133

The Il Khānids, Descendants of Qubilay’s brother Hülegü

654–754/1256–1353

Persia, Iraq, eastern and central Anatolia

The Great Khān Möngke entrusted his brother Hülegü with the task of recovering and consolidating the Mongol conquests in Western Asia, for in the interval since Ögedey’s death direct control of much of the Islamic world south of the Oxus had slipped out of Mongol hands. Hülegü accordingly came westwards. He overcame the resistance of the Ismā‘īlīs or Assassins of northern Persia (see above, no. 101) (654/1256); routed a caliphal army in Iraq and murdered the last ‘Abbāsid caliph al-Musta‘ṣim (656/1258); and advanced into Syria where, however, the Mongols were defeated and halted at ‘Ayn Jālūt in Palestine by the Mamlūks of Egypt and Syria (see above, no. 31) (658/1260). Even so, Hülegü now became ruler on behalf of the Great Khān of all the regions of Persia, Iraq, Transcaucasia and Anatolia, and assumed the title of I1 Khān, namely territorial khān, implying subordination to the Great Khān.

The Il Khānid kingdom was now definitely constituted, but it had many external enemies, including the Mamlūks, who had destroyed the popular belief in Mongol invincibility and were now the standard-bearers of Islam against the scourge of the pagans. The other Mongol houses of the Chaghatayids (see above, no. 132) and the Golden Horde (see below, no. 134) were also hostile over disputed territories in the Caucasus region and on the north-eastern Persian fringes respectively. It was common hostility towards the II Khānids that brought about a political and commercial alliance of the Mamlüks and the Golden Horde, whereas the II Khānids for their part sought to conclude an anti-Muslim coalition with the European Christian powers, with the surviving Crusaders in the Levant coastal towns and with the Little Armenian kingdom in Cilicia. Hülegü’s wife Doquz Khātün was a Nestorian Christian, and the first II Khānids were favourably inclined towards Christianity and Buddhism.

The II Khānids managed to hold their own against external foes, but, after the Great Khan Qubilay’s death in 693/1294, links with the senior members of the Mongol family in Mongolia and China became very loose, especially as the cultural and religious pressures of the Persian environment brought about the conversion to Islam of Ghazan (his short-reigned predecessor Ahmad Tegüder had also been converted) and his successors. Abū Sa‘īd was the last great I1 Khānid. He made peace with the Mamlūks in 723/1323 and thus ended the fighting over possession of Syria, but relations with the Golden Horde and disputes over the Caucasus region continued throughout his reign. It was unfortunate that he died without an heir and, indeed, without any close relations to succeed him. The two decades after his death were filled with a succession of ephemeral khans, raised to the throne by the rival Jalāyirid and Chobanid Amīrs, until finally the Il Khānid empire fell apart and was replaced by local dynasties across Persia. It was left to Tīmūr Lang a generation later to reunite the Persian lands under one sovereign.

Despite much warfare and internal disturbance, the I1 Khānid period was a prosperous one for Persia. After Ghazan became a Muslim, there began tentatively a reconciliatory process between the Mongol-Turkish military and ruling class and their Persian subjects. The I1 Khānid capitals of Tabrīz and Marāgha in Azerbaijan became centres of learning, with the natural sciences, astronomy and historical writing especially flourishing. After 707/1307, Öljeytü planned a new capital at Sulṭāniyya near Qazwīn; artists, architects and craftsmen were encouraged, and distinctive styles of, for example, I1 Khānid architecture and painting emerged. The internationalist attitudes of the Mongols and their connections with such ancient cultures as the Chinese brought fresh intellectual, commercial and artistic influences into the Persian world. Colonies of Italian traders now appeared in the capital Tabrīz, and the I1 Khānid empire played a significant connecting role in trade with the Far East and India.

Lane-Poole, 217–21; Zambaur, 244–5; Album, 45–8.

EI² ‘Īlkhāns’ (B. Spuler).

L. Hambis, Le chapitre CVII du Yuan Che, 90–4.

J. A. Boyle, The Successors of Genghis Khan, with a genealogical table at p. 343.

B. Spuler, Die Mongolen in Iran. Politik, Verwaltung und Kultur der Ilchanzeit 12201350, 4th edn, Leiden 1985, with a genealogical table at p. 382.

D. O. Morgan, The Mongols, with a genealogical table at p. 225.