OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/08/16, SPi POWER, POLITICS, AND TRADITION IN THE MONGOL EMPIRE AND THE ĪlkhānaTE OF IRAN OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/08/16, SPi OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/08/16, SPi Power, Politics, and Tradition in the Mongol Empire and the Īlkhānate of Iran MICHAEL HOPE 1 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/08/16, SPi 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6D P, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Michael Hope 2016 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2016 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. 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Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/08/16, SPi Table of Contents List of Figures, Genealogical Tables, and Maps vii Conventions of Transliteration ix Acknowledgements xi 1. Introduction 1 The Sources 8 The Charismatic Authority of Chinggis Khan 22 2. The Problem of Succession (1227–59) 44 TheT oluid Coup and the Patrimonial State 71 3. Hülegü and the Īlkhānate 91 Collegial Rule in the Early Īlkhānate (1265–84) 111 4. The Patrimonialist Revival and the Fight for Political Primacy (1284–1304) 135 Ghazan—The Messiah King 159 5. Amīrate or Sultanate? The Chinggisid Legacy 182 6. Conclusion 201 Select Glossary of Foreign Terms and Expressions 205 Bibliography 209 Index 227 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/08/16, SPi OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/08/16, SPi List of Figures, Genealogical Tables, and Maps Figure 1. Horses on the Steppe in Mongolia 23 Figure 2. Panels from the Gunbad-i Öljeitü 186 Table 1. The Qiyat-Borǰigin 26 Table 2. The Chinggisid Dynasty 65 Table 3. The Īlkhān Dynasty 112 Map 1. Eurasia at the Start of the Thirteenth Century 42 Map 2. The Īlkhānate 102 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/08/16, SPi OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/08/16, SPi Conventions of Transliteration Mongolian and Turkish names and terms have been transcribed from the glossary of Mongolian words provided in Igor de Rachewiltz’s The Secret History of the Mongols v 2. Persian and Arabic characters have been transliterated according to the table given below, with the exception of some place names which have been presented in their current anglicized forms to avoid confusion (e.g. Persian Iraq, as opposed to ‘Irāq-i ‘Ajam; Mosul, rather than Mūsul;̣ Azerbaijan, rather than Adharbāyjān). a, i, u ا ( َ ِ ُ ) ā آ B ب P پ T ت Th ث J ج Ch چ ḥ ح Kh خ D د Dh ذ R ر Z ز Zh ژ S س Sh ش ṣ ص ḍ ض ṭ ط ẓ ظ ʻ ع Gh غ F ف Q ق K ک G گ L ل M م OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/08/16, SPi x Conventions of Transliteration n ن w for Arabic/v for Persian و H ھ / ه y / ī ی ’ ﺋ OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/08/16, SPi Acknowledgements The present study has been made possible through the help and advice of my teachers, colleagues, and family. I would like to express special thanks to Professor Narangoa Li and Professor Robert Cribb for imparting some of their great wisdom and experience to me. Their belief and humour have been a constant source of motivation throughout my research. I am grateful to Doctor Igor de Rachewiltz for patiently listening to many of my ideas and assisting me with source material and translations for Mongolian terminology. The present book has also benefited greatly from the thoughtful advice and assistance of the editorial team at Oxford University Press. I am particularly grateful for the support provided by Assistant Commissioning Editor Cathryn Steele and Commissioning Editor Terka Acton. My sincere thanks also go to Professor Adrian Jones for igniting my interest in Mongolian studies during my undergraduate degree, and for his advice and friend- ship to the present date. Lastly, I would like to express my eternal gratitude and love to my family, both in Australia and Iran. I thank my wife Matin for her forbearance and support throughout the course of my studies. I dedicate the present work to my daughter Diana Mary Hope. Her presence has been a source of comfort and relief throughout the writing of this book. Michael Hope, Yonsei University OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/08/16, SPi OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/08/16, SPi 1 Introduction Political authority within the Mongol Empire can be traced back to its founder, Chinggis Khan, who by 1206 had united the previously warring peoples to the north of the Great Wall under his rule, thereby creating the Yeke Mongγol Ulus (the Great Mongol Realm).1 From the year 1206 until his death in 1227 Chinggis Khan led the Mongols on a series of military campaigns from China to Iran which resulted in the creation of the largest contiguous land empire the world has ever seen. The great scope of Chinggis Khan’s military, social, and political achievements gave him an unrivalled influence and authority over the Mongols. His rule came to repre- sent the ideal Mongol polity, in which its people could attain the highest standard of satisfaction and well-being. All subsequent leaders of the Mongol Empire sought to legitimate their authority by appealing to the symbols and traditions of Chinggis Khan’s charisma. The present study will provide a new interpretation of how political authority was conceived and exercised in the early Mongol Empire (1227–59) and its successor state in Iran, the Īlkhānate (1258–1335). In what follows, it will be shown that two streams of political authority emerged after the death of Chinggis Khan: the collegial and the patrimonialist. Each of these streams represented the economic and political interests of different groups within the Mongol Empire, respectively, the propertied aristocracy—made up by commanders, queens, and junior princes—and the central government—consisting of the khan, his bureaucracy, and household staff. The supporters of both streams claimed to adhere to the ideal of Chinggisid rule, but their different statuses within the Mongol community led them to hold divergent views of what constituted legitimate political authority. This book will detail the origin of, and the differences between, these two streams; analyse the role that these streams played in the political development of the early Mongol Empire; and assess the role that ideological tension between the two streams played in the events leading up to the division of the empire. This study has used Max Weber’s discussion of ‘the routinization of charisma’ to interpret the evolution of political authority in the early Mongol Empire and the Īlkhānate. Weber used the term ‘routinization’ to describe the process of transition from a temporary political association built around the charismatic leadership of an individual (e.g. Chinggis Khan) to a permanent government supported by laws 1 For an explanation of the term, see Igor de Rachewiltz, ‘Qan, Qa’an and the Seal of Güyüg’, Documenta Barbarorum: Festschrift für Walther Heissig zum 70 Geburtstag, ed. Klaus Sagaster and Michael Weiers, Veroffentlichungen der Societas Uralo-Altaica, Band 18.37, Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1983, p. 274. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/08/16, SPi 2 Power, Politics, and Tradition in the Mongol Empire and traditions.2 Weber argued that this transition was a necessary measure to sustain a charismatic community beyond the death of its leader, who acts as the source of all political authority and unity. The death of the charismatic leader deprives the community of political cohesion and threatens to cause its collapse. Routinization was the means through which this shortfall was addressed, that is by ‘institutional- izing’ charismatic authority in the form of permanent offices, laws, and traditions. The community attains stability and security by shifting loyalty away from an individual to an institution. Weber argued that the routinization process is both driven and defined by the material interests of the ‘charismatic disciples’ whose titles, incomes, and powers are all dependent upon their proximity and service to the leader. The death of the leader compromises the livelihood of these charismatic disciples, who have a vested interest in preserving the existing social order. Routinized authority is, therefore, derived from the ability of a ‘chief’ (ruler, government) to protect the material welfare of their subjects. This principle implies a balance in a routinized polity between the material demands of the disciples and the power of the chief that protects them.