After the death of Jalal al-Din Mankoburni this was the...

After the death of Jalal al-Din Mankoburni this was the first Muslim victory in 30 years and it broke the spell of the Mongol invincibility. The Mongols were essentially an engine of destruction.

They mowed down all resistance and their opponents “feel to the right and left like the leaves down winter.” They have been described by Sir Henry Howorth as one of those races “which are sent periodically to destroy the luxurious and the wealthy, to lay in ashes the parts and culture which grow under the shelter of wealth and easy circumstances.”[^5] According to ‘Ata Malik Juwaini, Hulagu Khan’s secretary, who was appointed Governor of Baghdad after the destruction of the ‘Abbasid Caliphate, Chingiz Khan described himself at Bukhara as the “scourge of God” sent to men as a punishment for their great sins.[^6] The bewildering extent of the blood-thirsty ferocity, insatiable thirst for massacre, and devastating destruction which brought unprecedented suffering for the greater portion of the civilized world, would be just impossible to believe, had the facts not been confirmed from different sources, both Eastern and Western.

All historians agree that wherever the Mongols went they exterminated populations, pillaged towns and cities, wreaked special vengeance upon those who dared to resist them, converted rich and smiling fields into deserts, and left behind the smoke of burning towns.

In the words of Chingiz Khan himself, quoted by Rashid al-Din Fadl Allah, the famous Prime Minister of the Mongol period in Iran and the author of Jami al-Tawarikh ,[^7] “the greatest joy is to conquer one’s enemies, to pursue them, to see their families in tears, to ride their horses and to possess their daughters and wives.” In old Mongol traditions there is a story that the future world conqueror was born with a piece of clotted blood in his hands.[^8] The senseless destruction, cruelty, outrage, spoliation, and the lightning speed of the Mongol attack have been described by Juwaini in the pithy sentence uttered by a fugitive from Merv, “They came and uprooted, they burned, they slew, they carried off, and they departed.”[^9] To have an idea of the brutal lust of conquest and ruthless ferocity shown by the Mongol hordes it would suffice to trace the wonton disregard of human life shown by them in some of the many prosperous cities and towns they ravaged.