The Hammer on Islam

CHAPTER 8 · 1253–1260 · The Mongol Empire, 1206–1294

Möngke sends his brother Hülegü west in 1253 with a fifth of the empire’s soldiers and a checklist: the Assassins, the caliph, Syria, and — if it refuses submission — Egypt. The first target falls to engineering: the Nizari Ismailis, the sect whose mountain fortresses and dagger-politics had terrorized Islamic rulers for 150 years (and had, unwisely, sent killers against a Great Khan), are reduced castle by castle; Alamut’s master surrenders in 1256 and the impregnable is dismantled at leisure. Then Baghdad. Al-Musta‘sim, the 37th Abbasid caliph, commander of the faithful in name for five cent

The turn: Ain Jalut, 3 September 1260.

This chapter is one scene of an interactive atlas: the map repaints as the dates advance, campaigns draw themselves, and every chapter argues its causes and consequences — then a field exam asks you to prove it on the map.