Why did the Mongols hate books so much? Central Asian Turkic invaders (related to the Mongols) were also responsible for burning down one of India largest libraries (at Nalanda).
I don't understand why certain groups of people would be so bent on destruction. Destruction of life, property, art, culture, scholarship, literature, etc.
It is very sad.
Mongols did not consider the people they conquered to be far above cattle. When they took over cities they staged systematic executions where they would literally corral a hundred thousand people together, and have a thousand of their soldiers armed with axes be told "go collect 100 right ears to prove that you've killed your quota of people". As far as I can tell the way to get humans to do that to other humans seems, throughout history, to be to convince the murderers that the people they're killing aren't really human, they're just some sort of weaker other-species.