Vizier Mu'ayyad al-Din al-Alqami

The vizier of the Abbasid caliph al-Musta'sim. The sources differ on his role in the fall of Baghdad, and this page gives what each source says in its own attribution.

Al-Suyuti says he was eager to remove the Abbasid state and transfer it to the Alids. He secretly sided with the Tatars, encouraged them to come to Iraq and take Baghdad. He kept their news from the caliph and advised him to cut down most of the army and to flatter the Tatars. ¹

Al-Suyuti says that he did not achieve what he wanted, and he tasted humiliation from the Tatars until he died of grief. ²

Ibn Khaldun says he was a Rafidi, and that his letter reached Hulagu on the road, urging him to march on Baghdad. Then he went out to him when he camped at Baghdad, sought safe conduct for himself, and returned with the safe conduct to al-Musta'sim. ³

Ibn al-Imad says he wrote to the Tatars when the plunder fell on the people of his sect. He sent his brother and his slave to Hulagu and asked to be his deputy over Baghdad. He used to keep from the caliph the letters of the lord of Mosul. ⁴

The museum does not judge between these accounts. Comparing them needs an additional source.