The Mongol Sweep through Jibal, Azerbaijan and Georgia

اجتياح التتر بلاد الجبل وأذربيجان والكرج

c. 1220 CE · 617 AH

Rayy → Hamadan → Tiflis

In 617 the Mongols reached Rayy in pursuit of Khwarazm-shah, catching its people off guard; they seized and plundered it, took the women captive, enslaved the children, and moved on at speed. Along their way they plundered every city and village, doing many times what they had done at Rayy, until they reached Hamadan; its ruler came out with money, garments and mounts seeking safe-conduct, and they granted it and then left, marching on to Zanjan, where they did many times over the same. Then Qazvin: its people sheltered in the city and fought them, but they entered it by storm, and the fighting went on inside until they were cutting one another with knives; more than forty thousand dead were counted among the people of Qazvin. When winter came upon them they went to Azerbaijan and reached Tabriz, where its lord Uzbek ibn al-Bahlawan did not even consider fighting them, being occupied with heavy drinking night and day; he made peace with them for money, garments and mounts. They then went to the sea coast to winter there, and pushed out toward Georgia, where some ten thousand Georgians fought them; they were routed and most of them killed. A Turkic mamluk of Uzbek's named Aqush joined the Mongols; he gathered the Turkmen and Kurds and corresponded with the Mongols, who inclined toward him on account of their shared stock, and he marched at their head into Georgia, until the Georgians gathered near Tiflis. Aqush met them first and they fought fiercely; the Mongols caught up with them when they were exhausted, and they were routed in the worst defeat, in Dhu'l-Qa'da. Ibn al-Athir says: by God, I have no doubt that whoever comes after us, once the time has grown distant and he reads this event written down, will deny it and find it hard to credit, and the truth is in his hands ¹.