After Mosul, what is Iraqi Christians' fate? Part 3 - FC#13

Here is the third part of the series about the iraqi christians. Hope you are going to enjoy !

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We are now in 1260 : the mongol conquest.

Well, around 1260, the mongols, which have created the largest empire ever created in human history, are the new conquerors of the area which is called Iraq today. They arrive in a region where after having been living during centuries together, syriacs (more or less the christians) and arabs (more or less the muslims) have shared their knowledge, their culture, the Christians are now also speaking Arabic. Arabic which is the vernacular language spoken, the standard native language in the region. So, this is the picture before the Mongol conquest.

The Mongol conquest happens and the first Mongol emperors are quite favorable to the christians. You remember the Nestorians? The Nestorians of the Persian church? During all these years they did not just sit around and wait. On the contrary, the Nestorians had a very missionary spirit. They went as far as India,.., as far as China,.., as far as Mongolia.

So mongol Emperors were favorable to Christianity, they even had christians in their family. Doquz Khatun, the wife of the Mongol Emperor Hulagu Khan, was christian, Nestorian christian. One of the greatest Mongol tribe, the Keraites, had converted to Christianity, to nestorianism. So when they conquered the territory of the former Persia, the Mongols removed the dhimmi status that the christians had. But, the Mongols were not only favorable to the Christians, they were very opened, in general to the religion of the people they conquered. In reality they were quite curious about religion, and each Mongol emperor had his own beliefs.

The successor of Hulagu was Bouddhist, then came Tekuder who was muslim, then came Arghun who was baptized as christian but then was budhist, and so on.

And a successor of Hulagu, called Ghazan, decided that his empire had to choose an official religion. In fact, just a few years after the mongols had conquered Iraq, there was a succession war. And following this war the Mongol empire had been divided in four empires. And this successor of Hulagu, Ghazan, was the emperor of the part called the Ikhanate. And Ghazan, in 1295, decided that his empire, the Ikhanate, had to choose one and only one religion as the official religion of the empire.

There were many delegations sent by the Nestorians in order to convince Ghazan, in order to encourage him to choose Christianity. But, finally he adopted Islam. He made Islam the official religion. Ghazan himself was quite respectful of the other beliefs but overall, the pressure on the minorities increased significantly.