Editing History of Iraq (section)

=== Turko-Mongol rule ===
{{Main|Ilkhanate|Timurid Empire|Jalayirid Sultanate|Qara Qoyunlu|Aq Qoyunlu|Eldiguzids}}
[[File:Fall Of Baghdad (Diez Albums).jpg|thumb|[[Siege of Baghdad|Conquest of Baghdad]] by the Mongols in 1258]]
Iraq now became a province on the southwestern fringes of the [[Ilkhanate]] and Baghdad would never regain its former importance.

The [[Jalayirids]] were a [[Mongol]] [[Jalayir]] dynasty<ref>Bayne Fisher, William "The Cambridge History of Iran", p.3: "(From then until the Timur's invasion of the country, Iran was under the rule of various rival petty princes of whom henceforth only the Jalayirids could claim Mongol)</ref> which ruled over [[Iraq]] and western [[Persia]]<ref>The History Files [http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/EasternPersia.htm Rulers of Persia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210512181607/https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/EasternPersia.htm |date=2021-05-12 }}</ref> after the breakup of the Ilkhanate in the 1330s. The Jalayirid sultanate lasted about fifty years, until disrupted by [[Timur|Tamerlane]]'s conquests and the revolts of the "Black Sheep Turks" or [[Qara Qoyunlu]] [[Oghuz Turks|Turkmen]].

The mid-14th-century [[Black Death]] ravaged much of the [[Islamic world]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/islam/mongols/blackDeath.html |title=The Islamic World to 1600: The Mongol Invasions (The Black Death) |publisher=The University of Calgary |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090131180742/http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/islam/mongols/blackDeath.html |archive-date=31 January 2009 }}</ref> The best estimate for the Middle East is a death rate of roughly one-third.<ref>{{cite web|author=Kathryn Jean Lopez |url=http://old.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/kelly200509140843.asp|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120216075334/http://old.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/kelly200509140843.asp|archive-date=16 February 2012 |url-status=dead|title=Q&A with John Kelly on The Great Mortality on National Review Online |publisher=Nationalreview.com |date=14 September 2005 |access-date=9 November 2016}}</ref>

In 1401, a warlord of Mongol descent, Tamerlane (Timur Lenk), invaded Iraq. After the [[Siege of Baghdad (1401)|capture of Baghdad]], most of its citizens were massacred. Timur also conducted massacres of the indigenous [[Assyrian people|Assyrian Christian]] population, and it was during this time that the ancient Assyrian city of [[Assur]] was finally abandoned.<ref>Nestorians, or Ancient Church of the East at Encyclopædia Britannica</ref> After Tamerlane's death in 1405, there was a brief attempt to re-establish the sultanate in southern Iraq and [[Khūzestān Province|Khuzistan]]. The Jalayirids were finally eliminated by [[Kara Koyunlu]] in 1432.