Hulagu, himself pagan, acknowledging no power, superhuman nor human, but himself, was followed by successors who first embraced Buddhism and later Islam, most noteworthy of whom was Ghazan Khan (A.D. 1295), who destroyed thousands of Christians all over Tartary, Persia, and Mesopotamia. Now Islam had gained over the devastating Tartars, and began to revive as a religion, though the high degree of culture of former days was obviously not to be looked for under the rule of barbarians. But Christianity, persecuted, despised, and detested alike by Mongol and Arab, waned, and its adherents became obscure and humble. Nevertheless, though the great Chaldean Church no longer existed as before, its amputated members in China and India being separated from the central Church, its headquarters demolished, and its priests scattered, yet a great number of Christians still lived in the domains of the Mongol Emperors till the second period of invasion, when Timur-i-Lang (Tamerlane) emulated by his ferocity the earlier and pagan invaders. Among the many cruelties he committed was the massacre of Christians. From the first (A.D. 1380), he made a point of persecuting these people, his design being obviously to exterminate the whole race and religion. Not content with destroying what remained of their churches, he pursued them in every part of Persia, Chaldea, and Babylonia, till he had driven them out of the lands of their ancestors, and their panic-stricken remnants found refuge among the remote valleys and hills of the Kurds, whom even Tamerlane could not assail. The patriarchate, which had been removed to Mosul, was now transferred to Julamark, a village in the very heart of Kurdistan, out of the reach of any but the Kurds, who lived upon terms of friendliness till the Turks and priests ousted the fine old princes who ruled them there, and induced them to turn against the Chaldeans, in 1839. [Sidenote: UNSCRUPULOUS ROMAN CATHOLICS] The Roman Catholics had, through their missionaries, become aware of the existence of the great Chaldean Church, and now--to their eternal discredit be it said--they actually combined with the Turks to persecute the Chaldeans who yet remained in the foothills and plains near Mosul. “By a series of the most open frauds, the Roman Catholic emissaries obtained many of the documents which constituted the title of the Chaldean Patriarch, and gave him a claim to be recognised and protected as the head of the Chaldean Church by the Turkish authorities. A system of persecution and violence which would scarcely be credited compelled the Chaldeans of the plain to renounce their faith and unite with the Church of Rome.”[45] However, these unsavoury operations took some time in development, and meanwhile we may see the progress of the emaciated Church--now at enmity with Muslim and Christian alike, finding only sanctuary from its foes among the savage Kurds, the terror of whose name kept the Turks away from the mountains.