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Damascus Under the Mongols
Bar
Hebraeus, whose history is so well known, was at this
time the Jacobite patriarch of Aleppo, but he was absent
at the time of the siege, having gone to pay his respects
to Hulagu.* After the fall of Aleppo, Hamath surrendered
its keys and received
a commissary from Hulagu. Nassir, who was still at
Berz6 when Aleppofell, by the advice of his generals now
retired towards Gaza to await assistance from the
Egyptian Sultan. He ordered the chief men of Damascusto
fly and take refuge in Egypt. They generally obeyed, and
sold their possessions at a great sacrifice. Such was the
scarcity of transport however, that Macrizi tells us a
camel sold for 700 silver drachmas. The inhabitants of Damascus
now sent a deputation to Hulagu with rich presents and
carrying the keys of the city. He caused the Kadhi Mohayi
ud din, the chief of this deputation, to be dressed in a
state robe of golden tissue and named him Chief Justice
of Syria. He returned to Damascus and read out a decree
of Hulagu, promising their lives to the inhabitants.
Hulagu sent two commanders, one a Mongol the other a
Persian, to take charge of Damascus, with orders to spare
the inhabitants and to obey the counsels of
Zein-ul-Hafizzi, its governor. Shortly afterwards
Kitubuka and a body of Mongols garrisoned the town, and
after a short siege captured the citadel, which had
refused to submit, and killed its commanders. Kitubuka
was a Kerait and a Christian, and we are told that he
very much favored the Christians, who began to be very
independent in their manners towards their recent masters
the Mussulmans. They publicly drank wine even in the
great fast of Ramadan ; they sprinkled with holy water
the dress of the Mohammedans and the doors of the mosques
; they made the followers of the prophet stoop to the
cross in their processions ; they sang psalms in the
streets, and proclaimed that their faith was the only
true faith, and even destroyed mosques and minarets in
the neighborhood of their churches ; all this under the
patronage of the Mongol general. Hulagu named the Eyoubit
Prince Ashraf, who had been deprived of his patrimony of
Hims by Nassir, Lieutenant-general of Syria.
History of The Mongols From the 9th
to the19th Century. Part I. The Mongols Proper and
the Kalmuks. 'Henry H. Howorth, F.S.A. London: Longmans,
Green, And Co. 1876.
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