The History of the Assassins, Derived from Oriental Sources

by Freiherr von Joseph Hammer-Purgstall

In the meanwhile, the main body of the Mongols had pushed forward on the road of Yakuba, and was encamped on the eastern bank of the Tigris. Then only did the khalif command the gates of Bagdad to be shut, the fortifications to be garrisoned, and preparations to be made for defence. The two secretaries and Suleimanshah once more led the élite of the army, against the enemy. The battle lasted two days, with various fortune, but with equal loss: on the third, Hulaku prohibited the Mongols from renewing the attack, and resolved to enclose the city in a blockade. On all the heights without the city, and on all the towers and palaces which commanded it, were placed projectile engines, throwing masses of rock and flaming naphtha, which breached the walls, and set the buildings on fire.

At this period, the three presidents of the sherifs, or descendants of Ali, who resided at Helle, on the banks of the Euphrates, not far from the ruins of Babylon, sent a letter to Hulaku, in which they offered their submission, and added bitter complaints of the wrongs which they had suffered from the khalif. They informed him, that according to a tradition preserved by their glorious ancestor, the Lion of God, the sage of the faith, the son-in-law of the prophet Ali, the son of Abu-taleb, the period of the fall of the family of Abbas, and the conquest of Bagdad, was arrived. Hulaku, equally pleased with the homage of the descendants of the prophet and with the prophecy, answered them graciously, and commanded his general, Emir Alaeddin, to occupy the district of Helle, and to protect the inhabitants from violence. Thus their hatred against the family of Abbas secured them against the rage of the Mongols.

After the siege had lasted forty days, the khalif convoked a general assembly of all the grandees of the realm, in which Ibn Alkami spoke at great length of the innumerable host of the Mongols, and the impossibility of long resisting them; he therefore, recommended a treaty with Hulaku, who was more desirous of the treasures than the dominions of the khalif; he advised a mutual alliance between a daughter of Hulaku and a son of the khalif, and between a daughter of the latter and a son of the former, that the ties of peace and friendship might be drawn the closer. For this purpose, the khalif should go in person to the khan’s camp, and thus the blood of thousands would be spared, the city preserved from utter destruction, and the khalifat fortified against every enemy by the acquisition of so powerful an ally.

The fear and pusillanimity of the khalif caused him to listen to Alkami’s faithless advice. He sent him, in the first place, into the camp to negotiate peace, under the same conditions as had been offered to him from Hamadan; he returned with the answer, probably suggested by himself, that “What was admissible at Hamadan, is no longer so before the gates of Bagdad.” Then, only one of the great dignities of the realm was demanded; now all four were, namely: the commander of the army, Suleimanshah, the two ink-holders or secretaries of state, and the chief cup-bearer. The siege continued six days longer with renewed vehemence; on the seventh, Hulaku caused six letters of immunity to be prepared, in which it was stated that the kadis and the seids, the sheikhs and imams who had not borne arms should be secure of their lives and property; these letters were attached to arrows, and shot into the city on six sides. One of the two secretaries, who despaired of the safety of the city, and was more anxious for his own, embarked on the Tigris to seek it in flight; as however, he came abreast of Kariet-ol-akab, he was stopped by a body of the Mongol troops, posted there for the purpose of cutting off the communication between Medain and Basra. Three of his vessels fell a prey to the flaming naphtha, and he was himself compelled to return. The khalif, who had already renounced all hope, now sent Fakhreddin Damaghani, and Ibn Derwish, with presents to Hulaku, and to treat with him concerning the conditions of peace. These two, however, returning without success, he despatched, on the following day, his son Abulfase Abdorrahman, with very considerable presents, and, on the third, his brother Abulfasl Abubekr, with the noblest and greatest personages in the state. These embassies were as fruitless as the first, and the vizier, who was sent into the camp along with Ibn-al-jusi, again brought back the surrender of Suleimanshah and the secretaries, as the indisputable condition of the khalif’s free exit.

Suleimanshah, and one of the secretaries, after being assured of a safe conduct, went to Hulaku, who sent them back to the city, commanding them to bring with them their families and whole household, in order that he might send them unobstructedly to Syria and Egypt; they returned to the camp with a considerable escort of troops, who seized this opportunity of deserting the city. Different quarters had just been assigned them, when an Indian struck out the eye of one of Hulaku’s principal emirs, with an arrow; Hulaku seized this accident as a pretext for the most sanguinary rage; he commanded the secretary of state and his suite to be put to death, and the general, Suleimanshah, and his officers, to be brought, bound, before him: he said to him, “How comes it, that so great an astrologer as thou could not foresee the hour of thy death? Wherefore didst thou not counsel thy lord to enter the path of submission, in order to save thy own life and that of others?” Suleimanshah replied, that “the khalif’s evil star had made him deaf to good advice.” After some interrogatories and replies of this kind, the general and his officers were put to the sword.

Many thousands, who had surrendered into the hands of the conqueror on the faith of the safe conduct, were murdered, unarmed, after they had been separated from each other, on pretence of being sent into different provinces; a cold-blooded and faithless cruelty, which, however, is not without example, having been repeated both in the east and in the west. The history of Alexander, of Charlemagne, Jengiskhan, Timur, and other conquerors, presents us with instances similar to this atrocity of Hulaku, agreeing also wonderfully with it in the number of the victims,—from three to four thousand,—as well as in the circumstances of the promised safe retreat, the division into detachments, and the dialogue held with the commanders, who, for that very reason, were the more certain of their lives being spared.

The khalif seeing no farther hope of saving his life except by surrendering to the conqueror, repaired to the khan’s camp, after a siege of forty-nine days, on Sunday, the 4th of the month Jafer, in the 656th year of the Hegira; he was attended by his brother and his two sons, together with a suite of nearly three thousand persons, kadhis, seids, sheikhs, and imams; only the khalif and the three princes, his brother and two sons, together with three of the suite (one in a thousand), in all, seven persons, were admitted to an audience. Hulaku concealed the perfidy of his designs under the mask of smooth words, and the most friendly reception. He requested the khalif to send word into the city that the armed inhabitants should throw away their weapons, and assemble before the gates, in order that a general census might be taken. At the order of the khalif the city poured out its unarmed defenders, who, as well as the person of Mostassem, were secured. The next day, at sunrise, Hulaku issued commands to fill up the ditch, demolish the walls, pillage the city, and massacre the inhabitants. The ditch, according to the expression of the Persian historian, deep as the deep reflections of wisdom, and the walls as high as the soaring of a lofty mind, were, in an hour, levelled. The army of the Mongols, as numerous as ants and locusts, mined the fortifications like an ant-hill, and then fell upon the city as destructive as a cloud of the latter; the Tigris was dyed with blood, and flowed as red as the Nile, when Moses, by a miracle, changed its waves into blood; or, it was at least as red as the Egyptian river is to this day, when it is swollen by that annual miracle of nature, its overflow, and coloured red by the red loam and sand which it washes down from Abyssinia; affording a natural explanation of the Mosaic miracle.

The city was a prey to fire and the sword; the minarets and domes of the mosques glowed, like fiery columns and cupolas; from the roofs of the mosques and baths, flowed melted gold and lead, setting on fire the palm and cypress groves which surrounded them. The gilded battlements of the palaces fell like stars to the earth,—like the demons who endeavoured to scale the battlements of Heaven. In the mausolea, the mortal remains of the sheikhs and pious imams, and in the academies, the immortal works of great and learned men, were consumed to ashes; books were thrown into the fire, or where that was distant and the Tigris near, were buried in the waters of the latter. Gold and silver vessels from the palaces and kitchens of the great, fell, in such quantities, into the hands of the ignorant Mongols, that they sold them by weight, like brass or tin. The treasures of Asiatic splendour and art, accumulated for centuries in the khalif’s city, became the booty of barbarians. So great a quantity of Persian and Chinese gold tissues, Arab horses, Egyptian mules, Greek and Abyssinian slaves of both sexes, coined and uncoined gold, silver, pearls, and precious stones, was found, that the private soldier became richer than even the chiefs of the army or the khan himself had ever been before. And yet the treasures of the khalif’s palace had not been touched, as these the khan retained for himself.

After four days’ pillage, he went, on the 9th of the month Safir, in company with the khalif, to the palace of the latter; where he, as his guest, as he said, desired his host to give him all that he was able. This Mongol politeness struck the khalif with such terror, that his whole body trembled, and as he either had not the keys, or could not find them, he ordered the bolts and locks to be broken open. Two thousand costly garments, ten thousand ducats, and many jewels, were brought out; which the khan, without deigning them a glance, distributed among his suite, and then turned to the khalif, with the words: “Thy public treasures belong to my servants; now produce thy concealed ones.” Mostassem pointed to a spot, on excavating which were found the two basins of treasure, so celebrated in the history of the khalifat, each filled with bars of gold, weighing each a hundred miscals. Nassir-ledinillah’s wise economy had commenced filling these two vessels; Mostanssur’s prodigality emptied them; and Mostassem’s avarice again replenished them.

An anecdote is told, in the history of the last reigns of the khalifs, that Mostanssur, when he paid his first visit to this treasure, prayed aloud: “Lord, my God! grant me the favour to be enabled to empty both these vessels during my reign!” The treasurer smiled, and being asked his reason, he said: “When thy grandfather visited this treasure, he besought heaven to reign only until he had filled these two basins; while thou desirest precisely the reverse.” Mostanssur applied this gold in the foundation of useful institutions, which immortalize his name; particularly in the erection of the celebrated academy, which was named after him, Mostansarie, and also Omm-ol-Medaris, that is, the Mother of Academies. Mostassem, on the other hand, hoarded gold from avarice; whereas, a politic application of his riches, in the pay of troops and tribute, might have saved his throne from ruin.