Saturday, January 18, 2003

Is George W. Bush the Reincarnation of the 13th Century Mongol Khan Hulegu?

Ever since last November, when I reread the 13th century Persian historian Juvaini’s book The History of the World Conqueror I have been entertaining the notion that George W. Bush is the reincarnation or at least the emanation of Khan Hulegu, the son of Chingis Khan’s son Tolui and the brother of Qubalai Khan who founded the Yuan Dynasty in China. I mentioned this to several people, but as they had never heard of Hulegu in the first place and could not understand his connection with George Bush my comments were met with blank stares. It was Hulegu, you students of Mongolian history will recall, who in the 1250s wiped out the terrorist group known as the Assassins (our English word “assassin” comes from the name of this group) which had been founded by Hassan Sabbah, the 12th century equivalent of Osama bin Laden.

Now it appears that Saddam Hussein himself agrees with me! For starters see the CNN article Saddam: 'New Mongols' Face Defeat. Saddam’s blustering about the New Mongols (Americans led by George W. Bush) even spooked Wall Street: for this see the Wall Street Journal. See the Full Text of Saddam’s Speech. Also, it was Hulegu and his army who laid waste to Baghdad in 1258, an event from which in the opinion of some observors the city has never recovered. See for instance the comments of the famous Sufi Idries Shah (aka Rafael Lefort), writing in The Teachers of Gurdieff. "Baghdad is not the gem of the desert as it was described in the book of Muqadass the Arabian geographer that I had read. Admittedly he wrote in the thirteenth century, before the advent of Genghis Khan, who paid the city a visit from which it never recovered. It has had plenty of time to recover, but seemingly lacks the energy." Shah got his khans confused; Genghis died in 1227; his grandson Hulegu sacked Baghdad in 1258, but his point stands.

Note that in his speech Saddam mentions Hulegu no less than twelve times.

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