Above: Hulagu meets the people and Caliph of Baghdad
5th Safar 656 Hijri/February 10th, 1258 Miladi [Birth – A.D.]
This is it. My last entry. Why do I even bother to write? I am in the dark, and I just hear breathing around me. The breathing of the damned. I guess it is futile to even write now, but perhaps someone one day will realize the brutality of these hell-dwellers.
Father is dead. Mother is probably as well. I cannot even cry for them for I too will soon join them. The man across from me already smells of death, but that’s not new. The whole city smells of death and decay. Rumour has it that Hulagu moved his camp north outside of Baghdad because the city has died. There is death everywhere. I would write more, but I cannot see. A week in this dark has made me almost lose my mind. Nay, I have lost my mind!
The boy at my right is no more than ten years of age. The blood from a month ago has caked dry on his face. The man to the left of him has not moved in two days. I believe him to have left this world, but I dare not move him to check. The children and men here have never seen this much death. The streets outside run red, and our rivers run black as well as red. Libraries have been destroyed. All the books that Uncle worked on have been burned and thrown into the Tigris. Indeed it runs black from the ink of the scholar!
I am to be executed tonight. We are all to be executed tonight. Children, men, women, it does not matter. Those who refuse to serve the Mongols, and those who took up arms against them, there will be no mercy bestowed upon them.
Musta’sim was executed this morning. Our leader, though he was indecisive, is dead. It seems that even if he had tried to do something about their arrival, they would have won anyways. Mother was right. Father was right. Oh how I wretched it feels to be wrong! They say he was executed. Others say he was rolled up in a carpet and kicked or trampled to death. Others say he was shut in a tower with his treasure and starved to death. There is no way for me to know. Though it is true that the Mongols execute someone of royal or noble blood in accordance with Mongol custom by inflicting death by some method that does not involve the shedding of the victim’s blood.
The lunatic who sits by the door is re-counting the horrors he saw. Perhaps he was already insane before the Mongols came, but I would not be surprised if he lost his mind after their arrival. Indeed they were that horrible. I do not want to hear him, but I can’t stop. The mothers pulled out on the streets, the girls raped in front of their families, the fathers beheaded in front of their children, I can’t take it anymore!!
Hmph! We now hear talks that the Christians were spared. Hulagu’s Nestorian wife persuaded him to spare the Christians. Would we have wanted his mercy? Nay, the point of the sword is more dear than falling to his feet! I can only pray that at least our Christian Brothers will preserve the story of our People and attempt to protect our culture. I would not suspect any less from them who rose alongside us as the glory of Baghdad arose!
I wonder how rumours can even leak into this dark hell. Even talk about them sneaks in where no one would ever suspect. This is them. Ruthless, deceiving, conniving monsters.
The future of Baghdad is uncertain. May the children of Baghdad rise up once again. I can only pray.
I see light peaking in. It is time. This hell will finally come to an end.
The works of the colleges of Baghdad were swallowed up by the river [Tigris], and their pile formed a bridge over which horsemen and foot-soldiers passed, and the water became completely black after having absorbed the ink of the manuscripts. – Arab Historian
It would be proper if the heavens rained tears of blood on earth at the destruction of the dominion of Musta’sim, the Commander of the Faithful – Sa’di
