Birkay Khan (r.a.), Saviour of the Holy Land

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

Birkay Khan (r.a.) was the great grandson of Genghis Khan.  He is also known as “Berke”, which is a name still used among Turkic, and Mongols.  It is claimed that his mother was the daughter of Shah Muhammad II, of Khurasan. 

He was the first Mongol khan to convert to Islam.  After his conversion, he allied with the Mamluks, and avenged Hulagu’s conquest, and destruction of Baghdad.  He said, on Hulagu, “He  has sacked all the cities of the Muslims, and has brought about the death of the Caliph.  With the Help of Allah, I will call him to account for so much innocent blood.”  He was quoted by Shaykh Rashid ad-Din Thabib Fadhlullah al-Hamadani (r.a.), vizier of the Ilkhan. 

Birkay Khan’s (r.a.) war with his half-brother, Hulagu, stopped the Ilkhan army’s advance south, and saved Makkah and Madina from the Mongols.  This is the first Mongol civil war, and sparked the end of the Horde as a unified force.  The majority of the western Mongols, the Turkic peoples, became Muslim thereafter, and conquered Central Asia, and Asia Minor, in the name of Islam.