09.30 Welcoming remarks Sussan Babaie, Lecturer of Islamic and Persianate arts, Courtauld Instute 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 oen 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 rearculated 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 polical and commercial es to Yuan China, Ilkhanid Iran reasserted its place within the Muslim world and reaffirmed its legimacy 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 formaon in Mongol Iran ambions 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 evoluon 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 invesgaons 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 construcon techniques of the mausoleum within the compeng noons of legimacy, in which ‘tradional’ Perso-Islamic norms were already framework of architectural acvity in Iran in the early fourteenth century. percolated with steppe concepts introduced by earlier Turkic dynases. In addion, naturally, the Mongols brought their own concepts of ruling subject people and their own model of dynasc 15.00 Images of Iranian kingship on Ilkhanid les Registraon: 9.00-9.45 legimacy 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 scienfic acvies 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 sophiscated pre-Copernican non-Ptolemaic planetary systems; and les. This paper explores the means and the reasons for the transion 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. unl 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 acvies, wherein a number of brilliant astronomers, natural philosophers, mathemacians and instrument makers 15.45 Applying diachronic perspecves in reconstrucng precedents for the worked under the supervision of Nasir al-Din Tusi and iniated a renaissance in Islamic science. illustraons in the great Mongol Shahnama The presentaon will illustrate the crical role of the Maragha School in the post-Mongol sciences Olga Davidson, Research Fellow, Boston University and Chair, ILEX Foundaon in the Islamic world. As Robert Hillenbrand has noted, art historians somemes adopt the approach of literary 12.30 Aer history: Rashid al-Din’s late wrings and Iranian sovereignty historians who try to reconstruct an Ur-text on the basis of variants they find in exisng 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 wrings he produced between 1302 and 1307. In twelh and thirteenth centuries. In this paper, a different approach is advocated, based on subsequent years, however, he dedicated himself to more theorecal maers, including alternave methods in reconstrucng earlier phases of literary forms. The applicaon of theology, physical and medical sciences, and agronomy. These works have recently been wrien off as “orthodox, rather than important.” This paper looks at Rashid al-Din’s late works through diachronic perspecves in the process of analysing textual variants makes it possible to reconstruct earlier phases of systems that generate the variaons found in exisng texts. the same lens that has recently been turned on his historical wring, 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 exisng 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 exisng iconographic variants. noon of kingship, one that came to fruion 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 connuous development on, rather than an unfortunate coda to his more famous 16.30 Closing remarks and general discussion historiography.