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by Michal Biran
The study of the Mongol Empire has made enormous strides in the past two decades, and its most notable impact is the shift of seeing the Empire not only in national or regional terms but from a holistic perspective, in its full Eurasian context. This focus, credited mostly to the works of Thomas T. Allsen, also means that the scholarly literature now gives more space to topics that interest world historians such as the cultural, economic, religious and artistic exchanges that prevailed in Mongol Eurasia, or the legacy that the Mongol Empire left for the early modern empires. Simultaneously, the Mongols' image begins to shift from the barbarian warriors obsessed with massacres and plunder, to the Mongols as active promoters of cross-cultural connections, who even brought about the transition from the medieval to the modern world. The paper reviews the major trends in the study of the Empire from world history perspective and argues that the nomadic civilization of the Mongols should be taken into account in world history surveys.
2021, The Limits of Universal Rule: Eurasian Empires Compared
Biran, M. (2021). The Mongol Imperial Space: From Universalism to Glocalization*. In Y. Pines, M. Biran, & J. Rüpke (Eds.), The Limits of Universal Rule: Eurasian Empires Compared (pp. 220-256). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108771061.008
2018, Medieval Worlds
Biran, M. 2018, Mobility, Empire and Cross Cultural Contracts in Mongol Eurasia: Project Report, Medieval Worlds 8:135-154
2021, The Cambridge History of Slavery Vol. 2
The Mongol Empire (1206-1368) had a tremendous impact on slavery across Eurasia. While slaves played a minor role in pre-Imperial Mongolia, the Mongols saw people as a resource, to be distributed among the imperial family and used for imperial needs, like material goods. This view created a whole spectrum of dependency running from free men to full slaves. Specifically, the huge conquests of the United Empire (1206-60) resulted in huge supply of war captives, many of whom eventually sold in the Eurasian slave markets created by the Empire. With the dissolution of the Empire and the halt of its expansion, the demand for slaves remained high, and other means had to be sought for supplying it. The chapter discuss slavery among the pre-imperial Mongols; the general context of slavery caused by Mongol mobilization and redistribution policies; the various ways of becoming a slave in the Mongol Empire; and the slaves’ dispersion, uses, conditions as well as manumission mechanisms and opportunities for social mobility. It highlights the different types of slavery (extrusive versus intrusive) in China and the Muslim and Christian worlds and argues that in Mongol Eurasia slavery was not always a social death. Biran, Michal. 2021. “Forced Migrations and Slavery in the Mongol Empire (1206–1368).” Chapter. In The Cambridge World History of Slavery, edited by Craig Perry, David Eltis, Stanley L. Engerman, and David Richardson, 76–99. The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781139024723.004.
2018, CSSH (Comparative Studies in Society and History)
This article explores the fashioning of a new discursive realm of Islamic kingship in thirteenth–fourteenth-century Mongol-ruled Iran (the Ilkhanate). It examines how literati, historians, and theologians ingeniously experimented at the Ilkhanid court with Persian and Islamic concepts and titles to translate and elaborate their Mongol patrons’ claims to govern through a unique affinity with heaven. The fusion of Mongol and Islamic elements formulated a new political vocabulary of auspicious, sacred, cosmic, and messianic rulership that Turco-Mongol Muslim courts, starting in the fifteenth century, extensively appropriated and expanded to construct new models of imperial authority. A comparison with Buddhist and Confucian assimilative approaches to the Mongol heaven-derived kingship points to a reciprocal process. Mongol rulers were not simply poured into preset Muslim and Persian molds; symbols and titles were selectively appropriated and refashioned into potent vessels that could convey a vision of Islamic kingship that addressed Chinggisid expectations. From their desire to collect and assume local religious and political traditions that could support and enhance their own legitimizing claims, the Mongols set in motion a process that led to their own integration into the Perso-Islamic world, and also facilitated the emergence of new political theologies that enabled models of divine kingship to inhabit the Islamic monotheistic world.
2017, Introduction: In the Service of the Khans: Elites in Transition in Mongol Eurasia
This is the introduction to a special section in Asiatische Studien issue of December 2017: Michal Biran, ed. In the Service of the Khans: Elites in Transition in Mongol Eurasia, Asiatische Studien 71.4 (2017),1051-1245; 194pp. https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/asia.2017.71.issue-4/issue-files/asia.2017.71.issue-4.xml Abstract: The Mongol empire (1206–1368) caused massive transformations in the composition and functioning of elites across Eurasia. While the Mongols themselves obviously became the new Eurasian elite, their small number as compared to the huge territory over which they ruled and their initial inexperience in administrating sedentary realms meant that many of their subjects also became part of the new multi-ethnic imperial elite. Mongol preferences, and the high level of mobility—both spatial and social—that accompanied Mongol conquests and rule, dramatically changed the characteristics of elites in both China and the Muslim world: While noble birth could be instrumental in improving one’s status, early surrender to Chinggis Khan; membership in the Mongol imperial guards (keshig); and especially, qualifications—such as excellence in warfare, administration, writing in Mongolian script or astronomy to name but a few—became the main ways to enter elite circles. The present volume translates and analyzes biographies of ten members of this new elite—from princes through generals, administrators, and vassal kings, to scientists and artists; including Mongols, Koreans, Chinese and Muslims—studied by researchers working at the project “Mobility, Empire and Cross Cultural Contacts in Mongol Eurasia” at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The annotated biographies assembled here not only add new primary sources —translated from Chinese, Persian and Arabic—to the study of the Mongol Empire. They also provide important insights into the social history of the period, illuminating issues such as acculturation (of both the Mongols and their subjects), Islamization, family relations, ethnicity, imperial administration, and scientific exchange.
2022, The Mongol World
Drawing upon research carried out in several different languages and across a variety of disciplines, The Mongol World documents how Mongol rule shaped the trajectory of Eurasian history from Central Europe to the Korean Peninsula, from the thirteenth century to the fifteenth century. Contributing authors consider how intercontinental environmental, economic, and intellectual trends affected the Empire as a whole and, where appropriate, situate regional political, social, and religious shifts within the context of the broader Mongol Empire. Issues pertaining to the Mongols and their role within the societies that they conquered therefore take precedence over the historical narratives of those societies. Alongside the formation, conquests, administration, and political structure of the Mongol Empire, the second section examines archaeology and art history, family and royal households, science and exploration, and religion, which provides greater insight into the social history of the Empire-an aspect often neglected by traditional dynastic and political histories. With 58 chapters written by both senior and early-career scholars, the volume is an essential resource for all students and scholars who study the Mongol Empire from its origins to its disintegration and legacy.
2022, The Mongol World
Drawing upon research carried out in several different languages and across a variety of disciplines, The Mongol World documents how Mongol rule shaped the trajectory of Eurasian history from Central Europe to the Korean Peninsula, from the thirteenth century to the fifteenth century. Contributing authors consider how intercontinental environmental, economic, and intellectual trends affected the Empire as a whole and, where appropriate, situate regional political, social, and religious shifts within the context of the broader Mongol Empire. Issues pertaining to the Mongols and their role within the societies that they conquered therefore take precedence over the historical narratives of those societies. Alongside the formation, conquests, administration, and political structure of the Mongol Empire, the second section examines archaeology and art history, family and royal households, science and exploration, and religion, which provides greater insight into the social history of the Empire-an aspect often neglected by traditional dynastic and political histories. With 58 chapters written by both senior and early-career scholars, the volume is an essential resource for all students and scholars who study the Mongol Empire from its origins to its disintegration and legacy.
2021
Written for the Youtube Channel Hikma History, and released 26th December 2021. https://youtu.be/fGvLtc-F4Q8
For about half of its recorded history, parts or all of imperial China were ruled by non-Han peoples, mainly from Manchuria or Mongolia. The dynasties they founded (mainly the Liao, Jin, Xia, Yuan, and Qing) contributed greatly to the shaping of late imperial and modern China's boundaries and ethnic composition. Yet until recently these non-Han dynasties were treated as the stepchildren of Chinese history, and were studied mainly through the prism of Sinicization, namely when and how they embraced the allegedly superior Chinese culture. The chapter reviews the reasons for the marginalization of these dynasties and the historiographical turns—in terms of both sources and historical frameworks—that, especially since the 1990s, led to their study in their own Inner Asian terms. Highlighting the 'New Qing History' that led this change, the chapter discusses the common political culture of the Inner Asian dynasties and reviews directions of current and future research.
2022, Modern Asian Studies 56/3
This article argues that the Mongol empire's famous religious tolerance cannot be explained solely through its adoption of Inner Asian imperial political traditions of ruling over ethnically and religiously diverse subjects. Instead, this pluralism can be ascribed to a wider religious pattern of the Mongols. The first part argues that the analytical category of immanentist religions explains not only the inter-cultic transparency exhibited by the Mongol courts, but also the few explicit instances where the Chinggisid rulers reacted with 'religious' violence. The article further explores the strategies employed by the religious vectors, mainly Buddhists and Muslims, to address, accommodate, and subvert the Chinggisids' patterns of religiosity and primarily their pluralism, and the Mongols' deified mode of sacralizing kingship. Focusing on the Mongol-Ilkhanid court in Iran, the article examines how religious representatives used conceptual affinities and equivalences between the Mongol traditions and certain principles of their own religious frameworks to gain influence and favour, and persuade the khans to convert or retain their earlier commitment to the new religious affiliation. Employing this assimilative approach, they manoeuvred within the religious, immanentist paradigm of their nomadic patrons while moulding and manipulating it to their own religious, transcendentalist ends. The article further demonstrates how this 'translation' process of Chinggisid patterns became an arena of Buddhist-Muslim rivalry and competition, but also cross-cultural fertilization.
2013
– This study discusses the history of the Golden Horde and the political status of the Jochid ulus from the perspective of the Yuan Dynasty. According to traditional narratives, the rulers of the Jochid ulus were largely antagonistic and apathetic towards the Yuan Court. However, Chinese sources presents a somewhat different picture and shed new light on several issues, including the status of Jochid rulers in the eyes of Yuan historians, the importance of Jochid apanages in China, local dual-administrative structures, and local officials of the Great Khan. The importance of Berke's conversion to Islam and how this influenced the conflict between the Jochids and Toluids is also touched upon. The contribution ends with a discussion of the relationship between the Golden Horde and the Yuan Dynasty in the post‑Berke period. 2. Résumé – Cet article montre comment l'histoire de la Horde d'Or et le statut politique de l'ulus de Jochi étaient perçus par la dynastie Yuan. En effet, le récit historiographique traditionnel présente les souverains de l'ulus de Jochi soit comme des rivaux des souverains Yuan, soit comme indifférents à ces derniers. Cependant, les sources chinoises nous permettent de brosser un autre tableau de leurs relations. Ces sources offrent, notamment, un éclairage inédit sur un certain nombre d'aspects complexes qui faisaient litige sous les Mongols, dont le statut des souverains jochides, l'importance des apanages jochides en Chine, les structures administratives sous double responsabilité et la question des représentants officiels du Grand The link: https://journals.openedition.org/remmm/10234
Analyzing the messages and the responses that Chinggis Khan sent to and received from Ong Khan and his allies after his defeat at the hands of the latter at the battle of Qalaqaljit Elet in the spring of 1203, and explicating the terms of cimar (chimar) and törü that appear in the messages, this article looks at the political order and culture where the Chinggisid state rose. The article argues that pre-modern Mongolian and Inner Asian politics was guided by the idea of törü, which resembles the Indo-Buddhist idea of dharma, the Chinese idea of dao, and the European idea of natural law. It also argues that the hereditary divisional system that the Inner Asian state builders regularly employed to govern their nomadic populations, the institutions of dynastic succession, and the hereditary rights of princes and the nobility for inheritance fundamentally structured Inner Asian politics. Hence, it questions the conventional wisdom that depicts pre-modern Inner Asian politics not only as pragmatic, fluid, and fractious but also dependent on the personal charisma of leadership, and the personal bond and loyalty between leaders and followers, as if it were lacking enduring social, political institutions and order.
2021, Iran
The world empire created by the Mongols in the thirteenth century was based upon a system of loyalties to different figures, families and institutions. This article explains some of the key “objects of loyalty” at the heart of the Mongol Empire and at a regional level. These loyalties, when acting in concert, served as the glue which bound the Mongol Empire together, but when they came into conflict, served to weaken and finally collapse the unity of the empire. Disagreements about the legacy and will of Chinggis Khan led to diverging loyalty decisions in succession struggles in the mid-thirteenth century and the breakdown of the empire into smaller khanates. This article will examine the system of loyalty as it functioned in the early thirteenth century and how it broke down in the late thirteenth century.
This study examines in detail the biographical entry of an Ilkhanid (the Mongol state centred in Iran) princess, El Qutlugh Khatun daughter of Abagha Ilkhan (r. 1265–82), in the biographical dictionaries of the Mamluk author Khalil b. Aybeg al-Safadi (d. 1363). Al-Safadi's biography of the lady provides a rare glance into the life of women of the Mongol royal household during the transitional period which followed the Ilkhanid conversion to Islam. It sheds light on issues such as the relations between the Mamluks and the Ilkhans in light of the latter’s conversion to Islam and the influence of the process of Islamization on traditional Mongolian gender related practices. This paper also discusses the motivation of the Mamluk author in including El Qutlugh’s unusual story in his biographical dictionaries showing how his choices might have been influenced not only by his own interests but also by what appealed to his readers.
2019, JESHO
The Mongol imperial enterprise produced memories and spurred migration on a continental scale among the conquerors, the vanquished, and agents of empire. During the 14th and early 15th centuries, the Ming court of China tried to shape the memory of the Mongol empire to enhance Ming political legitimacy, dampen hopes of a Mongolian revival, and facilitate the transfer of allegiance from the Mongol empire to Ming dynasty. The Ming court also integrated former Yuan personnel, including not just Chi-nese subjects but hundreds of thousands of Mongols and Jurchens, into the Ming pol-ity. In examining these processes, the essay contributes to the wider discussion of how successor polities throughout Eurasia sought to turn the legacy of the Mongol empire to their own advantage, which had the unintended consequence of keeping memory of the Chinggisid age vital long after the empire's fall.
2020, Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia: Generals, Merchants, and Intellectuals
Biran, Michal. "3. Qutulun: The Warrior Princess of Mongol Central Asia". Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia: Generals, Merchants, and Intellectuals, edited by Michal Biran, Jonathan Brack, Francesca Fiaschetti. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2020, pp. 64-82. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520970786-007
Mongolian campaign histories were used to justify the distribution of appanages (nuntuq) among the descendants of Chinggis Khan. The notably lackluster record of Jochi, Chinggis Khan's eldest son, as seen in many of the standard accounts of Mongol history, stand out as an anomaly, given that he inherited by far the largest territory in the steppe of any of Chinggis Khan's sons. The anomaly, however, was one created by partisan historians of Tolui after the 1251 coup d'etat that brought them to power. As this paper's careful examination shows, Jochi's leading role in the early Western campaigns was systematically excised from the historical record, thus making Jochi's large appanage look anomalous. But the anomaly was one created by Toluid historians, who, even while allied with the Jochid lineage, were creating the conditions for delegitimizing its hold on western lands.
Based on a large corpus of multi-lingual sources, this study aims to provide a preliminary analysis of the fate of captives in Mongol Eurasia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, both in the United Empire (1206-60) and in the four successor states centered in China, Iran, Central Asia and the Volga region. It seeks to explain who was taken captive, why and when? How were captives treated? How did captivity end? And what can be learnt from the captives' stories about Mongol society and social mobility under Mongol rule?
2020, Michal Biran, Jonathan Brack and Francesca Fiaschetti (eds.). Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia Generals, Merchants, and Intellectuals.
In this paper I discuss Rashid al-Din's "comparative ethnography" and show that while his interests seem ethnological and to a certain degree are, in reality his treatment of pre-Chinggisid society cannot be taken at face value, but must be read within the context of Mongol imperial society. Reading him in this way gives a very different picture of concepts often used in Mongol empire historiography, such as "tribe" and the importance of ancestry.
2016, The Mongols' Middle East: Continuity and transformation in Ilkhanid Iran, ed. Bruno de Nicola & Charles Melville
2017, Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques
This paper attempts to reconstruct the life and activities of Jamāl al-Dīn (Zhamaluding 札馬魯丁, d. ca.1289), a Muslim astronomer who migrated from Central or West Asia to China and introduced Islamic astronomical, geographical and cartographic knowledge. This article argues that Jamāl al-Dīn achieved success and honor in Yuan China due to his knowledge in various fields that interested the Mongol rulers, his correct reading of the imperial ideology and the political map, and the extensive social networks he built for himself during the decades he lived in China.
2013, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 76.3: 361-371
"The sudden Mongol withdrawal from Hungary in 1242 has been explained by historians in several ways and no consensus about the reason has ever been reached. Contrary to some previously expressed opinions, it was not an unparalleled event: a similar withdrawal from a successful invasion of the Song empire in southern China occurred in 1260. The parallels between the events of 1242 and 1260 are instructive, and strongly suggest that the deaths of the Khaghans Ögödei, in 1241, and Möngke, in 1259, were the basic reasons for breaking off the campaigns. The full explanation is more complex, however."
2006, Imperial Statecraft. Political forms and techniques of …
In 1241, Mongol armies invaded Poland and Hungary, and small reconnaissance forces even penetrated the borders of the Holy Roman Empire. The following year, the Mongols pulled out of Central Europe though they retained their hold on Russia, the Black Sea steppe, and the Volga region. A number of explanations have been offered for the withdrawal by modern scholars. This thesis argues that these theories are unconvincing and contradicted by the existing primary source evidence. As an alternative explanation, it posits that European fortifications produced a strategic problem that the Mongols were unable to surmount in the 1240s with their available manpower and siege engine technology. In order to corroborate this theory, analyses of several Mongol campaigns against sedentary societies outside of Europe are provided. These analyses reveal that fortifications posed a serious problem to any Mongol effort to subjugate a sedentary population.
2015
This paper will briefly discuss the nature of the Mongol armies and some of their successes before exploring their shortcomings in a select number of regions. For each theatre of war, the obstacles faced by the Mongols will be identified and accounted for in relation to the theses offered by a number of scholars. Consideration will be taken of both internal and external factors. There will be an evaluation of how, if at all, the Mongols overcame these obstacles and were able to obtain success against their opponents. Firstly, the half century period of military activity in Song China and Korea will be considered. Secondly, the comparatively brief period of military involvement in Eastern Europe will be assessed. A decision has made not to consider the Mamluk-Ilkhanid war within this paper, acknowledging the detailed work already carried out on this subject and the relative scarcity of analysis about Mongol shortcomings in military campaigns elsewhere.
Edited by Victor Spinei and George Bilavschi In order to institute the Florilegium project, we approached several notable scholars in Europe and America, and we were glad to find out that our initiative was welcomed. In the special case this introduction refers to, the promptitude of his response to the dialogue we initiated in order to carry out the anthology project, and moreover, the value and diversity of the studies he offered account for the fact that the personality chosen to open the series was the eminent American mediaevalist Charles J. Halperin. He is known in the world of specialists mainly for his substantial investigations of the impact the great Mongol invasion had on Eastern Europe. The American colleague was not as ready to co-operate when he was asked to reveal certain biographical details. He was not very forthcoming in that respect, so we cannot mention too many details in regard to his career. In exchange, the list of his publications is quite telling as to the large range of the topics he has dealt with over the years. Charles J. Halperin was born on 21 July 1946 in New York City, and he studied history at the Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, N.Y., between 1963 and 1967. He continued his education in his native city, at the Columbia University, where he also completed his doctoral thesis on a subject of Russian history. As a graduate student, he benefited from a research stay in the Soviet Union in 1971-1972, by means of the scholarships he received from the International Research and Exchanges Board and the Fulbright Hays Fellowship. For him it was a good opportunity to get more familiar with the Russian language and with the writings of Russian scholars. In 1972 he became an assistant professor at the Department of History of the Indiana University at Bloomington, Indiana, where he taught Russian history until 1980. In 1980-1982 he was a senior fellow at the Russian Institute of the Columbia University. It was during that period, more exactly in the autumn of 1981, when he returned to the Soviet Union for research, within the framework of an agreement of scientific collaboration. As he was unable to get another position at a university, for several years he had to work as a computer instructor, computer programmer and system analyst, until 1996, when he returned to Bloomington, where he later received a Visiting Scholar’s position at the Russian and East European Institute of Indiana University, where he still works at present. That position carries no responsibilities, but does offer him some library and computer conveniences. So, with a shade of self-irony, Charles J. Halperin still defines himself as an “independent scholar”. It is regrettable that no university has found it a way of taking advantage of his remarkable scientific potential, to the benefit of the education process. No matter what professional position he held, Charles J. Halperin remained true to what he was mainly preoccupied in his youth, namely with the relationship of the Mongols with the Russian principalities. On that problem - with vast implications, both synchronically and diachronically -, he wrote two 8 A CHINGISSID SAINT OF RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH fundamental books: Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History (Bloomington, IN, 1985), and The Tatar Yoke (Columbus, OH, 1986). They remain reference books, and they still are helpful, although two decades have passed since their publication. Charles J. Halperin has also published a series of studies on the same subject. In them he shows solid documentation, keen interpretation, and minute analysis of complex and controversial problems, for which he found credible solutions. His studies are of real importance not only for the history of the Mongols and of Russia, but also for the history of the whole eastern half of Europe. The present volume provides a selection from the rich range of works by Charles J. Halperin. Unfortunately, we have not been able to include other valuable articles by the same author. Our hope is that the present anthology will be received with interest by specialists not only in Romania, but also in other countries where there is major interest in the history of the Golden Horde and of mediaeval Russia. The editors of this anthology wish to address their cordial thanks to the American and European publishing houses which first published the articles of this volume, and which kindly agreed to allow republication by Publishing House of the Romanian Academy. Victor SPINEI (Translated by Adrian PORUCIUC)
The study examines the coup attempt orchestrated by Qubilai Khan (1260–94), who desired to re-establish the ‘Yeke Mongol Ulus’ and to unify the separated Mongol khanates under the authority of the Yuan Empire. The coup was mounted against the Ilkhan Arghun (1284–91), who was the ruler of the Mongols in Iran, who had been showing signs of separation from the central administration since the time of Aḥmad Tegüder (1282–84). The protagonist of the unsuccessful coup was Amīr Buqa, a loyal commander of the Great Khanate. The article investigates the process, historical background and the results of the attempt in the light of the contemporary sources and the modern studies. Keywords: Qubilai Khan, Aḥmad Tegüder, Ilkhan Arghun, Amīr Buqa, Ilkhanid Empire, ching-sang. KUBİLAY HAN’IN HÜLEGÜ HANEDANLIĞI’NA KARŞI DÜZENLEDİĞİ BAŞARISIZ DARBE GİRİŞİMİNİN ANA KARAKTERİ: BUKA ÇĪNGSĀNG Çalışma, parçalanmış haldeki Moğol hanlıklarını Yuan İmparatorluğu bünyesinde birleştirerek “Yeke Mongol Ulus”u tekrar kurmak niyetinde olan Kubilay Han’ın (1260–94) düzenlediği darbe girişimini incelemektedir. Söz konusu darbe, Aḥmed Tegüder (1282–84) zamanından itibaren merkezî yönetimden ayrılma belirtileri gösteren İran Moğolları hükümdarı İlhan Argun’a (1284-91) karşı yapılmıştı. Bu başarısız darbenin ana karakteri ise Büyük Hanlık’ın sadık kumandanı Emīr Buka idi. Makale bu girişim sürecini, tarihsel arka planını ve sonuçlarını muasır kaynaklar ve günümüz çalışmaları ışığında ele almaktadır. Anahtar kelimeler: Kubilay Han, Aḥmed Tegüder, İlhan Argun, Emīr Buka, İlhanlı Devleti, çing-sang.
2017, Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU
2017, Tyragetia XI {XXVI}. Archaeology, pp.23-34
2021
This paper was presented at the Northern Network for the Study of the Crusades' February 2021 seminar. The other presenters at the event were Jonathan Brack and Nicholas Morton; Timothy May acted as respondent.
2021
Note: This is the revised Introduction and Chapter One of a doctoral thesis completed at the University of Toronto. ABSTRACT: This thesis investigates Chinggisid-Timurid conceptions of rulership and political community in relation to territory, focusing on Perso-Islamic Central Asia and Iran during the period 1370–1530. It also discusses the thirteenth-century Mongol-ruled world for backdrop, and highlights the distinctiveness of the said conceptions through comparisons with contemporaneous European and East Asian/Ming Chinese conceptions of the same. This is a study of a chapter in the history of “international states system” before the European model of international states system became the global standard. The political culture of the Chaghatayids, Ilkhanids, and Timurids included conceptions of rulership and political community vis-à-vis territory that were rooted in a mix of Mongol and Perso-Islamic traditions. In the early thirteenth century, the Mongols conceived of a qan (khan) as leading an ulus, that is, a mobile demographic entity not defined by specific territory. Tājīk historians in Mongol service appear to have understood this, though a number of them also attributed certain territorial characteristics to ulus. The matter becomes more complicated when Chinggisid-Timurid chancellery documents/diplomatic letters are considered, as unlike their European and East Asian counterparts, these documents lacked straightforward claims of rulership over politico-administrative territory. At the same time, a certain representation of rulership over territories, in the form of “pādeshāhs of wilāyats,” can be found in the histories, but this was evidently neither a formal nor a pronounced representation. By 1402, the Timurids no longer recognized a Chinggisid khan as their overlord, but they also did not clearly articulate what this meant in terms of the political community to which they belonged—especially, did they still belong to the ulus of Chaghatay? This study seeks answers to a basic question concerning the Chaghatayids, the Ilkhanids, and especially the fifteenth-century Timurids: “What was their country?”
2012
... At every halting place where they stopped, they received praise from those along the way. 26 [Mustawfi, Zafarnāmeh, vol.II, p.17] Even the Isma'ili Khurshah sent representatives to earn his goodwill and pledge allegiance. Rulers ...
2019, Golden Horde Review
Objective: An attempt is made to explain why Mongols were so often referred to as Tatars in thirteenth-century primary sources and to offer a new interpretation of how the usage of both ethnonyms evolved over the course of the Mongol Empire's expansion and dissolution. Research materials: Primary sources were used which originated from Russian, Mongolian , Latin, Persian, Arabic, Chinese, and Korean authors. The Russian Novgorod and Galicia-Volhynia Chronicles, Secret History of the Mongols, Rashid al-Din, the Yuan Shi, and the Mengda Beilu were the most significant in formulating an argument. Secondary literature by leading figures in the field of Mongol history was consulted. Research results and novelty: The main finding is that the different explanations found in primary source texts composed under Mongol governments for how these names were used in the pre-imperial period and for the double-naming phenomenon seem implausible when compared to the broader body of primary sources whose authors were not directed by an evolving Mongol imperial ideology. Furthermore, the various explanations cannot be combined into some workable model for how the double-naming phenomenon happened in the thirteenth century, since they contradict one another on fundamental issues such as whether Tatars still existed or were an extinct nation. As such, it is more plausible that the Mongols used the name "Tatar" to self-identify in the first three or four decades of the Mongol Empire's expansion. The gradual replacement of "Tatar" by "Mongol" was solidified by the development of imperial historiography in the 1250s and 1260s. This proposed scenario can make sense of the strange dichotomy in the primary sources regarding ethnonyms. Novelty is found in the comparison of Chinese and European sources and the attempt to synthesize their claims - an approach which highlights potential avenues of research for experts in Islamic, Russian, and Chinese sources.