Mongol empire. The title "Ilkhan", borne by the descendants of Hulagu and later other Borjigin princes in Persia, does not materialize in the sources until after 1260.[3]
Early Mongol rule in Persia
When
Subedei, who left the area in ruin. Transoxiana also came under Mongol control after the invasion. The undivided area west of the Transoxiana was the inheritance of Genghis Khan's Borjigin family.[4] Thus, the families of the latter's four sons appointed their officials under the Great Khan's governors, Chin-Temür, Nussal, and Korguz
, in that region.
Muhammad's son
Seljuks
, the following year.
In 1236 Ögedei was commanded to raise up
Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm and the Empire of Trebizond became vassals of the Mongols.[9]Güyük Khan abolished decrees issued by the Mongol princes that had ordered the raising of revenue from districts in Persia as well as offering tax exemptions to others in c. 1244.[10]
In accordance with a complaint by the governor
Ghor, Khaysar, Firuz-Kuh, Gharjistan, Farah, Sistan, Kabul, Tirah, and Afghanistan.[12]
Hulagu Khan, founder of the Ilkhanate, with his Christian queen Doquz Khatun
horse archer
in the 13th century.
The death of Möngke forced Hulagu to return from the Persian heartland for the preparation of Khurultai (the selection of a new leader). He left a small force behind to continue the Mongol advance, but it was halted in Palestine in 1260 by a major defeat at the battle of Ain Jalut at the hands of the Mamluks of Egypt. Due to geo-political and religious issues and deaths of three Jochid princes in Hulagu's service, Berke declared open war on Hulagu in 1262 and possibly called his troops back to Iran. According to Mamluk historians, Hulagu might have massacred Berke's troops and refused to share his war booty with Berke.
Hulagu's descendants ruled Persia for the next eighty years, tolerating multiple religions, including Shamanism, Buddhism, and Christianity, and ultimately adopting Islam as a state religion in 1295. However, despite this conversion, the Ilkhans remained opposed to the Mamluks, who had defeated both Mongol invaders and
Yuan Dynasty was an ally of the Ikhanate and also held nominal suzerainty over the latter (the Emperor being also Great Khan) for many decades.[14][15]
Hulagu took with him many Chinese scholars and astronomers, and the famous Persian astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi learned about the mode of the Chinese calculating tables from them.[16] The observatory was built on a hill of Maragheh.
The dragon clothing of Imperial China was used by the Ilkhanids, the Chinese Huangdi (Emperor) title was used by the Ilkhanids due to heavy clout upon the Mongols of the Chinese system of politics. Seals with Chinese characters were created by the Ilkhanids themselves besides the seals they received from the Yuan dynasty which contain references to a Chinese government organization.[17]
Muslims (primarily the Mamluks), the Ilkhanate and the Europeans were nevertheless unable to satisfactorily combine their forces against their common enemy.[18]
Conversion to Islam
Qur'an
.
In the period after Hulagu, the Ilkhans increasingly adopted Tibetan Buddhism. Christian powers were encouraged by what appeared to be an inclination towards Nestorian Christianity by Ilkhanate rulers, but this was probably nothing more than the Mongols' traditional even-handedness towards competing religions.[19] The Ilkhans were thus markedly out of step with the Muslims they ruled. Ghazan, shortly before he overthrew Baydu, converted to Islam under influence of Nawrūz, and his official favoring of Islam as a state religion coincided with a marked attempt to bring the regime closer to the non-Mongol majority of the regions they ruled. Christian and Jewish subjects lost their equal status with Muslims and again had to pay the protection tax, jizya. Ghazan gave Buddhists the starker choice of conversion or expulsion and orderer their temples to be destroyed; though he later relaxed this severity slightly.[20]
In foreign relations, the Ilkhanate's conversion to Islam had little to no effect on its hostility towards other Muslim states, and Ghazan continued to fight the Mamluks for control of Syria. The
Gilan on the Caspian coast, and his tomb in Soltaniyeh
remains the best known monument of Ilkhanid rule in Persia.
The conversion of Mongols was initially a fairly superficial affair. The process of establishment of Islam did not happen suddenly. Öljeitü's historian Qāshāni records that
Safi-ad-din Ardabili often treated with respect and favour.[22]
Disintegration
In the 1330s, outbreaks of the Black Death ravaged the Ilkhanate empire. The last il-khan Abu Sa'id and his sons were killed by the plague.[23]
In 1330, the annexation of
Anatolian Beyliks were freed from Ilkhanate suzerenaity.[citation needed
]
After
Mamluks
and was destroyed by them in 1375.
Legacy
Southwest Asia in 1345, ten years after the death of Abu Sa'id. The Jalayirids, Chobanids, Muzaffarids, Injuids, Sarbadars, and Kartids took the Ilkhanate's place as the major powers in Iran.
The emergence of the Ilkhanate had an important historical impact in the Middle Eastern region. The establishment of the unified Mongol Empire had significantly eased trade and commerce across Asia. The communications between the Ilkhanate and the
Yuan Dynasty headquartered in China encouraged this development.[25][26]
The Ilkhanate also helped to pave the way for the later Persian
Safavid dynastic state, and ultimately the modern country of Iran. Hulagu's conquests had also opened Iran to Chinese influence from the east. This, combined with patronage from his successors, would develop Iran's distinctive excellence in architecture. Under the Ilkhans, Iranian historians also moved from writing in Arabic to writing in their native Persian tongue.[27]
The rudiments of
double-entry accounting were practiced in the Ilkhanate; merdiban was then adopted by the Ottoman Empire. These developments were independent from the accounting practices used in Europe.[28]
This accounting system was adopted primarily as the result of socio-economic necessities created by the agricultural and fiscal reforms of Ghazan Khan in 1295-1304.
Ilkhan as a tribal title in 19th/20th century Iran
The title Ilkhan resurfaced among the
Mossadeq
. When he returned during the Islamic Revolution in 1979, he could not regain his previous position and died in 1984 as the last Ilkhan of the Qashqai.
[29]
^ abRahiminejad, Sadegh: IRAN: Tarikh (2006). Languages of the Persian [Section]
^Rein Taagepera (September 1997). "Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities: Context for Russia". International Studies Quarterly 41 (3): 475–504.
^"Despite numerous envoys and the obvious logic of an alliance against mutual enemies, the papacy and the Crusaders never achieved the often-proposed alliance against Islam". Atwood, Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire, p. 583, "Western Europe and the Mongol Empire"
^Ali Al Oraibi, "Rationalism in the school of Bahrain: a historical perspective", in Shīʻite Heritage: Essays on Classical and Modern Traditions by Lynda Clarke, Global Academic Publishing 2001 p336
^Continuity and Change in Medieval Persia By Ann K. S. Lambton
^D. M. Lang, Georgia in the Reign of Giorgi the Brilliant (1314-1346). Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 17, No. 1 (1955), pp. 74-91
^Gregory G.Guzman - Were the barbarians a negative or positive factor in ancient and medieval history?, The historian 50 (1988), 568-70
^Thomas T.Allsen - Culture and conquest in Mongol Eurasia, 211
^Francis Robinson, The Mughal Emperors and the Islamic Dynasties of India, Iran and Central Asia, Pages 19 and 36
^Cigdem Solas, ACCOUNTING SYSTEM PRACTICED IN THE NEAR EAST DURING THE PERIOD 1220-1350, based ON THE BOOK RISALE-I FELEKIYYE, The Accounting Historians Journal, Vol. 21, No. 1 (June 1994), pp. 117-135
