrine of Musa al-Jawad.^[206] Ibn al-Alqami died less than three months after being reappointed vizier..^{[39][214][215]} In 1259, Hulegu designated the Persian scholar and historian Ata-Malik Juvayni as governor of Baghdad, Lower Mesopotamia, and Khuzistan, an office he held for two decades during which local reconstruction progressed steadily.^[217][218] On 8 March 1258, Hulegu departed Iraq, moving his main army north to Hamadan and Azerbaijan.^[213][219]

Debates on agricultural and economic decline

For much of the twentieth century, historians argued that the Mongol conquest of 1258 dealt a fatal blow to the extensive agricultural infrastructure of Mesopotamia.^{[220][221][222]} Modern scholars such as Svatopluk Souček and Steven Dutch suggested that the deliberate cutting of retaining dykes during military operations, the collapse of ancient qanat systems, and the slaughter or dispersal of agricultural engineers caused the extensive canal network between the Euphrates and Tigris to silt up irreversibly.^[220][223] In this interpretation, the irrigation systems that had sustained urban civilization in the Fertile Crescent since ancient Sumerian and Babylonian eras were permanently broken, causing extensive desertification, devastating crop yields, and reducing Iraq to an impoverished provincial backwater until the twentieth century.^{[220][221][222][223][224]}

Alternative ecological and historical perspectives have qualified this narrative.^[225] Other researchers emphasize that central Iraqi agriculture had been undergoing centuries of progressive environmental degradation prior to Hulegu's arrival, driven by long-term soil salinization.^[225]

The Ibn al-Alqami treason controversy

One of the most enduring debates in Arab and Islamic historiography concerns the role of the caliph's Shi'ite vizier, Mu'ayyid al-Din Muhammad ibn al-Alqami.^{[46][128][226]} In the decades following the sack, prominent Sunni historians, including Ibn Kathir, al-Dhahabi, Ibn al-Dawadari, and later Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti, accused Ibn al-Alqami of high treason against the Abbasid Caliphate.^{[39][226][227]} According to this narrative, Ibn al-Alqami acted after he was angered by the sectarian unrest directed against the Shi'a.^[128] These writers alleged that the vizier systematically reduced the caliphal garrison from 100,000 men to barely 10,000, entered into clandestine correspondence with Hulegu, provided the Mongols with intelligence regarding Baghdad's military vulnerabilities, and deceptively urged Caliph al-Musta'sim to surrender unconditionally with the secret goal of replacing the Sunni Abbasids with an Alid Fatimid caliphate.^{[39][226][228][229][230]} In popular Arabic parlance, the vizier's name became a proverb for betrayal.^[231]

Conversely, other medieval and modern historians have rejected the allegations of treason, and some describe them as counter-accusations arising from his rivalry with the grand dawatdar.^{[96][214][232][233]} The contemporary Persian historian Rashid al-Din Hamadani, who possessed intimate knowledge of Mongol state records, depicted Ibn al-Alqami not as a treacherous conspirator, but as a competent and loyal statesman who made repeated, desperate efforts to avert imperial disaster.^[96][216] Historical analyses indicate that Ibn al-Alqami had sought to negotiate a realistic diplomatic settlement and payment of tribute, recognizing that the caliphate lacked the military strength to confront the Mongol grand army.^[96] His rival, the grand dawatdar Mujahid al-Din Aybeg, opposed these diplomatic compromises; Ibn al-Alqami accused the dawatdar of plotting to depose al-Musta'sim in favor of the caliph's eldest son Abu al-Abbas, and the dawatdar denied it and accused the vizier in turn of acting as Hulegu's agent.^[233][234] Modern scholars emphasize that Mongol imperial policy strictly mandated the summary execution of turncoats and traitors; they argue that Hulegu's decision to confirm Ibn al-Alqami in the vizierate after the conquest shows that the Mongols did not treat him as a traitor, and they attribute his reappointment to his efforts to dissuade the caliph from a foolish course.^[214][216]

Geopolitical and religious ramifications

The destruction of Baghdad reverberated across the Eurasian world.^{[235][236][237]} Throughout the Christian Near East and Western Europe, the fall of Baghdad was initially celebrated.^[237][238] Indigenous Christian communities and Western Crusaders viewed the overthrow of the caliphate as divine retribution against the center of Islamic power, with writers hailing Hulegu and Doquz Khatun as modern avatars of the Christian Roman emperor Constantine and his mother Saint Helena.^[237][238] However, Latin Christian enthusiasm cooled as the sheer scale of Mongol violence became apparent, particularly after Mongol forces plundered the Crusader city of Sidon in 1260.^[239] European rulers also recalled the haughty diplomatic missives sent by Great Khan Guyuk to Pope Innocent IV in 1246, which had demanded absolute Western European submission rather than equal military alliance.^[240]

In the Islamic world, the sudden abolition of the 500-year-old universal caliphate created profound psychological and theological shock.^{[182][236][241][242]} Chronicler Ibn al-Athir recorded that the disaster was so great that he hesitated for years before recording its details, wishing he had died before witnessing the collapse of Islam's universal temporal leadership.^[236][243] The prominent Syrian poet Taqi al-Din Ismail al-Tanukhi composed a famous sixty-six-verse elegy lamenting the physical and spiritual ruin of Baghdad.^[169][244] Muslim regional rulers across the Middle East rapidly recognized Mongol suzerainty, including the Atabegs of Fars and Kerman and the Seljuk sultans of Rum, Izz al-Din Kaykawus II and Rukn al-Din Kilij Arslan IV.^[245] Some modern Iranian historians argue that the elimination of the Arab caliphate allowed Persian language, culture, and political institutions to re-emerge autonomously, culminating centuries later in the distinct imperial identity of the Safavid Empire.^[245]

The geopolitical crisis culminated in a direct military confrontation between the Mongols and the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt.^[246][247] Following the subjugation of Mesopotamia, Hulegu invaded Syria in late 1259, capturing Aleppo and Damascus with the cooperation of local Christian auxiliaries and Ayyubid defectors.^{[169][248][249][250]} When Möngke Khan died during the Song campaign in China, Hulegu withdrew eastward with the bulk of his army to secure his dynastic interests, leaving general Kitbuqa with a reduced force in Syria.^[247][250] In Cairo, Mamluk Sultan Saif al-Din Qutuz and emir Rukn al-Din Baybars executed Hulegu's threatening envoys, displaying their heads on the Bab Zuweila gate, and marched north.^[251] On 3 September 1260, the Mamluks shattered Kitbuqa's army at the Battle of Ain Jalut in the Jezreel Valley, marking the first major permanent halt to Mongol westward expansion.^{[247][250][251]}

The sack of Baghdad worsened relations between Hulegu and Berke, and open war between the two Mongol rulers later followed.^[252] Berke Khan, ruler of the Golden Horde and a grandson of Genghis Khan who had converted to Islam around 1252, was infuriated by Hulegu's execution of the caliph and devastation of Muslim cities.^[252][253] According to Rashid al-Din, Berke proclaimed: 'Hulegu has sacked all the cities of the Muslims and has brought about the death of the Caliph. With the help of God, I will hold him to account for so much innocent blood'.^[253] Berke formed an alliance with Sultan Baybars of Egypt, and in 1262, when Hulegu wanted to avenge the defeat at Ain Jalut, he instead faced invasions by the Golden Horde in what became known as the Berke–Hulegu War.^[252][254]

To legitimize their own imperial authority against both the Mongols and domestic rivals, the Mamluk sultans sponsored an institutional restoration of the Abbasid Caliphate.^{[235][255][256]} In 1261, Sultan Baybars welcomed Abu al-Qasim Ahmad, an uncle of the last caliph al-Musta'sim who had escaped the massacre in Baghdad, installing him in Cairo as Caliph al-Mustansir II.^{[235][256][257]} A few days after his installation, al-Mustansir II gave Baybars the title of universal sultan, which lent him added legitimacy.^[258] The Cairo Abbasid caliphs were puppets of the Mamluk state and never gained much recognition in the wider Muslim world.^[235][257] The Cairo caliphal line survived until 1517, when the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim I conquered Egypt, after which the caliphal title was claimed directly by the Ottoman sultans until the abolition of the institution in 1924.^[235][259]

Historiographical assessment and legacy

For centuries, medieval and modern commentators regarded the sack of Baghdad in 1258 as the absolute termination point of the Islamic Golden Age, treating the catastrophe as the primary historical catalyst for the civilizational retreat of the Middle East and the concurrent intellectual ascent of Western Europe.^{[260][261][262][263]} The scientist Steven Dutch of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay compared the scale of the loss to the destruction of the Athens of Pericles and Aristotle by a nuclear weapon.^[264] However, modern writers including Michal Biran and Jim Al-Khalili have criticized this argument as simplistic.^{[165][260][265][266]} Baghdad had already experienced significant economic and political decline during the tenth and eleventh centuries under the Buyids and Seljuks, long before the arrival of the Mongols.^[7][12][267] Furthermore, major imperial libraries and collegiate academies, including the Mustansiriya Madrasah, reopened for teaching and research within two years of the siege under Ilkhanid patronage.^[165][268]

Rather than causing a permanent intellectual eclipse, the establishment of the Ilkhanate stimulated substantial scientific, artistic, and literary productivity across the region.^{[165][267][269][270]} Under the active sponsorship of Hulegu and his successors, scholars such as Nasir al-Din al-Tusi and musical theorists like Safi al-Din al-Urmawi enjoyed prestigious court appointments.^{[165][269][270]} The locus of intellectual vitality shifted northeast from Baghdad to Iranian centers such as Tabriz, Sultaniyya, and Maragheh.^{[267][270][271][272]} Extensive historical analyses suggest that the ultimate long-term marginalization of Baghdad was cemented not in 1258, but by subsequent military devastations, particularly the sacks executed by Timur in 1393 and 1401, followed by the Ottoman–Safavid wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.^{[269][273][274]}

The trauma of the 1258 siege left an indelible imprint on Arab cultural memory and political rhetoric.^[275] The term 'Tatar' entered popular speech across the Arab world as a synonym for ruthless, destructive barbarism.^[275] In modern Iraqi political discourse, the siege has been repeatedly invoked to frame contemporary military crises.^[275] In a televised address in January 2003 marking the anniversary of the Gulf War, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein explicitly compared the impending invasion by the United States and its coalition allies to the hordes of Hulegu, declaring that 'the Mongols of the modern age will commit suicide upon the walls of Baghdad'.^[275] Concurrently, late medieval Ottoman chroniclers, such as Sadeddin Efendi, highlighted that the founder of the Ottoman dynasty, Osman I, was reputed to have been born in 1258, the exact year of Baghdad's downfall, interpreting the coincidence as divine providence designed to ensure the eventual restoration of Islamic imperial unity under Ottoman rule.^[276]

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82. Chambers 1979, p. 143; Boyle 1968, pp. 345–346; Bai︠a︡rsaĭkhan 2011, p. 129. (Chambers, James (1979). The Devil's Horsemen: The Mongol Invasion of Europe. New York: Atheneum. ISBN 978-0-6891-0942-3.)
83. T. May, The Mongol Empire, 166.
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89. الهمذاني، رشيدُ الدين فضل الله (1960م). جامع التواريخ، الإيلخانيون، تاريخ هولاكو (ط. الأولى). القاهرة - مصر: دار إحياء الكُتب العربيَّة. ص. 269 - 270.
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92. الهمذاني، رشيدُ الدين فضل الله (1960م). جامع التواريخ، الإيلخانيون، تاريخ هولاكو (ط. الأولى). القاهرة - مصر: دار إحياء الكُتب العربيَّة. ص. 270 - 271.
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96. الهمذاني، تاريخ هولاكو، مجلد 2/ 272 - 271
97. Jackson 2017, p. 128; Chambers 1979, p. 144. (Jackson, Peter (2017). The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-3001-2533-7.)
98. الهمذاني، رشيدُ الدين فضل الله (1960م). جامع التواريخ، الإيلخانيون، تاريخ هولاكو (ط. الأولى). القاهرة - مصر: دار إحياء الكُتب العربيَّة. ص. 274 - 276.
99. الهمذاني، تاريخ هولاكو، مجلد 2/276 - 274
100. Jackson 2017, p. 129; Boyle 1968, p. 346. (Jackson, Peter (2017). The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-3001-2533-7.)
101. إسلام ويب: التحالف الشيعي المنغولي وإسقاط الخلافة الإسلاميَّة بِبغداد نسخة محفوظة 15 يوليو 2017 على موقع واي باك مشين
102. Ibidem, s. 41.
103. Boyle 1968, pp. 346–347; Jackson 2017, p. 128. (Boyle, John Andrew (1968). "Dynastic and Political History of the Il-khans". In Boyle, J. A. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 303–421. ISBN 0-521-06936-X.)
104. Stefan Heidemann: Das Aleppiner Kalifat, S. 44
105. Bai︠a︡rsaĭkhan 2011, p. 129 (Bai︠a︡rsaĭkhan, D. (2011). The Mongols and the Armenians (1220-1335). Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-9-0041-8635-4. JSTOR 10.1163/j.ctt1w8h10n.)
106. Boyle 1968, p. 347; Atwood 2004, p. 28. (Boyle, John Andrew (1968). "Dynastic and Political History of the Il-khans". In Boyle, J. A. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 303–421. ISBN 0-521-06936-X.)
107. الهمذاني، رشيدُ الدين فضل الله (1960م). جامع التواريخ، الإيلخانيون، تاريخ هولاكو (ط. الأولى). القاهرة - مصر: دار إحياء الكُتب العربيَّة. ص. 285.
108. Nicolle, S. 130
109. (en) Christopher Pratt Atwood, Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire, Facts On File, 2004 (ISBN 978-0-8160-4671-3, lire en ligne), p. 28-29
110. Boyle 1968, p. 347; Atwood 2004, p. 28; Chambers 1979, p. 144. (Boyle, John Andrew (1968). "Dynastic and Political History of the Il-khans". In Boyle, J. A. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 303–421. ISBN 0-521-06936-X.)
111. الهمذاني، رشيدُ الدين فضل الله (1960م). جامع التواريخ، الإيلخانيون، تاريخ هولاكو (ط. الأولى). القاهرة - مصر: دار إحياء الكُتب العربيَّة. ص. 285-286.
112. Cüzcani,Tabakat-i Nasıri,c.II,s.294
113. الهمذاني، تاريخ هولاكو، مجلد 2/286-285
114. P.K. Davis, Besieged, 67.
115. Boyle 1968, pp. 347–348; Chambers 1979, pp. 144–145. (Boyle, John Andrew (1968). "Dynastic and Political History of the Il-khans". In Boyle, J. A. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 303–421. ISBN 0-521-06936-X.)
116. الهمذاني، رشيدُ الدين فضل الله (1960م). جامع التواريخ، الإيلخانيون، تاريخ هولاكو (ط. الأولى). القاهرة - مصر: دار إحياء الكُتب العربيَّة. ص. 286.
117. الهمذاني، تاريخ هولاكو، مجلد 2/286
118. Nicolle, S. 132
119. J. Marozzi, Baghdad, 141.
120. Chambers 1979, p. 145; Buell 2003, pp. 51–52; Marozzi 2014, chapter 5. (Chambers, James (1979). The Devil's Horsemen: The Mongol Invasion of Europe. New York: Atheneum. ISBN 978-0-6891-0942-3.)
121. J. Weatherford, Genghis Khan, 182.
122. Ibidem, s. 42.
123. Atwood 2004, p. 2; Buell 2003, p. 51; Boyle 1968, p. 348. (Atwood, Christopher P. (2004). Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire. New York: Facts on File. ISBN 978-0-8160-4671-3. Retrieved 2 March 2022.)
124. Chambers 1979, p. 145; Marozzi 2014, chapter 5. (Chambers, James (1979). The Devil's Horsemen: The Mongol Invasion of Europe. New York: Atheneum. ISBN 978-0-6891-0942-3.)
125. Lane 2003, p. 32; Chambers 1979, p. 145. (Lane, George (2003). Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran: A Persian Renaissance. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-4152-9750-9.)
126. الهمذاني، رشيدُ الدين فضل الله (1960م). جامع التواريخ، الإيلخانيون، تاريخ هولاكو (ط. الأولى). القاهرة - مصر: دار إحياء الكُتب العربيَّة. ص. 287.
127. Buell 2003, p. 52; Atwood 2004, pp. 28–29; Boyle 1968, p. 348. (Buell, Paul D. (2003). Historical Dictionary of the Mongol World Empire. Lanham: The Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-4571-8.)
128. ابن كثير، أبو الفداء إسماعيل بن عُمر القُرشي البصري الدمشقي؛ تحقيق عبدُ الله بن عبد المُحسن التُركي (1418 هـ - 1997م). البداية والنهاية، الجزء الثالث عشر (ط. الأولى). القاهرة - مصر: دار هجر للطباعة والنشر والتوزيع والإعلان. ص. 150 - 151.
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