Mongol Siege of Baghdad 1258 End of the Islamic Golden Age

In February 1258, the Mongol army under Hulagu Khan did what no power had done for centuries: they breached the walls of Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate and the heart of the Islamic Golden Age. This episode takes you inside the seven-day siege that ended a 500-year dynasty and shattered an intellectual world. We follow Hulagu's campaign from the fall of Alamut to the Tigris, the fateful decision of Caliph al-Musta'sim to reject surrender, and the extraordinarily precise engineering that let the Mongols encircle a city of over a million people. We explore how the House of Wisdom's manuscripts were destroyed or scattered—and what actually survived. We also examine the plague that struck the Mongol army after the sack, the role of Hulagu's Nestorian Christian wife Doquz Khatun in protecting Baghdad's Christians, and the long shadow this event casts over Islamic history. This is a story of strategy, tragedy, and the fragility of civilisation. For listeners who know the broad outline of the Mongol conquests but want the texture of one of history's most consequential urban destructions. #Baghdad1258 #HulaguKhan #AbbasidCaliphate #SiegeOfBaghdad #MongolEmpire #AlMustasim #HouseOfWisdom #DoquzKhatun #NestorianChristianity #IslamicGoldenAge #TigrisRiver #CentralAsia #MongolWarfare #History #FexingoHistory #MedievalHistory #FallOfBaghdad #MongolConquests Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo