- Genghis Khan
- the founder who united the Mongol tribes and conquered northern China
- Hulagu
- the grandson of Genghis Khan who besieged and destroyed Baghdad in 1258
- the fall of Baghdad
- the 1258 fall of the Abbasid caliphal capital to the Mongol armies
- Ayn Jalut
- the 1260 battle where the Mamluks finally halted the Mongol advance
- the Mamluks
- the soldier-rulers of Egypt and Syria who defeated Mongols and Crusaders
- the Ilkhanids
- the Mongol state ruling Iran that embraced Islam under Ghazan
- Ghazan
- the Ilkhan who accepted Islam in 1295 and carried his realm with him
- Timur
- the Turkic-Mongol conqueror whose short-lived empire centred on Samarkand
- Samarkand
- Timur's capital city that became a centre of learning and architecture
- Ulugh Beg
- Timur's astronomer grandson who built the famous Samarkand observatory
- the Islamised states
- the Mongol successor states that turned Muslim and carried Islam deeper into Asia
- the first defeat
- the first great Mongol defeat, suffered at Ayn Jalut in 1260
