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Mongols return to Baghdad!
In the year 1258 the Mongols under Hulegu Khan utterly wiped out Baghdad, a shattering blow to the then thriving eastern part of the Islamic world from which it never recovered. Today, after 745 years, a contingent of 180 Mongolian soldiers have returned to Baghdad to help in the international reconstruction effort following the Iraq war. From this photo of the contemporary Mongolians, we can get a glimpse of how formidible their world-conquering ascestors must have appeared.
 Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 25, 2003 12:07 PM | Send Comments
It is still common today in the Muslim world to blame their lack of accomplishment on the Mongol invasion. I have to wonder about a culture that cannot recover from that event given 745 years to do so. An alternate theory of why the Muslim countries are such basket cases is that the religion itself contains the seeds of cultural and economic stagnation. It is not a religion that encourages debate, dissent, intellectual or academic freedom, or any form of inquiry (scientific, historical, or philosophical) that might conflict with dogma. Modern financial structures are forbidden, etc. According to this perspective, the existing cultural accomplishments of the conquered Persians, Byzantines, and Alexandrians were absorbed into the Islamic world, which then falsely took credit for the accomplishments that were merely inherited. While the Roman/Greek world was spending several centuries recovering from their own defeats at the hands of a succession of invaders, the Islamic world was geographically secure from these same invasions. Hence, for a time, the Islamic civilization was better preserved than European civilization, of which modern Muslims never tire of reminding us. Mongols sacked a good bit of Europe, too. Unlike the Muslim world, the European world recovered and rebuilt itself in much less than 745 years, while the defeats suffered by Islam were permanent, decisive turning points. When one only inherits greatness through conquest, one lacks the capacity to rebuild from scratch after defeat. Posted by: Clark Coleman on September 25, 2003 1:23 PMMr. Coleman’s comments are well taken: Ibn Warraq made similar points about the pre-muslim civilizations in his magisterial “Why I Am Not a Muslim.” I was amused by the quote from the Mongol’s commanding officer: “things are different this time.” I’ll say! Posted by: thucydides on September 26, 2003 12:37 PMAfter the Mongolians’ tour in Baghdad is up, we’ll probably let them all move to America, and the Mongolian wave of immigration will begin. It seems as though most of their Korean cousins have come to live here in the last 20 years or so… HRS Posted by: Howard Sutherland on September 26, 2003 2:59 PMClarks comments are quite ignorant actually… Shows his total lack of knowledge of history. P{ropbably some fundamentalist Christian. Posted by: Ahmad as-Salafi on April 20, 2004 9:22 PM |