Siege of Baghdad
1401 CE.
Shown on the map at 33.347°, 44.335°.
In 1401, Timur, the ruler of the Timurid Empire, besieged the Jalayirid Sultanate capital of Baghdad for forty days and then massacred its inhabitants for resisting. The Turco-Mongol army looted the treasury and razed much of the city, except for mosques and madrasas. Contemporaries reported that each Mongol soldier was ordered to bring at least one severed head of an inhabitant. Only one out of a hundred of the city's inhabitants reportedly survived the massacre to be sold into slavery. Dust Muhammad reports that following the siege Timur captured the Jalayirid miniature artist Khwaja Abdul-Hayy to bring him back to the Timurid court in Samarkand, where his style was then followed by local court artists: When the realm-conquering banners of Timur Kiiragan cast the ray of the caliphate in subjugating the realm of Baghdad, and he made that Abode of Peace the residence of the caliphal throne for a few days, Khwaja Abdul-Hayy was taken along with the celestial army to the Abode of the Sultanate Samarqand, where he died.
Text from the Wikipedia article Siege of Baghdad (1401), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.