Siege of Baghdad (1401)

Last updated

Timur takes Baghdad in August 1401. Folio from a Dispersed copy of the Zafarnama (Book of Victory) of 1436. Timur takes Baghdad in August 1401. Zafarnama of 1436. Facing folios 346v (left) 345r (right).jpg
Timur takes Baghdad in August 1401. Folio from a Dispersed copy of the Zafarnama (Book of Victory) of 1436.

In 1401, Timur besieged Baghdad for forty days and then massacred its inhabitants for resisting. [1] The Mongol army looted the treasury and razed much of the city, except for mosques and madrasas. [2] Contemporaries reported that each Mongol soldier was ordered to bring at least one severed head of an inhabitant. Only one out of a hundred of the city's inhabitants reportedly survived the massacre to be sold into slavery. [3]

References

  1. Shterenshis, Michael (2013). Tamerlane and the Jews. Routledge. pp. 65–66. ISBN   978-1-136-87366-9.
  2. The Diez Albums: Contexts and Contents. BRILL. 14 November 2016. p. 490. ISBN   978-90-04-32348-3.
  3. Yehuda, Zvi (2017). The New Babylonian Diaspora: The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Community in Iraq, 16th-20th Centuries C.E. BRILL. p. 33. ISBN   978-90-04-35401-2.