Hulagu Khan

Born: c. 1217 Died: February 8, 1265 Reigned: 1256-1265 Khanate: Ilkhanate Title: Ilkhan (Subordinate Khan)

Overview

Hulagu Khan was a grandson of Genghis Khan, a brother of both Kublai Khan and Möngke Khan, and the founder of the Ilkhanate — the Mongol dynasty that ruled Persia and the surrounding regions for nearly a century. He is remembered as one of the most consequential figures in medieval Middle Eastern history, the conqueror who ended the Abbasid Caliphate and sacked Baghdad in 1258, an event so traumatic that it reverberated through the Islamic world for generations. His campaigns reshaped the political map of the Middle East and brought Persia, Iraq, and parts of Anatolia under Mongol rule.

Early Life and Background

Hulagu was a son of Tolui, the youngest son of Genghis Khan, and the great Keraite princess Sorghaghtani Beki, one of the most politically astute women in Mongol history. His mother's Christian faith and her cultivation of relationships with various religious traditions influenced Hulagu's own religious tolerance and his complex relationship with Christianity — his senior wife Doquz Khatun was a devout Nestorian Christian who advocated for Christian interests within the empire.

He was assigned the western campaigns by his brother Möngke Khan at the great Kurultai of 1251, tasked with subjugating the remaining independent powers of the Islamic world.

Conquests

Hulagu's western campaigns were among the most devastating in history:

• He destroyed the Assassin strongholds of the Nizari Ismailis in northern Persia (1256), ending a sect that had terrorized the region for nearly two centuries
• He conquered Baghdad (1258), killing the Abbasid Caliph al-Musta'sim and ending the Abbasid Caliphate — an institution that had lasted since 750 CE. The sack of Baghdad was catastrophic; estimates of the dead range widely but the city's destruction ended its role as the center of Islamic civilization
• He conquered Syria, taking Aleppo and Damascus in 1260
• His westward advance was halted at the Battle of Ain Jalut (1260), where the Egyptian Mamluks defeated a Mongol force in what is often called the first significant check on Mongol expansion

Legacy

Hulagu established the Ilkhanate — the name means "subordinate khan," acknowledging nominal deference to Kublai Khan as Great Khan — and founded a dynasty that would govern Persia for nearly a century. The Ilkhanate eventually became a great patron of Persian culture, science, and art under later rulers. Hulagu's sack of Baghdad remains one of the defining events of Islamic history, marking the end of the classical Abbasid era. He is buried on an island in Lake Urmia in what is now northwestern Iran.