3. The Mongols’ Devastating Impact on the Islamic Heartland
The first and immediate consequence of the Mongol conquests was a population collapse in the Islamic heartland. Throughout much of the region, the Mongols engaged in wanton massacres, even genocide. Many of those not killed outright starved to death in the howling wastelands left in the conquerors’ wake. Many more, weakened by hunger, fell prey to the waves of epidemic diseases the swept the Medieval world after the Mongols brought the far flung parts of Eurasia into regular contact for the first time.
The Black Death did not only strike Europe: it began in China, and swept through the Islamic world. In that world’s heartland, it encountered a vulnerable population eking a living in a devastated landscape, surrounded by destroyed infrastructure. Then there was the economic impact. The Islamic lands conquered by the Mongols had been economically vibrant, but that vibrancy depended upon a sophisticated infrastructure which the Mongols destroyed. The economic foundation, both agricultural and urban, depended upon a network of underground aqueducts known as qanats. They were demolished by the Mongols.
