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The Idea of Iran: Post-Mongol Polities and the Reinvention of Iranian

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The Idea of Iran: Post-Mongol Polities and the Reinvention of Iranian 09.30 Welcoming remarks Sussan Babaie, Lecturer of Islamic and Persianate arts, Courtauld InsJtute of Art THE IDEA OF IRAN Convened by Dr Sussan Babaie, POST-MONGOL POLITIES AND THE! 09.45 Idea of Iran: the Ilkhanate Courtauld Institute of Art George Lane, Senior Teaching Fellow in the History of the Middle East and Central Asia, SOAS REINVENTION OF IRANIAN IDENTITIES! And Dr Sarah Stewart, SOAS The Mongol conquests of the thirteenth century are oXen portrayed as an unreming period of devastaon and desecraon. In fact the second ‘invasion’ of Hulegu in 1255 came in response to 14.15 Sultaniyya, the citadel and the mausoleum: Ilkhanid architecture within an Saturday, 22 November 2014 an invitaon from the notables of Qazvin to the Great Khan Mongke to incorporate Iran into the Iranian cultural heritage greater empire and end its isolaon as a peripheral and anarchic state. With the establishment of Marco G. Brambilla, Chairman, Domus Design Lecture Theatre, Brunei Gallery the Ilkhanate, for the first @me since the Arab conquests of the seventh century, Iran re-claimed Thornhaugh St, Russell Square In art and architecture, hegemonic projects such as those implemented by the Ilkhanid its ancient name and rear@culated its historic borders while enjoying a cultural, commercial and London WC1H 0XG rulers were realised by assimilang the values of the dominant group with the spiritual renaissance. Aided by its strong poli@cal and commercial @es to Yuan China, Ilkhanid Iran reasserted its place within the Muslim world and reaffirmed its legi@macy aer Ghazan’s experience and aspiraons of the subalterns. While the spectacular architectural Admissions: conversion to Islam in 1295. projects of the Ilkhans and the extravagant mega structures of the tomb of Ghazan £15; £10 concessions (OAPs/ Khan, the mosque of Ali Shah and the mausoleum of Uljaiytu responded to the LMEI Affiliates); Students, free 10.30 Concepts of government and state forma9on in Mongol Iran ambi@ons of the conquerors, their design, concept and implementaon were truly Charles Melville, Professor of Persian History, University of Cambridge Iranian by nature. The city and the citadel of Sultaniyya and the magnificent mausoleum Enquiries & Bookings: This lecture addresses the evolu@on of Mongol rule in Iran following the phase of conquests of Uljaiytu are well known but remain among the most enigmac and least explored Vincenzo Paci-Delton completed under Hulegu Khan. Faced with establishing their authority over the Iranian plateau, the monuments of Islamic Iran. Focusing on the most recent archaeological inves@gaons of 020 7898 4490 | [email protected] Mongols not only had to deal with a mosaic of semi-autonomous regional powers, but also with the citadel, this talk explores the construc@on techniques of the mausoleum within the compe@ng no@ons of legi@macy, in which ‘tradi@onal’ Perso-Islamic norms were already framework of architectural ac@vity in Iran in the early fourteenth century. percolated with steppe concepts introduced by earlier Turkic dynas@es. In addi@on, naturally, the Mongols brought their own concepts of ruling subject people and their own model of dynas@c 15.00 Images of Iranian kingship on Ilkhanid 9les Registra9on: 9.00-9.45 legi@macy based on the career of Genghis Khan. The lecture will explore different aspects of Tomoko Masuya, Professor of Islamic Art History, University of Tokyo Break: 11.15 - 11.45 Ilkhanid government and its development across the watershed of Ghazan Khan’s conversion to Lunch: 13.15 - 14.15 Islam in 1295; it will also discuss the Idea of Iran presented to the Mongol elites by their Persian At Takht-i Sulaiman, the only well-preserved Ilkhanid palace from the 1270s, @les were used bureaucrats and the extent to which this idea won acceptance. heavily to adorn both interior and exterior walls. Images and words, which were supposed to appropriate and to represent Mongol Ilkhans’ rule over Iran and Iraq, were selected to 11.45 The Maragha School and its impact on the post-Mongol science in the Islamic world decorate certain types of these @les. While images of dragons and phoenixes drew from Tofigh Heidarzadeh, Lecturer of History of Science and Technology, UC Riverside Chinese symbols of rule, the images of ancient Iranian kings and the inscribed quotaons from the Shahnama of Firdawsi served as their Iranian counterparts. Nevertheless, images of The Maragha Observatory has a unique place in the history of medieval astronomy: it represents a Iranian kings seem to have been less popular in the later part of the Ilkhanid reign during the new wave of scien@fic ac@vi@es in the Islamic world in the mid-thirteenth century; it had a key role first half of the fourteenth century, when the scenes from the Shahnama rarely appear on in the development of some sophis@cated pre-Copernican non-Ptolemaic planetary systems; and @les. This paper explores the means and the reasons for the transi@on of images of Iranian it was the model for several observatories that were built in Persia, Transoxiana, and Asia Minor kingship on @les during the Ilkhanid period. un@l the seventeenth century. The Maragha Observatory, therefore, was not merely a site for astronomical measurements. It was also a school and a centre for intellectual ac@vi@es, wherein a number of brilliant astronomers, natural philosophers, mathemacians and instrument makers 15.45 Applying diachronic perspec9ves in reconstruc9ng precedents for the worked under the supervision of Nasir al-Din Tusi and ini@ated a renaissance in Islamic science. illustra9ons in the great Mongol Shahnama The presentaon will illustrate the cri@cal role of the Maragha School in the post-Mongol sciences Olga Davidson, Research Fellow, Boston University and Chair, ILEX FoundaJon in the Islamic world. As Robert Hillenbrand has noted, art historians some@mes adopt the approach of literary 12.30 Aer history: Rashid al-Din’s late wri9ngs and Iranian sovereignty historians who try to reconstruct an Ur-text on the basis of variants they find in exis@ng texts. Stefan Kamola, Lecturer in History and Link-Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow, Princeton University Similarly, art historians have occasionally tried to reconstruct prototypes for the illustraons of the Great Mongol Shahnama, looking for precedents in various art forms dang from the Rashid al-Din is best known for the historical wri@ngs he produced between 1302 and 1307. In twelXh and thirteenth centuries. In this paper, a different approach is advocated, based on subsequent years, however, he dedicated himself to more theore@cal maers, including alternave methods in reconstruc@ng earlier phases of literary forms. The applicaon of theology, physical and medical sciences, and agronomy. These works have recently been wri^en off as “orthodox, rather than important.” This paper looks at Rashid al-Din’s late works through diachronic perspec@ves in the process of analysing textual variants makes it possible to reconstruct earlier phases of systems that generate the variaons found in exis@ng texts. the same lens that has recently been turned on his historical wri@ng, namely that of ruling ideology. In them, through his choice of subjects, his organisaon of themes, and his presentaon Similarly in the case of illustraons, a diachronic analysis of exis@ng variants in the Great Mongol Shahnama and other such sources leads to the discovery of an underlying system of of himself alongside his patron and sovereign Uljaiytu, Rashid al-Din promotes a radical new visual narratology that generates the exis@ng iconographic variants. no@on of kingship, one that came to frui@on a century later under the early successors of Amir Timur. By revaluing these works in this way, I argue, we can understand Rashid al-Din’s theology as a con@nuous development on, rather than an unfortunate coda to his more famous 16.30 Closing remarks and general discussion historiography. .
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