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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 August 2020
The death of the last ‘Abbāsid Caliph al-Musta‘ṣim bi-llāh (d. 1258) has been the object of contradictory historical accounts by medieval historians both in the East and the West. Was he put to death by starvation? Did he have melted gold poured down his throat? Was he executed by Hülegü's own hands, or even by a Georgian Prince? Was he rolled in a carpet and kicked to death, hanged, or strangled? Writers of the period offer colourful portrayals of this event. Some saw it as martyrdom, others as a humiliating death preceded by moral admonishment and blame by Hülegü. Building upon earlier studies, this article offers a comprehensive view of the extant sources on the topic produced both in the Abode of Islam and Western Europe, as well as in Armenia and Georgia. Rather than seeking the “facts” behind the accounts, this article adopts a literary-critical and socio-political approach, arguing that the accounts are replete with symbolism targeting their specific audiences, and that the choices made by the historians on the manner of the Caliph's death were meant to offer commentary on—and evaluation of—‘Abbāsid rule.
This title is in direct dialogue with E. J. Amster's Medicine and the Saints: Science, Islam, and the Colonial Encounter in Morocco, 1877–1956 (Austin, 2013), in particular her first chapter entitled ‘The Many Deaths of Dr Emile Mauchamp: Contested Sovereignties and Body Politics at the Court of the Sultans, 1877–1912’. I thank Professor Paul Heck at Georgetown University for introducing this book to me. I also wish to thank my former colleague at Cardiff University, Dr Maria Fragoulaki, Lecturer in Ancient Greek History, for her conversations and interest in an earlier version of this article when it was presented at Cardiff University's School of History, Archaeology and Religion in April 2018. Last but not least, I would like to extend my gratitude to several of my colleagues at New College of Florida who have read and discussed this article with me, in particular Carrie Benes, Professor of Medieval History and Renaissance Studies, as well as David Rohrbacher, Professor of Classics.
2 The Arabic expression for natural death is “māta ḥatfa anfihi”, literally meaning “he died a death of his nose”, i.e. that his soul left his body from his nose. The Arabs used to think that a person who died a natural death, without being hit or killed, would see his soul leaving the body through his nose. To the contrary, a person who was killed would see their soul leave their body through the organ or body part that was hurt.
3 The following is a non-exhaustive list of the scholarship taking this approach: Morgan, D., The Mongols (Oxford, 1986), p. 133Google Scholar; Boyle, J. A., ‘Dynastic and Political History of the Il-Khāns’, The Cambridge History of Iran (Cambridge, 1968), vol. 5, p. 349CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gilli-Elewy, H., Bagdad nach Dem Sturz des Kalifats (Berlin, 2000), pp. 30–31Google Scholar; Gilli-Elewy, H., ‘Al-Ḥawādith al-Gāmi‘a: A Contemporary Account of the Mongol Conquest of Baghdad 656/1258’, Arabica 58 (2011), p. 366CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Heidemann, S., Das Aleppiner Kalifat (A.D. 1261): Vom Ende des Kalifates in Bagdad uber Aleppo zu den Restaurationen im Kairo (Leiden/New York, 1994), pp. 48–49Google Scholar; Kennedy, H., ‘The Caliphate’, in Choueiri, Y. M. (ed.), A Companion to the History of the Middle East (Oxford, 2005), p. 66Google Scholar; Syed, M. H. (ed.), A Concise History of Islam (New Delhi, 2011), p. 56Google Scholar; Kennedy, H., The Caliphate: The History of an Idea (New York, 2016), pp. 159–160Google Scholar; Jackson, P., The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion (New Haven/London, 2017), p. 129CrossRefGoogle Scholar; John, S. and Morton, N. (eds.), Crusading and Warfare in the Middle Ages (Surrey, 2014), pp. 208–209Google Scholar; Fitzhugh, W. W., Rossabi, M. and Honeychurch, W. (eds.), Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire (Santa Barbara, 2009), p. 166Google Scholar; Weatherford, J., Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (New York, 2004), p. 184Google Scholar.
4 G. Le Strange, ‘The Story of the Death of the Last Abbasid Caliph, from the Vatican MS. of Ibn al-Furāt’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (April 1900), pp. 293–300. Boyle, J. A., ‘The Death of the last ‘Abbasid Caliph: A Contemporary Muslim Account’, Journal of Semitic Studies 6 (Autumn 1961), pp. 145–161CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Other studies have been published analysing a single account of the fall of Baghdad: Wickens, G. M., ‘Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī on the Fall of Baghdad: A Further Study’, Journal of Semitic Studies 7 (Autumn 1962), pp. 23–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Gilli-Elewy, ‘Al-Ḥawādith al-Jāmi‘a’.
5 On this account, see also Wickens, ‘Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī on the Fall of Baghdad’.
6 Rosenthal, F., A History of Muslim Historiography (Leiden, 1952)Google Scholar.
7 It was in the 1940s that the first idea of literary leitmotivs pervasive in the early Islamic historical narratives was put forth by G. E. von Grunebaum in his Medieval Islam: A Study in Cultural Orientation (Chicago, 1946). While he did not use the concept of “leitmotif”, von Grunebaum established that certain themes were more common than others in the narratives.
8 al-Duri, A. A., The Rise of Historical Writing Among the Arabs (Princeton, N.J., 1983)Google Scholar. His work had a strong impact on several later works, including Khalidi, T., Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period (Cambridge, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robinson, C., Islamic Historiography (Cambridge, 2003)Google Scholar; and Cooperson, M., Classical Arabic Biography (Cambridge, 2008)Google Scholar. In 1997, Chase Robinson published a report summarising some of the main developments in the field: Robinson, C. F., ‘The Study of Muslim Historiography: A Progress Report’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 7, 2 (July 1997), pp. 199–227CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 Noth, A. and Conrad, L. I., The Early Arabic Historical Tradition: A Source-Critical Study (Princeton, N.J., 1994)Google Scholar. See also Schimmel, A. M., The Mystery of Numbers (New York, 1993)Google Scholar; and Donner, F. M., Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing (Princeton, N.J., 1998)Google Scholar.
10 Waldman, M. R., Toward a Theory of Historical Narrative (Columbus, 1980)Google Scholar; Meisami, J. S., Persian Historiography To the End of the Twelfth Century (Edinburgh, 1999)Google Scholar; El-Hibri, T., Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography: Harun al-Rashid and the Narrative of the Abbasid Caliphate (Cambridge, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Peacock, A. C. S., Medieval Islamic Historiography and Political Legitimacy (New York, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hirschler, K., Medieval Arabic Historiography: Authors as Actors (New York, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vogt, M., Figures de Califes entre Histoire et Fiction (Paris, 2006)Google Scholar, among others.
11 A topos (pl. topoi) is defined as “a narrative motif which has as its primary function the specification of content, and aims to elaborate matters of fact. Its scope is thus very narrow, and it is normally bound to description of a specific situation, definition of a brief moment, or characterization of a person”. See Noth and Conrad, The Arabic Historical Tradition, p. 109.
12 One example is the work of Ruth Morse, who highlights that while the modern reader studies history to learn about facts and seek “the truth”, in the medieval world history was read as it provided examples of virtue and taught people how to live the good life. See Morse, R., Truth and Convention in the Middle Ages: Rhetoric, Representation and Reality (Cambridge, 1991)Google Scholar.
13 These topoi will be identified and explained for each account in light of the particular tradition of historical writing to which they belonged.
14 Morse, Truth and Convention, pp. 118–119. For discussions on death scenes and their meanings in Arabic and Persian historical writing, see, among others, Noth and Conrad, The Early Arabic Historical Tradition; Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins; El-Hibri, Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography; and Meisami, Persian Historiography.
15 ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, Abū Ja‘far Muḥammad, Tārīkh al-Rusūl wa'l-Mulūk, (ed.) de Goeje, M. J. et al. (Leiden, 1879–1901; reprinted Leiden, 1964)Google Scholar.
16 El-Hibri, Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography, p. 112.
17 On this particular death and its colourful descriptions, see Keaney, H., ‘Confronting the Caliph: ‘Uthmân b. ‘Affân in Three ‘Abbasid Chronicles’, Studia Islamica 1 (2011), pp. 25–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and the book by the same author Medieval Islamic Historiography: Remembering Rebellion (Abingdon, 2013); Hinds, M., ‘The Murder of the Caliph Uthmān’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 3, 4 (October 1972), pp. 450–469CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 Keaney, ‘Confronting the Caliph’, p. 26.
19 See Elbendary, A. A., ‘The Sultan, The Tyrant, and The Hero: Changing Medieval Perceptions of al-Ẓāhir Baybars’, Mamluk Studies Review 5 (2001), pp. 141–157Google Scholar.
20 Ibid., p. 150.
21 On this, see the early (but still very relevant) analyses in Rosenthal, F., A History of Muslim Historiography (Leiden, 1952)Google Scholar and von Grunebaum, G. E., Medieval Islam (Chicago, 1946)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
22 Lucius Annaeus Seneca, De Clementia, vol. 1, XX-XXII; for a recent English translation, see Susanna, B., Seneca: De Clementia (Oxford, 2011)Google Scholar.
23 On this topic see de Romilly, J., The Rise and Fall of States according to Greek Authors (Michigan, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 On human agency and its role in the downfall of states according to both Greek and Islamic traditions, see Trompf, G. W., The Idea of Historical Recurrence in Western Thought: From Antiquity to the Reformation (Berkley, 1992), pp. 106–107Google Scholar; Meisami, Persian Historiography, p. 285. On the metabolē theory, Trompf explains: “the causes of erosion usually lay with the rulers. It was they who turned an order of lawfulness and political responsibility into a regime of injustice, lawlessness, and depravity”. See Trompf, The Idea of Historical Recurrence in Western Thought, p. 107.
25 For more details on the authorship and attempts to identify the work's author, see Wickens, ‘Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī on the Fall of Baghdad’, pp. 23–31.
26 Juwaynī's History ends abruptly without describing the fall of Baghdad in 1258. There are many possible reasons that could explain why Juwaynī might have wished to avoid writing on the topic, notably the fact that his patrons and commissioners of his work were the murderers.
27 The original Persian appendix is in Juwaynī, Tārīkh-i Jahān-Gushā, (ed.) A.G. Qazvīnī (Tehran, 1963); English translation in Boyle, ‘The Death’, p. 159.
28 Boyle, ‘The Death,’ p. 160.
29 Al-Jūzjānī's account is to be found in his work Ṭabaqāt-i-Nāṣirī, (ed. and trans.) Major H. G. Raverty, (Oriental Books Reprint Collection, 1970), vol. II, pp. 1228–1261.
30 Ibn al-Sā‘ī, Tārīkh al-Khulafā’ al-‘Abbāsiyyīn (Cairo, 1993), pp. 159–160.
31 See, in particular, the analysis and translation of Ibn al-Fuwaṭī's description of the capture of Baghdad by Hülegü's troops and the murder of the Caliph in Gilli-Elewy, ‘Al-Ḥawādith al-Gāmi‘a’.
32 Rashīd al-Dīn (d. 1318) mentions the starvation story but later explains that on the 14th of the month of Ṣafar, the Caliph was put to death in the village of Waqf, along with his eldest son and a few eunuchs. See al-Dīn, Rashīd, Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh (Compendium of Histories), (ed.) Etienne Quatremère (Paris, 1836), p. 304Google Scholar.
33 Waṣṣāf (d. 1329) does explicitly mention that the Caliph was rolled in a carpet and trampled to death. See Geschichte Wassafs, (ed. in Persian and trans. from German) Josef von Hammer-Purgstall (Vienna, 1856), vol. 1, pp. 68–75.
34 The account of Ibn al-‘Ibrī (or Barhebraeus, d. 1286) also mentions the episode; this account is very close to al-Ṭūsī's account in terms of structure and content. See the translation of this account by Wickens in the appendix of his article ‘Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī on the Fall of Baghdad’, pp. 32–35. Ibn al-‘Ibrī mentions that the Caliph was eventually put to death along with his middle son and six eunuchs, while the eldest son was put to death at the Kalwādh Gate. The story is also absent from the Mamlūk accounts, with the notable exception of the work of Ibn al-Furāt, which will be dealt with in a later section of this article.
35 Blake, R. P. and Frye, R. N., ‘History of the Nation of the Archers (The Mongols) by Grigor of Akancͺ Hitherto Ascribed to Marak'ia The Monk: The Armenian Text Edited with an English Translation and Notes’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 12, No. 3/4 (Dec., 1949), pp. 269–399CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The translated passage is on p. 335.
36 See also the translation and analyses in Lane, George, Genghis Khan and Mongol Rule (London, 2004), p. 178Google Scholar.
37 Blake and Frye, ‘History of the Nation of the Archers’, p. 335.
38 Ibid.
39 Bothwell, J. and Dodd, G. (eds.), Fourteenth Century England IX (Woodbridge, 2016), p. 133Google Scholar.
40 Michel, F., Histoire des Ducs de Normandie et des Rois d'Angleterre (Paris, 1840), pp. 112–115Google Scholar.
41 For details, see the introduction of Polo, Marco, The Travels of Marco Polo, (ed.) L. F. Benedetto, (trans.) Aldo Ricci (London, 1931), pp. vii–xviiGoogle Scholar.
42 Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, p. 27.
43 The number four is associated with the idea of plenty in ancient and medieval historical writings. See, for instance, the study on numbers in the Islamic historical tradition: Conrad, Lawrence I., ‘Abraha and Muḥammad: Some Observations a propos of Chronology and Literary “Topoi” in the Early Arabic Historical Tradition’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 50, 2 (1987), pp. 225–240CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
44 Gospel of Matthew 17:20: “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’, and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you”.
45 Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, p. 28.
46 See, in particular, Pruitt, J., ‘The Miracle of Muqattam: Moving a Mountain to Build a Church in Fatimid Egypt’, in Sacred Precincts: The Religious Architecture of Non-Muslim Communities Across the Islamic World, (ed.) Gharipour, M. (Leiden, 2015), pp. 277–290Google Scholar.
47 For a thorough discussion on Latin Christendom-Mongol relations against the 'Abbāsid Caliphate, see the excellent work by Jackson, P., The Mongols and the West 1221–1410 (New York, 2005), pp. 165–195Google Scholar.
48 A fairly similar account has been attributed to Jean de Joinville (d. 1317), the famous chronicler of medieval France, in the Life of Saint Louis, a chronicle recounting the life of Louis IX of France and the Seventh Crusade. The episode is as follows: ‘To cover his breach of faith and to throw upon the caliph the blame of the capture of the city, he took the caliph and put him in an iron cage, and made him fast as long as a man can fast without dying, and then asked him if he were hungry […]”. The translation is available in Hutton, J., Saint Louis: King of France (London, 1892), p. 173Google Scholar. The narrative around the death of the caliph is told in a similar fashion by the Italian Dominican travel writer and missionary Ricold of Monte Croce (d. 1320), and the Byzantine Greek historian and philosopher Georgius Pachymeres (d. 1310).
49 Bundy, D. D., ‘Het'um's La Flor Des Estoires De La Terre D'Orient: a Study in Medieval Armenian Historiography and Propaganda’, Revue Des Études Arméniennes, 20 (1986–7), pp. 223–235CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
50 Het'um the Historian's History of the Tartars [The Flower of Histories of the East] compiled by Het'um the Armenian of the Praemonstratensian Order, (trans.) Robert Bedrosian, Chapter 26, p. 48.
51 Hayton's account of the death of the Caliph was copied by John Mandeville (d. 1371), a Frenchman. See the translation by Moseley, C. W. R. D., The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (London, 1983), p. 149Google Scholar. The work is mentioned in Boyle, ‘The Death’, p. 294. There are doubts about the historicity of this figure, including the authorship of the work and whether he travelled. Nevertheless, the work had a critical impact on later writers and reached a very broad audience. See Tzanaki, R., Mandeville's Medieval Audiences: A Study on the Reception of the Book of Sir John Mandeville 1371–1550 (New York, 2003)Google Scholar.
52 See Jackson, The Mongols and the West: 1221–1410, pp. 334–335.
53 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ‘The Kalif of Baldacca’, Macmillan's Magazine 10, 56 (Cambridge, 1864), pp. 115–116. The poem can also be accessed online via the archives of The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1864/06/the-kalif-of-baldacca/540309/ (accessed 4 March 2020).
54 Ibid.
55 Several medieval historians of Cilician Armenia portrayed the Mongols positively for political reasons: on this topic see A. Osipian, ‘Armenian Involvement in the Latin-Mongol Crusade: Uses of the Magi and Prester John in Constable Smbat's Letter and Hayton of Corycus's “Flos historiarum terre orientis” 1248–1307’, Medieval Encounters 20, 1 (February 2014), pp. 66–100.
56 Charles Melville, ‘Jahāngošā-ye Jovayni’, Encyclopædia Iranica, XIV, 4, pp. 378–382, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/jahangosa-ye-jovayni (accessed 30 December 2012). It is important to note that Rashīd al-Dīn's Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh might have been composed only after Marco Polo's Travels, since the Jāmiʿ is dated 1306–7. The work, or at least portions of it, might have been available prior to these dates.
57 On this, see Robert Hillenbrand, ‘Propaganda in the Mongol ‘World History’’, British Academy Review 17 (March 2011), pp. 29–38. It is important to note that the two most significant Persian scholars who worked as ministers for the Mongols, ‘Aṭā Malik Juwaynī (d. 1283) and Rashīd al-Dīn (d. 1318), are both silent about the method used to kill the Caliph. Rashīd al-Dīn however, included in his narrative anecdotes emphasising the humiliation the Caliph suffered and his regrets: “I have been trapped like a little bird”, says the Caliph before being executed. Commentary on ‘Abbāsid rule is also highly present in Rashīd al-Dīn's work, where the account of the invasion starts with the following statement about unrest in Baghdad: “There was much unrest in Baghdad, and the inhabitants, sick and tired of the ‘Abbāsids, considered this a sign of the end of their reign as varying allegiances appeared among them” (Rashīd al-Dīn, p. 346). These anecdotes express views on the ‘Abbāsid Caliphate and the illegitimate character of their rule. Although death by starvation disappears from several Mongol accounts, other narrative strategies are used to fulfil the same purpose on a larger scale: the Caliph is continuously blamed as a weak ruler, and is contrasted with the power, wisdom, and legitimate sovereignty of Hülegü.
58 Doubts have been raised by several modern scholars about Marco Polo's travels to China, some suggesting that he never went past the Black Sea, and others arguing that evidence proves his travels to China. For instance Frances Wood argued in 1995 that Marco Polo never reached China in her book Did Marco Polo go to China? (New York, 1995/2018). See also Vogel, Hans Ulrich, Marco Polo Was in China: New Evidence from Currencies, Salts, and Revenues (Leiden, 2012)Google Scholar.
59 See Torsello, M. Sanudo, The Book of the Secrets of the Faithful of the Cross (Liber Secretorum Fidelium Crucis), (trans.) Peter Lock (London, 2011), p. 3Google Scholar
60 Sanudo, The Book of the Secrets of the Faithful of the Cross, p. 379.
61 Fraker, C. F., The Scope of History: Studies in the Historiography of Alfonso el Sabio (Ann Arbor, 1996), p. 142CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
62 Chisholm, H. (ed.), The Encyclopaedia Britannica (Cambridge, 1911), vol. 24, pp. 196–197Google Scholar.
63 See Boyle, ‘The Death’, p. 149.
64 Some of these accounts are based on Armenian sources from the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, in particular Armenian princes and the Armenian contingent in the Mongol army. The Kingdom was a protectorate of the Mongol Empire and later the Ilkhānate from 1245 to 1335.
65 On this point, I would challenge the argument of Florence Hodous who wrote in her very good analysis of execution methods under the Ilkhānids that “not a single source implies that his [al-Musta‘ṣim's] blood was shed”. See Hodous, F., ‘Faith and the Law: Religious Beliefs and the Death Penalty in the Ilkhanate’, in The Mongols’ Middle East: Continuity and Transformation in Ilkhanid Iran, (eds.) Nicola, B. de and Melville, C. (Leiden, 2016), pp. 106–129Google Scholar.
66 Gandzakets‘i, K., History of the Armenians, (trans.) Bedrosian, R. (New York, 1986), pp. 314–318Google Scholar.
67 Kirakos mentions at the end of his account of the fall of Baghdad that “all of this was narrated to us by prince Hasan called Prosh, son of the pious Vasak son of Baghbak, brother of Papak’ and Mkdem, Papak’, Hasan and Vasak who was an eyewitness to the events and also heard about events with his own ears, [a man] enjoying great honour in the Khan's eyes”. Gandzakets‘i, History of the Armenians, p. 320. Kirakos also interacted with other Greater Armenian nobles, including Pros Xalbakean, who participated in the Mongol conquest of Baghdad in 1258, and Prince Grigor Mamikoriean, who told him what he had heard about Chinggis Khān. See Bedrosian, R. G., Turco-Mongol Invasions and the Lords of Armenia in the 13th and 14th Centuries (Ann Arbor, 1979), p. 25Google Scholar.
68 Gandzakets‘i, History of the Armenians, p. 320.
69 Ibid., p. 318.
70 Ibid., p. 316.
71 Kirakos managed to escape to the town of Getik on the night that his teacher Vanakan was freed after payment of his ransom. On Kirakos’ experience as a captive and his relationship to his Mongol captors, see Bayarsaikhan, D., ‘Kirakos Gandzakets‘i, as a Mongol Prisoner’, Ming Qing Yanjiu XXII (2018), pp. 155–163Google Scholar. In particular, Bayarsaikhan notes that “Kirakos is very explicit about the extent of the destruction wrought by the Mongols in Greater Armenia and Georgia, and also shows great concern about the Armenian lords’ actions under Mongol pressure” (p. 161).
72 Tolan, John Victor (ed.), Medieval Christian Perceptions of Islam, (London, 2000), p. 37Google Scholar.
73 Orbélian, S., Histoire de la Siounie, (trans.) M. Brosset (Saint Petersburg, 1864), vol. 1, p. 234Google Scholar. Hodous mentions other famous cases including Toghachaq Khatun and Baghdad Khatun. See Hodous, ‘Faith and the Law’, p. 112.
74 Gandzakets‘i, History of the Armenians, p. 319.
75 V. Arawelc‘i, ‘The Historical Compilation of Vardan Arewelc‘i’, (trans.) R. W. Thomson, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 43 (1989). The work is a chronicle telling the history of the world from the genesis to 1267, date of completion of the work. On this work, also see Dulaurier, E., ‘Les Mongols d'après les Historiens Arméniens, Fragments Traduits sur les Textes Originaux. Extrait de l'Histoire Universelle de Vartan’, Journal Asiatique 5, 16 (1860), pp. 273–322Google Scholar.
76 Vardan Arawelc‘i, ‘The Historical Compilation’, p. 217.
77 Despite their differences, these two works reinforce each other for the main part.
78 Jackson, The Mongols and the West: 1221–1410. p. 176. Vardan provided a unique Armenian perspective in that he discussed clerical attitudes toward the Mongol invasion.
79 Dulaurier, ‘Les Mongols d'après les Historiens Arméniens’. pp. 3–4.
80 Phillips, J. R. S., The Medieval Expansion of Europe (Oxford, 1998), p. 79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
81 This might explain the confusion around the author of the final blow to the Caliph in Boyle's article. Boyle mentions: “According to the official Georgian Chronicle, it was one of Hülegü's commanders, Ilge Noyan, who dealt the blow”. See Boyle, ‘The Death’, p. 149.
82 The story appears in Song Lian, History of Yuan (commonly known as Yuanshi), vol. 149. The work was commissioned by the court of the Ming dynasty. It was criticised for its numerous errors, leading to a complete recompilation of the work under the Qing dynasty (1636–1911) in the form of the New History of Yuan. In a number of accounts, it is said that the davat-dar (first secretary) of the Caliph attempted to flee by boat upon realising that the situation was very serious. See Rashīd al-Dīn, Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh, p. 291; The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. V, p. 348. See also Brentjes, B., ‘The Fall of Baghdad and the Caliph Al-Musta'sim in a Tabrīz Miniature’, East and West 28, 1/4 (December 1978), pp. 151–154Google Scholar. Illustrations of the death of the Caliph can be found in the work of Rashīd al-Dīn, but also in European works, such as that of Maitre de la Mazarine (d. circa 1425) in Le Livre des Merveilles du Monde (ed.) Marie-Thérèse Gousset (Paris, 2003).
83 Kartlis Tskhovreba -A History of Georgia (Tbilisi, 2014), pp. 348–349.
84 Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, Documents Arméniens (Paris, 1960), II, pp. 534–535; Boyle, ‘The Death’, p. 149.
85 Jackson, The Mongols and the West: 1221–1410, Chapter 8.
86 Death by trampling has been considered by modern historians of the Mongol period as the “most likely death”, and it probably was in this case. This is linked to the fact that the medieval sources are replete with indications that trampling was a common practice by the Mongols when killing a royal figure. In the Secret History of the Mongols, for instance, the Mongol aristocrat Jamukha (a Mongol military leader and later rival to Genghis Khān) is killed using this method in 1206. Jamukha is said to have asked to die a “noble death”, i.e. his blood not being spilled. Indeed, the Mongol religious law, the Yasa, strictly prohibited the spilling of royal blood onto the ground. Several sources mention that Hülegü was concerned about shedding the blood of the Caliph; they explain that he was at first reluctant to kill the Caliph because he feared a catastrophe would ensue. On this matter, Hülegü consulted with two astrologers: Ḥussām al-Dīn and Naṣīr al-Dīn Al-Ṭūsī, the first having advised him not to put the Caliph to death. Al-Ṭūsī however recommended the Caliph should die, and comforted Hülegü by saying that nothing bad would happen, just as no natural catastrophe took place in the past when previous Caliphs were killed. This story is mentioned across sources, including most of the Mongol (Persian) and Arabic accounts. Another common method of killing among the Mongols was to break their victims’ back, again to avoid the shedding of royal blood. In his work La Mort, Jean Paul Roux explains the meaning of blood in Mongol culture. According to him, the Mongols considered any type of blood to be sacred as it was the “seat of the soul” (Hodous, ‘Faith and the Law’, p. 108). The Mongols were particularly concerned with afterlife: they feared that the soul of a person who had died violently might come back and harm them (Hodous, ‘Faith and the Law’; Hamayon, R., La Chasse à l’Ȃme. Esquisse d'Une Théorie du Chamanisme Ibérien (Paris, 1990), p. 400Google Scholar). They also believed that breaking the bones of a person would ensure that his lineage would die with him. Many sources of the period emphasise that the Mongols were adamant about erasing any ‘Abbāsid lineage and wanted to ensure that no one was left from the family, particularly among the men (the anonymous De Statu Saracenorum mentions that all the Caliph's relatives were put to death, though we know that several were in fact able to flee to Egypt). The fact that the bones were broken would send the message that the Caliph's ancestry was broken. Qazvīnī (d. 1349) specifically mentions that the head of the Caliph was broken, which suggests that the execution method chosen had less to do with honouring him because of his royal blood, and more to do with Mongol religious beliefs and superstitions. After placing the Caliph in a sack, Qazvīnī writes, the Mongols “broke his head as though it were a stone and he died quickly. Fate dealt him a grievous blow, and brought destruction on that beautiful king. When the renowned Musta'sim was killed, a great name tumbled to the dust”. See H. Mustawfī Qazvīnī, Zafarnāmeh, (trans.) Ward (unpublished PhD dissertation, Manchester University, 1983), p. 128. Trampling to death was not used commonly after 1258 by the Ilkhāns; we only have one recorded instance, that of Prince Nayan, ordered killed by the Mongol ruler Kubilai in 1287.
87 Al-Jūzjānī, Ṭabaqāt-i Nāṣirī, (ed. and trans.) H. G. Raverty (Hyderabad, 1873), pp. 1252–1253.
88 Ibid., p. 1251.
89 Bar Hebraeus (known alternatively as Ibn al-‘Ibrī in Arabic) relied heavily on al-Ṭūṣī's account for his Arabic account of the fall of Baghdad. Ibn al-‘Ibrī, Tārīkh Mukhtaṣar al-Duwal, (ed.) A. Ṣāliḥānī, S. J. (Beirut, 1890), pp. 471–475.
90 See Gilli-Elewy, ‘Al-Ḥawādith al-Jāmi‘a’. The following is her translation of the execution: “his blood was not shed; instead he was put in a sack and trampled to death. He was then buried, and traces of his tomb effaced” (p. 366).
91 See Geschichte Wassafs, pp. 68–75.
92 Qazvīnī, Zafarnāmeh, p. 128; much of his work is based on Rashīd al-Dīn.
93 Ibn al-Kāzarūnī, Mukhtaṣar al-Tārīkh min awwal al-Zamān ilā muntahā dawlat Banī l-‘Abbās, (ed.) Muṣṭafā Ğawād (Baghdad, 1970), pp. 273–274.
94 Hebraeus, Bar, The Chronography of Gregory Abū’l Faraj, (trans. from Syriac) E. A. Wallis Budge (London, 1932), p. 431Google Scholar.
95 Wickens, ‘Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī on the Fall of Baghdad’, p. 35.
96 Kathīr, Ibn, Al-Bidāya wa al-Nihāya (Cairo, 1982), vol. 13, pp. 200–206Google Scholar.
97 Ibn al-Furāt, MS. Vatican, fol. 196a and 196b; Le Strange provides a translation of a section of the account on the death of the Caliph, see Le Strange, ‘The Story’, pp. 297–298.
98 Ibid.,
99 Ibid., p. 297.
100 Ibn al-Furāt, MS. Vatican, fol. 196a and 196b.
101 Ibn al-Ṭiqtaqā in Al-Fakhrī fī al-Ādāb al-Sulṭāniyya wa al-Duwal al-Islāmiyya (Greifswald, 1858), p. 388.
102 See his description of the end of the Caliphate, ibid., pp. 382–390.
103 Ibid., p. 383.
104 These include Ibn al-Fuwaṭī, al-Hawādith al-Jāmi‘a, (eds.) Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf and ʿImād ʿAbd al-Salām Raʾūf (Beirut, 1997), pp. 357–359; Ibn al-Kāzarūnī, Mukhtaṣar al-Tārīkh, (ed.) Muṣṭafā Jawād (Baghdad, 1970), pp. 274–277; al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-Arab fī Funūn al-Adab, (eds.) Aḥmad Kamāl Zakī and Muḥammad Muṣṭafā Ziyādah (Cairo, 1980), vol. 23, p. 324; Baybars al-Manṣūrī, Zubdat al-Fikrah fī Tārīkh al-Hijrah, (ed.) Donald Richards (Beirut, 1998), p. 37; al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām wa-Wafayāt al-Mashāhīr wa'l-Aʿlām, (ed.) ʿUmar ʿAbd al-Salām Tadmurī (Beirut, 1999), vol. 66. p. 262; Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya wa al-Nihāya, (eds.) Aḥmad Abū Mulḥim, ʿAlī Najīb ʿAṭawī, Fuʾād al-Sayyid, Mahdī Nāṣir al-Dīn and ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Sattār (Beirut, 1987), vol. 13, p. 169–171. These are also mentioned by Hassan, Mona, Longing for the Lost Caliphate: A Transregional History (Princeton, 2016), pp. 38Google Scholar.
105 This is an extract from ‘A Qaṣīda on the Destruction of Baghdad’ by Taqī al-Dīn Ismā‘īl ibn Abī al-Yusr (the author's name is not to be found in the major biographical dictionaries of that time period with the exception of al-Dhahabī's work Tārīkh al-Islām, which contains the whole qaṣīda lamenting the fall). The translation of the poem is available in Somogyi, Joseph de, ‘A Qaṣīda on the Destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies 7, 1 (1993), pp. 41–48Google Scholar, republished more recently as Somogyi, J. de, ‘A Qaṣīda on the Destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols’, in Muslims, Mongols and Crusaders (ed.) Hawting, G. R. (London, 2005), pp. 1–10Google Scholar.
106 The translation used is by Hassan, Longing for the Lost Caliphate, pp. 39, 42. On the topic of sexual humiliation and the rhetoric tools used by the Muslim poets, see ibid., pp. 39–42.
107 Sa‘dī, Kolliyat-i Sa‘dī, (ed.) Muhammad `Ali Forughi (Tehran, n.d.), pp. 503–504.
108 In ancient Rome, rape leading to suicide was a significant topos: the story of Lucretia, a noblewoman who committed suicide after her rape by Sexus Traquinius, has led to considerable storytelling and embellishment in the Roman and post-Roman tradition. See the Roman historian Livy (Titus Livius), Ab Urbe Condita Libri (History of Rome), (trans.) Rev. Canon Roberts (1905), 1. 58. Art works illustrating her rape or suicide are very common. Similarly, in Greek mythology, the rape of Cassandra, daughter of Priam (the last king of Troy), has been an important symbol and a source of inspiration for writers and painters up to the modern period.
109 Al-Jūzjānī, Ṭabaqāt-i-Naṣirī, p. 1258.
110 Frembgen, J. W., The Friends of God: Sufi Saints in Islam: Popular Poster from Pakistan (Oxford, 2012), p. 16Google Scholar.
111 Chawla, M. Iqbal, Shoeb, R. and Iftikhar, A., ‘Female Sufism in Pakistan: A Case Study of Bibi Pak Daman’, Pakistan Vision 17, 1 (June 2016), pp. 224–247Google Scholar. See p. 228.
112 Ibid., p. 229.
113 Ibn al-Kāzarūnī, Mukhtaṣar al-Tārīkh, pp. 274–277; Ibn al-Fuwaṭī, Majmaʿ al-Ādāb fī Muʿjam al-Alqāb, (ed.) Muḥammad al-Kāẓim (Tehran, 1995), vol. V, pp. 112–114. For an analysis of these two sources and other related accounts, see Hassan, Longing for the Lost Caliphate, pp. 43–44.
114 Homer, The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA/ London, 1919), vol. 1, pp. 43–45. For the classical citation for the shroud discussed three times, see 2.93-110; 19.137-156; and 24.129-148.
115 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 43.
116 Al-Malik al-Ashraf, Al-‘Asjad al-Masbūk wa al-Jawhar al-Maḥkūk fī Ṭabaqāt al-Khulafāʾ wa al-Mulūk, (ed.) Shākir ʿAbd al-Munʿim (Beirut, 1975), p. 627.
117 In ancient Rome, during the war between Rome and Clusium, a young woman named Cloelia was taken hostage but managed to flee the Clusian camp by swimming across the Tiber river. She is said to also have led away a group of Roman virgins, who thus avoided rape. She has been considered a female hero.
118 Of relevance to this discussion, see the new study by Najam Haider on the early Islamic period, emphasising the role of rhetoric in the early medieval works: N. Haider, The Rebel and the Imam in Early Islam (Cambridge, 2019), in particular the first chapter on methodology entitled ‘Modeling Islamic Historical Writing’, pp. 1–25.