Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series

by Jacob Abbott

The Calif of Bagdad.

It seems that some difference had arisen some time before this between the Sultan Mohammed and the Calif of Bagdad, who was the great head of the Mohammedan power. Mohammed applied to the calif to grant him certain privileges and powers which had occasionally been bestowed on other sultans who had rendered great services to the Mohammedan empire. He claimed that he had merited these rewards by the services which he had rendered. He had conquered, he said, more than one hundred princes and chieftains, and had cut off their heads and annexed their territories to his dominions, thus greatly enlarging and extending the Mohammedan power.

Mohammed's demand and the calif's reply.

Mohammed made this demand of the calif through the medium of an embassador whom he sent to Bagdad. The calif, after hearing what the embassador had to say, refused to comply. He said that the services which Mohammed had rendered were not of sufficient importance and value to merit the honors and privileges which Mohammed demanded. But, although he thus declined complying with Mohammed's request, he showed a disposition to treat the sultan himself with all proper deference by sending an embassador of his own to accompany Mohammed's embassador on his return, with instructions to communicate the reply which the calif felt bound to make in a respectful and courteous manner.

The sultan calls a council.
Mohammed's plan for revenge.
March of the army.
Failure.

Mohammed received the calif's embassador very honorably, and in his presence concealed the anger which the answer of the calif excited in his mind. As soon as the embassador was gone, however, he convened a grand council of all the great chieftains, and generals, and ministers of state in his dominions, and announced to them his determination to raise an army and march to Bagdad, with a view of deposing the calif and reigning in his stead. The great personages assembled at the council were very ready to enter into this scheme, for they knew that if it was successful there would be a great many honors and a great deal of booty that would fall to their share in the final distribution of the spoil. So they all engaged with great zeal in aiding the sultan to form and equip his army. In due time the expedition was ready, and the sultan commenced his march. But, as often happens in such cases, the preparations had been hindered by various causes of delay, and it was too late in the season when the army began to move. The forces moved slowly, too, after they commenced their march, so that the winter came on while they were among the passes of the mountains. The winter was unusually severe, and the troops suffered so much from the frosts and the rains, and from the various hardships to which they were in consequence exposed, that the sultan found it impossible to go on. He was consequently obliged to return, and begin his work over again. And the worst of it was, that the calif was now aware of his designs, and would be able, he knew, before the next season, to take effectual measures to defend himself.

The calif's plans.

When the calif heard of the misfortunes which had befallen the sultan's army, and his narrow escape from the dangers of a formidable invasion, he was at first overjoyed, and he resolved at once on making war upon the rebellious sultan. In forming his plans for the campaign, the idea occurred to him of endeavoring to incite Genghis Khan to invade the sultan's dominions from the east while he himself attacked him from the west; for Bagdad, the capital of the calif, was to the westward of the sultan's country, as the empire of the Monguls was to the eastward of it.

Objections to them.

But when the calif proposed his plan to his counselors, some of them objected to it very strenuously. The sultan and the people of his country were, like the calif himself, Mohammedans, while the Monguls were of another religion altogether, or, as the Mohammedans called them, unbelievers or infidels; and the counselors who objected to the calif's proposal said that it would be very wrong to bring the enemies of God into the country of the faithful to guard against a present and temporary danger, and thereby, perhaps, in the end occasion the ruin both of their religion and their empire. It would be an impious deed, they thought, thus to bring in a horde of barbarian infidels to wage war with them against their brethren.