Siege of Baghdad

6 Key excerpts on "Siege of Baghdad"

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  eBook - ePub

  Muslim Fortresses in the Levant

  Between Crusaders and Mongols

  • Kate Raphael(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  h was taken only eighteen years later during the reign of Abagha.

  When a siege camp was eventually organized both sides employed mainly siege machines, and teams were worked night and day. In the Siege of Baghdad an iron ram was used, but this was a rather rare instance. One of the most informative narratives of the Siege of Baghdad is given by , who in one short sentence describes everything that flew through the sky between the two camps: catapult stones, arrows, spears and javelins.76 It seems more than likely that the mounted archers, who were the most dominant force in the Mongol army, dismounted and fired from the ground. This would have increased the number of fighters considerably and provided both a stronger attack and better fire cover for the teams operating the siege machines. On a few occasions the Mongols tried to surround and seal off the city or the fort in order to prevent the population from escaping and food and supplies from entering.

  The best example of construction work carried out by the Mongols was probably that used at the Siege of Baghdad. After a few weeks of siege the Mongols decided on a change of tactics. This entailed a great investment of time and work, since it included the building of towers that rose above the city walls; once they were completed siege machines were mounted on them, thus gaining the advantage of height. The towers were built of mud bricks, collected from the local town industry, which was positioned outside the city walls. In addition, the water tunnels leading into the city were blocked so that no one could escape.77 Another example of this tactic of surrounding a besieged city can be seen in the siege of Aleppo in December 657/1259. At the outset of the siege, a large earthen rampart known as a chappar was built around the city. While it was being built teams of sappers tried to undermine the foundations of the city wall.78

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  A Short History of Iraq

  • Thabit Abdullah(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The Arab conquest of Iraq in 636 introduced new foundations for social harmony through the Arabic language and the Islamic religion which were gradually adopted by the majority of the inhabitants. While old religious and linguistic communities persisted, and new divisions such as the Sunni–Shi‘i schism developed, a degree of harmony under the notion of autonomous communities was established. By the late Umayyad period, the threat of a destructive social conflict had emerged with the problem of tribal competition and the discrimination against the Mawali. In 750, the Abbasid revolution introduced a new vision for social harmony founded on a powerful absolutist central government in Iraq, the equality of all Muslims and a greater commitment to internal development. The new cosmopolitan cities of Iraq, especially Baghdad, became the centres of wealth and the phenomenal flowering of culture. This balance began to unravel by the tenth century, when regional separation, class conflict, the introduction of new peoples from Central Asia and overall economic decline gave way to rising sectarian violence. During the Buwayhid and Seljuk periods, some attempts were made to address these problems, but these dynasties failed to produce new ideas to set the country on a different course and, as a result, central authority gradually grew weaker. The country’s internal weakness left it vulnerable to repeated invasions, which would destroy much of the wealth and deepen communal divisions.

  Notes and references

  1     There is some disagreement over the date of this battle, with some historians arguing that it took place in 637 and others in 638.

  2     During the early Islamic period a number of pious men, known as Qur’anic reciters, memorized large portions of the Qur’an (God’s revelations to the Prophet Muhammad) and were valued as authorities on Islamic belief and practice.

  3     Quoted in Lewis, Bernard (ed.), Islam: From the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, New York, 1974, vol. 1, pp. 23–4.

  4     The name is likely of Persian origin, meaning “The Gift of God”.

  5     Princeton Online Arabic Poetry, http://www.princeton.edu/~arabic/poetry.

  6     Quoted in Lewis, Bernard (ed.), Islam: From the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, New York, 1974, vol. 2, p. 69.

  7     The Turkish title of “Bey” is roughly equivalent to the Arabic Shaykh, or the Kurdish Agha, all meaning a tribal chief.

  8     Quoted in Cooperson, Michael, “Baghdad in Rhetoric and Narrative”, Muqarnas

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  A History of the Muslim World to 1405

  The Making of a Civilization

  • Vernon Egger, Vernon O Egger(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  A Civilization Under Siege, 950–1260

  By 950, Muslims were justified in feeling a sense of satisfaction in the accomplishments of the past. The agreement upon a methodology for jurisprudence had produced a comprehensive set of rules and laws that Sunnis accepted without question; after a bumpy start, the mystical life was becoming attractive to more and more Muslims; science and philosophy were being selectively incorporated into the Islamic theological framework; and a far-flung commercial network was increasing wealth and stimulating creative solutions to everyday problems. The result was the emergence of a civilization that could compare favorably with any that had existed in history.

  Despite these achievements, many thoughtful Muslims shared a sense of foreboding about the future of the Dar al-Islam. In 950, three caliphs claimed exclusive legitimacy as leader of the Muslim world, and they were prepared to act upon those claims. The competing claims of authority were exacerbated by differences in religious creeds: The caliph in Cordoba was a Sunni; the one in Mahdiya was a Fatimid Shi‘ite; and in Baghdad, the Sunni caliph was powerless, whereas the Buyid sultan—who exercised the real power in the Abbasid caliphate—supported Twelver Shi‘ism. The sense of lost unity, both spiritual and political, has haunted Muslims ever since, and has been a major factor in the rise of reform movements for more than a millennium.

  As it turned out, the next three centuries would confirm both the highest hopes and the worst fears of the mid-tenth century. The period from 950 to 1260 witnessed major cultural achievements—many historians judge its cultural productivity to have been one of the most spectacular in world history—but it is dominated by shocking violence and disorder. The first three centuries of Muslim history experienced violence, as we have seen, but it was episodic and most of it occurred between armies. In the second period, by contrast, we witness numerous examples of factional conflict among the inhabitants of the same city, persecution of subjects by their rulers, and “total war” tactics by invading armies, in which farmers and city dwellers alike suffered from ruined property or death, simply for being in the way.

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  Critical Turning Points in the Middle East

  1915 - 2015

  • N. Al-Rodhan, G. Herd, L. Watanabe(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  70 50 Critical Turning Points in the Middle East The dynasty he founded, the Ayyubids, reigned over Egypt (until 1252), Syria (until 1260) and West Arabia (until 1229). At the time of the fifth crusade, in the early thirteenth century (1217–21), the Seljuqs faced a much more serious threat from the east: the Mongols. In 1258, under the authority of Mongke, Kubilay and Hulegu (all three brothers and were the grandsons of Genghis Khan), these central Asian nomadic tribes sacked Baghdad and put a definitive end to the Abbasid Caliphate, initiating another critical turning point. The Mongol invasions marked the end of an important era in the his- tory of the Middle East. The consequences of these invasions were disas- trous, both economically and politically – on their way to the west, the invaders devastated irrigation systems, lands, cities and places of culture (libraries, schools and so on). This severely disrupted the economy and the political organization. However, even the Mongols gradually adapted to the culture of the conquered territories and converted to Islam. They rebuilt public places and set up a society that promoted culture: While the first century of Mongol rule wreaked havoc, the later Ilkhan regime resumed the historical trend toward state centralization of power and recreated the brilliance of Salhuq-period Turkic-Iranian monarchical culture. Beginning with the reign of Ghazan (1295–1304), the Ilkhans rebuilt cities, redeveloped irrigation works and sponsored agriculture and trade in the familiar way of Middle Eastern empires. In particular they opened up Inner Asian routes to China. 71 The Mongols ruled for about a century until another wave of Mongol invasions led by Timur, also known as Tamerlane, swept over the area in the late fourteenth century (1370–1405). 72 At its height, the Timurid Empire embraced Central Asia, modern Afghanistan, Iran and parts of Mesopotamia.

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  Handbook of Siege Warfare

  • (Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • University Publications

    (Publisher)

  Secondly, refugees from these smaller cities would flee to the last stronghold. The reports from these cities and the streaming hordes of refugees not only reduced the morale of the inhabitants and garrison of the principal city, it also strained their resources. Food and water reserves were taxed by the sudden influx of refugees. Soon, what was once a formidable undertaking became easy. The Mongols were then free to lay siege without interference of the field army as it had been destroyed... At the siege of Aleppo, Hulegu used twenty catapults against the Bab al-Iraq (Gate of Iraq) alone. In Jûzjânî, there are several episodes in which the Mongols constructed hundreds of siege machines in order to surpass the number which the defending city possessed. While Jûzjânî surely exaggerated, the improbably high numbers which he used for both the Mongols and the defenders do give one a sense of the large numbers of machines used at a single siege. Another Mongol tactic was to use catapults to launch corpses of plague victims into besieged cities. The disease-carrying fleas from the bodies would then infest the city, and the plague would spread allowing the city to be easily captured, although this transmission mechanism was not known at the time. In 1346 the bodies of Mongol warriors of the Golden Horde who had died of plague were thrown over the walls of the besieged Crimean city of Kaffa (now Feodosiya). It has been speculated that this operation may have been responsible for the advent of the Black Death in Europe. On the first night while laying siege to a city, the leader of the Mongol forces would lead from a white tent: if the city surrendered, all would be spared. On the second day, he would use a red tent: if the city surrendered, the men would all be killed, but the rest would be spared. On the third day, he would use a black tent: no quarter would be given.

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  Enduring Controversies in Military History

  Critical Analyses and Context [2 volumes]

  • Spencer C. Tucker(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • ABC-CLIO

    (Publisher)

  The Mongols launched their imperial mission in 1206 and within 70 years had created history’s largest empire with contiguous borders. Indeed, at the height of their power, the Mongols controlled some 22 percent of Earth’s land area. A variety of reasons lay behind this, the most obvious being their remarkable military prowess. They used their peerless equestrian skills, astonishing martial abilities (including masterful mounted archery), and efficient intelligence and supply networks to swiftly take territory. When met by resistance, the Mongols were merciless; collective punishment of any area mounting resistance was commonplace, leading to the massacre of entire communities.

  Perhaps the most famous example of brutal destruction wrought by the Mongols was the conquest of Baghdad, then the capital of the Abbasid Empire. A city of more than 1.5 million inhabitants, Baghdad was a cultural, economic, and educational center of Islamic civilization. However, on February 10, 1258, a Mongol army led by Hulegu Khan (grandson of Mongol leader Genghis Khan) invaded the city. Overwhelmed by the Mongol horde, the people of Baghdad stood by as their city was sacked and burned. The Mongols then turned their wrath on the population. Although there are no clear statistics, historians believe that between 200,000 and 1 million people were killed or injured in the massacre, including Caliph al-Mustasim. Baghdad did not recover for centuries thereafter.

  In the course of such brutal invasions, the Mongols were responsible for the destruction of many key cultural institutions, including the House of Wisdom, then one of the world’s greatest intellectual centers. The Mongols used such force against resisters as a warning to others not to oppose their expansion. However, even in the wake of their destruction, they found tremendous attraction in many of the cultural elements of the societies they conquered. Indeed, the creation of their empire gained an ironic quality; while they destroyed, they also adopted, adapting many elements of the very cultures they displaced.

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