Muslim Fortresses in the Levant: Between Crusaders and Mongols (129 page)

63 Juvainī,
World
-
Conqueror
, vol. 2, 630–1.

64 Manually operated siege machines were employed alongside counterweight siege machines.

65 France, J.
Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades
(Ithaca, New York, 1999), 123.

66 The largest number of
vessels were found during the Franciscan excavations at Mt Tabor. Picherilo, M., “A survey of the fortifications at Mt. Tabor,”
Qardom
20 (1982): 59–64. [Hebrew]. They have been dated to the Frankish siege of 1217. I would like to thank Dr G. Avni and J. Zeligman for the information on
vessels found in their excavations at Bait Shean and Ramla (yet to be published).

67 Ibn al -Athīr,
Kāmil
, vol. 12, 393.

68 Juwaynī,
World–Conqueror
, vol. 1:176–7. This point has been emphasized by Smith: “Mongol warfare was distinguished not so much by its skill and aptitude as by its scale and persistence.” Smith, “Mongol manpower,” 272.

69 D’Ohsson, C.,
Histoire des Mongols
(Amsterdam, 1834) (reprinted in Tientsin China, 1940), vol. 1:289; Martin,
Rise of Chingis Khan
, 31; May, T., “Genghis Khan’s secrets of success,”
Military History
(July/Aug., 2007), 44. D’Ohsson and Martin do not reveal their source. Other than Juwaynī, I could not find a primary source that describes this siege.

70 Martinez, “Army,” 148–9, 99–116.

71 Rashīd al-Dīn,
Jāmī‘ al-tawārīkh
(Thackston), vol. 2, 507–8, in the cases of Mayyāfarqīn and Mārdīn.

72 Ibid., vol. 2, 484. The Ismā‘īli fortresses of Maymundiz and Gird Kūh are located in the region south of the Caspian Sea.

73 Ibid., vol. 2, 507–8.

74 Ibid., vol. 2, 481.

75
Järgä
was a hunting method in which riders surrounded an animal and slowly decreased the diameter of the circle until the animal was caught and killed. Ibid., vol. 3, 768.

76
. B. Spuler,
A History of the Mongols Based on Eastern and Western Accounts of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries
, trans. from German by H. and S. Drummond (London, 1972);
Geschichte Wassafs
, ed. in Persian and trans. from German by Josef von Hammer-Purgstall (Vienna, 1856), vol. 1, 68–75.

77 Ibid., 68–75.

78 Rashīd al-Dīn,
Jāmī‘ al-tawārīkh
(Thackston), vol. 2, 503; Humphreys,
Saladin
, 349.

79 Rashīd al-Dīn,
Jāmī‘ al-tawārīkh
(Thackston), vol. 2, 500–501.

80 Juvainī,
Ta‘rīkh -i jahān-gushā
(‘History of the world-conqueror’), translated and cited by Boyle, J. A. in “The death of the last Abbasid Caliph: a contemporary Muslim account,”
JSS
, 6, 2 (1961): 160;
The Travel of Ibn
A.D.
1325–1354
, trans. H. A. R. Gibb (Cambridge, 1962), vol. 2, 326. Samarqand’s recovery took almost a century and a half. It revived in the last quarter of the 14th century. Crowe, Y., “Samarkand,”
EI
²
8:1033. Aleppo, taken in January 1260 recovered only a century later. Humphreys,
Saladin
, 349.

81 While Baghdad was of great importance due to its place in the Muslim world and the fact that it was the seat of the Caliph, its geographical location was of considerable importance because of its winter pasture that served the
Īlkhāid
army. Thus, the city was restored at the order of the Mongols. The fortifications of the Assassins were of no use to the Mongols and were left in ruins or destroyed immediately after the siege.

82 Rashīd al-Dīn,
Jāmī‘ al-tawārīkh
(Thackston), vol. 2, 507–9; Patton, D.,
Badr al-Din Lu
’
lu
’
, Atabeg of Mosul, 1211–1259
(Seattle, 1991), 63.

83 Hama was ruled by an Ayyubid prince but had a Persian vicegerent nominated by Hülegü. Humphreys,
Saladin
, 350.

84 Chase,
Firearms
, 12.

85 Smail
,
R. C.,
Crusading Warfare (1097–1193),
2nd edn, (Cambridge, 1995), 215.

86 Ellenblum, R., “Frankish Castles in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: the third generation,” in
Le Concile de Clermont et la premiére Croisade,
ed. M. Balard (Paris, 1996), 522–3.

87 A detailed description of the fortress is given in Chapter 4.

88 Thorau, P.,
The ion of Egypt,
trans. P.M. Holt (London & New York, 1992), 64; Humphreys,
Saladin
, 348.

89 Amitai-Preiss, R.,
Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk-Īlkhānid War 1260–1281
(Cambridge, 1995), 60–1, 203–4. The following Mongol sieges have been described in great detail by Thorau and Amitai

90 Ibn
al-zāhir fī Sīrat al-Malik
ed.
(Riyad, 1976), 225; Baybars
al-Dawādār, Rukn al-Dīn,
Mukhtār al-Akhbar ta’rīkh al-dawla al-ayūbiyya wa-dawlat al-mamalīk
652 h,
ed. A. S.
(Cairo, 1993), 29; al-Yūnīnī,
al-Dīn Mūsā b.
,
Dhayl mir’āt al-zamān fī ta’rīkh
(Hyderabad, 1954–61), vol. 2, 318.