iterally be said to have been
confined to the city only. Halaku Khan, the brother of the grand Khan
Kubilai, and grandson of Jenghiz Khan, took and sacked Baghdad,
keeping the Khalif imprisoned for some time, but slaying him at last,
with his sons and several thousand Abbasides. Al-Mustaa'sim was the
thirty-seventh and last Khalif of the house of Abbas, which had
reigned over five hundred years, and was now extinguished.

Halaku Khan attacked Baghdad by the advice of Khojah Nasir-uddin Tusy,
the great Persian astronomer and mathematician. Nasir-uddin had
entered the service of the last prince of the Assassins only for the
purpose of avenging himself on the Khalif, who had disparaged one of
his works. When, however, he became aware of Halaku's power, he not
only betrayed his new master to him, but led the Mughal conqueror also
to Baghdad. After the burning of the library at Alamut (the stronghold
of the Assassins, where they kept their literary treasures) and the
sacking of Baghdad by Halaku Khan, the erection of the astronomical
observatory at Maragha, under the direction of Nasir-uddin Tusy, was
the first sign that Arab civilization and the cultivation of science
had not been entirely extinguished by Tartar barbarism. The learned
viziers who stood by the side of the conqueror, such as the two
brothers Juvaini, were Persians, and therefore hardly belong to the
history of Arab literature. But the fact that one of these two
historians now wrote 'The Heart Opener,' also implies that the
invasion of the barbarians had not quite put an end to literary
activity.

More than ten historians flourished at the beginning of this period
whose names terminated with 'din,' such as Baha-uddin, Imad-uddin,
Kamal-uddin, etc., and they were contemporaries of the Arab Plutarch
Ibn Khallikan, already mentioned and described in the preceding
period.

The 'Alfiyya,' or Quintessence of Arab Grammar, was written in verse
by Jamal-uddin Abu Abdallah Muhammad, known under the name of Ibn
Malik. The author died in A.D. 1273-1274; but his work has lived, and
it is looked upon as a good exponent of the system. The Arab text has
been published, with a commentary upon it in French, by Silvestre de
Sacy, A.D. 1834.

During the eighth century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1301-1398), there lived
three distinguished men, one famed as a geographer and traveller, and
the other two as historians, viz., Ibn Batuta, Abul Feda, and Ibn
Khaldun. The first-named lef