The continuing debate about Jochid – Hulaguid conflict is examined in three parts, which conclude that conflict was based on pragmatic and economic rather than theoretical or religious concerns. The ...author supports the argument by incorporating numismatic evidence into the discussion for the first time. The article has three sections, the first dealing with Jochid claims to Iran, the second with the establishment of the il-Khanate and the third with alliances. The last section focuses on the Jochid military alliance with the Mamluks and then the financial consortia for trade from Kazan to Cairo through the Caucasus and Anatolia. A close look at money challenges the interpretations made from chroniclers, many of whom wrote later than the events. Coinage, on the other hand, comes from the times and places concerned. It supports the conclusion that organizing and retaining wealth was a primary factor in relations within the empire and among various uluses.
A special conference held in Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia, explored new aspects on the Il Khans. It was jointly sponsored by the Mongolian National University and the University of Indiana, Bloomington, ...USA, from 21 to 23 May of 2014. Twenty-one invited speakers presented topics in various panels that each had a unifying theme. The entire event was extremely well organized by Dashdondog Bayarsaihkan (Ph.D. from the University of Oxford) on the faculty of the History Department of the Mongolian National University. There was, indeed, much new information on imperial Mongol activity in Greater Iran, and the proceedings will be published in Mongolia and abroad. Several important trends in current research on the Mongols in Iran became strikingly apparent during the conference. The first was that the standard texts that have been relied upon for so long, such as Rashid al-Din, Juvayni and Wassaf, need much more critical analysis than has occurred before. These works sometimes disagree with other material from more local or overlooked sources such as from the Nestorian community in Irbil, the Armenian hagiographies, the position of Anatolia and Afghanistan within the Il Khanate and finally diplomatic correspondence. The second development is that all the sources can fruitfully be analyzed more carefully from reviewing Rashid al-Din’s records to al-Qalqashandi’s terminology. Thirdly, although the period is richer in sources than almost any other previous era, even more material is available than has been normally considered. With this significant increase of source material, critiques of the previously common references and analyses of forces below the military and court levels, this conference exhibited the vibrant expansion of Il Khanid studies in its own right, so long an adjunct to regional studies of other states.
A Mongol in the Cairo Mint? KOLBAS, JUDITH
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,
10/2022, Letnik:
32, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The name Ilqāy appears on small monetary weights for 1251 and 1252 in Cairo at the beginning of Mamlūk rule. This person was a high official in the treasury, responsible for regulating monetary ...transactions. However, the name is not Arabic but Mongolian—and at this point, the Mamlūks and Mongols were contesting the Middle East. This article traces the meaning of the unique name and its appearance in Mongol history. It then discusses the hypothetical way in which Ilqāy developed Mongol coinage in his early career. The violent purges of the Mongol civil war may have forced him to escape and enter Egypt's financial system. This biography is hypothetical since there is no literary evidence for mint activity and personnel at this time. Nevertheless, the unusual name and timing create a mystery that invites special consideration.
Inhabitants of the Mongolian Plateau have been staunchly nomadic. Cities rarely existed before the Russian hegemony, and at that point they first attached themselves to pre-existing Buddhist ...monasteries. The exception to this general pattern was the Uighurs, who had an empire in the eighth and early ninth centuries. They built several cities, extended and maintained a flourishing trade network, established sufficient agriculture and developed urban manufacturing. Although historians have pointed out these significant distinctions, few have fully considered the thoroughly revolutionary impact of this Turkish group on steppe culture. One result in the Orkhon Valley was the foundation for Karakorum, the only permanent seat of the imperial Mongols in the thirteenth century. That city occupied the same site and, in the early seventeenth century, served as building material for the major religious centre of Erdene Zuu accompanying the re-introduction of Buddhism. Therefore, the Uighurs affected the physical heartland of their empire for a millennium and the habits of the people to this day.
The following joint article is a departure from standard studies, in that
historical research is put side-by-side with numismatic evidence. It
reflects the growing awareness of the underlying ...concepts of steppe society
that significantly shaped the formation and endurance of the Mongol Empire.
With new analysis, it is apparent that the society was clear about these
concepts and expressed them in very public pronouncements. They are most
evident in the early period of the empire; during the formation of the state
by Chinggis Khan and his first two successors, Ögödei (r. 1229–41) and Güyük
(r.1246-48). However, the cataclysmic civil war in the middle of the
thirteenth century between the Ögödeyids and Toluids removed direct
acknowledgment of such a social ethos. Indeed, after 1250 khans strongly
focused on pragmatic issues and relied less on philosophical theories of
legitimacy, at least Mongolian ones. By contrast, the first three rulers
were keenly aware of the theory of the state and the way society functioned
within it. They developed this ethos into a fairly cohesive form that
provided moral strength to a nascent regime. The evidence for this
development emerges from the study of two particular words, tengri,
“Heaven”, and especially töre, “grand principle”. Töre in this usage was the
equivalent of the ‘binding and unbinding’ and the sunna of the messenger,
Muḥammad, in medieval Islamic societies and of democracy in modern times.
Tengri and töre are culturally defined theories closely related to the
Aristotelian sense of positive law. In all cases, reality required various
approaches to them at a given period of time. As a result, the concept of
töre had existed before the empire and continues to this day, always
implying the correct order of good governance.
THE MONGOLIAN WILD HORSE Kolbas, Judith
The American Geographical Society's focus on geography,
09/2002, Letnik:
47, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Independent scholar Dr. Judith Kolbas has reviewed Mongolian and European history, literature and mythology in order to assemble this captivating account of a romantic and elusive species.
