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The conquest of Persia was completed by Holagu, the son of Tuli and grandson of Zingis, who of course was' brother to the two successive emperors, Mangu and Cublai.
Hence it follows, that they could not have commenced their first journey at the very earliest before 1258, or 1259 rather; as it is not to be supposed that Holagu would enter upon a dangerous war in the first year of his reign. Upon the whole, therefore, the date of 1260, for the commencement of the first journey, as already observed, is perfectly consistent with the chronology of history.
At that time there came to Bochara a person of distinction, who was going as ambassador from Holagu to Kublai-khan, the great emperor of all the Tartars, who resided in the remotest countries of the earth, betwixt the north-east and the east.
An opinion, however, seems now to be gaining ground among the learned, that a legal issue may one day be found in the restoration to the Caliphate of what is called by them the Saut el Haï, the living voice of Islam, which in its first period, and indeed till the destruction of the Abbaside dynasty by Holagu, belonged to the successors of the Prophet.
For it was now that Holagu with his Mongol hordes, having overthrown Bagdad and slain the last of the Abbassides, launched his savage troops on the West. He fulminated a despatch to Nasir the Eyyubite head of Syria, in which he claimed to be "the scourge of the Almighty, sent to execute judgment on the ungodly nations of the earth."
Moreover, during the last two centuries the temporal power of the Caliphs was practically in delegation to the Seljuk Turks, who acted as mayors of the palace, and their spiritual power was unsupported by any show of sanctity or learning. It was terminated forcibly by the pagan Holagu, who at the head of the Mongols sacked Bagdad in 1258.
Nasir answered it in like defiant terms; but, not being supported by Kotuz, had to fly from Damascus, which was taken possession of by the Mongol tyrant. After ravaging Syria with unheard-of barbarity, Holagu was recalled to Central Asia by the death of Mangu. Leaving his army behind under Ketbogha, he sent an embassy to Egypt with a letter as threatening as that to Nasir.
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