“They swept through the city like hungry falcons attacking a flight of doves, or like raging wolves attacking sheep, with loose reins and shameless faces, murdering and spreading terror,” writes David Morgan in his description of the Mongol capture of Baghdad in The Mongols. If most historical accounts of the fall of the so-called “capital of light” converge on matters linked to the destructions or the consequences of the fall, they show dissimilar and conflicting views as to the responsibility for this event. This paper will analyze a sample of historical accounts on the fall of Baghdad and compare their narratives in both form and content. It will look at critical questions in the treatment of this event by the historians under scrutiny: Who was responsible for the fall of the city? Was it primarily due to the mishandlings of the last Abbasid Caliph al-Musta‘sim bi-Allah? What role did the entourage of the Caliph play? Did the Shi‘i wazir Ibn al-‘Alqami betray the Caliph by plotting with Hulegu against him? What was the role of the Shi‘i-Twelver astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi? In order to answer these questions, the paper will consider a number of accounts: first, the earliest accounts available- contemporary to the fall (Rashid al-Din al-Hamadani, Al-Jujzani, Ibn al-‘Ibri, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi); second, later accounts written in the 14th and 15th centuries (Ibn al-Tiqtaqa, Ibn Taymiyya, Al-Dhahabi, Al-Kutubi, Al-Safadi, Ibn Kathir, Ibn Khaldun, Al-Maqrizi, Al-Taghribirdi); third, the modern treatment and adoption of the previous accounts (H. Howorth; G. Le Strange; B. Spuler; D. Nicolle, K. ‘Ali). Through this analysis, the paper will make possible a mapping of the evolution of historical writing on a specific event in Islamic history, from the earliest sources available and the controversies they raised, to later formulations, adoptions and rewriting of these accounts. While the existence of a ‘debate’ is obvious in the early accounts between the “pro-Mongol” historians and the other writers attempting to “correct” Mongol history writing, later historians writing under the Mamluks tended to adopt a narrative that matched their inner beliefs: the Mongol invasion was the outcome of a plot or Shi‘i-Mongol alliance. Modern historians tend to focus their analyses on a limited number of sources without acknowledging the existence of problematic controversies. Unveiling political agendas and sectarian belongings, this study is a demonstration of the difficulty to deal with historical sources as well as the complexity of historical writing.