The attack on Baghdad began on February 3, 1258. By February 20, Baghdad was not just conquered. It was pretty much gone. The Mongols had a proscription against shedding royal blood; it ran against their traditions; they just didn’t do that sort of thing. So they wrapped the khalifa and members of his family in carpets and kicked them to death. As for the citizens of Baghdad, Hulagu’s Mongols killed virtually every one of them. The only ambiguity about how many people the Mongols killed at Baghdad has to do with how many there were to kill. Muslim sources put the toll at eight hundred
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