Siege of Baghdad (1258) in the context of "Hulagu Khan"

Baghdad is the capital and largest city in Iraq. It is located on the banks of the Tigris in central Iraq. The city has an estimated population of 8 million. It ranks among the most populous and largest cities in the Middle East and the Arab world and constitutes 22% of the country's population. Baghdad is a primary financial and commercial center in the region.

Founded in 762 AD by Al-Mansur, Baghdad was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate and became its most notable development project. The city evolved into an intellectual and cultural center. This, in addition to housing several key academic institutions, including the House of Wisdom, as well as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious environment, garnered it a worldwide reputation as the "Center of Learning". For much of the Abbasid era, during the Islamic Golden Age, Baghdad was one of the largest cities in the world and rivaled Chang'an, as the population peaked at more than one million. It was largely destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, resulting in a decline that would linger through many centuries due to frequent plagues, shift in power and multiple successive empires. Later, Baghdad served as the administrative center of Ottoman Iraq, exercising authority over the provinces of Basra, Mosul, and Shahrizor.

The House of Wisdom (Arabic: بَيْت الْحِكْمَة Bayt al-Ḥikmah), also known as the Grand Library of Baghdad, was believed to be a major Abbasid-era public academy and intellectual center in Baghdad. In popular reference, it acted as one of the world's largest public libraries during the Islamic Golden Age, and was founded either as a library for the collections of the fifth Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809) in the late 8th century or as a private collection of the second Abbasid caliph al-Mansur (r. 754–775) to house rare books and collections in the Arabic language. During the reign of the seventh Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun (r. 813 – 833 AD), it was turned into a public academy and a library.

It was destroyed in 1258 during the Mongol siege of Baghdad. The primary sources behind the House of Wisdom narrative date between the late eight centuries and thirteenth centuries, and most importantly include the references in Ibn al-Nadim's (d. 995) al-Fihrist.

The 13th century was the century which lasted from January 1, 1201 (represented by the Roman numerals MCCI) through December 31, 1300 (MCCC) in accordance with the Julian calendar.

The Mongol Empire was founded by Genghis Khan, which stretched from Eastern Asia to Eastern Europe. The conquests of Hulagu Khan and other Mongol invasions changed the course of the Muslim world, most notably the Siege of Baghdad (1258) and the destruction of the House of Wisdom. Other Muslim powers such as the Mali Empire and Delhi Sultanate conquered large parts of West Africa and the Indian subcontinent, while Buddhism witnessed a decline through the conquest led by Bakhtiyar Khilji. The earliest Islamic states in Southeast Asia formed during this century, most notably Samudera Pasai. The Kingdoms of Sukhothai and Hanthawaddy would emerge and go on to dominate their surrounding territories.

The Mongol campaign against the Nizaris of the Alamut period (the Nizari Ismaili state) began in 1253 after the Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire and a series of Nizari–Mongol conflicts. The campaign was ordered by the Great Khan Möngke and was led by his brother, Hülegü. The campaign against the Nizaris and later the Abbasid Caliphate was intended to establish a new khanate in the region—the Ilkhanate.

Hülegü's campaign began with attacks on strongholds in Quhistan and Qumis amidst intensified internal dissensions among Nizari leaders under Imam Muhammad III of Alamut whose policy was fighting against the Mongols. His successor, Rukn al-Din Khurshah, began a long series of negotiations in face of the implacable Mongol advance. In 1256, the Imam capitulated while besieged in Maymun-Diz and ordered his followers to do likewise according to his agreement with Hülegü. Despite being difficult to capture, Alamut ceased hostilities too and was dismantled. The Nizari state was thus disestablished, although several individual forts, notably Lambsar, Gerdkuh, and those in Syria continued to resist. Möngke Khan later ordered a general massacre of all Nizaris, including Khurshah and his family.

The concept of classical Islam or a classical period in the history of Islam is largely a construct of non-Islamic scholarship, formed by analogy with the classical period of the Greco-Roman world. The term implies a positive judgement defining a "normative period" in Islamic history, but Western scholars generally extend the period much later than Muslim scholars would allow. The Muslim conception of a normative period corresponds mainly to that of the Companions of the Prophet and the Rightly Guided Caliphs, roughly the seventh century.

There is no consistency in Western usage. The term may be given a primarily religious sense, meaning "the era when the classics of Islamic law and spirituality were written", extending down to about 1400. Or it may take on a political sense, meaning "the major chain of political legitimacy" that came to end with the fall of Baghdad in 1258. Although "reality had failed to conform for rather more than four centuries" to the ideal of the caliphate, the collapse of 1258 represents a fundamental psychological break in Islamic history. In a more restricted sense, Islamic "classical civilization" corresponds to the "high caliphal" period of the Umayyads and Abbasids from about 692 to 945, when "Islamicate society formed a single vast state".

Kitbuqa Noyan (died 1260), also spelled Kitbogha, Kitboga, or Ketbugha, was an Eastern Christian of the Naimans, a group that was subservient to the Mongol Empire. He was a lieutenant and confidant of the Mongol Ilkhan Hulagu, assisting him in his conquests in the Middle East including the sack of Baghdad in 1258. When Hulagu took the bulk of his forces back with him to attend a ceremony in Mongolia, Kitbuqa was left in control of Syria, and was responsible for further Mongol raids southwards towards the Mamluk Sultanate based in Cairo. He was killed in 1260 at the Battle of Ain Jalut, which was the first major loss of the Mongolian advances and halted their expansion into Arabia and Europe.

The siege of Diaoyucheng, alternatively the siege of Diaoyu Castle, was a battle between the Southern Song dynasty and the Mongol Empire in 1259. It occurred at the Diaoyu Fortress in modern-day Hechuan District, Chongqing, China. Möngke Khan, the fourth khagan of the Mongol Empire, lost his life in this battle, making it the only battle where the Mongols lost their khagan during their campaigns of conquest. This battle was preceded by the siege of Baghdad in 1258. The siege of Diaoyucheng was a setback for the Mongol conquest.