What does the destruction of the mosques indicate about the importance of Islam in Persia between 1200 and 1450 CE?
Islam was consistently practiced by all in Persia.
Islam led to a decline of education in the city of Baghdad.
Islam was already in decline, making Persia vulnerable to invasion.
Islam was a unifying force in Baghdad at the time of the invasion.
Refer to the passage.
"They [the Mongols] came down upon the city and killed all they could, men, women and children, the old, the middle-aged, and the young. Many of the people went into wells, latrines, and sewers and hid there for many days without emerging. Most of the people gathered in the caravanserais [inns] and locked themselves in. The Tatars [Mongols] opened the gates by either breaking or burning them. When they entered, the people in them fled upstairs and the Tatars killed them on the roofs until blood poured from the gutters into the street; ‘We belong to God and to God we return’ [Qur'an, ii, 156]. The same happened in the mosques and cathedral mosques and dervish convents. . . . And Baghdad, which had been the most civilised of all cities, became a ruin with only a few inhabitants, and they were in fear and hunger and wretchedness and insignificance.”
Ibn Kathir, Al-Bidaya wa Al-Nihaya, 14th century
"Remembrance of Things Past: On the City of Peace, Baghdad,” in Al-Ahram Weekly Online, Cairo (April 2003)