158 DESTINY DISRUPTED
power to do so than I. Let us rob them together! But-if you commit ex-
tortion against the peasants, take their oxen and seed, and cause their crops
to be consumed-what will you do in the future? You must think, too,
when you beat and torture their wives and children, that just as our wives
and children are dear to our hearts, so are theirs to them. They are human
beings, just as we are."^12 That doesn't sound like something Hulagu or
Chengez would have said. Ghazan's words were one small sign that in the
wake of the Mongol holocaust, Islam and civilization were going to come
back to life after all.