
“I say, therefore, that this thing involves the description of
the greatest catastrophe and the most dire calamity (of
the like of which days and nights are innocent) which
befell all men generally, and the Muslims in particular; so
that, should one say that the world, since God Almighty
created Adam until now, has not been afflicted with the
like thereof, he would but speak the truth.”

P. 100
Ibn al-Athir (1160-1233)

Historian

“The Complete History”

“For even Antichrist will spare such as follow him, though
he destroy those who oppose him; but these [Tartars]
spared none, slaying women and men and children, ripping
open pregnant women killing unborn babes.”
Page 102
A Tartar horseman and 17 Arabs

My companions began to do as he bade them, but I said
to them, “He is but one man; wherefore, then, should we
not ill him and flee?” They replied, “We are afraid.” I
said, “This man intends to kill you immediately; let us
therefore rather kill him, that perhaps God may deliver
us.” But I swear by God that not one of them dared to
do this, so I took a knife and slew him, and we fled and
escaped.’ And such occurrences were many.”
1258 Baghdad
What about the Mongols?
Eurasian integration and “nomadic
incursions”
Making of the Modern World 13
Eurasian Complex and Southernization
Nomadic Empires and the Eurasian
Integration I
Lecture 3
Fall Quarter, 2011
All the lectures
 http://roosevelt.ucsd.edu/mmw/cours
es/mmw13.html.
 No Ted
 No
Podcast
 Just come to class
2016 course reader and textbooks are
on course reserve
Taking notes in MMW 13 Rahimi style
(un)solution
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme
Take out your clickers!
Your clicker
The issue of relativism
Concepts, categories, chronologies, terms,
even names are

relative to socio-historical perspective which history is
being interpreted
But presentism is not about the relativism of concepts but
absolutism (or naturalness) of the present
“Racism”
“Racist”: from our perspective

“All men are created equal…”

But persons of African descent should not reside in the
US unless as slaves
“are inferior to the whites in the
endowments both of body and mind”
Jefferson 1787

Memorialization
“Presentism” is how we see history
through only the “present” time and
forget history as a messy, contradictory
process
Short cultural history:
Critical thinking and research
Human zoos:
EXPO Brussels 1958
“Native” Californians
“I was born here”
Julian
Categorization: “Asia”
“Europe”
“Eurasia”: IR/PS v.s.
anthropology/history/sociology
Combined landmass of two continents of Europe and Asia
(Northern hemispheric)

“Eurasia” in IR
Periodization is also a form
categorization
Critically agree on key concepts, terms,
yet leaving it open to contention
“Islamic World”
 What
makes
”
Islamic?
“The Islamic World
“Muslim”

Iranian and Turkish men
Female Circumcision
A Muslim thing?
Tribal?
But Coptic Egyptian in cities do it too?
Islamic world?


“What Star Wars Can Teach Us About the Islamic
World”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/babak-rahimi/what-starwars-can-teach-_b_8893196.html
“Islamicate Civilization”

Complexes Muslim, Christian and Jewish societies that
constituted unique cultural, economic, intellectual political
and spiritual traditions with shared language: Arabic,
Persian (and at times Turkish).

A result of Afro-Eurasian oikumene
Islamicate Christians
Islamicate Judaism
Averroes (Ibn Rushd)

“At the same time it will have become increasingly clear
that the Afro-Eurasian civilized zone was not a static
historical context. It had its own characteristics as a set of
interrelations. The several civilized regions formed a
persistent historical configuration, in which each region
had its typical place, its repeatedly typical relationships to
the others. This interregional configuration, then, even
while maintaining its key characteristics, constantly
changed as to the detailed manner of its
interrelationships.”
Contact Zones
1. Eurasia:
a) Mediterranean-Mesopotamia
b) Subcontinent
2) Euro-Africa
a) Africa-Mesopotamia
3) Transatlantic
a) Africa-Americas
4) Trans-Pacific
Mediterranean-Mesopotamia Complex:
Rise of Islam as a World Religion and an Imperial Force.
(Abbasid Empire)

Rise of Roman-Germanic Medieval Europe (Western
Europe).
3. Byzantium (Eastern Europe)

Eastern Asia
Rise of Tang (618-907 C.E.) State Bureaucracy
Song Dynasties (960-1279). (Technological Developments).
● Spread of Buddhism & Neo-Confucianism
India: Post-Gupta (451 C.E.)
Islam (in the north)
8th century


The Hindu Kingdoms of Southern India
Africa-Mediterranean
& Sub-Saharan Africa

Northern Africa: Fatimads and various other Muslim
territories.

East Africa-Western Asia (Middle East): Swahili civilization
Sub-Sahara and rest of Africa: Kingdoms, empires, and citystates 800-1500 C.E.
Rise of Islam (Ghana in West Africa)

Historical Connectivity
“Axial Age”: 8th to 3rd centuries
BCE
A new “thinking” transformation
that took place
In China, India, Greco-Roman, Persia


A new consciousness about
laid the “spiritual” foundation of humanity
First universal religions
Lynda Norene Shaffer “Southernization”
A historical and transregional process of interconnectivity
occurred BEFORE Westernization.
1) Technological expansion, which made westernization
possible in the first place.
2) Origins: India and China

Indian subcontinent and parts Southeast
Asia

Cotton and growth of Indian textile: 2300 and 1760 B.C.E.

Indus Valley merchants in Mesopotamia.

Egypt: market for Indian Cotton
4th century C.E.

Rise of Commercial traffic through Java seas
4th century C.E.

Rise of Commercial traffic through Java seas
Gupta (350 C.E.)

Crystalize sugar and it spread.

Rise of mathematics

0 is invented
Gupta (350 C.E.)

Crystalize sugar and it spread.

Rise of mathematics

0 is invented

By 1200s

Southernization was in full consolidated
Modernity as
Westernization?
Westernization in historical context
1)
Expansion and spread of the “west”
(Western Europe and Anglo-America)
2) Colonization:
a) Territories & b) culture
Spread of the West
Western Europeans
How did these “pre-modern” zones become
connected?
Commerce and trade
War
Nomadic incursions
Xiongunu
 Huns (Romans)
 White Huns (Gupta state in India)
 Avars
 Slavs
 Bulgars
 Alans
 Uighur Turks
------------------------------------------------------In Antiquity, nomads were known for:
1.
War
2.
Migration

Who are “Nomads”?

Tribal clan-based people--at times formed into
confederate forces-- organized based on pastoral or
agricultural economies.
Migrate so to adapt to the ecological and changing
climate conditions.
2)
Highly competitive on a tribal basis.
3) Religion: Shamanistic & spirit-possession
1)
Two Types of Nomadic peoples
1.
Pastoral: lifestyle revolves around living off the meat,
milk and hides of animals that are domesticated as they
travel through arid lands.
2.
Sedentary: Settled for agricultural activities at oases.
Mostly would do commerce with urban regions.
Ibn Khaldun
(1332-1406)

Bedouin “a natural group in the world”
“basis of, and prior to, sedentary people” p. 83

Live on “bare necessities”

Self-reliant

Ibn Khaldun
(1332-1406)
“Group solidarity”
Or Asabiyyah
Blood ties? Pedigree?

“Group feeling”: having a common cause through
contact and membership of a group
1) Religion can intensify such
Group solidarity.
2) Decay Theory: Attack, settle, assimilate and then,
disintegrate.
Fraternity
“Purity of lineage” as “race”?

Birth, geographical and climate environment
“Americas” and “race”
Why did Mongol-Turkic People go
beyond Central Asia?
Three theories:
1)
Economics: lack of goods and supplies (city people are
not into commerce with nomads)
Religious: Conquest of others as a spiritual experience.
3)
Charismatic leadership:
●Attila the Hun & Visigoths, Ostrogoths,Vandals and
Franks.
2)
Huns
Military incursion (4th century)
Enter the Mongols:
13th century
Why so successful in their military
conquests?
Why so cruel?

Ethno-linguistic group of people (resembles
Turkic languages)

Lived in harsh environments

Clan-based societies: patriarchal, patrilineal,
claiming a common ancestor.
Paternal tent: family domain
1920s Communist party changed society


Military
Innovation
1) Light cavalry
2) Mobility: horse archers
Hunting Nomadic Life:
3) Equestrian skills
Marco Polo
The Book of Ser Marco Polo
“When they are going on a distant expedition they take
no gear with them except two leather bottles for milk, a
little earthenware pot to cook their meat in, and great
urgency they will ride ten days on end without will
sustain themselves on the blood of their horses, opening
a vein and letting the blood jet into their mouths, drinking
till they have enough, and then staunching it….”
In Nomadic Empires and Eurasian Integration.

4) Psychological Warfare
Feigned retreat as Tactical military
operation:
Attack, retreat and attack
1) Light cavalry retreats
2) ambush or immediate attack from multiple smaller units
Objective
3) Confuse and surprise the enemy
4) And ultimately destroy moral
Irregular Warfare
Battle of the Badger Mouth (1211)


1210 Gengis Khan insults Jin emperor Wanyan Yongji
(1168-1213)
Battle with the Jin empire (1115-1234)
Tengri (God?)


99 Tengri
Sky-father and Earth Mother
Animism: Non-human objects have spiritual force
Ancestor reverence
Shaman can become Tengri
Tomb of Shaman
Call spirits to heal and intercede
Mongolian Shamanism (or “Tangerism”)

Practiced by tribal organizations
Buddhist monk Dharmapriya (5th century)
Mixed with Buddhism, spread under the Tang Dynasty
(618-907)
Ground is sacred
Heaven is the protector

Eternal Spirit




Features of Mongolian Shamanism




Medicine
“worship” of nature
Ancestor reverence
Female and male intercessors
Khan
(Universal Leader)
 Warrior
 Charismatic
 And Tangri
Legal Authority “YASA”

Secret code of laws that covered also everyday customs

Supervised by Khan (emperor)
Mongols adopt other religions and yet follow “Yasa”
 Ata-Malek Juvaini: From the History of the world
Conqueror
Page 102-107
“Genghiz Khan”
or Universal Ruler
●Temüjin (b. 1167-1227) “Iron worker”
●His father a famous warrior.
● His father poisoned by Tatars (1175)
● Influence of his mother
● In 1190s he made an alliance
With other Mongol tribes and fought against the
Tatars
Consolidation of power





(1201) Naiman Mongols did not join
Jamukha claimed to be the Universal Rulers
(1206) Jamukha’s generals turn him in to Temujin
Temujin offered alliance, but Jamukha refused.
Noble Death: No blood; break back and die!
1209 Western Xia Dynasty
 1211 conquest of Jin Dynasty
begins
1218 defeats Kara-Khitan or Western Liao (1124-1218)

Khwarezmian Empire (1077-1231)

1218 Genghiz Khan sends trade mission and diplomats

1220 conquest of Samarqand
Political accomplishment
● Reorganized tribal loyalty and by detribalizing the
Mongols into a Confederacy

Tribal Confederacy” a loose association of
sovereign clans that join for a common, shared
identity or interest
Economic expansion and religious tolerance

Protect Silk road

Religious pluralism under the Mongol Empire
Economic expansion and religious tolerance

Protect Silk road

Religious pluralism under the Mongol Empire
Genghis khan popular religion
The Ilkhanate of Persia
● Khwarazm Shah
●Hülegü established the Ilkhanate in Persia and
Mesopotamia. (1218-1265)
● 1295 Ilkhan Ghazan converted Mongols to
Islam.
Used Persian and Arab administrators to run the
empire.
Conquest of China




The conquest of China began 1211.
THE GREAT WALL
Hangzhou: Song Capital fell to Mongol forces (1276)
Khubilai, grandson of Chinggis Khan, became the emperor
of China.Yuan dynasty.
Khanbaliq (Mongol capital in China)
Khanbaliq
Daidu (by the Mongols)
1274 & 1281
Typhoons that stopped the
Mongols
1274 & 1281
Typhoons that stopped the
Mongols
What were the Mongol
Contributions to World History?
COMMERCE &Trade: Increased the integration of
Eurasia. SILK ROAD!!!
2.
Migration & Travel: Human contact
3.
Spread of Religions: Specially Islam & Buddhism.
4. By facilitating commerce the Mongols unintentionally
spread bubonic plague, which erupted in south-western
China (1330-1340).
1.
Karakorum: northern Capital
(13th century)