Iraq 1215AD – 1453AD

The Mongols invaded Iraq in the 1250’s, and in 1258 they finally entered Baghdad itself. They killed the last of the caliphs and sacked the city. Thousands of Baghdad inhabitants were massacred. Iraq, once again, became a subordinate province of a larger empire, whose capital was far away. Under the Mongol Il-khan rulers, Iraq experienced further economic decline, with tax revenues apparently sinking to a mere one-tenth of their pre-Mongol levels. Matters got even worse when civil wars broke out between rival Il-khanid chieftains.

In the chaos under the later Il-khans the Mongol Jalayrid tribe seized control of Iraq (1356). Then another conqueror from central Asia, Timur, besieged and sacked Baghdad (1401).

Timur and his successors controlled Iraq for only a few years before it again passed into the hands of another group originally from central Asia, the White Sheep Turks. These are now pushing into western Iran.