Researchers
The Mongols and After
The Mongols and after: Genghis Khan's storm that swept Asia, then the Islamic rebuilding. Hulagu destroyed Baghdad in 1258 — the caliph died and the libraries burned — but the Mamluks stopped the tide at Ayn Jalut in 1260, the Mongols' first great defeat. Then the conquerors themselves changed: Ghazan the Ilkhanid king took Islam with his soldiers, and Timur became another builder of Samarkand where Ulugh Beg raised his observatory and star tables. So the calamity turned to wonder: the states born of the invasion became Islamic — Ilkhanids, Mamluks, Mughal India — and the civilisation that nearly perished rose again on the very frontiers Genghis's sons had raided. There lies the last lesson: the hand that razed Baghdad — his son preserved her; and God brings the living from the dead, for the Qur'an's civilisation is stronger than raiders' armies.