Portrait: AI-generated imagined likeness
Monarch · Military leader
Mongol prince who led campaigns into West Asia. He captured Baghdad and ended the Abbasid caliphate's government. He is important for considering contact between the Islamic world and the Mongol Empire.
View in catalogIranian plateau
Work
Siege of Baghdad
1258
War · Commander
Map: Natural Earth (PD)
Born into the family of Chinggis Khan, he grew up as a member of the imperial royal houses. By order of the Great Khan, he came to lead military action in West Asia.
In 1258 he captured Baghdad and destroyed the political center of the Abbasid caliphate. Based in Iran, he laid the foundations of the Ilkhanate and established Mongol rule in West Asia.
The capture of Baghdad deeply shocked the Islamic world, but trade and administration were also reorganized under Mongol rule. Both destruction and reorganization need to be seen.
Hulegu's campaign shows how the Mongol Empire greatly changed political order in the Islamic world. His activity demonstrates that conquest involved not only military events but dynastic change, urban reorganization, and altered exchange between east and west.
