The Mongol Siege of Mardin and Ilkhanid-Artuqid Relations from Hulagu to ？ljeitü

The Mongols, who headed westward during the period of Genghis Khan, struck the first blow to the Khwarazm Shahs and opened their way to Iran and the Near East. After Genghis Khan, his grandson Hulagü invaded Maveraünnehir and Iranian territory again in 1250 with an army of five-fifths of all Mongols. He founded Ilhanl？ State, the capital city of Tabriz after captured Alamut in 1256. In 1258, he took the siege of Baghdad and abolished the Abbasid state. Thus, Hulagü reached two of his three goals. The third goal of the Mongols was to extend the borders from the Great Ocean to the Mediterranean by eliminating the Mamluks. The Artukids, who dominated Mardin and its environs during this period, had a geography that could serve the Mongols for the above purposes. For this reason, Hulagü gave great importance to Mardin Castle. That is why Hulagü did not retreat the Mongol army although the siege of Mardin castle lasted about two years. However, when Mardin was ruled by the Artuk ruler Necmeddin Ghazi, who defended Mardin against the Mongols, his son Kara Aslan, who had replaced him, had written with Hulagü to hand over the city to the Mongols and eventually the city was delivered to the Mongols. In contrast, Kara Aslan was given the dominance of Diyarbak？r, el-cezire and its surroundings. Thus, the Mongols acquired a strategic ally in all respects, while the Artukids, like the Ilkhanians, gained the support of a state which was the superpower of the period. In this study, we will answer the questions of how and what the Mongols came to Mardin, how they affected the politics and culture of the region and what effect they had on the unity of the region. In addition, we studied that relationship between Ilhanl？ and Artuklu, which started with war and conflict, ended with kinship