A Short History of The Mongols 9781350985162, 9781786733399

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I.B.TAURIS SHORT HISTORIES I.B.Tauris Short Histories is an authoritative and elegantly written new series which puts a fresh perspective on the way history is taught and understood in the twenty-first century. Designed to have strong appeal to university students and their teachers, as well as to general readers and history enthusiasts, I.B.Tauris Short Histories comprises a novel attempt to bring informed interpretation, as well as factual reportage, to historical debate. Addressing key subjects and topics in the fields of history, the history of ideas, religion, classical studies, politics, philosophy and Middle East studies, the series seeks intentionally to move beyond the bland, neutral ‘introduction’ that so often serves as the primary undergraduate teaching tool. While always providing students and generalists with the core facts that they need to get to grips with the essentials of any particular subject, I.B.Tauris Short Histories goes further. It offers new insights into how a topic has been understood in the past, and what different social and cultural factors might have been at work. It brings original perspectives to bear on the manner of its current interpretation. It raises questions and – in its extensive bibliographies – points to further study, even as it suggests answers. Addressing a variety of subjects in a greater degree of depth than is often found in comparable series, yet at the same time in concise and compact handbook form, I.B.Tauris Short Histories aims to be ‘introductions with an edge’. In combining questioning and searching analysis with informed history writing, it brings history up to date for an increasingly complex and globalized digital age. www.short-histories.com

‘A lively and readable overview of the Mongols that explains how – and why – Genghis Khan and his heirs were able to be such successful empire builders.’ – Peter Frankopan, Professor of Global History, University of Oxford, author of The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

‘This is a very good introduction to the Mongol Empire, written with a sense of drama which many comparable narratives lack. While not denying the destruction caused by the Mongols, George Lane demonstrates – in his pacy and readable survey – the wide and long-lasting impact of the Mongol imperium. Specialists and students alike will appreciate its many merits.’ – Timothy May, Professor of Central Eurasian History, University of North Georgia, author of The Mongol Conquests in World History

A Short History of . . . the American Civil War

Paul Anderson (Clemson University)

the American Revolutionary War

Stephen Conway (University College London)

Ancient China

Edward L Shaughnessy (University of Chicago)

Ancient Greece

P J Rhodes, FBA (Durham University)

Ancient Rome

Andrew Wallace-Hadrill (University of Cambridge)

the Anglo-Saxons

Henrietta Leyser (University of Oxford)

Babylon

Karen Radner (University of Munich)

the Byzantine Empire

Dionysios Stathakopoulos (King’s College London)

Christian Spirituality

Edward Howells (Heythrop College, University of London)

the Crimean War

Trudi Tate (University of Cambridge)

English Renaissance Drama Helen Hackett (University College London) the English Revolution and the Civil Wars

David J Appleby (University of Nottingham)

the Etruscans

Corinna Riva (University College London)

the Hundred Years War

Michael Prestwich (Durham University)

Irish Independence

J J Lee (New York University)

the Italian Renaissance

Virginia Cox (New York University)

the Korean War

Allan R Millett (University of New Orleans)

Medieval Christianity

G R Evans (University of Cambridge)

Medieval English Mysticism Vincent Gillespie (University of Oxford) the Minoans

John Bennet (University of Sheffield)

the Mongols

George Lane (SOAS, University of London)

the Mughal Empire

Michael H Fisher (Oberlin College)

Muslim Spain

Amira K Bennison (University of Cambridge)

New Kingdom Egypt

Robert Morkot (University of Exeter)

the New Testament

Halvor Moxnes (University of Oslo)

Nineteenth-Century Philosophy

Joel Rasmussen (University of Oxford)

the Normans

Leonie V Hicks (Canterbury Christ Church University)

the Ottoman Empire

Baki Tezcan (University of California, Davis)

the Phoenicians

Mark Woolmer (Durham University)

the Reformation

Helen Parish (University of Reading)

the Renaissance in Northern Europe

Malcolm Vale (University of Oxford)

Revolutionary Cuba

Antoni Kapcia (University of Nottingham)

the Risorgimento

Nick Carter (Australian Catholic University, Sydney)

the Russian Revolution

Geoffrey Swain (University of Glasgow)

the Spanish Civil War

Julián Casanova (University of Zaragoza)

the Spanish Empire

Felipe Fernández-Armesto (University of Notre Dame) and José Juan López-Portillo (University of Oxford)

Transatlantic Slavery

Kenneth Morgan (Brunel University London)

Venice and the Venetian Empire

Maria Fusaro (University of Exeter)

the Vikings

Clare Downham (University of Liverpool)

the Wars of the Roses

David Grummitt (University of Kent)

the Weimar Republic

Colin Storer (University of Nottingham)

THE MONGOLS George Lane

Published in 2018 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd London • New York www.ibtauris.com Copyright © 2018 George Lane The right of George Lane to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Every attempt has been made to gain permission for the use of the images in this book. Any omissions will be rectified in future editions. References to websites were correct at the time of writing.

ISBN: 978 1 78076 605 8 (HB) ISBN: 978 1 78076 606 5 (PB) eISBN: 978 1 78672 339 0 ePDF: 978 1 78673 339 9 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Typeset by Free Range Book Design & Production Limited

Contents

List of Maps and Illustrations

viii

Acknowledgements x Timeline xi Introduction: From Dispossession to Imperium: The Fall and Rise of Temujin, Chinggis Khan

1

Chapter 1:

The Steppe and the Sown

Chapter 2:

The Early Life

26

9

Chapter 3:

Out from the Steppe

45

Chapter 4:

The Tread of Tatar Hoof

71

Chapter 5:

The Chaghadaids

98

Chapter 6:

The Mongols in Iran

111

Chapter 7:

Qubilai Khan: Yuan Emperor of the World

144

Chapter 8:

Soup for the Qa’ans

166

Appendix 1: Glossary

191

Appendix 2: Personages

199

Further Reading

207

Notes

212

Index

231

List of Maps and Illustrations

MAPS Map 1: Map 2: Map 3: Map 4:

Turco-Mongol tribes and their neighbours c.1200 xvii on the eve of the irruption of Chinggis Khan in 1206 The Chinggisid Empire and its Khanates c.1280 xviii The Yuan Empire 1261–1369, founded by Qubilai xix Khan after the fall of the Song in 1279 Post-Ilkhanid Iran: the mini-states that emerged xx after the collapse of the Ilkhanate in 1335

FIGURES Fig. 1: Fig. 2: Fig. 3: Fig. 4: Fig. 5: Fig. 6:

Chinggis Khan, Marble Arch, London, by the shaman and Buryat Mongol, Dashi Namdakov (Halcyon Gallery, 29 Bond St, W1J 6NP) Mongol archers. The mere mention of the presence of Mongol horsemen spread terror among the population (public domain) Chinggis Khan, d.1227 (public domain) Sacking of Suzdal by Batu Khan in 1238. Mongol Invasion of Russia. A miniature from the sixteenthcentury chronicle (public domain) Marco Polo caravan (public domain) Paizas, awarded to envoys, elchis, ortaqs and diplomats to ensure secure travel and privileges; made from iron and nickel (author’s photo) viii

2

5

27 74

84 99

List of Maps and Illustrations

Fig. 7: Fig. 8: Fig. 9: Fig. 10: Fig. 11: Fig. 12:

Mongol siege engines (public domain) The grandchildren of the Great Khan led very different lives from him and enjoyed the luxuries of court life (public domain) Hulegu in Baghdad. According to some accounts the Caliph was invited to eat his fill of his precious treasures which he had hoarded rather than use to pay his armies (public domain) Qubilai twice attacked Japan but was defeated by the Kamikaze winds and bad planning (public domain) Hangzhou’s Fengshan water bridge, the only standing remains of the Yuan city walls (author’s photo) The Great Khans of the Yuan as depicted in popular Chinese playing cards (author’s photo)

ix

104 113

119

159

164

167

Acknowledgements

My thanks go to the British Academy whose Mid-Career Fellowship award allowed me to devote time to writing and researching for this book. Behind the scenes, Florence Hodous has been a constant help not only in checking my proofs but in assisting me in accessing obscure Chinese texts and putting her considerable linguistic expertise at my disposal. I would like to express my appreciation for the patience and understanding of my son Oscar, who earned his degree in music from Falmouth University; my daughter Ella, who successfully completed her A levels to gain admission to Newcastle University – this all while I was selfishly engrossed in the machinations and intrigues of the medieval Chinggisids; and my wife Assumpta, whose quiet encouragement and uncomplaining support enabled me to complete this project. Thanks also to the friends and colleagues who have offered advice, knowledge, practical help and suggestions over the years as I amassed the material for this compact little volume and whom I can blame for any mistakes and inaccuracies which might remain. Finally a word of thanks to Alex Wright whose persistence, patience, and plauditory encouragement made this volume a reality.

x

Timeline

?1167

Birth of Temujin (Chinggis Khan); Claims for Temujin’s date of birth are between 1155 and 1167 1174 Temujin engaged to Borte, daughter of Daisechen of the Onggirat; Yesugei (Chinggis’s father) poisoned by Tatars 1180 Temujin murders half-brother Bekter. Later held in captivity by Tayichi’uts 1183/4 Borte abducted by Merkits; Toghril and Jamuka assist in Borte’s rescue. Significantly, first son Jochi born shortly after her release 1187 Temujin defeated at the Battle of Dalan Balzhut; Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi expels Crusaders from Jerusalem; Gap in Temujin’s life history; possibly in exile in China 1198 Death of medieval Andalusian Islamic polymath Ibn Rushd (Averroes) (b.1126) 1200 Accession of ʿAla’ al-Din Muhammad II, Khwarazmshah 1201 Temujin attacked by Jamuka 1203 Toghril forces Temujin to flee. Later returns to victory 1205–87 Rise of Delhi Sultanate 1206 Temujin (Chinggis Khan) proclaimed supreme ruler of the tribes at quriltai in Mongolia 1207 Mongols annex lands of Oirats, Kirghiz and Uyghurs 1209 Mongols invade Tangut (Xixia), followed by a peace treaty; The Tangut (Xixia) were the first and last people to experience the wrath of Chinggis Khan xi

George Lane

1211

Mongols invade Jin (Jurchen) Empire of northern China; Invasion followed a quriltai on the River Kerulen 1215 Jin capital, Zhongdu, falls to Mongols; Zhongdu later rebuilt and renamed Khanbaliq (Dadu) 1216 Chinggis destroys the Merkits; It was the Merkits who had kidnapped Chinggis’s wife, Borte 1218 Mongol troops under Jebe occupy Qara-Khitai; Governor of Utrar murders a caravan of Mongol envoys and merchants; The Muslims of eastern Turkestan received the Mongols as liberators from the oppression of the anti-Muslim Kuchluq 1219 Chinggis Khan invades empire of the Khwarazmshah; The Khwarazmshah believed that he could defeat the upstart Chinggis and continue to conquer China for himself 1220 Utrar, Bokhara and Samarqand taken 1221 Mongols take the ancient city of Merv, capital of the last Great Saljuq, Sultan Sanjar (d.1157); This was a period of great destruction 1221–3 Journey of Chang Chun from China to Hindu Kush; The infamous reconnaissance trip of noyans Jebe and Subodai occurred around this period 1223 Chinggis Khan returns to Mongolia 1227 Death of Chinggis Khan. Final conquest of Xixia 1229 Election of Ogodai as Great Khan 1231 Death of Jalal al-Din Khwarazmshah 1234 End of Jin resistance to Mongols 1235 Ogodai builds walls of Qaraqorum, Mongol imperial capital 1237–42 Mongol campaigns, under Batu, take place in Russia and eastern Europe; Batu takes Riazan 1238 Mongols take Vladimir, capital of north-east Russia 1239 Invasion of what is now Ukraine. Kiev taken 1240 Death of Ibn ʿArabi (b.1165); Ibn ʿArabi was an extremely influential Sufi whose impact is detectable on the Sufi poets of the Ilkhanate in particular xii

Timeline

1241

1243

1245–7 1246 1248 1250

1250

1251 1252–79 1253–5 1253 1254

1255 1256

1257

1257–8

Battles of Liegnitz and River Sajo. Battle of Mohi, Hungarian army defeated. Gran on the Danube sacked; Death of Ogodai Battle of Kose Dagh, eastern Rum; This decisive battle left Rum under Mongol control and the Saljuqs of Rum their subjects Journey of John of Plano Carpini to Mongolia Election of Guyuk as Great Khan Death of Guyuk Mamluks seize effective power in Egypt, under the amir ʿIzz al-Din Aybak (r.1250–57); The Ayyubid puppet-sultan, a child, al-Malik al-Ashraf al-Musa nominally on throne Death of Frederick II; His death led to the collapse of imperial authority in Germany and Italy Election of Mongke, Tolui’s son, as Great Khan Conquest of Song dynasty in southern China by the Mongols Journey of William of Rubruck to Mongolia Hulegu’s forces set off for Persia ʿIzz al-Din Aybak assumes full powers in Egypt; The Bahri line of Mamluks of Egypt and Syria, 1250– 1390; mainly ethnic Qipchaq (Cuman) Turks from Russian steppes Death of Batu, first khan of the Golden Horde Hulegu takes Assassin castles in north Persia. Fall of Alamut; The Ismaʿilis went underground after the destruction of Alamut and the murder of their Imam Accession of Berke, Khan of the Golden Horde; Berke assumed the throne after a general blood-letting of Batu’s descendants, and his accession marked the start of hostilities with the Ilkhanate Failed Mongol invasion of Dai Viet (Vietnam); This was in fact a major defeat, overshadowed by the death of Mongke

xiii

George Lane

Fall of Baghdad to Hulegu. Death of last ʿAbbasid caliph 1259 Death of Mongke; Hulegu travels east 1259 Mamluk Qutuz assumes power in Egypt 1260 Ket Buqa invades Syria with a small force, then withdraws. Battle of Ayn Jalut. Rival quriltais elect Qubilai and Ariq Buqa as Great Khan: civil war ensues; Ket Buqa, a Christian Mongol, was captured and killed 1260 al-Malik al-Zahir Baybars I al-Bunduqdari assumes Mamluk throne; Baybars 1260–77 1261 Byzantines re-take Constantinople from Crusader ‘Latin’ Empire 1261/2 Outbreak of warfare between Hulegu and Berke 1264 Qubilai victorious over Ariq Buqa 1265 Death of Hulegu, first Ilkhan. Accession of Abaqa 1266 Building begins at new Mongol capital of China, Khanbaliq 1267 Death of Berke, Khan of the Golden Horde 1271 Marco Polo sets off for China, with his father and uncle; Arrives 1275 1272 Qubilai adopts Chinese dynastic title, Yuan 1274 First Mongol expedition against Japan; Sayyid ʿAjal appointed governor of Yunnan; Death of Nasir al-Din Tusi 1276 Hangzhou, capital of the Song Empire, falls to Mongols 1277 Mongol invasion of Pagan 1279 End of Song resistance to Mongols; Death of Sayyid ʿAjal, governor of Yunnan 1281 Second Mongol expedition against Japan 1285–8 Mongol invasion of Dai Viet 1287 Rabban Sauma, a bishop and Qubilai Khan’s envoy, dispatched to Tabriz and then sent to Europe by Ilkhan Arghun 1292–3 Mongol expedition to Java 1258

xiv

Timeline

1294

Death of Qubilai. Arrival of John of Monte Corvino in China; John (1247–1328) was a Franciscan missionary who eventually became Bishop of Beijing/Dadu/Khanbaliq 1295 Accession of Ghazan as Ilkhan. Mongols in Persia become Muslim 1299– Major Mongol invasion of Syria: briefly occupied by 1300 Ilkhanid forces 1300 The appearance of a small tribe of Turks, who would become the Ottomans; The origins of the Ottomans is controversial, with evidence suggesting that they might be the remnants of the Khanate of Nogai, once a possible heir to the Golden Horde 1304 Death of Ghazan. Accession of Uljaytu 1313 Accession of Özbeg, under whose rule the Golden Horde becomes Muslim 1325–54 Travels of Ibn Battuta 1326 Ottomans capture Bursa; This was the first of a long series of victories which eventually saw the Ottomans in possession of much of south-east Europe 1335 Death of Abu Saʿid, last Ilkhan of line of Hulegu 1346 Outbreak of Black Death in Mongol force besieging Caffa, in the Crimea; from there it spreads to Europe 1353–4 Major outbreak of disease in China 1368 Mongols driven from China by Ming forces 1370 Death in Qaraqorum of Toghan Temur, last Yuan emperor c.1378 Emergence of Timurlane; Timurlane attempted to re-establish the Mongol Empire. He saw himself as a reincarnation of the last Ilkhan Abu Saʿid 1381 Timurlane takes Herat 1385 Timurlane takes Tabriz 1387 Timurlane takes Isfahan and Shiraz

xv

George Lane

1389

Battle of the Field of Blackbirds in Kosovo; The Ottomans sided with rebel Serbs and other Balkan players to establish their presence in the Balkans 1393 Timurlane occupies Baghdad 1396 Ottoman victory over European forces at the Battle of Nicopolis 1398–9 Timurlane invades India, takes Delhi 1405 Death of Timurlane; Preparing to march against the Ming rulers of China, Timurlane’s empire collapsed following his death 1453 Mehmed Fatih (the Conqueror) captures Constantinople; Mehmed Fatih (1451–81) established the Ottomans as a world power and regional superpower 1478 Ivan III throws off Mongol suzereinty 1498 Vasco de Gama rounds the Cape of Good Hope 1501 Sultan Ismaʿil Safavi assumes power in Tabriz; The demise of the Aq Qoyunlu represented the disappearance of the last Middle Eastern dynasty claiming Chinggisid legitimacy

xvi

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Font: Myriad Pro Frame size: 110mm x 170mm Map 4 The Yuan Empire, 1261-1369 1st Proof 04 september 2017

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The trade route from Yuan China to Ilkhanid Iran and Europe disrupted by inter-Chinggisid disputes after c.1260

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Map 4: Post-Ilkhanid Iran: the mini-states that emerged after the collapse of the Ilkhanate in 1335

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Map 5 Turco-Mongol Tribes

Introduction FROM DISPOSSESSION TO IMPERIUM THE FALL AND RISE OF TEMUJIN, CHINGGIS KHAN

The political transformation which accompanied the world’s first experience of globalisation is often laid at the feet of one man: Temujin, the Great Khan Chinggis. His seizure of the leadership of the Turco-Mongol tribes of Eurasia, followed by his exploitation of the weaknesses of the neighbouring empires, allowed him to ignite a revolution which engulfed the semi-nomadic societies of the Turks; the sophisticated but vulnerable cities of China; the warring communities of the Islamic world; and the virtually undefended marchlands of Europe. The Chinggisid propaganda of the thirteenth century painted a picture of relentless destruction and inevitable defeat which has endured to the present day, embellished by their friends and allies as well as their enemies and victims, producing a portrait of the Chinggisid Empire with little basis in reality. The inspirational and multicultural khanates ruled the Asian heartlands from Eastern Europe to Eastern Siberia, from the Sea of Japan to the Aegean Sea, from Syria to Kashmir and from Vietnam to the western shores of the Black Sea. From Tabriz, the capital of the Iranian Ilkhanate, to Khanbaliq, the Yuan dynasty capital of a united China under the world’s most magnificent emperor – Qubilai Khan – the Mongol Chinggisids dazzled the world with the sophistication and wealth of their cities and caravans. Climate change, short-sighted political 1

George Lane

Fig. 1: Chinggis Khan, Marble Arch, London, by the shaman and Buryat Mongol, Dashi Namdakov

infighting, tired and corrupt empires, and stale ideologies with a dearth of aspirations were cleverly worked by an inspired adventurer and opportunist who managed to change the world and provide his family with the wealth and security denied him when he was young. Temujin was a dispossessed young man whose outlook on life had been shaped by his brutal childhood. Cast out from the clan with his siblings and mother following the duplicitous murder of his father, the young Temujin internalised dubiety, decisiveness and cold ruthlessness in order to survive. Early on his determination was recognised as a threat by those outside his closed family circle, and it was only his youth that held back the blade of a sword upon his neck and instead allowed the wooden edge of the cangue. Temujin had to fight to save his family, and he had to persevere against mounting calamities to avenge the injustices visited upon his father, his mother and his immediate family. When he finally achieved the pinnacle of power in his closed world of the steppe, he understood only too well that weakness dwelt not only in men’s hearts but in their society and 2

Introduction

social network, and he did not hesitate to act and enforce his vision on those who surrounded him and any who might be tempted to resist his plans. Temujin gathered around him those whose loyalty was proven and unquestionable without reference to family, social status or clan. He understood human weakness, ambition and drive from bitter experience, and having been plunged to the depths of despair and torment, he was not swayed by fear and doubts. In 1206 Temujin had defeated, co-opted or subdued the majority of the Turco-Mongol tribes of the Eurasian steppe and the united tribes had declared him their leader and they had pledged their loyalty and immoveable faith in his leadership. In recognition of this, he was named Chinggis Khan, the mighty Khan of all khans.1 He rewarded those whose faith in his destiny had matched his own when he apportioned positions of power and prestige, but Temujin also made it clear that he was establishing a new steppe order, a meritocracy where ability brought rewards, prowess was recognised, skills were utilised and competence nurtured status. The hard core of his empire had been forged when Temujin was at his lowest ebb. Defeated, cheated and skulking in the hills, Temujin gathered his faithful around him to ponder his options. This was where the famous covenant of Baljuna was struck and where his most faithful followers pledged their undying loyalty. However, these loyalists were not representatives of the ruling TurcoMongol elite but a motley and diverse gathering. Among them were three Christian Kereits, a Merkit, two Buddhist Khitans and three Muslims, probably merchant traders. Whether Baljuna was a river, a lake, a pond, a wadi, or a valley is not known; however, it was ‘a place where there were a few small springs, insufficient for them and their animals too. Therefore, they squeezed water from the mud to drink.’2 A short account of this famous incident at Wadi Baljuna is provided in a Persian chronicle recording the early Ilkhanate of Iran. The anecdote is recorded in almost biblical terms and serves as an appropriate introduction for the revolution to come. Early accounts of Temujin also record events at Wadi Baljuna, which is close to the lands of the Chinese. His followers had gone without food for a few days when one among them succeeded in shooting down a desert sparrow. The bird was cooked and then presented to their leader. Temujin ordered that the bird be divided 3

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equally into 70 portions, and from them he took his own share that was no larger than any of the other portions. It was a result of his willingness to share the tribulations of his men and of his righteousness that people became his devotees and his followers and were prepared to surrender their souls to him.3 Many have interpreted Temujin’s early hardships and traumatic childhood as harbingers of his later brutality and mercilessness. The murder of his father and the disregard and abandonment of his mother and her children is seen to be the seed which like a cancer infected his blood and spread through his soul and into the spirit of his people. The picture which emerged was of a faceless enemy materialising from the dark, inflicting crimes onto a helpless population and disappearing, leaving the screams of devastated victims in their wake. Unknown tribes came, whom no one exactly knows, who they are, nor whence they came out, nor what their language is, nor of what race they are, nor what their faith is.4

A later Persian source summarised their visit, ‘They came, they sapped, they burnt, they slew, they plundered, they departed.’5 While the Arab chronicler Ibn al-Athir (1160–1233) lamented his very birth: For some years I continued averse from mentioning this event, deeming it so horrible that I shrank from recording it and ever withdrawing one foot as I advanced the other. To whom, indeed, can it be easy to write the announcement of the death-blow of Islam and the Muslims, or who is he on whom the remembrance thereof can weigh lightly? O would that my mother had not born me or that I had died and become a forgotten thing ere this befell!6

Strong words, though uttered by a man who had in fact never personally encountered the Mongols nor witnessed any of their devastation. However, this barbaric picture was an image Chinggis Khan encouraged and nurtured. It became a powerful tool in his armoury and one he deemed necessary if he hoped to pursue his campaigns of conquest and still retain a functioning army of his fellow TurcoMongols. As long as people believed in the invincible barbarity and insatiable blood-lust of his soldiery and fellow Mongols, he would 4

Introduction

Fig. 2: Mongol archers. The mere mention of the presence of Mongol horsemen spread terror among the population

encounter steadily dwindling armies of adversaries. Few would be willing to face such hellish hordes who were universally believed to have escaped from Hell or Tartarus and had become the incarnations of Gog and Magog themselves. In fact, Chinggis Khan sought and found allies throughout his career. He was a politician and a negotiator, and he struck political deals and alliances sealed in wine and ink as well as in blood. He led a very successful army, and his victories served as the ultimate recruiting sergeant. Chinggis Khan adhered to the yasa, the strict ancestral law of the steppe, and enforced its limitations and strictures on himself, his followers and those over whom he ruled; though admittedly that unwritten code soon proved to be reasonably elastic and adaptable in practice. The further the Chinggisids travelled from the steppe, the looser the constraints and interpretations of the Great Yasa became. As the ranks of his armies swelled and the rudiments of an administration appeared, so too did the tactics and ambitions of empire develop and expand. After us, our offspring will wear gold-brocaded robes and eat sweet and fatty tidbits. They will ride beautiful horses and embrace lovely ladies. 5

George Lane They will not say, ‘These things were assembled by our fathers and elders.’ On that day of greatness, they will forget us.7

Chinggis Khan was not overly enamoured with the steppe and the customs of his people, which had certainly not served him well. In 1206, upon accepting the mantle of Great Khan Chinggis, Temujin initiated a revolution, and then just as his fellow tribesmen and steppe nomads willingly signed up and proclaimed their faith in his leadership and guidance so too did his neighbours and defeated or intimidated enemies. The revolution gained momentum and force, and as success followed triumph so word spread. Each victory proved the righteousness and invincibility of the Great Khan and, also for so many, it proved that the hand of God was upon him and that continued triumph was inevitable. When Chinggis swept out of the steppe and descended on the towns and cities of northern China he did so with the help of the Khitans, the exiled sedentarised Turco-Mongols who welcomed his assault on the hated Jurchens occupying their former lands. When he first entered the Dar al-Islam his armies were welcomed by local Muslims who knew that Chinggisid help was needed to end their oppression by the hated Naiman prince Kuchluq and that cooperation would provide their merchants access to the lands of the east and backing for advancing trade in the west. When he launched his raid on the would-be champion of Islam, the delusional Khwarazmshah Muhammad (d.1222), the raids were launched from the most recent states to have pledged loyalty to the Chinggisid Empire, the Muslimdominated lands of east Turkestan. When his grandson Hulegu led the vast imperial army into the Iranian heartlands, the Chinggisid military ranks were swelled with local Persian units eager to assist in the expulsion of the heretic Ismaʿilis, in the toppling of an Arab caliphate still lording over their Iranian neighbours and in the resurgence of a Persian polity not seen since the destruction of the Sassanian Empire by the despised Arabs in the seventh century. As Chinggis Khan’s ranks swelled and his Tatars’ hooves trod across more lands, there were always those who welcomed their advance and many who saw advantage in joining these triumphant armies. Though the destruction and devastation should not be trivialised, it should be judged in context and viewed also as a product of a political, social, cultural and possibly even spiritual revolution, a vast 6

Introduction

global upheaval. Chinggis Khan initiated the world’s first experience of globalisation. Population exchange and movement, at first compulsory and forced though later voluntary and welcomed, forged contacts and alliances which transformed the world and revitalised the global economy. French silversmiths fashioned elaborate drinking fountains in the Mongolian steppe’s first urban centre, Persian poets inscribed tombstones in port cities on the Sea of China, German soldiers marched with Mongol armies across the steppe lands of the east and European clerics debated with Armenian priests, Tibetan Buddhists, Muslim Arabs and Turkish Shamans for the edification and intellectual nourishment of Mongol warlords. Marco Polo travelled to the capital of the world and revelled in the splendour and sophistication he encountered there, and on his eventual return his compatriots marvelled at his tales but doubted the veracity of the wonders which he had reported so outlandish and awesome did they appear. Within a couple of decades of his return to Venice, guide books and merchants’ manuals appeared with advice for adventurers, opportunists and traders on the practicalities of travelling east and dealing with the complexities of medieval international travel. If Chinggis Khan’s rise from rags to riches can be explained with this mixture of circumstance and psychology, the wider picture and the global stage upon which he was able to strut does not lend itself to such ready explanation. Throughout the history of the symbiotic relationship between the steppe and the sown there have been periods when the uneasy calm was disrupted and mounted hordes have descended on the rural communities and walled cities of their settled neighbours. Such intrusions were generally shortlived and terminated when the sources of booty and riches dried up, fled or mounted effective resistance. The Chinggisid irruptions were different, and the Great Khan’s mounted followers did not turn back sated with their plunder. Though much of this will be explained through the study of Chinggis Khan, other elements should also be considered for their contribution. For example, a climate analyst, Gareth Jenkins, presented data in 1974 demonstrating that between 1175 and 1260 there had been ‘a steady and steep decline in the mean temperature in Mongolia’. Jenkins argues that so profound and environmentally transformative were these climatic changes that they would have played a decisive role in the decision of the tribes to unite and their subsequent large7

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scale and prolonged incursion into the lands of the sown. He claims that ‘a major climatic overturn did much to encourage the end to the infighting and vendettas among the Mongol clans and make possible their reorganization under Chinggis’s military authority’ and that ‘their enthusiasm for the task of conquest may well have been fueled by a climatic defeat at their backs’.8 Certainly, great loss of livestock, loss of grazing land, the widespread displacement of people and the resulting violent competition for power and leadership provided the ideal circumstances for the rise of a charismatic leader with a vision and the energy to realise his dream. After two decades of very dry weather from 1180, the first decades of the thirteenth century saw the weather improve, especially during the period of Chinggis’s campaigns against the Jurchen of northern China and the Khwarazmshah of Greater Iran. Certainly, wetter conditions would have produced healthier grasslands with the resultant increased production of energy supplies, perfect for an expanding army marching on its stomach. One Mongol soldier moved with five horses each, and a wetter climate would have had a dramatic effect on morale and efficiency and in food production. For centuries, the Turco-Mongol tribes had been battling each other in a predictable and seemingly inevitable cycle, and they had allowed themselves to be manipulated by their arrogant neighbours. Juwayni reports that ‘[The Mongol tribes] were not united with one another, and there was constant fighting and hostility between them. […] The Khan of Khitai used to demand and seize goods from them.’9 The Khitan lords pitted one tribe against another as did their successors, the Jin dynasty of the Jurchens, and even the mighty Song dynasty in the south. Ancestors of Chinggis Khan such as Qaidu (c.1040–1100) and Kabul (c.1100–48) were among the litany of petty rulers who rose and fell at the whim of their masters and the chaos of steppe militant politics. The Turco-Mongols of the Eurasian steppe were ready for someone and something to break the cycle, and the dramatic changes in the climate could well have acted as the catalyst that coincided with the rise of Temujin and the fervent political environment in disunited China. Chinggis Khan was a clever military strategist and a keen reader of men. He was adept at strutting and fretting on the political stage, but he remained the right man at the right time, and it was the political circumstances enhanced by the dramatic climatic changes which allowed his unprecedented success. 8

1 THE STEPPE AND THE SOWN

The Turk has two pairs of eyes, one at the front and the other at the back of his head [… and] spends more time in the saddle than on the ground. Uninterested in craftsmanship or commerce, medicine, geometry, fruitfarming, building, digging canals or collecting taxes, they care only about raiding, hunting, horsemanship, skirmishing with rival chieftains, taking booty and invading other countries. Their efforts are all directed towards these activities, and they devote all their energies to these occupations. In this way, they have acquired a mastery of these skills, which for them take the place of craftsmanship and commerce and constitute their only pleasure, their glory and the subject of all their conversation. Thus, they have become in warfare what the Greeks are in philosophy, the Chinese in craftsmanship.1

This description of the Turks by al-Jahiz (d.869) recommending their qualities as warriors and defending their inclusion as mamluks (military slaves) in the caliph’s armies could quite as easily have been a description of the Turco-Mongol tribesmen of the twelfth and thirteenth century Eurasian steppe on the eve of their irruption into the sedentary world under the banner of Chinggis Khan. They were all denizens of the vast steppe lands that stretched from Eastern Europe right across the northern hemisphere, brushing the arid deserts of Turkestan, lapping the slopes of the Urals and disappearing into the wastes of Siberia while encompassing much of valleys, highlands and plateaus 9

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of Inner Asia. For Iranians, the horsemen of Turan were their legendary rivals while for the Chinese they were the barbarians forever howling at their gates. Away from these colourful theatrics, the nomadic people of the steppe had always managed a solid working if symbiotic relationship with their urbanised and agricultural neighbours, the people of the sown. The nomad might profess horror at the restrictions that cultivated and farmed land imposed on his wandering flocks, but he was happy to barter with the ‘dust scratchers’ for the fruit of those sown fields and to enjoy the pleasures and clever produce of those despised cities. The sophisticated urbanites had equal disdain for these rude savages with ‘faces like leather-covered shields’2 and their crude ways, but they were happy to buy from them their crafts and fine meat and dairy products. A Song dynasty envoy to the Jin court who encountered the Tatars firsthand described them as ‘very poor, crude and incompetent’ whose only talent was mounting their horses and following along with the rest. They lived further out in the steppe and northern forests and were untroubled by the refinements of Chinese civilisation.3

He witnessed the yearly raids called ‘thinning the ranks’ that the Jin troops and their allies launched between 1160 and 1190 to replenish their slave markets of northern China with Tatar captives. In fact, Chinggis Khan only stopped paying the annual tribute to the Jin emperors (1115–1234) in 1210, though it was another ten years before the Jin courtiers, at the Great Khan’s insistence, ceased to refer to the Mongols as ‘Tatars’, a wholly inappropriate term since that tribe had been annihilated and ceased to exist.4

THE TATARS The name ‘Tatars’ had become the generic term for the Eurasian steppe tribes by the late twelfth century. Its first recorded usage was in the Turkic Kul-tegin inscription of 731 referring to the enmity between the ‘30 Tatars’ and the ‘nine Tatars’ and the Turks, and then later the appellation specifically refers to the nomadic tribes in the Hulun Buir5 area of north-east Inner Mongolia who Rashid al10

The Steppe and the Sown

Din claims numbered 70,000 divided into numerous clans. Ibn alAthir, the historian of Mosul, claims that like the Khitans the Tatars remained infidels, and Mahmud Kashghari, the eleventh-century lexicographer, inferred that they spoke Mongolian as well as Turkish. The Tatars owed their ascendancy over the other Turco-Mongol Eurasian tribes to the Jurchen who employed them as juyin to enforce Jin control over the steppe, its trade routes and resources. It is said that the children of Tatar chiefs enjoyed silver cradles, gold nose rings, pearl encrusted quilts and gold embroidered silk garments, while Mongol chiefs were reduced to employing wooden stirrups and bone arrows. The Tatars’ fate was eventually sealed when they scornfully poisoned a traveller who had stopped at their camp to claim hospitality, as was his right according to the yasa. That traveller, Yesugei Bahadur, was returning from his son Temujin’s betrothal in marriage. No doubt fatefully, Temujin had himself been named after a Tatar warrior whom his father had killed in battle, and now as son he had inherited not only a name but a bloody feud, which he finally terminated in 1196 with the complete obliteration of the Tatar leadership and their status as a powerful tribe. However, their legacy continued in Europe, Persia, Russia, India and among the Arabs, who all continued to use the term ‘Tatar’ in preference to ‘Mongol’. It was particularly appropriate for the Europeans since the designation ‘Tatars’ suggested that they were indeed denizens of Tartarus or Hell. Though the Tatars suffered physical annihilation, all the TurcoMongol Eurasian tribes present at the Great Quriltai of 1206, other than the Mongols, were disbanded and subsumed into the greater supratribal group which then came to be known as the Mongols, the ‘people of nine tongues’,6 the people of the Yeke Monggol Ulus (Great Mongol State). The state included the peoples of the Kereit, Merkits, Naiman, Tatars, Mongols, Onggirats, Oirats, Tayichi’ut, Buriat, Borjigid, Barghu, Onggut, Kiyat, Jalayrids and a host of subdivisions all of whom had united under one ruler and one law, the yasa. This unprecedented event that united all the nomadic steppe tribes, the ‘people of the felt-walled tents’,7 who had been fighting and warring among each other for countless generations, was followed by an equally remarkable development when within a decade most of the neighbouring semi-nomadic tribes and even sedentary people and countries willingly abandoned their ethnic appellations and identities 11

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and dissolved themselves within the tidal sweep of the Chinggisid revolution and, united, called themselves Mongols. Now it has come about that the people of the Khitai, Jurchen, Nankiyas (South China), Uighur, Qipchaq, Turkoman, Qarluq, Qalaj, and all the prisoners and Tajik races that have been brought up among the Mongols, are also called Mongols. All the assemblage takes pride in calling itself Mongol.8

THE STEPPE The steppe, the lands dominated by nomadic pastoralists, had united with the sown, those lands dominated by farmers and urbanists. Although Chinggis Khan had forged a revolution and led the united peoples of the steppe in a series of culminating raids into the lands of the sown, within his lifetime and increasingly after his death many of the lands that were conquered welcomed the globalised empire into which they were being absorbed. The Turco-Mongol nomadic tribes grazed their flocks over a vast area that is commonly referred to as the Eurasian steppe. The Eurasian steppe covers a wide zone stretching from Eastern Europe to Manchuria and passes through the south Russian steppe, Kazakhstan, Zungharia, Qinghai province and Mongolia. South of this region the steppe transforms into desert, a vast arid zone punctuated with islands of urban and sedentary settlements. In contrast, the prairies, grasslands and gentle mountain slopes of the steppe were devoid of farming settlements or towns. Those who would dwell on the steppe were pastoral nomads and hunters, and life necessitated their seasonal migration in constant search of water and grass. Though the nomads generally renounced fixed settlements and fixed dwellings, their migration routes were often rigid. As a result, cultivation on a limited scale was practised by these steppe migrants, who would sow suitable crops that they would be able to harvest later on their return migration. Constantly on the move, constantly alert to the environmental, climatic and human changes around them, and constantly prepared for danger and threats, the pastoral nomads were a natural martial force, and war was everyone’s business. Every herdsman doubled as a fighter and raider, and the culture of the 12

The Steppe and the Sown

steppe resounded with tales and songs of their warrior heroes. These nomads were pastoral armies. Temujin came from the Turco-Mongol heartlands. The further from these remote valleys and rivers, such as the Orkhan valley and the River Onon, the more interaction there was between the wholly nomadic tribes and those tribes who were assuming sedentary lives. Turco-Mongol people such as the Khitans or Liao had become seminomadic, and many among them had even adopted or had certainly adapted the trappings of Chinese culture. Other Turkic people like the Uyghurs, many of whom were merchants, had accepted urban lives, but for those living on the Mongolian plateau their nomadic lives progressed as they had for centuries without need of urban permanence or the limitations of fences and stone walls. What is so remarkable about the rise of Temujin is that he emerged out of the heart of this extremely remote region, secluded and inaccessible even today, from a small dispossessed family group abandoned even by their own extended family and tribe. From total obscurity, ‘a people emerged from the confines of China and made for the cities of Transoxania [Transoxiana]’.9 led by Temujin who had acquired his knowledge of the outside world, his aspirations and his inspiration from the heartlands of Mongolia. The Mongolian plateau is a distinct geographical and topographical region which encompasses modern-day Mongolia, Inner Mongolia and Transbaikalia. Mongolia has traditionally been said to lie between the Altai Mountains in the west and the Khingan range in the east, while being bordered by the Tianshan Mountains to the south and Lake Baikal in the north. These permanently snow-capped peaks reach over 4,000 metres while the plains, generally at around 1,000 metres in the south-west, slope down to 500 metres above sea level in the north-east. The 2,210 square kilometres of Hulun Nuur (Lake Hulun) and the 615 square kilometres of Buir Nuur (Lake Buir) drain the appropriately named Hulun Buir steppe region, while the great River Selenga drains into the world’s deepest lake, Lake Baikal, whose drainage basin covers north-central Mongolia and western Transbaikalia. The Onon and Kherlen rivers both receive their waters from the Hulun Buir steppe and eventually wash into the Pacific Ocean. In the south, the vast Gobi desert formed a natural barrier to the lands of the Mongols, while in the north thick Siberian forests similarly isolated the region. Within this enclosed 13

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area fir, cedar and beech trees thrived on the moist slopes and deep valleys that alternated with steppe lands, mountain meadows and woodlands, which thinned out nearer the hot, dry winds of the inhospitable Gobi. July and August brought scorching heat, which transformed the sweeping, undulating carpet of green scattered with a rich blossom of flowers that had appeared with the spring and struggled into early summer. October saw the landscape gradually turn white as winter snows began the annual blanketing of the whole region and rivers and streams froze over in the bitter cold. These harsh conditions continued until the April thaw, forcing both man and beast to adapt to this unforgiving cycle of extremes. The Vatican spy John of Plano Carpini witnessed snow in June 1246,10 admittedly highly unusual for a region where temperatures reached in excess of 38 degrees. Violent squalls, thunder and lightning, desert storms driving burning sands and biting gusts of Siberian cold, along with its unremittingly hostile landscape, sculptured and nurtured some very hard men and women for whom the struggle to survive in this merciless milieu was innate. The tribes Greater Mongolia, or historical Mongolia, occupied the most easterly part of the great Eurasian steppe, and it has been inhabited by Turks, Mongols and the Tungus tribes since ancient times. These Altaic tribes were united linguistically and ethnically, and they shared similar social traits and customs, but their fierce independence of spirit precluded any sense of political concord until the appearance of Temujin in the later twelfth century. The genius of Chinggis Khan was his achievement in unifying the Turco-Mongol tribes whose custom hitherto had been self-destructive and directed inward in hostile rivalry, leaving themselves open to the blatant manipulation of the Jin kings to the east. Each tribe or two tribes lived separately; they were not united with one another, and there was constant fighting and hostility between them. Some of them regarded robbery and violence, immorality and debauchery (fisq va fujur) as deeds of manliness and excellence. The Khan of Khitai used to demand and seize goods from them. Their clothing was of the skins of dogs and mice, and their food was the flesh, of those animals and other dead things […] The sign of a great emir amongst them was that 14

The Steppe and the Sown his stirrups were of iron; from which one can form a picture of their other luxuries. And they continued in this indigence, privation and misfortune until the banner of Chingiz-Khan’s fortune was raised.11

For most of these nomadic people the tribe was the basis of their strength and their identity, and their loyalty to their khan was unquestioned. Temujin understood this and was able to use this sense of loyalty and identity to his advantage. His family’s abandonment by their tribe had allowed him to question the basic premise of the society with unfettered eyes shorn of the emotional crust of generations of unchallenged tradition. There was little social cohesion above the level of the fiercely independent tribe, and tribal leaders generally resisted the formation of supratribal authority unless the forfeiting of their autonomy promised very great rewards. Wealth was generally measured by the possession of livestock, the protection and amassing of which were the overriding concerns of the tribe. When alliances, confederations and supratribal arrangements were entered into, the motivation behind such moves was the protection or amassing of wealth. Chinggis Khan was remarkable from the outset in that he was able to form so cohesive and unified a supratribal polity out of such a hostile and mutually suspicious collection of warrior tribes. The tribes of Turco-Mongols in the twelfth century can very generally be divided into the purely pastoralists (cattle and sheep grazers) and the forest hunters/fishers. The less numerous forest hunters could be found around Lake Baikal, the source of the River Yenisey and the upper reaches of the River Irtysh, whereas the pastoralists occupied the lands south of this region, from the foothills of the Altai Mountains to Hulun Nuur and Buir Nuur. However, just as forest hunters raised cattle and tended sheep so too did pastoralists grow crops and cultivate land selectively, and all united in a passion for the hunt. In fact, the hunt, referred to as the nerge, or battue, played an extremely important role in the life of all the Turco-Mongol tribes. The targets of the organised hunts were wild donkeys, antelope, boar, game and even lions, as well as rival tribes and enemies. Lassoes, bows and arrows, and spears were all employed. The nerge served the function of recreation, military training, food gathering and the provisioning of winter food stocks, and it was an event in which the whole tribe partook. Horses, cows, 15

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sheep, goats and camels were also reared to provide the tribe’s basic nutritional needs, and cows, goats, camels and horses were used as beasts of burden or draught animals. As well as being a source of food and wool, sheep were also kept for the leather they produced. Animals were slaughtered in early winter and preserved or frozen for the long winter months. The pastoralists moved from one highland area to another several times each year, the distances travelled limited by the size of their flocks, and they rarely stored fodder. The choice of settlement site had to be carefully considered, especially in winter, so that their different animals’ dietary needs could all be met, often a major problem with the size of their flocks. These nomads were very aware of any infringement to the easy access of their animals to grazing land and reacted with animosity to any limitations placed in their path. They grudgingly accepted the vagaries of the weather and the periodic displays of nature’s displeasure when rivers burst their banks or rock falls or earthquakes destroyed their pastures, but they reacted unanimously with violent contempt when man-made obstacles created problems. In fact, tales of that violence were often fictitious, and the steppe and the sown maintained a symbiotic working relationship, and neighbours such as the Uyghurs, Khitans and the Jurchens quietly introduced nomadic society to some of the luxuries and advantages of the settled, sedentary life. Violence was generally directed at their fellow nomads who were felt to be impeding and intruding on each other’s lives and flocks. With growing clans and expanding flocks the inevitable resulting conflicts created another problem. The basic unit of TurcoMongol society was the highly patriarchal clan divided into a number of sub-clans, and these clans were strictly exogamous, which meant that brides had to be sought from outside the clan. Where an uncooperative atmosphere existed, this troublesome tradition would often compound an already fraught situation. When brides were not offered willingly, they would be seized forcibly. This abduction of brides became the basis of many bitter cross-generational feuds including the one between the Merkits and the Borjigids, Temujin’s clan, which ultimately affected the stability of the thirteenth century’s globalised world. However, under other circumstances, brides would also be used to cement intertribal alliances. Polygyny was common among those who could afford it, even though women generally enjoyed a very 16

The Steppe and the Sown

high status among the Turco-Mongols. Where marriages were agreed, they were usually agreed between clan elders and were often seen as a commercial or political pact or contract. Polygyny was practised, but the first wife retained her status as chief wife regardless of the relationship between herself and her husband. Dokuz Khatun (d.1265) broke these traditions. She was not Hulegu’s first wife, but she remained his well-respected chief wife despite being childless, and she maintained a large and influential ordu until their deaths in 1265. On a man’s death, his estate went to the youngest son of his chief wife, and this son was regarded as the guardian of hearth and home, the otchigin, a uniquely Mongol practice. Though Temujin’s tribe, the Borjigids, had once possessed status and influence, on the death of his father Yesugei, any position or standing they might have assumed evaporated and the tiny family group was forced to etch out a life of penury on the banks of the River Onon. The Kereits had long been a very powerful tribe even though they had come originally from the Turks. They were accepted as Mongols however, and many of them had converted to Nestorianism, originally in 1000 ce according to Bar Hebraeus. They occupied the upper reaches of the River Orkhon and much of their continued influence was said to be spread through their much sought-after daughters who had been strategically married throughout the tribes. The Naimans, another very powerful tribe, lived west of the Kereits, and their lands extended from Lake Zaysan to the higher reaches of the River Selenga, and from Ubsa Nuur in the north to the River Qara Irtysh in the south. The Naiman had been very reluctant to submit to Chinggis Khan, and famously Kuchluq Khan (d.1218) from their ruling clan fled into exile rather than submit. Kuchluq’s close ties to his neighbours, the Uyghurs, facilitated his move into the semi-nomadic and urbanised western regions. During Temujin’s youth power lay with the Tatars and the Merkits. The Merkits were forest dwellers and hunters who resided south-east of Lake Baikal along the lower River Selenga, while the Tatars who enjoyed the patronage of the Jin Emperor lived in the east, south of Buir Nuur. The Tatars had attracted the attention of the Jin because they were considered a potential if not actual threat. The Tatar’s bellicosity and the reputation of their fighting men ensured a high profile and their resulting association with the Eurasian steppe’s history of conquest and barbarity. The Tatars became the generic 17

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name for all Turco-Mongol tribes, and this association survived Chinggis Khan and his attempts to quell the term’s usage. Other tribes figured in pre-Mongol history and were resurrected by Rashid al-Din, the vizier and historian of the Chinggisids, in his Compendium of Chronicles (Jami‘ al-tawarikh) and so deserve a brief mention. The Kirghiz’s claim to fame is that they drove the Uyghurs out of Mongolia in 840 and gained a reputation for their brutality before they were confronted by the Khitans and driven to the regions around the upper Yenisey. The Oirat were forest dwellers from west of Lake Baikal who dominated the region after the return of the Yuan Emperor to Mongolia following his court’s expulsion from China by the Ming in 1368. The Tayjut occupied the heart of Mongolia and, together with the Borjigid, formed the original Mongols who peopled the confluence of the Onon and Ingoda rivers where the steppe merged into forest, and the tribes existed both as pastoralists and forest hunters. The Onggut lived in the semi-arid region south of the Gobi and were converts to Nestorianism. They were called ‘White Tatars’ by their Chinese neighbours. The Jalayrid, who were to become particularly famous after the fall of the Iranian Ilkhanate in 1335, originated in the steppe lands between the Onon and the Selenga rivers, while the Onggirat lived south-east of Buir Nuur. The Uyghur’s history is certainly closely entwined with that of the Turco-Mongols, but they cannot be considered members of that broad grouping. The Uyghurs had embraced the sedentary and urban lifestyle, though elements among them still practised nomadism and could be classified as semi-nomadic. In fact, in 745 ce they established a kingdom with its capital, Ordu Baliq, on the River Orkhon near to the first Chinggisid capital, Qaraqorum. The Uyghur kingdom swallowed up Mongolia and extended to Tibet and Eastern Turkestan. Their kingdom was short-lived though, and in 840 it was destroyed by the Kirghiz coming from the the River Yenisey in the north-west. Eventually the Uyghurs established a state on the north-east boundary of the Tarim basin which was absorbed without resistance by the advancing Chinggisids. The Uyghurs, who were religiously diverse, became administrators, ambassadors and merchants in the new expanding empire, and their alphabet, a Semitic script, was utilised by the Chinggisids for the writing of Mongol documents and official forms until the invention of Phags-pa.

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The Steppe and the Sown

ALTERNATIVE KINSHIP Because of the strictly enforced rules of exogamy and the wide practice of abduction of brides from hostile tribes, categorising tribes according to ethnic, religious or even linguistic groups presents problems. In his study of the tribal composition of the medieval Mongol tribes, Owen Lattimore12 divides the tribes into those clans that enjoyed the status of rulers and the clans classed as subordinate. The subordinate status was a result of either the clan suffering military defeat or because it felt in need of the protection of a stronger group. Within the clans, kinship was an element of its organisation, but kinship did not necessarily mean blood kinship. Instead there existed the institution of the anda, which was a very close bond voluntarily entered into and sealed with a sworn oath and the mixing of blood creating two equal ‘brothers’. These freely created kinships were considered as strong as, if not stronger, than actual blood ties. Another form of freely entered kinship common at this time was the institution of the noker, which was the voluntary adoption of a new leader devoid of any form of familial ties. The term noker has entered the Persian language, and from implying an associate or comrade it came to mean ‘follower’ and it now means ‘servant’. The would-be noker was obliged to formally renounce his loyalty to any former clan to which he might be bound by blood connections. Again, the connections between the noker and the adopted leader were as strong, if not stronger, than the bonds of blood. With the practice of abduction of wives, the buying and selling, bartering and exchanging of human commodities, and the strict imposition of exogamy and polygyny, the Turco-Mongol tribes remained religiously, linguistically and ethnically diverse. Therefore, to create and enforce a sense of common identity, there appeared a plethora of spurious genealogies binding the clan’s members through loyalty to a common ancestry and a shared history. Rather than grouping together close-knit families tied by subliminal DNA bonds, tribes and clans worked on a network of political arrangements and agreements, cemented by personal and emotional experiences. Though the tribal system had underpinned centuries of steppe history, Chinggis Khan was able to abolish it with a swift series of decrees agreed in the course of one quriltai, the Great Quriltai of 1206, which saw Temujin crowned as Chinggis Khan, ruler of ‘the 19

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people of the felt-walled tents’ and the ‘people of nine tongues’.13 Replaced by a neat manageable system of decimal units, the tribes dissolved into a unified command structure overseen by the Great Khan and his most loyal and trusted generals, each of whom was a commander of a tuman (10,000). From there commanders, selected on merit, were appointed to oversee squadrons of 1,000, 100 and 10. Loyalty and success were rewarded.

WOMEN Despite the prevalence of polygyny, women played a role in all aspects of the tribe’s life, including the fighting.14 During prolonged campaigns, women accompanied their husbands and were expected to take over all the duties of their menfolk when they were absent fighting. Women rode horses, took charge of the draught animals and their carts, which were often of considerable size, and of course performed more traditionally female tasks such as milking, stitching and sewing, including the arduous sewing of the felt tents. The milking of mares, however, along with the manufacture and repair of arrows, bows, saddles and the special qumis bags were tasks reserved for men. Tribal chiefs routinely consulted with their wives, and it was expected that the women should proffer their opinions and advice. Sorqoqtani Beki15 (d.1252), wife of Tolui Khan (d.1232), exercised great power behind the scenes and influenced the reigns of her sons, all four of whom achieved office and three of whom achieved imperial office. The enlightened rule of Qubilai (r.1261–94) and Hulegu (r.1258–65) clearly bore her imprint and influence. When Mongke Qa’an (r.1251–9) dispatched his brother Hulegu to Iran, he publicly instructed him to listen to his chief wife: ‘Consult Dokuz Khatun on all matters.’16 Women often exercised considerable real power, as is demonstrated by the regencies of Toregene Khatun (widow of the Great Khan Ogodai; regency 1241–6) and Oghul Qaimish (widow of the Great Khan, Guyuk; regency 1248–51). The principal wife and her children were invariably awarded special status. Only the sons borne by Chinggis Khan’s principal wife, Borte Fujin, were considered eligible for succession. Upon a man’s death, his wives, considered part of his estate, were inherited by his youngest son, following the practice 20

The Steppe and the Sown

of ultimogeniture. The natural mother was not included in this inheritance package. Considering the far from subjugated role that women played in Mongol society, it appears strange that they accepted their roles as wife and mother so readily after abduction. Such abductions were forced on older and married women and could likely happen to a woman on more than one occasion. Babies born in such circumstances were fully accepted by the abductors as was the case with Temujin’s first born son, Jochi, whom Borte gave birth to around nine months after the end of her own abduction by the Merkits. In this case Chinggis Khan declared that Jochi be awarded all the rights and the status due to him as his first-born son, and he was defiantly deaf to the whispering and doubts expressed concerning Jochi’s paternity. Women might well have been treated on occasion as commodities in the human bazaar to be bartered and sold, but men were equally bought and traded or passed on as gifts and prizes, especially when captured during military operations. Once a slave did not mean always a slave, however, as the example of Terkan Khatun, queen of Kirman (r.1257–83), clearly testifies.17

RELIGION The religious tolerance of the Mongols was unique in a very intolerant world, and various theories have been advanced to explain this defining trait.18 They were Shamanists, and Shamanism remained with them, however gently and hidden, until the end. Shamanism was itself a very tolerant faith without dogma and without scripture. It preached communion with and respect for the elements and could comfortably accommodate alternative belief systems. Shamanism was also a very practical religion concerned with the here and now rather than with the nutritional needs of the soul. Rituals were followed to ensure success and to avert misfortune. Prayers were offered to cure illness or to ensure victory. Burnt sheep shoulder blades were interpreted to unveil the future and avoid calamity. The Shamans offered a connection to the spirit world and communication with the ancestors, who should always be appeased. The teachings of Islam, Buddhism and Christianity belonged to another world, and the Mongols did not perceive any conflict and therefore they felt 21

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no threat or hostility from the practice of those religions. Instead they saw their tolerance of other religions and the appeasement of other practitioners as a kind of cosmological insurance and their encouragement of prayers for their own well-being as extra divine cover. ‘The Mongols believed in taking out as much celestial insurance as possible,’19 as David Morgan would have it, and he cites a wonderful passage from Edward Gibbon possibly awarding the Mongols with a clarity of vision not fully deserved. The Catholic inquisitors of Europe who defended nonsense by cruelty, might have been confounded by the example of the barbarian, who anticipated the lessons of philosophy and established by his laws a system of pure theism and perfect toleration.20

The Mongols’ distinctive religious tolerance has sometimes been interpreted as indifference, while others have noted their tantalising interest in conversion and their frequent expressions of intention to proclaim their faith in Islam or Christianity or whatever religion was expedient or relevant at any given time. Tales of secret baptisms, conversions and religious sympathy are scattered among the sources, and during the period when the Europeans were still a force in Syria and Palestine, it is clear that the Chinggisid elchis (envoys) would deliberately suggest that the Mongol khans were in the process of converting to Christianity. It was not difficult for the Mongols to create this impression since they all had a genuine deep interest in theology and one of their most characteristic pastimes was the grand staging of court debates, often theological and battled out between proponents of rival faiths.21 One of the fullest accounts of these grand theological verbal jousts is provided by the Papal envoy William of Rubruck (1220–93), who travelled to Mongke Khan’s court in 1254.22 Nestorianism was already well established throughout Asia, and Islam had increasingly begun to find followers among the TurcoMongols, and while Qubilai Khan sent his bishops west to act as Archbishop of Tabriz and to lead an embassy to Europe and the Vatican, the Holy See appointed bishops to Hangzhou and the Yuan capital, Khanbaliq (Beijing). Despite verifiable conversions, many Mongol converts were still met with scepticism and cynicism due in part to their reluctance 22

The Steppe and the Sown

to abandon all facets of their deeply entrenched Shamanist beliefs and practices. Ghazan Khan (r.1295–1304), who championed Chinggisid Islam in Iran, left himself vulnerable to attack from his enemies because of his continued adherence to the yasa and aspects of Shamanist ritual.23 The Shamanism as practised by the Turco-Mongols derived from animism with detectable elements of Chinese cosmology and Mazdaism. The absence of public and communal worship and lack of clearly recognisable clerics led many to believe that they followed no religion at all and were simply Godless heathens. Yet, at the other extreme, the learned Persian bureaucrat, ʿAta Malik Juwayni saw no real conflict between the faith of his Mongol masters and Sharia law. He claimed that Chinggis Khan abolished reprehensible customs which had been practised by those peoples […] and established such usages as were praiseworthy from the point of view of reason. There are many of these ordinances that are in conformity with the Shariʿat.24

The shaman was a powerful figure within the tribe. As Temujin rose in stature and his following spread, the shaman Teb-tenggeri, also known as Kokochu, challenged his authority with the aim of becoming at the very least the power behind the throne. So threatened did Chinggis Khan feel, even though he was surrounded by his loyal commanders of a 1,000 and the ranks of his faithful followers, that he was unable to relax until Teb-tenggeri was dead and his backbone broken. Chinggis’s extreme anxiety is expressed dramatically in the pages of the Mongol’s own great epic, the Secret History, which implies that his quick removal of the funeral tent and any remains of the shaman indicate the fear that Teb-tenggeri’s followers might retaliate for their leader’s murder.25 For the Mongols, Shamanism was essentially a form of ancestor worship plus the animistic reverence for mountain tops and river springs. Tenggeri, the Sky God, could be approached from mountain peaks, and in order to initiate contact, headdresses or hats had to be discarded and belts thrown over the shoulder. Juwayni described Chinggis Khan’s impassioned pleas to Tenggeri to advise him how to react to the provocation of the Khwarazmshah. He was reluctant to go to war with a neighbour whom he perceived as powerful and 23

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dangerous. ‘[F]or three days and nights, [he] offered up prayer, saying: “I was not the author of this trouble.”’26

THE STEPPE BEFORE CHINGGIS KHAN Chinggis Khan and his united Turco-Mongol hordes were not the first invaders from the steppe to shatter the uneasy truces of the Chinese northern territories. The Khitans, who eventually became known as the Liao, stormed out of the steppe from beyond the ‘Great Wall’27 and conquered the rich, arable lands of northern China. The seminomadic Khitans settled these lands rather than merely plundering and destroying what they had overrun, and soon they become absorbed and tamed by the civilisation they there encountered. It was then that they assumed the Chinese name ‘Liao’ and adapted Chinese cultural mores and practices to their increasingly sedentary lifestyle. It was in this way that the Khitans extended ‘Chinese’ rule deep into Mongolia, establishing garrisons in the Orkhon valley and driving out those Turco-Mongol tribes unwilling to submit to the west. However, the Khitans were to meet with a dramatic change in their fortunes c.1120 when they in turn were displaced from power by a far superior military force from the north. The Jurchen from Manchuria forcefully drove the Khitan ruling class out from the lands they had settled in northern China and forced those who remained into a life of servitude. The Jurchen founded the Jin dynasty (1115–1234) and promptly declared war on their neighbours to the south, the venerable Song dynasty (960–1279), though it is suspected that there had been collaboration between the two against the Liao and that the recriminations had arisen after arguments over the spoils and conflicting claims on the land. The Jin dynasty dominated the whole region and continued to influence and manipulate the TurcoMongol heartlands as well as China. Though the Jin Emperor Xizong (r.1135–1149) studied the Chinese classics and adopted Han cultural traditions, Jurchen nobles retained the top positions and Khitans remained oppressed and discriminated against. Though still able to exert influence over their nomadic neighbours, the Jurchen launched a large construction programme to build two important sections of the Great Wall – the Border Fortress, or the Boundary 24

The Steppe and the Sown

Ditch. It was formed by digging ditches within which lengths of wall were then placed. In some places, subsidiary walls and ditches were added for extra strength. Work began in about 1123 and was completed by about 1198, accounting for more than 2,000 km of wall known as the Old Mingchang Walls and New Great Walls. In 1161 the Jurchen formed an alliance with the Tatars and helped them enforce their domination over the other Turco-Mongol tribes and end the ambitions of their former ally, Qabul Khan (r.1130–46), great-grandfather of Chinggis. It was through the alliance with the Tatars that the Jin dynasty was able to retain its grip on power over northern China. The Jurchens continued to dangle the allure of their support before their warring neighbours, including the Kereits, and in this way ensured their continued domination. Meanwhile, as Temujin was uniting the Turco-Mongol tribes to his banner and raising his eyes beyond the horizon of his steppe homelands, the Islamic world was riven in strife. Though he thought himself invincible and to many he appeared unchallengeable, the Khwarazmshah was a dangerous paper tiger. He thought himself the most powerful ruler in the Islamic world and yet he had not even gained the support let alone recognition of the Caliph of Baghdad, nominal leader of the Sunni Islamic world. His own state, which encompassed much of Iran and western Turkestan, was riven with ethnic rivalry between Turks and Tajiks, as Persians were often known. His mother had the solid support of the Qipchaq Turks of the north, while he had the grudging support of the Ghurids and Persian statelets from the south. On his border to the east ruled the Qara Khitai, exiled Khitans who ruled over a Muslim population with the support and recognition of the ʿAbbasid Caliph of Baghdad. The Khwarazmshah was an unstable despot with grand delusions of power and ambitions nurtured by those illusions.

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2 THE EARLY LIFE

Chinggis Khan, Temujin, was not born into greatness, nor did greatness come easily to him. The path he took was long and hard, and it was only late in his career that he would have enjoyed any kind of security. That he rewarded the loyalty of those who remained steadfast in their support for him is not surprising: his success was never assured and every victory was hard fought and often tempered by defeat. There are some who believe that Temujin was born into a very humble family and that all the subsequent genealogies are pure fabrications. How else could the destitution that befell his family after the death of his father be explained? A noble family would not have been allowed to undergo such privations. Such speculation must remain just that, however, since all the contemporary histories embellish him with at least a recorded history. Paul Ratchnevsky’s account of the Great Khan’s life is based on Rashid al-Din’s monumental history, which in turn is based on Chinese and Mongolian sources no longer extant as well as the anonymous Secret History, a Mongolian verse chronicle of suspect date and authorship, which is not the most objective of sources. As Igor de Rachewiltz points out in the introduction of his definitive translation of the great book, ‘[The Secret History] is the only genuine (not to be confused with reliable) native account of the life and deeds of Činggis Qan.’1 If the resulting account still seems overly heroic, it should be remembered that Chinggis Khan was a hero by any criteria and it is hardly surprising that his remarkable success should be mirrored by a remarkable early life. 26

The Early Life Fig. 3: Chinggis Khan, d.1227

Four events dominate Temujin’s early life, and two important episodes stand as decisive turning points in his climb for ultimate power. Firstly, the poisoning of his father by the Tatars, in complete breach of the rules of hospitality laid down in the yasa, and his family’s subsequent abandonment by his extended tribe would have taught him never to trust anyone, nor hold tradition sacrosanct, and to rely only on himself. Secondly, the murder of his half-brother demonstrated a characteristic ruthlessness and determination which the earlier tragedy might well have instilled in him. Thirdly, as a boy he was kidnapped and held prisoner by a rival clan, the Tayichi’uts, who were so convinced that he would cause trouble for them all as soon as he came of age that they reputedly intended to murder him as soon as he reached adulthood. With characteristic cunning, clever judgement of character and steely discipline, he escaped his captors and added to his reputation and growing mystique. A fourth event 27

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which was to have far reaching repercussions was the kidnapping by the Merkit of his beloved wife Borte, betrothed to him from an early age and reputedly chosen by the young Temujin against the wishes of his father. His initial reaction to the snatching of his young bride from right before his eyes revealed a very cold and calculating strategist but also a very human, determined man driven by love and honour, able to live with his decisions and act with resolve and justice. Two telling episodes in particular stand out as harbingers of the future. First, the rallying of Temujin’s supporters in the valley of Baljuna has been so embellished with fables that the reality has become clouded, but in essence it marked the turning point in his fortunes and served as the defining test of true loyalty for his followers. And, second, the subsequent showdown with his blood brother Jamuqa has likewise no doubt been transformed unrecognisably from the telling but served as the defining moment when Temujin met his destiny.

FORMATIVE YEARS Though not born into the nobility, Temujin’s early circumstances were respectable, and his father, Yesugei, the son of Bartan-Bahadur, was generally recognised as chieftain of the leading Mongol clan, though this position was contested by the Tayichi’ut, Temujin’s future abductors. His great-grandfather Qabul Khan was recognised as a Khagan (Qa’an), or chieftain of the Khamag Mongol confederation, by the Jin (Jurchen)2 but after they switched their allegiance from him to the Tatars in 1161 his fate was sealed and Qabul Khan, just like his grandson a few decades later, was killed by the Tatars. Qabul Khan was a grandson of Qaidu Khan I, who is credited with being the first leader to attempt to unify the Mongol tribes and gain recognition from the Jurchen rulers of northern China. Temujin’s father, Yesugei, was named after a Tatar killed by his father, Qabul, in battle, and it was a Tatar who was to kill Yesugei and leave Temujin a nine-yearold orphan, too young to succeed his father as chieftain of the Kiyat clan. It would be some years before Temujin attained a position to exact his revenge on the Tatars. Temujin, who was reputedly born ‘clutching a black clot of blood’3 in his closed hand, was himself named after a Tatar, Temujin-uge, who had been captured by his father, doubtless 28

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further accentuating the bad blood that existed between the two tribes. He was born in 1162, though it is sometimes claimed to be 1155, to Ho’elun-eke, a Merkit from the Olkhunut forest tribe. She had been abducted by Yesugei and his brothers, in true TurcoMongol fashion, as she and her new Merkit husband Yeke Chiledu were travelling back to the Merkit camp. This scenario added yet more enemies to Temujin’s social baggage, and was reflected in the later abduction of his new bride, Borte. Though abduction was a common and traditional form of marriage ‘ceremony’, the custom continued to cause resentment and was a common cause of hostility and intertribal warfare. Even though Yesugei made Ho’elun-eke his chief wife, an honour as only one of his wives could bear his heirs, the Merkit were not prepared to forgive this insult, and memories were long on the steppe. Ho’elun-eke bore Yesugei Bahadur4 three more sons, Khasar, Khajiun and Temuge, and lastly a daughter, Temulin, born when Temujin was nine. There were also two other brothers, Bekter and Belgutei from a second wife. The Secret History, a chronicle increasingly condemned as unreliable Toluid propaganda,5 paints Ho’elun-eke as strong and resolute despite the impossible conditions she was left in after her husband’s murder and her young family’s abandonment by their tribe. The family had their base by the River Onon, where the children learnt riding and archery from an early age. During these years Temujin formed a close friendship with Jamuqa, a son from a neighbouring family, with whom he formed a blood brothership (anda) by exchanging knuckle-bones and arrows. The relationship between andas was often considered stronger than that between blood brothers and could not be idly disregarded. It was also during this time that Temujin’s father betrothed him to Borte, a daughter of Dei-sechen from the Boskur tribe, a sub-group of a leading Mongol tribe, the Onggirat. Upon departing from the bride’s father’s camp, leaving his son with his new in-laws, Yesugei Bahadur passed by a group of Tatars who had struck camp in order to eat. He availed himself of the ancient nomadic custom of hospitality and was invited to share their meal. However, the Tatars recognised him as an enemy who had previously robbed them, ‘Yisügei the Kiyan has come’6 and so poisoned his food. He died upon reaching home and entrusted the loyal Father Monglik, the family’s oldest retainer, with ensuring his eldest son’s safe return. 29

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After his father’s murder, Temujin’s family fortunes declined abruptly, and as eldest son Temujin was summoned home to provide for his family. His mother famously hoisted her skirts up […] running upstream on the banks of the Onon, gathering wild pear, fruits of the region, nourishing the bellies and throats of her children […] digging up roots to nourish her children, she fed them with onions, fed them with garlic, saw how the sons of her belly could flourish […] Thus, on a diet of seeds they were nourished.7

This was a harsh and bitterly learnt lesson which left a profound impression on his character. The family’s predicament worsened when their relatives decided that continued loyalty to a departed leader was strategically prejudicial, politically inopportune and economically detrimental. Dismissing Temujin as too young to lead the clan, Yesugei Bahadur’s Tayichi’ut followers, his nokhod, deserted the camp declaring: The deep water has dried up, The shining stone is shattered.8 [Mongol proverb meaning ‘The situation has deteriorated to the point where things can no longer be mended.’9]

With their expectations of plunder and martial adventure now dashed, the nokhod deserted Yesugei’s stricken family, but also less explicably the family’s close relatives also deserted them, including the mother of Bekter and Belgutei, Temujin’s half-brothers. According to steppe tradition, a widow should be taken in marriage and given protection by her husband’s youngest brother, in this case, Da’aritaiotchigin. Ho’elun-eke declined, asserting her wish to raise her family alone. However, since Rashid al-Din records that in fact the bereaved family received considerable support from family members including Yesugei’s elder brother, Kuchar, this might well be the Secret History overdramatising Temujin’s plight in order to portray the mounting adversities from which the future world conqueror was so remarkably able to extradite himself. If it had been true, it might support the view that Temujin came from a poor unknown family with no illustrious ancestors. What is clear is that times became considerably harder for Ho’elun-eke and her young family, and such filial occupations as 30

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horse-rustling became necessities rather than pastimes. The family’s perception was that they had been cruelly abandoned, and Temujin was moulded by this reality. ‘We have no friend but our shadow, we have no whip but our horse’s tail.’10 The murder, when Temujin was 13 or 14, of his half-brother Bekter is perhaps the most controversial of the four defining incidents from Temujin’s early life. It is an incident that figures prominently in the Secret History but which appears to have been ignored in the Altan Debter, an official history and a major source for Rashid alDin. Whereas the Altan Debter avoids reference to the incident, the Secret History does not hide Ho’elun-eke’s anger at her sons whom she brands murderers: ‘Like a Qasar [Khazar] dog snapping at its own afterbirth; like a panther assailing a cliff; like a lion uncontrollable in its rage; like a dragon-snake swallowing its prey alive.’11 Temujin and Qasar had confronted their half-brother, accusing him of failing to share the spoils of a hunting trip. The division and sharing of the hunt’s rewards is a steppe practice sanctified by custom and tradition. Bekter recognised his infringement of the yasa and, apparently accepting his fate, asked only that his younger brother, Belgutei, be spared. Bekter was dispatched with horn-tipped arrows, and Belgutei was spared to eventually find honour and recognition serving his brother’s murderer.12 Chinggis Khan was later to speak of both brothers: ‘It is to Belgutei’s strength and Qasar’s prowess as an archer that I owe the conquest of the World Empire.’13 It seems likely that more than ownership of a fish was at stake to have caused this fratricide. The age of the half-brothers is not explicitly stated in the sources, and there is evidence suggesting that Bekter might have been older than Temujin, in which case he could have been perceived as a threat to Temujin’s leadership of the family. In the Secret History, Temujin’s kidnapping and imprisonment by the Tayichi’ut follows immediately after the account of the murder, though no suggestion is made that the two events were linked other than portraying Temujin’s treatment as that befitting a common criminal. Whether his capture was retribution for the killing or because Tarkutai-Kiriltuk, a leading noble of the Tayichi’ut, considered him a potential rival, or both, is never clarified, and Rashid al-Din suggests that throughout his youth Temujin suffered continually at the hands of not only relatives from the Tayichi’ut but also rivals from the Merkits, the Tatars and other tribes. Such tribulations were 31

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hardly uncommon for the young Turco-Mongols, and kidnappings for ransom, servants or even forced fighters were not uncommon as the many examples mentioned in the Secret History testify. The Secret History recounts how Temujin escaped still wearing the wooden cangue, a collar-like implement which entrapped his head and arms, and plunged into a river. ‘Temujin pulled the leash of his cangue away from that weakling, hit him once on the head and ran away.’14 By using the cangue as a pillow, he was able to lie on the bed of the river and keep his head above water. His escape had been cleverly planned and calmly executed. He had chosen the night of a feast when he was carelessly guarded. Rather than continue to flee, he bided his time and hid. He was discovered by Sorqan-shira of the small Suldus tribe who, rather than betraying him, assisted the fugitive in his escape. Sorqan-shira, like others who were to follow him, said of Temujin, ‘There is a fire in your eyes, there is light in your face.’15 Rejecting the advice of his saviour to head straight for his family’s camp, Temujin sought out the camp of Sorqan-shira himself where he knew Sorqan’s children were sympathetic towards him. While the Secret History might well have embellished this anecdote somewhat, the essential elements of Temujin’s character remain constant. The careful planning, the self-control, the understanding of people, the awareness of his powers over others and over young people in particular, and his lack of impulsiveness were all qualities that he was to develop over the following decades. The lessons he learnt from this encounter with the Tayichi’ut were never to be forgotten. The fourth defining incident in Temujin’s early life resulted in a gradual turn in his fortunes and the beginning of his rise. Not long after his escape from the Tayichi’ut and having reached the age of fifteen, the Mongol age of majority, Temujin returned to reclaim his bride Borte Fujin from her father, Dei-sechen. He also sought to consolidate himself as head of his small tribe and gather supporters and outside protection in order that he might never again fall victim to the dictates of neighbouring tribes. To this end he summoned his friend and fellow horse-rustler Bo’orchu, collected his brothers, Qasar with his bow and Belgutei with his axe, packed his wife’s wedding gift, a black sable cloak, as a very persuasive and valuable offering, and set off in search of a powerful protector. The sable cloak had originally been presented to his mother, Ho’elun-eke, on behalf of Borte on her betrothal, and now Temujin thought it appropriate to 32

The Early Life

present this valuable coat to the Ong Khan, his father Yesugei’s anda, who was now effectively his father and his protector, a powerful ally whom Temujin could rightly call upon for protection.16 Parallels between Temujin and the leader he chose as his protector are possible. Toghril, the Ong Khan and leader of the powerful Kereits, had been abducted by the Merkits when he was a boy and for a while forced into hard labour. Later, at 13, he and his mother were carried off by the Tatars, and the young Toghril was made to tend their camels. After the death of his father, Toghril also murdered his brother and as a result became head of his family. This role was short-lived, however, and as a consequence of the murder, Toghril’s uncle forced him into exile. It was Temujin’s father who assisted the exiled Toghril, the two becoming anda, and together they attacked Toghril’s uncle, the gurkhan. Thus, Toghril became the powerful leader of the Kereit clan with the title of Ong Khan or Wang Khan, and it was at this time that Temujin appeared to remind the Kereit ruler of his debt to Yesugei Bahadur, his anda. When Toghril accepted the sable cloak and with it Temujin as an adopted son, he gained a much-needed ally against the intrigues of his own family and in return he bestowed some much needed status and security on Temujin. In recognition of this new status, Temujin was presented with a ‘son’ as a personal servant. This was Jelme, the future Mongol divisional commander of a toman. The value and advantages of this new alliance were to be made clear within a very short time. The details of the abduction of Borte Fujin by the Merkits differ in the Secret History and Rashid al-Din’s Altan Debter-based account. Both agree, however, that a force of Merkits led by Toqto’a Beki attacked Temujin’s camp and seized Borte Fujin and Belgutei’s mother while the men, Ho’elun-eke and her daughter Temulin escaped. Both accounts also agree that Temujin sought immediate assistance from his adopted father, Toghril, who was only too pleased to wreak revenge on his enemies of old. The Merkits were in fact exacting revenge themselves for the original abduction of Ho’elun-eke from Yeke Chiledu by Temujin’s father, Yesugei. Borte was intended for Yeke Chiledu’s younger brother, Chilger Boko, and was seen as sweet and just revenge and honour satisfied. Temujin has sometimes been rebuked for abandoning his new bride to an uncertain and certainly unpleasant future. She was 33

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defenseless against the Merkit attackers and she could have expected little mercy from her abductors who were likely to rape her and consign her to a life of slavery and servitude. Temujin’s reaction was cold and calculated and reflected his objective and clear assessment of the situation. If he had stayed to fight, all would have been lost and the women would still have been consigned to rape and slavery. If the Merkits had suffered casualties, they would have taken revenge on the women. By fleeing, he was giving his wife her best chance of survival. The Merkits would no doubt feel magnanimous after such an easy victory and they would also be feeling pride after apparently inspiring such fear in their enemies who would have great difficulty living down such a humiliation. Temujin simply employed a classic Mongol ruse, namely the feigned retreat, in order to lull the enemy into a false sense of security. Temujin would be back when he was in a position to secure victory, and meanwhile he assumed that a prize such as his beautiful Borte would be awarded as a wife to someone and treated with due respect. The discrepancy in the accounts surrounding this episode is not difficult to explain. Temujin’s first son, Jochi, was born approximately nine months after Borte Fujin’s rescue, and the uncertainty of his paternity reverberated down through his line, sons and grandsons who became rulers of the Golden Horde, the ulus that held sway over Russia, Eastern Europe and the Qipchaq steppes. Women abducted from other tribes were awarded to members of the capturing tribe as a matter of course. Belgutei’s mother was filled with shame after her release, not so much because she had been given to a Merkit as a wife but because the Merkit to whom she had been given was a mere commoner while her sons were khans. Rashid al-Din’s account has Borte Fujin treated with the greatest respect by her abductors due to her pregnancy and claims that the Merkits happily turned her over to their sworn enemy the Kereit leader, Toghril. Toghril refused to take her as a wife since he considered her his daughter-in-law, returning her to Temujin. This account is obviously contrived and implausible and served the political aim of avoiding embarrassing a neighbouring Mongol dynasty, the Jochids of the Golden Horde, and tarnishing the name of Borte Fujin Khatun. Rashid al-Din adds that Toghril sought to ‘preserve her from the gaze of strangers and non-intimates’,17 an obvious anachronism since the Kereits were not Muslim and would never have entertained such sentiments, unlike Rashid al-Din himself 34

The Early Life

and others in the Muslim Ilkhanid (Persian Mongol) court where he served. His account was to save Muslim sensitivities and blushes. Though not explicit, the Secret History, a narrative written for insiders who would have been well acquainted with the facts of this incident, does not weave any falsehoods around the events, while at the same time it romanticises the eventual reunion of Temujin and his ‘beloved’ Borte, a depiction worthy of Hollywood. And so, he came upon her, for Lady Börte was among those fleeing people. She heard the voice of Temujin and recognizing it, she got off the cart and came running towards him […] It was moonlight: he looked at them, recognized Lady Börte, and they fell into each other’s arms.18

Such romantic love and moonlight tenderness sits strangely with the fact that Temujin had abandoned his beloved apparently without a second thought when the Merkits launched their ambush. However, this might be explained by the fact that whereas Temujin and the other men in the party and possibly even Ho’elun-eke, who was also there, would have faced almost certain death had they been captured, young women were too valuable a commodity to wantonly dispose of, and though paternity of any children could be important, ownership of a woman’s body was never considered totally exclusive in Mongol society. This attitude is clearly evident in the inheritance laws which stipulate that the wives and concubines of deceased Mongols were inherited by their nearest relatives, with sons inheriting their father’s wives. Temujin would therefore have realised that it was imperative that he should escape rather than confront a stronger enemy and that he would later be in a position to impose his revenge and reclaim his bride. Temujin called on his adopted father Toghril, his anda Jamuqa, his brothers Qasar and Belgutei, his noker Bo’orchu, and his servant and noker Jelme to assist him in rescuing his bride and his stepmother from the Merkits. Toghril had not forgotten his pledge: Didn’t I tell you last time that you could depend on me? Your father and I were sworn brothers, and when you brought me the sable jacket you asked me to be a father to you […] In return for this sable I shall trample the Merkit; Lady Börte shall be saved. 35

George Lane In return for this sable I shall trample the Merkit; Lady Börte shall be rescued.19

The victory was total. However, having retrieved his bride and scattered his enemies, Temujin called a halt to the assault, and though taking some youngsters as slaves and women as concubines, he spared many of the Merkit men. In future encounters, this was often the case, and the defeated enemy were usually encouraged to join the growing Mongol forces and become incorporated into Temujin’s army, a welcome option for most since it offered the likely prospect of plentiful booty and future reward. Temujin had begun his rise to power. Temujin’s ability to call on powerful figures for assistance and command the loyalty of a group of young warriors is indicative of his growing reputation and the expectations of those around him. Though cloaked in the language of honour, pledges and family ties, those who chose to support the young Temujin did so because they saw such support as politically expedient. Temujin had proved himself to be audacious and daring, but crucially he was successful. Coupled with his reputed charisma, his success now allowed many to view him as a figure who could bring them prosperity and power. The confidence he inspired swayed the khan of the Kereits, Toghril, to adopt him as a junior partner. Though their family history provided the backdrop, it was the Kereit king’s belief in Temujin which ultimately persuaded him to enter a political and military partnership. Their alliance enabled the Toghril and Temujin to exploit the change in relations between the Jurchen and their steppe puppets, the Tatars, and also to satisfy their long brooding hatred of their tormentors. In 1196, with Jurchen encouragement, this new steppe power descended on the Tatars, though it was not until 1202 after the Battle of Khalkha that Temujin was able to fully avenge his father’s murder with a full-scale massacre of the Tatars. As a reward for their defeat of the Tatars, the Jurchen rulers abandoned their former allies and in 1197 bestowed the title ‘Wang’ on Toghril and lesser titles on his junior partner, Temujin. The Jurchen were behaving as the Chinese had always behaved towards their barbarian neighbours: they played one group off against the others. And so while the Tatars had enjoyed ascendancy over other Turco-Mongols, the Naimans and Kereits still exercised considerable power and influence and were 36

The Early Life

available to receive their powerful neighbour’s blessing whenever they deigned to give it. With Wang or Ong Khan, Toghril of the Kereits, enjoying his own period in the Jin sun backed by his able protégé, Temujin, a loose alliance of disgruntled Naimans, Tatars, Merkits and Tayichi’uts were joined by Temujin’s one-time anda Jamuqa and began to coalesce in opposition to this new order. Jamuqa The break with his boyhood anda Jamuqa is often cited as the event that signified the real start of Temujin’s pursuit of power. Both Jamuqa and Temujin had been ambitious and both had enjoyed the advantages of the other’s support and loyalty, but both were ultimately hungry for the same cake and they were certainly not prepared to share it. The two would have both scented in each other a dangerous rival and, by some accounts, the contrived split saw their love immediately transform to a bitter hatred. Their rivalry reflected the wider rifts splitting the Turco-Mongol tribes, and Jamuqa found himself allied with Temujin’s oldest enemies. On the night of their split, a group of Jamuqa’s men defected to Temujin’s camp, responding to Temujin’s growing reputation as a just and generous leader who inspired and rewarded loyalty in contrast to Jamuqa whose ferocity and cruelty were legendary. Those who chose to defect to Temujin’s camp usually came as individuals and in so doing broke from their clans and families. With these individuals, there were also larger groups who chose to join Temujin’s growing ranks. Among those groups who rallied to Temujin’s banner were ancestral subject tribes, such as the Jalair, the Suldus and the Baya’ut. Individual serfs, were also welcomed with the result that representatives from all the tribes and from every level of tribal society could be found within Temujin’s following. Temujin’s growing might and influence and his power to inspire loyalty over tribal ties was viewed with growing suspicion by many of the older, traditional leaders, and when he proposed a double marriage alliance between his oldest son, Jochi, and the Wang Khan’s daughter, and one of his daughters and the Wang Khan’s son, Nilka-Senggum, it was interpreted as a flagrant bid for leadership of the Kereit and by default leadership of the Eurasian steppe. The proposal was angrily rejected by Senggum in particular, and Temujin realised that he no longer enjoyed the popularity to which he had 37

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become accustomed. Therefore, when his showdown with Jamuqa occurred, Temujin suddenly found himself without much of the support on which he had calculated he could rely. In 1203, a year after his triumph over the Tatars, Temujin found himself rallying the remnants of his defeated forces by the banks of the Baljuna, which Ratchnevsky identifies as being in the south-east of Mongolia on the frontier of the Jin Empire.20 Many former friends and sympathisers were now foes, envious of his rising fortunes. The rallying of his loyalists at Baljuna after Temujin’s devastating defeat in 1203 could have been seen as his last stand. In fact, it was the opposite. Those who took part in the covenant of Baljuna became the hard core of the Chinggisid Empire, those whose loyalty had been tested and was now unquestioned. Temujin swore an oath and pledged to share the fruits of the coming showdown, both bitter and sweet, with all those trusted loyalists who partook of the covenant. He swore to ‘become as the [muddy] waters of Baljuna’21 should he break his word. The Baljuntus, or ‘Muddy Water Drinkers’, were all distinguished later with the highest honours and their presence at Baljuna is always mentioned with pride in the biographies. Khwaja Jaʿfar’s biography lists only the 19 leaders (noyat) as swearing the oath, though many more assorted warriors were present, including Khitans, Kereits, Tanguts and Muslims. Khwaja Jaʿfar was a Khwarazmian Muslim merchant present at Baljuna who rendered Temujin an invaluable intelligence service.22 The Secret History names another Muslim, Hasan the Sartaq, who it describes as having come from Alaqus Digit Quri of the Onggut on a white camel, driving a thousand wethers before him which he hoped to trade for squirrel and sable pelts.23 It is likely that this is the same Hasan Hajji that Juwayni records as having been murdered in Utrar as part of Chinggis Khan’s peace delegation sent to the Khwarazmshah to initiate trading relations between the two parties.24 Those who remained with him at Lake Baljuna were accorded the highest honours in the years to come. The ensuing confrontations with his enemies, many of them former friends who opposed and resented his rise to power, saw them toppled one by one, leaving Temujin the practical ruler of the steppe. Wang Khan was taken unawares and, in the confusion, he was killed by a Naiman archer. His son Senggum escaped to Tibet, but sometime later was tracked down and killed in the Kashgar/ 38

The Early Life

Khotan region.25 The success of Temujin’s attack on his old ally the Wang Khan, Toghril, was due largely to the intelligence given him by his brother Qasar, whose great sacrifice in warning his brother was acknowledged in the awards ceremony at the quriltai of 1206. The fall of the mighty Kereit kingdom, known in the West for its associations with Prester John,26 was not followed by massacres such as those visited upon the Tatars and Tayichi’ut. The Kereit commander-in-chief was pardoned and praised for his bravery and loyalty to his fallen chief, while the Kereit princesses were married off to suitably high-ranking warriors from the Chinggisid army and family. Wang Khan’s granddaughter, Dokuz Khatun, was given to Tolui as an infant, though the marriage was never consummated and she eventually became the chief wife of Hulegu Khan, the first Ilkhan of Iran. The hand of the legendary Sorqoqtani Beki, younger daughter of Wang Khan’s uncle Jagambu, was also given to Tolui, but it was after her husband’s death in 1233 as a widow and mother of three, arguably four, kings, that she achieved her greatest influence. Though not yet quite the undisputed leader of the steppe, Temujin, now occupying the Wang Khan’s throne, began to allow himself some of the trappings of power. He called on all those who still resisted his authority to bend to his will. Messages were sent to tribal leaders not only assuring them that their current status and rights as rulers would continue to be respected once they had submitted to him but also that his reign would herald in a new era of justice, generosity and law. He would abolish old, discredited practices such as theft and adultery and introduce a new legal system binding on all. All who now submitted to his will would benefit and those who resisted would be annihilated. Jamuqa and Senggum both understood what was at stake with Senggum recorded as declaring, ‘If he is victorious, our people are his. If we are victorious his people are ours.’27 Senggum chose to flee, but Jamuqa allied himself with the Naiman to whose banner a variety of disgruntled, dispossessed tribal leaders had flocked in the increasingly vain hope of halting Temujin’s rise. Naiman power lay with Gurbescu Khatun, an arrogant woman who was both wife and stepmother to the nominal Naiman leader, Tayang Khan. She contemptuously dismissed the Mongols as uncouth, boorish upstarts. The Mongol people have always smelt bad and worn grimy clothes. They live apart and far away. Let them stay there. But we might perhaps have 39

George Lane their fine daughters and daughter-in-laws brought here and, making them wash their hands, perhaps just let them milk our cows and sheep.28

She then had a message delivered to Temujin warning him that he was in danger of being ‘robbed of [his] quivers’.29 Perhaps in respect for the gravity of the confrontation Temujin organised his army in the decimal manner, which would become so characteristic of the Chinggisid military forces, and employed ruse and subterfuge in recognition of the superior forces massed against him. He also created a regiment composed of elite troops whose purpose was his protection in both battle and peace time. Tayang Khan’s fate was sealed by two events. First was the contemptuous dismissal of his cautionary tactics by his son, Kuchluq, ‘Old woman Tayang again, he must have lost his courage […] Tayang who has never dared venture further afield than a pregnant woman would go to urinate.’ More decisive, however, was Jamuqa’s withdrawal from the battle and the defection of many of the Turco-Mongol troops tactically allied with the Naiman. Temujin’s victory was absolute, and only Kuchluq and a few of his closest followers managed to escape the bloody field of battle. Temujin claimed Gurbescu Khatun’s hand in marriage and according to the Secret History taunted her for her past comments, ‘You used to say that the Mongols had a bad smell, didn’t you? Why, then, did you come now?’30 Jamuqa’s end as recorded in the Secret History is highly romanticised, though Rashid al-Din’s version is possibly overreflective of the statesman’s disapproval of Jamuqa. The Secret History has Jamuqa refusing Temujin’s offer of clemency and instead has the captive anda pleading only that his blood not be spilt and that his burial site should be on high ground so that he would be able to watch protectively over his dear brother ‘and be a blessing to the offspring of your offspring’.31 Rashid al-Din acknowledges Temujin’s qualms about killing his anda with his own hands and has the Great Khan pass the job to Otchigan Noyan for execution; though earlier in his text he quotes another version of the story which has Jamuqa endure the excruciating pain of being pulled apart limb by limb.32 Both accounts, however, observe the strict legality of Jamuqa’s demise as far as Temujin is concerned.33

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THE GREAT QURILTAI OF 1206 In recognition of Temujin’s achievements and his position as ruler of the Turco-Mongol peoples, a grand quriltai was called in 1206, the Year of the Tiger, and held near the source of the River Onon, on Mount Burqan Qaldun, first home of the mythical blue-grey wolf and fallow doe from whose union all the steppe peoples had sprung. The leaders of all the clans and tribes of the Eurasian steppe, the ‘people of nine tongues’,34 the ‘people of the felt-walled tents’,35 were summoned to the quriltai, where they hoisted a white standard with nine tails and to Temujin they awarded the title of ‘Chinggis Khan’ (Fierce or Hard Khan).36 Earlier, in 1202, Temujin had already been declared Chinggis Khan by his cousins, Altan, Quchar and Sacha Beki, who predicted that Fine-looking maidens and ladies of rank, Palatial tents, and from foreign people Ladies and maidens with beautiful cheeks, And geldings with fine croups, At the trot we shall bring.37

However, in 1206 it was not simply his cousins abdicating their birthright to the khanship to Temujin but a confederation of the Eurasian nomadic tribes joining together as Yeke Monggol Ulus, or the Great Mongol Nation, officially announcing their unity under Chinggis Khan. It was a confederation which even the Chinese were prepared to recognise and which they called Da Menggu guo. In fact, de Rachewiltz, in his definitive translation and commentary on the Secret History, points out that Chinggis Khan continued to refer to his united polity as simply the ‘Mongqul Ulus’ and that the grander title was a calque of Da Jin guo (Great Jin Nation) adopted from the Chinese in 1210.38 The quriltai of 1206 unequivocally granted Chinggis Khan, the Fierce Khan of the Monggol Ulus, the mandate to execute fundamental reforms and make appointments without regard to tribal loyalty, powers that he initiated immediately by the naming to office those who had been most loyal to him during the years of hardship. The Secret History lists exhaustively all those who were honoured with powerful office or with titles, with commissions and 41

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with other traditional rewards such as exemption from punishment. Ninety-five commanders of a thousand were named; Muqali was proclaimed ‘Prince of State’; Jebe Noyan the Arrow was sent to track down Kuchluq, the fugitive Naiman prince; Qorci was awarded 30 women of his choice for his accurate prophecies; Sigi Qutuqu, Chinggis Khan’s sixth younger ‘brother’ (by adoption) was exempted from punishment for nine crimes and made chief judge and keeper of the blue-script register of his decisions. No doubt the writer of the Secret History wished to emphasise how Chinggis Khan was quick to reward those who had helped him and demonstrate that good deeds were never forgotten.39 In fact, the Secret History goes into great detail concerning the organisation of the state and the army. The oft-aired accusation that the Mongols had no flair for nor interest in statecraft and left the running of their empire to their Chinese and Persian lackeys is not supported by the content of this anonymous history which was obviously written by and for those with a great deal of interest in the minutiae of government and bureaucracy. Chinggis Khan understood well the weaknesses and strengths of the Turco-Mongol tribes, and he knew that their often-ferocious loyalty to their leaders and their tribes was not only a source of strength but also their greatest weakness and it was of immediate concern if he wished to avoid the fate of so many of his predecessors forgotten in the ebb and flow of intertribal wars. He had been abandoned by his own tribe and now he was surrounded by fanatically loyal supporters who had abandoned their own tribes. He knew that to succeed he needed two things: loyalty and the means to pay for that loyalty. He was under no illusion that charisma alone would fuel and fire an army. To establish that initial loyalty, he would create a new tribe, a supratribe to which all his followers, past and future, would now belong which would be built and organised on a new lattice-work emanating from his core family. The bricks of his new tribe would be the individual family units grouped in units of ten pledging loyalty to the group leader and each other rather than the tribes of yore. Each unit of ten (arban) would in turn be part of a larger grouping of 100 (jaghun) and those would form part of the groups of 1,000 (mingghan). At the top, he personally appointed the commanders of 10,000 (tuman). With one stroke, he abolished the old tribal system that had stymied steppe history for generations. 42

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The infamy which has dogged not only this newly elected leader of the Eurasian steppe but the united tribes that he led can be traced back to the early conquests and also to some particularly choice quotations (biligs) which date from this period. One notorious bilig in particular has often been cited as an example of the true steppe overlord speaking from the heart, though why this example of rather heartless bravado should be any more authentic than the many words of considered wisdom that have also been recorded is not explained. The bilig was a discussion on the pleasures of life, and Bo’orchu and his other companions expressed the pleasure they took in falconry during the spring. But for Chinggis this was nothing to the pleasures he derived from conquest, rash words spoken no doubt in the exhilaration of victory by which many have chosen to define him. Man’s greatest good fortune is to pursue and claim victory over his foe, seize all his possessions, abandon his wives lamenting and wailing, ride his geldings, use the bodies of his women as nightshirts and support, casting eyes upon and kissing their rosy breasts and sucking their lips which are as sweet as the berries on their breasts.40

Terror was a tactic and deliberate policy of conquest. The humiliation, cruelty and wanton killing that was routinely manifest in the acts of conquest were not indulged in for their own sake nor undertaken to sate the depraved appetites of barbarian hordes. The horrors of war were as real in the thirteenth century as they are today and are just as unavoidable and integral to battle and political violence as the technological warfare of modern times. The dehumanisation of the enemy is as crucial for the success of political aggression dependent on acts of individual killing as it was for the Chinggisid armies, and there is no compelling evidence that the armies of Chinggis Khan exceeded any boundaries or standards prevalent at that time either in acts of violence or in numbers of victims. What characterised the Chinggisid killing machine was the cold discipline and calculated efficiency of its soldiery. A less well-known bilig attributed to the Great Khan by Rashid al-Din inspired far more of his followers than the hot-headed remarks quoted above and guided his judgement as he ventured out from the steppe.

43

George Lane Every word upon which three learned men are agreed can be repeated everywhere; otherwise it cannot be trusted. Measure your own words, and those of others, against the words of the learned: if they are in conformity they can be spoken; otherwise they should not be spoken.41

In the same section, Rashid al-Din quotes the Great Khan reflecting on what he sought for his family and his descendants. His thoughts were not so much on conquering the world but on creating stability and safety. He had not had a good or secure childhood. His experience of the clans and of life on the steppe had not been one of honour and reward. It had been harsh, grueling and treacherous. Chinggis Khan harboured few romantic illusions or memories of life on the steppe. He knew that once his descendants had become accustomed to the pleasures of the wider world, once they had sampled the fineries of the world’s cuisines, clothed themselves in Persian nasij and brocades and the softest silks, and strode the world on the backs of the mighty stallion and in the arms of seductive courtesans, ‘on that day, they will forget us’.42 My qorchis are as thick as a dense forest. My wives, daughters-in-law, and daughters are as colorful and radiant as red fire. It is my sole purpose to make their mouths as sweet as sugar by favor, to bedeck them in garments spun with gold, to mount them upon fleet-footed steeds, to have them drink sweet, clear water, to provide their animals with grassy meadows, and to have all harmful brambles and thorns cleared from the roads and paths upon which they travel, and not to allow weeds and thorns to grow in their pastures.43

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3 OUT FROM THE STEPPE

A persistent myth that survives among the tales, legends and topoi that constitute Mongol history is the belief that Chinggis Khan and his small coterie of loyal supporters backed by a united army of nomadic warriors acted alone and unaided. The image of their arrival, unexpected and unheralded, followed by the unprecedented ferocity and barbarity of their attack owes much to the chronicles of the time. This defining portrait served both the victims of the Mongols’ onslaught and the perpetrators and instigators of attack equally well. The anonymous medieval Russian text Chronicle of Novgorod and its powerful account of the first encounter between Europeans and the Tatars has done much to cement the impression of the helplessness of those unfortunates cast in the path of this tsunami of destruction. They appeared suddenly, without warning, without reason and left just as abruptly, without explanation for their savagery or vengeance. No one recognised their language, no one had witnessed their approach and no one had any explanation for their sudden exodus. Then, like so many of the people of those times, encouraged by their chroniclers and bearded holymen, they hardened themselves with the numbing faith in their merciless God and his mysterious ways and the conviction that their sinful lives had brought this calamity on them. ‘God alone knows.’1 Juwayni’s quote of a Persian eyewitness succinctly summarised the initial impact of the Mongols in Iran: ‘They came, they sapped, they 45

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burnt, they slew, they plundered and they departed.’2 This image reenforced the impression that the Mongols appeared unheralded and projected an aura of menace and extreme foreboding. In fact, this image was largely a deliberate construct and false in that their attacks were usually planned and supported by elements on the ground. For a variety of reasons local support was often proffered or resistance was often absent or half-hearted. The myth of invincibility quickly became enmeshed with the reality as victory followed triumph and defeated armies rallied to the loyal ranks and added their own accounts of the inevitability of Mongol victory and their own hopeless but matchless bravery in the face of overwhelming destiny. Modern reports continue to support the impression that help and involvement by non-Mongol actors was somehow undesirable and practised with an element of reluctance while at the same time offering no explanation as to why this should be so, if indeed it were so. In fact, the Mongol irruptions were greeted by a variety of reactions both negative and decidedly positive. It is also worth stressing that possibly the Gods were also smiling on the Tatar hordes as many assumed they were3 since recent evidence from climatologists studying tree-ring formations have concluded that between the period of 1211 and 1225 the weather over the Eurasian steppe was unusually benign. Neil Pedersen, a tree-ring specialist with the Lamond-Doherty Earth Observatory, claims that the weather, which they have estimated during this decade was unlike any other period experienced over the Mongolia region in the past 1,100 years, allowed for horse stocks, initially the key to Mongol power to increase. ‘What makes our new record distinctive is that we can see 15 straight years of above-average moisture,’ Pedersen explains. ‘It falls during an important period in Mongol history and is singular in terms of persistently wet conditions.’ The prolonged period of good conditions meant abundant grasses and a corresponding increase in the herds of livestock and war horses that became the basis of Mongol power. These 15 years contrasted markedly with the long and exceptionally severe droughts that ravaged the region during the 1180s and 1190s, causing unrest and division.4 With the irruption of Chinggis Khan into the sown, the myth makers went into overdrive. Chinggis Qa’an had his loyal following now numbering very many thousands. Those hard-core loyalists and veterans of Lake Baljuna could now be rewarded suitably, and 46

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they became his military arms ready to stretch themselves over the lands to the south, east and west. Chinggis Khan needed to act fast, firstly to quell any possible dissent, secondly to replenish his treasury and thirdly to pre-empt and counterplay any who would think of challenging his rise and supremacy. His ardent followers might shout themselves hoarse with their cries of loyalty, but if their saviour did not deliver that support would evaporate and prove as ephemeral as their unity. Chinggis Khan had to provide the spoils and booty to keep his men content, and he needed triumph and victory to maintain his image and legend.

TANGUT (XIXIA) Chinggis Khan’s initial move was against the Tangut (Xixia) in 1209, an expedition against a small adversary but one organised on Chinese lines, which provided his newly fashioned forces with much needed experience and confidence and an opening of a western front for future campaigns. The raid on the Tangut forced them to retreat into their fortified capital. Chinggis had not come across such defences before and he had no immediate answer to this alien tactic of hiding behind fortifications. Although, the Tangut king eventually accepted the Mongols’ terms, it was an important lesson for them. Chinggis allowed a Tangut administration to continue in power, and the Tangut king pledged to supply future Mongol military operations with troops. To cement the allegiance he presented Chinggis with a princess as a new wife. Chinggis Khan was content with submission and neutralising, confident that his flank was protected for his planned assault on a far more ambitious target, the Jin dynasty of the Jurchens.

CONQUEST OF CHINA Chinggis Khan’s conquest of Xixia was followed immediately after by an invasion of the Jurchen, a move which had the open support of the Khitans (Liao) and the tacit support of the Song court, both of whom had suffered a humiliating defeat c.1125 which had been so traumatic that the shame still burned. The Jurchen had first subdued 47

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the Khitans forcing many into exile and the rest into servitude after this Manchu-Tungus people thundered out from the north and occupied what is now northern China. Their chieftain Aguda made effective use of cavalry helped by Khitan turncoats and by his death in 1123 he had conquered all the territory held by the Khitan. Aguda’s successor, Taizong (r.1123–35), now felt free to turn on the Jurchen’s erstwhile ally, the Song. eventually driving them from their northern capital, Kaifeng. The Song armies retreated and eventually established a capital in the southern city of Hangzhou which was, significantly, named Xingsuozai, ‘temporary capital’ (hence, Marco Polo’s Kinsay) and crowned Gaozong (1127–62) the new emperor. Despite a peace treaty signed in 1141–2 between the Jurchen’s Jin dynasty and the Song, China was divided and the Song proved incapable of breaking the stalemate until the irruptions of Chinggis Khan provided an opportunity to possibly regain former lands and hence their clandestine support for the Great Khan. Not only did the Jin regime harbour a sizable minority of resentful Khitans who had been unable to flee east with their brethren to found the Central Asian kingdom of the Qara Khitai, but the Jurchen themselves were split between those who favoured closer cultural and political ties with China and welcomed the gradual Sinicisation of their society and those who resisted and resented the erosion of their traditional mores and way of life. The Song/Jurchen peace treaty established the official borders between the two hostile states rather than peace, and a complete cessation of hostility was never achieved. The Jin never felt overly secure in their new state, fearing rebellion from within, political instability among their ruling elite and military threats from both the south and the north-west where they had erected a string of fortifications, walls and moats, especially in the region which today comprises Inner Mongolia. Many of the soldiers who manned these frontier outposts were Khitans, and when they saw the Chinggisids massing on their borders there was little will to fight or resist an army many saw as liberators rather than conquerors. The fall of the Jin The Chinggisids’ final victory over the Jurchen was not fully realised until well after the Great Khan’s death in 1234. During those long years the newly constituted Mongol armies were able to learn and perfect 48

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new battle techniques, incorporate new weaponry and soldiery into their ranks, and expand and train the administrative and trading areas of the Empire. They also captured or extorted vast amounts of plunder in silks and gold and took hundreds of Jin captives, including engineers and soldiers. In his typically logical and determined fashion, Chinggis and his staff studied the problems of the assault of fortifications. With the help of the captured Jin engineers, they gradually developed the techniques and built the siege engines that would eventually make them the most successful besiegers in the history of warfare. Many of their captives were found to be willing advisers and recruits. These were Khitans who had been defeated and exiled 100 years before and the memories and resentment among them were still strong, as was their deeply felt animosity towards the Jurchens. The Khitans proved to be instrumental in the formation of the Chinggisid Empire from the very beginning and at each stage, particularly in the integration of the east and west sides of the Empire, since the Khitans had long lived among the Iranians, the Turks and the Chinese. Chinggis Khan and his generals, assisted by the Khitan specialists, were soon making their own improvements and developing their own techniques. The two Chinese engines which the Mongols adopted, and later modified when they compared them to the siege weapons of the Persians, were the light catapult or mangonel which could launch a 1 kilogram missile over 100 metres and required a crew of 40 prisoners to create the tension on its ropes, and a heavier machine, with a crew of 100 that would fire a 10 kilogram projectile over 150 metres. Although the lighter device was limited in range, it had the advantage that it could be dismantled and carried with the main body of the army. Both of these machines could be used to either launch rocks at walls and gates or to hurl naptha or burning tar into the enemy’s ranks. After their campaign against the Khwarazmshah c.1220, the Chinggisids adapted the siege machines captured from the Shah’s army. The Islamic design was adapted to the lighter Chinese models to create something similar to the European catapult or trebuchet, with a range of more than 350 metres. Chinggis’s men also adapted the ballista, which looked like a giant crossbow and fired a heavy arrow over the same range as a mangonel but with far more accuracy. Ballista were light enough to be carried onto the battlefield. The most important war-making technique that the Mongols adopted was the Chinese invention of explosives. These were used 49

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either in the form of rockets, which were fired en masse into the enemy’s ranks, causing little damage but much alarm; or as grenades – clay vessels packed with explosives and hurled either by catapult or by hand. Virtually every new military invention was taken up and adapted by the Mongols, and with these machines they quickly developed the modern principles of artillery.5 A prolonged battering from rocks, burning tar, grenades and fire bombs into the enemy lines would be followed up by an attack from mounted archers. These carefully rehearsed manoeuvres depended on great mobility and discipline. Although the bombardment was not nearly as accurate as the mounted archers, it spread fear and confusion among the enemy and made the archers’ job easier. Assimilation Chinggis Khan knew that his troops needed booty but that the obvious source of that booty was finite and not inexhaustible. He had to stabilise the source of his revenue and wean his followers away from their reliance on battle and the dubious fruits of the battlefield. In addition, his armies were inexorably expanding as defeated troops and cowered combatants surrendered or signed up with the victors. Some like the Khitans defected gladly, never having owed any loyalty to the Jurchen occupiers from Manchuria, as did increasing numbers of Chinese who likewise felt no loyalty to the Jin Emperor. These troops brought with them new skills and armaments and instructed the Chinggisids in siege warfare and the conquest of cities. Initially the Jin had bribed the invaders to return to the steppe, which of course they did, but only for the winter, and the next season they were back and the pillaging started again. The so called ‘Great Wall of China’ presented no problem for the steppe armies since they simply by-passed it from the south and in this way lay siege to the Jin’s northern capital, Zhongdu, a town close to the site of modern Beijing. The Great Wall was more a string of often unconnected fortifications, sections of moat and wall, and it would be left to the Ming emperors to connect these various sections of fortification in order to create the great barrier of later fame. The Muslim trader Khwaja Jaʿfar, a Baljuntu, was sent to infiltrate the Jurchen court, and in 1214, on behalf of Chinggis Khan, he was eventually able to conduct peace negotiations with the besieged city of Zhongdu. It fell to the Chinggisid forces in 1215, long after the Jin Emperor 50

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had retreated and established his capital in the less exposed city of Kaifeng on the Yellow River. The assimilation of Khitan and Chinese troops also revealed alternatives to rewarding combatants with pillage and plunder, and the steppe generals began to see the advantages to be had from a living, working population rather than a dead or scattered one. Increasingly not only did fighters defect and sign up with the victorious army but Khitan and Chinese administrators and traders also wanted to join what was becoming very clearly the winning side and a side which was making every sign of staying. In 1218 the Khitan Yelu Chucai joined the Chinggisid administration and he is credited with hastening the pace of transformation of the new administration from a predatory vehicle of steppe oppression to a functioning bureaucracy for the effective governance of the country’s resources. Even though he was a Khitan, the Confucian scholar Yelu Chucai and his father and grandfather had served the Jurchen regime faithfully and he was fully prepared to serve the new conquerors while at the same time determined to influence their policies in the interests of their subjects. He is recorded as explaining to the Great Khan, Ogodai (r.1227– 41), that though the Empire had been conquered on horseback, it could not be ruled on horseback. Just as the invincible Chinggisid army crushed all before it and gained strength and nourishment from those troops it defeated and absorbed, so too did the nascent steppe political structures overrun the local governments and then absorb, observe, learn and develop the dynamic and fresh administrations that were emerging right across Asia. It was these early bureaucrats in particular who became the backbone of the emerging empire. The legendary noyan Muqali assumed responsibility for the campaign in the east, which was increasingly becoming dependant on non-Mongol forces. The Jurchen regime had few friends, and both the Khitans and the Song remembered the events of a century before when the invading armies from Manchuria overthrew the Khitan (Liao) state in c.1120 and in 1127 ousted the Song from their capital in Kaifeng. From their ‘temporary capital’ in Hangzhou, the Song were able to influence the indigenous Chinese in the north, and the Liao of course, who were ethnically close to the Mongols, fully integrated with the Chinggisids. With the absorption of the Khitans, and the Uyghurs in the west, the nature of the Chinggisid Empire was irreversibly changed. 51

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By 1211 at a grand quriltai on the River Kerulen, the Great Khan accepted the formal recognition of sovereignty over the Uyghurs and the Qarluq thus securing the new empire’s western borders. The defeat and submission of the Jin was not so easy, but the process of defections, military victories and coercion had been set in motion. Meanwhile, action was also taken against any remaining resistance from the steppe, and in 1217 Subodai and Tokuchar massacred the last of the Merkits. Chinggis Khan was able to say to his eldest son, Jochi, who had asked his father to spare the youngest son of the Merkit commander Kodu in recognition of his skills at archery, ‘It is for you that I have conquered so many empires and armies. Why do we require him?’ And with that the last of the Merkits was killed. Prince Kuchluq Finally, Chinggis gave the order to hunt down and annihilate the last steppe rebel, the Naiman prince Kuchluq, who had continued to defy Chinggis Khan and now ruled in the west as neighbour to the mighty sultan of Islam, the ruler of the lands of the west, the mighty Khwarazmshah, ʿAla al-Din Muhammad. Kuchluq had escaped the field of battle after having contemptuously defied the cautious tactics of his father, ‘Old woman’ Tayang Khan, and sought sanctuary in the west with the ‘exiled’ Khitans (Liao) whose empire had become an established player in the Islamic world. The Qara Khitai as they were known, though still Buddhists, ruled over their Muslim subjects with equanimity and justice and had earned the respect and sometimes the support of not only the regional leaders but of the caliph in Baghdad and the contemporary intelligentsia and cultural elite including the writers of the very influential Mirror for Princes. Hailed as a ‘Mighty Wall’6 against the infidel hordes threatening the Dar al-Islam’s eastern borders, the Qara Khitai enjoyed the active support of the caliph alNasir (r.1180–1225) who saw such support as also undermining his enemy, the Khwarazmshah. It was rumoured in some quarters that the Caliph had even appealed to Chinggis Khan for help against the reviled Khwarazmshah who had established a rival caliphate in his domains.7 Though the Qara Khitai court had almost become a fixture of the medieval Islamic world, its gurkhans had neither forgotten their roots nor their desire to return home to northern China. When the princely figure of Kuchluq of the Naiman arrived at their 52

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court seeking shelter and safety, the traditional customs of steppe hospitality were not forgotten and Kuchluq was awarded a regal welcome which eventually included the hand of a Khitan princess in marriage. Recognising his experience, Kuchluq had initially been appointed a military adviser and he had been allowed to integrate his own Naiman troops into an elite force8 but his true intentions were soon revealed and calling upon the military assistance of the Khwarazmshah he soon assumed control of the domains formerly under the command of the gurkhan. For the Muslim subjects of these lands, these events did not merely represent a change of leadership but more the end of the world as they knew it. [Kuchluq] compelled the inhabitants to abjure the religion of Mohammad, giving them the choice between two alternatives, either to adopt the Christian or idolatrous creed or to don the garb of the Khitayans.9

The muezzin were silenced, the schools were closed and destroyed, and finally the imams were herded outside the city walls and assembled before the Naiman prince in the plain. When the Imam of Khotan was publicly crucified at the gates of his own seminary as punishment for winning a grand theological debate held in public by their new ruler, Kuchluq, the Muslims in despair turned to the only resource left them, prayer. But, Juwayni reveals ‘the arrow of prayer hit the answer and acceptance’ and ‘God Almighty, in order to remove the evilness of Kuchluq, in short space dispatched the Mongol army against him.’10 For Juwayni, the matter is clear. God’s purpose in unleashing the might of the Chinggisid army was twofold: he would first save the faithful of Turkestan and rid the Muslims of their oppressor, Kuchluq Khan, and secondly he would also undermine the Khwarazmshah and reveal him in his true light, as an ally of heretics and infidels, namely his self-appointed Alawite caliph and the villainous Kuchluq.

THE QARA KHITAI The Qara Khitai (Black Cathays) were descendants of the Khitans (Liao), semi-nomadic Turco-Mongols, who fled westward in the 1120s after their defeat by the Jurchens from Manchuria. Though 53

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many Liao were left behind resentfully serving their new masters, the Jurchens, in northern China, a mass migration ensued under the leadership of Yelu Dashi (d.1142), moving west until they reached the lands of Turkestan. In 1141 after defeating the last Great Saljuq, Sultan Sanjar at the historic Battle of Qatwan, they established a state in Transoxiana and Turkestan.11 It was their defeat of the Muslim Saljuqs which gave rise to stories of the Christian king, Prestor John, answering the call of the hard-pressed Crusaders in the Holy Lands. They practiced the religious tolerance endemic to the Eurasian steppe societies and Christians, Buddhists, Manichaeans and Muslims all existed harmoniously under their decentralised regime. They were accepted and recognised by their Muslim subjects but also very significantly by the wider Islamic world, including the caliph alNasir in Baghdad. The Khitans were adopted by the Islamic world as their ‘Great Wall’ against the barbarians to the north and east. Muslim sources such as the Persian medieval commentator ʿArudi Samarqandi’s Chahar Maqala12 refer to the Qara Khitai in the most respectful and positive terms. Even though they were accepted and became an integral part of the Islamic world, the Qara Khitai never lost their dream of returning to their ancestral lands in northern China, usurped by the hated Jurchen. The Naiman prince Kuchluq, the last remaining enemy from the days of Temujin’s rise to power, still retained his oppressive grip on power over the Qara Khitai. Kuchluq was a Buddhist neophyte and he ruled his newly acquired kingdom with a convert’s zeal, the Muslim population suffering accordingly. Such was the hatred felt for Kuchluq by his Islamic subjects, that the Mongols were viewed as potential liberators and Chinggis Khan as their saviour. Their former rulers, the Qara Khitai whom Kuchluq had brutally ousted, had been popular and their ethnic ties to the Mongols were duly noted by the Muslims suffering under the cruel oppression of their new ruler, Kuchluq. For Chinggis Khan, Kuchluq who had gathered to his cause the remnants of the rebel Naimans, represented a potential military threat and also unfinished business. During the Chinggisid raids into the Jin territories, many Khitans had defected to the Mongol forces, so with the arrival of the Mongols in neighbouring Uyghur lands, many Qara Khitai saw a potential ally against the usurper, Kuchluq, rather than an invader. In 1218 Chinggis Khan sent his general Jebe Noyan to dispose of Kuchluq, a 54

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task which he completed promptly and with the support of the Qara Khitai people. The oppressed Muslim peoples of eastern Turkestan rose up and welcomed the armies of Chinggis Khan under the command of Jebe Noyan as liberators and they ‘knew the existence of this people [Mongols] one of the small mercies of the Lord and one of the bounties of divine grace’.13 The incorporation of eastern Turkestan, and the lands and people of the Qara Khitai was one of the most significant phases in the development of the Mongol Empire since it was these people whose influence was to be so crucially important and pervasive in the organisation and administration of the growing empire. The Khitans shared common roots, traditions and culture with the Mongols. However, they had already progressed far from their nomadic beginnings and in the Qara Khitai they had a fully developed state and the experience of statecraft and administration and these were things they were now willing to share with their new masters and allies, the Mongols. Just as the top commands and military posts had gone to those who had shared Temujin’s lean times, many of the Empire’s top administrators emerged from the ranks of the Qara Khitai and the Uyghur. One reason for the collapse of the Qara Khitai forces other than the widespread dislike of Kuchluq and the popular uprising at the appearance of Jebe Noyan, was the weakness of the Qara Khitai army. With the connivance of Kuchluq, Sultan Muhammad, the Khwarazmshah, and vassal of the Qara Khitai had risen in revolt against the gurkhan of the Qara Khitai. While the Sultan declared Khwarazm, Khorasan, Persia, Ghur [Afghanistan] and Transoxiana independent and under his sovereignty, Kuchluq imprisoned the gurkhan and made himself ruler of eastern Turkestan and the remaining lands still under nominal Qara Khitai control. The dispirited army he inherited were no match for the growing Mongol forces who arrived at his borders fresh from their victories in the east.

THE SINS OF THE FATHER It is doubtful that Chinggis Khan ever intended to launch a military assault on the mighty Khwarazmshah who reigned supreme and unopposed over the eastern lands of the Dar al-Islam. If Juwayni’s 55

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account is to be believed, the Great Khan was a reluctant adversary and would have far preferred to establish a flourishing commercial relationship with his new powerful neighbour. There was room for both emperors. ‘I am the sovereign of the Sun-rise, and thou the sovereign of the Sun-set.’14 Certainly, it was not an ideal time to enter into another major military conflict since his newly acquired lands in China were not yet secure and he risked overreaching his resources. The Chinggisid intelligence network had not yet reached the sophistication of later years, and the Great Khan might still have believed the self-regarding tyrant’s delusions of grandeur. In fact the Shah was heir to a Saljuq iqtaʿ whose iqtadar, his father Tekish (d.1200), had declared his autonomy and built up a formidable army. The reign of Tekish is a complicated catalogue of internecine murder and intrigue, and the ebb and flow of power from one warlord to the next was a musical chairs of petty ascendancies with Ghurids, Qara Khitais, Khwarazmians, Qara Khanids and Qipchaqs contributing the chairs. This resulted in his son ʿAla al-Din Muhammad eventually seated astride the largest throne and believing the propaganda fed to him by his courtiers. Though the Khwarazmshah had managed to consolidate his hold over the eastern Islamic world, his arrogance and undisciplined, savage troops alienated him from the Caliph of Baghdad, al-Nasir, who refused to hear his request for the khutba to be read in his name during Friday prayers. In a desperate bid to win the recognition of the ʿAbbasid caliph al-Nasir (1158–1225) and be awarded the same status as his predecessors the Saljuqs whose sultans’ names had been recited in all the mosques in the lands of the faithful, inscribed on the coins of the realm and read in the khutba, ʿAla al-Din Muhammad ibn Tekish Khwarazmshah (r.1200–20) sent a delegation to the Caliph, pleading that his father Tekish had in 1194 already had the last Great Saljuq sultan, Togril III b. Arslan (r.1176–94), killed in battle at Rayy15 and that no other ruler or dynasty possessed the stature to command the honour that he sought and demanded. When Caliph al-Nasir refused his embassy the Khwarazmshah withdrew his own recognition from the Caliph who he henceforth declared a usurper of the caliphal throne. Not only did he declare the ʿAbbasids illegitimate but he stated his belief that ‘the Sayyids of the line of Hussein had the right to the Caliphate’.16

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Out from the Steppe The ʿAbbasid Caliphs had been backward in undertaking holy wars in the way of God Almighty and though possessing the means thereto, had failed to defend the frontiers, to extirpate the heterodox and the heretical and to call the infidel to the True Faith, obligatory to all in command; and so had neglected this pillar, which is the main pillar, of Islam.17

He unleashed his troops whose reputation for cruel barbarity exceeded that of the Mongols and then proceeded to appoint a ‘caliph’ of his own. These incursions greatly alienated the traditionalist Sunnis from the Khwarazmshah. The Khwarazmshah had solidified his own position as undisputed ruler of the eastern caliphate, he had undermined al-Nasir’s opposition to his continued political and military rise and he had also weakened the situation of his only other sizable enemy, the Qara Khitai. To strengthen the impact of his denunciation of al-Nasir, he also appointed his own choice of caliph to lead the Muslim world, a certain Sayyid ʿAla al-Mulk (or ʿImad al-Din) Tirmizi, an appointment which caused local controversy among his own ulema.18 It is said that Caliph al-Nasir was so enraged by these manoeuvres of the Khwarazmshah that he actually sent word to a rising power in the east, Chinggis Khan, to request his help in ridding himself of this troublesome neighbour. Ibn al-Athir records Persian claims that ‘he is the person who roused the Tatars’ ambition for the lands of Islam and wrote to them about that’.19 Such a move on the Caliph’s part is not so outrageous as it might initially appear. The Qara Khitai had for many years acted as the Caliph’s local ally and had ruled wisely and justly with the consent of their Muslim subjects. They practised religious tolerance, a characteristic of the Turco-Mongol ethnic group of which they were a part. The Caliph might well have expected a friendly reception from Chinggis Khan and indeed he might well have received just such a friendly reception if the Khwarazmshah had not intervened and murdered those initial Mongol envoys. The Shah claimed the caliph al-Nasir to be in league with his pagan enemies and neighbours the Qara Khitai, which was at least partially true, and declared the Baghdad caliphate thereby invalid and in consequence endorsed the candidacy of an Alid anti-caliph, ‘a sultan who succoured Islam and had passed a lifetime in Holy War, that sultan had the right to reject that Imam and to set up another [in his place]’.20 However, since this unilateral declaration 57

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had no doctrinal basis and had no popular Shiʿite support, the anticipated rallying of the true and faithful to the Khwarazmian banner never materialised.21 In fact the Khwarazmshah had little real support at home and his hold on power was increasingly tenuous, though he appears to have remained blind to the precariousness of his situation surrounded as he was by silver-tongued advisers. His throne remained afloat because of a lack of any united opposition and the absence of any credible or charismatic figure strong enough to topple him. His mother commanded great loyalty and support from the Qipchaq Turks who formed the core of his fighting forces and who were responsible for most of the atrocities with which his armies were associated. Terkan Khatun was part of the legacy that Tekish’s son had inherited and she provided the fragile and dangerous alliance forged by marriage which established a modus vivendi with the northern, part pagan, Qipchaq tribes. It was Terkan Khatun who was able to ensure that her son’s empire would be neither united nor stable and who would later choose the security of Chinggis Khan’s hospitality rather than accept the proffered protection of Ai Chichen, the mother of her stepson Jalal al-Din. It was Terkan Khatun’s links with the steppe tribes, her lineage associated variously with the Qanghli,22 the Yemeki Baya’ut23 and the Qipchaqs of whose khan she was reputedly the daughter,24 that established a degree of stability in the expanded Khwarazmian Empire and at the same time ensured a permanent state of tension in the army and the government. ‘We are Ghurs, you are Turks and we can never live together’25 – so said the Ghurid amirs expressing the sentiments of the Persian factions in this state where the ascendancy of Terkan Khatun’s bloc was increasingly becoming manifest. The reputation of the Khwarazmian military for barbarity, and even the Khwarazmshah’s eventual downfall, was often blamed on the Qipchaq tribesmen. Mercy and compassion were far removed from their hearts. Wherever they passed by, that country was laid in ruin and the people took refuge in their strongholds. And indeed it was their cruelty, violence and wickedness [lit. ‘uncleanness’ = paganism] that brought about the downfall of the Sultan’s dynasty.26

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In ʿAla al-Din’s army most of his top commanders were connected with his mother’s tribe, and to ensure their continued loyalty he had to appease his mother’s wishes. Juwayni, who was inspired to eulogise thus over the memory of this formidable woman, ‘Whatever thou dost, the cruel world will write “Oppression” upon thee with sharp pens,’27 claimed that Terkan Khatun held her own separate court and financial bureau dealing with the appointment of officials and iqtaʿs28 and that her influence extended into her son’s affairs and the running of the kingdom as a whole. This plus the usual accusations of licentiousness, murderous machinations and ungodly behaviour painted a damning portrait of the rival power behind the throne with only Shihab al-Din Muhammad al-Nasawi dissenting from this view, he seeing the Sultan’s mother as just and impartial.29 What is beyond dispute is that Terkan Khatun wielded considerable real power in the state before the advent of the Mongols and in the interlude after the Shah had fled, a fact which the Great Khan himself recognised when he instigated his stratagems to bring down the Sultan’s kingdom after hostilities had been initiated. It was she who seized the capital of Gurganj and the surrounding provinces after the disintegration of the Empire was underway and was supported by the remnants of the army that still held her in great esteem, though all of course to no avail.

BLIND AMBITION On the eve of the Mongol invasions, therefore, the bloated Khwarazmian Empire could in no way be viewed as a coherent or a stable entity. From the Mongols’ viewpoint the Khwarazmshah had appeared an extremely formidable opponent. He apparently commanded a huge army and controlled a vast area of territory and if he had listened to and utilised some of his able commanders, he could have been in a stronger position to ably confront the enemy from the east. However, the Khwarazmshah forbade any communication between his generals, so fearful was he of conspiracy, and strategy could only be discussed in his presence. He was a paper tiger with ambition. This hostility from the west, when added to the tension nearer home between the factions supporting his mother and their antipathy 59

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towards the more sedentary Persianised elements of his state, left the Sultan in a very tenuous position and goes some way to explain his bizarre battle strategy adopted against the armies of the Great Khan when the Mongol invasion got underway. The Sultan was unable to present a united front to Chinggis Khan simply because he did not have one to present and he was also fearful of a military rebellion should he attempt to concentrate all his forces under a central command. Throughout the kingdom the common people were suffering crippling taxes violently imposed by desperate tax farmers, lawlessness caused by chronic political instability, and rebellion and resistance were being fomented everywhere. Nasawi quotes an amir, Badr ad-Din al-ʿAmid, as declaring to Chinggis Khan after his surrender at Utrar, ‘The Khan should know that the Sultan is in my eyes the most hated creature of Allah because he has destroyed many of my relatives. If I were in a position to take vengeance on him I would do so, even if it cost me my life.’30 As the military state grew so the demands on the treasury for the upkeep of the ill-disciplined soldiery many of whom were Qipchaq pagans or Muslim in name only, increased. The bureaucracy, based on the principals of Saljuq prime minister Nizam al-Mulk’s administration (1063–92), could not be sustained and the breakdown divided the land-owning classes, the urban aristocracy, the merchant classes and the supporters of Terkan Khatun, who favoured a traditional Saljuqid administration, as well as the ulema already disaffected after the break with Baghdad, from the palace and often from each other. It was the disastrous events at Utrar that threw the true extent of the Kingdom’s disunity into sharp perspective. That the Khwarazmshah did not immediately denounce the massacre of a caravan of Muslim merchants confirmed the alienation of the commercial classes and convinced others that Chinggis Khan was to be the judgement of God on the pseudo-Muslim ‘Ata’ al-Din Muhammed. If the accounts of the Delhi-based historian Juzjani are to be accepted, the Khwarazmshah had detailed knowledge of not only the extent of the Mongols’ power but of their reputed barbarity. His envoy the Sayyid, Baha al-Din, had travelled to Tamghaj to ascertain the truth of the stories reaching the Shah concerning Chinggis Khan’s conquests in the east and reported back in graphic detail the veracity of the Great Khan’s reputation. So great had the slaughter been outside the city of Tamghaj that the envoys were forced to struggle for days through congealing human fat. 60

Out from the Steppe When we had proceeded onwards another stage, the ground had become so greasy and dark from human fat, that it was necessary for us to advance another three stages on that same road, until we came to dry land again.31

The Shah’s interest in the Great Khan’s affairs were not aroused through apprehension at a coming storm from the east, Juzjani suggests, but more from professional concern as to the influence such developments might have on his own ambitions towards the countries of Hind and Jin. ‘The ambition to appropriate the countries of [Hind and] Chin [Jin], had become implanted in the heart of Sultan Mohammed, Khwarazmshah.’32 To keep his troublesome army occupied and paid, the prospect of further military adventures would have been tempting to the Shah and with one early partial victory over Mongol forces in 1215–1633 to encourage him, Shah Muhammad would have found it easy to disregard the wishes and advice of his merchants who saw a more lucrative future in cooperating with the initially conciliatory neighbours from the east. The military operations by the Mongols in northern China had resulted in widespread agricultural devastation and as a result new sources of grain and other such produce had to be found for the Mongolian homelands. The pervasive hostilities had disrupted the usual channels for trade, and vital supplies had to be imported making use of the ubiquitous Uyghur and Muslim middlemen, ‘trading barbarians of the Western countries’.34 For Chinggis Khan the lands of the Islamic west would have been viewed as an attractive area in which to encourage free trade using these Muslim merchants, many of whom had already established commercial ties with the lands now under his sway, to act as middle men. These merchants would have been acquainted not only with the awesome military side of the Mongols’ nature but with their record of religious tolerance, or more accurately, indifference, and that relations with the new conquerors could be mutually beneficial. There is no evidence of any hostility towards Muslims from the Mongols. ‘For in those days the Mongols regarded the Moslems with the eye of respect, and for their dignity and comfort would erect them clean tents of white felt.’35 While underestimating the threat from the Mongols and overestimating the true capabilities of his own forces, the Khwarazmshah effectively alienated an important and influential sector of his empire when he executed the Great Khan’s envoys, and was blamed both directly and 61

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indirectly for the Utrar massacre. His lame excuse that the Muslim merchants were spies in the pay of the infidel was disingenuous since it was widely known and generally accepted that merchants were a source of intelligence, news and gossip and in turn acted as a conduit for propaganda, religion and ideas wherever they travelled. The Khwarazmshah himself tried to employ Khwarazmian Muslim Mahmud Yalavach, an ambassador and later a great statesman of the Mongols, to act as his ears at the court of the Great Khan. The only intimation of any covetous intentions emanating from the Mongol court was Chinggis Khan’s reputed reference to the Khwarazmshah as his most favoured son should a peace treaty be concluded between them.36 However, Ata al-Din Muhammed regarded the Great Khan not so much as a threat and a rival for the lands of Central Asia but as an infidel usurper of the lands of Jin which his ambition had already concluded were destined for him and the greater glory of Islam. Just as he could dismiss the caliph of God in Baghdad and replace him with his own appointment, so too could he dismiss this rude barbarian slouching in from the east towards the Dar al-Islam. Faced with the immanent irruption of the Mongols, the Khwarazmshah made no attempt to heal or unify his deeply fragmented and disunited country. Rather he further isolated himself with his delusions of grandeur and disregarded the one class who might have brought some form of financial salvation for his kingdom in the form of increased commercial ties and expanded business links with the wealthy markets of the Far East. The murder of the Utrar merchants sounded the death knell for his empire. [The governor of Utrar] in executing his command deprived these men of their lives and possessions, nay rather he desolated and laid waste a whole world and rendered a whole creation without home, property or leaders. For every drop of their blood there flowed a whole Oxus; in retribution for every hair on their heads it seemed that a hundred thousand heads rolled in the dust at every cross-roads.37

This final act damned him in the eyes of his fellow Muslims and these feelings awoke strong emotions years after the event. The words of an Imam of Herat reporting the sentiments of Chinggis Khan whose prisoner he had been and spoken to Juzjani reflected infidel views with which the faithful could identify and clearly demonstrated the chasm 62

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between the Shah and his supposed subjects. ‘Khwarazm Shah was not a monarch: he was a robber. Had he been a monarch he would not have slain my envoys and traders who had come to Utrar, for kings shall not slay ambassadors.’38 Before launching his devastating forces onto what he initially supposed to be an imperial army, the Mongol chief sought guidance and strength from Tenggeri: ‘I was not the author of this trouble; grant me strength to exact vengeance’,39 words surprisingly close to those reported by Bar Hebraeus: O Lord and Creator of the Universe, Thou knowest what my object was, and that it was intended for good. And this mine enemy hath begun and he wisheth for evil. Therefore I entreat Thee to reward him according to his works.40

None of the sources dispute the fact that the Khwarazmshah brought about his own destruction and that of the lands of Islam through his own misguided deeds. It is interesting that Rashid al-Din entitles the section of his narrative dealing with the 1220 capture of Bokhara as ‘Genghis Khan arrives in Bukhara [Bokhara], and the details of its liberation (istekhlaṡ)’, even though he deals with the destruction and killing which took place in the city as well as the infamous incident of the blasphemous misuse of the great mosque and the chests. In fact, as Juwayni makes clear, Tolui Khan was unaware that he had entered a mosque and thought that such a magnificent building was one of the Shah’s extravagant palaces and therefore deserving of his contempt and disdain. Numbers The weaknesses and factionalism present in the Khwarazmian Empire quickly became apparent to Chinggis Khan once he had turned his attention westward with the intention of exacting revenge for the terrible breaches of international protocol perpetrated by the rogue shah. The ease with which the Great Khan swept across Central Asia and Khorasan is often explained by the vast numerical superiority of his armies, though the subject of figures cited in the various sources is a highly contentious one. Juzjani claims an army of 700,000 or 800,00041 men assailed the Khwarazmians, whereas the Secret History records the total manpower at Chinggis Khan’s disposal at the time of the 1206 quriltai as 105,00042 and Rashid 63

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al-Din with access to the Altan Debter reckons the Mongol princes inherited a total force of 129,000 men at the time of the Great Khan’s death in 1227. If Chinggis Khan had moved westward with a force of 800,000 men, 4,000,000 horses, 24,000,000 sheep,43 plus families and servants, it is unlikely that he could have afforded to show the later magnanimity he did to those towns which surrendered peacefully to his visitations. From the towns which did fall to his forces, considerable numbers of hostages and slaves were taken, including artisans, many of whom would have been of little practical use on campaign, and this would have required a complex backup system in order to facilitate their transfer to Qaraqorum and would have constituted a serious drain on his available manpower. Though undoubtedly large, the Mongols employed terror tactics and propaganda to maximise the effect of the forces that they did command. ‘It is a peasantry in the dress of an army, of which, in time of need, all, from small to great, from those of high rank to those of low estate, are swordsmen, archers, or spearmen.’44 But it was a peasantry whose full-time occupation was horsemanship, hunting and training for war. It was a life which the commanders and the commanded were immersed in totally, and their discipline was almost instinctive. How many of those men would be called upon at any particular time to take part in actual combat cannot be known. If the precise number of fighting men can never be assessed with any real degree of accuracy, there can be no doubt that the Mongol army formed a very large and dangerously formidable foe.

THE PUNISHMENT OF GOD Though the voices most clearly heard and those which have resonated most influentially with the annalists of Europe have been those whose agenda needed the Mongols to be portrayed as Islam’s nemesis and the harbingers of death and destruction, one seldom heard tradition records a far different account. In many accounts of the destruction caused by Chinggis Khan’s forces, the Mongol armies are seen as agents of a vengeful God visiting death and destruction on a sinful mankind, in particular the Armenian sources where the chroniclers were invariably clerics who naturally interpreted natural events as 64

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well as catastrophic political events as moves and strategies on a divine and universal chessboard. In such accounts man is powerless and helpless in the hands of an angry and reproachful God. Chinggis Khan himself is reported to have told the grandees of Bokhara that he was on a divine mission. ‘I am the punishment of God. If you hadn’t committed great sins, God wouldn’t have sent a punishment like me upon your head.’45 In Sufi circles events were seen in even more extreme terms, and not only were the Mongol armies seen as agents of an angry God but the leader of those terrible armies was himself the representative of God. The Qalandar shaykh Qutb al-Din Haydar reputedly warned his followers to flee from the Mongols because they could not be defeated since they were under the protection of God. ‘They are bringing a dervish with them and they are under the protection of that dervish.’46 This claim is made elsewhere with further elaboration. Sometimes the Mongol hordes are led by a nameless figure dressed in white gowns, flowing turban and fulsome beard and other times he is named as Shaykh Najm alDin Kubra, other Sufi shaykhs or even Khizr, the immortal prophet of the Unseen World himself. Dawlatshah, not the most reliable of chroniclers, relates that ‘saints of the faith’ saw ‘the people of God and the prophet Khizr in front of the army of Chingiz Khan, guiding that army’ and he narrates the conversation between the doomed Khwarazmshah and his heroic son, Jalal al-Din, where the father explains his despondency and despair after repeatedly hearing a chant from the unseen world declaiming ‘Oh infidels, kill the evil doers.’47 In fact this eerie chant recurs in other Sufi accounts and underlines a very common thread in Muslim narratives of the time that the Khwarazmshah’s actions and behaviour and his response to the overtures from Chinggis Khan brought about the calamity which shook the Muslim world.48 The fall of the Khwarazmshah depicted as an act of a vengeful God might also have explained for many the speed and apparent ease with which the Chinggisid forces swept across the Shah’s domain and possibly the use of gunpowder which would not have been witnessed in military conflicts by the people of the ‘western regions’ at this time. The Shah’s ignoble end arrived in a befitting manner. He died of pleurisy alone and in agony on a small island, near the port of Abaskun in the south-east corner of the Caspian Sea, aware that his kingdom was lost, his wife had been violated and presumably 65

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murdered, his women were disgraced and in slavery, his sons were dead. ‘He was so dumbfounded and stunned that the world turned black before his eyes. He writhed in worry and anxiety and bemoaned that catastrophic and horrible event until he gave up the ghost.’49 Jalal al-Din Mingbirdi In fact the Khwarazmshah was survived by his son Jalal al-Din Mingbirdi who had an ambiguous legacy, depending on whose history is believed. After a valiant battle against a Mongol army which saw him briefly triumphant, Jalal al-Din was eventually cornered by Chinggis Khan himself on the banks of the Indus. Plunging boldly into the fierce waters the young prince made good his escape and in so doing earned the amazed admiration of the Great Khan who ordered his men to cease their pursuit, exclaiming, ‘In all the world no one has either seen or heard of such a man among the renowned ancients.’50 That he abandoned his wives and children to an uncertain future receives little attention in the sources, and Jalal al-Din Khwarazmshah remains an enigmatic figure equally reviled, eulogised and even deified in the many commentaries and chronicles that he has inspired. Juwayni eulogised him in his history as a heroic figure who re-awoke Persian honour and refused to kowtow to the Turanian Mongols and he conveniently ignored the ragtag mercenary army which Jalal al-Din led over nearly two decades in a murderous jaunt ‘leaping all over [Iran] like a stag’.51 Juwayni was a pen-pusher while Jalal was the man of action he could never be and his eulogy seems to be an indulgence, a private joke for his educated friends, though his account of the Prince’s end agrees with other versions.52 Jalal al-Din is most infamously remembered in the Caucasus, where his drunken and murderous debauchery stains peoples’ memories to this day. Certainly the Khwarazmians were far more feared than the Mongol armies by Christians and Muslims alike. In the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, a church now overlooks the ravine marking a turn in the powerful River Kur where the Sultan threw the bodies of his victims and those who refused to renounce their faith. The Kartlis Tskhovreba, or History of Georgia, recounts the horrors of his occupation of the country in the final tome of that medieval narrative, the anonymous Hundred Years’ Chronicle. The anonymous cleric dwells on the horrors inflicted on the people of Georgia in lingering detail, and though he acknowledges Jalal al66

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Din’s role in the destruction, he blames the kings, the mtavaris and the many who ‘turned their face toward evil and sank into disease and the suffering of Sodom and Gomorrah’.53 For the chronicler, the Sultan’s greatest mischief the ‘recounting [of which] fills [him] with shame’ was not the murdering of countless helpless citizens, mothers and babies whose corpses filled ‘the streets, ravines, and ditches’ but the destruction of their churches and the defilement of their icons which he forced his victims to trample upon, ‘beheading those who refused to do so’.54 Jalal al-Din continued to torment the Georgians, in fulfilment of God’s wrath in the view of the chronicler, until his forces were defeated and scattered by the approaching Chinggisids and he fled from their superior might, seeking haven alone and anonymously in the mountains of Kurdistan. ‘Finding him sheltering there, an ordinary resident killed him’ and stole his ‘sash, saddle, and quiver trimmed with precious stones’.55 Rashid al-Din reports on the Prince in a more dispassionate tone detailing his alcoholism, which would seem to account for his occasional displays of valour and heroics and his far from glorious double dealing in his relations with figures as diverse as the sultan Iltumish of Delhi; his brother Ghiyath al-Din; his one-time iqtadar Baraq Hajib; the Qutlughshah of Kirman; Abu Bakr, the ruler of Shiraz, and the warlords of the Caucasia. He narrates the famous story of Jalal al-Din’s murder in 1231 at the hands of Kurdish bandits who waylay the finely dressed traveller for his clothes, which proved to be their undoing when they proceeded to display their fancy garments back among their companions in town. So conspicuous were they in such finery that word soon reached the lord of Amid who ordered the men seized and upon their confession, executed.56 Both Rashid al-Din and Juwayni also relate other reports that in fact the Sultan did not die and that he in fact renounced his former wayward ways, willingly surrendered his clothes and weapons, and adopted the life of the wandering Sufi. It is even reported that so devout did Jalal alDin become that he was touched by divine light and never actually died but rather entered some kind of occultation awaiting the right time to appear once more among men. Jalal al-Din’s mercenary army continued to spread terror and mayhem through western Asia, usually in the pay of local warlords until they were finally assimilated into the Mamluk forces of Egypt.

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Interregnum When Chinggis Khan turned his attention away from Iran and turned his forces back to the east, Iran was left under military rule with a number of Iranian city states pledging loyalty to the Great Khan. However, the country remained on the Empire’s periphery and in many ways suffered from neglect, remaining at the mercy of the various armed elements that sought to benefit from the state of near anarchy that settled over the country in the absence of any strong central command. The Chinggisid military governors became yet one more set of brigands bringing chaos and instability to the Iranian plateau with its isolated walled cities surrounded by hostile deserts and mountains that had been abandoned to the competing armies of the Khwarazmians, the Assassins, Kurds, Lurs, caliphal troops and any others who could muster a force of armed horsemen. The country was to remain in this state of political suspension until the coronation of the Toluid Great Khan Mongke c.1250 when a delegation from the northern Iranian city of Qazvin requested the appointment of a king for their blighted region and its absorption into the Empire-proper. Iran then was left very much to its own devices after the collapse of the Khwarazmshah’s regime. Two noyans, Jebe and Subodai, had been dispatched to conduct a reconnaissance trip around the Caspian Sea during the early part of which operation they inflicted dreadful destruction on the northern regions of Iran. The various figures which are commonly quoted from this period, with 2,400,000 dead in Herat by one account57 or a more modest 1,600,000 by another,58 and a mere 1,747,000 killed in Nishapur,59 are so excessive as too be unreal. What they reflect is the traumatic nature of the attacks and the victims’ perception of relentless waves of violence and destruction perpetrated by coldly disciplined ranks of armoured might. Other armies would dissolve into a drunken rabble of looting and rapine once victory had been scented. The Chinggisid troops would remain in formation and under orders until their commanders ordered otherwise. Booty was collected for orderly distribution later, and the populace was also scrutinised for potential monetary worth. Cambridge scholar Charles Melville60 has examined the sources and compared them with the chronicles of other medieval conflicts and he sees little evidence that the Mongols were more destructive or murderous than any other 68

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army of that time. What marked them out from other combatants was their discipline and sense of purpose. It was, however, the massacres conducted in northern Iran that established the Mongols’ reputation for barbarism. Ibn al-Athir, whose infamous rant against the Chinggisid army where he regretted ever having been born so awful was their visitation, never actually had any direct contact with any Mongols and his reports were based solely on hearsay. Yet his descriptions of their depravity form the basis of most people’s image of the Tatar army.

FINAL YEARS A record exists of Chinggis Khan’s last years due to his insistence on finding the elixir of life. He had heard a tale of a certain holy man from the east who possessed the secret of eternal life, and the Great Khan duly summoned the man, Chang Chun, a Daoist sage. Chang Chun explained that he knew the secret of eternal spiritual life but not of eternal earthly life and Chinggis eventually became reconciled to that. A disciple of Chang Chun recorded a diary of their journey across Asia and Turkestan to meet Chinggis Khan and has left a chronicle of life in those lands recently conquered by the Mongols and accounts of their meetings with the Great Khan. Chinggis determined upon returning to Mongolia before meeting his fate, but before his end he wished to take final revenge upon the Tanguts (Xixia), the first people outside of the steppe who he had conquered 20 years previously. The Tanguts had failed to send him re-enforcements to help him with his campaigns in the west and for this perceived treachery he was determined to exterminate them. It has been said that the Mongols’ actions were the first recorded act of deliberate genocide in recorded history and there no longer remains any trace of Tangut history in the region today. Chinggis Khan died in 1227 after a fall from a horse before he was actually able to personally kill the ruler of the Tanguts, though someone else murdered him shortly after. Chinggis Khan’s burial site was a closely guarded secret and it has still never been found. Rashid al-Din claims that all those involved in the actual burial were subsequently killed in order to preserve the secrecy of the site but this story is not repeated elsewhere. 69

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It was with the fall of the Khwarazmshah that Chinggis Khan truly established his power throughout Asia and laid the foundations for a global, multicultural empire that would reshape the world forever. From the city of Samarqand alone it is said that 100,000 tradesmen and craftsmen plus an unknown number of women and children destined for domestic service were transferred to the east. Such population transfers, initially forced and later voluntary, took place throughout the Chinggisid period and represented one of the greatest movements of population in history. Leaving the steppe in 1206, consolidating an administration before absorbing the Tangut, undermining irrevocably the Jurchens of northern China and then finally calling the Khwarazmshah’s bluff and laying his kingdom, the gateway to the Islamic world, in ruins, Chinggis Khan prepared the way for his Chinggisid revolution which would reshape the known world. He sought not to conquer and destroy but to master and to transform. His early life had been harsh and unjust, and he sought better for his descendants who would wear ‘gold-brocaded robes’, savour gastronomical delicacies, ride the best mounts and enjoy the most tempting of the Empire’s temptresses.61

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4 THE TREAD OF TATAR HOOF

The seeds for the future shape of the Mongol Empire were sown early in the western campaign. At the time, the command to hunt down the disgraced fugitive, the once mighty ʿAla al-Din Muhammad Khwarazmshah, and bring him before his nemesis Chinggis Khan from whom he could beg for an instant rather than a prolonged death, went unremarked. The command to seize the Khwarazmshah was coupled with an understanding that the hunt would double as a reconnaissance trip of northern Iran and Caucasia. In fact, the fugitive proved elusive and reluctant to face his inevitable fate, and the two generals who had been assigned the task, Jebe, the liberator of the Muslims of eastern Turkestan, and Subodai, the slayer of the Merkits, rather than waste time continuing to hunt down the rapidly sickening deserter, requested permission to abandon the dying Khwarazmshah and to concentrate their armies and energies in subduing Azerbaijan, Caucasia and Dagestan. However, the decision to pursue the disgraced fugitive with ‘Tatar hooves’ and take the destruction that the Khwarazmshah’s treachery had unleashed beyond Turkestan and right into the heartlands of northern Iran and the oases cities of the northern Iranian plateau had unforeseen consequences and repercussions that were still reverberating nearly 200 years later. The significance of what was to prove an infamous reconnaissance trip was twofold: firstly, it cemented the Mongols’ reputation for butchery and invincibility universally rather than locally; and, secondly, it provided a pretext 71

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for future conflict and the readymade excuse on which to hang any convenient armed cause, in that the lands of northern Iran subdued by Chinggisid armies, or ‘trod by Tatar hoof’,1 immediately became part of the future empire and as such assignable to a Chinggisid prince, a complication which would become apparent later. This infamous reconnaissance trip of the two noyans established the Mongols’ reputation for savagery and blood-letting, not only in those regions through which the Chinggisid armies passed but in neighbouring lands and empires and even in the cold royal chambers and halls of northern Europe, where tales of Tatar atrocities instilled fear and caused pause. Though the initial destruction in Qazvin was considerable, as recorded by the city’s famous son, Zayn al-Din Mustawfi: [t]hen to the town of Qazvin, Subodai, like a tiger came right speedily […] when it was filled with woe and sore amaze […] a heathen holocaust,2

the city became a favourite of the Chinggisid elite and produced some of the Ilkhanate’s most powerful and influential ministers and officials. However, the creation of this fearsome reputation was in part by design and while unquestionably the infamy was hard earned, many of the stories owed much to the embellishments of repetition and the storytellers’ arts. The two noyans continued their unstoppable march north through the rugged Caucasus, cleaving asunder at Darband, the biblical barrier restraining Gog and Magog,3 and into the open plains beyond encountering and defeating Cuman Turks from the Qipchaq steppe lands and Rus armies from what is today Russia. In the Chronicle of Novgorod the impact of their coming in 1224 is poignantly expressed in the few startling words of an observer: The same year, for our sins, an unknown tribe came, whom no one exactly knows, who they are, nor whence they came out, nor what their language is, nor of what race they are, nor what their faith is; but they call them Tartars […] God alone knows who they are and whence they came out.4

Their army was to meet up with the main Mongol armies in Khwarazm and leave it to others to consolidate their gains. In these two short years they had expanded the reach of the Great Khan’s writ as far 72

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as the borders of Eastern Europe and the heartlands of the Islamic world. The tales of horror, heroism, cunning and bravery associated with this epic journey have filled the pages of many chronicles in almost as many languages and are too numerous to recount here. Around 30,000 Rus troops, together with Cuman support, were no match for the disciplined and very experienced Chinggisid forces despite the numerical inequality. However, the famous Battle of Kalka 1222,5 fought on the river of the same name in the Crimea, deserves special mention. It was carried out with great tactical skill and classic Mongol cunning, and it left the alliance between the Qipchaq/Cuman/ Polovtsian Turks and the Rus princes shattered and their armies routed. After the remnants of the defeated Kievan army surrendered to the Mongols, a heavy wooden platform was placed on top of the bodies of the tightly bound Russian generals. As the joyful Mongol leaders celebrated their hard-won victory, their helpless foes, in recognition of their royal status, slowly suffocated to a horrible death. The victorious generals met up with the main Chinggisid forces in 1223 in the steppe lands east of the River Syr Darya and received the gratitude and admiration of Chinggis Khan. Jebe died without enjoying the full accolades which were afforded his fellow noyan, Subodai. Subodai returned to the west to consolidate the early gains; in preparation for this he had left a secret army of informants and spies who would provide the intelligence so crucial to Chinggisid success. Jebe and Subodai’s reconnaissance trip around the Caspian and into Russia is considered the longest cavalry ride in history, covering some 8,500 kilometres in three years, with possibly over 12 major battles won against superior forces. They had opened up a corridor of steppe lands that Chinggisid forces could now prepare to conquer. A new quriltai was held to assign forces to the campaign. Ogodai Qa’an (1186–1241) put Subodai in command of the armies under his nephew, Batu, with the remit to subdue the western steppe lands of the Qipchaq khans. While Subodai could provide the experience and expertise, the young Batu would provide the credibility and status that such an undertaking deserved. Batu Khan, who had inherited the mantle of his father, Jochi (d.1227), was joined by representatives from across the Empire, including the new Chinggisid emperor’s own sons, Guyuk and Qadan. The Chaghadaids were represented by princes Bari and Baidar, and the Toluids by Mongke and Bochek. 73

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CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST In 1236 Russia was a land of forests, swamps, steppe land and plains inhabited on the east by Turkish tribes, nomadic and semi-nomadic. Severe climatic conditions, vast distances between urban centres and an almost total absence of serviceable roads did not make an easily defended country. In summer what tracks existed were barely usable

Fig. 4: Sacking of Suzdal by Batu Khan in 1238. Mongol Invasion of Russia. A miniature from the sixteenth-century chronicle 74

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due to giant pot-holes, and the winters were considered too harsh for anyone but the Mongols to attempt travel. Khazars, Bulgars, Pechenegs and of course Cumans, also known as Polovtsy or Qipchaq, lived in an uneasy peace with their Rus neighbours, and the tactical alliance of the Cumans and Rus had brought disaster on all. The Rus’s bloody reception of the Chinggisid elchis or ambassadors in 1222 certified their fate. The Rus were not united but were rather a collection of weak and usually squabbling feudal principalities, and the Chinggisid tactic was to hit each principality separately and quickly use the element of surprise to maximum advantage. Hence the famous quote introducing the invaders in the Chronicle of Novgorod. Bulghar was sacked in 1237, and the Turkic Bashkirs people reduced to submission, and by 1239 the collapse of Qipchaq and Cuman resistance in the Qipchaq Steppe caused a swathe of refugees to flood into the settled lands of the Rus, Hungary and the Latin kingdom of Romania. Kiev fell in the winter of 1240 after Prince Michael of Kiev had fled to Hungary and hence to Silesia. Mongke Khan, charged with capturing Kiev, had appealed to Boyar Dmitri to voluntarily surrender and so spare such a magnificent city, but in reply the Boyar had murdered Mongke’s elchis and so sealed the city’s fate. The papal envoy, Carpini, passed through the city ‘now reduced to almost nothing […] hardly two hundred houses’6 some six years later and recorded the tragic and unnecessary loss and the collapse of the seat of the metropolitan bishop and prince of Russia. As more towns and principalities fell, Batu noticed that most of the deposed princes fled towards Hungary, which was already the adopted country of the Cumans, and it was there that his attention was inevitably drawn. Unusually for a ruler of his time, King Bela IV of Hungary believed in peace, possibly because he had no aptitude for war. He had welcomed the various exiled Rus princes and he had even sent clerics eastward to make contact with the Chinggisids, including the Dominican Friar Julien who he had sent to Batu. He had established peace with his Cuman neighbours and welcomed them into his domains though he had stipulated three conditions: firstly, that they swore loyalty to his throne; secondly, that they bolster and integrate with his army; and thirdly, that they adopt Roman Catholicism. Unfortunately, his people were not as accommodating as their king and there was considerable tension between the pastoralist Cumans and the agriculturalist Hungarians. 75

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Batu sent elchis to Bela IV warning him not to harbour the Cumans, who Batu considered enemies. More seriously Batu demanded the return of his earlier envoys, numbering 30, some of whom had arrived in Hungary but others of whom had not, having been arrested en route by Rus princes. Bela should have been more mindful of their fate. Before launching an offensive against Hungary, Batu, doubtless following Subodai’s advice, carried out a classic Mongol strategy. In order to protect the main objective, the flank should be first secured by an offensive. Poland and Germany presented possible threats and therefore Batu thought it prudent to annihilate such a risk first. Batu consolidated his gains and collected his forces while wintering in Galicia–Volynia and prepared for an assault on Poland and Latin Christendom, and the absorption of another swathe of sedentary territory. The Crimea fell and became another princely appanage while the Crimean Cumans retreated to the mountains. However, though the forces of the steppe were indeed sweeping into the lands of the sown, the soldiers that comprised those forces were no longer solely men of the steppe. Mongols were certainly outnumbered by Turks, but now other people from semi-sedentary and sedentary communities were filling the ranks of the Chinggisid armies and populating the growing administration. In addition, an army of merchants was growing behind the lines and spreading fast into the cities, towns and villages that had escaped or were recovering from the turmoil. With the armies there travelled the princely ordus, which were themselves essentially mobile cities. While Batu moved north, his cousins Mongke, Qadan and Guyuk turned south and entered the land of the Alans and the Caucasus. The fugitive Qipchaqs provided Batu with a convenient casus belli as he extended his campaign west, deep into Christian Europe. The two-pronged attack sent a smaller force north against the Poles and Teutonic knights into Poland heading for eastern Germany while his main force struck King Bela’s army on the River Sajo. On 9 April 1241 the Battle of Liegnitz in the Polish province of Silesia saw the nobility and knights of northern Europe, Poles, Czechs, Germans and Papal military orders under the command of the Polish duke Henry II the Pious of Silesia, attempt unsuccessfully to halt the Mongol invasion of Europe. Traditional styles and 76

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practices of European knightly warfare proved hopelessly ineffective against the disciplined and experienced Chinggisid forces, and once again the Mongols’ famed feigned retreats proved devastatingly successful. The recorded numbers of combatants and casualties vary wildly, with the army of Henry II almost completely destroyed and estimates of casualties ranging from 2,000 to 40,000 dead, essentially the entire army. Batu occupied Hungary and gave signs that he intended to stay and incorporate the grasslands into the greater empire, striking coins as an indication of permanence. Why he did not return to consolidate his gains after the grand quriltai to decide on Ogodai’s successor is open to conjecture. Nogai Khan, who some consider as a joint ruler of the western provinces, did establish a base in Bulgaria, but Batu remained firmly rooted in the steppe lands of Russia, the Qipchaq Khanate. It has been suggested that the Hungarian steppe lands could not have supported a major Mongol settlement because there would not have been sufficient grass for the horses and insufficient space for wandering nomads, but Stephen Haw has convincingly argued against these views championed by Denis Sinor.7 Batu’s prime reason for abandoning his campaign against Hungary was his need to thwart Guyuk’s election to the throne. Batu believed that he could exert maximum influence on the unfolding events from his own ulus and that his refusal to attend the quriltai might frustrate his cousin’s ambitions. Whether Batu had intended to build on his conquest of Hungary or whether he would have been content with Bela’s fall remains unknown.8 Bela IV fled to exile on an island in the Adriatic, but unlike his fellow toppled ruler in the east, the despised Khwarazmshah, he returned from his island haven and remained on his throne until 1270. Europe was spared the fate of other would-be challengers of Chinggisid might by the timely death of the Great Khan, Ogodai, in 1241. Batu suspended his campaigns, lifted his siege of Vienna and turned his attention to domestic political concerns. His armies turned east and retreated through Hungary, destroying Pest on the way and subjugating Bulgaria until finally establishing a capital, Serai, on the lower stretches of the River Volga on the site of the Khazarian capital of Atil. Batu, the king-maker who had apparently foregone any possibility of claiming the Chinggisid throne for himself, knew that his support was essential for any aspirant to the leadership of 77

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the Empire. When William of Rubruck travelled through the lands under Batu Khan’s sovereignty, he was of the opinion that Batu was the joint ruler of the mighty Empire along with his cousin, the newly elected Mongke Khan, the Toluid usurper, some would say, of the House of Ogodai. The Jochid khanate seemed secure and firmly established, and indeed Batu’s ‘Golden Horde’ as it became known was the first of the successor states to achieve real and recognised autocracy and independence.

THE GOLDEN HORDE The Golden Horde was a Mongol, and later Turkic, khanate that was established in the thirteenth century and formed the north-western sector of the Mongol Empire. The khanate is also known as the Qipchaq Khanate or as the Ulus of Jochi and in many ways was the successor state to the Qipchaq Khanate. The Golden Horde, in reference possibly to the Khan’s tent of royal gold, was a name given to the state later by the Russians. At the time its usual name was the Qipchaq Khanate, in recognition that the state was based on the Qipchaq steppe and that the majority of the subjects were in fact Qipchaq Turks. The speed by which the Mongol element had been absorbed by the more numerous Qipchaq Turkish component is indicated by the coinage on which Mongolian had been replaced by Turkish by the reign of TodeMongke (r.1280–7). Also living with the Turkish majority in the vast lands of the Golden Horde were communities of ethnic Mongols and Iranians, found particularly in the northern Caucasus and Khwarazm; smaller settlements of Greeks, Italians, Jews and Armenians could be found in the Crimea. The borders of the state were also rather fluid, possibly because of the continuing nomadic nature of the ruling elite who had long resisted the compelling call of the cities. This fluidity was particularly noticeable along the southern borders and in the east where conflict was not uncommon. Batu Khan had been instrumental in Mongke’s accession to the Imperial throne and had firmly supported Mongke’s aggressive assertion of his rights to rule. However, it is unknown how he would have viewed Hulegu’s establishment of the Ilkhanate and the subsequent Toluid claims on the rich grazing lands of Azerbaijan and the fertile, coveted pastures of the southern Caucasian slopes, which certainly 78

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the Qipchaq Turks, now Jochid subjects, had grazed for centuries past. Batu Khan died peacefully in his sleep in 1255. He would not have witnessed what is sometimes regarded as a Toluid coup d’état following the collapse of the ʿAbbasid regime when Mongke called on his younger brother Hulegu to quietly and surreptitiously assume sovereignty over Iran from the Oxus to the Nile.9 Even though Batu had built himself a capital, Serai, and his brother, Berke, too had established another capital, New Serai, neither prince had abandoned their nomadic ways and they continued to reside in their tents and camps. Alexander Nevsky, the prince of Novgorod, supported Chinggisid rule and cooperated in the implementation of census between 1252 and 1259 and the subsequent demands for taxes, not out of any love for the Mongols but because he was a realist and recognised their unassailable military superiority. For him the Germans, the Swedes and the Lithuanians were a threat to his power, and he concentrated on manipulating the situation to his own advantage. For the most part, the khans remained in the south and the Rus continued to dwell undisturbed in the north. They continued to pay tribute, and the leaders of the different principalities had to travel south to seek legitimisation for any official appointment. It is said that they always made their wills before travelling south to seek an audience with the khans. They administered their own affairs, but a resident basqaq (daraghuchis or shaḥna) supervised the administration in order to ensure that the correct taxation was promptly paid. Initially supervision of Rus affairs was close and strict and Batu interfered frequently in the Rus administration, especially militarily, though the integration was not comparable to that in the Ilkhanate. Eventually this control slackened until even the collection of taxes was delegated and the Prince of Moscow, the Grand Prince of Russia, took control of such essential services. It was this gradual relaxation of control and devolution of authority which led to the ultimate collapse of the Qipchaq Khanate.

THE JOCHID ESTRANGEMENT The tamma make-up of the vast army under Hulegu’s command meant that the Jochids were well represented in the army’s ranks. It 79

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also meant that Jochid soldiers and officers participated fully in all military operations, including the ‘liberation’ of Baghdad. An incident involving three Jochid princes was allowed to develop into a full casus belli. One of the Jochid princes, Balagha, who had joined Hulegu’s tamma army, was accused of witchcraft and sorcery against the Ilkhan, and after receiving permission from Berke, Hulegu had him executed. However, when two other Jochid princes, Tutar and Quli, died suspiciously, rumours began circulating10 that there were other reasons behind these seemingly selective deaths, and according to some Muslim sources, Hulegu was loathe to share his war booty with Berke in accordance with Genghis Khan’s Great Yasa. The incident is reported fully not only by the partisan Rashid al-Din but also by the Armenian cleric Grigor of Akanc’, who throws some interesting light on this intriguing affair. For Rashid al-Din, Hulegu had finally exhausted his patience with his overbearing elder cousin forever ‘barking orders on every front’ and the accusations of murder meant Berke knew ‘nothing of shame or modesty’ and Hulegu would ‘no longer treat him with forbearance’.11 Grigor lays the blame for the murder of the Jochids firmly with Hulegu and claims that when Hulegu revealed publicly the Qa’an Mongke’s appointment of himself as Ilkhan with dominion over Iran, Azerbaijan and the southern Caucasus, the Jochid princes refused to bow down and acknowledge Hulegu’s appointment. For their refusal to honour Hulegu and the command of the Qa’an, they paid with their lives.12 The Jochid troops that made their way eastward were under the command of Negudar, and they joined forces with a renegade group in eastern Afghanistan known as the Qaraʿunas. Thereafter, secure in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, this independent armed element was known both as the Qaraʿunas and Negudaris, a thorn in the side of all their neighbours.13 By 1260, following the death of Mongke Qa’an, the Empire was on the brink of civil war, and Berke Khan (d.1266), Batu’s brother and successor, was in open rebellion against his Toluid cousins in the south. In an unprecedented move, Berke had allied himself against a fellow Chinggisid with a non-Chinggisid outsider. Berke, with the apparent zealotry of the newly converted, claimed his alliance with the Mamluks was based on their common bond in Islam. Not only were the Mamluks of Egypt not Chinggisids but they were led by commoners and men who were devoid of 80

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any recognised lineage. The Mamluks were the sons of slaves and hardly worthy of an alliance with royalty. The alliance can be dated to the early 1260s when a Mamluk embassy met Berke’s representatives in Constantinople. Berke’s envoy reached Cairo in May 1263, where Jochid troops had already found sanctuary after fleeing Iran in 1262. However, the division between the two Chinggisid neighbours was deep and continued to deepen. Whereas the Toluid regimes, the Yuan of China and the Ilkhanate of Iran, had created an accommodation with their settled subjects, the gulf between the nomadic rulers and their Rus subjects yawned ever wider. The alliance with the Mamluks was one of convenience and their shared religion, Islam, served a purpose rather than initiated the attraction. The animosity between Hulegu and Berke was intense and personal. Berke’s ruthlessness and determination to succeed his brother, a move unsupported by any other member of the family, resulted in the murder of Batu’s son, Sartaq. And then, when the young prince, Sartaq’s ten-year-old son Ulaghchi, was duly crowned under the regency of Borakchin Khatun, he too was slaughtered, finally leaving Berke’s claim unopposed. Juzjani is explicit in his claims of bad feelings between Sartaq and Berke, and he credits Berke with praying for days for death to overtake his rival though he credits Mongke with ordering the administration of poison to hasten Sartaq’s departure to hell. Juzjani makes it clear that Berke benefits greatly from Sartaq’s death and inherits the lands and possessions of all ‘fifteen sons and grandsons of the generation of Tushi Khan, all of whom departed to Hell’.14 In contrast to the bad press that Berke often receives from the Persians, the Polo family found him delightful and very generous when they presented themselves at his court and they spoke of his wide reputation for courtesy and liberality.15 The conviction of Berke’s conversion to Islam is not as contentious as that of Ghazan Khan, but it is doubtful that all his subsequent actions and decisions were ideologically driven rather than politically motivated. For example, his opposition to the assault on Baghdad does not seem to have arisen until after the fall of the city, and he does not seem to have attempted to prevent his men from taking part in the siege. His conversion was not followed by any widespread conversion to Islam among his troops, and on his death the Jochid 81

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court did not continue with his zealotry. He is said to have adopted Islam in Bokhara in 1257 after seeing the Sufi shaykh Sayf al-Din Bakharzi (d.1261), a disciple of renowned shaykh Najm al-Din Kubra in a vision but he had initially kept his conversion secret. The excuses for the escalation in violence were not difficult to uncover and, with the zeal of the recent convert firing his every move, Berke provided generations of Muslims with a very useful scapegoat, his cousin Hulegu, the Butcher of Baghdad, for the ills of the Islamic world and a figure to represent their oppression and humiliation. Berke even launched a new and savage attack on Poland despite Hulegu’s amicable advances to the Vatican. In 1259 Boroldai Noyan devastated Kracow and Sandomir before withdrawing along with large numbers of captives for the slave market. The same forces or those allied with them also attacked Lithuania and Prussia in 1259–60 inflicting heavy losses on the Teutonic knights stationed there, and in the wake of these offenses Berke sent an embassy to Paris to demand the submission of Louis IX. Berke’s envoys coincided with the dispatch of Hulegu’s own embassy seeking a joint campaign with the French king against the Mamluks. Louis IX forwarded on Berke’s threats to the Pope, which must have confused him somewhat, especially if word reached him from Bela IV of Hungary complaining of the pressure he was under from the Mongols to enter a marriage alliance with Berke and to join a military campaign against his Latin neighbours. In light of Berke’s assaults on northern Europe, these threats must have appeared very real even though with the beginning of hostilities with the Ilkhanate in the Caucasus Berke was rendered impotent. The war between the Jochids and the Ilkhans quickly escalated and soon involved the Mamluk regime of Egypt who had seized power from the Ayyubids. The Mamluk sultan Baybars (1223–77) had accepted asylum-seeking Jochid troops who had fled from Hulegu’s court following the killing of the Jochid princes. In fact many of his troops were ethnic Mongols, known as the Wafidiya, and they soon proved a match for the warriors of the nation of archers. In 1260, while Hulegu led the bulk of his forces east to attend the quriltai marking the death of Mongke, Baybars confronted a rump army led by Hulegu’s top general, Noyan Ket Buqa, and defeated the Chinggisid troops at the Battle of Ayn Jalut. Though militarily the battle was of little significance, politically it was of the uttermost importance and it assumed great symbolic significance as the first major military defeat 82

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suffered by the Chinggisids anywhere in the world. It proved that the forces and armies of Chinggis Khan were not invincible and that the irresistible global tide of Chinggisid triumph was reversible and stoppable. In fact an army led by Uriyangqadai, the son of legendary general Subodai, had been defeated a few years previously in Dai Viet, though on a return trip in 1259 the king of Dai Viet was subdued and became a reluctant ally and Uriyangqadai Noyan successfully pushed on into Song China to meet up with Qubilai Khan.16 Berke established contacts with Baybars as a united Islamic front against the infidel armies of Hulegu, and the propaganda wars hence commenced. On the ground Rum became a battleground and while at once rejecting Chinggisid traditions as the laws of infidels, Berke made claims on the Caucasus and Rum citing Chinggis Khan’s own proclamations. In particular the Jochids recalled that Chinggis Khan had awarded all the lands in the west that ‘Tatar hoof had trod’ to the House of Jochi.17 This claim in particular was periodically raised to challenge Ilkhanid legitimacy, not surprisingly since there is considerable evidence that Batu was the de facto authority in the region before Hulegu’s appearance and that according to Iranian merchants who were the Mamluk encyclopedist, al-ʿUmari’s (d.1349) source, the Great Khan had awarded his eldest son, Jochi, authority over the Pontic steppe, Arran, Tabriz, Hamadan and Maragha. However, being a Mamluk and hardly sympathetic to the Persian Ilkhans, al-ʿUmari would say that, wouldn’t he? The military tide retreated with Berke and he suffered defeat at the hands of Hulegu’s son and successor, Abaqa, but his own death saved him from further humiliation and in addition allowed for a truce to be declared between the two rival khanates. Since there was no real cessation of hostilities after Berke’s death, suggesting that it was more than a religious dispute triggered by Hulegu’s murder of the Caliph, the real source of enmity was twofold. There were the rival claims over land, most importantly the rich pasturelands of the southern Caucasus, but also the wider ideological conflict with the Toluids, who were often viewed as having abandoned the rulings of the yasa and the heritage of the steppe in favour of the alien culture of the urbanites of Persia and China. The foreign policy of the Golden Horde considered the north and the lands of the Rus and Europe as peripheral to their needs. Their focus was almost exclusively on the south and the caravan routes through the rich pastures of the 83

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Fig. 5: Marco Polo caravan

Caucasus and Azerbaijan. They sought the return and domination of this region as central to their future and their economic prosperity. Hostilities centred on the Caucasus, even though both Turkestan and the lands of Bithynia and Thrace were also flashpoints in the conflict between the Jochids and the Ilkhanate. Mongke-Temur (r.1266–80) Mongke-Temur, the grandson of Batu and son of Toqoqwan and his Oirat wife Buka Ujin, was a figure of paradoxes. Though initially nominated by Qubilai Khan, he lent his support to Qaidu (1236– 1301) in the rebel Ogodaid’s struggle in Turkestan, and though he never embraced his predecessor’s Islamic beliefs remaining a Shamanist throughout his life, he continued the alliance with the Mamluk regime in Egypt and did not abandon hostilities against the Ilkhanate or his claims on the southern Caucasus and Azerbaijan. However, he concentrated his military concerns in the west throughout his reign, attacking the Byzantines 1269–71, Lithuania in 1275 and 84

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the Alans in the Caucasus in 1271, and cultivated the common interests he shared with his Rus subjects and European traders. The Rus princes were happy to fight alongside the armies of MongkeTemur, and they did not resent the taxes levied on them since trade was encouraged and they enjoyed increasing wealth. An early yarliq exists awarding the Russian Orthodox Church exemption from taxes. Even though German mercenaries were being killed on the front, German merchants enjoyed free travel throughout MongkeTemur’s domains. An edict issued in 1270 by Prince Yaroslav with Mongke-Temur’s encouragement assured protection and freedom of passage for German merchants.18 With other Italian traders happily paying him taxes, MongkeTemur allowed the Genoese to establish trading bases in Caffa, where they built bazaars and shops and protected their settlement with a rampard and ditch. While the Venetians were limited to the small settlement of Tana, the Genoese soon secured a monopoly in trading corn, caviar, stock and fish. Architectural remains and inscriptions remain as testaments to their influence.

THE TALAS QURILTAI In 1269 the Talas quriltai saw an agreement sealed between the Chaghadaid khan, Baraq, the Ogodaid rebel Qaidu and the Qipchaq Khanate’s Mongke-Temur. This awarded two-thirds of the revenue of Transoxiana to Baraq and one third each to the other parties, while the territories themselves remained undivided under the administration of Masʿud Beg, son of the veteran administrator Mahmud Yalavach. It was a step in Qaidu’s strategy to seize power, but it signalled the Golden Horde’s continuing sympathy towards Qaidu. Berke (r.1257– 66) of the Golden Horde, had originally formed an alliance with Qaidu, providing him with military aid against their common enemy, the Chaghadaid khan, Alghu (r.1260–5/6). Tode-Mongke (r.1280–7) Mongke-Temur died from a throat tumour in 1280 and was succeeded by his brother Tode-Mongke, not long before the arrival of an embassy from Cairo laden with sumptuous gifts as a reflection of the regard in which they held the Mongol kings of the Golden Horde. 85

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Sultan Kalavun sent 16 sets of costly robes for both Mongke-Temur and his army commander, Nogai Khan, though others at court were not forgotten including the exiled sultan of Rum, Ghiyath al-Din. In addition, the envoys came weighed down with magnificent and costly presents, precious jewels, bows, swords, cuirasses, helmets, embroidered quilts, Persian nasij and brocade for distribution among the courtiers which instead went to Tode-Mongke’s retainers. The Mamluk embassy enjoyed a lavish welcome from the new king, cementing further the ties between the two states. In return Tode-Mongke, in 1283, sent envoys to Cairo with the request that they be permitted to perform the Haj, acting vicariously for their devout king. He also requested that his two envoys be furnished with the standard of the caliph so that in battle he might lead his troops with this powerful regalia to inspire his men and dishearten his enemies. He also pursued peace rather than war, and he is credited with establishing rapprochement with Qubilai, who in 1283 he recognised as supreme leader. Tode-Mongke’s obsession with religious practices caused him to neglect his political and military duties and he was prevailed upon to abdicate his throne, which he did in 1287 in favour of his nephew, Tole Buqa, whose short reign of barely three years is overlooked altogether by some genealogists. Tode-Mongke oversaw more Turkicisation of the Golden Horde with Turkic replacing Mongolian on coins. Tole Buqa (r.1287–91) Tole Buqa had been close to Nogai Khan, and the two had campaigned together successfully against Lithuania and Poland. This resurgence of military adventures in the 1280s could well have been taking advantage of the short-lived peace among the khanates. It is said that in a campaign in Galicia the two generals had employed germ warfare by cultivating the plague taken from putrid dead bodies and infecting the water supply.19 However, on a later campaign in the Caucasus, the two fell out, Tole Buqa blaming the one-eyed Nogai for a calamitous defeat that he had suffered and as a result he determined to murder his former friend. Nogai, however, was clever and very cunning and he preempted his former ally whom he ambushed and respectfully strangled with a bowstring. In his place, Nogai supported the installation of the young Toqta Khan, the son of Mongke-Temur, who he believed he could comfortably manipulate for his own means. 86

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Nogai Khan (d.1299) Around the year 1295 Jochid forces were massing on the northern side of the Caucasus, and both Nogai and Toqta Khan were present ready to confront Ghazan Khan. However, Nogai, who had converted to Islam according to a letter sent by Berke Khan to the Mamluks back in 1263, was regarded as ambitious and a threat by Toqta Khan. Nogai had indeed supported Toqta Khan’s bid for power but only because he viewed the young ruler as easily controllable and he saw himself as the puppet master of this northern empire. Toqta had other lines of support, most intriguingly with the Toluids through his wife, Bethlemish, granddaughter of Tolui. His father-in-law, Saljiday, was one of the Onggirat whose claim to fame was their role as royal consorts.20 Women held power in the Chinggisid courts even though that power was often wielded behind the throne. They forced the rulers of the Golden Horde to make peace with Qubilai in the 1280s, and in 1304 Bethlemish convinced Toqta Khan to accept the supremacy of the Great Khan. Great things had been predicted for Nogai, a great-nephew of Berke. He was ambitious and talented and he had already created a secure powerbase in Bulgaria and the south-western marches from which to operate. He had built alliances and established a support network and was virtually autonomous in some of his dealings in eastern Europe and with the Byzantines. With so much riding on Nogai, or the ‘Fat Tsar’ as he was known in the Russian chronicles, his motives were constantly questioned, and overreaching himself he was beheaded during the confusion of conflict and the mists of war. His head was presented to the able Toqta Khan, who had had no intention of becoming Nogai’s puppet. What happened next is controversial, but there is evidence to suggest that the remnants of Nogai’s ordu fled the scene of their devastation and set sail across the Black Sea, eventually landing and settling in north-western Anatolia. The sixteenth-century Safavid historian Khwandamir has a report of 10,000 tents crossing the Black Sea from the Crimea at this period, and it is in this confused decade around the opening of the fourteenth century that there appear a number of small emirates such as the emirate of Karasi in the Troad, a non-Muslim state of Mongol origin. They were certainly not ghazi and were of questionable Muslim background. The Ottoman state was one of these, and there are indications that 87

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it was the re-formulated Nogai Khanate, which Byzantine sources suggest was initially not a militant ghazi state and probably never was one. In fact the identification of the early Ottomans as a ghazi state occurred far later, and there is evidence that this was a reworking of history with little basis in reality. The early Ottoman state might not even have been Muslim, with their conversion occurring later. Colin Heywood explored the nature of the emerging Ottoman state, though he had to abandon his research when the elusive smoking gun staunchly refused to materialise.21 Toqta Khan (r.1291–1312) Fired up with his successful destruction of Nogai and the threat to his authority, Toqta Khan reversed the peaceful overtures he had made to the Ilkhans in 1294 with an embassy sent to Ilkhan Gaykhatu, which later represented him at the founding of a town, Qutlugh Baliq, on the River Kur. In 1302 Toqta dispatched an envoy to Ghazan Khan to demand the surrender of Arran and Azerbaijan. The embassy had required 325 post horses at each yam station for the 370 envoys, earning Ghazan’s contemptuous dismissal – if they were an invasion force then they were too few in number and if an embassy such a suite was pure extravagance. The envoys presented Ghazan with an official gift of a bag of millet, perhaps to represent the countless number of troops at his command, but unimpressed the Ilkhan set his hen on the millet and it was consumed in no time. However, fearing Ghazan’s reaction to this envoy, Toqta’s son, Tempta, had sent along the courtier and diplomat Issa Gurkhan with a collection of unofficial offerings including Kirghiz gyrfalcons. Issa had been able to secure invitations for the Jochid envoys to a grand celebration to which many notables and guests were present and where they were offered costly robes and pearls and a message for Toqta.22 Rashid al-Din mentions but does not dwell on this embassy.23 Mustawfi records some peace accords which he claims Ghazan hosted, but he fails to mention the presence of Toqta’s embassy. An envoy from the king of the Franks, and messengers from the king of Hindustan and Sultan ʿAla al-Din of Sind, are mentioned and it is known that a letter from Edward I arrived at about this time. Mustawfi dwells on the sumptuous gifts received from the Qa’an, Temur of Yuan China (r.1294–1307) and an unnamed prince of Khitai but ignores the presence of the Jochids. This event recorded by Mustawfi as 88

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occurring shortly before Ghazan’s death might in fact be referring to the Ilkhan Uljaytu’s celebrated reception in which he hosted the Chaghadaid khan, Du’a, and Qaidu’s Ogodaid successor, Chapar, as well as envoys from Temur Qa’an.24 In fact three months after Uljaytu’s celebrated reception for the envoys from the Ogodaids and Chaghadaids, along with the gift-laden embassy from Temur Qa’an, Uljaytu entertained a party from the Qipchaq Khanate, pacifying the volatile border region of the Caucasus. With Ghazan inadvertently pacified, Toqta also cemented his ties with the Byzantines through marriage alliances with a contingent of troops as the price for the hand of Andronikos II Palaiologos’s (1282–1328) daughter, Maria. Such marriages of convenience were frequent during this time. Religion hardly seemed to play a part in the negotiations since Toqta at one time professed sympathies with Islam though he returned to the Shaman fold before his end in 1313. Toqta was probably exercising the common Chinggisid practice of encouraging all faiths to believe that they were held in special favour, which as William of Rubruck observed they often were. Toqta Khan oversaw the beginnings of a comparative golden age for the Golden Horde. With Nogai no longer a factor, Toqta could concentrate more on nation building, the strengthening of central government and appeasing his Russian subjects. Urban culture and trade received his attention and encouragement. Genoese and Venetian merchants had been active from their bases in the Crimea for half a century. In c.1266 the Genoese had constructed a consulate and some warehouses, no doubt taking advantage of the decisions taken at the Treaty of Nymphaeus (1261), which had given the Genoese commercial monopoly east of the Bosphorus. Regardless of the treaty, it was the Chinggisids who had allowed the Genoese to operate within their territory, and they granted commercial rights to those who advanced and benefitted their policies and needs. To achieve their aims, they encouraged competition among foreigners so that they could compare the effectiveness and efficiency, the prices and variety, and the practices and methods of all the various foreign traders that ventured through their domains. The tax of 3 per cent of the value of the merchandise on all goods passing through the khan’s domains, even when later raised to 5 per cent, was hardly crippling, but it added comfortably to the treasury 89

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while in no way discouraging trade. A land tax was paid by the resident merchants, but this contributed to the social costs of providing security and amenities and a bureaucracy to oversee the Crimean community. A tribute was then paid by the governor of the providence to the Khan of the Golden Horde to ensure that he received his share of the cake. When taxes were imposed arbitrarily, a system for complaints existed to challenge such abuses.25 Of course additional expenses were incurred by those who actually undertook the long and arduous journey across the vast Chinggisid territories as the manual of very practical advice for merchants drawn up by Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, the Merchant’s Handbook, clearly illustrates. As well as bribes, local taxes, ‘gifts’ and official fees, there was the cost of hiring guides, bodyguards, soldiers, caravan overseers, interpreters and translators, which all added to the local economy and made trade a very lucrative business for the many diverse people involved. Ozbeg Khan (r.1312–41) Toqta’s nephew, Ozbeg, concerned himself primarily with internal affairs, though he interfered with the declining situation in Iran. The Russian principalities had regained much of their former power, though the Golden Horde remained the dominant power. They paid tribute under protest. Ozbeg responded with careful manipulation of these principalities making Yurii Danilovich of Moscow Grand Prince of Russia, sealed by a marriage alliance. He used military force against other would-be rebels, including the former Grand Prince, Michael Jaroslavitch of Tver, and by playing the princes off against each other he prevented them forming a united anti-Mongol front. When threatened, Ozbeg was ruthless in his response. Unintentionally Ozbeg created a power vacuum, which he filled by creating a powerful seat in Moscow secured by Ivan Danilovich after the death of his brother Yurii. Through clever political intrigue and the manipulation of both the Russian princes and Ozbeg’s representatives, Ivan acquired wealth and influence and the ear of Ozbeg himself. He died in 1340 and his vast wealth ensured that his title should go to one of his sons despite the competition from other princely families. His son, Simeon, ensured that his largess and humility towards the Jochid rulers brought him the title of Grand Prince and his ‘rigorous’ demeanour towards his fellow Russian princes the title ‘Proud’. 90

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Ozbeg’s rule also saw the rise of Lithuania and Poland as powerful states; and in Anatolia and Thrace, the appearance of the Ottoman state, which quickly grew to dominate the region, threatened to eclipse the Golden Horde’s client Byzantine state and the links to the Mamluks of Egypt. However, the Golden Horde remained strong enough under Ozbeg to continue to collect its dues from its Russian principalities and eastern European client states despite now being almost completely Muslim and wholly Turkish in culture. Ozbeg Khan continued his uncle Toqta’s policies, and trading thrived including the slave trade despite Toqta’s disapproval of some aspects of the trade which consumed the highly prized young men of the region to feed the markets of Cairo. The capital Serai on the lower River Volga was also once again home to Italian fur and slave merchants, who had been expelled by Toqta for the kidnapping of Mongol children for sale in the slave markets, their homes in Caffa having been attacked and burnt c.1307–8. By 1316 this Genoese colony was once again thriving, and then in 1332 Ozbeg permitted the construction of a city and the founding of a Venetian colony at Tana on the mouth of the River Don. To win the crown Ozbeg had had to fight religious opposition from the traditionalists, and after he uncovered a plot to poison him, he massacred all the conspirators. In an unprecedented and controversial act to show his religious devotion, Ozbeg gave the Mamluk sultan of Egypt, al-Nasir, a Chinggisid princess in marriage and so sealed the ties between the Golden Horde and the Mamluk regime.26 However, Ozbeg’s strong commitment to his faith did not translate into zealotry and he proved a shrewd political operator ensuring that the Russian Orthodox Church, Catholics and other minorities felt free from oppression while Mongke-Temur’s 1267 yarliq granting tax exemption for the Russian Orthodox Church and Serai’s bishop’s seat were confirmed. The Franciscan papal legate Giovanni of Marignolli was provided a magnificent mount for him to continue his journey to the Great Khan in Khanbaliq. Ozbeg’s religious zeal did not soften his attitude to the Ilkhanate while he maintained a business-like relationship with the Great Khans of China, reminding them in an embassy sent in 1366 that he had not received monies for his interests and appanages in China. The money was needed, his envoys explained, to continue the financing of the 91

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yam stations, which they insisted were currently funded by Ozbeg Khan himself. Ozbeg Khan coveted Iran in his heart and made known his desires, setting out with a vast army for that region’27 Ozbeg revived Jochid claims on Arran and Azerbaijan, but confronted by the army of Chopan and Abu Saʿid, he was forced to retreat north and out of the region.28 In 1335 after the death of Abu Saʿid and during the contentious reign of Arpa Ke’un, encouraged by correspondence with the poisoned Ilkhan’s jealous wife, Baghdad Khatun, Ozbeg Khan once again ‘shook the bell of greed’ and set out with his army for Iran. South of Darband he faced off against the Iranians under Arpa Ke’un’s command in a prolonged stalemate. The confrontation was finally ended when Ozbeg approached the bank of the River Kur and struck the water with his sword, declaring, ‘You are heroes.’ He then turned and left, leading his army back to the Qipchaq steppe.29 Mustawfi claims that Ozbeg’s campaign was part of a three-pronged attack by Iran’s enemies working together, but there is no evidence that the attacks were coordinated and none were successful. After the murder of Rashid al-Din, the days became full of terror, and a countless army assembled from all places. In the land of Khorasan, the activities of the Chaghadaid prince Yasaʿur caused the world to be terrified. From the plain of Hazar, Ozbeg turned his face towards the country. He had drawn up an army, which was not to be numbered, for the attack on Iran. From Egypt and Syria, at the same time, came a chosen army with the same intention, heading for Diyarbakr, at which the world became full of comment.30 Mustawfi claims that Ozbeg received an invitation from ‘the Qipchaq leader and generals and great ones’ who promised that he would ‘have good fortune if you come to Iran and bring war to them’. However, when Chopan and the young Iranian shah brought their combined weight to bear on this threat, Ozbeg did not wait until he was beaten in battle but withdrew as soon as he had read the signs. Much of what is known about Ozbeg comes through the chronicles of Ibn Battuta, who records the hospitality extended towards him when he visited Ozbeg’s court in the 1330s and witnessed ‘a vast city on the move with its inhabitants, with mosques and bazaars in it, the smoke of the kitchens rising in the air’.31 Ibn Battuta was a careful observer of detail and his travels provide a wealth of observations of the minutiae of court life and ceremony, and Ozbeg appears to 92

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have been particularly enamoured with the involved court etiquette and ceremony. Ibn Battuta provides details of the drinking ceremony, seating arrangements, the designs of the tents, inside and out, the health of some of the courtiers and even the nature of the chief wife’s vagina. He has a keen eye for everything and a lively and infectious curiosity. Though he complains that despite abundant food and ‘skins of qumiss’, ‘these Turks do not know the practice of giving hospitable lodging to the visitor or of supplying him with money’,32 Ibn Battuta also comments on the contrast between the well-maintained post roads in Mongol territory and the poorly kept roads under Greek authority. He considered the capital ‘one of the finest of cities, of boundless size […] choked with the throng of its inhabitants, and possessing good bazaars and broad streets’.33 The prosperity Ibn Battuta had witnessed and the generosity that he was able to enjoy were due to Ozbeg’s encouragement of trade, not only with his neighbours to the east but in the west as well. Caffa and the Italian merchants of the Crimea had opened up trade across the Black Sea and the Grand Prince Ivan made Moscow the gateway to Europe. The first of the great Russian fairs became an annual occurence, with traders flocking to an event for which 70 inns were constructed and which netted in all 7,200 pounds of silver in taxes and fees for Ivan’s coffers. Strangely, the Russian proverb ‘Near to the king, near to death’ is said to have emerged during Ozbeg’s reign; with Ivan being the only Russian prince making visits to the Khan’s court fearlessly, in Europe Ozbeg had a far more approachable reputation. Pope Benedict XXII harboured great confidence in his eventual conversion to the true faith, and Ozbeg was happy to allow missionaries to operate in those regions bordering the Black Sea. The Ossetes were converted by the monk Jonas Valent. The Pope enjoyed a healthy correspondence with Ozbeg, his son and Christian wife, Bayalun, indicative of the Khan’s very pragmatic approach to politics, an approach which allowed his reign to be the most prosperous period in Qipchaq Khanate history. Janibeg (r.1342–57) Janibeg, Ozbeg’s son and successor, built his throne on blood and his reign on noise and clamour. He murdered his brothers, Tini Beg, the new khan, and Khidr Beg, his other rival, and then insisted that his coronation be attended by all his subjects.34 Despite encouraging 93

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overtures to his subjects such as accepting a down payment of 600 roubles from the Russian clergy in lieu of tax, Janibeg launched punitive raids over his borders into Poland and overreacted to a relatively minor incident in the Crimea. The Genoese in the Crimea had begun flexing their economic muscles, so when in 1343 an incident involving their fellow Italians escalated into a military clampdown in the Crimea by Janibeg’s forces, the Venetians joined forces with the Genoese to resist the Jochid army. All Italian presence in Tana, on the Sea of Azov, was ordered curtailed and military escalation ensued. Janibeg might have deliberately overreacted to seek an excuse to limit the growing autonomy of the Italian merchants in the Crimea and to curb what was perceived as their aggressive and overbearing behaviour. In 1344 the Genoese launched a full-scale assault on the Jochid forces besieging Tana, which resulted in the slaughter of 15,000 Jochid troops and the complete destruction of their siege missiles and catapults. In retaliation Janibeg ordered that the bodies of his dead troops, reportedly infected with bubonic plague, be thrown at the attackers and into the city of Tana thereby hastening the Black Death on its relentless march towards Europe. ‘They [Tatars] ordered corpses to be placed in their mangonels and lobbed into the city in the hope that the intolerable stench would kill everyone inside.’35 Within months, hostilities were forgotten in the interests of trade and commerce, and the situation returned to pre-conflict conditions with a deal being struck for a tax increase from a very reasonable 3 per cent to a still reasonable 5 per cent.36 Khwandamir judges Janibeg ‘a just, compassionate and religiously observant padishah’ who opened his capital, Serai, to religious and scholarly exiles37 creating a centre of learning where he acted as patron to scholars such as Maulana Saʿd al-Din Taftazani,38 who dedicated their works to his memory. Janibeg tried to depict his aggression in the west and Crimea and his invasions of both Iran and Central Asia as an attempt to unify the Chinggisid Khanates: ‘I am coming to take possession of the Ulus of Hulegu […] Today three ulus are under my command.’39 In the case of Iran, his overthrow of the local tyrant, Malik Ashraf, grandson of the great Amir Chopan [d.1327], then ruling Azerbaijan, Arran and Persian Iraq, was considered by many as liberation of the country from oppression. Certainly Malik Ashraf was ‘a ruler known for kindling the fire of tyranny and injustice 94

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and stirring up the dust of sedition and corruption’.40 Many had fled north to escape Malik Ashraf’s cruel oppression as well as into neighbouring provinces. Among the refugees was a renowned and eloquent ʿAlim, the Qadi Muhi al-Din Bardaʿi, who Janibeg had heard speak at Friday prayers in Serai where he had solemnly declaimed, ‘Since the servants of this thresh-hold have the ability to repel this tyrant, if they are negligent in this respect, they will be taken to task at doomsday.’ His words brought those present, including the king, to tears and a royal pledge to repulse this evil.41 In 1357 Janibeg led his armies south across the Caucasus into Azerbaijan and occupied Tabriz. It was in this capital that he presided over Malik Ashraf’s execution and had his head exposed on the Maraghian Mosque despite the deposed tyrant’s pleas that it was his disobedient underlings who were responsible for the mayhem which had swept the land during his tenure.42 ‘[My] officers carried out the destruction. They didn’t listen to my words.’43 Malik Ashraf’s hidden jewels were found, the people of the province rejoiced and strict orders were given that no looting would be tolerated and that the tyrant’s wealth would be used to finance the campaign. His soldiers were under orders ‘to camp along the roads and in the river beds and were not to approach the door of the house of any Muslim’.44 See how the donkey Ashraf does his fate unfold, Securing death for self, for Jani his gold.45

ENDGAME After only 40 days, Janibeg ‘returned to the Dasht-i-Qifchaq, and the children and the mother of Malik Ashraf, the treasury set with jewels, and cattle, all that there was, he took with him’.46 He left his son, Birdibeg Khan, as his representative in Tabriz with 15,000 horsemen, but within a very short time of leaving he died and his son hastened back to settle affairs in Serai. Meanwhile Malik Ashraf’s supporters quickly snatched power back in Tabriz under the rule of Akhi Juq.47 Mustawfi claims that on the orders of Birdibeg’s vizier, Sarai Temur, Akhi Juq had descended on Marand in Azerbaijan on hearing reports that Malik Ashraf’s fortune had been unearthed. The tyrant had sown jewels into his undergarments and these were now in 95

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the hands of Akhi Juq, who proceeded to embezzle this considerable find, some of which he divided among his own followers. Birdibeg remained in the region only briefly. Word had arrived of his father’s serious illness and he had been urged ‘do not delay and set out as soon as possible’. He was followed shortly by his vizier Sarai Temur, leaving the unscrupulous Akhi Juq without restraint.48 For the people of Tabriz their taste of freedom and inclusion in the Ulus of Jochi had been very short-lived. According to Henry H. Howorth and reported also in Bakikhanov’s history of Shirwan and the Nikonian Chronicle, Birdibeg himself murdered his father Janibeg after he had named him as his successor upon falling ill on the return journey from Tabriz. The general Tughluqbeg had advised Birdibeg to act quickly lest his father recover and reverse his decision.49 His death marked the close of the most flourishing and prosperous epoch in the Golden Horde’s history. Even the Russian annalists name him ‘Good Janibeg’, with the Nikonian Chronicle noting that Janibeg was ‘very kind towards Christians and he gave many privileges to the Russian land’.50 He struck coins in the years from 1341 to 1357 and had them minted in Serai, Gulistan, New Serai, New Gulistan, the New Ordu, Khwarazm, Mokhshi, Barchin, and Tabriz. These coins were struck in Persian and Mongol script. A decline set in almost immediately, with the Russian annalists claiming that Birdibeg had 12 of his brothers and potential claimants to the throne murdered and then proceeded to threaten the Russian princes. The Russian chronicles blame Good Janibeg’s murder on fate, retribution for the murder of his own brothers, and therefore see Birdibeg’s death at the hands of ‘his accursed favourite, Tovlubeg [Tughluqbeg], a dark and powerful prince’. The verdict from the Russians is unequivocal: ‘He drank from the same cup which he had given his father and his brothers.’ And Khan Kulpa, his successor, likewise, had a short reign of six months during which he achieved ‘much evil’.51 The Golden Horde went into steady decline during the later fourteenth century, while Moscow and Lithuania experienced a revival. Toqtamish (r.1376–95) oversaw a brief rise in the khanate’s fortunes, but any revival was extinguished by the arrival of Timur Khan / Timurlane (d.1405) from the east. His greatest success was uniting with the White Horde in the east, but ultimately this proved 96

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ephemeral. Officially the Golden Horde continued until its final demise in 1502, when it suffered destruction by Mengli Girai of the Crimea, though before this it had been split into two in 1438: the Khanate of Kazan and the Great Horde. Further division in 1441 saw the emergence of the khanates of the Crimea and Astrakhan, both of which fell to Ivan the Terrible in 1552 and 1554. The Crimea survived until it was annexed by Catherine the Great in 1783 and the Tatars of the Crimea survived as a community until deportation by Stalin around 1944. In fact, these same Tatars of the Crimea have since returned and revived their original community, and so can perhaps be considered the last outpost of the Golden Horde or even of the Chinggis Empire. HOUSE OF JOCHI The Khans of the Golden Horde, 1237–1357 BATU, 1237–56 SARTAQ, 1256–7 ULAGHCHI, 1257 BERKE, 1257–66 MONGKE-TEMUR, 1267–80 TODE-MONGKE, 1280–7 TOLE BUQA, 1287–91 TOQTA, 1291–1312 OZBEG, 1312–41 TINIBEG, 1341–2 JANIBEG, 1342–57 BIRDIBEG, 1357–9

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5 THE CHAGHADAIDS

The House of Chinggis Khan’s second son, Chaghadai (1183– 1241/2), never achieved the position of power or the prestige enjoyed by the other royal houses of the Chinggisid Empire. After the death of Chinggis Khan in 1227, the Ogodaids and Toluids both occupied the imperial throne, while the Jochids became king makers and at times enjoyed status and prestige equal to or at times greater than that of the Great Khan. Questions concerning Jochi’s paternity were the sole reason for the Jochid khans’ exclusion from the ultimate seat of power, a situation which was recognised and had been accepted by his descendants. Chaghadai Khan and his successors, ruling over a vast but variable swathe of Central Asia concentrated on Turkestan, accepted their role as providing support and muscle to the Qa’an and they remained very formidable enemies and dependable allies. The Chaghadaid khanate was an integral though fluid component of the Empire, originally defined by the peoples of whom it was composed as an autonomous imperial limb. The Great Khan described his second son as ‘a martial man who loves war. But he is proud by nature, more than he should be,’1 adding that ‘any who had a desire to know the yasa and yosun of the kingdom should follow Chaghadai’.2 In the Secret History it is claimed that when Chinggis intimated that his first-born, Jochi, was higher in rank than his brothers and therefore might be most suitable as his successor, Chaghadai rose in anger and grabbed his brother by the neck, deriding him as a ‘bastard offspring of a Merkit’.3 After an impassioned speech from their 98

The Chaghadaids Fig. 6: Paizas, awarded to envoys, elchis, ortaqs and diplomats to ensure secure travel and privileges; made from iron and nickel

father, the brothers calmed down and, humbled, pledged their future cooperation and loyalty and agreed instead that Ogodai (d.1241) should be instructed in the ‘teachings of the hat’ (kingship). Chinggis chose Ogodai over his older brother, Chaghadai, because the younger son had a reputation for geniality, generosity and compromise, whereas the older son had a fearsome reputation for cruelty and arrogance even though he was loyal. Chinggis, ever the realist, even questioned the need for their cooperation with each other declaring that ‘Mother Earth is wide: its rivers and waters are many […] We shall make each of you rule over a domain and We shall separate you.’4 Even so, the analogy of the vulnerable single arrow-shaft and the unbreakable clutch of bound arrow-shafts told in the opening chapter of the Secret History would have been ingrained in the minds of all four brothers.5 Once the succession had been decided and accepted, Chaghadai became a fanatically loyal subject, and Rashid al-Din recalls a telling anecdote about the prince demonstrating his loyalty and sometimes obsessional observance of the yasa. One day, out riding with his 99

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brother, both extremely drunk, Chaghadai challenged Ogodai to a race and proceeded to win the wager and the heat by a head. That same night Chaghadai was gripped with anguish and convinced he had set a dangerous precedent. ‘This was an act of great impropriety. If this keeps up, we and the others will become brazen, and it will result in weakening the kingdom.’6 He then demanded to be hauled before the courts and publically punished. However, on Ogodai’s insistence he was formally pardoned and a gift of nine horses was accepted in lieu of a fine. As a further sign of Ogodai’s trust in and love for his brother, the Qa’an Ogodai placed his son and named successor, Guyuk Khan, in Chaghadai’s retinue as a guard and ‘Chaghadai’s status reached a magnificence beyond description.’7 Though none doubted his respect and loyalty, it was thought that unconsciously or otherwise, Chaghadai was able to intimidate his brother. Secure in his ordu in the vicinity of Almaliq, Chaghadai provided Ogodai with unwavering support and provided advice on matters of law and tradition recalling the Great Khan’s advice that ‘any who desire to know customs and wisdom well, go to Chaghadai’.8 He was severe in his judgements and harsh in his application of the law and in its infringement, attributes which cost him any hope of the qa’anship. He died seven months before his brother, the Qa’an, in 1241.9 The four sons of Borte, Chinggis Khan’s first and chief wife, were his kulugs and therefore the chief heirs to the Empire. The youngest, Tolui, was bequeathed the otchigin, the heartlands of Mongolia along the Tola, Onon and Kerulen rivers. Ogodai received the lands west from Lake Balkhash along the Imil and Irtysh rivers. Jochi’s ulus was divided between his 14 surviving heirs, supervised by Batu and Orda, and comprised the lands of the west from the Altai mountains, or as Juwayni famously recorded, the lands to the west as far as ‘Tatar hoof has trod’.10 Chaghadai assumed control of Uyghuria and the lands formerly administered by the Khitans (Liao), known locally as the Qara Khitai, and he established a capital in Almaliq, modern-day Yining, on the River Ili. He was declared the guardian of the Great Yasa. Chaghadai’s respect for the yasa translated as respect for Ogodai and unquestioning respect for his position as Qa’an, which did not prevent Ogodai continuing to be slightly intimidated by his elder brother. Chaghadai felt compelled to admonish the excessive consumption of alcohol indulged in by the Qa’an, and Ogodai in turn 100

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felt compelled to respond with his brother’s concern and ‘could not disobey his brother’s order’.11 Ogodai followed his brother’s wishes and restricted himself to one bowl of ‘wine’ per day, but in order to comply with Chaghadai’s directives, he had had an enormous bowl especially constructed to meet his excessive alcoholic requirements. The wily but widely respected Mahmud Yalavach and his son Masʿud Beg administered Ogodai’s lands while the Qa’an concerned himself with imperial matters in his new capital, Qaraqorum, which he ordered constructed in 1235, the year the Jurchens finally surrendered. On Chaghadai Khan’s death in 1241, his position as Chaghadaid khan was filled by his grandson Qara Hulegu, whose father, Mo’etuken, a favourite of Chinggis Khan, had died in the battle for Bamiyan in 1221. Mo’etuken was Chaghadai’s first born, and his early death greatly grieved his father,12 and though ‘consumed by an inner fire’ he refrained from publicly grieving in recognition of a pledge to his father, Chinggis Khan, not to ‘cry or bemoan’ his favourite son’s demise.13 However, Qa’an Guyuk (r.1246–8), not trusting Qara Hulegu, awarded the powerful position to Chaghadai’s fifth and oldest-living son, Yesu Mongke, who was also a close drinking buddy, a nadim, of Guyuk. Yesu Mongke’s reign did not long survive that of his mentor, and with the rise of the Toluids and Mongke Khan, he was quickly deposed in favour of Qara Hulegu whose earlier support for Mongke had now worked to his advantage. However, it was Qara Hulegu’s Muslim wife, Orghina Khatun, who had to carry out Mongke Qa’an’s yasa against Yesu Mongke after her husband’s sudden, untimely death, and who then claimed Qara Hulegu’s throne for herself. The bloody establishment of the House of Tolui at the heart of the Chinggisid Empire had dire repercussions on the houses of the Ogodaids and Chaghadaids. With accusations of rebellion and plots levied against the leading Ogodaid princes and what were perceived as their Chaghadaid supporters, Mongke Khan instigated a limited but cautionary blood bath against the opposition, tempered by the wise words of the minister Mahmud Yalavach. The minister had intimated that it would be better to maintain a cowed but obedient ulus than an exiled, disenfranchised body of potential rebels, and therefore the lands and appanages of his executed enemies were granted to those sons and grandsons not directly implicated in sedition.14 Orghina 101

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Khatun, a granddaughter of Chinggis, was confirmed in office as regent for her infant son, Mubarakshah, and head of the Ulus of Chaghadai. A layer of power and potential rebellion had been removed, but the Ogodaids and Chaghadaids had in no way been cauterised. The subsequent history of the House of Chaghadai is dominated by its khans’ relationships with other Chinggisid khanates, either as allies or as rivals and enemies, and in particular with the Ogodaids. The Jochid khans occasionally dominated but were usually content to partner their cousins in the east with whom they shared an antipathy with the Toluids of Iran and China. The Chaghadaids had a more complex relationship with the Ogodaids, who dominated their partners under the imposing rule of the charismatic Qaidu Khan (1230–1301). The history of the Chaghadaids until their effective dissolution with the appearance of Timur Khan and the appropriation of their name by the tyrant, is of various rulers struggling to retain power and occasionally rising above the common fray to leave their mark on the development of the Chinggisid Empire. In 1259 Mongke Khan’s death saw the political, cultural and ideological split that had been undermining Chinggisid unity for decades openly proclaimed as the imperial princes revealed their true convictions in their choice of successor to the Qa’anate. The progressive Toluids, who had embraced the sedentary cultures of Persia and China, flocked to Qubilai Khan’s flag which fluttered high above China and even received the tacit support of the Song emperors, while the disgruntled traditionalists who hankered after the glory days when the steppe ruled supreme found their champion in Qubilai’s youngest brother, Ariq Buqa, who had raised the flag of the Yasa-ites above the ramparts of the steppe capital of Qaraqorum. Each brother now courted all who might provide support, whether financial, political or martial, and as Great Khan they bestowed titles and prestigious positions on those who believed them. In 1261, Ariq Buqa appointed Alghu Khan (son of Baidar, grandson of Chaghadai) to head the Ulus of Chaghadaid, and Qubilai’s appointee, Abishqa, was dismissively murdered. However, as Ariq Buqa’s resistance began to crumble, Alghu (d.1266) re-aligned his loyalties and in 1263 he formally switched his allegiance to Qubilai Khan, hastening the inevitable victory. As a reward Qubilai confirmed him as overlord of the territory stretching from the Altai to 102

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the Oxus, including all the former Ogodaid lands as well. To cement his position, he had won the support and the hand of Oirat Princess Orghina, a Muslim, and crucially he also had the active support of the veteran administrator, Mas’ud Beg. If Alghu had been able to solidify these gains and achieve wider recognition, history might have been very different and the final endgame of the Chinggisid Empire unrecognisable. However, Alghu’s death in 1266 shortly after Hulegu Khan’s demise in 1265 and just prior to the Golden Horde’s Berke Khan’s death in 1267, left a dangerous political vacuum which Orghina Khatun attempted to fill by appointing her own son Mubarakshah to the Chaghadaid leadership without first seeking the approval of the new Great Khan Qubilai. Qubilai’s disastrous support for Baraq Khan as ruler of the Chaghadaid khanate to counter Mubarakshah’s appointment led to a period of great instability, and eventually the final glorious swan song of the House of Ogodai. Baraq switched allegiance from Qubilai to the ambitious Ogodaid prince, Qaidu. Khwandamir spoke for many when he declared: As is agreed upon by all historians, Baraq Khan was a harsh, tyrannical ruler who was over fond of confiscating his subjects’ goods, known for his bravery and courage, and renowned for his over-bearing pride and conceit.15

Baraq was cleverly manipulated by Qaidu, the son of Ogodai’s son, Kashi,16 who used the Chaghadaid khan’s predictable fall to assume power for himself and to dominate Turkestan and beyond until his death in 1301. Though few outside his political neighbourhood credited his aspirations, Qaidu aspired to the Chinggisid throne. He adopted the title Qa’an and had his tamgha embossed alongside the insignia of his Chaghadaid subordinate, Du’a Khan, on specially minted coins. He adopted the trappings of imperial power and exercised authority over his neighbours and received recognition as the dominant ruler over the lands of Transoxiana and Moghulistan. Though he never made any serious attempts to invade either Iran or China, his raids and incursions had powerful symbolic value. His first concern was to restore the honour due to the House of Ogodai and restore the regional domination that his forefathers had enjoyed. His ambitions did not seem to encompass Iran or China. His short-lived occupation 103

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Fig. 7: Mongol siege engines

of the first imperial capital, Qaraqorum, in 1289 and his capture of the old Chaghadaid capital, Almaliq, however, were enough to assure him the allegiance of the Chaghadaid prince, Du’a. The charismatic Qaidu had captured the imagination of the steppe-based khanates, though without the premature death of Alghu in 1266 he might have been a mere footnote in the history books. Baraq had been flexing his political and military muscles, inflicting a decisive victory over Qaidu on the Jaxartes, and it was to curb his disruption that the 1269 quriltai was announced in Talas to bring about an agreement between the three regional powers, Mongke-Temur of the Golden Horde (r.1267–81), Baraq of the 104

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Chaghadaids and Qaidu representing the Ogodaids. Qubilai and Abaqa were noticeably absent, not having been invited. The Talas quriltai formally divided the Chinggisid Empire and set out to meet the aspirations of the three khanates, particularly the troublesome Baraq: ‘I too am a fruit of this tree. I too should have an assigned yurt and livelihood’.17 Two-thirds of the revenue of Turkestan would be assigned to Baraq, while the remaining third would be shared by Qaidu and Mongke-Temur. They would safeguard the interests of the urban population under the administration of Mas’ud Beg. Crucially, however, Baraq’s nomadic tribesmen and his armies would be excluded from the region’s cities and he would not be allowed to enter or even approach any urbanised area. Qaidu retained full control of the regional centres of Samarqand, Bokhara, Khwarazm and the other great cultural and commercial centres. When Baraq realised the implications, the documents had been signed and sealed. Disgruntled, he resumed his traditional form of income generation, raiding. His ill-fated campaign in 1270 into Khorasan and his attack on Herat, a venture fully encouraged by Qaidu, ended in disaster and his humiliating retreat and death, possibly at the hands of Qaidu’s agents who he had presumed to be the promised military relief. Rashid al-Din claims that the despised Baraq died of fright when he realised that he was trapped.18 With Baraq no longer on the political chequerboard, Qaidu consolidated power, absorbing the remnants of Baraq’s armies, executing those who opposed him, like the sons of Baraq and Alghu, and the newly installed khan of the Chaghadaids, Neguberi (son of Sarban, grandson of Chaghadai; r.1271–2). Henceforth Qaidu appointed the Chaghadaid khans himself, and he started with the enthronement of Boqa-Temur (r.1272–82), a grandson of Mo’etuken’s son Buri. Qaidu’s independent Ogodaid state enjoyed its apogee during the 1280s and 90s when it continued to be a painful thorn in the side of Qubilai’s Yuan Empire and made repeated inroads into Uyghuria and the Tarim basin area while encouraging other rebellions against Khanbaliq. In 1285 assistance was extended to the Bry-Gung rebels in Tibet, while in 129519 an insurrection by Nayan, a descendant of Chinggis Khan’s brother Otchigin, pinned Qubilai Khan down in Manchuria allowing Qaidu and Du’a to launch a raid on Mongolia, cumulating in 1289 in the occupation of Qaraqorum. Even though 105

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Yuan troops were able to expel the invaders in a short while, large areas of the Mongol homeland remained in rebel hands until 1293, and despite Qubilai’s garrisons regaining control of the Yenisey region, resources and revenue continued to be adversely affected. Qaidu was never an existential or serious threat to either Yuan China or Ilkhanid Iran but he became a magnet for moral dissidents who felt that the Toluid regimes had betrayed the ideals of Chinggis Khan. Qaidu was the model Chinggisid steppe ruler and some believed his daughter Qutulun Chaghan (1260–1306) encompassed the essence of steppe womanhood. So famous was Qaidu’s daughter that even Marco Polo felt drawn to record her life and times for his European audience. She was her father’s favourite and his chosen successor, though that was never allowed. Rashid al-Din claims their relationship was too intimate and that this was the reason she delayed marriage for so long. ‘She was listened to by her father, and she handled the administration for him’ and they rode to battle together.20 Her military and athletic prowess was legendary, and it is claimed that she insisted that any would-be suitor for her hand in marriage must first defeat her in a wrestling bout forfeiting the dowry of horses should the suit prove unsuccessful. Her private stables is said to have amounted to 100,000 stallions. Certainly, in comparison with their Chinese and Persian sisters, Mongol women enjoyed far more influence and power, and it is revealing that Qutulun Khatun, however exaggerated her image might have become, epitomised the ideal woman. Qaidu entrusted his loyal subordinate Du’a Khan (r.1282–1307) with ensuring a smooth transition of power to his capable son Orus on the Ogodaid throne when he died. Though Du’a had generally been content to defer to Qaidu in political matters, he had always strongly resisted any attempts by Qaidu to merge their two armies. Upon Qaidu’s death, Du’a used the power invested in him by Qaidu to cynically place not Qaidu’s choice, Orus, but his frail sibling Chapar on the throne, despite Chapar being ‘weak in opinion and weak in understanding’21 and ‘extremely thin and contemptible’.22 Qaidu had instructed his sons to heed the advice of Du’a, and within a few years Chapar’s rule was in disarray and Qaidu’s sons had fled seeking asylum in both the Yuan court and the Ilkhanate. As the spokesman for the whole region, Du’a abandoned Qaidu’s hostile foreign policies and sought to establish a regional and lasting 106

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peace. In 1303 Du’a proposed a peace treaty binding on all the Chinggisid Khanates that recognised the Yuan Qa’an in Khanbaliq as the titular head of the Empire, and he accordingly agreed to pay tribute. Subsequently, in 1304 Du’a, for the Chaghadaids, and Chapar Khan, for the House of Ogodai, formally surrendered to the Yuan court and had their respective leaderships recognised. This was beneficial to Du’a Khan in two ways. Firstly, his highly profitable military raids into India could continue unhindered and, secondly, his domination of the unruly though militarily useful Qaraʿunas of Eastern Afghanistan could be strengthened. Du’a Khan’s final act of treachery to the memory of Qaidu was a staged showdown between his forces and Chapar, his brother Sarban, and their supporter, Baba. Baba was routed and Talas destroyed, Sarban fled south to the Ilkhanate and surrendered. In 1306 Du’a, allied with the Yuan commander and future Qa’an, Qaishan (r.1307–11), moved against Chapar’s brother Orus, whose crack troops were stationed on the Yuan frontier. The Ogodaid princes were crushed and their ulus dissolved. They were all forced into exile in the neighbouring states, never to re-group again, leaving Du’a free to consolidate his gains and strengthen his rule. Chapar lived in Khanbaliq and was granted the revenue from Chinese appanages, frozen since Qaidu’s hostilities, and he was awarded the title Prince of Runing, Henan Province, Northern China, which was passed on to his son and his grandson. The one weakness in Du’a Khan’s plans was the numerous sons that he left and the succession battles that gripped the region following his death. Konchek ruled for a year before his death, followed by Taliqu, who was a grandson of Buri and a princess from Kirman. In 1309 Taliqu was challenged and defeated by Du’a’s son, Kobek. Kobek then stood down in favour of his brother, Esen Buqa, only to return to the throne again in 1318. Though Du’a lay claim to the whole region of Turkestan, this region divided naturally into western Transoxiana, containing some of Islam’s greatest urban jewels like Bokhara and Samarqand, and eastern Moghulistan, which lay firmly in the hands of the nomadic tribes. The conflict between these two regions and the resistance of the east to domination by the west defined Chaghadaid politics until the rise of the monstrous Timurlane and beyond. Among the many claimants to the Chaghadaid throne and to leadership of the tribes a few names stand out: Esen Buqa I, Kobek, 107

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Tarmashirin and Tughluq Temur defined and shaped the last decades of the Chaghadaid Ulus and deserve recognition. Esen Buqa I (r.1310–20) ruled for a decade, struggling to gain back territory both in the east, over which he felt that Yuan forces were encroaching, and also in the south-west, where his attempts at inciting rebellion in Khorasan backfired. He had sent his brother and successor, Kobek, to invade Khorasan in 1314 along with the armies of the Qaraʿunas to neutralise any threat to his activities in Afghanistan. However, when he recalled Kobek and sent him to bolster the campaign on the eastern front, Yara’ur, a rebel commander, at the instigation of the Ilkhan Uljaytu, devastated an exposed Transoxiana in retaliation before seeking asylum in the Ilkhanate. On his death, Esen Buqa I’s brother Kobek (r.1318–26) assumed control again, and with stability as his priority he re-established peace with the Yuan Qa’an, though such a move angered the tribal leaders in Moghulistan since they considered the Chinese foreign invaders. In 1323 he struck a deal which satisfied his amirs and pleased the Chinese. In return for a formal submission and the establishment of a tribute relationship, authority over Uyghuria was returned to Kobek. The Chaghadaid khan could now concentrate on ruling and uniting the state with a return to economic prosperity and political stability. However, it was his internal affairs and reforms for which he is remembered rather than his foreign policies and adventures. He built a new residential palace in the capital, Qarshi, and he strove to restore the economy through the encouragement of agriculture, trade and urban renewal, despite generations of war and depredation. Coins were minted in his name (kebeks/kopeika) and a new decimalbased administration was formed with attempts to limit the powers of his amirs, all moves which earned him the reputation of being a just ruler. Kobek’s reign is sometimes portrayed as the zenith of the Chaghadaid Khanate. With a semblance of stability returning to Transoxiana and with his authority re-established over the Qaraʿunas, wealth-generating raids and campaigns into India resumed. As a sign of his military confidence, Kobek, the ‘champion of justice’,23 mounted a raid on Khorasan with his ally Ozbeg Khan of the Golden Horde, led by his brother and commander in Afghanistan, Tarmashirin. However, the overly ambitious raid was repelled by Abu Saʿid’s troops and Tarmashirin’s forces were routed. Ghazni 108

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stayed firmly in Chaghadaid hands, however, and therefore Kobek’s ability to campaign in India was not stalled. Tarmashirin led a very successful raid there, sacking Delhi and Gujarat before returning to Ghazni with vast amounts of plunder. Eljigidei Khan (1327–30) continued the policies of his brother, which included a highly lucrative campaign against Delhi and Gujarat. He moved the capital to Almaliq and repaired relations with Khanbaliq, which had been damaged after his apparent involvement in a failed coup d’état in 1328–9 involving Qoshila, the exiled son of Qaishan. Tarmashirin (r.1331–4), known also as Sultan ʿAla al-Din after his conversion, returned the capital to Transoxiana when he ascended the throne, and like Kobek he encouraged trade and agriculture. Ibn Battuta described the Sultan as ‘a man of great distinction, possessed of numerous troops and regiments of calvary, a vast kingdom, and immense power, and just in his government’.24 Tarmashirin also promoted Islam and actually encouraged his soldiers and courtiers to convert, though many were already converts at this time.25 Being a devout Muslim, he used his faith to promote diplomatic and mercantile ties with other Muslim nations, including Mamluk Egypt and the Delhi Sultanate but not Muslim Iran. In fact he led an attack on Khorasan c.1326 which was not only repulsed but led to a counter-raid on Ghazni by the Ilkhan Abu Saʿid’s chief commander, Amir Chopan. Though Tarmashirin maintained warm relations with Yuan China, he avoided travelling to the east of his lands where many of his policies were not only disliked but were considered ‘blasphemous’, breaking with the yasa of Chinggis Khan.26 His promotion of trade and agriculture alienated him from the khans of Moghulistan and Uyghuria, where Nestorian Christians continued to flourish and European missionaries were generally welcomed. His death was followed by a confused period where power bounced between khans and amirs and east and west Turkestan. Tughluq Temur (r.1347–63), who eventually succeeded Qazan Sultan (r.1343–7), ‘the last bad ruler’ of the Chaghadaid Ulus, was a Muslim convert who ‘circumcised himself’ and ‘that day 120,000 people shaved their heads and became Muslim’.27 Tughluq Temur is said to have introduced Islam to Moghulistan, as the eastern provinces became known after invading and holding Transoxiana, 109

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and so for a short period from 1361 until his death in 1363, he united the Khanate. He was politically astute and it is debateable whether his conversion to Islam was from conviction or from his political judgement and his interpretation of the relentless spread of Islam from western Turkestan. He was appointed by a tribal confederacy led by the Dughlats and his acceptance by the peoples of the west of the khanate meant that the Ulus enjoyed a short period of unity before the devastation of Timurlane descended on the region. Though in some histories the story of the Chaghadaid Khanate is continued until well into the seventeenth century, and some breakaway khanates such as the Dzungars until the early twentieth century, Tughluq Temur is a worthy figure with which to end the classical period of the Ulus. His history and the history of the khans of Moghulistan is recorded in the Tarikh-i-Rashidi. Though the infamous Timur Khan (Timurlane) (1336–1405) sought legitimacy through his ties with the Chaghadaid khans, in fact the actual khan who acted as his puppet head of state and resided securely in the tyrant’s pocket belonged to the Ogodaid Ulus.

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6 THE MONGOLS IN IRAN

Iran had been in limbo for three decades. In fact, Iran had ceased to be a polity called Iran for nearly 600 years since the Arab invasion. Since the fall of the Sassanian Empire, a jumble of often warring states, Khorasan, Seistan, the two Iraqs, Azerbaijan, Arran, Kurdistan and the many city states, had replaced the strong state of Iranzamin. Originally Arab rulers had encouraged the patchwork to bury the concept of a Persian polity challenging their hegemony from across the Tigris–Euphrates valley. Turanian Turks had dislodged the Arabs and the first shoots of a renascent Persian nationalism, but the suicidal murders of the Chinggisid envoys by the delusional Khwarazmshah had initiated a catastrophe that had plunged the region into anarchy. An interregnum had stifled the country from the early 1220s until the appearance of a slow-moving, vast army on its north-eastern borders, across the Oxus. This huge army had been dispatched by the new Great Khan, Mongke, under the banners of his brother, Hulegu Khan. It had been heralded by countless delegates and envoys who had kept the Oxus ferries busy with their constant traffic between the mobile city of the new king, Hulegu, whose teeming ordu was relentlessly edging closer to Iran, and the host of local and regional potentates and rulers anxious to curry favour and eager to present their credentials and supplications to this royal arrival, brother to the most powerful man on Earth. A delegation from the northern Iranian city of Qazvin had already been to Mongke’s inauguration and had sought to exploit historical links with these royal brothers 111

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who were known to be favourably inclined towards their city. Their embassy had comprised leading Persian courtiers in key positions at court and local scholars to pander to this family’s love of erudition and learning.

THE QAZVINI DELEGATION Hulegu Khan’s arrival on the south side of the Amu Darya, or the Oxus, in the 1250s was the second time that a large Mongol-led military force had landed south of the great river poised to advance on the Iranian plateau. Three decades earlier his grandfather Chinggis Khan had unleashed his forces in a destructive campaign of retribution and conquest. Hulegu Khan had come in response to an invitation from the Persian notables of Qazvin. He and his brothers harboured the aim of extending the mercantile, political and cultural power of the Chinggisid Empire and its emerging new dynamic re-incarnation under Mongke Khan, eldest of the brothers, by consolidating their grip on power over the southern half of the greater Chinggisid Empire encompassing Iran, Tibet and China. The delegation from Qazvin had approached Mongke Qa’an with the request that he extend his direct rule over the Iranian heartlands and appoint a prince to replace the ineffective and corrupt military regime under the governor, Baiju Noyan, which had been in place since the early 1220s. The Iranians had seen the rising fortunes of individual Persians and Muslims in the Chinggisid domains, and they sought to bring their land out from the cold and in from the peripheral political wastelands of the west. They sought to pre-empt any ambitions that the Turanian rulers might harbour towards their lands and welcome the new generation of sophisticated, worldly and educated young princes and, as they had done so many times before, assimilate the migrants from north of the Oxus. A merchant, another member of the delegation, eloquently explained the expectations of the people of Iran from their request to the Great Khan. After Mongke rejected his appeal to build a bridge across the Oxus, the silver-tongued Qazvini elaborated: O illustrious and magnanimous Qa’an, we do not speak of a bridge made of stone (naguyim pol az sang), or brick, nor a bridge of chains. I want a 112

The Mongols in Iran bridge of justice (khwaham pol az dad) over that river, for where there is justice, the world is prosperous. He who comes over the river Amu Darya finds the Qa’an’s justice, and on this side of the river there is justice and a path. On that side of the river, the world is evil, and some people become prosperous through injustice. When one passes over the river into the land of Iran, the world is full of injustice, enmity and oppression.1

The young generation of Chinggisid rulers had indulged the steppe rulers’ tradition of surrounding themselves with scholars and scientists, and there was a rising generation of erudite Iranians determined to take full advantage of an empire whose doors were about to open fully to welcome them. Meanwhile, individual notables and their families, such as Baydawi, the Iftikhariyans, and the Juwaynis, were ready to exploit their contacts and positions. Hulegu came not so much as a conqueror but as a king arriving to ascend his throne and re-establish the kingdom of Iran.

Fig. 8: The grandchildren of the Great Khan led very different lives from him and enjoyed the luxuries of court life 113

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For the first time since the Arab conquests of the seventh century, Iran would exist as a state and a major regional, if not global, player. Contemporary chroniclers and those writing later in the Ilkhanid period recognised Hulegu as the reviver of the land of Iran, Iranzamin. Qadi Baydawi, a senior Sunni cleric whose theological expositions are still considered today, wrote a short summary of Iranian history more akin to agitprop than serious history in order to underline his support for Hulegu and the absorption of Iran into the Chinggisid Empire. His short history refers to Mongke ‘bestow[ing] Iran-zamin upon [Hulegu]’. Later, he describes Hulegu’s heir, Abaqa, as the ruler of ‘Iran-zamin’.2 Mustawfi portrays Hulegu and his kinsmen in Transoxiana and the Pontic steppe continuing the legendary battles between ‘lashkar-i Iran’3 and Turan. Shabankaraʿi, a Kurdish chronicler, describes the descendants of Hulegu as the ‘salaṭin-i Iran’, and the Tarikh-i Qarakhatayan written for their Perso-Khitan queen emphasises the concept of ‘Iran-zamin’4 which certainly chimed with Ilkhanid patronage of art and literature promoting the legacy of the Shahnama, as has been demonstrated in several previous studies.5 Hulegu Khan (1218–65) During his youth, Hulegu and his brothers had been nurtured by their remarkable mother, Sorqoqtani Beki.6 She had instilled in her sons a love of learning and a respect for scholars. It was a trait found among steppe leaders and manifest in the popular practice of public debates. Where other cultures glorified the thrusts of sword play, animal taunting or jousting on horseback, the Chinggisids relished the clash of ideas and the drama of the debate. Rashid al-Din recognised the khan’s deep love of wisdom and his encouragement of debate and scholarship while admiring his court ‘adorned with the presence of scholars and wise men’. This was a view endorsed by Bar Hebraeus, another intellectual giant who had personal knowledge of the king, who believed Hulegu ‘was possessed of an understanding which endeared him to wise men and ulema, which was a characteristic he shared with his brother, Qubilai, who ‘loved wise men, the ulema and the godly of all sects and nations’.7 Many recognised in Hulegu the presence of farr or majesty which instilled in him the charisma needed for leadership. Nasir al-Din Tusi, almost as soon as he was ‘released’ from the Ismaʿili stronghold Alamut, 114

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found himself as Hulegu’s special adviser with enormous influence and power, a position he owed solely to his reputation for erudition and wisdom and his deep knowledge of science. Qashani echoes Rashid al-Din when he writes that Hulegu ‘loved science, [and] was infatuated with astronomy and geometry; consequently scientists from East and West congregated at his court and his contemporaries were fascinated by different branches of learning, geometry and mathematics’. However, he continues, ‘In the time of Just Abaqa, … his intention was the promotion of farming, building and agriculture in such a way that his contemporaries followed and were guided by him’,8 and to complete the picture he claims that under Arghun industry and chemistry were the disciplines especially encouraged. The early Ilkhans are portrayed as surrounding themselves with the wise and the scholarly, there to be consulted and their opinions weighed and compared with their fellow experts. There was a belief at the time that Hulegu had embraced Islam, a tradition alluded to by the Safavid chronicler Ibn Bazzaz (d.1391) in the Ṡafwat al-ṡafa, ‘the padeshahs, Berke Khan and Hulegu Khan became Muslims’.9 One explanation for the emergence of such a tradition might have been to explain how an infidel could act so openly in the interests of Islam, which Hulegu very often did.10 The young Rukn al-Din had inherited the Ismaʿili throne following the death of his dissolute father, ʿAla al-Din Mohammad III (r.1221– 55), for which many believed him responsible. As Hulegu approached his lair and his outlying castles in Qohestan and elsewhere fell and surrendered, the young Imam played desperately and hopelessly for time against the inevitable. Alamut’s ‘guests’, who often included the leading intellectual lights and thinkers of the country, advised him to negotiate with the advancing army and privately welcomed the advent of Hulegu. When finally their words were heeded and the king surrendered, Hulegu showed his appreciation by welcoming their spokesman, the world famous astronomer, scientist, theologian and thinker Nasir al-Din Tusi, into his inner circle and safe-guarding the future of a young Rashid al-Din and his celebrated Jewish family. Rashid al-Din confirms that ‘many poor people and Muslims had joined them [the intellectuals], and they were all in full agreement in making efforts to encourage the Khwarshah to surrender’. Despite Juwayni’s claim that he oversaw the destruction of many of the books in the famous library of Alamut, it is doubtful whether Tusi or 115

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Rashid al-Din’s family would have allowed such a despicable act of delinquency to occur. Hulegu initially treated the young Rukn al-Din with kindness and respect and allowed him the hand of a young Mongol woman. It was on the arrogant insistence of the Khwarshah himself that he was eventually dispatched east to Qaraqorum and on the insistence of Mongke Khan that his blatant squandering of resources and manpower be punished by death, followed up by the death of the rest of his unfortunate community. Though many were subsequently killed, the Ismaʿili community retreated underground and behind the defence of taqiyya, as the aptly named poet, Nizari, recounts in his travelogue, the Safanama.11 When he was not visiting the dispersed communities of his co-religionists, the poet was employed as an official in the Ilkhanid administration. Juwayni gleefully describes the final days of the ‘Heretics’, and as he stood high above the ruins on the fallen castle’s battlements he had a revelation and he suddenly understood ‘God’s secret intent’, God’s purpose in sending Chinggis Khan and especially the reason God had willed the coronation of the Great Khan, Mongke. Firstly, Mongke’s rule had resulted in the annihilation of this divine blasphemy and the destruction of their headquarters, Alamut; secondly, the Chinggisid Empire had allowed for the spread of Islam ‘even unto China’; and thirdly, perhaps most importantly, ‘the keys to the lands of the world’12 were now effectively in the hands of Muslims like him. Juwayni, whose father had entered Chinggisid service three decades earlier, had grown up in Mongol ordus. He had travelled the world and been educated along with the children of the Empire’s elite and had seen the ethos and working of the imperial machine from the inside. Juwayni, whose brother Shams al-Din was to become prime minister, had learnt his very Persian intellectual arrogance and acquired his very impressive literacy and education in the camps of the Mongol princes.13 Hulegu rewarded his faithful service by making him governor of Baghdad shortly after the city’s fall. Hulegu famously went lion hunting as soon as he had crossed the Oxus. He continued to ensure that logistics were activated and preparations were in place to supply the huge army that he was leading into the west and that the people who had little choice but to host this mighty military machine were inconvenienced as little 116

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as possible. Though his call to arms contained a thinly veiled threat, it was met with an enthusiastic response and a popular muster of Iranian troops happy to follow Hulegu’s flag to Alamut and the gates of Baghdad. I am setting out against the Heretics. If you send assistance in the form of troops and armaments and provisions and military supplies I will count it as a favour and your province will have peace and security, and if you neglect to do this when I become free from such concerns, I will deal with you and after that no excuses or apology will be acceptable.14

Just as the final siege of Alamut was joined by Iranian troops sent by the country’s loyal rulers from their various city states, so too was the fall of Baghdad facilitated by the combined massing of Iran’s united might. Hulegu requested that all Iran’s cities send troops to join his imperial forces and the call was met with little dissent. [Hulegu] organised his armies in such a way that from the province of Pars until the province of Rum one body of men without limit and number descended upon Baghdad. The army of Pars and Kirman came by way of Khuzestan and Shushtar. It was such that the army’s left wing came by the shores of the Sea of Oman and the right wing had merged with their troops from Iraq and the rest. The army of Rum proceeded from the border of Syria and Diyarbakr in such a way that their left wing joined with the armies of Arran and Azerbaijan while at the same time they poured from all sides into Iraq-i-Arab.15

THE FALL OF BAGHDAD The fall of Baghdad in 1258 has been described in detail many times and eye-witness accounts are readily available. Hulegu had no plan nor desire to destroy the city, and it would have suited his vision for himself as the legitimate and just ruler of the region if the caliph Mustaʿsim had surrendered to him and accepted the hand of a suitably royal young Mongol princess, as his envoys had been attempting to arrange since embassies had been exchanged. Hulegu had already received the support and recognition from the Shiʿite community of 117

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Iraq al-Arab, whose spokesman, Ibn Tawus, had officially declared that an infidel but just ruler was preferable to an unjust Muslim leader. The Armenians had been long-term allies of the Chinggisids, and they along with the Georgian kings and the Kurdish warlords such as Badr al-Din Luʿlu, governor of Irbil and Mosul, now joined the ranks of the main army already swelled by the addition of the many Iranian troops from the provinces. The caliph Mustaʿsim was a victim of his bickering courtiers and the internal politics of his palace machinations still locked in the vicious religious civil war which had been destroying the city-state for more than two years. While the Shiʿite minister Ibn al-Alqami advised talk and a negotiated surrender, a Sunni minister, Mujahid al-Din Aybak, the wily and ambitious nephew of the Caliph, fed paranoia and venom into the body politic and convinced the deputy of God that he could do no wrong and that these barbarians braying at his gates and the treacherous blasphemers undermining his government must be resisted and ignored. The envoys bearing gifts and honours which Ibn al-Alqami dispatched to Hulegu’s camp were intercepted and their treasures robbed while the letters that they contained bearing conciliatory words and urging compromise were produced before the Caliph as examples of Ibn al-Alqami’s secret correspondence and treachery. The Caliph, who was pathologically avaricious and even reluctant to pay his own soldiers, reacted with horror at this squandering of his riches. Instead of preparing for war, he sought solace in the arms of his dancing girls. Badr al-Din Luʿlu is recorded as despairing for the fate of his religion, Islam, when he received messages from both his allies; Hulegu demanded ‘artillery and siege material’ as contributions for the final showdown, and the Caliph demanded that he send him ‘a company of musicians’.16 Baghdad fell and the death toll, capped by the execution of the Caliph and his sons, was shocking. The victorious armies were permitted to indulge in a short period of plundering and looting, though strict limitations and restrictions were enforced. Most of the deaths were caused by unchecked pestilence, much of the widespread physical damage had been caused by the years of civil war and a devastating flood which had swept through the city some months before Hulegu’s arrival. Accounts survive of individual local notables coming to personal understandings with Chinggisid amirs, such as the musician ʿUrmavi, whose musical entertainment and lavish feast 118

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Fig. 9: Hulegu in Baghdad. According to some accounts the Caliph was invited to eat his fill of his precious treasures which he had hoarded rather than use to pay his armies

saved his district from destruction and ensured him an audience and future with Hulegu.17 Shaykh Tawus guaranteed the safety of the Shiʿite community and their mosques and homes in Baghdad, as did the arrangements of certain merchants and businessmen who had dealings with the Chinggisids elsewhere. Baghdad’s libraries, despite the later widespread reports of their destruction, were transferred to the safe-keeping of Nasir al-Din Tusi at his university and observatory in Maragha, along with a young novice librarian, Ibn Fuwati, who eventually succeeded Tusi as the director of the library and in fact oversaw the re-establishment of Baghdad’s libraries. After the execution of the Caliph, swaddled in carpets and kicked to death as befitted a royal personage, Hulegu, who had himself contracted the pestilence, ordered the end to the violence and looting and the re-opening of the city and its bazaars. Ibn al-Alqami was appointed governor, which disproves those who accused him of treachery since any suspicion that he had acted against his legitimate master the Caliph would have disqualified him from office and would probably have earned him a death sentence. However, though Hulegu had judged him favourably, ‘[Ibn al-Alqami] is an intelligent man; he attends both to our interests and to those of his own master’, 119

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he died not long after taking office. In his stead ʿAta Malik Juwayni was appointed governor of Baghdad, and his brother, Shams al-Din, became prime minister, the two forming a very powerful alliance.18 Initially Hulegu established the bustling market town of Maragha as his capital. It lay not far to the east of the great inland lake of Urmiyya on the slopes of the Sahand mountain, the other side of whose peak nestled Tabriz, the economic heart of Azerbaijan. Initially Tusi’s famous observatory, the Rasadkhana, and his seat of learning with its 400,000-tome library, attracted visitors from all over the Empire, as Ibn Fuwati, the librarian and compiler of the biographical dictionary of all the library’s patrons attested. The Rasadkhana, eventually superseded by Rashid al-Din’s Rabʿ al-Rashidi, was twinned with the Yuan institution the Hanlinyuan (Hanlin Academy), providing an intellectual and cultural bridge between the Yuan and the Ilkhanate which found reflection in the vibrant and artistically rich life of their respective cosmopolitan cities. The Ilkhanate developed through three periods. The first period saw Iran enjoy relative political stability, economic growth and cultural blossoming, underpinned by a sense of spiritual liberation as the restraints of an authoritarian ulema were replaced by an upsurge of Sufi schools and religious teaching flooded the whole region. In 1282 the reign of Ahmad Tegudar witnessed dissent and fatal weaknesses appearing in the ruling elite. The military objected to Ahmad’s unilateral, ill-conceived approaches to the Mamluks of Egypt and his relegation of authority to the crazed phantasies of a dangerous qalandar. Though his successor Arghun Khan imposed strong government, the fault lines between the traditionalists and the cosmopolitan Chinggisid Perso-Mongol elite persisted. When economic calamity threatened with the introduction of paper money, it was only the seizure of power by the young Ghazan Khan in 1295 that saved the Ilkhanate from disaster. The instability of the second period gave way to the so-called ‘Golden Age’, with Ghazan converting to Islam and proclaiming the Ilkhan king of all Iranians whether Turk or Tajik, Muslim or infidel. The Ilkhanate never actually went into decline; instead Abu Saʿid, the last Ilkhan, died without heir, and his death saw the collapse of the regime as Iran descended into chaos.

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THE FIRST PERIOD There were initially years of optimism and prosperity as stability returned after so many long tumultuous decades. Both Hulegu and his son, Abaqa Khan, received ‘good press’ as various communities reasserted themselves in this dynamic new climate. Merchants took advantage of the widely expanded markets, and the Silk Road entered the period of its greatest ever vitality. Artisans, many newly arrived from the other side of the Empire, exploited these same markets and created new domestic demand as people came to terms with this environment of stability and security, engendering a Persian renaissance to blossom. The odes of Saʿdi echoed not only in the diwans of Shiraz but on the far-off shores of Khinsa’i’s (Hangzhou’s) beautiful West Lake as merchants and traders, artisans and artists, adventurers and advisers, chancers and fortune-hunters, opportunists and romantics rode east creating the web and weave of empire building. This first period of Ilkhanid rule extended into Ahmad Tegudar’s reign (1282– 4), coinciding with the successful founding of Qubilai Khan’s Yuan Empire and the establishment of his new capital, Dadu or Khanbaliq, constructed under the guidance of the Persian engineer, Jamal alDin. The first period of Ilkhanid rule was spoilt by three military conflicts, namely the Battle of Ayn Jalut on 3 September 1260, the border skirmishes in the Caucasus initiated by Berke Khan, and finally the Battle of Herat, which threatened the stability of Khorasan and brought Abaqa Khan to the battle front in the east. Ayn Jalut is often portrayed as a major Mongol defeat that destroyed the Chinggisid’s reputation for infallibility, a picture which is at the same time both completely false and accurate. As a military defeat its only repercussion was the tragic loss of one of Hulegu’s chief generals, Ket Buqa, who had been left in charge of the Ilkhanid forces in Syria while Hulegu was in the east contemplating travelling to Qaraqorum following his brother Mongke’s death. The Mamluks had launched a surprise attack on Ket Buqa’s small army and had won a victory which included the capture of the general and his family. As a military victory it was of no real consequence, and the balance of power was not upset; but as news of the battle spread, the propaganda value of this defeat ratcheted up dramatically. In fact, in the jungles of Vietnam, Qubilai’s forces under the command of Uriyangqadai Noyan, suffered a far greater military setback, and the 121

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Mongol armies fresh from their victories in Yunnan province over the Kingdom of Dali had been ignominiously expelled from the country by the Dai Viet. The minor clash assumed such importance because it signified the formal alliance of the Golden Horde under the Jochid Khan Berke with the Mamluks of Egypt, the first time a Chinggisid khanate had formed an alliance with a non-Chinggisid polity against another Chinggisid khanate. Relations between the Jochids and the Toluids had been deteriorating since the death of Batu in 1255 and the opposition of Hulegu and Qubilai to Berke’s assumption of power. The Jochids had made it clear that they had designs on Iran, and their presence had caused strife even before the execution of the three Jochid princes Balagha, Tutar and Quli.19 [The Jochids] exercised authority in the realm [dar mulk ḥukm mikardand]. If ever Hulegu nominated their forces for some task, they would openly say, ‘Since our troops do most of the work, let him, namely Hulegu, not threaten us’ […] It was also the case that Berke’s shaḥnas and governors and his family held the choicest and best territories in Khurasan, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Arran and Georgia, and used to say, ‘They are our inju that is, our private property.’ And on every possible occasion factious persons would say things to aggravate the situation.20

Hulegu allowed the stalemate in Syria to continue, and the region became a ‘playground’ for Mamluk and Ilkhanid troops to skirmish and exercise with the status quo only occasionally upset by deeper incursions by either side. Hulegu had formed a Toluid alliance with his brother Qubilai whom he alone had supported as the new Qa’an. Qubilai’s coronation had split the Chinggisid Empire politically and culturally, with the traditionalist regimes of the Golden Horde, the Chaghadaids and the re-emerging Ogodaids under Qaidu viewing the Toluids as renegades, almost blasphemers, against the ideals of Chinggis Khan with their open courting of Persian and Chinese culture and the prominence of non-Mongol men of great influence and power in their ranks and administrations. Trouble flared periodically in the Syrian desert and Baybars conducted a campaign into Anatolia in 1277 which resulted in the fall of the Ilkhanid representative there, the Parvana, who met a particularly grisly end under a cloud of suspected treachery. It was even suggested that he was eaten by the troops that had seized him. 122

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A second military front was established in the Caucasus, always a much coveted region by whoever controlled the lands to the south and north of that forbidding mountainous barrier, after Berke launched a series of punitive but ultimately unsuccessful campaigns. Abaqa erected a barrier along the River Kur, manned by ‘Mongols and Muslims’, and established a base in Darband under the command of his brother prince Mongke-Temur with Samaghar Noyan and Oljai Khatun. After Berke’s death in 1266, his successor MongkeTemur Khan (d.1280) did not pursue the conflict with such passion, and trade routes were once again opened while Abaqa became more concerned with trouble brewing on his eastern front. In the east trouble arose after the ambitions of the Chaghadaid strongman, Baraq, were caressed and stimulated by the whispered words of the devious and very determined Qaidu Khan, who wished to restore the Ogodaid house to the place of honour in which it once stood. After the Talas quriltai of 1269 had determined that the lands of Turkestan and Transoxiana be divided between Mongke-Temur Khan of the Golden Horde, Qaidu Khan representing the Ogodaids and Baraq Khan, the Chaghadaid leader awarded control of two thirds of the land, all past enmity and conflicts were to be forgotten and the three Chinggisid rulers would form an alliance against the Toluids of China and Iran. The treaty had been devised to quiet the misgivings that the Jochid Khan and Qaidu felt towards Baraq and his propensity for violence and unwarranted savagery. Though it awarded Baraq generous land rights, it also severely restricted his access to the great cities of the region including Samarqand and Bokhara and forbade his unruly tribesmen from entering urban areas and from raising taxes from urban people while stipulating that his camps be based deep in the steppe. Such restrictions did not cover the lands of Iranian Khorasan however, and it was to the Ilkhanate that Baraq turned his attention in search of an answer to his financial woes. He launched his attack on Herat in 1270 with the moral and spiritual support of Qaidu after first sending his chief minister, Masʿud Beg, to gather intelligence from Abaqa’s court. Ultimately Baraq was fed misinformation and after initial successes on the plains outside Herat, he was encouraged to proceed with his invasion of Iran, leaving the city of Herat intact behind its walls, in the hands of one he thought to be a solid ally, Shams al-Din Kart, whose subterfuge saved his city but not his skin. 123

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Abaqa executed this loyal ruler of Herat after he had dealt with the Chaghadaid threat. Baraq was routed and was forced to beg a horse to escape the field of battle. As has been described elsewhere, it was an ignominious ending for an ignoble despot. While the Jochid khan, Mongke-Temur, sent a congratulatory message to Abaqa, Qaidu consolidated his near total control over the region, a troublesome ally now permanently disposed off. Abaqa Khan died suddenly of delirium tremors and left the throne to his brother, though support was strong for his reluctant son, Arghun. It is often assumed that it was because the new Khan, Ahmad Tegudar, professed Islam that the ruling Mongol amirs turned against him and ultimately deposed the third Ilkhan, son of Hulegu. In fact Iran’s clerics were no more supportive of the new Ilkhan than were the amirs, and generally speaking Ghazan Khan is still credited as being the first Muslim Ilkhan. Iran’s clerics found the Ilkhan’s practice of Islam deeply embarrassing, and there is no evidence that Ahmad had ever experienced a formal ceremony of conversion or had ever been instructed in the details and fineries of the religion. He was assisted in his religious duties by two extremely suspect figures, Shaykh Kamal-al-Din ʿAbd-al-Rahman and the hashishcrazed qalandar Ishan Hasan Mangoli, while he left the government in the hands of his mother, Qutui Khatun, and the amir, Asiq. He sent the Shaykh on an embassy to Cairo to see the sultan, Qalaun (r.1279–90) against the wishes and advice of his military; and the Mamluks neither replied nor returned his ambassador, the Shaykh, who died in Egypt. Ahmad’s execution of his brother, Qonghurtai, ‘a wise and powerful cypress’,21 on charges of conspiracy with his nephew, Arghun, provided the pretext for action, and in 1284 Ahmad was captured by forces loyal to his nephew, Arghun, and was executed by the breaking of his back, in the same manner as his own execution of his brother, and the throne was awarded to Arghun, an action eventually endorsed by Qubilai. It had also been Ahmad’s rehabilitation of the Juwayni brothers, powerful men with powerful enemies, and the execution of their principal antagonist, Majd alMulk Yazdi, that had angered influential insiders and Ahmad had not had the political instincts or nous to manoeuvre among and manipulate the many competing factions that had surrounded him.

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THE SECOND PERIOD The second period of the Ilkhanate covers the instability initiated by Ahmad’s ascendency. The economic and resulting social chaos that Iran was plunged into, during the reign of Gaykhatu in particular, provided Rashid al-Din with enough political ammunition to build himself an unassailable and fortified position. The portrait of himself as chief minister to the reforming sultan and champion of Islam had gone unchallenged until very recently. Trouble at the top and insecurity down below typified the years from 1282 to 1295, the year when the young Ghazan seized the throne. These troubled years spanned the reign of Arghun Khan, who never embraced the Toluid vision with the enthusiasm and conviction of other princes. Accusations that he harboured feelings of antagonism towards Muslims and his Persian subjects are generally unfounded and often without any basis. Unfortunately, his memory will forever be tainted by his treatment of the Juwayni brothers, whose demise he oversaw, believing the smears and lies of their detractors. Arghun was a strong leader however and stands in sharp contrast to his two successors, Gaykhatu (r.1291–5) and Baidu (r.1295). While Baidu’s main claim to fame is that he waged an ultimately unsuccessful military campaign against Ghazan Khan, Gaykhatu is remembered for his reputation for debauchery and the corruption of the young, as well as his disastrous introduction of the chao, which had proved very successful in Yuan China but led to economic collapse in Ilkhanid Iran. Arghun’s strength lay in the support he enjoyed from the military and may account for some of the less than sympathetic press he received in the chronicles. His reputation for being anti-Muslim can be traced to his persecution of the Juwaynis, who unfortunately received a fate not uncommon among Ilkhanid courtiers; the support he gave to his able but manipulative and nepotistic chief minister Saʿd al-Dawla ibn Hibbat Allah ibn Muhasib Abhari (1240–91); and his baseless association with a fantastical plot to destroy Mecca. Examples of his sympathy for Islam is provided by the Sufi poet ʿAla al-Dawla Semnani (1261–1336), whose personal narrative contains his own recollections of the Khan, including one evening when Arghun came close to converting himself. Semnani was Arghun’s nadim who attended the Prince at all times, including in battle when the two rode together against Ahmad Tegudar. Though he was most reluctant to 125

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allow him to go, Arghun eventually granted Semnani leave to retire from royal service to enter a religious retreat. Semnani pledged that he would never consort or communicate with people connected with the court or government. He kept this promise to Arghun, such was his respect for the Khan, when 30 years later he was consulted by the Muslim army commander Amir Chopan. The plot to subvert Mecca by founding a new religion based on Chinggis Khan as a prophet and converting the Kaʿba to a pagoda was purportedly suggested to Arghun by Saʿd al-Dawla. There is no evidence that Arghun even knew of the idea, and the story appeared in Wassaf’s history, more than three decades after his death.22 It was Arghun’s enthusiasm for Saʿd al-Dawlah that fuelled the stories of his animosity against Islam. However, Arghun’s enthusiasm was justified; as a minister Saʿd al-Dawlah was most capable and proved effective in strengthening the economy. He had won the approval of King Arghun after his successful unearthing of the financial irregularities of two ministers, Buqa and his brother Aruq, who for many represented all that was intrinsically wrong with the rule of the khans. Buqa’s major role in Arghun’s struggle against his uncle, Ahmad, enabled the brothers to centralise power in the hands of the noyat, the Mongol military elite, but their machinations were halted and Arghun Khan appointed his Jewish mustawfi to clear up the mess.23 Saʿd al-Dawlah’s fatal error was his nepotism, practised in a Muslim country, thereby calling attention to himself and his infidel family. Most chronicles grudgingly concede his financial competence, but a whispering campaign of satirical tracts, libellous stories and unsupported claims undermined Saʿd al-Dawlah’s credibility. ‘Behold […] there is a Jew governor and general director on the throne of the House of ʿAbbas. Observe how Islam has been brought low.’24 After Arghun’s death the rabble found the prime minister and a pogrom ensued. The mob was congratulated by a local Arab preacher, Zain al-Din Ali, for ridding the world of the ‘foulest race who e’er on earth did thrive’ and praising the Amir Tughachar whose ‘flashing falchion on their flesh did feed’ and whose treachery had lured the unsuspecting minister to his house for dinner.25 If Arghun did not deserve the negative reaction his memory excites, Gaykhatu certainly does, and his short reign plunged the country into near economic disaster. While the Ilkhan Gaykhatu embarked on an orgy of indulgent debauchery, the country was forced into an economic 126

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experiment from which it is fortunate to have returned. Gaykhatu is known for two things only, neither of which impart honour or credit. His lust for young flesh either male or female was insatiable and it is said that ‘in his day, there was not a beauty who was not called upon to satisfy him […] His excesses were such that there was no sign of kingly virtue in him.’26 To finance his expensive appetites, he made demands on an economy weakened by the uncertainties of a chaotic political transition that could not be met. His demands led to the introduction of the chao, which while successful in Yuan China was a system unknown and certainly not trusted in western Asia. In 1294 Iran’s economic situation had been compounded by the spread of a devastating livestock disease, yut,27 and Gaykhatu’s prime minister Sadr al-Din Zanjani in consultation with Bolad, the ambassador from the Yuan court, convinced themselves of the viability of introducing paper currency. The chao flooded Tabriz and merchants were ordered to trade in it on pain of death for failure to comply. Within days, gold was allowed to be used for the purchase of food as bazaars closed and commerce came to a halt. The experiment lasted two months, but the detrimental impact on the economy lingered far longer. However, the implementation of the chao did enable the introduction of block printing to Iran from China. Gaykhatu’s reign came to a close in character. The Ilkhan had reacted to a perceived insult from his cousin Baidu during a drinking session by having him severely beaten up by his henchmen. Baidu was left badly beaten and determined on bloody revenge; Gaykhatu was strangled in March 1295. Wassaf punned in plain language the universal disapproval of a dynasty, ‘with his reign behind him, Gaykhatu’s true love that is the behind, was shown’.28 [A] man who had no laws or faith and was also powerless in arms. Giving himself up entirely to debauchery and sin, he led the life of a dumb beast, a slave to the belly. He reigned for six loathsome years.29

Strangely enough, apart from depravity, Gaykhatu was also well known for his generosity and clemency. The generosity could more accurately be interpreted as financial recklessness and his clemency, which ultimately cost him his life, arose from his belief that Arghun’s early demise was directly linked to the number of nobles, princes and innocents whose blood he had shed. 127

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Baidu’s brief reign does not even warrant a mention in Rashid al-Din’s mammoth history. Its main significance is that it allowed an easier transition to Ghazan’s ascension of the Ilkhanid throne in 1295 with Ghazan’s blood link to Hulegu through Arghun Khan rather than Baidu’s via Taraghai. There was a reshuffling of supporters, a realignment of amirs with the serial defector and pogromer, Taghachar, joining Ghazan’s camp, and for the first time religious affiliation became an issue. Baidu called upon Christians to flock to his cause, while Ghazan ensured the support of Arghun Aqa’s son, Nowruz Noyan, after he had unequivocally proclaimed himself a Sunni Muslim.

THE THIRD PERIOD The third period of Ilkhanid rule opens with Ghazan Khan and closes with the untimely death of the young Abu Saʿid, who died without male issue and therefore without a successor. It is for this reason that the Ilkhanate is seen as ending without the usual decline but at the climax of its prosperity. The last three Ilkhans, Ghazan, his brother Uljaytu and Uljaytu’s son Abu Saʿid, were all Muslims and their reigns have often been referred to as the ‘Golden Age’. That, however, might well be relative and indicative of the chaos and brutality of the turmoil which followed the death of Abu Saʿid. Ghazan Khan (r.1295–1304) For many, Ghazan Khan’s embracing of Islam and the proclamation of Ilkhanid Iran as a Muslim state overshadows all else in the history of this period. Taking a selective lead from Rashid al-Din, the four decades before his conversion are dismissed as days of darkness and despair, a jahiliya from which Ghazan rescued the country. However, though Ghazan’s reign was extremely important and it did act as a watershed, it was not his conversion per se which was important. It was more his announcement and his determination to be a king of all Iranians, both Turk and Tajik, which was of such crucial significance. His conversion to Sunni Islam was just the external manifestation of his vision, and the earnest questions concerning the extent of his religious conviction and his sincerity are missing the point. Ghazan Mahmud Khan had decided that he had to unite his country and that 128

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he had to heal the growing rifts between antagonistic factions. Since the majority of the people of Iran were Sunni Muslim, it should be incumbent on the king to reflect that majority. Growing numbers of his multi-ethnic army were adopting Islam, including some powerful amirs, and most of his administration were Muslim. It mattered little if his heart was Muslim, as long as he was seen by his subjects as having accepted the tenets of the religion and that the religious leaders should accept him as a sincere convert. In fact, it would appear that Ghazan was genuine in his professed beliefs, despite some lapses and attachment to the religion of his forefathers, and the act of conversion was overseen by a reputable and widely revered cleric, Shaykh Sadr al-Din Ibrahim al-Hammuya.30 One reason that doubts have been cast on Ghazan’s conversion is his marriage to a wife of his father, forbidden under Sharia law. Rather than simply ignoring the convention or taking the woman in question as a concubine, Ghazan sought justification and legitimacy from the Islamic courts and a fatwa was duly passed in his favour. Ghazan was a pragmatist and a politician, and he would have been well aware that conversion at that particular time was extremely opportune and empowering. Though he made no claims to be a caliph, as a Muslim sultan he had the power to appoint qadis and to exert influence on the ulema. He was also in a position now to challenge the Mamluks and their claims to be guardians of Islam, a presumption he believed their questionable lineage disqualified them from and his own royal blood qualified him for. On his side, he not only had many respected clerics but his own chief minister, Rashid al-Din, whose theological tracts and expositions provided defence and learned responses to the bigoted venom, propaganda and doctrinal snares that emanated from Cairo. Rashid al-Din’s informed reasoning was a ready match for the malignant rantings of the jihadist Ibn Taymiya, and their respective analyses of the nature of jihad would not be out of place in the social media chatrooms of the twenty-first century.31 With Ghazan accepted by all his citizens, Turk and Tajik, as their legitimate king, Iran entered its traditional role in western Asia as the counter to the Arab and Byzantine world. Meanwhile, within the country, the rivalry had developed from that between perceived natives and newcomers to a struggle between the old guard, traditionalist amirs and the believers in the Ilkhanid ideals of a multicultural, multiethnic Iran. There were still Mongol amirs who hankered after the life 129

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of the steppe and the ascendancy of the nomadic life. They believed in the Great Yasa of Chinggis Khan and applauded the tales of yore, where men-of-the-sword were subservient to none and Tenggeri and his manifestations in rock, water and earth ruled supreme. They were outnumbered however by those from all backgrounds who had fully embraced the rich renascent culture of the Toluids and the emergence of artists, artisans, thinkers, wordsmiths, musicians, merchants and scientists, intellectual colossi all versed and bred in the synthesis of Persian, Chinese, Turkic, steppe, Abrahamic and Buddhist cultures, nurtured across the mountains, rivers, steppes and deserts, forests and cities of Asia. This dichotomy was played out to various degrees throughout the Chinggisid Empire. In the Toluid lands of Yuan China and Ilkhanid Iran, the steppe was held in check by the sophistication of the urbanites; whereas in the northern lands of the Golden Horde and the Eurasian steppe lands, the traditionalist followers of Chinggis Khan’s Great Yasa were dominant. The rivalry in both Iran and China rarely broke into open conflict, but the tension underlined the politics of the region. During Ghazan and his brother Uljaytu’s reign, the nature of the compromise is laid bare in the writings of the world’s first universal historian, Rashid al-Din. The Ilkhanate provided a healthy climate for such noted erudition. Intellectual giants such as Rashid al-Din, Qutb al-Din Shirazi and Ibn Kammuna, the Jewish philosopher, were not alone or unique and did not exist in a vacuum. What Ghazan lacked in physical allure – ‘amongst all his host of 200,000 Tartars you should scarcely find one of smaller stature or of uglier and meaner aspect than this Prince’32 – he made up for in cerebral prowess. He was reputedly a linguist, speaking, besides Mongolian, some ‘Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Hindi, Kashmiri, Tibetan, Cathaian (Chinese), Frankish and other languages’,33 as well as being versed in learning in the tradition of his forefathers. Bolad Chingsang, Yuan China’s ambassador and Mongol noble, was Rashid al-Din’s intellectual partner and a link to the scholarship of China. Bolad ensured that links between the Rabʿ al-Rashidi and the Hanlinyuan were maintained. Rashid al-Din had inherited the intellectual prestige of Nasir al-Din Tusi’s Rasadkhana for his own seat of learning, but by 1300 the Ilkhanate and its capital Tabriz were well established as cultural powerhouses with poets finding ready patronage, painters and miniaturists provided with ateliers, potters given inspiration and instruction from Yuan 130

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masters, and architects funded for ambitious projects. The dire consequences foreseen after the destruction of the House of ʿAbbas never materialised and instead the region entered a period of spiritual rejuvenation with Sufi lodges and spiritual hospices proliferating. Charismatic leaders such as Shaykh Safi al-Din of Ardabil (d.1334) became magnets for the faithful and lent legitimacy to their powerful patrons such as the Ilkhans whose courts they frequented. If the appearance of qalandars34 provided fuel for the invective of Iran’s Sunni neighbours, mention of the spread of Islam to China, the Indian Ocean and throughout Turkestan and the transformation of a once Arab dominated religion into a global faith would silence them. One reason that the Chinggisid Empire is so well documented is that the khans were always great patrons of chronicles and history. The Hanlinyuan in Qubilai’s capital, Khanbaliq, specialised in the production of history books, while throughout the Empire peoples from every clime were fully aware that they were living in exceptional times and they were anxious to record history in the making. Rashid al-Din’s Compendium of History was embarked on at Ghazan’s request, but it was Uljaytu who commissioned its final form, a universal history, covering the people of Europe, India, Jewish Palestine, Turkestan, Mongolia and China, as well as selective individual dynasties, written in Persian and Arabic and intended to be available for all.35 Ghazan wished to protect the memory and history of the Mongol people, aware that the Chinggisids were metamorphosing in new and unpredictable directions, and Uljaytu wanted to ensure the central position of the Chinggisids in this new world. Rashid al-Din had a team of researchers and scholars at his disposal as well as Bolad, who allowed him access to ‘secret’ Mongol texts which have now become the only known copies of such singular sources. However, it was not only priceless historical data that Rashid al-Din recorded in his majestically illuminated volumes. In his capacity as Ghazan’s prime minister he also had unrestricted access to legal texts and detailed records of the laws, reforms and political speeches that Ghazan produced in the nine years that he was in power, all of which he was able to reproduce in his historical record. Ghazan’s reign is possibly the most thoroughly scrutinised and critically analysed of any of the Ilkhans, and it will suffice here to summarise the significance of his rule in Iran and the wider regional 131

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context. Ghazan accepted fully that he was an autonomous king of a multi-ethnic state and that after the political and economic instability of the past 12 years, his primary task was to bring stability and prosperity to all his people. He announced his conversion and struck coins that dropped the title of ‘Ilkhan’ and adopted the titles of Islam and Iran. Though he and his successors were still addressed as ‘Ilkhan’, the title has been found used on only one Armenian coin. Even though his new bellicose title played well to his Persian subjects and emphasised his independence, relations with Yuan China were at their closest under Ghazan. Padshah of the World, Shahanshah of Earth and Time, Sovereign Lord of the Kings of Iran and Turan, Manifestation of the Copious Grace of God, the Visible Sign of Islam and the Faith, a Jamshid, Dispenser of Justice, Animator of the Custom of World Domination, the Elevated Banner of Sovereignty, Bestower of the Carpet of Justice, an overflowing Sea of Compassion, King of the Domains of Monarchs, Heir to the Chinggisid Throne, Shadow of God, Defender of the Faith of Allah to the Ends of the Earth and Time.36

Foreign policy did not change and Chinggisid unity remained an elusive goal. War with Cairo intensified, though Ghazan could now argue that his royal blood and his support of a learned ulema made him the more qualified to champion the cause of Islam. Ghazan enjoyed a major if short-lived victory against the Mamluks, driving them out of Syria in 1299 at the Battle of Wadi’l-Kaznadar and capturing Damascus while envoys were dispatched to Europe to enlist papal support. The Golden Horde continued with their claims on the Caucasus, and in 1301 Ghazan repelled a military incursion which reached Darband, though this was followed by a delegation from Toqta to reiterate these claims. Ghazan’s wide-ranging reforms were aimed at placating arrogant and powerful, often Mongol, amirs, satisfying the aspirations of an increasingly influential administrative and merchant class, and meeting the calls for justice and stability from an exploited underclass that now included impoverished Turks and Mongols as well as more native Iranians. Ghazan drew up laws to curb the excesses of greedy officials and instigate regular and realistic taxation schedules. Only authorised, identifiable officials would be 132

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permitted to collect specified amounts of taxes on specified dates; the army would be paid once again through the granting of iqtaʿs; the widely hated barat was outlawed; weights and measurements, and coinage would be regularised and monitored; all land claims over 30 years old would be investigated; the yam network would be reformed and those authorised to use this elaborate ‘postal system’ severely restricted; and the tyranny of ‘muleteers, camel drivers and messengers’ would be curtailed since it appeared that these street people were organising protection rackets against merchants, shopkeepers and the rich by demanding money with menaces.37 The reforms were wide reaching and very welcome, and they revealed a thoughtful rather than ideological intent, and though Ghazan made appropriate reference to God and his Prophet at the proper times his reforms were practical and based in reality. For example, while decrying the evils of alcohol, the law did not attempt to prohibit consumption, but rather public drunkenness was banned, a law to which few would object. He did not outlaw brothels, but he banned the coercion of girls to work in them. One very welcome surprise was a generous tax incentive for those seeking to utilise unused land. Open land was considered almost sacrosanct by nomadic herders, who resented any impediment to their right to roam, so this offer sent a clear message to his subjects on both sides of the divide. His willingness to compromise and his awareness of the conflicts that he knew he had to confront is illustrated by the speeches he made to both his fellow Mongols and to his Muslim subjects. Addressing the Mongol amirs, he sympathised with their desire to exploit and rob the peasants: ‘If it is expedient, then let me pillage them all – there is no one with more power to do so than I. Let us rob them together.’ But, he cautions, what of the future when the people have been bled dry? Later on, he seems to let his guard slip and he reveals his true nature, ‘[T]hey are human being, just as we are.’38 Rashid al-Din was a politician who also had an eye on the history books, and his position as well as that of his master and therefore his reports on contemporary matters must be treated accordingly. He claimed that Ghazan encouraged the attacks on Christian churches and temples, no doubt to bolster the Shah Ghazan’s Islamic credentials with the ulema; whereas it is well known that Ghazan acted immediately and harshly against any such unauthorised 133

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infractions whenever he came upon them. Ghazan was a popular king with all his subjects and he was successful in his attempts to unite his country. Divisions remained and would continue to cause some discontent until the early years of Uljaytu’s son Abu Saʿid’s reign, but they never threatened the throne or caused the instability seen in Ahmad and Gaykhatu’s reigns. Ghazan succeeded in establishing Iran as a Muslim state and a political entity strong enough to endure the period of anarchy which followed the collapse of the Ilkhanate. Uljaytu (r.1304–16) Uljaytu, was born to Uruk Khatun, a Christian Kereit, and baptised Nicholas. His godfather was said to have been Isol the Pisan, also known as Ciolo Bofeti di Anastasio or Zolus Bofeti de Anestasio, an Italian merchant and diplomat who had resided at Ghazan’s court and is believed to have been one of Rashid al-Din’s sources on the European states. Uljaytu’s mother’s father was the brother of Dokuz Khatun. For Mustawfi, Uljaytu’s ascent signalled a time of peace and security and the implementation of the reforms that Ghazan had initiated. Certainly, his reign had an auspicious beginning when elchis arrived from the Great Khan to celebrate his coronation and herald a treaty of Chinggisid unity that Qa’an Temur had negotiated and the new Ilkhan soon publicised. Uljaytu sent his ambassador, Buscarello de Ghizolfi, with his royal sword-bearer Tomazo Ugi of Siena to the Frankish courts of the Doge of Venice, Edward I of England, and Phillipe the Fair to boast of the renewed unity of the Chinggisid khans. We, Temür Qa’an, Toqta, Cahabar, Du’a and others the descendants of Chinggis Khan, after recriminating one another for forty-five years down to these recent times, have now […] reached a mutual agreement, and from the land of the Nankhiyas (Chinese) to the sea of Talu (Mediterranean), we have caused our post-stations (Jam) to be linked together.39

Though the Chinggisid unity was short-lived, post-Ilkhanate commentators viewed this whole period of Iranian history with nostalgia. ‘In that time of [those Ilkhan] Kings, Iran was tranquil and free from the aggression of intruders, especially in the days of the Sultanate of Ghazan Khan, Uljaytu Khodabanda and Abu Saʿid Bahadar Khan.’40 It was an age seen from 1362 as ‘admirable 134

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and luxuriantly cheerful like the Garden of Paradise, tranquil and secure like the sanctuary of the Ka’ba’,41 a view echoed by a Jalayrid historian (c.1360), Abu Bakr al-Qutbi al-Ahari,42 who saw Ghazan’s reign as a time of peace and justice. ‘During that time the whole of Iran was graced by the justice of the King of Islam, who held back the oppressor’s hand from (harming) the oppressed’,43 and under the rule of his brother, Uljaytu, ‘the country (was) flourishing and the army well organised’, reaching its apogee in the time of Abu Saʿid. ‘The time of his government was the best period of the domination of the Mongols.’44 The magnificent edifice of Sultaniya with its double-skinned dome is a permanent monument to not only the legacy of Uljaytu Kharbanda45 but also Ilkhanid Iran’s pride in its Islamic and intellectual past. Sultaniya, originally conceived by Uljaytu’s father, Arghun, was built to celebrate Islam and to encourage learning, debate and public access to scholars and education. Doctors of medicine and of philosophy, artists and artisans, agriculturists and botanists, veterinarians and physicians would all be on hand to exchange expertise and dispense knowledge and learning, and the public would be free to wander those hallowed halls to listen, observe and possibly even partake in the august and lively proceedings. So enamoured was Uljaytu with intellectual pursuits that it is said he constructed a special ‘madressa [madrasa] made of canvas with four porticos and chambers’ that would accompany him on trips away from his palaces.46 Uljaytu had been baptised a Christian, but converted to Sunnism with his brother Ghazan. However, he became disillusioned by the constant bickering of the ulema. Qutlugh-Shah Noyan, his chiefof-staff, had expressed his disgust at the distasteful insults which the Sunni sects traded during the staged theological debates which Uljaytu, like all the leading Mongols, relished greatly. Qutlugh-Shah was so disturbed by the venom expressed during these religious debates that he pleaded for the court to return to the religion of their forefathers and abandon this vindictive Arab religion whose multiple sects, he claimed, even endorsed incestuous marriage.47 Under the influence of Shiʿite theologians such as al-Hilli and Maitham al Bahrani and influential figures such as Shaykh ʿAla al-Dawla Semnani and Qutb al-Din Shirazi, Uljaytu compromised by allowing the practice of some ancient Shamanist rites and the presence of bakhshis 135

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at court and by announcing his adherence to Shiʿite Islam. A certain Taremtaz compared the Shiʿa with those who believed in the laws of monarchical succession and that the throne belonged to the legitimate heirs of Chinggis Khan. The Sunni, he explained, were like those who believed the throne belonged to the amirs and subjects.48 Henceforth the khutba honoured his name and those of ʿAli, Hasan and Husain. While Uljaytu agonised over the fate of his soul, the soul of the state was split between his two ministers Taj ʿAli-Shah and Rashid al-Din, who fought over the expenses for the ballooning bureaucracy and the military. Rashid al-Din’s age and failing health prevented him from defending himself effectively from his many jealous and corrupt detractors. Although it was under the rule of Uljaytu’s successor Abu Saʿid that the great statesman was executed, the machinations were struck and initiated under Uljaytu. Since the wheels of government had been slowly implementing many of those reforms instigated under Ghazan, in 1307 Uljaytu allowed himself the luxury of attempting to subdue the inaccessible, outlaw province of Gilan which had repelled all attempts at taming it for 40 years. His pyrrhic victory resulted in his general Qutlugh-Shah’s death and the melting of the enemy forces into the forests of Mazanderan thirsty for revenge. Emboldened by the death of Qutlugh-Shah, Ozbeg Khan (1282–1341, r.1313–41), the ambitious Jochid ruler, encouraged the mercenary, periodically disruptive Qar’aunas from the eastern marches to mount raids into Khorasan, but Iran’s borders remained generally secure. Uljaytu was a great Ilkhan who is often overlooked because he brought peace, quiet and security to his country. ABU SAʿID (R.1316–35) Uljaytu’s son, Abu Saʿid, had a far more disruptive court when he ascended the throne at the young age of 11. His chief-of-staff was Chopan, who had replaced the very capable Qutlugh-Shah. The Muslim Chopan Noyan headed a large and ambitious family, and he immediately took on the responsibilities of kingship for himself. Though not of his engineering, he did not prevent the execution of Rashid al-Din on the spurious charge of having poisoned Uljaytu, and once in power he contrived to shape events in his favour, including a showdown with the Mongol amirs. This was a split that had existed 136

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for generations but Chopan enflamed it in order to cast himself as the hero of the Ilkhan against the forces of reaction. He cemented his position with his marriage to Sati Beg, Ghazan Khan’s sister. Abu Saʿid’s reign was defined by his relations with the Chopan family. Entrusted by his father, Uljaytu Ilkhan, to the care of Chopan Noyan, he first had to fight for his voice and his independence. Dominated by the father, Chopan Noyan, the young king then found himself humiliated by one of his protector’s sons, Demasq Khwaja, and threatened by another, Temutash. Finally, he found his heart completely captivated by Chopan’s daughter, Baghdad Khatun, with whom he fell wildly in love but whose murderous jealousy he aroused by courting the new generation of family, the beautiful, Dilshad. However, though he used that situation cleverly and to his advantage, ultimately his relations with the Chopan family destroyed him and the Chopanids were instrumental in destroying Iran. Chopan Noyan moved to bolster the young king’s position and defend him from the intrigues of the Mongol amirs, who for so long had harboured a grievance against the steady erosion of their traditional ascendancy. He had sacrificed Rashid al-Din through his refusal to become involved in the vizier’s contrived conflict with Taj ʿAli-Shah and instead confronted the leading amirs, including Qorumshi and Irenjin of the Kereit. Chopan’s gamble was successful, and when he celebrated his victory in 1319 with his royal marriage to Sati, his power appeared supreme with both the king and the prime minister, Ali Shah, indebted to him for the security of their offices and probably their lives. In addition, recognition of royal admiration and indebtedness to the powerful general and regent was delivered from the Great Khan Yesun Temur in Khanbaliq specifically for Chopan’s military successes against the Chaghadaid prince, Tarmashirin. The Qa’an invested Chopan with the title amir al-omara of Iran and Turan, and possibly China and the Qipchaq Khanate as well. The disciplined and devoutly Muslim Chopan was able to maintain control with his very loyal army, usually based on the Caucasian frontline. He had sent envoys to the Mamluks with a view to establishing a permanent peace, though it was rumoured that correspondence existed from earlier, less secure times between Chopan and Sultan Malek al-Nasir discussing possible defection. These problems were challenges, but his children were not so easily managed and proved the great amir’s undoing. 137

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In Anatolia, Chopan’s son Temurtašh had been acting far too autonomously, and in 1322–3 his father was forced to intervene and bring the wayward governor before Abu Saʿid to beg for a pardon duly granted. Meanwhile, Chopan’s other son, Dimashq Khwaja (1300– 27),49 was taking advantage of his father’s absence from court and acting very imperiously and inappropriately and, in addition, he was rumoured to have been playing with the ladies of the royal harem. Abu Saʿid moved swiftly to remove him and dispossess him of ‘gold and silver, in measures and in sacks, […] an abundance of jewels of stone and iron […] horses, and garments beyond measure, and implements for banquets, war and entertainment […] in amassing which the man had committed crimes’.50 He was executed in 1327 by which time other events were unfurling. Despite desperate measures by her father, Chopan Noyan’s daughter, Baghdad Khatun, had enflamed the young king’s ardour and he had fallen completely in love with the highly regarded and newly married young woman. Ignoring the protests of Chopan, Abu Saʿid demanded her hand, even invoking the yasa which granted the Great Khan the right to possess any women he so desired. Shaykh Hasan-e Bozorg Jalayrid granted Baghdad Khatun51 a divorce, and she became a very powerful and influential figure in her new husband’s administration. Disgraced, humiliated and ultimately treacherously abandoned by all, Chopan was hunted down in Herat, where he was executed in 1327 by the Kart king, Ghiyath al-Din, who had been offered Chopin’s harem and ‘permission to confiscate the wealth of the atabeg of Fars’, and so the Malik ‘immediately forgot his obligations to Chopan and dispatched the executioner’.52 However, repercussions continued to echo in the affairs of the Ilkhans as Baghdad Khatun entrenched herself in the affairs of state, building up her own powerbase. Ibn Battuta heard the story and all its colourful detail on his journey through Persia, and in his eyes Baghdad Khatun ‘gained an ascendancy over’53 the king. When her husband’s roving royal eye began to wander from her and rested on the fair form of Delshad [Happy Heart], her niece and the daughter of her executed brother, Dimashq Khwaja, Baghdad Khatun contacted her former husband, Big Hasan, who the king in his confidence had appointed amir-e ulus, and together they conspired to poison the Ilkhan, who subsequently died without issue or heir in 1335 despite having numerous wives. Delshad Khatun gave birth to a daughter, seven months after Abu Saʿid’s death. 138

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Abu Saʿid left behind a stable and prosperous state, where a peace accord had finally been agreed with the Mamluk Sultanate. Unlike his uncle, Ghazan, who was short, squat and ugly,54 the young king was ‘the most beautiful of God’s creatures in features’,55 cultured and educated, and he wrote and enjoyed poetry and music.56 The arts flourished, and the patronage that had blossomed during the golden years under the Muzafarids in Shiraz, with the Inju family, in Baghdad and in cosmopolitan Tabriz even survived into the chaotic decades that swamped the country following Abu Saʿid’s death. Genial relations had been established with the Delhi Sultanate during Uljaytu’s reign, with costly gifts being exchanged with Sultan Muhammad bin Toghloq, while agreement on joint operations against the Chaghadaid enemy remained elusive. Rapprochement with the Mamluks had started in 1320, culminating in the 1322 Treaty of Aleppo. The merchant Majd al-Din Sallami organised the negotiations, which ended six decades of hostilities and had the bonus of cooler relations between Egypt and the Golden Horde and the execution of Chopan’s rebellious son, Temutash. Economic benefits were immediate and provided the driving force behind peace. Ozbeg Khan continued to destabilise the northern borders, though Abu Saʿid had maintained strongly defended positions in Qarabagh forcing the Jochid khan to concentrate on the more porous borders in Khorasan where he could utilise the armies of the mercenary Qar’aunas. Rumours were rife that Baghdad Khatun had been in contact with Ozbeg Khan and that her plans were coordinated with the Jochid ruler. Had Abu Saʿid lived longer and been able to plan for his death, the history of Iran might well have been very different. A strong Ilkhan would have been able to contain the scourge of Timur Khan and entrench the institutions, which were only just striking deep and permanent roots. Abu Saʿid had not continued or encouraged the Shiʿism of his father, even though he was buried in Sultaniya. Chopan had ensured that Sunnism and the traditional ulema returned to their position of influence at court. The revolt by the disgruntled amirs hankering after the days of steppe ascendancy and the domination of the yasa had finally been put to rest, but that stability was only short-lived.

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Arpa Ke’un (r.1335–6) In the absence of a suitable Huleguid prince, the choice of Arpa Ke’un seems particularly far-sighted and appropriate. With a field of claims open and liberally splashed with blood and accusations of conspiracy, an outsider and ‘technocrat’ seems an inspired choice. Arpa Ke’un was a respected military officer with an aversion to the ostentation of the increasingly flamboyant Persianised court with its in-bred corruption and flaunted greed. As an able army commander he was respected for his honesty, his adherence to the law and his belief in traditional values. Arpa Ke’un was a descendant of Ariq Buqa but had no connection to the divisive politics of that distant era.57 He had been approached by Abu Saʿid’s capable chief minister, Ghiyath alDin, son of Rashid al-Din, and was assured of the minister’s support on condition that he would agree to some fundamental principles which would govern and shape his rule. These conditions have been preserved in a recently discovered collection of documents copied and compiled by a notable man-of-letters of that time, Majd al-Din Tabrizi. The last document preserved in this Safineh is a letter from the minister to his brother detailing the agreement reached with Arpa Ke’un. Arpa Ke’un was held at the minister’s house and released only after the four binding conditions had been decided upon. The four conditions that Ghiyath al-Din had worked out with his brother and presented to Arpa were: first, ‘he would not turn from truth, care, and justice for his people’ and would not indulge in depravity or licentious behaviour; second, he would treat all subjects whether Mongol or Persian, military or civilian equally; third, he would show full respect for Sharia law; and fourth, he would allow the minister, Ghiyath al-Din, to retire once he had ascended the throne.58 Thus four conditions must be accepted by you and you must promise to release me from my duties […] you would never fail truth and justice […] Any order that you give for any known creature or your capricious desire (be it directly by you or anybody else) must not abscond from righteousness […] Allah’s creatures be they Mongols, Taziks, the army, and your populace […] In their path be righteous in your commands. And for everybody have good thoughts and wish them goodness […] The khan should make statements of his support of Islam […] You must first perform the commands and – exclude the – inhibitions – of which 140

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The great emphasis laid on Arpa Ke’un ruling according to Islamic law and being bound to ‘mak[ing] statement of his support of Islam’ is that he was not a practising Muslim and in fact might well have been an infidel. Mustawfi, no fan of the new king, lists among his failings ‘nor did he fear Allah.’.59 Ahari rather ambiguously emphasises that Arpa Ke’un followed ‘the Mongol code and administration’ while ignoring the yarliqs of the Muslim Ilkhans.60 Certainly, Arpa Ke’un would not have been Iran’s first infidel monarch. Questions exist as to the faith of the first Saljuq rulers when they crossed the Oxus. The Qara Khitai were celebrated Iranian rulers lauded in the country’s Mirror for Princes who made no pretence of their status as infidels. Hulegu and the Ilkhans before Ghazan were all accepted and fully recognised as the country’s legitimate rulers, so it should not be too surprising if Arpa Ke’un was accepted despite his personal beliefs, on condition that he agreed to uphold and respect Sharia law. Initially Arpa Ke’un received widespread support and popularity, but within a very short time that had all evaporated. For his coronation, he donned a Russian felt hat in place of a golden crown, a simple waistband in place of a turquoise belt and declared to his commanders and admiring noyans, ‘I, unlike sultans past, am not addicted to luxury and finery […] From the army, I expect obedience and allegiance, and from me they may expect clemency and mercy.’61 He also ordered that his name, which he declared to be Muʿiz al-Din Arpa Ke’un, should be announced in the khutba on Fridays in the country’s mosques.62 He then set about fulfilling his promises and embarked on an anti-corruption campaign. It was the zeal with which he went about this that caused him problems. He seized Baghdad Khatun and had her executed without consideration for the popularity that she enjoyed in the country, and this heavy-handed manner made him more enemies that it destroyed. He married Sati Beg, Chopan’s widow, to strengthen his political position, but only succeeded in casting himself in the same mould as his rivals. Mustawfi, whose own affairs had undergone a drastic turn for the worse, despised this uncouth soldier and provided some harsh insights. For Mustawfi, Arpa Ke’un was ‘a cruel man who thought that he himself could not exist when there were other 141

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people in authority’63 and who was too liberal with his distribution of death warrants and assassination squads. Arpa could never succeed because ‘in his way of thinking, the triumph of his affairs was to be seen in the disruption of other’s affairs’64 and his targeted killing of the rich and successful Malik Sharaf al-Din Mahmud Shaykh Indju doomed him to early failure. Unfortunately, his failure left the door open to a number of claimants all vying for power and all marshalling the resources of Iran’s multitudinous city states to finance their selfish and selfdestructive wars. Big Hasan formed a military pact with Sati Beg, appealed to the remaining family of the murdered Ghiyath al-Din, executed his ex-wife’s killer, Lulu Khwaja, and declared ‘the dawn of happiness […] left the house of grief and made for the stadium of merry-making. Fate […] galloped like a gruesome steed across the heart’s field, trod like a sorrowful elephant over the soul’65 and ensconced himself in Tabriz. Mustawfi, no apologist for Arpa Ke’un, expressed commonly held sentiments when he declared, ‘The sign of the times was now harm and negligence by [uninvited] guests […] the one who had all the power did not speak out once to smother the flames of unrest.’66 His chronicle from these turbulent years has never been published despite containing a long autobiographical section wherein he details the considerable hardship and depravation he was forced to endure. He also specifies the minutiae of political intrigue and names a plethora of figures who were fighting their futile noisy battles in a confusing pantomime signifying nothing, the style of his verbiage, ornate, and exaggerated, cloaked in flowering adjectives and metamorphosing nouns. The pages present a sorry end for a one-time major figure. The final word is left to the Amir ʿAli-Padishah, uncle of Abu Saʿid and brother of Hajji Khatun, an ethnic Mongol of the Oirat tribe, and a descendant of Tangiz, arch-enemy of Arpa’s ancestor, Ariq Buqa; he solemnly declared, ‘Love and Hate are passed from generation to generation.’67 He concentrated all his energy on destroying the new Ilkhan and raising in his stead Musa Khan, grandson of Baidu Ilkhan son of Taraghai of Hulegu,68 for him to join the pantheon of puppets raised and destroyed in this dark period of Iran’s medieval history. Ilkhanid rule effectively died with the death of Abu Saʿid in 1335, but Chinggisid rule continued indirectly until the demise of the Ilkhanid successor state, Aqqoyunlu, and the appearance in 142

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Tabriz of Shah Ismaʿil the Safavid God-king in 1501. The genius of Chinggis Khan is that he successfully instigated a new source of imperial legitimacy which his successors drew upon to justify their rule. In China, the Yuan dynasty was accepted as having a mandate from heaven, and in Iran, since the caliph had been removed as the main source of legitimacy for the various ruling regimes in the Islamic world, Chinggis Khan became that source for many in the eastern Islamicate, including Muslim states. The last state to rule Iran claiming their right to rule from their Chinggisid connections were the Aqqoyunlu, whose Sunni leader, Uzun Hasan (1423–78), defeated their fellow Turco-Mongol rivals, the Qara Qoyunlu under Jahanshah (d.1467), while nurturing the breakaway faction of the Sufi order of the Safavids led by the charismatic Shaykh Junayd (d.1460). It was Junayd who began the transformation of the Safavids from quietist Sunni Sufis into militant heterodox Shiʿites, who eventually turned on their one-time protectors and established a new ruling dynasty in Iran united under 12er Shiʿism and so ended Chinggisid rule in Iran.69

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7 QUBILAI KHAN YUAN EMPEROR OF THE WORLD

Qubilai Khan (also known by the temple name Shizu) was the fifth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, from 1260 to 1294, and the founder of the Yuan dynasty in China.1 However, he did not achieve universal recognition, and only the Ilkhanid regime of Iran remained fully supportive of him. He transcended his steppe origins and evolved a multi-ethnic, multicultural administration that united China and incorporated greater Iran.

EARLIEST ANECDOTE The earliest reference to Qubilai concerns a coming-of-age ceremony, yaghlamishi,2 performed by his grandfather, Chinggis, in 1224, Bechin Yil (Year of the Monkey). It occurred after his first hunting expedition near the River Ili with his brother, Hulegu, when the brothers had made their first kill, an antelope and a rabbit. Their grandfather, following Mongol tradition, smeared fat from the killed animals onto the boys’ middle fingers and greased their thumbs. Rashid al-Din recounts this tale, claiming that during the anointing whereas Qubilai held Chinggis Khan’s thumb gently, the young Hulegu grabbed his grandfather’s proffered digit harshly, eliciting a cry of pained surprise from the old man.3 This early anecdote makes 144

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plain that the young boys’ links with the steppe and Mongol traditions were encouraged and kept alive by, among others, their grandfather. However, what also becomes clear is that these boys were very aware and influenced by the wider world beyond the steppe. Their mother, Sorqoqtani Beki, ensured that her sons had mastered the traditional Mongol skills of riding, hunting, archery and combat while also schooling them in literature, the arts and sciences, for which task she employed Chinese scholars, a Persian tutor from the northern Iranian city of Qazvin and an Uyghur named Tolochu to teach them Mongolian literary skills. Her boys were well versed in those skills that would enable them to flourish confidently in the lands south of the Eurasian steppe. Sorqoqtani Beki The remarkable rise to power of the Toluid brothers, Mongke (d.1259), Qubilai (d.1294), Hulegu (d.1265) and Ariq Buqa (d.1266), grandsons of Chinggis Khan, owes much to the dedication and ambition of their mother, Sorqoqtani Beki. Her resistance to remarriage after the death of her husband Tolui Khan, the youngest son of Chinggis Khan, and her exploitation of family connections, along with her willingness to become involved in political intrigue and family rivalry, allowed her sons to reap rich political rewards. In particular it was her second-born son, Qubilai, who profited immeasurably from her experience and attention, and her influence on Qubilai is acknowledged in the sources. Sorqoqtani’s upbringing had been steeped in politics, and she nurtured its intrigues and machinations in her blood. She was determined that her sons were likewise fully cognisant of political reality as they grew and that they developed political antennae to watch the world around them as it grew. By remaining single after her husband’s death in 1233, she was able to concentrate on developing her political and personal connections and building cross-family networks, which might have been difficult had she been married to a major political-player such as Guyuk. While her husband Tolui had been alive and busy campaigning, she had been left alone to educate and raise her four sons. After his death she concentrated on ensuring that her sons benefitted from the connections she was forging. She kept a low profile and during the reign of Toregene Khatun (r.1241–6) she began to ‘cultivate the goodwill of the nobles through gifts and 145

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beneficence’, she ‘planted love and affection in everyone’s heart and soul’ and ‘through generosity and favours, she kept the troops and foreigners obedient and on her side’.4 She was an astute political operator, a consummate negotiator and formidable opponent. ‘If I were to see among the race of women another woman like this, I should say that the race of women is far superior to that of men.’5 So intoned Mutanabbi, a poet invoked both by Bar Hebraeus and Juwayni, though Juwayni is also effusive in his own praise. Now in the management and education of all her sons, in the administration of affairs of state, in the maintenance of dignity and prestige and in the execution of business, Beki, by the nicety of her judgement and discrimination, constructed such a basis and for the strengthening of these edifices laid such a foundation that no turbanwearer (kulah-dar) would have been capable of the like or could have dealt with these matters with the like brilliance.6

Having resisted the pressure to marry Guyuk Khan, Sorqoqtani concentrated instead on her appanage Zhending in Hebei province, educating her sons through example in the arts of statecraft and administration. She taught her sons to respect and nurture the land and their subjects and ensured that the boys received a comprehensive and practical education. Sorqoqtani guided Qubilai in the administration of his own appanage of Xingzhou, aware that any experiences from these formative years of his youth could well determine the style of governance he would adopt in later years. She firmly believed that the success and failures that Qubilai endured in his early years would father the choices and decisions he would make later in life. She instilled a strong sense of tolerance and appreciation of multiculturalism in her son from the beginning, even appointing a Buddhist Tangut wet nurse, a woman who the young boy was not to forget.7

QUBILAI’S FIRST APPANAGE After the final surrender of the Jurchen in 1236, the Great Qa’an, Ogodai, awarded the Toluid boys and their mother lands in Hebei 146

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province to which 80,000 tents were attached. These 80,000 families would of course be supportive of their new masters and would look to them for support against the indigenous settled communities of Khitans, Jurchens and northern Chinese. Most of these tents would be traditionalist Turco-Mongols generally harbouring the biases and prejudices of their steppe upbringing expressed by distain for, ignorance of and lack of interest in the indigenous, settled inhabitants of the province whether rural peasants or urban sophisticates. These settled people and their communities were viewed as a source of income and their towns and farms as ripe for the picking and ready for exploitation. Settled people themselves had traditionally been viewed from the steppe as simply slaves for labour, servitude or sex, though the potential that artisans might possess had been recognised and hence such skilled workers were beginning to be prized for their craftsmanship and for their resale value as booty. Now that the Turco-Mongols were arriving as settlers rather than invaders, attitudes were expected to change, but change was slow and such chauvinist attitudes were deeply entrenched. Such a profound transformation was generational and would also have to have demonstrable advantages. The generation to which Qubilai belonged was at the vanguard to this metamorphosis. Their fathers and grandfathers had been the warriors; they had been born into the hardship of the steppe and they had had to fight their way out of it. Now they wanted their reward and they enjoyed feasting on the prizes they felt they had earned. Qubilai and his generation had been born into power and luxury. They had not experienced the deprivation of the steppe. They had grown up with the trappings of ‘civilisation’. They had enjoyed education and learning and the company of the Empire’s elite. Their attitudes had been honed and cultivated in a different cultural petri dish than that of their fathers and most of their subjects. Qubilai received 10,000 tents, but his early attempts at administering his land and subjects resulted in a disastrous abandonment of the lands and a general exodus by the farmers and peasants. The farms and the peasantry had not necessarily been sacked and plundered, but the tax regime imposed on them was far too harsh and imposed without consultation or cooperation. The basic predatory attitude had not been abandoned and therefore the Chinese had reacted in a wholly predictable fashion, fleeing 147

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southward out of reach of the Mongol hordes. It was only the timely intervention of Qubilai’s mother that prevented bankruptcy as his tax returns steadily dwindled. Sorqoqtani Beki sent Qubilai Chinese officials who enacted tax and administrative reforms and taught him lessons that were to remain with him the rest of his life and which were to inform his subsequent principles and ideas of government and conquest. Any attempt to impose a pastoral economy on the Chinese was forgotten. With an army of Chinese, Khitan, Tibetan, Muslim and Mongol councillors, Qubilai set up an administration to help him govern, recognising that he would have to accommodate the Chinese and assimilate their institutions and practices with those of his councillors. He therefore fostered an agrarian economy and set about building an irrigation system with a planned agricultural policy that would make use of improved tools and imported seeds. What he began as a youth in northern China, he would continue elsewhere whenever the opportunity arose, and the conquest of Dali was that welcome opportunity to translate his lessons and early experiences into reality.

THE KINGDOM OF DALI After having successfully absorbed northern China and the Jurchen administration into the Empire, with the fulsome support of the Khitans and with the covert aid and tacit support of the Song, the Chinggisids under Mongke and later under Qubilai, began slowly to erode the confidence of the Song emperors and the trust of their subjects. For four decades, from 1235 until 1276, military confrontation, constant harassment, financial inducements, propaganda and political machinations were employed to undermine the Song state at every opportunity and at all levels. Defections were encouraged and not punished, and Song confidence leaked and threatened to start haemorrhaging. In the 1250s Qubilai directed a military campaign with his leading general, Uriyangqadai Noyan (1199–1271),8 against the Kingdom of Dali, modern-day Yunnan.9 His aim was to split the Song defences and force them to divert manpower from their northern and western frontlines to the south. Dali was inhabited by non-Han tribespeople who harboured little loyalty or attachment towards their oppressive and imperious 148

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Chinese neighbours, the very people whom Guo Baoyu, a Han Chinese strategist and adviser to Chinggis Khan had once advised employing against the Song. ‘The bravery and fierceness of the tribes of the southwest should be put to use by first subjugating them, and then using them to surround the territory.’10 Qubilai had heeded his Chinese strategists, Yao Shu and Liu Bingzhong, who had cautioned him against using excessive force against the native population of Yunnan when he moved his forces south. Qubilai was receptive to their adamant insistence that he should resist all provocation and desist from any general massacres. His mother had taught him the value of patience, listening and learning. Yao Shu narrated the story of the successful Song general Cao Bin, who had launched an assault on the city of Nanjing. The general had captured the city without bloodshed or even killing ‘so much as a single person; the markets did not alter their opening, and it was as if the proper overlord had returned’.11 Today Yunnan province remains as a testament to Qubilai’s foresight as does the honour in which Sayyid ʿAjal, the first Yuan governor, is still held to this day. The Dali Stele, erected in 1304 to commemorate Qubilai Khan’s conquest of Yunnan, is a monument to the success that the policies introduced by the Yuan administration achieved for this long neglected province.12 The Kingdom of Dali was absorbed into the Yuan Empire. Retribution for the murder of the first Chinggisid envoys sent to negotiate peace with the king, Duan Zhishan, was limited to Gao Taixiang, the official deemed responsible. Eventually the renowned Sayyid ʿAjal Shams al-Din ʿOmar Bokhari (d.1279) was appointed governor of the province and he instigated the integration of Dali into the Empire, with the introduction of planned irrigation and agricultural policies and the establishment of a network of schools, mosques and temples for the promotion of free education. He was so successful that he is still revered throughout Yunnan, now a fully integrated part of China. Qubilai Khan’s designs to absorb Dali should be compared with his brother Hulegu’s vision of bringing Iran fully into the embrace of the Empire. Both brothers minimised military action, both stressed the advantages of the wider market, both emphasised the presence of an aggressive exploitative neighbour and both sought the cooperation of the native people of the region. No love was lost when the people of Yunnan joined the Chinggisids and turned on their former exploiters, the Chinese, just 149

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as when Hulegu turned his forces on the Arab Caliph of Baghdad, there was little dissent from the Iranians called upon to support him. The imperial dream and the Chinggisid revolution burned their beacons brightly in Iran and in Dali. Yunnan was Qubilai’s first opportunity to practise those administrative and imperial policies that he had learnt from his mother and that he had been applying in those lands originally assigned to him.13 His successes were interrupted by the premature death of his brother Mongke Qa’an, struck down by pestilence, and his own elevation to the imperial throne. His successful campaign in the south-west is a testament to his mother’s perseverance and emphasis on education and learning.14

KHANBALIQ To clarify his intentions and signal his own transformation, Qubilai established a new seat of government.15 Qaraqorum, Ogodai’s capital, was a steppe metropolis which stood as an urban oasis in a desert of rolling steppe lands. It had the vibrancy and dynamism of a multicultural and multi-ethnic city, but it lacked a hinterland which could provide for a burgeoning population. Qubilai built his new capital on the plains south-east of the steppe lands of his birth, close enough to maintain his links with his nomadic past and far enough away to assure his Chinese subjects of his commitment to them. He allowed the principles of geomancy, or feng shui, to dictate the most propitious location for the placement of tombs, residences and palaces, while the actual construction, started in 1267, was undertaken by a mixed team of nationalities, celebrating and reflecting the cosmopolitan nature of Dadu known also as Khanbaliq, ‘Home of the Khan’. The capital’s dual name, Turkish Khanbaliq and Chinese Dadu, reflects the powerful influences that were vying for supremacy in all aspects of the new state’s administration and image. Qubilai had the layout of his city designed along traditional Chinese lines with symmetrical east–west and north–south axes, 11 three-storey tower gates allowing access and a clear separation between the imperial city where the royal family resided, then firstly an inner wall within which government officials lived and worked and secondly an outer wall 150

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marking the area designated for ordinary citizens of the city. Such an urban layout would have been very familiar to his Chinese subjects as would the buildings within the Imperial city of a reception hall for foreign embassies and the royal palace with quarters for the khan himself, and for his consorts and concubines. The imperial city was criss-crossed by canals, bridges, lakes and gardens, all features found in traditional grand Chinese residences. This was a reflection of the Great Khan and the world in which he now dwelt; the implication that he had abandoned his Mongol heritage was undermined by the presence of traditional Mongol gers within the confines of the imperial city. His sons lived close by their father in their own gers adjacent to the palace, and when one of his wives became pregnant he ensured that the last stages of the childbirth were experienced in the traditional felt-covered dwelling. In the Great Khan’s sleeping quarters, curtains and screens made of ermine skins and animal pelts were hung as reminders of his nomadic past, though hunting was a pastime the khan enjoyed throughout his life. In modern-day Mongolia, the practice of erecting gers in the gardens or yards of the townhouses is still widely observed. If his new capital had become largely Chinese, Qubilai made sure that Mongol traditions were kept alive and practised in his original capital, Shangdu (known as Kaiping until 1263), in which he had first been proclaimed Qa’an on 5 May 1260. It was the city that Marco Polo visited in the 1270s and that subsequently achieved universal fame and acclaim as Xanadu. Shangdu had a closer association with its nomadic past and continued to serve as a summer hunting preserve with one source claiming 500 birds of prey. Khanbaliq became the commercial hub of the Empire with waves of Arabs, Persians, Turks and especially Koreans (Goryeo) flooding its bustling bazaars and mazes of lanes and alleys. ‘Hawkers chase after little, /In muddy alleys traverse the deep. / Them carrying goods and shouting all day, /A hundred sounds are heard.’16 The central district clumped around the Drum and Bell Towers were a string of markets selling silk, leather, hats of great variety, geese, ducks, beads, jewellery, ironware and rice noodles, while the Yangshi Jiaotou (Sheep Market), or Yangjiaoshi (Ram’s Horn Market), inside the western Shuncheng Gate was teeming with sheep, horses, oxen, camels, hinnies and other domesticated animals. There were book markets and paper markets, and the city soon became the largest handicraft centre in northern 151

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China.17 Marco Polo reckoned that 1,000 cart-loads of silk entered the city every day, and small industries fed the frantic markets 24 hours a day processing the silk, rug weaving, wicker manufacturing and innumerable other light and heavy crafts. Arms manufacture was an important business, as was wine making and the production of distilled liquor, alaji. Mining from the provinces gave rise to a multitude of trades and fed a thousand small furnaces blackening the capital’s skies and walls. Coal was the major fuel for domestic and industrial needs, and its use inspired the capital’s poets. ‘Belowground pits are dainty and coals are red’, ‘With warm pits and coal furnaces, fragrant beans are cooked’, ‘In the deep night I take a stroll east of the jade railings./On incense ashes and borneol cinders, fire is still red.’18 However, all was not roses in this vibrant urban cosmopolis, which fed not only itself and its sprawling suburbs but a vast united China, an empire beyond and the slave trade. Though a thriving aspect of the cities of western Asia, the slave trade was conducted openly at the ‘Human Market’, part of Khanbaliq’s famous Ram’s Horn Market. Whereas many of the slaves sold in the west were captured as a result of military conflicts and were destined to become mamluks, the slaves in the ‘Human Market’ were there because of abject poverty or the indebtedness of their parents. The notorious ‘lamb loan’ (yanggaoli), a particularly obnoxious form of exploitative usury, led to great misfortune and the desperate trafficking of children and wives.19 The qukou or ‘the captured and ordered about’ were sold alongside horses, sheep and other livestock in ‘several tiers [and] […] seated according to class’.20 They were afforded no rights over their possessions, bodies or future, and qukou deemed ‘guilty’ of a perceived offence could be legally executed by their owner. The killing of an ‘innocent’ qukou might result in the accused slave-owner receiving 87 blows.21 Slaves were a major constituent of Khanbaliq life and only the poorest households did not use them. Ahmad Fanakati (1242–82), the state’s Khitan chief minister, had 7,000. Mongke Khan had originally ordered that the polymath Nasir al-Din Tusi (1201–74) be sent from his ‘detention’ in the Ismaʿili stronghold of Alamut to his capital in Qaraqorum, where the scientist justly famous for his astronomical knowledge could reside and conduct his research for the benefit of the Qa’an’s imperial court. Qubilai 152

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now wished to fulfil that ambition, at least in part by overseeing the construction of an observatory in his new capital. Though without the resources of Baghdad and Alamut nearby to furnish a library for his proposed observatory, the renovated Hanlinyuan could provide the literary treasures to fire his astronomical centre. Dispatched especially from Iran, Jamal al-Din cooperated with the engineer and astronomer Guo Shoujing22 in setting up this famous astronomical centre and devising tables, charts, maps with colour coding, grids and a new Chinese calendar. The solid structure along with some of the original instruments has survived until now and can be visited at the original site, a pleasant walk from Tiananmen Square. A great deal of documentary evidence exists about the minutiae of Khanbaliq administrative, commercial and cultural life, and Chen Gaohua’s book23 on the capital provides a tantalising glimpse of what is available. Chen has trawled a wealth of varied sources including scrolls, manuscripts, stela and records to unearth the quotations, data, insights and images of this medieval powerhouse.

EXAMINATIONS Qubilai’s legacy remains bright because apart from bringing China considerable international prestige and glory, his long reign oversaw a much welcomed period of comparative political stability, regional unity, and economic and cultural prosperity. Just as in the west, where his brother Hulegu had received the cooperation of the indigenous people in recognition of his re-establishment of ancient Iran, in the east Qubilai was recognised as having united China and his throne was given legitimacy and his dynasty awarded its special place in Chinese imperial history. Much has been written of the Song Loyalists, but their movement and their influence has been vastly exaggerated and their numbers had dwindled to insignificance by the end of Qubilai’s reign. One reason for their apparent success is that they retired to their farms in China’s vast interior, where they were able to write and issue long tracts of anti-Yuan propaganda without interference or interruption. They did this for the simple reason that they had nothing else to do and the majority of China’s intellectual classes were too busy re-building the country after so many decades of war and centuries of disunity and conflict. 153

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Qubilai sought to heal some of China’s damaging internal disputes and exploit the euphoria engendered by the unity between north and south. He sought the close assistance of Liu Bingzhong, a Buddhist monk well versed in Confucianism, but skilled most notably in mathematics, astronomy, calligraphy and painting. Liu assumed the task of governing Qubilai’s lands in the north along traditional Chinese lines, restoring ancient Chinese ceremonies and rituals and establishing the legal and financial institutions, including the tax regimes that underpinned the imperial system. However, Qubilai refused to contemplate the reintroduction of the civil service examinations that had dominated all aspects of Chinese government for centuries. He refused to be dissuaded from this action because by their very nature such examinations would immediately exclude nonChinese, and Qubilai was adamant that no one should be excluded from the opportunity of serving in the government. Qubilai wanted to integrate his new China into a global multi-ethnic empire in which he would be able to reward those who had demonstrated loyalty to his Chinggisid ideals. The Chinggisids had always practised as a meritocracy, and many had risen from obscurity to the highest positions of power. The abolition of the exam system was seen as a positive move to empower more people rather than a negative ruling to restrict the Chinese. Though the abolition of the civil service examination system has often been portrayed as being an anti-Chinese measure designed to exclude native Chinese from local and national government, the reality simply meant that the entrance qualifications were opened to far more people than had previously even thought of applying. The abolition abolished a bias. No one was now excluded from the civil service because of a lack of knowledge of Chinese literature and philosophy. The much vaunted racial preference league table is often used to demonstrate how the abolition of the civil exams excluded Chinese from the administration. The reality was simply that many people other than indigenous Chinese were now employed in government service, whereas before such work was exclusively for the Chinese. The table which is often quoted in regards to employment policies under the Yuan does not indicate any racial discrimination or favouritism. It reflects the growth of the Empire and the degree of perceived loyalty based on length of service. Choice jobs were often 154

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awarded to those who were perceived as most trustworthy and loyal. It was the Turco-Mongol tribesmen who were first to flock to Chinggis Khan’s banner, and those early supporters were generously rewarded with positions of power and prestige. As his armies moved south, east and west Chinggis encountered the sedentary world and needed administrators and officials to deal with the new unfolding reality. Many of those who answered his call for help were the Uyghurs, Muslims and other Semuren, who subsequently held on to the top administrative positions. The same story occurred as lands fell to the Chinggisids and the people were incorporated into the growing administration. The result was the appearance of a roughly four-tier system of appointments, with the southern Chinese assigned to the lowliest ranks since they had been the last to join the swelling army of bureaucrats. A system apparently weighted in favour of Muslims and Persians was also created by the Persian sources, which tended to concentrate on their co-religionists and fellow Persians and again created an impression of a society where these minorities held undue influence.

QUBILAI, MONGOL KHAN OR CHINESE EMPEROR? Qubilai has often been portrayed as a Chinese emperor attempting to reconcile his Mongol background with his new role and identity while at the same time retaining the loyalty of his traditional Mongol following. However, this view is to misunderstand not only Qubilai’s considerable achievements but also his aims and aspirations. His new capital, Khanbaliq, with his magnificent new palace and his garden containing a traditional Mongol tent or ger has often been ridiculed. Again the contempt is misplaced and rebounds on the observer who exhibits only a failure to comprehend the nature of the Yuan vision. The Toluids, whom Qubilai led and epitomised, aspired to create a global empire encompassing the full extent of their rule. The Chinggisid armies patrolled the frontiers of Asian, Islamic, European and maritime states. Their soldiers wore the dress of a multitude of different people. Their kitchens employed chefs from around the world, and the cuisine that was served catered to every conceivable taste, as just a quick flick through the magnificent pages of Tugh Temur’s culinary guide soon reveals. The Toluids created a multi155

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ethnic and more significantly a multicultural empire that combined and synthesised and ultimately transcended any one culture to create a unique and richer culture reflecting all its constituent parts. Qubilai Khan did not preside over a Chinese court nor a Mongol court nor a Persian or Muslim court. He was the emperor of a Yuan court that combined and grew out of the many parts that constituted the whole. Qubilai presided over a court of many colours, and he saw his job as to maintain harmony and peace and to reconcile the many conflicts that would inevitably arise.

BUDDHIST AND DAOIST RIVALRY The festering rivalry between Buddhist and Daoist monks had undermined many attempts at governing the north, and the disputes between the two sides frequently erupted into violence. Mongke Qa’an had originally charged his younger brother with solving this intractable problem and Qubilai was able to demonstrate his political skills in tackling this issue. The two religions shared some basic beliefs and the Buddhists had made liberal use of Daoist terminology when translating very basic theological concepts from their Buddhist texts into Chinese. The disputes were not essentially over doctrine but concerned far more practical matters such as land rights, ownership of property and access to government patronage. Power and access to power rather than ideology or doctrinal disputes were the cause of the violence that the religious leaders inflicted on one anothers’ followers. The appropriate doctrinal argument could always be found and invoked as an excuse for the violence. The Buddhists claimed that the historical figure of the Buddha pre-dated Laozi, Daoism’s founder, and therefore he could claim superiority over the Chinese philosopher. These claims were dismissed since the Daoists countered that Laozi had in fact travelled to the ‘Western Regions’, India and Transoxiana, where he had assumed various emanations, one of which was the Buddha. The teachings that he had then espoused speaking through the mouth of the Buddha were a simplistic form of his original wisdom designed to be understood by the less sophisticated and less educated peoples of those regions. In 1258 Qubilai forced the two sides together at a conference where their leading theorists could debate before him. Such religious 156

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debates had been a favourite pastime for generations of Chinggisid princes.24 However, by 1258 Qubilai had already formed a strong religious leaning of his own and the young Tibetan Buddhist monk, Phags-pa, was already installed at court, where Qubilai and his chief wife Chabi received religious instruction. It was this highly influential monk who devised a script with which to write the Mongolian language, hitherto usually written down in Uyghur script, and which actually became the official script of the state. With the two warring sides together under one roof, Qubilai charged the Daoists with demonstrating before the assembled audience the various magical powers they professed to have. When they failed to change the weather, foretell the future or even cure various diseases, Qubilai declared the Daoists the losers and as punishment 17 leading Daoists had their heads publicly shaved and were then forced to convert to Buddhism. In addition various Buddhist temples that had been occupied by Daoists were liberated and a number of properties that had been confiscated by Daoists from the Buddhists were returned to their rightful owners. No other action was taken and the Daoists were neither banned nor restricted from practising. When Mongke Qa’an assumed the throne he presided over a united empire, but the factions had been forced into a marriage built on bloodshed. Mongke’s first task had been to strengthen his power base and to build an unassailable Toluid state. He had sent his brother Hulegu west to quell any dissent in the Islamic world and to this end he was able to manipulate the Persian/Arab rivalry already destabilising the region. Welcomed by Iranians eager to be absorbed into a greater trading market that promised not only commercial potential for its entrepreneurs, opportunists and adventurers, the Empire offered stability and security and an end to the military rule and anarchy that had prevailed over much of the country. Iranians flocked to Hulegu’s banner and willingly participated first in the destruction of the blasphemous Ismaʿilis and then in the fall of Baghdad, replacing the weak and corrupt Arab caliph with a Persian governor. In 1258 the fall of Baghdad saw the demise of the old order, the ʿAbbasid Caliphate, and the rise of the new, the Ilkhanate (1258–1335). In the east a similar movement was also taking shape with equally portentious results. In 1276 Qubilai ordered the taking of Hangzhou and, as in Iran, the old order, the Song, gave way for the new, the 157

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Yuan dynasty. Baghdad fell after a fire fight, though pestilence accounted for most of the appallingly high death rate, whereas Hangzhou fell without a fight and there was a peaceful transition of power. In Iran Hulegu was generally welcomed and the only military confrontation was with the despised Ismaʿilis. Song China went down fighting, but not to the degree that has often been portrayed. In fact, other than some very famous confrontations, such as the battle for the city of Xiangyang, the gateway to the Yangzi plain, which was defended by the Song general Cao Youwen until it capitulated in 1236, and the battles in Sichuan province, many of the Mongols’ victories were the result of defections. The timely collaboration of the Song chancellor, Jia Sidao (1213–75), led to the final submission of Chengdu, which opened the road to Dali.25 Political in-fighting, peasant revolts and uprisings in the region of modern Fujian and Hunan, and the importation of new military technology from Persia expertly deployed by Qubilai led inexorably to the slow collapse of the Song. With the establishment of the Ilkhanate following the fall of Baghdad in 1258, Persian opportunists and adventurers, as well as administrators, merchants and technicians, had flocked to the east and eagerly signed up to assist Qubilai in his wars with the Song and the Ogodaid traditionalists under Qaidu fighting for Turkestan and fomenting unrest in Khorasan. Bayan Noyan (1236–95) Bayan Noyan,26 a young general and court favourite who had a string of military victories to his name, was awarded the prestigious task of overseeing the surrender of the Song capital. He had been born and raised in Turkestan and had accompanied his father, the great amir Kokochu of the Ba’arin tribe, when he moved west with Hulegu’s armies. He served Hulegu in Iran until dispatched east by Abaqa at the request of Qubilai. After the success of his campaign against Xiangyang, he was appointed commander of Qubilai’s imperial forces, coinciding with the official founding of the Yuan dynasty in 1273. After dispatching the Empress Dowager northward to Khanbaliq in 1276, he was faced with the problem of appointing a city administration for the Yuan’s cultural capital. It is probable that he recruited some Khitans and possibly Iranian notables to positions of power and influence in the city as the establishment of the Phoenix Mosque in 1281 and a number of Persian tombstones 158

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would seem to suggest27 and he would have built a strong network of friends, colleagues and contacts from his youth and early manhood in Turkestan and Iran.

FOREIGN ADVENTURES If Qubilai achieved comparative success at home, his adventures abroad did not reflect this flush of triumph. As early as 1256 his entanglement in the jungles of Annan spelt early disaster just as his concurrent absorption of the Kingdom of Dali into the Yuan state became an enduring success. The other success, often overlooked, was the absorption of Goryeo into the Empire and the use of the Korean Peninsula as a springboard for naval missions and as a source of manpower. Goryeo became a vassal state in 1260 but after a further intervention in 1273, the Koreans became more fully integrated into the Yuan state. Three raids on Pagan, in 1277, 1283 and 1287, eventually saw Mongol rule in the Irrawaddy Delta, and a puppet king in Bagan, the capital of the Pagan Kingdom. Failure to even land successfully on the Japanese mainland became a costly humiliation and a perceived defeat that undermined the cultivated image of the Chinggisid military machine as an almost irresistible force of nature. Both attempts to attack Japan, in 1274 and in 1281, failed, and even though the reasons for these failures – the use of flat-bottomed river boats and the appearance of the Kamikaze winds – were understood, avoidable and easily correctible, no third attempt was mounted.

Fig. 10: Qubilai twice attacked Japan but was defeated by the Kamikaze winds and bad planning 159

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The erosion of that image of invincibility had begun with the defeat by the armies of the Mamluk commander Qutuz on 3 September 1260 at the Battle of Ayn Jalut. Although the battle did not involve Hulegu’s main military forces and the defeat in no way altered the military balance in the area, the symbolic impact resounded globally and the image of a vanquished Chinggisid army was powerful and compelling. Syria quickly became a battlefield as it was evident that the unstoppable had now been stopped. Ayn Jalut coincided with the Chinggisid civil war, pitting brother against brother as those deeply entrenched ideologies that had long been maturing erupted in violence. Crowned by a quriltai hastily convened in Qaraqorum and encapsulating the aspirations, traditional beliefs, values and practices of the steppe, Ariq Buqa, the youngest of the Toluid brothers, had the backing of the Jochid Golden Horde of Russia and the disgruntled and vengeful Chaghadaids and Ogodaids of the Eurasian steppe and Turkestan. Against these reactionary forces, Qubilai was able to call forth the wealth and might of China. Even in these early years, the Chinese were able to recognise where their interests lay and that a victorious Ariq Buqa would be disastrous for China’s future. Once again the Song lent their support to the Chinggisids, and Qubilai was soon able to accept the surrender of his brother with apparent magnanimity. However, when in 1266 Ariq Buqa died in questionable circumstances, many assumed Qubilai to be responsible. Ariq Buqa’s challenge to Qubilai was serious and has been greatly played down by the Toluid historians of Iran such as Mustawfi, Wassaf and Rashid alDin. After Qubilai’s victory Chinggis Khan’s empire was irrevocably split. The split was not just between ambitious princes greedy for wealth, land and power but had far deeper roots. The war had been for the soul of the Empire, and with Qubilai Khan’s victory it was the progressive, dynamic forces that had been able to wed the cultures of Iran, China, Turan and the steppe into a rich union. The Toluids wove an intricate cultural weft with a commercial warp in a very diverse, dynamic and often sophisticated population. Ariq Buqa had united those reactionary forces who viewed the direction in which their leadership was moving with distaste and alarm. They viewed the sedentary world as being there to service their needs and to be exploited. They believed in the ascendancy of the steppe over the sown and the Great Yasa as supreme. The Toluids saw the Chinese 160

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and Persians as partners rather than as expendable subjects. This dichotomy not only divided the greater empire but would remain an issue and a bone of contention within the Toluid ranks as well, finally verbalised by Ghazan Khan at a time when the Yuan and the Ilkhanate were at their closest. Qaidu Khan (1230–1301) After Ariq Buqa’s death, the ‘Back to Basics’ banner was raised by a prince from the very much weakened House of Ogodai. Originally Qaidu Khan took up arms against Qubilai not only to challenge his right to be Great Khan and to claim that honour for himself but also to restore the ancestral rights of his humiliated forefathers who had suffered so cruelly at the hands of Qubilai’s brother Mongke. Qaidu Khan wished to claim those honours and rights of which his ‘family’ felt they had wrongly and unjustly been deprived. However, Qaidu’s cause was soon subsumed to the greater cause and all those who resented the ascendancy of the House of Tolui and deemed that the Toluid accommodation with the settled, sedentary empires amounted to a blasphemous betrayal of the ideals and beliefs of Chinggis Khan and the yasa of the Mongols. Qaidu became a major challenge to Qubilai’s moral authority rather than a threat to his throne. In 1289 Qaidu briefly occupied Qaraqorum and some believe that this was the extent of his ambition. The Ogodaid Qa’ans had ruled the lands of the north and their writ had never encompassed China and Iran. Qaidu’s rebellion effectively split the Toluid Empire in two, separating the Ilkhanate from the Yuan state by a region of instability and lawlessness that was dangerous for merchants and inaccessible to government officials or diplomats. When Marco Polo travelled east to return with his father to the court of Qubilai Khan, he was forced to travel along the high and very inhospitable passes of the Pamir Mountains along the Wakhan Corridor. The mountainous corridor wove a craggy path between the hostile lands controlled by the Chaghadaid khans and to the south the inaccessible valleys which hid the lairs of the Qar’aunas and the lands of the Delhi Sultanate. On his return in 1292, taking with him his valuable human cargo of a princess and blushing bride originally intended for Arghun Ilkhan, Marco Polo, like so many others travelling between the Yuan and the Ilkhanate, was forced to brave the treacherous seas of the Spice Route. Though the Song’s former superintendent of shipping, 161

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Pu Shougeng, a Muslim with family connections with the western Islamic world, had happily jumped ship and now served and spread Qubilai’s interests throughout the Indian Ocean, those shipping lanes remained extremely hazardous, time-consuming and an unsatisfactory alternative to the overland Silk Road through Turkestan.

SPICE ROUTE Between 1278 and 1294 Qubilai managed to force commercial cooperation on some parts of the Malay Peninsula, southern India and the Khmer Kingdom. However, Qubilai was preoccupied with the conquest of Java, for which he committed 20,000–30,000 men on a punitive raid against Singhasari (1293). At a cost of 3,000 Yuan fighters’ lives, the Majapahit king forced his withdrawal. Despite the attraction that the historian Wassaf claims Java and Southeast Asia held for the emperor, Qubilai held only the two northern jungle Thai states of Sukhotai and Chiangmai at the time of his death. It is a portion of the portions of the ocean full of accumulated curiosities and abundant wealth, with plenty of all kinds of treasures and precious jewels, and charming products of ingenuity, and honourable gifts of merchandise, displaying the contrivances of the incomparable one. That country and all around it is fragrant with the odours of aloe-wood and cloves, and plains and precincts are vocal with the notes of parrots, saying, ‘I am a garden, the shrubs of which are envied by the freshness of the garden of Paradise,’ etc., and so forth.28

One reason for the adventures in the southern seas was the ongoing war against his cousins in the north and west. Trade was the lifeblood of the Empire and if one artery was blocked another must be opened. If the merchants could not forge a way through the deserts of Turkestan, then their ships must brave the dangerous seas of the southern oceans. Transoxiana was held by hostile forces who were disrupting trade along the ancient Silk Road. The socalled Pax Mongolica had disintegrated as hostility between the rival Chinggisid factions intensified after the rise to power of Qubilai became a reality. Certainly diplomatic and official missions could not be guaranteed safe passage, but merchants on purely commercial 162

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business could often find a way and the yam system could still operate on a commercial basis. Pegolotti’s Merchant’s Handbook pertains to the final decades of the Yuan era c.1340, but it suggests that a sophisticated and established network of traders and merchants had been established by that time. However, the partial fall from grace of the Silk Road enlivened maritime trade. As soon as word of the fall of Hangzhou and the surrender of the seals of the Song emperors had reached the south, the superintendent of the imperial fleet, Pu Shougeng, offered his fleet and his services to the Chinggisid khans, and his vessels opened up the Spice Route to the eager ortaqs and merchants of Qubilai Khan.

LATER YEARS AND DECLINE Qubilai probably oversaw the apex of his dynasty’s rule and unfortunately his successors had a hard if not impossible task to follow. Qubilai not only built the dynasty’s new capital, Khanbaliq, but with the help of Persian hydraulic engineers, he also created a new water supply for the city, which eventually became the Grand Canal between Khanbaliq and Hangzhou, linking north and south China in a very real sense and allowing trade to flourish along its 1,700 kilometres, the transport of rice in particular. But the slow descent into chaos and unravelling of Yuan rule allowed much of the Chinggisid legacy to be absorbed and assimilated with the Chinese psyche. Qubilai’s final years were marred by ill-health and depression brought on by family tragedy. In the 1280s there were two tragic deaths: the death of his beloved wife Chabi Khatun in 1281, which led to the emperor’s retreat from social contacts; and the premature death of his heir apparent, Zhenjin, in 1286 while the two were involved in an acrimonious and unresolved squabble. On Chabi’s suggestion Qubilai had married her younger niece, Nambui, who subsequently became Qubilai’s mouthpiece to the outer world while he sank into an alcohol-fuelled depression haunted by his military failures in Japan and Vietnam. The traditional Mongol diet, so rich in meat, combined with heavy drinking and his general despondency and lack of any exercise, resulted in gout and chronic obesity. A famous painting from 1280 by the Chinese court artist Liu Guandao captures the emperor dressed in distinct Mongolian-style furs over 163

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Fig. 11: Hangzhou’s Fengshan water bridge, the only standing remains of the Yuan city walls

Chinese silk brocades showing early signs of the weight problems that would later contribute to his death from ill-health. Qubilai appreciated the fine arts and retained court painters, the most famous of whom is Zhao Mengfu, who initially resisted attempts to co-opt him to the Yuan court. Like others of the intellectual elite who considered themselves Song loyalists, Zhao Mengfu was fortunate that the Yuan emperors were very liberal and tolerant as far as the intellectual elite were concerned and the literati were generally free to develop and express themselves without government interference. The Yuan century saw landscape painters and the dramatic arts in particular as experiencing what has been described as a cultural golden age. There are some who credit this spirit of tolerance and liberalism to disinterest and plain ignorance, but this is not borne out by the evidence. Qubilai himself was a generous and appreciative patron of the arts, while such avowed Song loyalists and passive resisters as Zhou Mi, the art collector and journalist of Hangzhou, included Yuan administrators, Muslims and Semuren among his closest intimates. Though he sacrificed his family’s fortune 164

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for his principles, Zhou Mi made a comfortable living and pursued his collecting of art while cultivating friendships among the Yuan elite and maintaining devotion to Song loyalism at the same time.29 Qubilai was succeeded by his grandson, Zhenjin’s son Temur. The Empire had enjoyed its heyday under Qubilai, and after his death the Yuan went into a gradual, slow decline. When the Mongol army withdrew and retreated north to Qaraqorum, this armed camp did not comprise all the descendants, defenders and core administration of the Yuan state. It comprised merely the core upholders of the emperor’s power, while the vast majority of those who had defined themselves as subjects of the Chinggisid khans had long reconciled themselves to serving whoever would best serve their interests. It is revealing that one of the earlier rebellions that shook Quanzhou, the Empire’s gateway to the Indian Ocean, was instigated by local Persian malcontents. The image of the Mongol hordes pouring from the steppe in the early 1200s and devastating the country over the next six decades prior to settling like a giant parasite and bleeding the country dry, before, finally, the heroic Chinese peoples rose up and expelled these loathsome barbarian invaders, driving them back to Mongolia from whence they had come c.1369, bears no resemblance to any reality. As we have seen, the conquest of China was gradual and involved diplomacy, negotiation, defection, changing alliances and political intrigue, as well as limited force of arms. The Yuan, as the Chinggisid dynasty was universally known, was accepted as a legitimate imperial Chinese dynasty and much of the vaunted cultural and spiritual resistance, whose support and numbers have been greatly overestimated, was ineffective and self-promoting. The Yuan imploded because the centre could not hold, but its fall was more a change of the guard than any kind of social, cultural or military upheaval. Certainly, there was no vast exodus of armies and people, no ‘retreat from St Petersburg’, and the new Ming masters were quick to honour the memory of their departed kings with the writing of the Yuanshi, the official recording of the previous dynasty by the new rulers, in keeping with ancient Chinese tradition. Though Qubilai Khan’s successors could not achieve his stature or authority, the Yuan Qa’ans continued to exercise great power and political reach. Their influence was worldwide, the wealth of their courts legendary and their rule continued for over seven decades. 165

8 SOUP FOR THE QA’ANS

The soup in question here refers to the title of a book, Yinshan zhengyao, which celebrates the culinary delights available at the court of the Yuan emperor. The dishes were representative of the many regions that fell under the sway of the Khanbaliqi rulers and the variety of foods and tastes available at the Qa’an’s court. The court cuisine is indicative of the sophistication and the range of the foods that appealed to those who worked in the confines of the Yuan court, be it in the political capital of Khanbaliq or the cultural capital of Hangzhou. The Yuan Empire1 peaked during the long reign of Qubilai Khan, the dynasty’s founder and grandson of Chinggis Khan, and thereafter never achieved the power, confidence and lustre that it owned during the decades under Qubilai’s rule. However, many of the ideals and certainly the vision of the Toluid elite lived on after Qubilai’s death, just as they did in the other half of the Empire in the Iranian Ilkhanate. Whereas Qubilai lay dying, the young prince Ghazan Khan was ascending the Iranian throne as the Ilkhanate’s first recognised Muslim ruler. Just as the cuisine on offer at the court of the Yuan emperors had something for everybody and included the tastes of even the most obscure Yuan subjects, so was Ghazan’s appeal for all his subjects from the Turco-Mongol lords of the steppe to the wandering qalandars of the plains. Hu Sihui’s cookbook, Yinshan zhengyao, was presented to Tugh Temur in 1330 when political instability was growing in many regions and yet its existence paid testament to how deeply 166

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Fig. 12: The Great Khans of the Yuan as depicted in popular Chinese playing cards

entrenched the global, multi-ethnic and multicultural ideals of the Toluids had become.

STEPPE V. SOWN The history of greater China post-Qubilai was a battle for the soul of the Empire, and it was a battle that had been played out from when Chinggis Khan had first stormed out from the steppe, accepted the alliance of his Khitan neighbours and absorbed the 167

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technicians and engineers who had offered their help in defeating their common foe, the Jurchen, the occupying forces of northern China. Chinggis Khan had begun the process of transformation from a steppe emperor to a world emperor. Many among his army wanted to achieve the domination of the steppe over the sown and continue the age-old war of survival. Chinggis had made it plain which he desired, but the degree of his metamorphosis was a matter of bitter dispute that was never to be wholly resolved. In Iran Amir Chopan confronted the disgruntled lords envious of the growing power and prestige of their fellow Iranians, the Persian courtiers, and the matter had been resolved until unfortunately the whole country dissolved into anarchy following the death of the young Ilkhan Abu Saʿid. In Yuan China the dispute wavered between the two parties as princes rose and fell and the government alternated between those who favoured Chinese traditions and others who still hankered after the clean air of the steppe. Qubilai Qa’an had been explicit when he came to the succession in that he stipulated that all future kings must be from the line of Chabi (1227–81) his chief wife, partner and friend. Qubilai was a hard act to follow. His achievements were recognised by all. In the Yuanshi, written by Ming scholars some 75 years after Qubulai’s death, the official verdict stated that: Emperor Shizu was a man of broadest capacity for judgment. He knew men and was skilled in employing them. He had deep confidence in Confucian methods, and was able to utilise them so that Chinese ways transformed alien practices. He established the basic principles and set forth ruling norms in such a way that the institutions of the age were of vastly encompassing scope.2

However, the financial crisis which throbbed at the heart of the state’s continued existence plagued Qubilai’s successors as persistently as it had corroded away at his own regime. His administration had to balance the continued excessive military expenditure along with lavish imperial indulgence and generosity with Confucian ideals of frugality and an easing of the people’s tax burden. To solve this intractable problem and untie this fiscal knot, successive qa’ans had employed semu financial wizards and often Muslim monetary masters to solve the sums and balance the books, which was often translated as more 168

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cooking than balancing. The tax burden was rarely eased, and when it was, as happened under Temur Uljaytu, the result was simply an increase in the financial crisis. Most of the hapless economic experts could see the solution, a drastic curtailment of state expenditure, but this financial cure would result in political suicide and undermine the Mongol state in China. In 1285 Qubilai’s eldest son and chosen successor, Zhenjin, died and not only left the father distraught but caused a succession disruption that persisted throughout the dynasty’s lifetime despite Qubilai’s stricture that the throne remain the preserve of Zhenjin’s successors. The steppe tradition of tanistry was never far beneath the surface, though a compromise between Mongolian patrimonial feudalism and the traditional Chinese autocratic–bureaucratic system was still possible. What does define the Yuan dynasty and indeed reflects the nature of Chinggis imperial rule is the ebb and flow of steppe versus sown culture. In Iran Ghazan made plain his identification with his settled subjects. Chinggis made clear his own attraction for the pleasures of urban life and luxuries, and during the Yuan the rulers alternated between those whose sympathies lay with their southern subjects and those who harkened to the call of the wild and the empty plains of the steppe.

THE YUAN EMPERORS Temur Uljaytu Chengzong (r.1294–1307) embraced the policies of his grandfather Qubilai, whereas Qaishan Kulug Khan Wuzong (r.1307–11) rejected those pro-Chinese policies. Ayurparibhadra Buyantu Khan Renzong (r.1311–20) adopted Confucian culture, and his son and successor, Shidebala Gegeen Yingzong (r.1321– 23), continued those same policies completing the codification of the law. However, after a coup d’état by Yesun Temur Taiding (r.1323–8) there was a return to the influence of the steppe. Tugh Temur Jayaatu Khan (r.1328–9; 1329–32) was known for his cultural sophistication and his Chinese was good, but when he was succeeded by Toghan Temur (r.1333–68/70) the rivalry between the two sides dissolved the state into growing anarchy. Though broad influences are discernible, often the reality was merely reflected in the ruling court and among the elite. Most of the emperors who 169

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succeeded Qubilai came to the throne as adults in their 20s or 30s, with only Rinchinbal Ningzong (r.1332) and Toghan Temur ascending as children. However, all were to varying degrees figureheads representing cliques of Mongol notables and political intriguers who saw their own interests best represented by either the steppe or the sown. This was the same broad split that still underlay tensions in the Ilkhanate and would sometimes surface even among the Chaghadaid–Ogodaid alliance. The Toluids under the Ilkhans and Qubilai had very much favoured a peaceful coexistence if not a merging and union between the cultures of the city and the steppe, and this fusion gave birth to the extraordinary cultural explosion in Iran and under the Yuan in China that the thirteenth and fourteenth century witnessed. Mongke Khan, as the last imperial emperor of the Mongol Empire, had viewed China, at least initially, as an appanage of his steppe empire, whereas Qubilai saw China as his base and wanted to shape it into his image. Qubilai was strong and charismatic and he was able to force his vision on those who might oppose him, but his successors did not match his success. However, when the Mongol armies, defeated by the Ming rebellion, turned north and retreated to their ancestral homelands in Mongolia c.1369, the exodus did not include everyone who had ever thought themselves a loyal servant of the Yuan kings, nor every soldier or son or grandson of every soldier who had marched with the Chinggisids out of the northern steppe. Those who retreated back to the steppe represented those who had rejected China and the culture that had been fermenting and maturing over the past century. Those who stayed and embraced the life of the cities in which they now lived and of which they were an integral part remained and prospered and no doubt became loyal citizens of the new Ming dynasty. Temur Uljaytu Khan (r.1294–1307) Temur Uljaytu Khan,3 or Emperor Chengzong of Yuan, was the second leader of the Yuan dynasty and is considered the sixth Great Khan of the Mongols in Mongolia. He was an able ruler of the Yuan whose reign established the patterns of power for the next few decades, but neither he nor any of his successors would ever match the calibre of leadership exhibited by the founder of the dynasty, Qubilai Khan. 170

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Zhenjin’s eldest son, Kammala (1263–1302), was rejected as successor because he failed to receive Zhenjin’s principal wife Kokojin’s all-important blessing, demonstrating the influence that this young woman, and indeed women in general, still exerted over the Great Khan. Kammala had served as a commander in Mongolia for many years and in 1292 he had been appointed as the Prince of Jin to take charge of the ‘four ordus of Chinggis khan and the troops and land of the Tatar’.4 However, his failure to secure the throne for himself was tempered later in 1323 when his son Yesun Temur became Qa’an. Rashid al-Din recounts that the succession dispute between the two brothers was decided by a knowledge quiz. Kokojin Khatun proposed that whoever could display the deeper knowledge of Chinggis Khan’s biligs should occupy the throne. Temur was known for his eloquence and he was able to pronounce the biligs well with masterful intonation, which duly impressed the judges and contrasted sharply with Kammala’s slight stutter and less confident delivery. As a result, all unanimously shouted, ‘Temur Qa’an knows the biligs better and pronounces them better. He is worthy of the crown and throne.’ And so in 1295 in Shangdu, Temur was enthroned as the Yuan emperor. In recognition of his respect for his elder brother, Kammala, he awarded him a large share of their father’s wealth and sent him to Qaraqorum ‘where Chinggis Khan yurts and ordus remain still, and put the troops in that area under his command’.5 Temur Uljaytu, a moderate Chinese speaker, backed by the national hero Bayan Noyan, assumed the reins of power and adopted the policies of his grandfather, opting for continuity and peace as priorities. This became immediately manifest in his appeals to the other houses of the wider Chinggisid Empire and he achieved and oversaw a short-lived period of unity and peace, not only with his fellow Mongol khanates but with some neighbouring states such as Pagan, Dai Viet under the Tran dynasty (1225–1400) and Champa (south Vietnam) that in 1304 recognised his suzerainty and agreed to pay tribute. Temur was born in 1265, the third son of Zhenjin of the Borjigid and Kokojin (Bairam-Egechi) of the Onggirat. Because Qubilai’s first son Dorji died early, his second son and Temur’s father, Zhenjin, became the crown prince. However, Zhenjin died in 1286 when Temur was 21 years old. Qubilai remained close to Zhenjin’s widow 171

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Kokojin, who was high in his favour. Like his grandfather Qubilai, Temur too was a follower of Buddhism. In 1293 his succession was assured when he was stationed in the north to oversee the steppe lands of Mongolia, though it was rumoured that his addiction to drink troubled his grandfather. Qubilai proved unable to curb that addiction despite the extraordinary measures and restrictions that he attempted to impose on the prince, so much so that Temur had his confidant Razi, a scholar from Bokhara, fill up his bath with wine in order to circumvent the ban on bottles being delivered to his rooms. However, on ascending the throne, Temur voluntarily gave up the consumption of alcohol.6 Temur came to power when change was afoot throughout the Toluid Empire. In the west Ghazan had assumed the Ilkhanid throne and had embraced the religion of his loyal subjects. He had thrown down the gauntlet to the Mongol amirs who still hankered after the privileges and power of a bygone era and reaffirmed his commitment to the multiculturalism of the Toluid state, a commitment shared by his grandfather Qubilai. Temur retained most of the ministers favoured by his grandfather and continued his domestic policies, but he initially cancelled further military adventures against Japan or Dai Viet and encouraged peaceful relations with the Chinggisid khanates in the west. In 1304, Du’a Khan (d.1307), son of the Chaghadaid prince Baraq, Qaidu’s son Chapar, Toqta Khan of the Golden Horde and the Ilkhan Uljaytu negotiated peace with Temur Khan in order to further trade and diplomatic relations among the Chinggisids, and it was agreed that Temur would be declared their nominal overlord. According to the ancient custom inherited from the time of Hulegu, Temur thus deigned Uljaytu as the new khan of the Ilkhanate and sent him a seal in Chinese script, which read ‘Seal of Mandate of Heaven Emperor [i.e. Emperor of China] who made peace with all foreigners/barbarians’, which was later used by Uljaytu in his letter to the French king Philip IV of France in 1305. Soon after, fighting between Du’a and Chapar broke out over a question of territory. Ever the pragmatist, Temur backed Du’a, and in the fall of 1306 he sent a large army under Qaishan to assist the Chaghadaid prince until Chapar finally surrendered and the House of Ogodai fell once more to pre-Qaidu obscurity. Meanwhile, to further cement his position in the wider empire, Toqta Khan of the Golden Horde also 172

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sent his overlord Temur two tumans to buttress the Yuan frontier. With Temur Uljaytu the nominal overlord of the Chinggisid Empire, trade once again resumed on a transcontinental scale. Outside the Chinggisid Empire reactions to Temur Uljaytu’s political muscle flexing were mixed. The Japanese ignored his demands for submission and instead the Kamakura Shogunate launched a raid on Ningbo, the sea port of the Empire’s cultural capital, Hangzhou. Three missions to Khanbaliq, in 1295, 1297 and 1300, reaffirmed the acceptance by the rulers of the Yuan’s neighbours, Dai Viet, Pagan and Sukhotai, of Temur Uljaytu as their overlord. In response Temur suspended his campaign in Pagan, he released his Dai Viet prisoners and accepted the tributes from the Tran court, and he began overtures to the rebellious tribal chieftains in the mountainous south-west. In 1301–3 a military expedition against Song Longji and the Dai (goldtoothed ones) proved very costly, but it was ultimately successful and peace was restored and trade resumed in Yunnan. In Pagan, Temur suspended military operations against Pagan resistance but instead in 1297 Yuan armies repelled local Shan tribesmen on behalf of the Pagan prince Tribhuvanaditya, who was himself then murdered by his brother, Athinkaya. Eventually Athinkaya and the Shan lords offered their own submission to the Yuan court. Envoys from Sukhotai and Khmer were also received at court and in response the diplomat Zhou Daguan was dispatched to establish communications between the Yuan court and its southern neighbours. It is generally agreed that the corruption that became endemic under the later Yuan khans began under the rule of Emperor Chengzong, while at the same time he succeeded in ruling peacefully at home and with his neighbours who recognised Yuan suzerainty and paid tribute in recognition. At home he also gained a reputation as a competent ruler and his administration was filled with a variety of nationals including Han Chinese, Tibetans, Mongols, Christians and Muslims, while Confucius was officially revered. The Mongol ministers Oljei and Harghasun oversaw policies that were designed to ensure political continuity, social stability and financial security. The Muslim statesman Bayan Noyan, great-grandson of the widely respected Sayyid ʿAjal Shams al-Din ʿOmar Bokhari, assumed the position of minister of finance. According to Rashid al-Din, Muslims were well represented in his administration.7 Temur’s cousin Ananda 173

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(d.1307) had been assigned command of the army in Tangut territory and the administration of the province formerly in the hands of his father and third son of Qubilai, Manggala. The population of Tangut is predominantly Muslim, and the young Ananda had had a Muslim wet nurse and exposure to Islam from a young age. He grew up learning the Qur’an and became familiar with Arabic script. Rashid al-Din claims that his official conversion encouraged the conversion of his 150,000 troops, though the Yuanshi claims that it was the influence of his men and contemporaries that led to his conversion. A disgruntled amir complained to Temur Qa’an about the prince’s devotion to this foreign religion and claimed that his time was wholly consumed with fasting, praying, visiting the mosque and reciting the Qur’an and that he had converted and circumcised Mongol boys and most of the military. Alarmed by these reports Temur sent aides to prevent escalation of the situation and to encourage Ananda to return to the Buddhist fold. This situation could well have caused a deep rift in the family and more seriously it could have destabilised a strategic province and resulted in widespread disquiet in the ranks and the strong possibility of defections or rebellion. After, Ananda appeared at court and explained his case and the wise words of his mother Kokojin Khatun: ‘Ananda has many troops and all those soldiers and people of the province of Tangqut are Muslims and […] are close to enemy territory. Let them not be alienated. It is not wise to make him recant. He knows best about his religion and community.’8 When next Ananda attended a quriltai at the Qa’an’s capital, he was treated with the greatest respect and assured that he was free to worship as he felt best, Temur having been reassured by the example of his close ally, the Ilkhan, Ghazan. Temur Uljaytu is credited with good intentions towards the common people and to this end he issued a number of imperial decrees ‘prohibiting the dukes, husbands of princesses, the rich and powerful from seizing people’s land’, but these proved empty words and widespread land annexation continued unabated.9 He wished to decrease the financial burden on the people in general and towards this goal he exempted various groups from taxation and opposed the addition of any new tax burdens wherever possible. Mongol commoners received tax exemption for two years. In 1302 he prohibited the collection of anything beyond the established tax 174

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quotas. Khanbaliq and Shangdu were exempted from taxes for two years. Worthy though such measures might have been, they were disastrous for the economy and they were a severe drain on court reserves, which resulted in an inevitable undermining of the country’s currency. This was particularly serious since the currency in use was still the paper currency introduced by Qubilai Khan that relied wholly on the confidence of traders in its continued value. Though sometimes coupled with Qubilai’s reign as forming the peak of Yuan glory and strength, Temur’s reign lacked the intellectual vigour and confidence that underlined Qubilai’s years, and signs of the malaise that was to become pervasive were evident before the end. The size of the court reflects the general state of health of the regime: bloated and indulgent. The combined quota of court officials had been set at 2,600, but in 1294 a censorate established that there were 10,000 officials on the payroll in the capital alone with many more in the provinces. Corruption was endemic and inevitable when the nature of some of the organisations is considered. For example, two merchant mariners, Zhu Qing (d.1303) and Zhang Xuan (d.1303), had been apprehended in 1302 on a number of serious charges. However, it appears that before their defection from the Song to the Yuan navy they had been salt smugglers and pirates. They came over from the Song with a large number of vessels and men and were not only welcomed but assigned important positions in the emerging Yuan navy. The scandal that broke in 1303 revealed they had made immense fortunes from their management of the maritime transportation of grain and the control of overseas trade on behalf of the Yuan government, which considering their past lives and experience as smugglers is hardly surprising. The scandal centred not on the ex-smugglers but on the many worthy citizens that they had corrupted and had brought down to their level of greed. Ministers of the secretariat and managers of state affairs included respectable figures such as Arghun Sali, Liang Degui, and Duan Zhen and such luminaries as Sayyid ʿAjal Bayan, whose family name would have been indelibly tainted by such a scandal. They were cashiered for accepting bribes10 and so enraged the Great Khan that he promulgated 12 articles on corruption. After nationwide investigations in the capital and in the provinces, 18,473 officials and clerks were prosecuted and 45,865 ding (coins) uncovered. Tellingly, many of the officials disgraced in this hallmark crackdown were quietly reinstated over the next few years.11 175

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Kulug Khan (r.1307–11) Born Qaishan, Kulug Khan, or Emperor Wuzong of Yuan (1281– 1311), was the third emperor of the Yuan dynasty and is regarded as the seventh Great Khan of the Mongols in Mongolia. His uncle Temur Uljaytu had died without a male successor. Based largely on his early military successes and a resulting popularity and solid reputation for competence and bravery, Kulug Khan was chosen to succeed his uncle as Great Khan. In addition, Mongol activists who wished to reverse the pro-Chinese policies of the previous regime indulged in fierce factional fighting to ensure their candidate Qaishan, thereafter named the ‘Martial Emperor’ or Wuzong, acceded the throne. The 26-year-old’s education included Chinese language but had concentrated on steppe military techniques, and much of his life had been spent in the steppe and therefore he had had minimal influence from sedentary Chinese life and culture. He was the second son of Darmabala and Dagi of the influential Onggirat clan, and the full brother of Ayurparibhadra. He had been sent to Mongolia to command an army that defended the western front of the Yuan state against the rebel Ogodaid prince, Qaidu Khan and other royal khans in Turkestan serving under him. In 1289, Qaishan’s force was nearly routed and the Qipchaq commander Tutugh rescued him from capture by Qaidu’s army. In 1301 he clashed with Qaidu, who was fatally injured in the battle and eventually died from his wounds. In 1304 in recognition of his admirable success, Kulug Khan was honoured by the Great Khan, Temur Uljaytu, and given the title of Prince Huaining. When the Ogodaid prince, Qaidu’s son Chapar Khan, attacked Baraq’s son and ruler of central Turkestan, Du’a Khan, Temur Uljaytu extended assistance to the latter by sending an army under his nephew, Qaishan. In 1306 Qaishan forced Melik Temur, a son of Ariq Buqa who had aligned himself with Qaidu, to accept a surrender in the Altai Mountains and then forced Qaidu’s successor Chapar westward. For these military achievements along the Yuan’s troubled western borders, Qaishan Kulug Khan earned a hard-won high reputation among Mongol princes in particular, and this was considered a major reason for his selection as a candidate for emperor. He rejected the direction in which his uncle Temur Uljaytu Khan had been leading the country and instead initiated a series of unplanned economic reforms, the ‘New Deals’, which eventually led to a severe 176

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financial crisis with the Yuan government facing mounting debt and popular discontent. He had no schooling in statecraft and he behaved in government as he would directing his armies on the western front or back home on the steppe. Popular with the Mongol elite but a source of exasperation among the multicultural, multi-ethnic ruling elite of the Yuan state, he drove his government close to bankruptcy. He did enjoy some success in foreign affairs. It was during his reign in 1308 that the Ainu people of the island of Sakhalin were forced to accept Yuan supremacy, the same year that, following the death of the king Chungnyeol of Goryeo, Prince Qaishan sent a patent for the Korean successor, Chungseon. He enjoyed bestowing honours and titles in the manner of a nomadic chieftain and he filled his ministries with artisans, butchers, actors and Buddhist and Daoist clergy with little understanding of the repercussions of his actions.12 In order to raise funds he simply printed more money, trebling the amount of paper currency in circulation, and sold monopolies for key industries and licences for state enterprises. He became a self-indulgent and extravagant tyrant, neglectful of his administrative duties, debauched and dissolute. This madness ended in 1311 and his educated and competent brother and successor immediately began repairing the damage Qaishan’s three-year reign had inflicted on the country. Ayurparibhadra Buyantu Khan (r.1311–20) The fourth Yuan emperor, Emperor Renzong, earned a reputation for competence having received a good Chinese education and even mastered the classics, and his adoption of Chinese Confucian culture was very popular with his Chinese subjects even though it caused predictable unease and even some outright hostility among the Mongol elite. He had been mentored by Li Meng, a Confucian academic whose influence is seen as being behind some of the reform that was instigated during Ayurparibhadra’s reign. The liquidation of the Department of State Affairs resulted in the execution of five leading officials and a reversal in the policies instigated by Qaishan. Ayurparibhadra reinstated officials who had served under Qubilai, mostly learned Chinese but also Mongols competent in Chinese statecraft. China rather than the steppe was once again the basis of Yuan power, though it was Ayurparibhadra who had ‘ordered his minister to establish shrines for the Mongolian shamans’,13 possibly to placate the traditionalists, uneasy at his other reforms. 177

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However, maybe it was his 1313 reintroduction of the state examinations,14 compulsory for all candidates seeking admission to the state administration, that was most controversial. The partial reintroduction of the examination system was seen as a landmark event by the Chinese. The annulment of the examination system had accompanied the fall of the Song administration and had immediately opened the state bureaucracy to a far wider pool of applicants including of course non-Han Chinese. The examinations demanded a thorough knowledge of Chinese history and culture and a grounding in Confucian philosophy. The first examinations for the jinshi degree were held in 1315, but other reforms and the tightening of standards were often opposed and his lack of forcefulness and character undermined much of what he might have achieved. Ayurparibhadra also codified the Yuan’s laws and oversaw the translation and publication of a number of Chinese books and classics. Prior to the reintroduction of the examination requirement the administration had been dominated by Semuren and ethnic Mongols, though this domination has probably been exaggerated by foreign chroniclers. In many Chinese gazetteers the seemingly all-powerful western administrators are hardly mentioned and it would appear that many of their duties were replicated if not dominated by their Chinese colleagues. In addition the merchant classes, typically treated with a degree of disdain by traditionalist Chinese, had assumed a far higher social and political status under the Yuan khans, and the Semuren and Westerners far outnumbered Chinese in the mercantile world. Therefore though a greater balance was achieved with Ayurparibhadra’s decisive reintroduction of the examination system as a prerequisite for entry into public service,15 Buyantu (Ayurparibhadra) Khan relied on the foreigners and their connections for the continued success of overseas trade. Shidebala Gegeen Khan (r.1320–3) Ayurparibhadra’s son and successor, Gegeen Khan, or Emperor Yingzong of Yuan, continued his father’s policies of reform based on Confucian principles when he ascended the throne in 1320 with the help of his able chancellor and commander of the Imperial Guard, Baiju, a descendant of the near legendary Muqali (1170–1223) and a powerful replacement of Temudar, the Empress Dowager’s man at court. Baiju introduced the young Qa’an to the cult of the ancestors 178

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and he became the first Mongol ruler to perform the stately ceremony in full regalia through the streets to the temple of his ancestors.16 Gegeen Khan, who had also received a Chinese education, completed the codification of the Yuan’s laws started by his father. This vast collection of rules and regulations became known as the Da-Yuan Tongzhi (‘The Comprehensive Institutions of the Great Yuan’). Enemies of the emperor and of the policies favouring the Chinese factions were able to sabotage much of what Gegeen hoped to achieve firstly by taking charge of the imperial court, murdering his chief ministers and also by threatening the life of the young emperor himself. When his supporters fought back the court became a battleground for the two rival factions, but Gegeen was able to announce a programme of ambitious reforms, actions which directly threatened the Mongol nobility and turned the rivalry bloody. Following the murder of the minister Baiju, Gegeen was assassinated on his way from the summer capital at Shangdu to Khanbaliq at only 20 years old, leaving the bitter ideological and political division splitting the country unresolved. The last decades of the Yuan dynasty were marked by struggle, famine and bitterness among the populace. Struggles for the leadership engendered instability and rebellion in the provinces. The Yuan khans had lost credibility with their homeland being viewed now as wholly Chinese, and yet in China itself they were still regarded with a certain amount of disdain, especially as corruption spread and they began to lose control first of the administration and then of the army itself. The country was ravaged by anarchy and popular rebellion became widespread. Gegeen Khan had survived only two years before five princes staged a coup and placed Yesun Temur on what was becoming an increasingly dangerous throne. Yesun Temur Khan (r.1323–8) Yesun Temur, or Emperor Taiding of Yuan, assumed the throne after the successful coup d’état against Gegeen Khan and his rule in some ways saw a return to the values of the steppe and the ideals of the early Chinggisids. However, it also saw the introduction of a period of great political instability, factional fighting, intrigue and assassination. As if to presage this political chaos, during the new Qa’an’s first year on the throne there occurred an earthquake, an eclipse, great floods, drought and a plague of locusts. The literati 179

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declared that the Heavens were expressing their anger with the nation and a study was commissioned detailing those acts and deeds that had caused the Heavens so much grief and wrath.17 The report was damning and not only named names but attacked the whole culture of indulgence and luxury and the neglect of the poor and the oppressed. In particular the report pointed an accusatory finger at the army of Buddhist lamas riding rough-shod around the country abusing the compulsory hospitality of the masses and the legions of ‘eunuchs, astrologers, doctors, and women’ and other such courtly hangers-on whose presence blinded the king to the true state of his country while admonishing the emperor himself. ‘The Empire is a family of which the Emperor is the father.’18 Yesun Temur did little to undermine the power of either his Mongol nobility or the lamas so great was their infiltration of his court. To distance himself from Gegeen’s assassination to which he had been party, Yesun Temur arranged for the arrest and murder of his fellow conspirators and then failed to implement or pursue the steppe-orientated policies with which the coup plotters had been associated. He even hired some of Gegeen’s courtiers to staff his court. Seeking to overcome the hostility that his seizure of power had generated, Yesun Temur avoided limitations and exclusions from his administration and he sought to include as wide an ethnic base as was possible. He allowed influential posts to be awarded to Chinese, and Confucian values and traditions were everywhere respected and deferred to. However, despite such efforts it was impossible to hide the number of Turco-Mongols remaining in influential positions and that, deliberately or otherwise, Muslims in particular occupied key positions of power, influence and authority throughout the administration. Mahmud Shah, Hasan Khoja Ubaydullah, Bayanchar and Dawlatshah all conspicuously occupied positions of influence and power in the administration and central secretariat. Christians and Muslims were excluded from any corvée payments and guaranteed huge payments promised by the Mongolian nobility in return for luxury goods. Yesun Temur is thought to have presided over the high point of Muslim and western influence in the Yuan at the expense of the Chinese, or so the impression was created and believed. Exaggeration masked the reality of the situation and served the instigators of rebellion well. 180

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Yesun Temur Khan was an idealist who deplored the extravagance of the court and the indulgences of imported luxuries. He denounced the court practice of buying costly precious stones, imported by foreign merchants, which were then sold for ten times their value, while outside the poor were starving. However, in 1326 when Ozbeg Khan of the Golden Horde sent cheetahs to Yesun Temur, the idealistic khan responded with grants of gold, silver, cash and silks.19 During his reign Yesun Temur initiated changes and administrative reforms. These included the expansion of the number of administrative departments from 12 to 18, which were overseen by a board, ‘the lords of the provinces’. These lords of the provinces received petitions from the people and this included complaints. In particular, complaints were received regarding the lamas, who it is reported subjected the people of the provinces to their arbitrary exercise of power and exploitation. Armed with their golden seals the lamas would descend on households unannounced exacting tribute and expenses and ‘treating the people in a shameful way’.20 They demanded board and lodging and would often take over the house and household, expelling the master and treating the house as if it were their own, and this included their treatment and use of the servants and women of the household. Yesun Temur initially felt constrained by fear of upsetting the lamas and the court elite, but eventually he issued a directive forbidding lamas from entering China. For this, Yesun Temur was accused of neglecting Buddhism and the ancient worship of the sky of the Mongols, and devolving too much authority to his Muslim aides, Dawlatshah in particular.21 Yesun Temur’s end came unexpectedly in Shangdu, where he spent the hot summer months, at the age of 36. He would have been more suited to commanding an army than administering a country and his successor inherited a divided and troubled land. It was during Yesun Temur’s reign that Friar Oderic of Pordenone visited China and spent three years in the capital Khanbaliq and the magnificent palace with its ‘four and twenty columns of gold, and all the walls hung with skins of red leather, said to be the finest in the world’.22 His description of the court is similar to that of Marco Polo despite the decades that separated their visits. Interestingly the friar comments on the distinctive headdresses worn by the Mongol khwatin (ladies) which in his eyes resembled the giant foot presumably of their husbands, ornately decorated in silks, jewels 181

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and precious stones.23 William of Rubruck has a far more detailed and accurate description of these unique boccas24 made of bark and covered in fine silk and pearls worn the previous century when he was passing through. Yesun Temur’s supporters installed the monarch’s young son Arigaba on the throne in Shangdu, but within two months the nineyear-old boy had disappeared presumed dead and a powerful former minister to the Emperor Wuzong seized control and demanded that a son of Wuzong should now be placed on the throne. The factional fighting that continued to rock both the country and the court was between powerful ministers attempting to put their own nominee emperor on the throne. Eventually Tugh Temur Wenzong was placed on the throne. Tugh Temur Jayaatu Khan (r.1328–9, 1329–32) Tugh Temur, or Emperor Wenzong of Yuan, is regarded as the 12th Great Khan of the Mongols in Mongolia and eighth Yuan emperor of China. Thanks to his father’s loyal partisans, Tugh Temur restored the line of Qaishan to the throne, but persecuted the family of his eldest brother, Kusala, and later expressed remorse for his actions. Tugh Temur was the first of the Yuan emperors to have been born from ethnically questionable parents. His mother had Tangut parentage. Tugh Temur earned a reputation as an educated and sophisticated patron of the arts who also wrote poetry, painted and read classical texts himself, and examples of his competent calligraphy have survived, unlike his administrative policies. It was during his reign that the magnificent cookbook of Hu Sihui, Yinshan zhengyao, was compiled and its content reflects the multiculturalism and sophistication of his court. While he devoted his time and talents to the arts, his powerful ministers directed political and administrative affairs. However, Tugh Temur’s exclusion from administrative affairs and his restriction to artistic and cultural matters did not prevent him spreading disaster on his long-suffering population. The adage ‘the poor got poorer while the rich got richer’25 was coined to express the widespread resentment felt during his reign. Wishing to gain the esteem of the literati, Tugh Temur decreed new, great honours for the parents of Confucius. As a result, the inundations caused the devastation of 5,180,000 aspens of land in Jiangnan and Hu-Quang (Hunan) and reduced 400,000 families to poverty.26 182

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Though Tugh Temur had grandiose plans for his reign, his administration was dominated by two autocratic figures, El Temur, a Qipchaq Turk, and Bayan, a Merkit Turco-Mongol. It was El Temur who was instrumental in arranging the coup d’état which saw him established on the throne and this dark figure continued to operate behind the scenes with Bayan. Some credit the two with allowing the rise of warlords and despotic figures which ushered in the decline of the Yuan dynasty. Tugh Temur had a good knowledge of the Chinese language and history and was also a creditable poet, calligrapher and painter and he paid great respect to and encouraged Chinese art and Confucianism. He founded the Academy of the Pavilion of the Star of Literature, first established in the spring of 1329 and designed to undertake ‘a number of tasks relating to the transmission of Confucian high culture to the Mongolian imperial establishment’.27 The academy was responsible for compiling and publishing a number of books, but its most important achievement was its compilation of a vast institutional compendium named Jingshi Dadian (‘Grand canon for governing the world’). His aim was to establish the achievements of the Yuan dynasty on a par if not above the cultural, legal and administrative achievements of the Tang and the Song. It is said that Tugh Temur wished to view the files that were being kept on him and on his reign by the historians at the Hanlinyuan institute, breaking a tradition which restricts access to such files to selected official historians. Whereas the chief officials were cowed into surrendering to the emperor’s command, a subordinate official threw himself at Tugh Temur’s feet and pleaded the academy’s case, explaining that if this tradition were to be broken it would be impossible to maintain the academy’s integrity and history of objectivity and independence. Tugh Temur was so impressed by the words of this lowly official that he agreed to maintain the institute’s continued operational secrecy and inviolacy. Tugh Temur’s potential administrative achievements were wholly undermined by his ruthless and controlling ministers El Temur and Bayan who also headed the keshig. The emperor was little more than a puppet of El Temur. When Tugh Temur was forced to abdicate in favour of his brother, Kusala, his minister poisoned the new emperor and reinstated the hapless Tugh Temur once more on the throne. El Temur felt that Kusala Qutuqtu Khan Mingzong, who was 183

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supported by the powerful Chaghadaid khans, would not be so easily controlled. He purged the administration of Kusala supporters and devolved power to regional warlords and so added to the anarchy raging in much of the Empire and especially in those areas where minorities held power and influence. After Kusala had interrupted his reign briefly in 1329, Tugh Temur needed the support and recognition of the other Chinggisid khanates, and to this end he dispatched royal embassies bearing gifts, delivered by princes and seeking their acceptance of his sovereignty. Lavish gifts were received by the Golden Horde and the Ilkhanate, as well as by Eljigidei Khan, who had strongly supported Kusala Mingzong. Tugh Temur’s intention was to mollify Eljigidei’s anger at his friend Kusala’s suspicious death shortly after assuming the Yuan throne. Eljigidei was the ruler of the Chaghadaid khanate, successor to his brother Kebuk and father Du’a. His reign was short-lived however and another brother, Du’a Temur, overthrew him in 1329. A total of 14 tributary missions from western khanates under Abu Saʿid, Ozbeg, Eljigidei and Tarmashirin to Tugh Temur’s Yuan court were recorded and this includes the dispatch of 170 Russian captives by the Chaghadaid khan, Changshi, who was rewarded with gifts of precious stones. It is recorded that a community of Russians existed in the capital, Khanbaliq, at this time and Tugh Temur is known to have formed a Russian regiment composed of these men known as the Ever-faithful Russian Life-guard. His liking for Russian was well-known, and both Ozbeg Khan of the Golden Horde and princes from Moghulistan sent captive Russians to his court. Tugh Temur was successful in gaining the support of the other Chinggisid khanates, even though that support was only paper-thin, but it was enough to impress the European powers. A papal memorandum concerning the Pax Mongolica declares: the Qa’an is one of the greatest monarchs, and all lords of this state, e.g. the king of Almaligh (Chagatai Khanate), emperor Abu Said and Uzbek Khan, are his subjects, who salute his holiness to pay their respects. These three monarchs send their sovereign cheetahs, camels, falcons as well as precious jewelleries every year […] They acknowledge him as their absolute supreme lord.28

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According to the annals, Tugh Temur’s death occurred along with earthquakes and natural disasters, presaging the building climax of Mongol domination of China. Rinchinbal Khan Rinchinbal Khan, or Emperor Ningzong of Yuan, was placed on the throne by his mother, who became acting regent, despite the wishes of the chief minister, Yen Timur, who favoured his own protégé. Ningzong became, at six years old, the youngest and the shortest ruling khan in the Yuan dynasty and he died not long after seizing the throne following his uncle Tugh Temur’s death. He left the throne open to his older brother, Toghan Temur, the last of the nine successors of Qubilai Khan. Toghan Temur Khan (r.1333–1370) Toghan Temur Khan, or Emperor Huizong of Yuan, was the last emperor of the Yuan dynasty before the remnants of the army and court fled north and re-established their ruling dynasty back in Ogodai Qa’an’s original capital, Qaraqorum. His rule was long but chaotic, and he oversaw a period of growing turbulence and unrest as minorities rose in revolt and opposition slowly began to coalesce around the Ming leaders from the north. The Ming founder Zhu Yuanzhang had Muslim generals such as Lan Yu, who rebelled against the Mongols and defeated them in combat, and one of the most famous of the early Ming’s military men, the sea admiral Zheng He, who was of Muslim ancestry being a grandchild of the legendary Sayyid ‘Ajal. Toghan Temur’s assumption of power coincided with the death of El Temur and the beginning of his reign was dominated by the autocratic rule of the chief minister, Bayan. However, wary of the minister’s growing power and aware of the fate of his predecessors, Toghan Temur determined to undermine his vizier. With the help of Bayan’s disgruntled nephew, Toghtogha, Bayan was banished following a coup. A few years later, in 1344, Toghtogha was forced to resign as chief minister though after having completed writing the histories of the Liao, Jin and Song dynasties and with the award of a title, Ching Wang, ensuring his own name survived in the history books. Toghan Temur was educated as a child by a Chinese monk who taught him to read and write Chinese and to memorise a number of 185

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classical texts. He was evidently a bright boy and he was even able to produce some acceptable calligraphy. However, that bright boy grew up to become a self-indulgent, debauched follower of religious cultic and tantric practices in which he was instructed by Tibetan monks. The Chinese view Tibetan tantric arts with great suspicion and consider them questionable and degenerate, and therefore the surviving colourful accounts must be read with a degree of scepticism. Toghan Temur presided over a period of escalating natural disasters with droughts, famine, earthquakes and floods recorded. With no effective means of relieving the suffering of the population, unrest grew and rebellion became widespread. In 1351, he recalled the vizier Toghtogha, who had resigned six years previously, to deal with the Red Turban Rebellion which, by 1354, had become nationwide when his minister finally brought it under control. Fearing that Toghtogha could now grow too powerful, he dismissed his minister and then turned to local warlords to support his throne. In 1357 a rebellion shook the port city of Quanzhou, which owing to the size and importance of its Muslim population was also known as Zaytun, an Arabic word meaning ‘olives’. Quanzhou was a major trading city that linked the vital Spice Route from the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf to China and provided an alternative trading artery to the overland Silk Road, which remained vulnerable to military and political disruption. Loyalist troops managed to scale the walls of the city and the Persian rebels were defeated with ten fighters being killed. On 21 March 1257, according to the Yuanshi, the Myriarchs of the Righteous Soldiers Saif al-Din and ʿEmil al-Din rebelled and occupied Quanzhou. A further reference claims that on 24 May 1362 Saif al-Din from Quanzhou occupied the Fuzhou Road but he was repelled and defeated by the pinzhang zhengshi of the Fujian Branch Secretariat, Yanzhi Buhua. Retreating with the remnants of his army, Saif al-Din returned by sea to Quanzhou and occupied the port city. Meanwhile the Dingzhou Road was secured by Chen Youding (You al-Din), the canzhi zhengshi of the Fujian Branch Secretariat. The so-called Ispah Rebellion was finally put down by this Yuan loyalist, Chen Youding, arriving by sea from Hangzhou in 1366, and heavy civilian casualties were recorded. The rebellion seems to have been uncoordinated and probably opportunistic and there is no evidence 186

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of contacts between the two chief rebels and the Ming commander, Zhu Yuanzhang. The Muslim community of Quanzhou is relatively well documented owing to the presence of a large mosque, which unusually for mosques of eastern China was built in the style of western Asian mosques, and also a large number of well-preserved tombstones, many of which contain biographical details and nisbas that specify the original place of residence of the occupants’ families. In addition, Ibn Battuta visited Quanzhou and recorded in some detail his experiences there and included accounts of those notables who entertained him during his sojourn. A document, the text of which is inscribed on a stele in the mosque, recounts the history of the compound stating that it was originally constructed in the eleventh century but underwent considerable renovation completed in 710AH (1310–11 ce) and overseen by Ahmad bin Mohammad Quds, a haji from Shiraz. ‘An elevated vault, broad paths, venerated gates, and brand new windows were built and installed.’29 As central government dissolved, chaos and unrest spread and eventually the enormity of Toghan Temur’s hopeless situation overcame him and he began to lose any interest in fighting back or attempting to restore control. As political struggles and local rebellion and civil wars spread, he was forced to flee his capital and seek safety in the north. In 1368 he abandoned Khanbaliq and escaped to Shangdu, and after a last failed attempt to regain Khanbaliq from the victorious Ming he retreated to Yingchang where he died in 1370 and left the country to the victorious armies of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), led by Zhu Yuanzhang.

ENDGAME Though the name Great Yuan was resurrected in the northern steppe lands of Mongolia, the Yuan dynasty had ended as far as the Chinese were concerned. The Chinese maintained an ambivalent attitude towards the Yuan dynasty. On the one hand they were almost universally pleased and even euphoric about the unification of China after nearly 400 years of political separation of the north from the south. The Song loyalists were loath to admit anything positive about the Yuan, but they could not fail to have been pleased and they were 187

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very much a dying breed. The quintessential Song loyalist Zhou Mi maintained an exterior hardness and resisted to the end, taking up employment with the state but in reality most of his friends were government officials and he made no attempt to banish the Yuan loyalists from his door. The Khitan Gao Kegong (1248–1310), a champion of local Muslims whose descendants helped establish the mosque and the Muslim community of Songjiang, was a friend and would have acted as a go-between for Zhou Mi and government officialdom.30 Though Zhou Mi did not work directly for the state, he worked for state officials advising them on their art purchases, renovating and restoring their investments, and generally stimulating and encouraging Hangzhou’s lively art market. Eremitism as a sign of loyalty and protest was believed to have deprived the state of many valuable, highly educated and trained individuals who retired to the provinces to devote themselves to painting, calligraphy or writing rather than serve an illegitimate or undeserving regime. Jennifer Jay in particular has been able to demonstrate that the influence and the impact of these loyalists has been greatly exaggerated and overstated.31 One reason for their high profile is that being high achievers with few openings for their energy and expression they wrote endlessly about their plight and their fellow dissidents while their colleagues who had accepted government appointments were simply too busy or otherwise occupied to devote their time to considering their situation. Embittered Song loyalists were a dying breed and most were quietly co-opted and enjoyed the growing prosperity and sophistication of the developing state. All Chinese then and certainly since the Yuan years took pride in the expansion of the frontiers and the foreign exploits of the Yuan military as the Empire grew to include ever more land and peoples. Although critical of aspects of the governance and the preponderance of foreigners and their cultural inferiors, the Confucian elite accepted the Yuan state’s heavenly mandate to rule and were quite prepared to accept that the non-Chinese ruling elite were very often good people whose honesty, generosity, motivation and approach to work were sometimes superior to those of their Chinese colleagues. The legitimacy of the Yuan dynasty was not questioned, the sincerity of many of the imperial functionaries was accepted and it was widely believed that eventually the foreigners would be absorbed and transformed and that civilisation would eventually triumph. In Iran a similar process was taking place, but 188

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there there was no way that the ‘Mongols’ could withdraw and retreat back to the steppe when their domination ceased. In Iran the Ilkhanate like the Yuan was a cultural melting pot, a cultural soup into which many diverse ingredients were fed. The resulting broth was a source of nourishment and warmth for the population and for the generations yet to come who would consume and absorb that nutritious potage. If the jury is out on the successes and failures of the Yuan government and bureaucracy, Yuan achievements in the field of artistic production are widely recognised just as in the west the cultural achievements of the Ilkhanate have long been recognised and acknowledged by art historians. The Yuan were able to learn from and develop the cultural achievements of the Song and in many fields their attainments were greater than those of the Ming. Though Ming porcelain is universally famous, it is widely acknowledged that it was under the Yuan that the potters reached the peak of their excellence. The playwrights of the Yuan are still revered today and the century is everywhere identified as the golden age of the dramatic arts. Qubilai Khan, like his brother Hulegu in the west, was a keen advocate of intellectual endeavour and both men and their descendants facilitated intellectual discussion and scientific enquiry and established appropriate institutions to advance philosophy, learning, science and academic development. Ilkhanid Iran in particular produced poets whose words have not been bettered since that golden age of 1250–1350. Their enthusiasm for history has resulted in the plethora of historical chronicles and records available to scholars today. The observatories of Maragha and of Khanbaliq produced intellectual giants like Tusi, Shirazi and Guo Shoujing, whose thoughts and theories are considered to this day. Painting and calligraphy continued the rich tradition that climaxed under the Song and reflected the richness brought about through unification. Zhao Mengfu has achieved international fame and even worldwide recognition for some of his images. No longer the political capital, Hangzhou blossomed as the cultural capital of Qubilai Qa’an’s global empire and assured the continuity and development of China’s artistic tradition. The continuity of the excellence of Chinese ceramics and especially of its fine celadon attracted global attention and the potters began servicing an international market, especially in Iran where the Chinese potters fed an insatiable market for their fine porcelain. Blue 189

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cobalt was exported from Khemsar in Iran and the distinctive blueand-white porcelain was returned from the kilns of Jingdezhen. The hard core of the Mongol army might have left for the steppe lands of Mongolia in 1369, but the population that had evolved over the past century contained elements of a cultural maturity that would be inerasable and would have entered the country’s DNA. HOUSE OF CHINGGIS The Great Khans and the Yuan dynasty of China CHINGGIS-KHAN, 1206–27 OGODAI, 1229–41 GUYUK, 1246–8 MONGKE, 1251–8 QUBILAI, 1260–94 TEMUR, 1294–1307 QAISHAN, 1307–11 BUYANTU, 1311–20 GEGEEN, 1320–3 YESUN TEMUR, 1323–8 TUGH TEMUR, 1328–9 QUTUQTU, 1329–32 RINCHINBAL, 1332 TOGHAN TEMUR, 1332–70

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Appendix 1 GLOSSARY

abu [abū] amir amir al-omara anda

appanage

aqa

arban arka’un atabeg

ayqaq

father of …; often used as main form of address. Compare bin, ibn, b. noble, lord or prince; a title of Arabic and Persian origin commander-in-chief brother-by-oath, blood brother; the strong pact made between Mongol friends vowing loyalty and support land or other provisions granted by a king for the support of a member of the royal family elder brother, with the connotation of ‘senior prince’; aqa and ini, all the family including elder and younger brothers or by implication, princes; also title for a noble, e.g. Arghun Aqa ten men Christian, particularly Nestorian local ruler; originally this term denoted the personal tutor and guardian of a royal prince informant, denouncer

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Ayyubids

bahadur bakhshi [baksi] balish barat basqaq

baṭin beg bilig bin, ibn, b. bint, bt. bocca cangue

canzhi zhengshi chao danishmand Daoism [Taoism]

Dar al-Harb

Kurdish sultans who ruled in Syria and Iraq and dominated the Islamic world between 1169 and 1260. Saladin [Salah al-Din d.1193] is the most famous of the Ayyubids for his seizure of Jerusalem and his final defeat of the Fatimids as well as his justice and wisdom hero, brave warrior; often used as a title Buddhist teacher, priest, sage bar, ingot; the Mongol unit of gold and silver currency unauthorised payment by cheque, which was usually a worthless scrap of paper [Turkish] overseer appointed by the Great Khan or Ilkhan to manage provincial administrations; also darugha, darughachi [Mongol]; shaḥna [Arabo-Persian] esoteric interpretation of Islam, hidden, secret, for the initiated only tribal leader, prince [Turkish], lord saying, maxim son of daughter of large headdress worn by Mongol ladies wooden implement of punishment and restraint that traps the hands and head in a vice assistant chancellor Chinese paper money, also used in Ilkhanate in 1290s learned scholar; often used to mean Muslim cleric teachings based on the Daodejing and Zhuangzi, celebrating the merits of inaction, mysticism and contemplation ‘abode of war’; all territory not under Islamic law 192

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Dar al-Islam ‘abode of Islam’; all lands under Islamic law darugha, darughachi see basqaq [Turkish]; darugha, darughachi [Mongol] diwan, dargah [Persian] royal court elchi, ilchi envoy, ambassador, representative farr [Persian] majesty, nobility farsang/parsang/ 6.42 km farsakh fatwa Islamic legal ruling fida’i Islamic warrior, holy warrior, ghazi ger yurt; a tent made with cloth and wooden frame as support ghazi holy Islamic warrior or fighter who has declared war on infidels ghulam see mamluk Gog and Magog devils who at the end of time will wage war on the Christian Church but who will finally be destroyed by the forces of God (Book of Revelation [20: 8–10]); a prince and the land from which he comes to attack Israel (Ezekiel 38) gurkhan leader of a clan or tribe; used as a title Il, el Turco-Mongol for ‘friendly’, ‘at peace’, ‘submissive’; as opposed to bulgha ‘at war’, ‘rebellious’ ini younger brother or prince; aqa and ini, all the family including elder and younger brothers or by implication, princes inju Mongol crown lands iqtaʿ [iqṭa] assignment of land or its revenue iqtadar holder or controller of an iqtaʿ jaghun 100 men jahiliya the world of ignorance before the revelations of the Prophet and the Qur’an

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jihad/jihadist

jihad means ‘holy war’ and is understood to be either the ‘greater jihad’ where evil is confronted within the believer’s heart, or the ‘lesser jihad’, war against those who would oppress Muslims or occupy their lands. Jihadists are those who believe in perpetual ‘holy war’ against the infidel jinshi degree ‘advanced scholar’, a graduate who passed the triennial court exam juyin subject tribal army employed by Jin to enforce their rule over the steppe keshig imperial guard khan, Great Khan, lord, noble; also used as a title. The Great Qa’an Khan or Qa’an was the ruling khan or emperor of the Mongol Empire khanaqah, khangah hospices, retreats or monasteries for Sufis, sometimes open to the public khatun lady; title given to a woman of noble birth c robe of honour khil at Khorasan province of north-east Greater Iran khutba Friday sermon given by the head Imam of the mosque. This was very important because blessings were traditionally invoked for the current ruler, thus any changes in regime or dynasty would be announced in the Friday khutba kulugs pillars of support, principle wives malik local king or ruler mamluk slave soldier; mamluks were often captured as children during battles or raids on Central Asian, Caucasian, Anatolian and African territory and brought up in military camps as Muslims and soldiers. The ‘Mamluks’ were the ruling elite of Egypt from 1250 to 1517. Their armies defeated the Mongols in 1260 at Ayn Jalut mangonel war engine for throwing stones and rocks, giant catapult 194

Appendix 1: Glossary

mingghan mtavaris mustawfi nadim nasij nerge Nestorian Christianity nisba noker

noyan, pl. noyat nuur oghul ongghot ordu ortaq padeshah paiza

pervana pinzhang zhengshi Prester John

1,000 men Georgian community leaders revenue accountant ‘boon companion’, trusted drinking companion gold and silk brocade and embroidery elaborate ‘hunt’ of the Mongols that also served as military training Eastern Christian Church with followers in China, Central Asia and among the Mongols part of Islamic name denoting region or place of origin ally, close friend; later it came to imply more ‘follower’. Used in Mongolian, Turkish, and Persian, hence the variety of spellings Mongol general or noble; pl. Mongol military elite lake [Turco-Mongol] son [Turkish]; applied as a title to Mongol princes of the blood images of family ancestors retained within the tent home for worship Mongol camp merchant in partnership with a prince or high government official Persian king like a laissez-passer, Marco Polo’s ‘tablet of authority’, which facilitated travel and ensured favourable treatment. From Chinese: paizi Mongol appointed governor of Sultanate of Rum manager of secretariat a legend that grew among the Crusader States of an eastern Christian king who would come from the east and defeat the Muslim sultanates on the way to rescuing the besieged Crusader States of Palestine 195

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Qa’an qadi qalandar qanat qorchi qubchur qumis, qumiss quriltai Rasadkhana Rum sahib diwan Saracen Semuren shaḥna shaman Shiʿism/Shiʿa/ Shiʿites sinicise steppe and sown (or settled) Sufism Sunni

Great Khan; often used alone with reference to Ogodai Islamic judge wandering dervish underground canal system still operating in Iran and Afghanistan quiver, quiver-bearer Mongol all-purpose tax, poll-tax alcoholic drink fermented from mare’s milk, very popular with the Mongols Mongol assembly of khans, princes and nobles observatory at Maragheh, north-west Iran, built by Hulegu for Tusi Anatolia, modern-day Turkey chief minister, prime minister, grand vizier commonly used in Christian sources to mean Muslim Turks, Uyghurs, and other non-Turco-Mongols who joined the early Chinggisid Empire overseer; also basqaq [Turkish] steppe holy man or divinator; also boge major branch of Islam that recognises 12 holy Imams descending from ʿAli and the Prophet’s daughter Fatima; aka ‘12ers’ to manifest the influence and infiltration of Chinese culture term used to contrast nomads with the steppe lands with their settle, urbanised or agriculturalist neighbours mystical branch of Islam that blossomed under the Ilkhans in particular branch of Islam practised by the majority of the world’s Muslims; they recognise the primacy of the Sunna, the Qur’an, the Hadith and the example set by the Prophet, Mohammad

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supratribal polity tamgha tamma system

tanistry taqiyya

Tenggeri Tenggerism or Heavenism tulughma tuman Turan

Turkestan

ulema ultimogeniture/ primogeniture ulus vizier waqf wu xing

amalgamation or federation of tribes working towards a common objective vermillion seal of authentication attached to documents by the Mongols army of contingents allotted from the total available Mongol manpower whose aim was to maintain and extend Mongol rule in conquered territory system of succession where the leadership went to the most powerful dissimulation, or the option to deny your religion and true beliefs should you feel yourself in danger or threatened heaven development of Mongols’ basic religious beliefs military tactic of encirclement and frontal, shielded attack 10,000 traditionally the lands of Turkestan north of the River Oxus [Amū Darya] facing Iran, the lands of Persia south of this once mighty river the lands of Central Asia including Xinjiang province in western China, most of whose people speak Turkic languages religious classes, Islamic scholars rights of the last born/first born allotment of people and tribes granted to Mongol princes; early division of the Empire government minister, top adviser Islamic endowment five traditional forms of Chinese punishment: strangulation or decapitation; life exile; imprisonment; beating with heavy stick; beating with light stick

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yaghlamishi yam

yarghu, yarghuchi yarligh or yarliq yasa and yosun yasal yurt

‘thumb-greasing’; a Mongol rite observed after a boy’s first successful hunt Mongol postal system comprising relay stations equipped with food, accommodation and horses Mongol court of interrogation and its officials Mongol edict, legal ruling traditional Mongol laws and customs ordinance ger; tent made with material, often felt, with wooden frame support

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Appendix 2 PERSONAGES

ʿAbbasids: dynasty of Islamic sultans ruling from Iraq and Baghdad, 750–1258 (1517, in Cairo) Abish Khatun: r.1263–82, ruled Shiraz; married Mongke-Temur, son of Hulegu Abu Saʿid: r.1316–35, last Ilkhan of Iran; son of Uljaytu Ahmad Tegudar, sultan: r.1282–4, third Ilkhan of Iran; son of Hulegu Alamut: headquarters of Nizari Ismaʿilis, north of Qazvin; castle destroyed by Hulegu in 1256 Alans: Persian-speaking semi-nomadic people from the north Caucasus, ancestors of the Ossetians Alids: followers of the Imam ʿAli; Shiʿites Arghun Aqa: d.1273, Mongol administrator of Iran; governor of Khorasan Arghun Khan: r.1284–91, fourth Ilkhan of Iran; son of Abaqa, grandson of Hulegu Ariq Buqa: d.1266, youngest son of Mongke Khan; rival of Qubilai Khan Ascelin, Lombard: Dominican envoy who encountered Baiju in Iran 1247–8 Ayyubids: Kurdish dynasty who ruled the Arab world until overthrown by the Mamluks, their former army commanders, in the 1250s Baidu: r.1295, sixth Ilkhan of Iran; reigned for six chaotic months, killed by Ghazan 199

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Baiju Noyan: 1228–59, military commander of western Asia for Batu Khan Bar Hebraeus: 1226–86, Christian convert from Judaism, historian, polymath from Rum and head of the Syriac Church; aka Abu alFaraj, Mar Gregorios Bar Ebraya Batu Khan: 1207–55, founder and ruler of the Golden Horde Baybars, sultan: 1223–77, r.1260–77, al-Malik al-Zahir Baybars I al-Bunduqdari, Mamluk sultan of Egypt; victor of Battle of Ayn Jalut (1260) with Qutuz Berke Khan: r.1256–66, succeeded his brother, Batu Khan, as ruler of the Golden Horde; Muslim convert, allied with the Mamluks Bolad Aqa/Chingsang: c.1240–1313, Mongol administrator, and envoy to Iran from China; married former concubine of Abaqa; close friend and colleague of Rashid al-Din Borte Fujin: 1161–1230, first wife of Temujin, mother of successor khans Bujir: 1206–60, Mongol successor administrator to Mahmud Yalavach Buqa and Aruq: two corrupt noyat ministers under Arghun Khan whose power and influence over the military before their demise threatened the Ilkhan’s throne Carpini, Friar John of Plano: papal emissary to the Mongols 1245–7, intelligence gatherer, spy who wrote an account of his journey Chang Chun: 1148–1227, spiritual adviser to Chinggis Khan Chinggisid: follower, subject or official of the empire founded by Chinggis Khan formerly referred to misleadingly as Mongols, which suggested ethnic ties; Chinggisids were multi-ethnic and multicultural Chingsang: chancellor, high government functionary; term used in Yuan and Ilkhanate Ghazan Khan: r.1295–1304, seventh Ilkhan of Iran; son of Arghun Khan; converted to Islam Ghurids: Afghan dynasty ruling central and eastern Afghanistan, Ghur, 1011–1215 Gog and Magog: biblical enemies of God; in Ezekiel Gog is the ruler of the land of Magog, while in Revelations Gog and Magog are nations under Satan’s rule; Mongols were thought to be their emissaries; devils who at the end of time will wage war on the Christian Church but who will finally be destroyed by the forces of God (Book of Revelation [20: 8–10]); a prince and the land 200

Appendix 2: Personages

from which he comes to attack Israel (Ezekiel 38) Golden Horde, Qipchaq Khanate: Mongol ulus founded by Batu, based in Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe c.1230s Grigor of Akanc’: d. c.1275, Armenian cleric and historian Guyuk Khan: r.1246–9, third Great Khan; son of Ogodai Het’um, king: 1224–68, king of Armenian Cilicia, Lesser Armenia; staunch ally of the Mongols Ho’elun-eke: Chinggis Khan’s mother Hu Sihui: author of Yinshan zhengyao (Proper and Essential Things for the Emperor’s Food and Drink); presented his book at the Yuan court, 1330 Ibn Battuta: 1304–69, traveller from Tangier, Morocco (journeys 1325– 54) Ilkhanate/Ilkhan: Mongol kingdom in western Asia comprising Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, eastern Turkey and the southern Caucasus; the kings were called Ilkhans; founded by Hulegu c.1258 Ismaʿili: Sevener Shiʿites, Fatimids of North Africa, ‘Assassins’ of Iran, Nizaris, of Iran and Syria; aka ‘7ers’; Nizaris established by Hasan-i-Sabbah in 1090 at Alamut, Iran Jebe Noyan: d.1224, one of four ‘Hounds of War’; epic reconnaissance trip 1221–4 Jin: Jurchen dynasty ruling northern China; defeated by Chinggis Khan c.1215 Jochids: descendants and their supporters of Jochi, eldest son of Chinggis Khan, and his son, Batu, who founded the Golden Horde in the Qipchaq steppe Jurchen: semi-nomadic tribe that founded the Jin dynasty of northern China Juwayni, ʿAla al-Din ʿAta Malik: d.1282, Ilkhanid governor of Baghdad; historian Juwayni, Shams al-Din: d.1280, Grand Vizier under Hulegu and Abaqa Khan Juzjani, Minhaj al-Din ibn Siraj: d.1260, anti-Mongol historian from Delhi Sultanate Kart, Shams al-Din: d.1278, founder of Kart dynasty of Herat (1245–1389) Kereits: Turco-Mongol tribe, many of whom were Nestorian Christians Ket Buqa: d.1260, Mongol general, Nestorian, killed by Mamluks after defeat at Ayn Jalut 201

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Khwarazmshah, Jalal al-Din Mingbirdi: d. c.1231, last Khwarazmshah, waylaid and murdered for his clothes by Kurdish bandits who did not realise who he was Khwarazmshah, Sultan Muhammad: d.1221, blamed by most for precipitating the Mongol devastation of the eastern Islamicate in the 1220s; hunted by the noyans Jebe and Subodei, he escaped and died of pleurisy on the island of Abeskum Kirakos: 1200–72, Armenian historian and cleric; Ilkhanid administrator Kuchluq: d.1218, Naiman prince who overthrew the Qara Khitai and institigated a reign of terror over the Muslim people of eastern Turkestan; Kuchluq had refused to recognise Chinggis Khan in 1206 Luʿlu, Badr al-Din: governor of Irbil and Mosul, one time mamluk, Armenian convert to Islam, formed early tactical alliance with Hulegu Mahmud Yalavach: d.1254, merchant and top Mongol administrator for eastern Turkestan; represented Chinggis Khan to the Khwarazmshah; father of Mas’ud Beg Mamluks: 1250–1517, rulers of Egypt and Syria who rose from the mamluk ranks of the Ayyubid sultans (1169–1250) of Syria and Greater Arabia mamluks: military slave soldiers usually of Turkic and Caucasian origins who often achieved positions of political and military power Manichaeans: followers of Mani, who was born in 216 ce, including St Augustine before his conversion. From his home in south-east Iran, Mani travelled extensively and gained many followers. He considered the quest for truth the essence of all religion and saw the Universe as a cosmic battlefield between Good and Evil. He recognised the role of all the great religious figures. Mar Yaballaha, Rabban Markos: 1245–1317, Nestorian monk who travelled with Rabban Bar Sauma from China to the Ilkhanate, later patriarch of Nestorian Church in Tabriz and Baghdad (1281–1317) Marco Polo: 1254–1324, Venetian traveller and official of the Yuan dynasty under Qubilai Khan Masʿud Beg: d.1289, top Chinggisid administrator, governor of Turkestan under Chaghadaids and Qaidu; son of Mahmud Yalavach 202

Appendix 2: Personages

Merkits: powerful Turco-Mongol tribe and early enemies of Temujin, who lived south of Lake Baikal; they were hunters and fishermen Moghuls: indirect descendants of Timurlane who claimed Mongol heritage; they ruled India until the advent of the British Raj Mongke Khan: r.1251–8, fourth Great Khan; eldest son of Tolui Mongke-Temur: 1256–82, son of Hulegu who ruled Shiraz with his wife Abish Khatun Mustaʿsim, caliph: r.1242–58, caliph in Baghdad until executed by Hulegu mustawfi: government tax official and accountant Mustawfi Qazvini, Hamdallah: 1282–1344, historian, geographer, government tax official and notable Naimans: Turco-Mongol tribe of steppe nomads, mainly Buddhist but also Nestorian Christians Nestorians: Eastern Christians who follow the teachings of Nestorius, archbishop of Constantinople Nogai Khan: d.1300, rival of Toqta for Golden Horde; founded Nogai Khanate in Dubrudja Oderic of Pordenone, friar: 1286–1331, cleric, traveller in Far East 1316–30 Oghul Qaimish Khatun: r.1248–51, ruled Empire as Guyuk’s widow Ogodai Khan, Qa’an: r.1227–41, successor to his father Chinggis Khan, often known simply as Qa’an Oirats: Forest Turco-Mongol tribe of hunters and fishermen; shamanists Ong Khan/Toghril: ruler of Kereit tribe, early ally of Temujin, anda of Yesugei Orda: Batu Khan’s elder brother, khan of the White Horde Padeshah Khatun: r.1292–95, Queen of Kirman, wife of Abaqa Khan and Gaykhatu Ilkhan; daughter of Terkan Khatun of Kirman Paris, Matthew: c.1200–59, English chronicler and monk pervana: governor or shahna of the Saljuq Sultanate of Rum, appointed by Ilkhan in Tabriz; Mu’in al-Din Sulyman, r.1261–77; executed by Abaqa for failing to stop Baybars’ brief occupation of Rum Phags-pa script: alphabet designed by the Tibetan monk and State Preceptor (later Imperial Preceptor) Drogon Chogyal Phagpa Prester John: a legend that grew among the Crusader States of an eastern Christian king who would come from the east and 203

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defeat the Muslim sultanates on the way to rescuing the besieged Crusader States of Palestine Qaidu Khan: 1236–1303, ruled Turkestan for Ogodaids from the quriltai of Talas in 1269 until his death; Mongol traditionalist; Kaidu or Qaidu; Mongolian: Хайду, Khaidu Qara-Khitai: descendants of semi-nomadic Khitans from northern China who fled the Jurchen c.1121 and settled in Turkestan from 1140 until advent of the Mongols; the Qutlugh Khans, ethnic Khitans and one-time subjects of Qara Khitai Gurkhans, ruled Kirman until 1295 Qaraʿunas or Nikudaris: semi-autonomous mercenaries based in eastern Afghanistan, from c.1255; originally they were Jochids, exiled by Hulegu c.1260, fled to Hindu Kush under Nikudar Noyan to join troops on the eastern marchlands; ancestors of the Hazaras of modern Afghanistan Qipchaq [Cuman, Pechenag, Polovtsy]: loosely organised Turkic tribal confederation that by the mid-eleventh century occupied a vast, sprawling territory in the Eurasian steppe, stretching from north of the Aral Sea westward to the region north of the Black Sea; Qipchaq steppe, Qipchaq Khanate, or in Persian Dasht-iQifchaq Qubilai Khan: r.1260–94, founder of Yuan dynasty; son of Tolui Khan, brother of Tulegu Ilkhan Qutulun bint Qaidu: c.1260–c.1306, famous for her military prowess; daughter of Qaidu Khan Qutuz: d.1260, Mamluk sultan of Egypt; victor of Ayn Jalut; succeeded by Baybars Rabban Sauma: 1225–94, Chinese Nestorian who travelled to Europe with Rabban Markos; he wrote The Monks of Kublai Khan Rashid al-Din Hamadani: d.1318, Ilkhanid prime minister; historian, polymath, convert from Judaism Rumi, Jalal al-Din: 1207–73, Sufi poet from Balkh in Turkestan who settled in Konya, Rum Saladin, Salah al-Din bin Ayyub: 1137–93, retook Jerusalem from the Crusader armies in 1187 ce Saljuqs: Turkish dynasty ruling in Persia, conquered Baghdad in 1055, conquered Rum in 1071 at the Battle of Manzikurt, founded the autonomous dynasty of the Sajuq Sultanate of Rum 1077–1308; conquered by Chinggisids 1243 at the Battle of Kose Dagh 204

Appendix 2: Personages

Samanids: Persian dynasty ruling eastern Persia, 819–1005; oversaw cultural revival and the emergence of New Persian Shiremun: d.1258, grandson of Ogodai, executed by Qubilai Song: Chinese dynasty ruling southern China until final defeat by Qubilai in 1279; capital in Hangzhou Sorqoqtani Beki: d.1252, chief wife of Tolui; mother of Mongke Khan, Qubilai, Hulegu, Ariq Buqa Subodai Bahadur Noyan: 1176–1248, one of the four ‘Hounds of War’; epic reconnaissance trip with Jebe Noyan, 1221–4 Suldus: Turco-Mongol tribe, sheltered Temujin from Tayichi’ut Suqunjaq Noyan: d.1290, general from the Suldus tribe, leading figure in the Ilkhanate, governor of Shiraz in 1280s Tangut/Xixia: originally Tibetan semi-nomadic trading tribe; victims of Chinggis Khan’s last campaign Tatars: Turco-Mongol tribe, killers of Temujin’s father. Strictly speaking the Tatars were just one of the many Turco-Mongol tribes. However, the term Tatar as eponomously meaning Eurasian steppe nomad has been commonly used in European and west Asian sources since before the founding of Chinggis Khan’s empire and ‘Tatar’ meaning Mongol ever since Tayichi’ut: Turco-Mongol tribe, early enemy of Temujin Teb-tenggeri: d. c.1206, chief shaman, killed after challenging Chinggis Temujin: 1167–1227, became Chinggis Khan in 1206 Temur Uljaytu: r.1294–1307, Yuan Great Khan, grandson of Qubilai Tenggeri: ‘Heaven’, Mongols sky God Terkan Khatun of Kirman: r.1257–83, Queen of Kirman, titled ‘Qutlugh’, mother of Padeshah Khatun Terkan Khatun of Shiraz: d.1263, would-be ruler of Shiraz, murdered by her husband, Saljuqshah, the Atabeg of Shiraz, who was himself killed in 1264 Tode Mongke: r.1280–87, ruler of the Golden Horde when Turkish officially replaced Mongolian Tolui Khan: 1192–1232, youngest son of Chinggis and Borte Toluids: sons of Tolui, Chinggis Khan’s youngest son; they ceased power with Mongke and founded the Yuan dynasty in China and the Ilkhanate in Iran Toqta (Tokhta, Tokhtai or Tokhtogha) (Тохтога, Тохтох): r.1291– 1312, a khan of the Golden Horde, son of Mengu-Temur and 205

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great grandson of Batu Khan; his name ‘Tokhtokh’ means ‘hold’ or ‘holding’ in the Mongolian language Toregene Khatun: d.1246, regent 1241–6, wife of Ogodai Tusi, Nasir al-Din: 1201–74, philosopher, scientist, adviser to Hulegu, founded library, ‘university’ and observatory in Maragha, the Rasadkhana Uljaytu: 1280, r.1304–16 (Oljeitu, Olcayto or Uljeitu, Öljaitu, Ölzat (Mongolian: , Өлзийт Хаан), eighth Ilkhan, originally given name Kharbandeh or ‘Donkey herder’ following Mongol tradition of naming a person for the first thing they see at birth, which out of respect to his Muslim subjects was changed to Khodabandeh or ‘Servant of God’; brother of Ghazan Khan Uyghurs: Turkic people today living in Xinjiang province of western China; early allies of Mongols, active in administration and trade, many Uyghurs were Muslim and eased contacts between east and west; the Uyghur script was used to write Mongolian before the invention of Phags-pa Vanakan: d.1251, Armenian cleric and historian Wassaf Abdallah ibn Faḍlallah Sharaf al-Din Shīrāzī: 1257–1329, historian, administrator in Shiraz, history covers 1257–1328 William of Rubruck: d. c.1266, papal emissary to Mongols 1253–5 Yesugei: d.1174, father of Chinggis Khan; poisoned by Tatars

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Further Reading

SELECTED PRIMARY SOURCES For the historian, one of the great delights of researching the Mongol Empire is the abundance of primary source material. Not only is there a plethora of detailed literary as well as artistic and stone-worked testaments to this dynamic period, but the written records are found in multiple languages. Latin and Chaghatai Turkish accounts enrich Vietnamese and Japanese histories, while Georgian and Russian chronicles provide detail and background to the events covered in the great Persian and Chinese narratives. The Chinggisid centuries spawned a hybrid beast with numerous linguistic heads. These many and varied chronicles, local histories, biographical dictionaries and other literary genres reflect medieval Asia in thrall to the Mongols and make enormous linguistic demands on the historian. Whereas the historian of the Crusades might have mastered a European language, Arabic and maybe Persian, Armenian or even Turkish, ideally the Mongolist, with a prerequisite for at least Persian or Chinese, should have a working knowledge of a scattering of western and eastern languages. Today a number of scholars have bridged the divide and acquired linguistic confidence in Persian, Chinese and Arabic as well as Mongolian, Turkic tongues, and Vietnamese or Japanese. Thomas Allsen was able to transform the nature of Chinggisid studies with his Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia,1 which demonstrated his mastery of the languages of western and eastern Asia, and his example was soon followed by key scholars such as Michal Biran and most recently by Florence Hodous. These linguistically diverse scholars confidently opened up the scope of Chinggisid studies and increased the interest and accessibility of the subject to a far wider audience. Today English translations of a growing number of primary sources are readily available to the less linguistically agile and the wealth of experience undergone by so many in the medieval world is now available for all to savour. Chinggisid history has appeared in so many languages because the dimensions of the Empire were so broad and the Chinggisid armies penetrated so many borders and absorbed so many capitals and states. Finding themselves either under Chinggisid rule or facing Chinggisid armies, observers in Poland, witnesses in Vietnam, bystanders in Syria, ambassadors from the papal court and town criers in Anatolia all felt compelled to record the events in which they found themselves suddenly involved. However, while the sheer scope of 207

George Lane the conquests can explain the variety of languages in which Mongol history is written, it is the nature of the events themselves and the transformative impact of the advent of the Chinggisid hordes that compelled so many to put pen to paper. The chroniclers and historians were aware that they were witnesses to history and that, from that time on, their lives and their world would never again be the same. The compendium of Chinggisid histories that takes up so much space in our global library today was written by people who knew they were experiencing transformative events of global importance and that the world would never be the same again. Rashid al-Din’s Compendium of History was the first world history, and the statesman’s team of researchers compiled the history of India, the Turks, the Popes, India, China and individual peoples such as the Jews and Ismaʿilis. As prime minister of Iran to Ghazan, the Ilkhan who had converted to Islam, Rashid al-Din not only had unique insight into the political developments in the Islamic world but was also granted priceless access to historical Mongol papers hitherto available only to ethnic Mongol royalty. Aware of the invaluable nature of his work, he went to extraordinary lengths to ensure the preservation of his beautifully illustrated histories, much of that effort tragically in vain. It is because of Rashid al-Din’s close ties with the Mongol elite, Bolad Chingsang in particular, that we today have access to Mongol texts such as the Altan Debtor, all originals of which have been lost. The Secret History of the Mongols,2 available in a detailed, annotated definitive edition with exhaustive notes and commentary, remains the sole extant primary text. Rashid al-Din’s (d.1318) chronicle appears in a three-volume edition translated and introduced by Wheeler Thackston along with Khwandamir’s overview of the Chinggisids and their successor states until the appearance of the Sufi sultans of the Safavid dynasty who seized power in Tabriz in 1502. Khwandamir, a descendant of Sayid ‘Ajall, Yuan governor of Yunnan, lived close enough to the prime decades of the Chinggisids to write with real insight and yet from far enough away from those events to be dispassionate and objective. The third volume, the Tarikh-i-Rashidi of Mirza Haydar, known familiarly as Muhammad Haydar Dughlat (1499–1551), provides a history of the later Chaghadaid khanate.3 Another politician and a sophisticated man of the pen, ʿAla al-Din ʿAta Malik Juwayni (d.1282), wrote another key history of the Mongols, Genghis Khan: History of the World Conqueror.4 He was an aide to Hulegu and then governor of Ilkhanid Baghdad, and his brother, Shams al-Din, was Ilkhanid Iran’s prime minister, so he was an eye witness to some of the events he describes and had an insider’s knowledge of others. Iran’s political classes continued to furnish their courts with historical narratives decorating their pages with striking illuminations, an art perfected under the patronage of the Ilkhans, and verse which experienced a golden age in the later thirteenth century. Hamdallah Mustawfi Qazvini (c.1345) composed his Select History5 and his verse history, the Zafarnama,6 as well as the Nuzhat al-Qulub, a geographical survey of Iran and beyond.7 Even after the disintegration of the Ilkhanate in 1335 histories continued to be written, with Abu Bakr al-Qutbi al Ahri of Jalayrid Baghdad producing the Tarikh-i-Shaykh Uwais.8 To counter the Persian chronicles, which tended to be sympathetic to the Chinggisids of whom they were an integral part, the Arab histories painted a harsher picture of conditions in Western Asia. Ibn al-Athir’s haunting words have become 208

Further Reading indelible accusations against the Mongols’ legacy, especially after E.G. Browne’s English translations. Mamluk historians such as al-Yunnini continued to fuel antiMongol sentiment, though pro-Mongol Arabs also had a voice as the biographical dictionaries and history of the librarian, Ibn Fuwati, and the writer of the 1302 Mirror for Princes, Ibn Tabatani, both testify.9 Another important source of Mongol history are Armenian and Georgian chronicles, which were overwhelmingly though not solely written by clerics. Robert Bedrosian has permitted free access to his own English translations online as well as in hard copies. These chronicles record the hard days of the 1220s when the Caucasus was devastated by Noyans Jebe and Subodai, but also the later decades when clerics such as Kirakos, Orbellian and Vardan were co-opted into service at the Ilkhanid court. Of course, the Armenians of Cilicia did not need co-opting and they had been staunch allies of the Chinggisids from the beginning. The Armenian court produced the wonderful piece of political propaganda A Lytell Cronycle by the royal historian Hetoum,10 which was written for the European courts to entice them into a political alliance with the Ilkhans of Iran. Chinese sources are only now being uncovered for their true value, though the Yuanshi has still not been translated in its entirety. However, among other gems the collection of primary sources compiled over a century ago by Emil Bretschneider contains some excellent extracts from Chinese sources that could serve as an introduction. Perhaps the easiest introduction to the wealth of primary sources available are other, more recent compilations. Morris Rossabi, Bernard Lewis, Bertold Spuler, and Scott C. Levi and Ron Sela11 have all produced excellent source books that can serve as launch pads to greater immersion into the Mongol world. The last word must go to Henry H. Howorth whose voluminous tomes charting the full breadth of the Mongol world are wholly composed of exhaustive paraphrased reproductions of early translations of a multitude of primary sources. Extensively utilised, but due to the paucity of his footnotes and often defective references not so often acknowledged, Howorth provides a solid basis for any venture to anywhere in the Mongol Empire.12

SELECTED READINGS There are many readily accessible bibliographies of the Mongols available in print and online and it seems a waste now to add to these very adequate sources here. I have already included a reasonably comprehensive list of the primary sources available in English translation, so the recommendation of a few choice texts should suffice for an opening into the engrossing world of the Mongolists. David Morgan’s classic, The Mongols,13 remains a reliable introductory text despite his sometime slightly dated admonitory tone, and the addition of a bibliographical chapter to the new edition makes this the ideal gatepost book. Michal Biran’s 2006 biography of Chinggis Khan14 in the Makers of the Islamic World series by Oneworld sets the scene for the change in attitude towards the Mongol Empire that is now permeating academia and might be read alongside my own contribution to the debate, ‘Chingiz Khan: Maker of the Islamic World’,15 which appeared in the Journal of Qur’anic Studies in 2012. 209

George Lane It was Thomas Allsen’s groundbreaking Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia16 that finally convinced the majority of Mongolist academics that the ageing labels and sulphurous appellations generally attached to the Mongols and their princes were no longer suitable and were not only misleading but were often erroneous. More recently, Peter Jackson’s The Mongols and the Islamic World seems destined to become the definitive study of this subject with a second edition in the pipeline within months of this extremely impressive tome’s first appearance.17 In 2001 a lavish exhibition held in New York and Los Angeles buried forever the idea that the Toluids in particular, were barbarian, uncouth pariahs. The gorgeously illustrated exhibition catalogue followed by a collection of papers based on those delivered at a concurrent conference presented the Mongols in a far more positive light than they had ever enjoyed before. Linda Komaroff and Stefano Carboni’s The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256–135318 and Komaroff’s Beyond the Legacy of Genghis Khan19 were among the first of some collections of papers all reflecting this new and refreshing view of the Empire. Judith Pfeiffer’s own edited collections, History and Historiography of Post-Mongol Central Asia and the Middle East: Studies in Honor of John E. Woods20 with Sholeh A. Quinn, Politics Patronage and the Transmission of Knowledge in 13th–15th Century Tabriz and her many contributions to other books and journals did much to soften the image of the Mongol centuries. Reuven Amitai and Michal Biran forwarded the cause of Chinggisid studies from their dedicated department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and among the many testaments to their work and influence two collections of papers deserve mention, Mongols, Turks, and Others: Eurasian Nomads and the Sedentary World and Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change: The Mongols and Their Eurasian Predecessors;21 the latter contains another recommended bibliographical essay on this subject by David Morgan. As will become increasingly obvious from the bibliographies these tomes all contain, this enlightened attitude is being borne forward by its own dynamic, and monographs are almost as numerous as these collections of papers. Bruno de Nicola produced his own study of the Chinggisid women, Women in Mongol Iran: The Khatuns, 1206–1335,22 while also putting together the papers from a conference he organised in Barcelona in 2009, The Mongols’ Middle East.23 Since my own monograph appeared in 2003, Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran,24 where I first tentatively suggested that Hulegu Khan, the Butcher of Baghdad, was perhaps not quite deserving of that epithet, I have contributed a variety of books, articles and chapters all advancing a more positive picture of the Chinggisids, a view that is no longer indulgently dismissed as it was prior to 2001. Individual papers are too numerous to mention here, but as a reflection of the numbers now in circulation it is worth mentioning two additions to the Variorum collection that bind together previously published work by selected scholars. Peter Jackson’s Studies on the Mongol Empire and Early Muslim India and Reuven Amitai’s The Mongols in the Islamic Lands: Studies in the History of the Ilkhanate cement their reputations as leading Mongolists and add two more books to their list of definitive studies, in particular, Jackson’s The Mongols and the West: 1221–141025 and The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion26 and Amitai’s Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk–Ilkhanid War, 1260–1281.27 The coming of age, when once revolutionary and controversial ideas enter the mainstream and become the received wisdom, occurs when those schools of thought 210

Further Reading are reflected in encyclopedias and books designed for the greater public and new generations of scholars. All the scholars so far mentioned and certainly those included in the collections referred to above have all contributed to an array of encyclopedias and reference books including Cambridge and Oxford University encyclopedias on a wide array of subjects. Glossy publications such as Christoph Baumer’s The History of Central Asia, Volume 3: The Age of Islam and the Mongols,28 and standard volumes such as The Cambridge History of Inner Asia: The Chinggisid Age29 reflect over a decade of intense reassessment and reinterpretation of the sources and indeed the uncovering of new and important material. A wealth of new books and studies awaits anyone who shows the smallest interest in this very lively and constantly expanding field. The last word must go to David Morgan, sometimes dubbed the ‘grandfather’ of Mongol studies. In recognition of his services to medieval studies and Mongol studies in particular a special edition of the Journal of Asiatic Studies30 was published in his honour and contributed to by former students, and former and current colleagues. Many, though by no means all, of the contributions concerned Mongol studies, and the diversity of the topics is a good indication of the breadth of this subject.

211

Notes

INTRODUCTION: FROM DISPOSSESSION TO IMPERIUM 1 On the meaning of his title see Peter Jackson, ‘World-conquest and local accommodation: Threat and blandishment in Mongol diplomacy’, in Judith Pfeiffer and Sholeh A. Quinn (eds), History and Historiography of Post-Mongol Central Asia and the Middle East: Studies in Honor of John E. Woods (Weisbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006), p. 4. 2 Rashid al-Din, Jāma’ al-tavārīkh, Mohammad Roushan and Mustafa Musavi (eds) (Tehran: Nashr Elborz, 1373/1994); Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami‘u’tTawarikh: Compendium of Chronicles (Tome 1), Wheeler M. Thackston (tr.), in Classical Writings of the Mediaeval Islamic World: Persian Histories of the Mongol Dynasties, vol. 3 (London: I.B.Tauris, 2012), [cross-reference pagination with 1994 Persian edition] p. 386. Henceforth only 1994 pages will be indicated since these are used in the 2012 I.B.Tauris edition. 3 Qutb al-Din Shirazi, The Mongols in Iran: Qutb Al-Din Shirazi’s Akhbar-iMoghulan, George Lane (tr.) (London: Routledge, 2018); on Baljuna see Francis W. Cleaves, ‘The historicity of the Baljuna covenant’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 18/3–4 (December 1955), pp. 357–421. 4 Robert Mitchell and Nevill Forbes (tr.), The Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016–1471 (London: Camden Third Series, 1914), p. 64. 5 ʿAla al-Din ʿAta Malik Juwayni, Genghis Khan: The History of the WorldConqueror, John Andrew Boyle (tr. and ed.) (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), p. 107; Tārīkh-i-Jahān Gushā, Mizra Muhammad Qazvini (ed.), vol. 3 (Leiden: Brill, 1958), p. 84. Available at http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ images/0010/001086/108630Eb.pdf. 6 Ibn al-Athir, cited in Edward G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902), vol. 2, p. 427. 7 Rashid al-Din, pp. 585–6. 8 Cited in Nicola di Cosmo, ‘Climate Change and the Rise of an Empire’, Institute for Advanced Study Letter (Princeton: East Asian Studies, 2014). Available at https://www.ias.edu/ideas/2014/dicosmo-mongol-climate.

9 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. I, p. 15, Boyle, p. 21. See also Rashid al-Din, p. 230. 212

Notes to Pages 9–21

CHAPTER 1: THE STEPPE AND THE SOWN 1 Charles Pellat, The Life and Works of Jāhiz: Translations of selected texts, D.M. Hawke (tr.) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), p. 97. 2 Wassaf, in Bertold Spuler, History of the Mongols: Based on Eastern and Western Accounts of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, Helga and Stuart Drummond (tr.) (New York: Dorset Press, 1968), p. 117. 3 Zhao Gong, ‘A Complete Record of the Mong Tatars’ (unpublished translation by Christopher Atwood with assistance from Lynne Struve, 2010). 4 See Christopher Atwood, Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire (New York: Facts on File, 2004), pp. 390, 529. 5 Hulunbei’er in modern-day Chinese pinyin. 6 Igor de Rachewiltz (tr.), The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic of the Thirteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2006), vol. 1, p. 170 [245]; this interpretation has now been challenged and remains controversial. 7 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 133 [202]. 8 Rashid al-Din, Jāma’ al-tavārīkh, Mohammad Roushan and Mustafa Musavi (eds) (Tehran: Nashr Elborz, 1373/1994); Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami‘u’tTawarikh: Compendium of Chronicles (Tome 1), Wheeler M. Thackston (tr.), in Classical Writings of the Mediaeval Islamic World: Persian Histories of the Mongol Dynasties, vol. 3 (London: I.B.Tauris, 2012), [cross-reference pagination with 1994 Persian edition] p. 78. 9 Ibn al-Athir, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir for the Crusading Period from al-Kamil fi’l-Ta’rikh. Part 3: The Years 589–629/1193–1231: The Ayyubids after Saladin and the Mongol Menace, D.S. Richards (tr.) (London: Routledge, 2010), part 3 p. 202. 10 Friar Giovanni Carpini, The Story of the Mongols: Whom We Call the Tartars, Erik Hildinger (tr.) (Wellesley, MA: Branden Books, 2014), p. 106. 11 ʿAla al-Din ʿAta Malik Juwayni, Genghis Khan: The History of the WorldConqueror, John Andrew Boyle (tr. and ed.) (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), pp. 21–2; Tārīkh-i-Jahān Gushā, Mizra Muhammad Qazvini (ed.) (Leiden: Brill, 1958), vol. 1, p. 15; http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ images/0010/001086/108630Eb.pdf. 12 Owen Lattimore, ‘Inner Asian Frontiers: Defensive empires and conquest empires’, in Owen Lattimore (ed.), Studies in Frontier History: Collected Papers 1928–1958 (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 501–13. 13 De Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 1, pp. 133 [202], 170 [245]. 14 On the role of women in the Empire see Bruno de Nicola, The Khātūns: A History of Women in the Mongol Empire (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017); George Lane, Daily Life in the Mongol Empire (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006), pp. 227–56. 15 George Lane, ‘Soghaghtani Beki’, in Natana J. DeLong-Bas (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), available at Oxford Islamic Studies Online http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/ article/opr/t355/e0360. 16 Rashid al-Din, p. 977. 17 George Lane, ‘Qutlugh Terkan Khatun’, in Natana J. DeLong-Bas (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 213

Notes to Pages 21–30 available at Oxford Islamic Studies Online, http://www.oxfordislamicstudies. com/article/opr/t355/e0031. 18 A general survey is provided by Richard C. Foltz, Religions of the Silk Road: Overland Trade and Cultural Exchange from Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999); a classic is Devin DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde: Baba Tükles and Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994). 19 David Morgan, The Mongols, 2nd edn (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), p. 40. 20 Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (London: Methuen, 1905–6), vol. 7, p. 4, cited in Morgan, The Mongols, p. 37. 21 George Lane, ‘Intellectual Jousting and the Chinggisid Wisdom Bazaar’, in Peter Jackson and Timothy May (eds), The Mongols and Post-Mongol Asia: Studies in Honour of David O. Morgan, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 26/1–2 (2016), pp. 235–47. 22 Peter Jackson (tr. and ed.) with David Morgan, The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck: His Journey to the Court of the Great Khan Mongke, 1253–1255 (London: Haylayut Publications, 1990). 23 Charles Melville, ‘Padshah-i Islam: the conversion of Sultan Mahmud Ghazan Khan’, Pembroke Papers 1 (1990), pp. 159–77. 24 ʿAla al-Din ʿAta Malik Juwayni, Genghis Khan: The History of the WorldConqueror, John Andrew Boyle (tr. and ed.) (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), p. 25; Tārīkh-i-Jahān Gushā, Mizra Muhammad Qazvini (ed.) (Leiden: Brill, 1958), vol. 1, p. 18; http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ images/0010/001086/108630Eb.pdf. 25 De Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 1, pp. 170–4 [245–6]; vol. 2, pp. 878–88. 26 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 1, p. 62; Boyle, p. 80. 27 The Great Wall of China as we know it today was not built until the Ming dynasty. At the time of the Chinggisids it was little more than scattered earthen ramparts and no real barrier against determined armies moving in either direction.

CHAPTER 2: THE EARLY LIFE 1 Igor de Rachewiltz (tr.), The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic of the Thirteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2006), vol. 1, p. xxv. 2 The Jin are a dynasty of the Jurchen who attacked and ousted the Song and the Khitans from northern China and are the forefathers of the Manchu. 3 De Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 1, p. 21 [78]. 4 See the growing literature on this controversial subject beginning with Igor de Rachewiltz, ‘Some remarks on the dating of the Secret History of the Mongols’, Monumenta Serica 24/1 (1965), pp. 185–206. 5 Bahadur is a title awarded to brave warrior leaders used by both Rashid al-Din and the Secret History. Chinggis Khan alone described his father as ‘khan’. 6 De Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 1, p. 16 [67]. 7 Urgunge Onon (tr.), Chinggis Khan: The Golden History of the Mongols (London: Folio Society, 1993), pp. 14–15; de Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 1, p. 19 [75]. 214

Notes to Pages 30–42 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

37 38 39

Onon, p. 14; de Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 1, p. 18 [72]. See de Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 1, p. 348 [78]. See ibid., vol. 1, p. 20 [76], p. 21 [77], p. 22 [78]. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 21 [78]. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 20–1 [76, 77]. From the Yuanshi, cited in Paul Ratchnevsky, Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy, Thomas N. Haining (tr.) (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), p. 24. De Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 1, p. 23 [81]. Onon, p.19; de Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 1, p. 24 [82]. See de Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 1, pp. 393–6 [96]. Rashid al-Din, Jāma’ al-tavārīkh, Mohammad Roushan and Mustafa Musavi (eds) (Tehran: Nashr Elborz, 1373/1994); Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami‘u’tTawarikh: Compendium of Chronicles (Tome 1), Wheeler M. Thackston (tr.), in Classical Writings of the Mediaeval Islamic World: Persian Histories of the Mongol Dynasties, vol. 3 (London: I.B.Tauris, 2012), [cross-reference pagination with 1994 Persian edition] p. 708. De Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 1, 40 [110]; see also Onon, p. 33. Onon, pp. 28–9; de Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 1, p. 34 [104]. Ratchnevsky, p. 71. See de Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 2, pp. 655–8. Ratchnevsky, p. 148. Onon, p. 80; de Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 1, p. 104 [182]. ʿAla al-Din ʿAta Malik Juwayni, Genghis Khan: The History of the WorldConqueror, John Andrew Boyle (tr. and ed.) (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), p. 87; Tārīkh-i-Jahān Gushā, Mizra Muhammad Qazvini (ed.) (Leiden: Brill, 1958), vol. 1, p. 67; http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ images/0010/001086/108630Eb.pdf. Rashid al-Din, p. 397; cf. de Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 1, pp.109–10 [188]. The legendary Christian king in the east who was believed to be ready to come to rescue the Christians in the Holy Land and liberate Jerusalem. Rashid al-Din, p. 393. De Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 1. pp. 111–12 [189]. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 112 [190]. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 123 [196]. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 132 [201]; 212, 610. Rashid al-Din, p. 204. See de Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 2, pp. 748–57 [201]. Onon, p. 129; de Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 1, p. 170 [245]. Onon, p. 102; de Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 1, p. 133 [202]. See de Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 2, p. 758 [202]; see Peter Jackson, ‘World-conquest and local accommodation: Threat and blandishment in Mongol diplomacy’, in Judith Pfeiffer and Sholeh A. Quinn (eds), History and Historiography of Post-Mongol Central Asia and the Middle East: Studies in Honor of John E. Woods (Weisbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006), p. 4. De Rachewiltz, Secret History, vol. 1, pp. 49, 453 [123]. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 760 [202]. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 133–42 [202–8]. 215

Notes to Pages 43–57 40 41 42 43

Rashid al-Din, p. 591; see also Ratchnevsky, p. 153. Rashid al-Din, p. 295. Ibid., pp. 585–6. Ibid., p. 588.

CHAPTER 3: OUT FROM THE STEPPE 1 Robert Mitchell and Nevill Forbes (tr.), The Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016–1471 (London: Camden Third Series, 1914), p. 64. 2 ʿAla al-Din ʿAta Malik Juwayni, Genghis Khan: The History of the WorldConqueror, John Andrew Boyle (tr. and ed.) (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), p. 107; Tārīkh-i-Jahān Gushā, Mizra Muhammad Qazvini (ed.) (Leiden: Brill, 1958), vol. 1, p.83; http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001086/ 108630Eb.pdf. 3 Certainly, Juwayni saw it as thus, see Qazvini, vol. 1, p. 15; Boyle, p. 22. 4 Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, ‘Mongol Empire rode wave of mild climate, says study’, http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/news-events/mongol-empire-rodewave-mild-climate-says-study#.U70a-OyFBoM.gmail. 5 The use of gunpowder by the Mongols is controversial, but for those interested see Stephen Haw, ‘Cathayan arrows and meteors: the origins of Chinese rocketry’, Journal of Chinese Military History 2/1 (2013) 28–42; Stephen Haw, ‘The Mongol Empire: the first “gunpowder empire”?’ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 23/3 (2013), pp. 441–69. 6 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 2, pp. 79–80, 89; Boyle, pp. 347, 357; Minhaj al-Din ibn Siraj Juzjani, T̤ abaḳāt-I-Nāṣirī: A General History of the Muhammadan Dynasties of Asia, Including Hindustan; from A.H. 194 (810 A.D.) to A.H. 658 (1260 A.D.) and the Irruption of the Infidel Mughals Into Islam, H.G. Raverty (tr.) (New Delhi: Oriental Books, 1970), vol. 2, p. 302. 7 Ibn al-Athir, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir for the Crusading Period from al-Kamil fi’l-Ta’rikh. Part 3: The Years 589–629/1193–1231: The Ayyubids after Saladin and the Mongol Menace, D.S. Richards (tr.) (London: Routledge, 2010), part 3, p. 261. 8 See Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 1, pp. 46–7; Boyle, p. 63. 9 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 1, p. 49; Boyle, p. 65. 10 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 1, pp. 49, 55; Boyle, pp. 66, 73. 11 Michal Biran, ‘Like a mighty wall: the armies of the Qara Khitai (1124–1218)’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 25 (2001), pp. 44–91. 12 ʿArudi, translated E.G. Browne, Chahar Maqala: Four Discourses (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1921), p. 24. 13 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 1, p. 50; Boyle, p. 67. 14 Juzjani, p. 103. 15 Zahir al-Din Nishaburi, History of the Seljuk Turks, K. Luther (tr.) (London: Curzon, 2001), pp. 161–4; Ibn al-Athir, D.S. Richards, part 3, pp. 14–15; Juzjani, Raverty, vol. 1, pp. 242–3; Juwayni, Qazvini, pp. 31–2; Boyle, pp. 302–3. 16 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 2, p. 122; Boyle, p. 392. 17 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 2, pp. 96–7; Boyle, p. 365. 216

Notes to Pages 57–65 18 See W. Barthold, Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion (London: E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Trust, Luzac & Co., 1977), 4th edn, pp. 372–5; Edward G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902), vol. 2, pp. 435–6. 19 Ibn al-Athir, D.S. Richards, part 3, p. 261, also see p. 205. 20 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 2, p. 122; Boyle, p. 392. 21 Marshall W. Baldwin and Kenneth M. Setton (eds), A History of the Crusades (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), vol. 3, p. 671. 22 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 2, p. 198; Boyle, p. 465. 23 Shihab al-Din Mohammad Nasawi, Biography of Jajal al-Din Mingubirti, Octave Houdas (tr.) (Paris: 1895), pp. 44, 77; Persian redaction, Sirat-I Djalaluddin, Mujtaba Minuwi (ed.) (Tehran: Scientific and Cultural Publications, 1986), pp. 38, 62, 329. 24 Juzjani, Raverty, vol. 1, p. 300. 25 Petrushevski, ‘Pokhod’, p. 127, n.16., quoted in Paul Ratchnevsky, Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy, Thomas N. Haining (tr.) (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), p. 124. 26 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 2, p. 198; Boyle, p. 465. 27 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 2, p. 199; Boyle, p. 466. 28 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 2, p. 198; Boyle, p. 465. 29 Cited by Ratchnevsky, p. 124. 30 Ibid. 31 Juzjani, p. 103; Raverty, p. 965. 32 Juzjani, p. 102; Raverty, p. 963. 33 See Juwayni, Boyle, pp. 370–3, n.29. 34 Barthold, p. 394, citing Works of the Peking Mission, iv, 291–2. 35 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 1, p. 60; Boyle. p. 78. 36 Barthold, p. 397; Nasawi, cited by Ratchnevsky, p. 122. 37 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 1, p. 61; Boyle, p. 80. 38 Juzjani, p. 124; Raverty, p. 1040. 39 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 1, p. 62; Boyle, p. 80–1. 40 Bar Hebraeus, The Chronography of Gregory Ab’l Faraj the Son of Aaron Hebrew Physician Commonly Known as Bar Hebraeus Being the First Part of His Political History, E.A. Wallis Budge (tr.) (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2003), p. 357; https://archive.org/details/BarHebraeusChronography. 41 Juzjani, p. 104; Raverty, p. 968, ‘Six hundred [or 700,000 on page 273] banners were brought out, and under each banner were one thousand horsemen, and six hundred thousand horses were assigned to the Bahadurs.’ 42 Cited in David Morgan, ‘The Mongol armies in Persia’, Der Islam 56/1 (1979), p. 83. 43 Morgan’s estimates. Ibid., p. 86. 44 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 1, p. 22; Boyle, pp. 27–8. 45 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 1, p. 81; Boyle, p. 105. 46 DeWeese’s translation of Nizam al-Din’s Favā’id al-fu’ād cited in Devlin DeWeese, ‘Stuck in the throat of Chingīz Khān’, in Judith Pfeiffer and Sholeh A. Quinn (eds), History and Historiography of Post-Mongol Central Asia and the Middle East: Studies in Honor of John E. Woods (Weisbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006), p. 32. 47 Dawlatshah, Tadhkiratu ‘sh-Shu’ara, E.G. Browne (ed.) (London and Leiden: Brill, 1901), pp. 134–5. 217

Notes to Pages 65–72 48 See DeWeese on this subject, ‘Stuck in the throat’, pp. 23–60. 49 Rashid al-Din, Jāma’ al-tavārīkh, Mohammad Roushan and Mustafa Musavi (eds) (Tehran: Nashr Elborz, 1373/1994); Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami‘u’tTawarikh: Compendium of Chronicles (Tome 1), Wheeler M. Thackston (tr.), in Classical Writings of the Mediaeval Islamic World: Persian Histories of the Mongol Dynasties, vol. 3 (London: I.B.Tauris, 2012), [cross-reference pagination with 1994 Persian edition] p. 510. 50 Ibid., p. 527. 51 Bar Hebraeus, The Chronography of Abu’l-Faraj Bar Hebraeus, Ernest Wallis Budge (tr.) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932; reprint, Amsterdam: APA Philo Press, 1976), p. 394. 52 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 2, pp. 190–2; Boyle, pp. 459–60; see George Lane, Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran: A Persian Renaissance (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 210. 53 Kartlis Tskhovreba: A History of Georgia, Roin Met’reveli and Stephen Jones (eds), Dimtri Gamq’relidze, Medea Abashidze and Arrian Chant’uria (trs) (Tbilisi: Artanuji Publishing, 2014), p. 327. 54 Ibid., p. 326. 55 Ibid., p. 330. 56 Rashid al-Din, pp. 650–8. 57 Juzjani, Raverty, vol. 2, p. 121. 58 Sayf b. Mohammad b. Yaqub al-Herawi, Tārīkh-i-Herātnāma, Ghulamreza Tabatabaʿi Majd (ed.) (Tehran: National Library, 2006), p. 118. 59 Sayf b. Mohammad b. Yaʿqub al-Haravi, Tārīkhnāmeh ye Herāt, Ghulamreza Tabatabaʿi Majd (ed.) (Tehran: Ketabkhana Melli, 1383/2004), p.101. 60 ‘The Impact of the Mongol invasions on Iran, Iraq and Central Asia: a revaluation’, was transcribed from a verbal presentation by Professor Charles P. Melville on 12 March 1997 at New York University for the Indo-Mongolian Society of New York. 61 Rashid al-Din, pp. 585–6.

CHAPTER 4: THE TREAD OF TATAR HOOF 1 ʿAla al-Din ʿAta Malik Juwayni, Genghis Khan: The History of the WorldConqueror, John Andrew Boyle (tr. and ed.) (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), pp. 42; Tārīkh-i-Jahān Gushā, Mizra Muhammad Qazvini (ed.) (Leiden: Brill, 1958), vol. 1, p. 31; http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ images/0010/001086/108630Eb.pdf. 2 Mustawfi, Hamdallah Qazvini, Zafarnama, Fatemeh ʿAlaqeh (ed.) (Tehran: [Institute of Humanities and Cultural Studies], 2011), vol. 7, p. 317; Edward G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia, III (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902), pp. 97–8. 3 In the Bible, Gog is a hostile power ruled by Satan and will manifest itself immediately before the end of the world (Revelation 20). In the biblical passage in Revelation and in other Christian and Jewish apocalyptic literature, Gog is joined by a second hostile force, Magog; but elsewhere (Ezekiel 38; Genesis 10:2) Magog is apparently the place of Gog’s origin. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 218

Notes to Pages 72–89 4 Robert Mitchell and Nevill Forbes (tr.), The Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016–1471 (London: Camden Third Series, 1914), p. 64. 5 David Nicolle and Viacheslav Shpakovsky, Kalka River 1223: Genghiz Khan’s Mongols Invade Russia (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2001); see Leo de Hartog, Genghis Khan: Conqueror of the World (London: I.B.Tauris, 2004), p. 121. 6 Friar Giovanni Carpini, The Story of the Mongols: Whom We Call the Tartars, Erik Hildinger (tr.) (Wellesley, MA: Branden Books, 2014), p. 68. 7 See Denis Sinor, ‘Horse and pasture in Inner Asian history’, Oriens Extremus 19/1–2 (1972), pp. 181–2. 8 Stephen Haw, ‘The death of two khaghans: a comparison of events in 1242 and 1260’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and Asian Studies 76/3 (2013), pp. 361– 71. 9 Rashid al-Din, Jāma’ al-tavārīkh, Mohammad Roushan and Mustafa Musavi (eds) (Tehran: Nashr Elborz, 1373/1994); Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami‘u’tTawarikh: Compendium of Chronicles (Tome 1), Wheeler M. Thackston (tr.), in Classical Writings of the Mediaeval Islamic World: Persian Histories of the Mongol Dynasties, vol. 3 (London: I.B.Tauris, 2012), [cross-reference pagination with 1994 Persian edition] pp. 96–7. 10 Ibid., pp. 738–9. 11 Ibid., p. 1045, see also pp. 729, 1034. 12 Grigor the Priest of Akner, Robert Blake and Richard Frye (ed. and tr.), ‘History of the Nation of Archers’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 12/3–4 (1949), pp. 269–83, 339; see also Peter Jackson, ‘The dissolution of the Mongol Empire’, Central Asiatic Journal 22 (1978), pp. 226–7, 232–3. 13 See Jean Aubin, ‘L’ethnogénèse des Qaraunas’, Turcica 1 (1969), pp. 65–94. 14 Juzjani, p. 218, Raverty, p. 1292; see also Jackson, ‘The dissolution’, pp. 223–4. 15 Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, Henry Yule and Henri Cordier (ed. and tr.), 3rd edn, 2 vols (New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1993), vol. I, p. 4. 16 See George Lane, ‘The Dali Stele’, in I. Binbaş and N. Kiliḉ-Schubel (eds), Horizons of the World: Festchrift for Isenbike Togan (Istanbul: İthaki, 2011), pp. 79–118. 17 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 1, p. 31; Boyle, p. 42. 18 Ivan Andreevski (ed.) ‘A treaty between Novgorod and the Hanseatic League, 1270’, in Basil Dmytryshyn (ed.), Mediaeval Russia: A Source Book 900–1700 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973), pp. 132–7. 19 Henry H. Howorth, History of the Mongols: From the 9th to the 19th Century (Boston: Elibron Classics, 2003), pt. 2, div. 2, p. 139. 20 Genghis Khan’s mother, great-grandmother and first wife were all Onggirats. 21 See Colin Heywood, ‘Filling the black hole: the emergence of the Bithynian atamanates’, in Ottomanica and Meta-Ottomanica: Studies In and Around Ottoman History, 13th–18th Centuries (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2013). 22 Sharaf al-Din Wassaf, Tārīkh-i-Waṣṣāf, facsimile edn (Tehran: Ketāb-khāna Ibn Sīnā, 1959), pp. 398–9; Abdol Mohammad Ayati, Tahrir-I Tarikh-I Vassaf (Tehran: Institute for Cultural Studies and Research, 1993), pp. 221–2; Howorth, pt. 3, div. 1, p. 146. 23 Rashid al-Din, pp. 748, 1299. 24 Mustawfi, Zafarnama, translated in L.J. Ward, ‘Zafarnamā of Mustawfī’, 3 vols (PhD diss., Manchester University, 1983), vol. 2, p. 539. 219

Notes to Pages 90–6 25 On Black Sea trade and the Chinggisids see Nicola di Cosmo, ‘Mongols and Merchants on the Black Sea’, in Reuven Amitai and Michal Biran, Mongols, Turks, and Others: Eurasian Nomads and the Sedentary World (London and Leiden: Brill, 2005), pp. 391–424. 26 See Howorth, pt. 3, div. 1, pp. 149–50. 27 Abi Bakr Qutbi Ahari Najm, Tavārīkh-i-Shaykh Uwais, Iraj Afshar (ed.) (Tabriz: Sotudeh, 2010/1389), p. 208; Tavārīkh-i-Shaykh Uvais, J.B. van Loon (ed. and tr.) (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1954), p. 52. 28 Ahari, p. 209; van Loon, p. 52. 29 Ahari, pp. 217–18; van Loon, p. 59. 30 Mustawfi, Zafarnama, Ward (tr.), vol. 3, pp. 630–1. 31 Ibn Battuta, The Travels of Ibn Battuta AD 1325–1354, H.A.R. Gibb and C.F. Beckingham (trs) (Cambridge: The Hakluyt Society, 2010), vol. 2, p. 482. 32 Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 484–5. 33 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 515. 34 Howorth, pt. 3, div. 1, p. 173. 35 Rosemary Horrox, The Black Death (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), p. 17, citing Gabriele de Mussis. 36 See di Cosmo, pp. 413–15. 37 Khwandamir, in Wheeler M. Thackston (tr.), Classical Writings of the Mediaeval Islamic World: Persian Histories of the Islamic World (London: I.B.Tauris, 2012), vol. 2, p. 42. 38 Khwandamir, p. 294. 39 Ahari, p. 237; van Loon, p. 76 [p. 177]. 40 Khwandamir, p. 130. 41 Khwandamir, p. 42; Zayn al-Din Mustawfi Qazvini, Ḋayl-i Tārīkh-i Guzīda, Iraj Afshar (ed.) (Tehran: Mawqufat-i-Duktur Mahmud Afshar Yazdi, 1993), pp. 57–8. 42 Khwandamir, p. 132; see also Ibn Bazzaz Ardibili, Ghulamreza Tabatabaʿi Majd (ed.), Ṣatwat al-Ṣafā (Tabriz: Intersharat-i-Zaryab, 1376/1997), p. 1081. 43 Zayn al-Din Mustawfi Qazvini, p. 63. 44 Zayn al-Din Mustawfi Qazvini, p. 64; for whole episode see pp. 59–65. 45 Cf. Abbas Qoli Aqa Bakikhanov, The Heavenly Rose-Garden: A History of Shirvan & Daghestan, William Floor and Hasan Javadi (trs) (Washington: Mage Books, 2009), p. 68; Kamal al-Din ‘Abd al-Razzaq Samarqandi, Matla’-i Sa’dayn wa Majma’-i Bahrayn (Tehran: Institute of Humanities and Cultural Studies, 2004), vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 315. 46 Ahari, p. 239; van Loon, p. 78 [p. 179]. 47 Ahari, p. 239; van Loon, p. 79 [pp. 179–80]. 48 Zayn al-Din Mustawfi Qazvini, p. 64. 49 Serge Zenkovsky (ed.), The Nikonian Chronicles, Vol. 3, From the Year 1241 to the Year 1381 (Princeton: The Kingston Press, 1986), p. 181. 50 Ibid., p. 181. 51 Ibid., pp. 183–4.

220

Notes to Pages 98–109

CHAPTER 5: THE CHAGHADAIDS 1 Kirakos Ganjakets’i, History of the Armenians, Robert Bedrosian (tr.) (New York: Sources of the Armenian Tradition, 1986), ch. 20. 2 Rashid al-Din, Jāma’ al-tavārīkh, Mohammad Roushan and Mustafa Musavi (eds) (Tehran: Nashr Elborz, 1373/1994); Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami‘u’tTawarikh: Compendium of Chronicles (Tome 1), Wheeler M. Thackston (tr.), in Classical Writings of the Mediaeval Islamic World: Persian Histories of the Mongol Dynasties, vol. 3 (London: I.B.Tauris, 2012), [cross-reference pagination with 1994 Persian edition] p. 762. Henceforth only 1994 pages will be indicated since these are used in the 2012 I.B.Tauris edition. 3 Igor de Rachewiltz (tr.), The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic of the Thirteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2006), vol. 1, p. 183 [254]. 4 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 187 [255]. 5 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 4 [19]. 6 Rashid al-Din, p. 764. 7 Ibid., p. 766. 8 Ibid., p. 619. 9 Ibid., p. 766. 10 ʿAla al-Din ʿAta Malik Juwayni, Genghis Khan: The History of the World-Conqueror, John Andrew Boyle (tr. and ed.) (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), p. 42; Tārīkh-i-Jahān Gushā, Mizra Muhammad Qazvini (ed.) (Leiden: Brill, 1958), vol. 1, p. 31; http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001086/108630Eb.pdf. 11 Rashid al-Din, p. 234. 12 Ibid., pp. 751–9. 13 Ibid., p. 752. 14 Ibid., p. 836. 15 Khwandamir, in Wheeler M. Thackston (tr.), Classical Writings of the Mediaeval Islamic World: Persian Histories of the Islamic World (London: I.B.Tauris, 2012), vol. 2, p. 83. 16 On Qaidu see Michal Biran, Qaidu and the Rise of the Independent Mongol State In Central Asia (Richmond: Curzon, 1997). 17 Complaining to his delegates and fellow princes at the quriltai, Rashid al-Din, p. 1068. 18 Ibid., p. 534. 19 The date is specified in the Yuanshi, but the more precise reference is in the Fozu Lidai Tongzai. 20 Rashid al-Din, p. 309–10. 21 Jamal al-Din Abu al-Qasim Qashani, Tārīkh-i-Uljaytū, Mahin Hambly (ed.) (Tehran: B.T.N.K., 1969), p. 32. 22 Rashid al-Din, p. 627. 23 Khwandamir, p. 51. 24 Ibn Battuta, vol. 3, p. 556. 25 Khwandamir, p. 51. 26 Ibn Battuta, vol. 3, pp. 560–1. 27 Haydar Dughlat, in Wheeler M. Thackston (tr.), Classical Writing of the Mediaeval Islamic World, vol. 1 (London: I.B.Tauris, 2012), p. 6 [8b–9]. 221

Notes to Pages 113–16

CHAPTER 6: THE MONGOLS IN IRAN 1 Hamdallah Mustawfi, Ẓafarnāmah und Shāhnāma, Facsimile of British Library doc. (Tehran and Vienna: Iran University Press, 1999), p. 1166; L.J. Ward (tr.), ‘Zafarnamā of Mustawfī’, 3 vols (PhD diss., Manchester University, 1983), vol. 2, pp. 5–6. 2 Baidawi, Melville (tr.), in Charles Melville, ‘From Adam to Abaqa: Qādī Baidāwī’s rearrangement of history (Part II)’, Studia Iranica 36/1 (2007), pp. 52, 53. 3 Mustawfi, Zafarnama, p. 10. (Ward’s translation unless otherwise stated.) 4 Mohammad b. Ali b. Mohammad Shabankaraʿi, Majma’ al-‘Ansāb, Mir Hashem Mohadith (ed) (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1363/1984), pp. 259, 260; anonymous Tārīkh-i Shāhī, Ibrahim Parizi (ed) (Tehran: Baniard Farhang, Iran, 2535/1976) pp. 287, 289. 5 Sheila S. Blair, ‘The Ilkhanid Palace,’ Ars Orientalis 23 (1993), pp. 243–4; Oleg Grabar and Sheila Blair, Epic Images and Contemporary History: The Illustrations of the Great Mongol Shahnama (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 25; Abolala Soudavar, ‘The saga of Abu-Saʿid Bahādor Khān: the Abu-Saʿidnāme’, in Teresa Fitzherbert and Julian Raby (eds), The Court of the Ilkhans, 1290–1340 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 97; Bernard O’Kane, ‘Persian poetry on Ilkhanid art and architecture’, in Linda Komaroff (ed.), Beyond the Legacy of Genghis Khan (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2006), p. 353; Marianna Shreve-Simpson, ‘In the beginning: frontispieces and front matter in Ilkhanid and Injuid manuscripts’, in Linda Komaroff (ed.), Beyond the Legacy of Genghis Khan (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2006), p. 241. 6 See George Lane, ‘Soghaghtani Beki’, in Natana J. DeLong-Bas (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), available at Oxford Islamic Studies Online, http://www.oxfordislamicstudies. com/article/opr/t355/e0360. 7 Bar Hebraeus or Ibn al-’Ibri, Kitāb mukhtaṣar al-duwal, A. Salihani (ed.), 2nd edn (Beirut: al-Maṭba’at al-Kāthūlīkiyeh, 1890, rpt 1985), p. 281. 8 Jamal al-Din Abu al-Qasim Qashani, Tārīkh-i-Uljaytū, Mahin Hambly (ed.) (Tehran: B.N.T.K., 1969), p. 107. 9 Ibn Bazzaz Ardibili, Ṣatwat al-Ṣafā, Ghulamreza Tabatabaʿi Majd (ed.) (Tabriz: Intersharat-i-Zaryāb, 1376/1997, p. 195; on this subject and for translations of these sources see Michal Biran, ‘The Islamisation of Hülegü: imaginary conversion in the Ilkhanate’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 26/1–2 (January 2016), pp. 79–88. 10 See Biran, ‘The Islamisation of Hülegü’. 11 See Nadia Eboo Jamal, Surviving the Mongols: Nizari Quhistani and the Continuity of Ismaili Tradition in Persia (London: I.B.Tauris, 2003). 12 ʿAla al-Din ʿAta Malik Juwayni, Genghis Khan: The History of the WorldConqueror, John Andrew Boyle (tr. and ed.) (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), p. 638; Tārīkh-i-Jahān Gushā, Mizra Muhammad Qazvini (ed.) (Leiden: Brill, 1958), vol. 3, p. 139; http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ images/0010/001086/108630Eb.pdf. 13 See George Lane, Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran: A Persian Renaissance (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 177–212. 222

Notes to Pages 117–31 14 Qutb al-Din Shirazi, Akhbār-ye Moghūlān: The Mongols in Iran, George Lane (tr.) (London: Routledge, 2018), p. 23. 15 Ibid., p. 30. 16 Ibn Tabatani al-Fakhri, Tārīkh-i-Fakhrī, On the Systems of Government and the Muslim Dynasties, Charles Whitting (tr.) (London: Luzac & Co., 1947), p. 43. 17 Michal Biran, ‘Music in the Mongol conquest of Baghdad: Ṣafī al-Dīn Urmawī and the Ilkhanid Circle of Musicians’, in Bruno de Nicola and Charles Melville (eds), The Mongols’ Middle East: Continuity and Transformation in Ilkhanid Iran (London: Brill, 2016), pp.133–54. 18 On Baghdad see George Lane, ‘A tale of two cities: the liberation of Baghdad and Hangzhou and the rise of the Toluids’, in Central Asiatic Journal 56 (2012/2013), pp. 103–32. 19 See Peter Jackson, ‘The dissolution of the Mongol Empire’, Central Asiatic Journal 22 (1978), pp. 222–7. 20 Shirazi, pp. 39–40. 21 Mustawfi, Zafarnama, vol. 2, p. 204. 22 The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 5: The Saljuq and Mongol Periods, John Boyle (ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), pp. 370, 541; https:// doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521069366. 23 Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the Islamic World: from Conquest to Conversion (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2017), pp. 272, 293, 296. 24 Bar Hebraeus, The Chronography of Gregory Ab’l Faraj the Son of Aaron Hebrew Physician Commonly Known as Bar Hebraeus Being the First Part of His Political History, E.A. Wallis Budge (tr.) (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2003), p. 490; https://archive.org/details/BarHebraeusChronography. 25 Wassaf Shirazi, Tārīkh-i-Waṣṣāf (facsimile edition) (Tehran: Ketāb-khāna Ibn Sīnā, 1959), p. 247; Edward G. Browne (tr.), A Literary History of Persia, vol. 3, pp. 35–6. 26 Mustawfi, Zafarnama, p. 349. 27 This is disputed, see Cambridge History of Iran (CHI), p. 374. 28 Wassaf, p. 279; cf. D’Ohsson quoted in CHI, p. 376. 29 Hetoum, The Flower of Histories of the East, Robert Bedrosian (tr.), ch. 39, http://www.attalus.org/armenian/hetumtoc.html; Hetoum, A Lytell Cronycle: Richard Pynson’s Translation (c.1520) of ‘La Fleur des histoires de la Terre d’Orient’ (c.1307), Glenn Burger (ed.) (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1988). 30 On Ghazan’s conversion see Charles Melville, ‘Padshah-i Islam: the conversion of Sultan Mahmud Ghazan Khan’, Pembroke Papers 1 (1990), pp. 159–77. 31 See Krawulsky, Dorathea, The Mongol Ilkhans and Their Vizier Rashīd al-Dīn (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2011). 32 Hetoum, Bedrosian, ch. 24. 33 Rashid al-Din, p. 1337. 34 On this phenomenon see Lane, Early Mongol Rule; Ahmet T. Karamustafa, Gods Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later Middle Period, 1200–1550 (London: Oneworld Publications, 2006). 35 See Charles Melville, ‘Jāmeʿ al-tawāriḵ’, Encyclopaedia Iranica XIV/5, pp. 462– 68; ‘Introduction’, in Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami‘u’t-Tawarikh: Compendium of Chronicles (Tome 1), Wheeler M. Thackston (tr.), in Classical Writings of 223

Notes to Pages 131–9

36 37

38 39 40 41 42

43 44 45

46

47 48 49 50 51

52

53 54 55 56

the Mediaeval Islamic World: Persian Histories of the Mongol Dynasties, vol. 3 (London: I.B.Tauris, 2012), pp. vii–xiv. Cited in Thomas Allsen, Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 32. Rashid al-Din, Jāma’ al-tavārīkh, Mohammad Roushan and Mustafa Mūsavī (eds) (Tehran: Nashr Elborz, 1373/1994); Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami‘u’tTawarikh: Compendium of Chronicles (Tome 1), Wheeler M. Thackston (tr.), in Classical Writings of the Mediaeval Islamic World: Persian Histories of the Mongol Dynasties, vol. 3 (London: I.B.Tauris, 2012), [cross-reference pagination with 1994 Persian edition] story 39, pp. 1537–9. Henceforth only 1994 pages will be indicated since these are used in the 2012 I.B.Tauris edition. Rashid al-Din, p. 1443. Cited in CHI, p. 399. Awliya Allah Amuli, Tārikh-i Rūyān, Manuchihr Sutudah (ed.) (Tehran: Bunyād-i Farhang-i Īrān, 1969), p. 178. Ibid. Abi Bakr Qutbi Ahari, Tavārīkh-i Shaykh Uwais, Iraj Afshar (ed.) (Tabriz: Sotudeh, 2010/1389); Tavārīkh-i-Shaykh Uvais, J.B. van Loon (tr. and ed.) (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1954). Ahari, p. 204, 74 alef [395]; van Loon, p. 48. Ahari, p. 208, 75b [398]; van Loon, p. 51. Because the name Kharbanda or ‘donkey herd’ was objectionable to his Muslim subjects, Ujjaytu became known as Khodabanda or ‘God’s slave’. Mongols were often named after the first thing that greeted their vision on birth. For more on Sultaniya see Mustawfi’s Zafarnama, pp. 555–67; on Chinggisids’ love of debate see George Lane, ‘Intellectual Jousting and the Chinggisid Wisdom Bazaar’, in Peter Jackson and Timothy May (eds), The Mongols and Post-Mongol Asia: Studies in Honour of David O. Morgan, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 26/1–2 (2016), pp. 235–47. Qashani, p. 98. Ibid., p. 99. See Charles Melville, ‘Chopanids’, Encyclopaedia Iranica Vol. V, Fasc. 5, pp. 496– 502. Mustawfi, Zafarnama, p. 656. Ibn Battuta, The Travels of Ibn Battuta AD 1325–1354, H.A.R. Gibb and C.F. Beckingham (trs) (Cambridge: The Hakluyt Society, 2010), vol. 2, p. 341; on Baghdad Khatun see George Lane, ‘Baghdad Khatun’, in Natana J. DeLongBas (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), available at Oxford Islamic Studies Online, http://www. oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t355/e0005. Khwandamir, in Wheeler M. Thackston (tr.), Classical Writings of the Mediaeval Islamic World: Persian Histories of the Islamic World (London: I.B.Tauris, 2012), vol. 2, pp. 118–19. Ibn Battuta, vol. 2, p. 340. Hetoum, Bedrosian, ch. 42. Ibn Battuta, vol. 2, p. 336. Ahari, pp. 156, 157. 224

Notes to Pages 140–6 57 The succession dispute between Qubilai Khan and Ariq Buqa split the Empire between the Toluids and the traditionalist supporters of Chinggis Khan and his yasa. 58 Abu Majid Tabrizi, Safina-ye-Tabriz, facsimile edn (Tehran: University of Tehran, 2003), p. 734. 59 Hamdallah Mustawfi, Dhayl-i-Zafarnama, unpublished tr. p. 11 (Hamd-Allah Mostawfi Qazvini, Ḏayl-e Ẓafar-nāma, translated (Russian and Azeri) M. D. Kazymov and V. Z. Piriiev as Ḏayl-e Tāriḵ-e gozida, Baku, 1986; translation into English Richard Sigee, Pembroke College, Cambridge). 60 Ahari, p. 217, alef 80; van Loon, p. 59. 61 Khwandamir, p. 123. 62 Ibid. 63 Mustawfi, unpublished, p. 10. 64 Ibid., p. 12. 65 Ibid., p. 23. 66 Ibid., p. 19. 67 Khwandamir, vol. 3, p. 223, Thackston (tr.), p. 124. 68 Ibid. 69 See George Lane, ‘The Turkman Confederations: the Aqqoyunlu and the Qaraqoyunlu’, in The Encyclopedia of Empire, John M. MacKenzie (ed.) (Chichester: John Wiley, 2016).

CHAPTER 7: QUBILAI KHAN: YUAN EMPEROR OF THE WORLD 1 For a fuller account of Qubilai Khan see George Lane, ‘Khubilai (Qubilai) Khan’, in Kerry Brown (ed.), Berkshire Dictionary of Chinese Biography (Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing, 2014), vol. 2, pp. 816–36. 2 G. Doefer, Türkische und Mongolische Elemente im Neupersischen, Bd. I–IV (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1963–1975), 4:98f. §1800. 3 Rashid al-Din, Jāma’ al-tavārīkh, Mohammad Roushan and Mustafa Musavi (eds) (Tehran: Nashr Elborz, 1373/1994); Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami‘u’tTawarikh: Compendium of Chronicles (Tome 1), Wheeler M. Thackston (tr.), in Classical Writings of the Mediaeval Islamic World: Persian Histories of the Mongol Dynasties, vol. 3 (London: I.B.Tauris, 2012), [cross-reference pagination with 1994 Persian edition] p. 260. 4 Ibid., p. 823; ʿAla al-Din ʿAta Malik Juwayni, Genghis Khan: The History of the World-Conqueror, John Andrew Boyle (tr. and ed.) (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), p. 552; Tārīkh-i-Jahān Gushā, Mizra Muhammad Qazvini (ed.) (Leiden: Brill, 1958), vol. 3, p. 8; http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ images/0010/001086/108630Eb.pdf; Khwandamir, in Wheeler M. Thackston (tr.), Classical Writings of the Mediaeval Islamic World: Persian Histories of the Islamic World (London: I.B.Tauris, 2012), vol. 2, p. 33. See also Bar Hebraeus, The Chronography of Gregory Ab’l Faraj the Son of Aaron Hebrew Physician Commonly Known as Bar Hebraeus Being the First Part of His Political History, E.A. Wallis Budge (tr.) (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2003), p. 417; https:// archive.org/details/BarHebraeusChronography. 5 Bar Hebraeus, p. 398; cf. Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 3, p. 7; Boyle, p. 552. 225

Notes to Pages 146–62 6 Juwayni, Qazvini, vol. 3, p. 5; Boyle, p. 550; ‘turban-wearer’ means ‘man’ rather than a woman. 7 Morris Rossabi, Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times (Oakland: University of California Press, 1988), remains an indispensable source for Qubilai’s early life. 8 See George Lane, ‘The Dali Stele’, in I. Binbas and N. Kilic-Schubel (eds), Horizons of the World: Festschrift for Isenbike Togan (Istanbul: Ithaki, 2011). 9 See Stephen Haw ‘The death of two khaghans: a comparison of events in 1242 and 1260’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and Asian Studies 76/3 (2013), pp. 361–71. 10 ‘Biography of Guo Baoyu’, Song Lian et al., Yuanshi [History of the Yuan Dynasty] (1370), revised edn. (Beijing, 1976), juan 149, p. 3521; cited in Jacqueline Misty Armijo-Hussein, ʿSayyid ʿAjal Shams al-Din: a Muslim from Central Asia, serving Mongols in China, and bringing civilization to Yunnan’ (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1996), p. 151. 11 F.W. Mote, Imperial China 900–1800 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), p. 452. 12 The Dali Stele stands outside Dali’s city walls opposite the western gate. 13 See Lane, ‘The Dali Stele’. 14 John Herman, ‘Mongol conquest of Dali: the failed second front’, in Nicola di Cosmo (ed.), Warfare in Inner Asian History (500–1800) (Leiden: Brill, 2002). 15 On Khanbaliq see Chen Gaohua, The Capital of the Yuan Dynasty (Beijing: Silk Road Press, 2015); Emil Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources, Trübner Oriental Series (London: Trübner & Co., 1888); Emil Bretschneider, Archeological and Historical Researches on Peking and Its Environs, Elibron Classics, 2005, www.elibron.com; Stephen Haw, Marco Polo’s China: A Venetian in the Realm of Khubilai Khan (London: Routledge, 2006). 16 Hu Zhu quoted in Chen, p. 85. 17 See ibid., p. 85. 18 Ying Tinggao, Ouyang Xuan, Ke Jiushi, quoted in ibid., pp. 84–5. 19 See ibid., p. 78–9. 20 Zheng Suonan, quoted in ibid., p. 79 21 Song Lian, Yuanshi, scroll 105, quoted in ibid., p. 79 22 On Guo see George Lane, ‘Guo Shoujing’, in Kerry Brown (ed.), Berkshire Dictionary of Chinese Biography (Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing, 2014), vol. 2, pp. 808–15. 23 Chen Gaohua, The Capital of the Yuan Dynasty (Beijing: Silk Road Press, 2015). 24 See George Lane, ‘Intellectual Jousting and the Chinggisid Wisdom Bazaar’, in Peter Jackson and Timothy May (eds), The Mongols and Post-Mongol Asia: Studies in Honour of David O. Morgan, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 26/1–2 (2016), pp 235–47. 25 See Jennifer Jay, A Change in Dynasties: Loyalism in Thirteenth-Century China (Washington: Western Washington University Press, 1991), pp. 15–17. 26 See Rashid al-Din, pp. 178, 198, 897–9, 917f, 924. 27 George Lane, ‘Phoenix Mosque’, Encyclopaedia Iranica, www.iranicaonline.org/ articles/phoenix-mosque. 28 Wassaf, ‘Abd Allah ibn Faḍl Allah Shirazi, Tajziyat alamṣār wa tazjiyat al226

Notes to Pages 162–80 acṣār, Tārīkh-i-Waṣṣāf, M.M. Isfahani (ed.) (Tehran: Ibn Sina, 1960 reprint), pp. 22–3; Sir Henry Eliot, The History of India, as told by its own historians: The Muhammadan Period, John Dawson (ed.) (London: Trübner & Co., 1867–77), vol. 3, pp. 24–54; see Sir Henry Yule, Cathay and the Way Thither (London: Hakluyt Society, 1914), pp. 218–19. 29 See Jennifer Jay on the Song Loyalists.

CHAPTER 8: SOUP FOR THE QA’ANS 1 The Yuan Dynasty, or Great Yuan Empire. 2 Song Lian, Yuanshi, juan 17, p. 377, cited and tr. in F.W. Mote, Imperial China 900–1800 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), p. 492. 3 See Rashid al-Din, Jāma’ al-tavārīkh, Mohammad Roushan and Mustafa Musavi (eds) (Tehran: Nashr Elborz, 1373/1994); Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami‘u’tTawarikh: Compendium of Chronicles (Tome 1), Wheeler M. Thackston (tr.), in Classical Writings of the Mediaeval Islamic World: Persian Histories of the Mongol Dynasties, vol. 3 (London: I.B.Tauris, 2012), [cross-reference pagination with 1994 Persian edition] p. 946–60. 4 Yuanshi, juan 29, p. 637; juan 115, p. 2895. 5 Rashid al-Din, p. 949. 6 Ibid., pp. 929–30. 7 Ibid., pp. 949–50. 8 Ibid., p. 952. 9 Song Lian et al., ‘Imperial Biographies, Emperor Chengzong II’, in Yuanshi, scroll 19, cited in Chen Gaohua, The Capital of the Yuan Dynasty (Beijing: Silk Road Press, 2015), p. 75. 10 Yuanshi, juan 21, p. 449. Rashid al-Din pp. 958–9 states that 11 ministers were arrested but were saved by Danba (1230–1303), the imperial preceptor. The reason he gives for the arrest is that they had accepted commissions from some merchants for purchasing jewellery for the court. See John Andrew Boyle, The Successors of Genghis Khan (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1971), p. 330, https://archive.org/details/Boyle1971RashidAlDin; on Danba’s intervention see Herbert Franke, ‘Tan-pa [Danba]: a Tibetan lama at the court of the great khans’, in Orientalia Venetiana, Vol. 1, Mario Sabattini (ed.) (Florence: Olschki, 1984), pp. 157–80. 11 Yuanshi, juan 21, pp. 460–5. 12 See Chen, p. 74. 13 Song Lian et al., ‘Imperial Biographies; Wenzong’, Yuanshi, scroll 33, cited in ibid., p. 97. 14 See Shane McCausland, ‘China’s examination halls reopen’, in The Mongol Century: Visual Cultures of Yuan China, 1271–1368 (London: Reaktion Books, 2015), pp. 115–46. 15 David Morgan, ‘Who ran the Mongol Empire?’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1 (1982), pp. 124–36 16 See David Farquhar, The Government of China under Mongolian Rule: A Reference Guide (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1990), p. 139. 227

Notes to Pages 180–208 17 Henry H. Howorth, History of the Mongols: From the 9th to the 19th Century (Boston: Elibron Classics, 2003), pt. 2, div. 1, p. 302. 18 Yesun Temur Khan, c.1324, The History of the Yuan, cited in ibid., p. 303. 19 Thomas Allsen, The Royal Hunt in Eurasian History (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), p. 256. 20 Howorth, pt. 2, div. 1, p. 303. 21 Ibid. 22 Odorico da Pordenone, The Travels of Friar Odoric: A 14th-Century Journal of the Blessed Odoric of Pordenone, Henry Yule (tr.) (Michigan/Cambridge, UK: William E. Eerdmans, 2002), p. 137. 23 Odorico, The Travels of Friar Odoric, p. 138. 24 Peter Jackson (tr. and ed.) with David Morgan, The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck: His Journey to the Court of the Great Khan Mongke, 1253–1255 (London: Haylayut Publications, 1990), pp. 88–89. 25 Wei Su, ‘Shuhou ba-Shu Zhang Chengji zhuan hou’ postscript for the biography of Zhang Chengji in Wei Taipu wen xuji [A Sequel to the Collected Work of Wei Tuipu] scroll 9, cited in Chen, p. 120. 26 Howorth, pt. 2, div. 1, p. 308. 27 The Cambridge History of China: Volume 6, Alien Regimes and Border States, 907–1368, Denis C. Twitchel, Herbert Franke and John King Fairbank (eds) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 554. 28 George Vernadsky, The Mongols and Russia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), p. 93. 29 Chen Dasheng and Chen Enming, Islamic Inscriptions in Quanzhou (Fujian: Ningxia People’s Publishing House, 1984), Fig. 7, p. 4. 30 George Lane (ed.), The Phoenix Mosque (London: Gingko Publications, 2018). 31 Jennifer Jay, A Change in Dynasties: Loyalism in Thirteenth-Century China (Washington: Western Washington University Press, 1991).

FURTHER READING 1 Thomas Allsen, Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 2 Igor de Rachewiltz (tr.), The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2006). 3 Wheeler M. Thackston (tr.), Classical Writings of the Mediaeval Islamic World: Persian Histories of the Mongol Dynasties (3 vols, London: I.B.Tauris, 2012). 4 ʿAla al-Din ʿAta Malik Juwayni, Genghis Khan: The History of the WorldConqueror, John Andrew Boyle (tr. and ed.) (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997). 5 Facsimile Nabu Press, 2011, https://archive.org/details/tarkhiguzdao00hamd. 6 L.J. Ward, ‘The Ẓafar-nāmah of Ḥamd Allāh Mustaufi and the Il-Khān dynasty of Iran’ (3 vols, PhD diss., University of Manchester, 1983). 7 The Geographical Part of the Nuzhat-Al-Qulub, Guy Le Strange (tr.) (London: Gibb Memorial Trust, 1919). 8 Abi Bakr Qutbi Ahari, Tavārīkh-i Shaykh Uwais, Iraj Afshar (ed.) (Tabriz: 228

Notes to Pages 208–10 Sotudeh, 2010/1389); Tavārīkh-i-Shaykh Uvais, J.B. van Loon (ed. and tr.) (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1954). 9 Ibn Tabatani al-Fakhri, Tārīkh-i-Fakhrī, On the Systems of Government and the Muslim Dynasties, Charles Whitting (tr.) (London: Luzac & Co., 1947). 10 Hetoum, A Lytell Cronycle: Richard Pynson’s Translation (c.1520) of ‘La Fleur des histoires de la Terre d’Orient’ (c.1307), Glenn Burger (ed.) (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1988). 11 Morris Rossabi, The Mongols and Global History (New York: Norton, 2011); Bernard Lewis, Islam: From the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople Volume 1: Politics and War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); Bertold Spuler, History of the Mongols, Based on Eastern and Western Accounts of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (New York: Dorset Press, 1968); Scott C. Levi and Ron Sela, Islamic Central Asia: An Anthology (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2010). 12 Henry H. Howorth, History of the Mongols: From the 9th to the 19th Century (Boston: Elibron Classics, 2003) https://archive.org/details/ historyofmongols21howo. 13 David Morgan, The Mongols, 2nd edn (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007). 14 Michal Biran, Chinggis Khan (Oxford: Oneworld, 2006). 15 George Lane, ‘Chingiz Khān: Maker of the Islamic world’, Journal of Qur’anic Studies 16/1 (2014), pp. 140–55. 16 Allsen. 17 Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion, 2nd edn (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2017). 18 Linda Komaroff and Stefano Carboni (eds), The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256–1353 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002). 19 Linda Komaroff, Beyond the Legacy of Genghis Khan (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006). 20 Judith Pfeiffer and Sholeh A. Quinn (eds), History and Historiography of PostMongol Central Asia and the Middle East: Studies in Honor of John E. Woods (Weisbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006). 21 Reuven Amitai and Michal Biran, Mongols, Turks, and Others: Eurasian Nomads and the Sedentary World (London and Leiden: Brill, 2005); Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change: The Mongols and Their Eurasian Predecessors (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2015). 22 Bruno de Nicola, Women in Mongol Iran: The Khatuns, 1206–1335 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017). 23 Bruno de Nicola and Charles Melville (eds), The Mongols’ Middle East: Continuity and Transformation in Ilkhanid Iran (London: Brill, 2016). 24 George Lane, Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran: A Persian Renaissance (London: Routledge, 2003). 25 Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the West, 1221–1410 (London: Pearson Longman, 2005). 26 Jackson, The Mongols and the Islamic World. 27 Reuven Amitai-Preiss, Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk–Ilkhanid War, 1260– 1281 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 229

Notes to Page 211 28 Christoph Baumer, The History of Central Asia, Volume 3: The Age of Islam and the Mongols (London: I.B.Tauris, 2016). 29 Nicola di Cosmo, Allen J. Frank and Peter B. Golden (eds), The Cambridge History of Inner Asia: The Chinggisid Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 30 Journal of Royal Asiatic Studies 1 (2016).

230

Index

Abaqa Khan 121, 124 Abu Saʿid 92, 108–9, 120, 128, 134, 136–9, 142, 168, 184 Ahmad Fanakati 152 Ahmad Tegudar 120, 121, 124–6, 134 Ainu 177 Akhi Juq of Tabriz, 95–6 Alamut 114–17, 152–3 Alans 76, 85 Alghu Khan 102 Ali-Padishah 142 Alim, the Qadi Muhi al-Din Bardaʿi 95 Altan Debter 31, 33, 64 Ananda 173–4 Aqqoyunlu 142–3 Arghun Aqa 128 Arghun Khan 120, 125–6, 128 Ariq Buqa 102, 140, 142, 145, 160–1, 176 Arpa Ke’un 92, 140–2 Aruq 126 see also Buqa Asiq 124 Assassins 68 see also Ismaʿilis Ayn Jalut 82, 121, 160 Ayurparibhadra Buyantu Khan 169, 177 Badr ad-Din al-ʿAmid 60 Badr al-Din Lu’lu 118 Baghdad 52, 54, 60, 80–2, 116, 139, 141, 150, 153, 157–8 invasion of 117–20

Baghdad Khatun 92, 137–8, 141 Baidar, Chaghadaid prince 73, 102 Baidu, Ilkhan 125, 127–8, 142 Baiju Noyan 112, 178–9 Baikal, lake 13, 15, 17–18 Balagha, Jochid prince 80, 122 Baljuna 28, 38, 46 Baljuntu 38, 50 Bar Hebraeus 17, 63, 114, 146 Baraq Hajib 67 Baraq Khan 85, 103–5, 123–4, 172, 176 Barat 133 Batu Khan 73–81, 83–4, 97, 100, 122 Bayan Noyan 158, 171, 173, 175, 183, 185 Baybars, sultan 82–3, 122 Baydawi, Qadi 113–14 Bela IV, king of Hungary 75 Berke Khan 79–80, 85, 87, 97, 103, 115, 121–3 conversion 81–3 Big Hasan 138, 142 see also Hasan-e Bozorg Bilig 43, 171 Birdibeg Khan 95 Bolad Chingsang 127, 130–1 Bo’orchu 32, 35, 43 Boqa-Temur 105 Borte Fujin 20, 32–4 Bry-Gung 105 Buqa, Ilkhanid minister 126 see also Aruq Buri 105, 107 231

George Lane Caliph of Baghdad 25, 52, 54, 56–7, 62, 150 Carpini, John of Plano 14, 75 Chabi Khatun 163 Chang Chun, Daoist sage 69 Changshi Khan 184 Chao 125, 127 Chapar 89, 106–7, 172, 176 Chen Youding 186 Chinggis Khan 9–10, 12, 14–15, 17–21, 23–4, 26, 45–50, 52, 54–5, 68–71, 73, 83, 98, 106, 109, 112, 116, 122, 143, 144, 155, 171 and Chinggis the Prophet and the Ka’ba 126 early life of 27–40 and Quriltai 1206, 40–4 see also Temujin Chopan 92, 94, 109, 126, 136–9, 141, 168 Chopanids 137–41 Crimea 73, 76, 78, 87, 89, 93–4, 97 Cuman 72–3, 75 see also Pecheneg; Qipchaq Dadu 121, 150 see also Khanbaliq Dai Viet 83, 122, 171–3 Dali 122, 148–50, 158–9 Darband 72, 92, 123, 132 Delhi Sultanate 109, 139, 161 Dimashq Khwaja, son of Chopan 138 Dokuz Khatun 17, 20, 39, 134 Du’a Khan 89, 103–7, 134, 172, 176, 184 Duan Zhishan, Dali king 149 El Temur 183, 185 Eljigidei Noyan 109, 184 Esen Buqa I 107–8 Gao Kegong 188 Gaozong, Song emperor 48 Gaykhatu Ilkhan 88, 125–7, 134 Gegeen Yingzong, Yuan emperor 169, 178–80, 190

Ghazan Ilkhan 23, 81, 120, 124–5, 137, 139, 141, 161, 166, 169, 172, 174 and Jochid envoys 87–9 reign of 128–34 and titles 132 Ghiyath al-Din, Arpa’s minister 140, 142 Ghiyath al-Din, Khwarazmian prince 67 Ghiyath al-Din Kart 138 Ghizolfi, Buscarello de 134 Ghurids 25, 56 Giovanni of Marignolli 91 Goryeo (Korea) 151, 159, 177 Great Quriltai 11, 19, 41 Grigor of Akanc’, Armenian cleric 80 Guo Baoyu 149 Guo Shoujing 189 Gurbescu Khatun 39–40 Gurganj 59 Gurkhan 33, 52–3, 55, 88 Guyuk 20, 73, 76–7, 100–1, 145–6, 190 Hajji Khatun 142 Hanlinyuan (Hanlin Academy) 120, 130–1, 153, 183 Hasan the Sartaq 38 Hasan-e Bozorg 138 see also Big Hasan Hilli, Shaykh al-, 135 Ho’elun-eke 29–33, 35 Hu Sihui 166, 182 Hulegu, Ilkhan 17, 20, 39, 94, 101, 103, 124, 128, 141–2, 144–5, 149–50, 153, 157–8, 160, 189 and the Golden Horde 78–83 in Iran 111–22 Ibn al-Alqami 118–19 Ibn al-Athir 57, 69 Ibn Battuta 92–3, 109, 138, 187 Ibn Bazzaz 115 Ibn Fuwati 119–20 Ibn Kammuna 130 Ibn Tawus 118 Ibn Taymiya 129 Iftikhariyans 113

232

Index Iqtaʿ 56, 59, 67, 133 Ishan Hasan Mangoli 124 Ismaʿil, the Safavid Shah 143 Ismaʿilis 114–16, 152, 157–8 see also Rukn al-Din, the Ismaʿili Khwarshah Isol the Pisan 134 Ispah Rebellion 186 Issa Gurkhan 88 Jalal al-Din Mingbirdi Khwarazmshah 58, 65–7 Jami’ al-tawarikh 18 Janibeg Khan 93–7 Jebe Noyan 42, 54–5 Jelme Noyan 33, 35 Jia Sidao 158 Jin 10–11, 14, 17, 24–5, 28, 37–8, 41, 47–50, 52, 54, 61–2, 171, 185 see also Jurchens Jingdezhen ceramics 190 jinshi degree 178 Jochi Khan 21, 34, 37, 52, 83, 98 Junayd, Safavid shaykh 143 Jurchens 11–12, 16, 24–5, 28, 36, 47–54, 70, 101, 146–8 see also Jin Juwayni, Ata Malik 23, 38, 45, 53, 55, 59, 63, 66–7, 100, 120, 146 at Alamut 115–16 demise of 124–5 and Sharia law 23 Juwaynis 113, 124–5 Juzjani, Minhaj al-Din 60–3, 81 Kalavun 86 Kalka, Battle of 73 Kamal-al-Din ʿAbd-al-Rahman 124 Kammala 171 Karasi in the Troad 87 Karts of Herat 123, 138 see also Shams al-Din Kart Kerulen 52, 100 Ket Buqa Noyan 82, 121 Khalkha 36 Khanbaliq 22, 91, 105, 107, 109, 121, 131, 137, 150–3, 155, 158, 163,

166, 173, 175, 179, 181, 184, 187, 189 see also Dadu Khitans 11, 13, 16, 18, 24–5, 38, 47–55, 100, 114, 147–8, 152, 158, 167, 188 see also Qara Khitai Khizr 65 Khwaja Jaʿfar 38, 50 Khwandamir, Safavid historian 87, 94, 103 Khwarazmshah, Ala al-Din Mohammad 23, 25, 38, 49, 52–3, 68, 70–1, 77, 111 and Caliph al-Nasir 55–8 and Chinggisid envoys 59–63 and punishment of God 64–6 Kobek 107–9 Kokochu 23, 158 Kokojin 171–2, 174 Konchek 107 Korea see Goryeo Kubra, Najm al-Din, 65, 82 Kuchar 30 Kuchluq, Naiman rebel 17, 40, 42, 52–5 Kusala Qutuqtu Mingzong Khan 183 Liegnitz, Battle of 76 Liu Bingzhong 149, 154 Louis IX, king of France 82 Lulu Khwaja 142 Mahmud Kashghari 11 Mahmud Shah 180 Mahmud Yalavach 62, 85, 101 Majd al-Mulk Yazdi 124 Malik Ashraf 94–5 Mamluk Sultanate 67, 80–4, 86–7, 91, 109, 120–2, 124, 129, 132, 137, 139, 160 mamluks (‘slave’ soldiers) 9, 152 Maragha 83, 119–20, 189 Marco Polo 48, 81, 84, 106, 151–2, 161, 181 Masʿud Beg 85, 101, 123 Melik Temur 176 Mengli Girai 97 233

George Lane Merkits 11, 16–17, 28–9, 31, 71, 98, 183 and kidnapping of Borte 21, 33–7, 98, 52 Mo’etuken, son of Chaghadai Khan 101, 105 Mongke Khan 22, 75, 78, 101–2, 112, 116, 152, 170 Mongke Qa’an 20, 80, 101, 112, 150, 156–7 Mongke-Temur, Ilkhanid prince 123 Mongke-Temur Khan 84–6, 91, 104–5, 123–4 Monglik 29 Mount Burqan Qaldun 41 Mubarakshah 102–3 Muhammad, sultan 55, 139 Muhammad bin Toghloq 139 Muqali 42, 51, 178 Musa Khan 142 Mustaʿsim, caliph 117–18 Mustawfi 72, 88, 92, 95, 114, 126, 134, 141–2, 160 Mutanabbi 146 Muzafarids 139 Negudaris 80 Nestorianism 17–18, 22 Nevsky, Alexander 79 Ningzong, Rinchinbal Khan 170, 185 Nizam al-Mulk 60 Nizari, Qohestani, Sa’d al-Din (poet) 116 Nogai Khan 77, 86–9 Nowruz Noyan 128 Oderic of Pordenone 181 Oghul Qaimish 20 Ogodai Qa’an 20, 51, 73, 77–8, 99–101, 103, 107, 146, 150, 161, 172, 185, 190 Oljai Khatun 123 Ong Khan 33, 37 Onon 13, 17–18, 29–30, 41, 100 Orda 100 Orghina Khatun 101, 103 Orkhon 17–18, 24

Orus 106–7 Otchigan Noyan 40 Ozbeg Khan 90–3, 97, 108, 136, 139, 181, 184 Pagan 57–8, 60, 159, 171, 173 Pax Mongolica 162, 184 Pecheneg 75 see also Cuman; Qipchaq Phags-pa 18, 157 Phoenix Mosque 158 Prestor John 54 Pu Shougeng 162–3 Qabul Khan 25, 28 Qadan Khan 73, 76 Qaidu Khan 28, 102, 123, 161, 176 Qaishan Kulug Khan 107, 109, 169, 172, 176–7, 182, 190 Qalandar 65, 120, 124, 166 Qara Hulegu 101 Qara Khanid 56 Qara Khitai 25, 48, 52–7, 100, 141 see also Khitans Qara Qoyunlu 143 Qaraqorum 18, 64, 101–2, 104–5, 116, 121, 150, 152, 160–1, 165, 171, 185 Qaraʿunas 80, 107–8 Qarluq 12, 52 Qarshi 108 Qasar 31–2, 35, 39 Qashani 115 Qazan Sultan 109 Qipchaq 12, 25, 34, 56, 58, 60, 72–3, 75–9, 85, 89, 92–3, 137, 176, 183 see also Cuman; Pecheneg Qonghurtai 124 Qubilai Khan 22, 83–4, 102, 105, 121, 147,151, 153, 155–7, 159–61, 166, 170, 175, 185, 189 early life of 144–6 last years of 163–5 and Yunnan 148–50 Quli, Jochid prince 122 Qutb al-Din Haydar, a Qalandar shaykh 65 234

Index Qutb al-Din Shirazi 130, 135 Qutlugh-Shah 135–6 Qutui Khatun 124 Qutulun Chaghan (Khatun) 106 Qutuz, Mamluk sultan 160 Rasadkhana 120, 130 Rashid al-Din 18, 26, 30–1, 33–4, 40, 43–4, 63, 67, 69, 80, 88, 92, 99, 105–6, 114–16, 125, 128–31, 133–4, 136–7, 140, 144, 171, 173–4 and Bolad Chingsang 130–1 and Rabʿ al-Rashidi 120, 130 Rukn al-Din, the Isma’ili Khwarshah 115–16 Saʿd al-Dawla 125–6 Saʿdi of Shiraz 121 Sadr al-Din Ibrahim al-Hammuya 129 Sadr al-Din Zanjani 127 Safi al-Din of Ardabil 131 Samaghar Noyan 123 Samarqand 70, 105, 107, 123 Sarai Temur 95–6 Sati Beg 137, 141–2 Sayf al-Din Bakharzi 82 Sayyid ʿAjal Bayan 175 Sayyid ʿAjal Shams al-Din ‘Omar Bokhari 57, 149, 173, 185 Secret History 23, 26, 29–33, 35, 38, 40–2, 63, 98–9 Semnani, ‘Ala al-Dawla 125–6, 135 Semuren 155, 164, 178 Serai, Jochid metropolis 77, 79, 91, 94–6 Shamanism 21, 23 Shams al-Din Juwayni 116, 120 see also Juwaynis Shams al-Din Kart 123 see also Karts of Herat Shangdu 151, 171, 175, 179, 181–2, 187 Sharia Law 23, 129, 140–1 Songjiang 188 Sorqoqtani Beki 39, 114, 145, 148

Subodai 52, 68, 71–3, 76, 83 Sufi 65, 67, 82, 120, 125, 131, 143 Sukhotai 162, 173 Taghachar Noyan 128 Taj ʿAli-Shah 136–7 Talas 85, 104–5, 107, 123 tamma 79–80 Tangut 38, 47, 69–70, 146, 174, 182 see also Xixia Tarmashirin 108–9, 137, 184 Tatars 10–12, 17–18, 25, 27–9, 31, 33, 36–9, 45–6, 57, 69, 71–3, 75, 77, 79, 81, 83, 85, 87, 89, 91, 93–5, 97, 100, 171 Teb-tenggeri aka Kokochu 23 Tekish Khwarazmshah 56, 58 Temujin 11, 13–17, 19, 21, 23, 25–41, 54–5 see also Chinggis Khan Temur Khan of the Yuan 89, 134, 171–4 Temutash, son of Chopan 137, 139 Terkan Khatun of Khwarazm 58–60 Terkan Khatun of Kirman 21 Timurlane 96, 107, 110 Tode-Mongke 85–6, 97 Toghan Temur 169–70, 185–7 Toghril 33–7, 39 Toghtogha 185–6 Tole Buqa 86 Tolui Khan 20, 39, 63, 81, 87, 100–1, 145, 161 Toqta Khan 86–9, 172 Toqtamish 96 Toqto’a Beki 33 Toregene Khatun 20, 145 Tugh Temur 155, 166, 169, 182–5 Tughachar 126 Tughluq Temur 108–10 Tungus 14, 48 Turanian rulers 66, 111–12 Turco-Mongol tribes 9, 11–19, 23–5, 32, 36–7, 40–2, 53, 57, 143, 147, 155, 166, 180, 183 Barghu 11 Baya’ut 37 235

George Lane Turco-Mongol tribes (continued) Borjigid 11, 16–18, 171 Buriat 11 Jalayrids 11, 18, 37, 135, 138 Kereit 11, 17, 25, 33–4, 36–9, 134, 137 Kiyat11 Merkits see Merkits Naiman 11, 17, 38–40, 42, 52–4 Oirats 11, 18, 84, 103, 142 Olkhunut 29 Onggirat 11, 18, 29, 87, 171, 176 Onggut 11, 18, 38 Suldus 32, 37 Tatars see Tatars Tayichi’ut 11, 27–8, 30–2, 37, 39 Tusi, Nasir al-Din 114–15, 119, 130, 152, 189 Tutar, Jochid prince 80, 122 Ulaghchi, Jochid prince 81, 97 Uljaytu Kharbanda 89, 108, 128, 131, 134–7, 172, 176 Uriyangqadai Noyan 83, 121, 148 ʿUrmavi, Tabrizi (musician) 118 Utrar 38, 60, 62–3

Uyghuria 100, 105, 108–9 Uzun Hasan 143 Wafidiya 82 Wassaf Shirazi, chronicler 126–7, 160, 162 William of Rubruck 22, 78, 89, 182 yam network 88, 92, 133, 163 Yao Shu, Yuan adviser 149 Yarliq 85, 91, 141 Yaroslav, Prince 85 yasa 11, 23, 27, 31, 80, 83, 98–102, 109, 130, 138–9, 160–1 Yasaʿur, Chaghadaid prince 92 Yelu Dashi, Khitan leader 54 Yesu Mongke 101 Yesugei 11, 17, 28–30, 33 Yesun Temur Taiding 169 Yuanshi 165, 168, 174, 186 Zhao Mengfu 164, 189 Zheng He 185 Zhenjin 163, 165, 169, 171 Zhou Mi 164–5, 188 Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming 185, 187

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