Quṭb al-Dīn Maḥmūd ibn Mas’ūd Shīrāzī (634–710) is best known for his association with Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d.1274) and his work at the famous observatory of Maragha. As well as erudite and voluminous commentaries and analyses of Ṭūsī's astrological calculations, Shīrāzī produced his own novel mathematical solutions to the problems with which the contemporary learned elite were grappling, along with his own ideas on the motion of the planets and other heavenly bodies. Hitherto he had not been noted as an historian. However Quṭb al-Dīn has now been credited with the transcription, rather than the authorship, of this newly edited, short history of the early Ilkhanate. The date of writing is given early in the chronology as 680/1280 and the last event described is Arghun Khan's assumption of power on 1st August 1285. Known more for his thoughts on astronomy and theology, Quṭb al-Dīn's work as a calligrapher is often forgotten. In fact a considerable number of mediaeval Persian manuscripts from collections around the world are written in the hand of Shīrāzī including the codex from which the present historical chronology is taken. This codex is in the library of the Ayatollah al-‘Uẓmā Mar'ashī Najafī in Qom (MS Mar'ashī 12868). For many years the codex had been fragmented and dispersed before being collected, collated and rebound and eventually acquired by the current library in Qom. A detailed study by Reza Pourjavady and Sabine Schmidtke of the Mar'ashī codex appeared in 2007 in Studia Iranica. As well as a careful itemised analysis of the contents of the codex Schmidtke and Pourjavady revealed the extent of Shīrāzī's work as a copyist, demonstrating that he penned not only many of his own works but those of his contemporaries too, including his colleague Nasir al-Dīn Ṭūsī. The Shīrāzī codex containing the short history of the early Ilkhanid comprises 147 leaves and originally belonged to the library of Rashīd al-Dīn in the Rab’-e Rasīdī, Tabriz as indicated by stamps on some of the leaves bearing the insignia ‘waqf-e-ketāb-khāna Rashīdī’. The folios are incomplete and there are leaves missing from many sections including the beginning and the end of the codex itself. The codex has undergone various preservation measures and now contains fourteen sections whose disparate contents throw much light on the intellectual interests of Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī and the cultural milieu in which he lived. There are various Persian and Arabic quatrains and poems including verse by ‘Umar Khayyam, fragments of works on philosophy, extracts from the sayings of Plato, extensive fragments from the work of Tāj al-Dīn Shahrestānī, various quotations from pre-Islamic Persian and Greek thinkers, large tracts by his contemporary, the Jewish philosopher Ibn Kammūna and Samaw'al al-Maghribī's ‘Silencing the Jews’ (Ifḥām al-Yahūd) and also the anonymous Mongol chronicle currently under review.
The chronicle was composed between 1281 and 1285 but there is no indication as to its authorship. The compiler of the catalogue suggests that Shīrāzī may have been the author but no decisive evidence for this exists. Īraj Afshār, the editor of the book, suggests that there are various external reasons for suspecting that Quṭb al-Dīn was the actual author and at the same time cites two reasons to doubt Shīrāzī's authorship. First is the inconsistency in the spelling of certain names found in this chronicle though, as Afshār points out, variations in spelling within a single document were common at this time. Second there is the claim by the writer of this chronicle that he had been at Hulegu's court “very often” [bisiyār uqāt, p. 22] whereas, the editor recalls, there is only one recorded meeting between Shīrāzī and Hulegu Khan in 660 when Ṭūsī took him to the Ilkhanid court. Īraj Afshār is responsible for re-ordering the folios and arranging them in chronological order as he explains in his introduction to the Akhbār-i Mughulān. Both the original and the chronological order of the folios are given in the introduction along with a summary of each section.
The appearance of this previously little known volume of chronological notes dating from the second half of the thirteenth century, detailing among other events the fall of Alamut, the siege of Baghdad, and the collapse of relations between Aḥmad Tegūdār and his nephew, Arghun Khan, is both welcome and very exciting. Published in Qum, Iran, the slender tome contains a short introduction with a skeletal outline of the chronology and corresponding events, an edited text, and also a facsimile copy of the original manuscript. Why someone of Quṭb al-Dīn Shirāzī's stature should task himself with such a work and why he has not been awarded any acknowledgment for his efforts remains a mystery but his contributions to our knowledge of this turbulent and controversial period of Iranian history are undoubtedly valuable and offer insights on major events and characters not found elsewhere. The extent of Shirāzī's involvement in the authorship of the manuscript is uncertain and this controversy is discussed in the introductory pages but it must be presumed that he had sympathy for the views expressed and the greatest respect for the author (or even authors) of the chronicle.
The text is presented with a minimal amount of commentary and there is also very little scholarly analysis which invites therefore future study and research on this important text. The language is plain, direct and stripped of the usual Persian excesses and hyperbole, so characteristic of the style of that time, though idiosyncrasies occur such as the use of ‘na-māndan’ to signify death and ‘birūn na-mānad’ meaning ‘not to remain living’.
“The beginning of the Mongol government and the advent of Chinggis Khan” the title of the short introductory chapter, opens with the names of the Great Khan's forefathers and the date of Chinggis Khan's emergence which is given in five calendars: The Arab calendar at ah 599, the Rūmiyān calendar 1514 [sic], the Zoroastrian calendar of Yazdegerd III 572, and both the Uyghur calendar and the Chinese calendar recording the year of the Pig. However, it is not clear to exactly what events the dates refer. This generous serving of dates is mirrored in certain other textual sources from this era and reflects an internationalism and global awareness and attitude, in striking contrast to the more usual parochial outlook commonly found at this time in the local sources whether Arab, Persian, Armenian or other. In particular a tombstone unearthed in Hangzhou, belonging to a Persian amir and merchant resident in the former Song capital, along with a mid-fifteenth century mosque stele also exhibit a number of calendars and reflects the cosmopolitan nature of the Toluid elite. Men who travelled from west to east and back again and who regarded themselves as citizens of a dynamic and growing empire where the traditional limitations and labels of identity no longer applied and the old restrictions of religion, class and family could no longer constrain.
With the dates establishing the author's attitude and world view rather than a historically precise moment in time, the tone of the chronology is set. Chinggis Khan is introduced with an anecdote from the “lean years” when at Baljuna his core supporters pledged their loyalty. The story or rather the topos relates how Chinggis Khan was stranded in the desert at Wadi Balchuneh (Baljuna) without food. One of his soldiers manages to shoot down a desert sparrow and the bird is then roasted and offered to the Khan. Chinggis orders that the bird be divided into seventy parts from which he then took his share, no larger than any one of the other portions. As a result of such righteousness and exemplary behaviour, the text continues, all the people became devotees and followers of Chinggis Khan and gave their souls to his cause. So starts Quṭb al-Dīn's chronology of the Mongols and the Ilkhans up until the ascension of Arghun Khan on 1st August 1285 and thus the great regard in which the author holds the grandfather of the regime under which he served is clear.
The author's, and by implication, Shirāzī’s, sympathetic view of the Chinggisids is made clear from the start. This was a regime of which he felt himself a part and an empire of which he saw himself both a player and a beneficiary. He summarises the Chinggisid conquests and the individual rulers before observing that now, with the ascension of Mongke Qa'an, “The wolf and the sheep drank water together” (p. 20). Echoing Juwaynī who was also particularly effusive in his praise for the new Qa'an, Mongke, Shirāzī portrays the Toluid ascendancy in very positive terms typified in such statements as “The like of the days of justice and equity that dominated during his (Mongke's) days are few” (p. 20) but adds that after taking measures “such as killing, beating, shackling and the like not one person from among those that had been co-conspirators in opposition remained alive but not one innocent person suffered loss”. (p. 20) His final observation claims “When the work of those provinces, Turkestan, and Khitai, and Oxiana, and Tibet, and Tangut, and many other provinces were stabilised [rāst kard], he sent his own brother Hulegu in the direction of [the river] Jayhūn that is to say the provinces of the Arabs and of the Persians in order to stabilise [rāst konad] them”. (p. 21)
The vast extent of the conquests is repeatedly emphasised and the ambition for total conquest that was still harboured, as Hulegu moved westward, is underlined by the explicit threats made to the still unconquered Arabs which were also recorded. But coupled with the threats of violence are reminders of the justice which ‘īl’ [obedience and submission] can bring and the fact that word of these conquests and the justice of the Mongol edicts had even reached the lands of the Franks and the Rūmiyān.
Hulegu's first appointment after crossing the Jayhūn (Oxus) was with the despised Ismā’īlīs and the writer goes into great detail in describing the armaments that Hulegu had brought with him to deal with this perceived threat. The precise picture that emerges of the giant Kamān-ha-ye Cherkh or crossbow recalls Juwaynī's Kamān-i-Gav and the illustration from the Wu Jing Zong Yao from 1044 of a lethal machine quite capable of delivering explosive devices. Whether the Chinggisid forces were employing explosives at this stage, a view strongly supported by the scholar of the Yuan period, Stephen Haw, who suggests that the word ‘batān’ or possibly ‘panbeh’ referred to some kind of explosive material. It is an intriguing possibility. The huge war machine that is so precisely described here had been transported from Turkestan along with trained experts and, upon its arrival on the borders of Khorasan, written orders and messengers were dispatched to the malūk and pādeshāhān of the provinces. In these messages Hulegu Khan solemnly pledged that if the royal recipients of his messages should undertake to assist him with troops, armaments and military supplies in his forthcoming confrontation with the mulāhadeh, he would be under an obligation to provide peace and security for them and their provinces. Should they decline his invitation he would deal with them after he was free from the Isma'ili business and that any excuses that they might offer him later would not be accepted. The menace lurking in his message was almost palpable and the author of this history itemises the response to Hulegu's request. The Atabeg of Shiraz, the sultans of Rum, the kings of Khorasan, Sistan, Mazanderan, Kerman, Rustamdar, Shirwan, Gorjestan, Iraq, Azerbayjan, Arran, and Luristan and some other representatives all came. Others sent their brothers or relatives and they all sent men, military supplies, provisions, and gifts and placed themselves at his service.
The writer's point is clear. Hulegu Khan operated with the support of the rulers of the whole country. The account of Hulegu's slow negotiations with Alamūt culminating in Rukn al-Dīn's final surrender do not differ from other accounts in any significant way though there is the suggestion that typhus (vabā, a pestilence) proved a factor in the reluctant surrender of Lamasar. The death of Rukn al-Dīn, followed by the extermination of his extended family and servants, is reported coldly and factually without comment; in striking contrast to Juwaynī's triumphant version of events.
The four short pages devoted to the fall of Baghdad contain one significant addition to the usual accounts of what has variously been described as - a disastrous calamity, or as liberation from Arab dominance - and this is the role of vabā in swelling the final death toll. Once again the author stresses the united front that the Iranian forces were able to present in the build up to the attack. “From the province of Pars to the province of Rum, one body of men beyond borders and beyond number, descended on Baghdad” (p. 30). The position and role of each province's troops are then specified along with the position and role of Hulegu's top commanders and noyans, while the political intrigues and shenanigans, which occupy so much space in other fuller accounts of this pivotal event, is barely touched upon. Certain rather unedifying details are included such as 12,000 ears belonging to the defeated army of the Dawātdār (Secretary of State) being sent to Hulegu, the massacre of unarmed civilians after they had gathered outside the city walls and surrendered, the lack of burial space for the dead, compounded by the dearth of porters to dispose of the bodies and the eventual donation by the Caliph of his own private grounds to be used for the burial of the growing numbers of putrefying corpses. The destruction of the city and citizens of Baghdad was caused to a large extent by the bombardment from massed mangonels, sixteen to one ‘tower’, and their five to one hundred mann (3 kilos) payloads. These awesome machines, “Foreign Towers” (Borj-e ‘Ajamī) which had been erected by the Aleppo Gate and the Triumphant Gate, rained terror on the city day and night, pulverising its battlements and defences (p. 32). Most interesting however is the significance the writer attributes yet again to vabā for swelling the reported numbers of the dead. Vabā struck not only the citizens of Baghdad but their invaders as well and the chronicle claims that a great many Mongols fell ill with the pestilence, great numbers died and that Hulegu Khan himself was amongst those struck down. However, after twenty days the Ilkhan recovered and was able to spend the winter recuperating in Arran and Mughan. (p. 34)
The Caliph is awarded little space other than the final paragraph for the year 655 and his slaughtered generals even less. It is recognised that at least 1,022,000 civilians were murdered in cold blood after demanding that the Caliph make peace and be ‘īl’ but that those who had not accepted the promises of safe conduct and had instead hidden in dark nooks and crannies, and even bath-stoves, survived. A couple of short sentences for the following year, 656, dispose of the Caliph and his family. Three words suffice for the Caliph himself, “khalīfeh-rā shahīd kardand” (p. 34) (They martyred the Caliph). There is uncertainty whether the Caliph's two sons died before or after their father. The whole episode concludes with the observation that the warm weather that year caused a dreadful stench from the putrification prevailing in the city. Shīrāzī's chronicle paints an incomplete and sketchy portrait of the city but added to other far fuller accounts it fills in some very important gaps and provides an independent and personal narrative with details not found elsewhere.
Not only have the originally folios been rebound erroneously but the editor has also had his own problems with his edited version. The following pages have suffered a mix up and some years are also missing. The year 656 on page 41 should appear as page 35. In addition the four years between 658 and 662, and the eight years between 667 and 675 are missing. The story of Jalāl al-Dīn, the son of Baghdad's dawātdār, is dealt with in the entries for the years 656 and 662. It was Jalāl al-Dīn who survived the fate of his father only to be very publicly awarded a position of great trust and power under Hulegu Khan. He then famously betrayed that trust and defected to the Mamluks with many of the men under his command. However, this account credits this whole incident with far greater significance than it is given elsewhere and suggests that Hulegu suffered greatly from this betrayal, “wringing his hands and gnashing his teeth”(p. 43), so much so that he became gravely ill with a malady which defied the treatment and knowledge of a variety of doctors. The account quotes the anguished Hulegu who regarded the young Jalāl al-Dīn as almost a son, as crying, “a child cannot play like this with me” (p. 43). There is even the hint that Hulegu never recovered from the shock and died soon after.
Other gaps then appear throughout the remainder of the history. The seven year gap between 667 through to 675 is the longest omission and the final year, 683, receives the fullest and most detailed treatment. This entry for the year 683, running to just over nine edited pages, is concerned with the prolonged conflict between Aḥmad and his nephew Arghun Khan and it is a particularly interesting account because it can be readily compared and contrasted with other accounts of these two major figures which can be found in many other contemporary sources including Rashīd al-Dīn's Jāmi’ al-Tavārīkh, Mustawfī's Zafarnāma, and even Khwandamīr. Whereas Rashīd al-Dīn and other contemporary sources remark on Aḥmad's relationship with the mysterious figure of Īshān Ḥasan Manglī, this disreputable influence is not once mentioned. Nor is Shīrāzī's trip to Egypt as Aḥmad's ambassador to the Mamluk court discussed or even referenced. The three preceding pages for the year 682 are also focused on Aḥmad and Arghun making this conflict the major subject of Shirazī's chronicle with independent detail that will need careful analysis and comparison with other contemporary accounts. The wealth of dated detail along with the names of the main players, their wives and associates makes this account an immensely valuable primary source of late thirteenth-century Ilkhanid Iran. It adds to our knowledge of a period of Iranian history which has only recently come under the intense scrutiny of scholars eager to reassess an exciting four decades which until recently was idly dismissed as lost to dark barbarian rule. In fact the creation of the Ilkhanate gave birth to a Persian renaissance and a period of spiritual and cultural regeneration as Iranians looked east and opened their horizons to the potential stirring in Yuan China. These early decades of the Ilkhanate oversaw the blossoming of the Toluid empire in which Persian was fast becoming the lingua franca and individual Persians were assuming power and influence far beyond what was seemly given their numbers. In Iran also the glory of the once reviled Mongol century is being recognised and old texts are not only being re-edited, re-issued but edited, translated and even discovered for the first time. In 2002 Ibn Fowaṭī's history of Baghdad (626–700) was translated into Persian from Arabic while new editions of Rashīd al-Dīn's lesser known works have regularly appeared over the last decade. Volume I of Shabānkāra’ī's Majma’-ansāb was published in 2002, and most exciting of all the discovery and publication in 2003 of the magnificent literary compendium, the Safīneh-ye Tabrīzī, painstakingly copied out by Abu al-Majd cast the whole culture and literary milieu of Ilkhanid Iran in a new far more sophisticated light. From its opening lines establishing Iran as part of a global, multicultural empire through its chronology underlying the intimacy which existed between Turk and Tajik, this history at least penned by Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī will prove crucial in establishing a greater understanding of Mongol rule in Iran. gl1@soas.ac.uk
