Mongol invasions and conquests

الغزوات المغولية

1206 CE · 602 AH† – 1405 CE · 807 AH† †

† Hijri date derived by computation from the Gregorian/Julian date; it may differ from the transmitted date by a day or two.

Draft card for the Mongol invasions and conquests, the succession of campaigns from Genghis Khan to Timur that swept the Islamic world and ended the Abbasid caliphate at Baghdad in 1258; its sources are not yet checked on the page.

Depth

At a glance

Era
The Mongol and Post-Mongol Era
Region
Global / Diaspora
Identifiers
Wikidata
Review
Draft Completeness 3/5 · Help complete it

In time

117512001225125012751300132513501375140014251450
The Crusades, Ayyubids and Mamluks · The Mongol and Post-Mongol Era

Summary

Ibn Khaldun describes the rise of the Tatars as an affair that, once their dominion swelled, sent "Hūlāgū b. Tūlī b. Genghis Khan from Khorasan to Baghdad; he took it and killed the caliph", ending the Abbasid caliphate at Baghdad in 656 1. He sums up the sweep by saying they absorbed all the kingdoms of Islam from Syria to Transoxiana 2.

The course of events

Ibn Khaldun relates that Hulagu marched in the year fifty and six hundred with massed armies until he reached and besieged Baghdad 3. In the caliphal sequence he notes that the Abbasid daʿwa moved to Egypt, where caliphs' sons were installed under Mamluk protection 4. He closes with the turn inside the conqueror's own house: "God guided Abaghā b. Hulagu to Islam and he became Muslim," and after him the Jochids and other Tatar kings 2.

For young visitors

A great army came from far away in Asia and captured many cities, including Baghdad the caliph's capital; years later many of the invaders' own descendants became Muslims.

Research notes

  • Text from the harvested Ibar of Ibn Khaldun (Heliopolis 1957): pp. 952, 961, 2110, 2120, 2124. A near-contemporary historian's account of the main events; battle detail (ʿAyn Jālūt 658, the Iraqi sieges) and the fall of individual cities await collation with Mamluk-era sources (Ibn al-Athir, al-Maqrizi) not fully extracted on the drive.

Sources

  1. Kitab al-Ibar of Ibn Khaldun , p.2110
  2. Kitab al-Ibar of Ibn Khaldun , p.2120
  3. Kitab al-Ibar of Ibn Khaldun , p.961
  4. Kitab al-Ibar of Ibn Khaldun , p.2124
Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Mongol invasions and conquests”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/event/mongol-invasions/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-23.

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