DISCOVERIES & INVENTIONS · 1258 · BAGHDAD
The ink stays in the books
1258, and the Mongol army of Hulagu Khan stands at the walls of Baghdad, seat of the caliphs and keeper of the richest libraries of the medieval world. This is the timeline where the caliph opens the gates in time, and the books are never poured into the Tigris.
You are reading the timeline that almost was · notes marked THE RECORD are real history
1258 · THE GATES
1258. The armies of Hulagu Khan, grandson of Genghis, close around Baghdad. For five centuries the city has been the seat of the Abbasid caliphs and the richest libraries of the age. Hulagu sends his terms: bow to the Great Khan, and open the gates. The thirty-seventh caliph, al-Musta'sim, has a treasury he will not spend and a vizier who swears that all of Islam will ride to his rescue. He sends the envoys home with threats.
In the timeline recorded here, al-Musta'sim reads the second letter twice, and sets down his pride. He opens the gates before the first stone flies. Hulagu was sent to make the caliph kneel, not to drown a library. He accepts the surrender, and the ink stays in the books.
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