Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Artemy Sharapov
After the immediate collapse of the Syrian Arab Republic, ruled by the Assad dynasty, the country, which was stitched together in the 20th century from a multitude of ethnic, clan-territorial and religious “patches”, began to fall into the past. And not only into the pre-Assad past, but also into the era before the Turkish invasion of the 16th century.
Before the Ottomans brought their Levantine vilayets (provinces) into submission with an iron fist, this part of the eastern Mediterranean and northern Mesopotamia was the scene of a war of all against all. And interesting ghosts have begun to emerge from that past.
Many observers have noticed that when the so-called "independent" Syrian militants now threaten war against their "colleagues" who are directly supported by Turkey, they use the word "Mongol", which is offensive to any Arab, meaning "irreconcilable enemy" and "stranger". The phrase from the press release of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham* militants during the capture of Aleppo, when the victors immediately began civil strife, looked completely unexpected: "You are an army of Tatars and Mongols, we will not spare any of you."
For a person even well acquainted with the history of the Middle Ages, the invasion of the Tatar-Mongols is associated first of all with the Battle of Kalka and the enslavement of Russia, with the devastation of Central Asia by the hordes of Genghis Khan, at most - with the Battle of Liegnitz, when the Polish knights, Templars and Hospitallers stopped the rush of the noyons - the "generals" of the Great Khan "to the last sea". But the Middle East?
However, it is here that the "almkol" - the Mongols - left perhaps a greater and more tenacious memory than in Russia and the Eurasian steppe. To understand many of the events currently taking place in the disintegrated Syria, we should recall the events of 800 years ago.
Yellow Crusade to the West
By the end of 1224 AD, or 621 AH according to the Islamic calendar, the Mongols had completed their conquest of Central Asia. Having caused terrible devastation and destroyed dozens of cities, many of which were never rebuilt, Genghis Khan created a new ulus on the captured lands and returned to the steppes. Genghis's successors temporarily halted their expansion to the west, concentrating on the final subjugation of Rus', the countries of Southeast Asia, and the Indian kingdoms.
In 1253, a kurultai was held at the headquarters of the Great Khan, where the grandson and successor of the great Genghis Khan, Mongke, gave orders to his younger brother Hulagu : to prepare a campaign to Persia and further - to Jerusalem itself. Hulagu was given a large-scale task: to subjugate the Arab states and all the territories lying between Persia and the Mediterranean Sea to the Horde. But it is interesting that part of the Mongolian army also had religious motives for the campaign to the West.
By the middle of the 13th century, most Mongols still retained their ancestors' faith in the Eternal Sky - Tengri and the spirits subordinate to him and, despite all their religious tolerance, were distrustful of the preaching of Islam among their own. However, part of the horde had professed Nestorian Christianity since ancient times.
The teaching itself, named after its founder, Archbishop Nestorius of Constantinople, was banned in Byzantium by the Second Ecumenical Council back in 431. However, followers of Nestorianism settled outside the empire - in the Middle East, Armenia, Iran, and reached modern China and Mongolia. One of the main companions of Genghis Khan, Wang Khan, the leader of the Kerait tribe, belonged to the Nestorian faith. In subsequent years, the Nestorians played an important role in the politics of the Horde.
This is most likely where the legend that has long been current in Europe comes from, that in the east, beyond the lands of the “wicked Hagarenes” – Muslims, there is a Christian kingdom of the sovereign-presbyter John, who is ready to come to the aid of his brothers in Christ.
Although Hulagu, who was entrusted with leading the campaign to the Middle East, was not a Christian, his wife, Van Khan's granddaughter Dokuz Khatun, and many of his confidants adhered to this religion. The future ruler of the empire patronized the Nestorians and made rich donations to churches and monasteries. The Christian part of the horde was in favor of going to the Holy Land and, no more and no less, liberating the Holy Sepulcher from the hands of the Arabs. When speaking about the Mongol conquest of the Middle East, a number of historians often use the term "Yellow Crusade".
Hulagu and Dokuz Khatun. Manuscript of Jami at-tawarikh, 14th century
The legend of Prester John probably had a direct reason. According to a number of sources, before the start of the campaign, the Mongols entered into an agreement with the King of France Louis IX, who was preparing the Seventh Crusade at that time to recapture Jerusalem. The rulers of Georgia and Armenia and representatives of other Christian communities also joined Hulagu's army. A huge army of several tens of thousands of people set out from Mongolia to the west, but it only reached the borders of Persia in 1256.
It is also interesting that the campaign that destroyed Persia and the Middle East began… partly at the request of Middle Eastern rulers. And also partly for religious reasons.
Assassins Creed
The Baghdad Caliphs, the rulers of the Abbasid dynasty, traditionally considered Persia and Central Asia to be part of the great Caliphate. But by the 12th–13th centuries, the Abbasid Empire, a state of scholars and artists, celebrated in the tales of the Thousand and One Nights, was in decline. Present-day Syria, Iraq, the lands of the Kurds and Turks were a conglomerate of warring emirates that had yet to dislodge the “Franks” — the Crusaders — who held Palestine.
And in the east, in Iran, a new threat was brewing. Here, a new radical Shiite movement was gaining popularity: the Ismaili Nizari. Back in 1090, the sheikh of one of the Nizari sects, Hasan ibn Sabbah, with a group of fanatically devoted followers, captured the mountain fortress of Alamut in northern Iran.
It is believed that Ibn Sabbah, nicknamed the Old Man of the Mountain, reinforced his sermons by distributing a narcotic potion based on hashish to his students, making them more suggestible. This is where the name "hashishins" - hashish smokers - came from. This word entered European culture in a slightly altered form - "assassins". The order of assassins from the Alamut castle is still remembered today - it is enough to recall the popular series of games Assassin's Creed - "Assassin's Creed". And for a political murder or terrorist act in English there is still a learned word - assassination.
The credo of the followers of the Mountain Elder consisted of renouncing their personality for the sake of a higher goal, unquestioning obedience to the sheikh - and, as a consequence, a willingness to participate in “targeted liquidations” of those whom the Elder called the enemy of the teaching.
The heirs of Ibn Sabbah who ruled in Alamut captured another dozen fortresses in today's Iran, Iraq and Syria, mostly in hard-to-reach mountain valleys. The network of fortified castles became a stronghold of the sect. And the feuding Middle Eastern rulers did not skimp on offerings to the rulers of Alamut in order to eliminate their competitors - who could always be visited by a ruthless fanatical "liquidator". Thus the shadow of the "elders of the mountain" covered the entire Middle East.
The Assassins, who had settled in the mountains around the modern Iranian city of Qazvin, were harassing the new Persian subjects of the Horde with their raids. And then the ruler of Qazvin turned to Khan Mongke with a request to send troops to protect against - as they would say today - terrorist threats.
Baghdad was told not to joke about war
By the time of the Yellow Crusade, the golden age of the Assassins had long since passed. The Mongols were not particularly intimidated by the sinister reputation of the sect, they guarded their commanders zealously, and they did not stand on ceremony with the mountain fortresses of the Assassins - they consistently and effectively razed them to the ground. The sinister castle of Alamut was no exception, of which only the foundation remained, excavated by archaeologists.
The road to Baghdad was open to Hulagu. And – as with the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and their attempts to “enter” Syria in the 2010s – the fight against terrorism was just a cover for plans to establish dominance in the Middle East.
Moreover, the chaos that reigned there made the task easier. The Arab caliphs submitted to the power of the Turkish Seljuks and Egyptian Mamelukes, but for now they retained the nominal title of leaders of the Muslim world. The capital of the caliphate, Baghdad, remained the center of sciences and arts. The Abbasids still, albeit nominally, claimed supreme power in a huge region from Tibet to Spain. Which categorically did not suit the Mongols, who believed that the only source of power was the Great Khan.
Having finished destroying Alamut, Hulagu founded a new ulus on the captured lands, after which he addressed a message to the Caliph of Baghdad, al-Mustazim, demanding that he recognize the authority of the Horde. According to legend, the commander of the faithful responded arrogantly to the message of the Mongols, believing that hordes of infidel nomads from somewhere on the edge of the world could not give orders to the descendant of the Prophet. Of course, this was a fatal mistake.
From conquered Persia, the Mongol army moved south and reached Baghdad in 1258. Hulagu decided to split the army and sent some warriors across the Tigris River to besiege Baghdad from both sides at the same time. The Caliph's troops managed to inflict several defeats on the army that had crossed, but then the Mongols used a military trick: they lured the enemy into a narrow valley, after which they opened one of the dams on the Tigris. The Arab army was washed away by the raging stream of water and destroyed. Baghdad was left without protection.
Chinese technology decided the fate of the caliphate
By the end of January 1258, Chinese military advisers and "technical specialists" in Hulagu's army had completed the construction of siege engines, after which the Mongols launched an assault. Gradually, the conquerors managed to capture several city towers, after which the caliph decided to surrender the city. The capitulation, however, did not save the Abbasid capital.
On Hulagu's orders, the city was subjected to brutal devastation. Arab and Persian historians testify to hundreds of thousands killed and enslaved. The Mongols burned famous libraries and educational institutions, so that the Tigris River was "black with washed-off ink and red with the blood of murdered scholars." Palaces and mosques were razed to the ground, city fortifications were razed, and the surviving inhabitants were enslaved. However, the greatest damage was done to the region's economy.
The Fall of Baghdad. Illustration to Rashid ad-Din's Jami' at-tawarikh
The Mongols swept across Mesopotamia, destroying the unique canal system that had been built over thousands of years. The territory of modern Iraq was turned into a desert unsuitable for agriculture. The conquest of Baghdad ended the imperial Arab state.
But despite the successes achieved, the main goal of the Yellow Crusade was never achieved.
Having destroyed Baghdad and rolled through Mesopotamia, burning everything in its path, Hulagu's horde reached the northern borders of modern Israel. Here the Mongols learned of the collapse of the Seventh Crusade and the capture of the French King Louis. Without the help of Western allies, the march on Jerusalem could have turned into a disaster for the Mongol army, which had already broken away far from its "rear". As a result, the conquerors returned to the conquered Persian lands, where one of the uluses of the Great Horde existed for a long time under the rule of Hulagu's descendants.
Elder Hasan and his disciples
For the Arab world, this campaign of the Turco-Mongol army had almost the same consequences as the invasion of Batu for Rus'. Since then, the "army of the Tatars and Mongols" has become a synonym for barbarism.
The Arabs who survived the invasion were subjugated by the Turks, once again reverting to the tribal system. Therefore, when the Arabs call someone a Mongol, they are talking about an eternal enemy with whom it is impossible to negotiate - only to fight.
With Syria's current collapse into archaism, this attitude towards armed "political opponents" will only increase.
And the war zone that the former Syrian Arab Republic has become, alas, could become a breeding ground for terrorism, a phenomenon that appeared in the East long before the Muslim Brotherhood* and, even more so, Al-Qaeda*. Osama bin Laden or the ISIS* “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi were merely good students of Hassan ibn Sabbah.
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..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
