Rashīd al-Dīn and the making of history in Mongol Iran

336 Pages·2013·2.39 MB·English

by  Stefan Kamola

Rashīd al-Dīn and the making of history in Mongol Iran

Stefan T. Kamola

A dissertation
submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

University of Washington
2013

Reading Committee:
Joel Walker, Chair
Charles Melville (Cambridge)
Purnima Dhavan

Program Authorized to Offer Degree:
History
©Copyright 2013
Stefan Kamola
University of Washington

Abstract

Rashīd al-Dīn and the making of history in Mongol Iran

Stefan T. Kamola

Chair of the Supervisory Committee:
Associate Professor Joel Walker
History

The Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh (Collected histories) of Rashīd al-Dīn Ṭabīb (d. 1318) has long been
considered the single richest witness to the history of the early Mongol Empire in general and
its Middle Eastern branch, the Ilkhanate, in particular. This has created a persistent
dependence on the work as a source of historical data, with a corresponding lack of
appreciation for the place it holds within Perso-Islamic intellectual history. This
understanding of Rashīd al-Dīn and the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, however, does not match certain
historiographical and ideological strategies evident in the work itself and in other works by
Rashīd al-Dīn and his contemporaries. This dissertation reads beyond the monolithic and
uncritical use of the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh that dominates modern scholarship on Mongol and
Ilkhanid history. Instead, it fits Rashīd al-Dīn and his work into the difficult process of
transforming the Mongol Ilkhans from a dynasty of foreign military occupation into one of
legitimate sovereigns for the Perso-Islamic world. This is the first study to examine a full
range of Persianate cultural responses to the experience of Mongol conquest and rule through
the life and work of the most prominent statesman of the period. Drawing on the example of
cultural projects undertaken in the early decades of the Ilkhanate, Rashīd al-Dīn canonized a
narrative of Ilkhanid history in which his patrons embodied a model of sacred kingship that
adhered both to contemporary intellectual trends in the Middle East and to Mongol dynastic
traditions emphasizing descent from Genghis Khan. This new model, which first enters
political discourse in the writing of Rashīd al-Dīn in response to the vacuum of authority
created by the fall of the Abbasid caliphate, laid the groundwork for later Timurid, Safavid and
Mughal court ideologies. By fitting Rashīd al-Dīn and his works within their historical context,
this dissertation disentangles seven centuries of literary elaboration that have accrued to his
historical memory.
Table of Contents

List of figures vi
Note on transliteration vii
Acknowledgments viii
Introduction 1
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Chapter One. The Middle East in the Mongol Empire 33
Chapter Two. Early Ilkhanid cultural production 54
Chapter Three. The time of trouble, 1284-1298 79
Chapter Four. The biography of Rashīd al-Dīn 102
Part Two: Rashīd al-Dīn and Ilkhanid historiography 129

Chapter Five. The Mongol dynasty and the Iranian state 135
Chapter Six. Converting history: Rashīd al-Dīn’s theological works 171
Chapter Seven. The historiographical setting of Rashīd al-Dīn 222
Chapter Eight. Ḥamd Allāh Mustaufī and the making of Rashīd al-Dīn 257

Conclusion 280

Appendix A. The works of Rashīd al-Dīn 285
Appendix B. The conversion of Ghazan Khan 294
Bibliography 299

v
List of figures

1. Greater Iran and environs at the time of the Ilkhanate 23
2. Seasonal camps of the Ilkhans 24
3. Partial tree of the Mongol royal family 25
4. The dispensation of Genghis Khan 36
5. Vaṣṣāf’s description of the Jāmiʿ al-taṣānīf, compared to that of Rashīd al-Dīn 242
6. Rashīd al-Dīn’s collected works, the Jāmiʿ al-taṣanif al-rashīdī 286
7. Publication history of the Tārīkh-i mubārak-i ghāzānī 292

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Note on transliteration and translation

For Arabic and Persian words, names, and text I have adopted the transliteration system of the
International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (IJMES). When titles of works are Arabic
constructions (such as Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh), I have used the Arabic transliteration scheme, even
when the text of such works is in Persian. For Turkic and Mongolian words and names, I have
adopted a simplified transliteration, avoiding diacritics for consonants and indicating hard and
soft vowels for Turkish short vowels only (u/ü, o/ö, ı/i). For the Eastern Turkic text treated in
Chapter Five, I have followed Mehmet Ölmez’s transliteration, which preserves certain
additional aspects of Uyghur orthography, such as the soft ġ. Arabic, Persian, Turkic, and
Mongol words and titles not in common usage in English have been kept in italics and are
explained the first time that they appear. When titles refer to specific individuals, they are
given in Roman type with initial capital. Thus amīr, but Amīr Qutlughshāh; sulṭān, but Öljeitü
Sulṭān.
Qurʾān citations are Ṣaḥīḥ International. All other translations are my own unless
otherwise noted.
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Acknowledgments

The seed of this dissertation was planted during a graduate seminar on the Mongol Empire co-
taught by Joel Walker and Florian Schwarz in the winter of 2008. In an assignment for that
class, I identified certain literary parallels between Rashīd al-Dīn’s account of Ghazan Khan’s
youth and Xenophon's Cyropaedia. From that beginning, Professor Schwarz encouraged me to
pursue further intertextual analysis of the Tārīkh-i mubārak-i ghāzānī as a dissertation project.
When he left the University of Washington, Professor Walker stepped into his shoes as my
advisor. Over the past few years, Professor Walker has been both an advocate and a model for
exploring the material and intellectual ties that bind cultural spheres to one another. Between
Professor Schwarz’s insistence that literary analysis belongs in historical research and
Professor Walker’s strategic eye for building a project that is both innovative and engaging, my
own skepticism about this dissertation has been frequently overridden by the sustained
encouragement of good mentoring.
I owe a debt of incredible gratitude to Charles Melville of Cambridge University, who
agreed to provide topical expertise for the project and who in many respects acted as a thesis
supervisor in the British tradition, even though he could not sit as chair of my committee in
the American sense. It is safe to say that, without Professor Melville’s contribution, my grasp
of the material and the field (not to mention my bibliography) would be woefully inadequate
for the task I had taken up. Purnima Dhavan similarly stepped into an advising role after the
departure of another original committee member. The way Professor Dhavan keeps her
thumb on the pulse of Persianate studies has been instrumental in helping me find relevance
for my work; her fine editorial eye has saved me from several lapses of judgment and style.
viii
Any such lapses that remain, of course, reflect my own shortcomings. Shahrzad Shams has
been generous with her time and her enthusiasm for Persian literature in helping to unlock
obstinate passages of text. Across the hall from her, Selim Kuru has shared my almost
unhealthy fascination with the peculiar trivia of manuscripts. These two, while not in my
department or on my committee, have been a great source of encouragement and assistance,
particularly in the final year of the process.
Intellectual history is, at its root, the study of how ideas are passed around and
preserved. I would be remiss, then, not to mention the assistance of numerous librarians, most
importantly Mary St. Germain at the University of Washington and Ursula Sims-Williams of
the British Library. The staff of these two libraries, and of other libraries worldwide keep the
wheels of scholarship moving. A number of academics have offered guidance in particular
matters, sometimes in response to unsolicited e-mails. In this regard I thank Wheeler
Thackston, David Roxburgh, Sheila Blair, Birgitt Hoffmann, Jo-Ann Gross, and Nadia Eboo-
Jamal. Kazuo Morimoto provided valuable assistance with the works of Ibn ʿInaba and, along
with Naofumi Abe and Osamu Otkuda, opened my eyes to a world of Japanese scholarship, the
surface of which I have only been able to scratch.
The most thankless task in this process has probably belonged to the members of my
dissertation writing group. Amanda Swain, Mira Green, and Catherine Warner have read some
rather raw versions of several of these chapters. Their patience and valuable suggestions are
largely responsible if any of what follows makes sense. Other colleagues, particularly Jen
Webster, Monica Meadows, and Oscar Aguirre Mandujano have left their mark on my life and
thought in ways I probably haven’t yet recognized.
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Most of this dissertation was written during periods of fellowship funded by the Roshan
Cultural Heritage Foundation and the University of Washington Graduate School. The Maclyn
P. Berg Graduate Student Scholarship Fund and the Ancient India and Iran Trust at Cambridge
also provided funding to offset travel costs to undertake research in Cambridge and London in
January 2010. Additional financial assistance has been extended by the family of Dr. Hossein
Naficy and Mrs. Malek Naficy-Sanjideh. The Andy Studebaker and Eric Weissman Funds,
administered by the University of Washington Department of History, made it possible for me
to attend the MESA 2011 and ISIS 2012 conferences, where several of the ideas in this
dissertation were developed in presentation and in discussion with colleagues from around the
world.
Many members of my immediate and extended family have been involved in this
process in ways too numerous to list. In a noteworthy but not entirely uncharacteristic act of
foresight, my great-uncle Vern Faillettaz sent me my first book about al-Ghazālī when I was a
sophomore in college, long before I had any reason to know about al-Ghazālī. Of particular
significance to the more immediate process of writing a dissertation have been my siblings:
Isaac for expounding the wisdom gained from his own time in academia, and Anni for sharing
the creative process of her work, which has developed in parallel with my own over the past
three years. My wife, Mia, has provided invaluable perspective while tolerating years of
incoherent mutterings and infantile frustrations. As I agonized over writing this sentence, she
offered an absolutely indicative piece of advice: “why don’t you just stop worrying about it so
much.”
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