The Templars: The Rise and Fall of God's Holy Warriors

by Dan Jones

This was not entirely fantastical: the Mongols were notably open-minded about religious conversions, often adopting the faith of the lands they conquered. Hülagü, the ruler of the Ilkhanate, which was expanding westwards from Persia towards the Holy Land, had a Nestorian Christian woman as his chief wife, and in 1162 he was indeed considering a similar alliance, dispatching his own letters to France to sound out Louis.6 Hülagü described himself to Louis as an ‘avid destroyer of the perfidious Saracen people, friend and supporter of the Christian religion, energetic fighter of enemies and faithful friend of friends’.7 The dream alliance never came about, but it remained a tantalizing possibility in the minds of some western princes and a vision of looming annihilation in those of the Ayyubids and their Mamluk successors.