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Iraq
The Mongol Invasion
In the early years of the thirteenth century, a powerful Mongol
leader named Temujin brought together a majority of the Mongol
tribes and led them on a devastating sweep through China. At about
this time, he changed his name to Chinggis (Genghis) Khan, meaning
"World Conqueror." In 1219 he turned his force of 700,000 west
and quickly devastated Bokhara, Samarkand, Balkh, Merv (all in
what is now the Soviet Union), and Neyshabur (in present-day Iran),
where he slaughtered every living thing. Before his death in 1227,
Chinnggis Khan, pillaging and burning cities along the way, had
reached western Azarbaijan in Iran. After Chinggis's death, the
area enjoyed a brief respite that ended with the arrival of Hulagu
Khan (1217-65), Chinggis's grandson. In 1258 he seized Baghdad
and killed the last Abbasid caliph. While in Baghdad, Hulagu made
a pyramid of the skulls of Baghdad's scholars, religious leaders,
and poets, and he deliberately destroyed what remained of Iraq's
canal headworks. The material and artistic production of centuries
was swept away. Iraq became a neglected frontier province ruled
from the Mongol capital of Tabriz in Iran.
After the death in 1335 of the last great Mongol khan, Abu Said
(also known as Bahadur the Brave), a period of political confusion
ensued in Iraq until a local petty dynasty, the Jalayirids, seized
power. The Jalayirids ruled until the beginning of the fifteenth
century. Jalayirid rule was abruptly checked by the rising power
of a Mongol, Tamerlane (or Timur the Lame, 1336-1405), who had
been atabeg of the reigning prince of Samarkand. In 1401 he sacked
Baghdad and massacred many of its inhabitants. Tamerlane killed
thousands of Iraqis and devastated hundreds of towns. Like Hulagu,
Tamerlane had a penchant for building pyramids of skulls. Despite
his showy display of Sunni piety, Tamerlane's rule virtually extinguished
Islamic scholarship and Islamic arts everywhere except in his
capital, Samarkand.
In Iraq, political chaos, severe economic depression, and social
disintegration followed in the wake of the Mongol invasions. Baghdad,
long a center of trade, rapidly lost its commercial importance.
Basra, which had been a key transit point for seaborne commerce,
was circumvented after the Portuguese discovered a shorter route
around the Cape of Good Hope. In agriculture, Iraq's once-extensive
irrigation system fell into disrepair, creating swamps and marshes
at the edge of the delta and dry, uncultivated steppes farther
out. The rapid deterioration of settled agriculture led to the
growth of tribally based pastoral nomadism. By the end of the
Mongol period, the focus of Iraqi history had shifted from the
urbanbased Abbasid culture to the tribes of the river valleys,
where it would remain until well into the twentieth century.
Data as of May 1988
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