Bahā answered that he had no concern with earthly greatness...

Bahā answered that he had no concern with earthly greatness, being a poor recluse; and that he would willingly leave the country, so as to remove from the king's mind all misgivings on his score. He accordingly quitted Balkh, with a suite of about forty souls, after delivering a public address in the great mosque before the king and people.

In this address he foretold the advent of the Moguls to overturn the kingdom, possess the country, destroy Balkh, and drive out the king, who would then flee to the Roman land, and there at length be killed. So he left Balkh, as the prophet (Muhammed) had fled from Mekka to Medīna. His son Jelālu-’d-Dīn was then five, and the elder brother, ‘Alā’u-’d-Dīn, seven years old.

The people everywhere on his road, hearing of his approach or forewarned in dreams of his coming, flocked to meet him and do him honour. Thus he drew near to Bagdād. Here he was met by the great Sheykh Shahābu-’d-Dīn, ‘Umer, Suherverdī, the most eminent man of the place, deputed by the Caliph Musta‘zim to do him honour. He became the guest of the Sheykh. The Caliph sent him a present of three thousand sequins, but he declined the gift as being money unlawfully acquired.

He also refused to visit the Caliph; but consented to preach in the great mosque after the noon service of worship on the following Friday, the Caliph being present. In his discourse he reproached the Caliph to his face with his evil course of life, and warned him of his approaching slaughter by the Moguls with great cruelty and ignominy. The Caliph again sent him rich presents in money, horses, and valuables, but he refused to accept them.

Before Bahā’u-’d-Dīn quitted Bagdād, intelligence was received there of the siege of Balkh, of its capture, and of its entire destruction, with its twelve thousand mosques, by the Mogul army of five hundred thousand men commanded by Jengīz in person (in a.h. 608, a.d. 1211). Fourteen thousand copies of the Qur’ān were destroyed, fifteen thousand students and professors of the law were slain, and two hundred thousand adult male inhabitants led out and shot to death with arrows.

Bahā’u-’d-Dīn went from Bagdād to Mekka, 1 performed the greater pilgrimage there, proceeding thence to Damascus, and next to Malatia (Melitene, on the Upper Euphrates), where, in a.h. 614 (a.d. 1217), he heard of the death of Jengīz. The Seljūqī Sultan, ‘Alā’u-’d-Dīn Keyqubād, was then sovereign of the land of Rome (Rūm, i.e. , Asia Minor), and was residing at Sīwās (Sebaste).