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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books A History of Muslim Philosophy Volume 2, Book 4 Chapter 40: Fall of The ‘Abbasid Caliphate The Mongol invasion, which shook the world of Islam to its very foundations in the seventh/13th century was an unprecedented phenomenon in the history of mankind.

A people, hitherto unknown even to their neighbours, poured forth from the bare and bleak plateau of Karakorum (Mongolia) and with lightning speed overran the Asian and European continents from China to Hungary and East Prussia, and built up the largest empire know to man. These people were the Mongols[^1] or Tartars as called by their contemporaries. Their invasion inflicted more suffering on the human race than any other incident recorded in history.

They lived in a wild and primitive state of society. “They are,” says Matthew Paris, “inhuman and beastly, rather monsters than men, thirsty for and drinking blood, tearing and devouring the flesh of dogs and men...They are without human laws.”[^2] The Mongol storm burst on the Muslim world in two separate waves.

The first dates back to 616/1219 when Chingiz Khan[^3] (550/1155 – 625/1227), who first as the leader of a band of adventurers and later installed as their ruler in 603/1206 welded these barbarians into a strong and well-disciplined military force, attacked the Empire of the Khwarizm Shahs (470/1077 – 629/1231) which at the height of its power stretched from the Ural Mountains to the Persian Gulf and from the Euphrates to the Indus excluding the two Iranian provinces of Khuzistan and Fars.

The second wave broke on Khurasan in 654/1256 when Chingiz Khan’s grandson, Hulagu Khan (614/1217 – 664/1265), was selected by his brother, Emperor Mangu Khan (649/1251 – 655/1257), and the great quriltay , i.e. the Mongol assembly, held in 649/1251, to annihilate the ‘Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad and the Isma‘ilis of Alamut and Quhistan in North Iran.

The first invasion, which probably could not have been averted, was provoked by a further incident in which the Governor of Utrar,[^4] a frontier town in Khwarizm, murdered a number of Mongol tradesmen alleged to have been spies.

Thereupon Chingiz Khan despatched an embassy consisting of two Mongols and one Turk to the Court of ‘Ala al-Din Mohammad Khwarizm Shah (596/1199 – 617-1220) to protest against this violation of the laws of hospitality and demanded that he should hand over the Governor to them or prepare for war.