Mongol
After the Mongol Storm at Nishapur
The ruin of a Khurasani city, 618 AH
618 AH / 1221 CE
Educational historical reconstructionWhere
Nishapur, Khurasan (modern northeastern Iran)
36.2100, 58.7900 · View on OpenStreetMap
Background
In Safar 618 AH (April 1221 CE), during the Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian empire under Genghis Khan, the great Khurasani city of Nishapur was stormed and destroyed in one of the most complete massacres of the whole campaign. Nishapur was among the foremost cities of the eastern Islamic world, a metropolis of trade and a renowned centre of Sunni learning that had produced and hosted great scholars, jurists, and poets. Late in 1220 a son-in-law of Genghis Khan, the commander Toghachar, had been killed by a defender beneath the walls; when the army of Tolui, a son of Genghis Khan, returned and took the city after a short assault, it showed no mercy. The Khurasani Muslims of the city were put to the sword on a vast scale, the city was pulled down, and the chronicles report that the ground was levelled so completely that it could no longer be ploughed, a deliberate ruin meant to ensure the place could not recover. The horror of the Mongol invasions of Khurasan was set down by the contemporary Sunni historian Ibn al-Athir rahimahu Allah, whose famous lament called it the greatest catastrophe to befall mankind, recorded again by al-Juzjani rahimahu Allah in his Tabaqat-i Nasiri, and described in detail by Juwayni rahimahu Allah, who travelled the devastated east a generation later and gathered the local tallies of the dead. The casualty numbers the chronicles give are vast and were almost certainly exaggerated, but the completeness of the destruction is not in doubt. The eastern Islamic lands lost not only their people but their cities, their libraries, and the dense fabric of learning and cultivation built up over centuries, and some regions never fully recovered. This scene depicts the storming itself rather than the killing that followed: the long earthen wall of the city being carried at a breach, a scaling ladder set against the broken rampart with a climber on it, massed bowmen with short composite bows loosing arrows at the parapet under dark horsetail standards, a wave of light cavalry pressing in across the plain, and the rooftops and a single glazed dome of the town showing through the dust behind the wall, with the figures kept distant and their faces indistinct. It is the moment the wall falls, grave and sober, a portrait of the assault that opened the Mongol age in the Islamic world, the same catastrophe that would reach Baghdad a generation later.
What you see
A long earthen city wall with mud-brick towers runs across the scene, the kind of rammed-earth and fired-brick rampart that ringed the great oasis towns of the Muslim east. The wall is being breached at the left, where rubble spills from a torn gap rather than a built gate.
Attackers swarm the breach on the left: a long scaling ladder is set against the broken wall and a climber is on it, while bowmen below and on the rubble loose arrows up at the parapet. This is the storming of a city, the moment the wall is carried, not a siege at rest.
The bowmen carry short recurved composite bows and wear layered coats and fur-trimmed caps, and dark horsetail standards and banners rise over them, the equipment and tug standards of a steppe army out of Inner Asia rather than the lances and mail of a settled Muslim or Crusader host.
A dense body of horsemen presses in across the right of the field, a wave of light cavalry massing below the walls with banners raised, the encircling field army that has the town surrounded and is driving the assault home.
Behind the wall the rooftops of the town and a single glazed dome show through the dust, the religious and civic heart of the city still standing for the moment as the rampart in front of it is overrun.
The action sits on a bare, dusty plain under a hazy overcast sky, the open inland oasis country of Khurasan in the Muslim east, far from the river cities of Iraq or the deserts of Arabia.
This is the Mongol storm of Genghis Khan's invasion of the Khwarazmian empire breaking over Khurasan; the fall of this city was among the most complete and the most lamented assaults of the whole campaign.
Primary sources
Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh (early 13th c.): Sunni historical synthesis, contemporary with the invasion. His famous lament over the Mongol catastrophe is a principal source for the scale of the destruction in Khurasan, including Nishapur. Confidence high; deeply felt and close to the events.
Further reading & cross-references
Juwayni, Tarikh-i Jahangushay (13th c.): Sunni Persian historian who travelled the devastated east in Mongol service. The most detailed account of the campaigns in Khurasan and the fall of its cities; he supplies the revenge motive for Toghachar, the storming under Tolui, and the local tallies of the dead. Confidence high for the narrative; the casualty figures are treated as inflated.
al-Juzjani, Tabaqat-i Nasiri (mid 13th c.): Sunni Persian historian writing from Delhi, a refugee from the Mongol conquest of the east. An independent witness-near account of the destruction of Khurasan that corroborates the levelling of Nishapur. Confidence high.
David Morgan, The Mongols (modern): Standard modern non-confessional academic synthesis. Used for the campaign, the cautious assessment of the casualty accounts, and the long-term effect on Khurasan. Confidence high.
Nishapur archaeological surveys (material record): Material cross-reference. Excavation and survey of the Nishapur site confirm a major destruction horizon and the ruined urban fabric, supporting the depiction of a stormed and levelled oasis city. The exact form of any single mosque or madrasa in the panorama is a reconstruction, not a dated building. Confidence medium-high.
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