Paper abstract:

Despite being arguably the most important institution of the Mongol Empire, there is still much we do not know, particularly concerning specific components of the military. One such component was the qaraghul. In studies on the conflict between the Ilkhanate and the Mamluk Sultanate, the qara'ul have been indentified as units who performed a combination of frontier guards and highway patrol. A simple role, yet this is a word that has carried over from the Mongol Empire and exists in numerous languages, not only in the former territory of the empire, but beyond. Furthermore, very little scholarship exists on the qara'ul's actual structure and function. This paper will explore origins and purpose of the qara'ul institution in the Mongol Empire and attempt to understand it beyond the limited context of the Mamluk-Ilkhanid frontier.

Paper abstract:

Iranians in the Mongol Conquest of Eastern Iran

Beatrice Forbes Manz

CESS Conference, 2023

It has often been noted that the Mongol conquest was particularly destructive in Eastern Iran. It has also been noted that several cities rebelled against the Mongols, at the same time that numbers of Iranians joined Mongol armies. The connection between these two phenomena however has not been explored. To understand it we should take our eyes off the Mongols, to examine more carefully the actions and motivations of the local population. The Mongols were not the only active threat at the time; cities were likewise being attacked by Khwarazmian and local Iranian armies.

I suggest that to understand the course of the Mongol conquest in eastern Iran, we must do two things. First, we must take seriously the politics which motivated the local population. Iranian elites and the remaining armies of the Turkic Khwarazmshahs were militarily active throughout this period, often pursuing goals only marginally connected to the Mongols. The actions of local populations did much to shape the nature of the conquest, since the Mongol used graded violence, largely sparing cities which submitted immediately, while visiting particularly harsh punishment on cities which first submitted and then rebelled. We should note that two of the Mongol massacres, one in Marw and one in Herat, resulted from uprisings organized by leaders from outside the city in question.

Secondly, if we are to understand Iranian resistance, we must view the progression of the Mongol campaigns through the eyes of contemporaries. Mongol armies sometimes failed, and for several years it was probably not clear that the Mongols would win the region. Cities had changed sides repeatedly in political contests over the last thirty years as one or another force appeared stronger, and they continued to do so now. The results were unfortunate.

Paper abstract:

The historical records of the Mongol invasion (1220-23) are full of emotion. Iranian poets, historians, and religious scholars, describe the event with a mixture of shock, sadness, and horror, which they often projected onto historical actors. Such literary expressions of emotion were a means for the survivors to process the experience of conquest and build new communities on the basis of shared values.

The same authors initially made very little effort to register the feelings of the Mongols, who were depicted as bestial creatures, devoid of human emotion. This ambivalence towards the Mongols reflects the cultural and political divide between the Mongol conquerors and their subjects, who formed two separate communities of feeling. Yet there are signs of growing familiarity between the Mongols and Iranian writers in the second half of the thirteenth century and by the fourteenth century, the Mongols were described with a rich emotional vocabulary. The historical texts celebrate love affairs between khans and khatuns; Mongol warriors were recorded mourning over deceased children; and feuds were pursued with boiling anger, as Persian authors came to view the Mongol Ilkhanid dynasty (1258-1335) as Iranian rulers.

The present study will chart when and how the Mongols began to show emotion in Iranian literature to gauge the rate of cultural exchange at the Ilkhanid court (1258-1335). It will be posited that this type of literary analysis may be used as yet another tool to advance our understanding of the religious, political, and social integration of the Mongols into Iranian society during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Paper abstract:

The Mongols exerted complex and at times contradictory pressures not only on their own subject peoples, but also on neighbors to their empires who steadfastly refused to be subjugated. Among these were the Mamluk sultans of Egypt and Syria (1250-1517), who were simultaneously enemies to the Ilkhanids and allies to the Golden Horde. To further complicate matters, the Mamluk Sultanate was one place to which Mongol refugees fled when politics between the rival Chinggisid Khans became dangerous. Since such refugees were welcomed at the Mamluk court, and since refugee women often married at the highest level of Mamluk political society—i.e., to sultans and high-level commanders—the Mamluk military elite became a place that was officially opposed to Chinggisid domination, yet contained significant numbers of Mongols within it, especially women and their families. The most famous example of these contradictions appears in the Mamluk sultan al-Nasir Muhammad (third r. 1310-41), whose mother was a Besüt Mongol refugee from Ilkhanid Anatolia, and some of whose relatives continued to live in the Ilkhanate and correspond with her son. Meanwhile one of al-Nasir Muhammad’s wives was a Chinggisid princess from the Golden Horde, yet not only was she not the senior wife, but he despised and eventually divorced her, leading to a diplomatic incident with her relative, Özbek Khan (r. 1313-41). This paper will use al-Nasir Muhammad’s example to investigate the connections and contradictions between, on the one hand, the Mamluk military elite, and on the other, the Mongols—whether Chinggisids, non-Chinggisids, refugees, or royals—to demonstrate the complex and multiple ways that medieval persons could be positioned in the societies of their day.