The Wrath of the Khans

As I grow older I grow increasingly interested with history. One fantastic story is the rise of the Mongols led by Genghis Khan in the 13th century. The military might of this people was astonishing. They were unmatched on the battlefield for their time. They took over most of Asia, the Middle East and large portions of Europe before they self-destructed.

One fascinating portion of their story is the interaction between the Khan’s and the Christian leader (Pope). And a similar interaction between the Khan’s and the Muslim leader (Caliph) in Baghdad.

In this two-part blog post I will share the interactions between these groups and the result of the interactions.  I will also dream about what could have been had the Pope wrote the same gospel to the Khans that the apostle Paul wrote in the first 3 chapters of Ephesians.

In part II of this series I will attempt to write my own version of this gospel letter to the Khan’s aligned with Ephesians 1-3. A great place to hear this entire story from a secular perspective is on the podcast called Hardcore History with Dan Carlin, Dan did an amazing podcast series on the Mongols called the Wrath of the Khan’s. Check it out in iTunes.

The background about this interaction is that the Khan’s are conquering wherever they go. They have already routed both Christian and Muslim armies with surprising ease. Amazingly no countries seem to be able or willing to join forces to defend themselves against these armies. The Mongols were ruthless in their conquering and there seemed to be destiny with them that no one could overcome.

The Khans and The Pope

In Rome Pope Innocent IV was in charge and you can find his entire 1400+ word letter here. If you don’t want to read all of this here is my quick summary:

The letter is very long and it seems to be written in a way that only another devout Catholic theologian could understand. Makes me wonder if Pope Innocent understood that he was speaking to mostly uneducated people from another language. There is lofty, wordy doctrine which was probably over the head of the Khan’s, assuming it was translated properly. Pope Innocent spells out the story of the fall of man, Jesus’ virgin birth and death for the sins of man. However it is difficult to pull that out of the letter. The letter’s tone seems to me conciliatory, it was an appeal, it was not aggressive and threatening. This fact is possibly what may have saved Rome so I give him a lot of credit for this letter.

The Khan’s response is what I would expect, he barely understood it. Find the text of the Khan’s ~400 word letter here.  It had many questions, he reasons if it weren’t God’s will for them to take over, why was it happening? There is a common quote from the Kahn letters to the Christian and Muslims. This quote is my favorite part of both letters they say “we shall see what the will of God is.” They were men of action not logic.

The Kahns and The Caliph

The interaction between the Mongols and the Muslim Caliph in Baghdad was quite different. The Caliph came off as derogatory, threatening and superior to the Mongol King. The Mongol seemed indifferent about Christ and Muslim religions, they were out to conquer the world. They cared not for the different Gods and religious disputes. They felt like it was their destiny from heaven to conquer.

When the Caliph threatened and insulted the younger Khan, the result was devastating. The Mongol armies came down to Baghdad and absolutely annihilated every man, woman and child in the city, including the Caliph himself. It was possibly the most brutal and horrible scenes of murder, rape and destruction in history. The damage done to the Muslims was great, the effects of this no doubt are still with us today, over 700 years later.

You can see the Mongol-Caliph interaction here.

Rome was not routed and destroyed but unfortunately Baghdad was.

In Part II of this post I will write (with the benefit of hindsight), what I think would have been a better gospel letter to the Mongols. This letter is based mostly on Paul’s gospel recorded in Ephesians 1-3.  I will also dream about all that would have changed in history had the Mongols responded to Jesus Christ in the late 1240’s.