Why did baghdad decline

In the wake of such fragmentation, the Mongols attacked in and devastated the city and its inhabitants. The civilized people of Baghdad were horrified at the savage ways of the Mongols who resorted to mass murders, pillaging, and mindless destruction. Its libraries, foremost among the treasures of Baghdad, were burned down. Its canals were destroyed. Its great historical monuments were forever ruined.

Its universities and hospitals were the most up to date in the world. The city thus began a long period of decline, falling victim to subsequent wars that continue to this day. They operated under only nominal caliph authority, with emirs ruling their own provinces from their own capitals. Though lacking in political power, the dynasty continued to claim authority in religious matters until after the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in Privacy Policy.

Skip to main content. Search for:. The Persian bureaucracy slowly replaced the old Arab aristocracy as the Abbasids established the new positions of vizier and emir to delegate their central authority. The Abbasids maintained an unbroken line of caliphs for over three centuries, consolidating Islamic rule and cultivating great intellectual and cultural developments in the Middle East in the Golden Age of Islam.

Abbasid control eventually disintegrated, and the edges of the empire declared local autonomy. Terms mawali Non-Arab Muslims. Licenses and Attributions. CC licensed content, Shared previously. As its wealth and fame grew, more and more scholars and engineers were drawn to the city from all over civilization. If one thinks of London in —the year when Queen Victoria celebrated her Golden Jubilee—the English city on the Thames was by then the largest and most important city on earth.

In , London was peerless in the world, with nowhere else coming close to matching its power and influence. It was the capital, and the fulcrum, of the British Empire.

If you can imagine the shock waves, were London razed to the ground tomorrow, you would be close to the horror that was about to accompany the Sack of Baghdad in Watch it now, Wondrium.

For many historians, the arrival of the Mongols into the heart of the Muslim faith and empire is the single most devastating moment in the history of the Muslim Middle East. Rather than submit, the Abbasid caliph challenged the Mongols to attempt to storm his city, if they dared.

Doing what they are most famous for, the Mongols thrashed Baghdad. In 10 days of unremitting violence and destruction, Baghdad and its inhabitants were completely and utterly vanquished. Almost without exception, the population was either put to the sword or sold into slavery. The River Tigris ran red—to cite one of the most over-quoted, and overwrought phrases in history—with the blood of slaughtered men, women, and children. After this, every building of note in Baghdad—including mosques, palaces, and markets—was utterly destroyed, among them the world-famous House of Wisdom.

Hundreds of thousands of priceless manuscripts and books were tossed into the river, clogging the arterial waterway with so many texts, according to eyewitnesses, that soldiers could ride on horseback from one side to the other. Of course, the river turned from red to black with ink. Learn more about the geographical region we call the Greater Middle East. The Sack of Baghdad fits, like a hinge, almost exactly in the middle of two defining dates in the history of Islam, from the founding of the faith in the year to the end of the last caliphate in Even by the standards of the day, the destruction was shocking, and the results long-lasting, if not permanent.

Who were they and where did they come from? Is there any reason to think that they were any more destructive than other peoples at the time? The Mongols, an ethnic group, originating in north and central Asia, were typically pastoral peoples, whose nomadic lifestyle inevitably brought them into conflict with more settled populations.

Probably the best example of how settled peoples tried to restrict their otherwise free movement is the Great Wall of China. The wall was essentially built to hold back incursions of their Mongolian neighbors to the north.

This preference for nomadism over a settled existence is central to the view of the Mongols as especially destructive. As one writer put it, while Muslims built cities—Baghdad and Cairo, for example—Mongols destroyed them. Does this mean that the Mongols were inherently more ruthless or violent than Muslims or crusading Christians? Not necessarily. Rather, it shows that their priority, in terms of conquest, was for land, for grazing—for space even—rather than for cities and confinement.

Learn more about key phases in the life of Muhammad. Contemporary chroniclers tell us that Mongol warriors were most comfortable in the saddle, literally, it seems. Also, all warriors owned numerous mounts, allowing them to cover larger distances than more traditional cavalry found in the Near East and Europe. While they rode light into battle, the Mongols used harnessed oxen to pull their heavier and more cumbersome possessions from place to place.

An important facet of the Mongol way of war and conquest was their use of terror as a tactic. The banging of metal pots and the rattling of bells was the usual way of announcing the start of a battle. Whenever they entered new territory, the Mongols would offer the local rulers an opportunity to surrender. But in the language of many a salesman, this was a one-time offer.

For those foolish enough not to surrender immediately, conquest and destruction without quarter would be their lot, and the people of Baghdad knew this. Learn more about Arabization and Islamization.

In , just 52 years before the Sack of Baghdad, the Mongol Empire was formed and led by the legendary Genghis Khan. Khan is originally a Mongolian word that means military leader, or sovereign, a king, in English. Being accepted as the Great Khan effectively elevated Genghis to the status of an emperor.