On 13 February 1258, the fabled city of Baghdad—then a beacon of knowledge, culture, and prosperity with a population of one million—succumbed to the ferocious onslaught of the Mongols under Hulagu Khan.
The Abbasid Caliphate, once the heart of the Islamic world, crumbled as its last caliph, Al-Musta'sim, was executed, and the city's grand libraries, including the legendary House of Wisdom, were set aflame, their priceless manuscripts turned to ashes.
The Tigris River, stained black with the ink of countless lost tomes, bore silent witness to the destruction of an era that had illuminated human civilisation for centuries.
Tens of thousands were massacred in a brutal spectacle of carnage, marking not just the fall of a city but the twilight of the Islamic Golden Age.
