The Sack of Baghdad (1258)

The Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258 was one of the most devastating single events in Islamic history. When Hulagu Khan's armies breached the walls of the Abbasid capital, they unleashed a week of destruction that killed hundreds of thousands of people, destroyed the House of Wisdom and its irreplaceable libraries, and ended the Abbasid Caliphate — the symbolic center of the Islamic world for over five centuries.

Baghdad in 1258 was still one of the world's great cities, despite the Abbasid caliphs' diminished political power. Its libraries, mosques, hospitals, and schools represented centuries of accumulated learning. The Mongol assault was methodical and merciless. After a brief siege, the city fell on February 10, 1258. The caliph al-Musta'sim was executed — reportedly wrapped in a carpet and trampled by horses, as the Mongols believed it taboo to spill royal blood on the ground.

The cultural destruction was incalculable. Books from Baghdad's libraries were reportedly thrown into the Tigris in such quantities that the river ran black with ink. Irrigation canals that had sustained Mesopotamian agriculture for millennia were destroyed and never rebuilt. The sack of Baghdad marks a psychological turning point in Islamic history — the traumatic end of an era when the Muslim world led the globe in learning, science, and culture.