Houlagou Khan

Houlagou Khan , Hulagu or Hülegü (1217 - Maragha, close to Tabriz February 8th 1265) was the grandson of Gengis Khan and the brother of Möngke Khan and Kubilai Khan.

Houlagou, the child of Tolui and a Christian woman nestorienne, Sorgaqtani, was sent by his/her Möngke brother in 1255 to achieve three tasks in the south-east of the Asia: firstly constraint of the At the time, people in the south of the Iran; secondly destruction of the sect of the Assassins; and thirdly eradication of the Caliphate of the Abbasid .

Houlagou is a complex character. Impassioned Philosophy and of science, seeking the company of the men of letters, it is transformed during its campaigns into sanguinary animal, assoiffée of blood and destruction. Very influenced by Christianity (its mother, his favorite wife Doqouz Khatoun (Tokuz-khatoun) and several of its collaborators belong to the Church nestorienne) it did not give up the shamanism. In Persian, it is tolerant with regard to the Moslems, but, carried by the will to destroy any political entity able to be opposed to him, it carries out against the metropolises of Islam a war of total destruction.

Houlagou probably joins together more the large army Mongolian E ever assembled. It took the control of Lours easily, and its reputation frightened so much the Assassins who they capitulated and delivered their impregnable fortress of Alamut without combat (1256).

Houlagou had always intended to conquer Baghdad, but it used the refusal of the Caliph to send to him troops like a pretext for the catch. It then forwarded to him this message:

“When I lead my army against Baghdad in anger, that you with the paradise or on the ground

I will bring back for you since the revolving spheres,

I hide will turn over you in the air like a lion,

I will not leave anybody alive in your kingdom,

I will burn your city, your country and you too.

If you want to run away yourselves and your worthy family, listen to my council with the ear of the intelligence. If you done it not you will see what God wanted.”

The Caliph did not know how to prevent the invasion of Houlagou but it defended the city slightly. The conqueror ordered that several categories of the inhabitants are saved like educated people and the Christians (at the request of his wife Doqouz Khatoun, Christian nestorienne), but massacred at least 250 000 people (the contemporary sources indicate 800 000). Houlagou killed the Caliph by putting it in a rolled carpet then by striking it to make a pulp of it or by making it trample by horses. Marco Polo indicates that he died of hunger but there is no proof of that; a Mongolian legend tells indeed that Houlagou made it lock up in a tower where its treasures were.

The caliphate was destroyed, and the Iraq devastated, the area will not become again any more the center political and cultural important only it had been so far. The small states of the area then hastened to reassure Houlagou by the way their fidelity, and the Mongolian turned to the Syria in 1259 demolishing the Ayyoubides and sending patrols also far Gaza. The turn of the Egypt seemed come, when the death of Möngke forced Houlagou and the major part of its army to be withdrawn, for a crisis from succession which will appear very difficult in its payment.

However, the Mongols had fallen on the Croisés which held the coast of the Palestine. The Mamelouks were combined with the latter, obtained the passage on their territory, and destroyed the Mongolian army with the Bataille of Ain Djalout. For all the duration of the dynasty of Houlagou, Palestine and Syria will remain out of reach, the Tigre becoming the border of its territory.

Houlagou joined its grounds in 1262, but it could not avenge the defeats for its army because it was involved at once in a civil war with Berké, the brother of Batou Khan, war during which it undergoes a severe defeat in 1263 during an attempt at invasion of the north of the the Caucasus. He died in 1265, and his/her son Abaqa succeeded to him, installing his dynasty of the Houlagides which will reign on the territory known as the Ilkhânat of Perse until in 1340.

Its tomb is in Azerbaïdjan but we do not know his site with more exactitude.

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