when Hūlāgū first marched out from Hamadhān, heading toward Iraq, the vizier Muʾayyad al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn al-ʿAlqamī (1) advised the caliph to send him magnificent gifts, hoping thereby to placate him and dissuade him from advancing into their lands. Yet the caliph was dissuaded by his junior dawidār, Aybak, and others, who claimed that the vizier only wished to ingratiate himself with the Tatar ruler through the wealth that would be sent. They recommended that the caliph dispatch nothing more than a token present. So the caliph sent off a small collection of gifts, which Hūlāgū Khān scorned. He then wrote to the caliph demanding that he hand over that same dawidār and Sulaymān Shāh. The caliph neither complied nor paid heed—until Hūlāgū’s arrival was at hand.

Hūlāgū reached Baghdad with his vast host of disbelieving, immoral, tyrannical, and brutal soldiers—men who believe neither in Allah nor in the Last Day—and they surrounded the city from its western and eastern sides. The troops of Baghdad (2) were pitifully few and utterly humiliated, numbering not even ten thousand horsemen, and they were [in extreme weakness]. The rest of the army had been cut off from their stipends, so that many were driven to beg in the markets and at the mosque doors, and poets (3) composed elegies for them, grieving over Islam and its people.

All this came about through the counsels of the vizier Ibn al-ʿAlqamī, the Rāfiḍī. The previous year a fierce clash had broken out between the Ahl al-Sunnah and the Rāfiḍīs, during which al-Karkh and the Rāfiḍī quarter were plundered, even the houses of the vizier’s relatives being sacked. His rage over that incident grew intense, and it was one of the motives that drove him to plot against Islam and its people the horrific calamity the like of which has never been recorded since Baghdad was built, down to the present day. For this reason he was the first to emerge before the Tatars: he left with his family (4), his companions, servants, and retainers, met with the sultan Hūlāgū Khān (5)—may Allah curse him—then returned.

He advised the caliph to go out to Hūlāgū and stand before him so that a settlement might be concluded whereby half of Iraq’s revenue would go to them and half would remain with the caliph. The caliph therefore set out with seven hundred riders—judges, jurists, Sufis, leading amirs, state officials, and notables. When they drew near the residence of the sultan Hūlāgū Khān, they were barred from accompanying the caliph except for seventeen (6) persons. With these few the caliph was allowed to proceed, while the rest were forced from their mounts, plundered, and slain to the last man. The caliph was then brought before Hūlāgū (7), who questioned him about many matters; it is said that the caliph’s speech became confused from the sheer horror of the humiliation and the tyrant’s might.