NEARLY a thousand years after his death, the name of Genghis Khan still reverberates down the ages. Scourge of the known world, he sprang out of nowhere to bring death and destruction.

For the world of Islam in particular, the Mongol onslaught was a veritable holocaust. From Bukhara to Baghdad, Genghis laid waste to flowering cities and prosperous countries. Operating on the principle of “surrender and live; or resist and die”, he and his generals led his ravening hordes in unceasing campaigns from Beijing to Budapest.

Even after his death, his successors carried on his mission to bring all mankind under Mongol rule. Western Europe was fortunate in that a possible dispute over succession prompted the Mongol hordes to return to their steppes and grasslands as suddenly as they had appeared.

In 1995, the Washington Post proclaimed Genghis Khan as the most important man in the last thousand years’ because he led a single species to dominate the entire known world. His conquests made one nation aware of the existence of other remote countries. They realigned the world’s major religions, influenced art, established new trade patterns. The effects remain as keystones in Eurasian history.’

But for the world of Islam, Genghis Khan’s coming was nothing short of apocalyptic. Until he and his successors traumatized much of the Middle East, Damascus and Baghdad were at the cutting edge of science, philosophy and the arts. Travellers went there to learn at the feet of renowned scholars. The refined products of the Arab world were avidly sought after by western kings and queens.

The Mongol invasion brought this civilization to a premature end. With the destruction of libraries and laboratories and the slaughter of thinkers and scientists, the great progress the Muslims had made was halted. Many believed that the irruption of the Mongols was caused by the wrath of God. A wave of reaction set in as science and philosophy were discouraged, if not altogether prohibited. The orthodox claimed that the disaster was caused because Muslims had turned away from the literal words of the Holy Scriptures.

Indeed, it can be argued that the Arab world went into a decline from which it has still not recovered. Muslim Spain escaped the holocaust and continued to thrive for some while still. When Ottoman Turkey rose to power, it absorbed vast swathes of Arab territory from Makkah to the Maghreb into its empire. In the East, the Moghul Empire rose, again under a Central Asian tribe.

Since the Ottomans conquered them, most Arab nations have seen their borders drawn and redrawn by foreign powers, their leaders imposed on them and their resources plundered. Small wonder they are confused by and angry about being constantly exploited by an avaricious and incompetent leadership.

Now, as this frustration and dissatisfaction expresses itself in extremism and terrorism, people like Osama bin Laden talk of the Americans as crusaders’. A comparison with the Mongol hordes would be more appropriate. Now, as then, Muslims blame a perceived deviation from God’s commandments as the cause of their plight. They do not see that they are weak because of ignorance and their refusal to master science and technology.

Genghis Khan learned the use of gunpowder and siege-busting weaponry from the Chinese after he had engaged them in prolonged warfare. And while maintaining the mobility of his fast-moving cavalry, he integrated this new technology into his tactics.

Who was he, this vision of hell for the civilized world of the period? To this day, Genghis Khan’s birth place and grave have not been located. When he died in 1227, his inner circle kept his death a secret to prevent the disintegration of his vast empire. They buried him quietly, according to his wishes. His descendants and his generals took over various territories as he had wished them to. For the period, it was a remarkably smooth transition, and the lack of fratricidal strife allowed the momentum created by the Great Khan to carry the expansion of the empire forward.

To learn more about this illiterate but wise ruler, you could do no better than read John Man’s new biography “Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection”. Simultaneously, a travel book about the wild steppes and grasslands from where Genghis sprang, it is also a marvellous history of the Mongol people.

Relying heavily on The Secret History of the Mongols’, a work the author thinks was commissioned by Genghis as well as supervised by him, The author has visited many of the remote places the Great Khan was reputed to have been in. On his travels, he comes across strange customs and fascinating people. On this journey to one of the least known parts of the world, you learn, among other things, how to cook a marmot. (You skin it; sew up the holes in the skin after stuffing it with pieces of the animals together with hot stones; and blast the outer fur with an acetylene torch).

Genghis Khan was raised by his mother when he lost his father at a young age, and struggled to survive in a region where tribal rivalries were rife. Gradually, using his courage and his cunning, he built up a network of loyalties among the local tribes. In a series of battles, he strengthened his hold over his people and then burst out eastward, to capture large parts of China.

He then turned his attention to the West, and sent his generals in an extended raid into Russia and Eastern Europe. Nation after nation fell before the Mongol cavalry. A Georgian queen, having been asked by the Pope to send help for the current crusade, wrote in her letter of apology: “A savage people of Tatars, hellish of aspect, as voracious as wolves in their hunger for spoils, and as brave as lions, have invaded my country...”

According to contemporary sources cited, Genghis Khan had a special grudge against Muslims: his envoys to King Mohammed of the Muslim Central Asian state of Khwarezm were killed when they brought proposals for trade and good relations. The Great Khan was furious, and according to his Persian historian Juvaini, flew into a whirlwind of rage, the fire of wrath driving the water from his eyes so that it was only to be quenched in blood.’ According to the Secret History, Genghis Khan proclaimed: “Let us ride out against the Islamic people, to gain vengeance!”

The current state of confusion in the Muslim world is a measure of his success.