156 DESTINY DISRUPTED
in my army? When I motion for all those who are dispersed to come to-
gether, I will deal first with Iran and then turn my attention to Turan, and
I will put everything in its proper place."^10
The attack on Baghdad began on February 3, 1258. By February 20,
Baghdad was not just conquered. It was pretty much gone. The Mongols
had a proscription against shedding royal blood; it ran against their tradi-
tions; they just didn't do that sort of thing. So they wrapped the khalifa
and members of his family in carpets and kicked them to death. As for the
citizens of Baghdad, Hulagu's Mongols killed virtually every one of them.
The only ambiguity about how many people the Mongols killed at Bagh-
dad has to do with how many there were to kill. Muslim sources put the
toll at eight hundred thousand. Hulagu himself was more modest. In a let-
ter to the king of France, he claimed he had killed only two hundred thou-
sand. Whichever the case might be, the city itself was burned down, for
Hulagu kept his promises. All the libraries and schools and hospitals, all of
the city's archives and records, all the artifacts of civilization enshrined
there, all the testimonials to the great surge of Islamic civilization in its
golden age, perished utterly.
Only one power managed to hold the line against the Mongols and
that was Egypt. No one else ever dealt the Mongols a straight-up military
defeat, not here, not anywhere.
Saladin's descendants still ruled this region when the Mongol on-
slaught began, but by 1253 they were exhibiting the typical ailments of
aging dynasties: pampered weaklings occupied the throne and predatory
rivals circled round it. One day the king died, leaving no obvious heir.
His wife Shajar al-Durr briefly took over as sultan, but then the mam-
luks, that corps of elite slave soldiers, got together and chose one of
their own number to marry the sultan, whereupon he became the de
facto sultan.
Hulagu was destroying Baghdad right about then. When he finished,
he started south, following the well-traveled route of conquerors. But
Egypt's greatest mamluk general, Zahir Baybars, confronted Hulagu at
Ayn Jalut, which means "Goliath's spring." In biblical times, according to
legends, David had defeated Goliath at this spot. Now, in 1260 CE, Bay-
bars was the new David and Hulagu the new Goliath.^11