During the class trial of Genghis Khan, there were several witnesses on the prosecution side who gave much evidence to prove that Genghis Khan and his descendants and Mongol army were barbaric invaders who committed crimes against humanity. The class first heard from the Tibetan Buddhist monk, who said that the Mongols, when invading, never cared much about the Tibetans or helped rebuild life and society after the invasions. Next, Mstislav III of Kiev spoke about how the Mongol invaders gave him an unpleasant and cruel death, as did Qutuz, the Mamluk sultan of Egypt, and Mustasim, the caliph of Baghdad. Pope Innocent IV talked about how negotiations with the Mongols led to threats of invasion and requirements of subjection to the empire, which…show more content… On the defense side, the class heard from Kublai Khan, who felt he was very influential and did nothing wrong to the Chinese Yuan Dynasty. The Chinese Silk Road merchant stated that the Mongols actually lead the Silk Road to be more secure with most of the Eurasian former lands united. The historian Rashid al-Din said that the Mongols did what they could to unite a culture, as he wrote in his studies of travels abroad, as Ibn Battuta also said. The Mongol woman came up and said that the Mongols led social reforms throughout the empire, and that she has never felt so free. Marco Polo was the next witness, who said that working for the Khan dynasty was like working for benevolent people. Out of all the witnesses, the most convincing that the Mongols and Genghis Khan were not barbaric were Kublai Khan and the Mongol woman, because as living through Mongol rule in their homeland, they were showing how socially and economically, the Mongols were very good to them and could not be less committing of crimes against
