In 1258, Hulagu Khan of the Mongol Ilkhanate captured Baghdad, at the time the largest, most cosmopolitan, most technologically advanced city on the face of the Earth. The siege itself was a short, sharp affair, but Hulagu had been enraged by the Arabs' refusal to accept his terms and surrender without a fight.
Deciding that an example needed to be made of Baghdad, which also happened to be the seat of the Islamic faith--perhaps surprisingly to us in America, also the most enlightened, open-minded and tolerant religion in the world of that time--Hulagu ordered the city pillaged so thoroughly that the repercussions would be felt much further than just the city limits, and for long afterward.
The famed Arab irrigation systems were destroyed, untold numbers of Classical Greek and other ancient texts were burnt, and hundreds of thousands of people were massacred.
[Source: Bibliotheque Nationale (France), via Wikipedia.]
Then, as if that weren't enough, the Mongols took Al-Mustasim, the Caliph of Baghdad, Islam's supreme religious authority, rolled him up in one of these (see below), and marched their entire horse-mounted army back and forth over him until he was well and truly...crushed.
Oh, and just in case that didn't send the right message, all of Al-Mustasim's children were also executed.
Talk about humiliation mixed with bloodthirstiness--Hulagu Khan makes Walder Frey look like a tame housecat!
Read other related questions on Quora:
- Has any country in history had a undeclared war?
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- What are some of the most notable public humiliations in modern history?
from Quora http://ift.tt/2aBb0jq
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