The Mongol Catastrophe
For the Muslim east, the sudden eruption of the Mongol hordes was an indescribable calamity. Something of the shock and despair of Muslim reaction can be seen in the
history of the contemporary historian Ibn al-Athir (d. 1233). He writes here about the year 1220-1221 when the Mongols (“Tartars”) burst in on the eastern lands.
Is this a positive, negative, or neutral description of the Mongols? Why might the Mongols be compared to Alexander rather than, say, the Huns?
they eat, [needing] naught else. As for their beasts which they ride, these dig into
I say, therefore, that this thing involves the description of the greatest catastrophe
the earth with their hoofs and eat the roots of plants, knowing naught of barley.
and the most dire calamity (of the like of which days and nights are innocent)
And so, when they alight anywhere, they have need of nothing from without. As for
which befell all men generally, and the Muslims in particular; so that, should 0e say
their religion, the‟ worship the sun when it arises, and regard nothing as unlawful,
that the world, since God Almighty created Adam until now, hath not been afflicted
for the; eat all beasts, even dogs, pigs, and the like; nor do they recognise the
with the like thereof, he would but speak the truth. For indeed history doth not
marriage-tie, for several men are in marital relations with one woman, and if a child
contain aught which approaches or comes nigh unto it....
is born, it knows not who is its father.
Now this is a thing the like of which ear hath not heard; for Alexander, concerning
Therefore Islam and the Muslims have been afflicted during this period with
whom historians agree that he conquered the world, did not do so with such
calamities wherewith no people hath been visited. These Tartars (may God
swiftness, but only in the space of about ten years; neither did he slay, but was
confound them!) came from the East, and wrought deeds which horrify all who
satisfied that men should be subject to him. But these Tartars conquered most of
hear of them, and which thou shalt, please God, see set forth in full detail in their
the habitable globe and the best, the most flourishing and most populous part
proper connection.
thereof, and that whereof the inhabitants were the most advanced in character and
conduct, in about [a] year: nor did an‟ country escape their devastations which did
Source. Edward C. Sachau, Alberiini‟s Indian, Vol. I (London: Kegan Paul, Trench,
not fearfully expect them and dread their arrival.
Truebner, 1910). pp. 17. 19, 20.
Moreover they need no commissariat, nor the conveyance of supplies, for they
have with them sheep, cows, horses, and the like quadrupeds, the flesh of which
The Changing World of Mongolia's Nomads.--Melvyn C. Goldstein and Cynthia M. Beall (This excerpt is taken from
a book, describes Mongol culture in the early 1990s)
Shelter: We camped at Tsaganburgas for three wonderful weeks. The weather
was sunny and mild, the nomads relaxed and leisurely. Both sides of the clear blue
stream that bisected the steep mountain valley were dotted with bright white yurt
and a colorful mix of sheep, goats, yak and horses. Living there gave us our first
insight into the simple but effective technology the nomads had developed over the
centuries to cope with their harsh environment and to conduct their nomadic
pastoralism.
Transportable shelters are essential to a pastoral nomadic way of life and, in the
frigid cold of Mongolia, are a matter of survival, not just comfort. The Mongolian
yurt, as we happily found out by living in one, is superbly adapted to this. It is easy
to put up, take down, and transport, and it is also very warm and windproof.
Nomad families can break camp and load all their possessions onto camels in
roughly an hour. A modular structure is the key to its effectiveness. The 'wall'
consists of four or five wooden, collapsible accordian-like lattice fences resembling
those Americans use to prevent children from falling down stairs. Spread open and
lashed together, they form a sturdy circular wall about five feet high. When it is
time to move on, each section collapses compactly into a flat unit about three feet
wide that is easily loaded onto a camel. The roof section is also readily portable
since it consists of 40 to 50 detachable broomstick-like wooden poles about five to
six feet long. One end of the pole fits into peg holes in the wooden "wheel" in the
center of the roof that forms the opening for light and chimney pipes. The lower
end is threaded with a rawhide thong that loops around a lattice crosspiece in the
wall section. With these roof struts in place, the yurt has a rigid self-supporting
frame, although a large yurt usually has an internal wooden pillar or two for
additional stability. Most yurt we saw were about 16 feet in diameter and 72 feet
high at the center. Insulation and wind protection came from one or two layers of
felt sections that are about 25 feet long and four to five feet wide. These are
strapped into the wall lattice and the roof and topped by sheets of white canvas,
tied tightly with straps that circle the yurt like ribbons on a huge birthday gift. When
the herders fire up their metal, yak-dung stoves, the temperature inside the yurt
becomes quite comfortable. We could sit five or six feet from the fire without a coat
when the temperature outside was in the low teens. And after the fire died out at
bedtime, the temperature inside the tent remained 15-20 degrees warmer than
outside. But we could never forget the cold; when the outside evening temperature
fell below 0F, the inside temperature dropped well below 32F and froze our water
and meat each night. Because the nomads... live in a climate where there is only
one growing season a year, they do not make long migrations to new pastures.
The longest move we heard of took two days and was only 50 or 60 miles. Most
were less, taking only a day. ...There is no advantage to moving hundreds of miles
because the district comprises 10,100 square miles of twisting mountains and
valleys, 99.9% of which is pasture land used by 115,000 head of livestock and
about 4,000 people. Ranging from 7,800 to 11,000 feet above sea level, it is a
stark landscape without trees or even shrubs. To an outsider it can seem devoid of
habitation, but in reality the mountains and valleys contain scores of named
campsites - neighborhoods - each occupied at a particular time of year, usually by
the same households.
Hospitality: Halter is a 44 year-old herder whose household included his wife
Badam, his wife's widowed mother Otgon, and five children. We were seated on
the tiny foot-high stools called sandl that look like kindergarten furniture and are
found in the guest section of every yurt - the left side away from the door. Haltar
began by taking an elegant agate snuff bottle from its bright silk brocade pouch; he
offered it to each of us in turn as tradition dictates. Fortunately, we didn't have to
inhale the snuff - loosening the bright coral stopper and sniffing near the opening is
acceptable. Badan, meanwhile, set out the "hospitality bowl" each household
prepares for guests, and then went about making Mongolian milk-tea for us.
Mongolians use a type of compressed tea leaf that is called "brick" tea in English
because it is rock solid and roughly the shape of a brick. It is made in China and
Russia from the poorest quality tea by wetting the leaves and pressing them into a
mold. These tea bricks eliminate bulk and are convenient to transport and store.
They are used throughout Mongolia and Tibet. Preparing tea requires first
chipping off tea leaves with a knife or hammer. After these leaves are boiled in
water, milk , butter, and salt are gradually added and blended. The resultant
beverage called milk-tea is white and tasty, though strangely neither like milk or
tea. Mongolian nomads keep a warm pot of tea handy and drink bowlfuls
throughout the day. The hospitality bowl was piled high with all sorts of goodies thick chunks of homemade cheeses, sugar cubes imported from the U.S.S.R.,
chocolate-covered candies from Ulan Batar, and the staple grain food - bordzig.
This is a soft pastry made from a rolled out wheat dough that is deep-fried in lard
or cooking oil. The nomads make hundreds of these at one time and eat them for
early morning and midday meals together with milk-tea, meat, cheese, and other
dairy products. In the evening, they have a cooked meal, usually a stew. Haltar
had just slaughtered a sheep, so he also set out a big metal basin filled with freshly
boiled lungs, heart, stomach, intestines, liver, and the Mongol's favorite delicacy pieces of solid fat. Mongolians, we quickly learned, love meat and fat, and in fact
consider meat without fat unappetizing and inadequate. Once, when we were
trying to buy meat in town, a young man we knew brought us a leg of mutton but
refused payment because he said the meat wasn't good quality. It was lean, and
taking money would be like cheating us.
The Hair Cutting Ritual: A major ritual event is the "hair-cutting" ceremony where
we experienced Mongolian hospitality on a large scale. Hair cutting is a traditional
nomad rite that has survived socialism. It marks the point at which a child is
considered to have survived the danyurts of infancy - at either three or five years of
age. Before this, parents do not cut their child's hair. As a consequence, we had a
difficult time telling little boys and girls apart because both sported pigtails tied with
bright, fluffy bows. The hair cutting rite normally takes place in the fall when the
nomads are camped close to each other and the peak work period of summer
milking and butter-making is over. Parents invite scores of relatives, neighbors and
friends, and their yurt is jam-packed. Outside the scene resembles a suburban
party in the U.S., except that instead of shiny parked cars, dozens of elegant
horses are tethered alongside a few colorful Czech and Russian motorcycles. At
the parties we attended, women were seated on the right side of the yurt and
males on the left, with the elderly of each sex sitting at the far end of their row in
the back. The elderly men set on a bed-couch at the back of the yurt. Brightly
painted wooden tables about two feet high were set up in a rectangle around the
stove in the center of the yurt. They were laden with a half dozen big metal
hospitality bowls overflowing with food. The tent was full of gifts for the child who
was having his (or her) hair cut - bricks of tea, boxes of sugar cubes, packets of
biscuits, boots, money and toys. As each guest arrived, the hosts served him/her a
bowl of yogurt, a sip of a unique vodka locally distilled from [mare‟s] milk (called
nirmalike), and then tea. This was followed by the endless succession of meat,
noodle soup, borzig, and cheeses. The haircutting ceremony was a festive time
that lasted all day. Guests talked and laughed, and spontaneous bursts of song
filled the yurt with haunting Mongolian folk melodies. Full-scale nomad hospitality,
whether at a celebration or just visiting someone's yurt, involves serving milkvodka and/or regular vodka. These are offered to each person in tiny porcelain
shot glasses or small plastic bowls. The guest accepts the cup with the right hand
outstretched and the left hand held under the elbow of the right, takes a sip, and
passes it back to the server using the same gesture. The server tops it off and
offers it to the next person. Cutting the hair of the child-of-honor involves all the
guests. The child, or in one instance, twins, moved from guest to guest carrying a
scissors and small bag. Each guest took the child into his or her lap and snipped a
small lock of hair with the scissors, stuffing the hair in the bag. The children we
saw were extraordinarily well behaved about all this. "Haircutting" is a major event
for a household, so the best food is served. Several of the household's fattest
sheep are slaughtered, and the guests are served lots of meat.
Source. Goldstein, Melvyn C. and Cynthia M. Beall. The Changing World of
Mongolia's Nomads. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 1994.
MONGOLS IN CHINA: Li CHI-Ch’ANG AND JOHN K. FAIRBANK
The first of the following selections is a Taoist emissary’s impressions of the Mongols under Genghis Khan, as the Mongol invasion of China began. The second is an
eminent American historian’s summary of actual Mongol policy in China during what the Chinese called the Yuan regime. Li Chih-Ch’ang, accompanying a Taoist master
summoned by the khan into central Asia, had favorable discussions with the khan, who professed interest in the religion. Li’s view, correspondingly, was less jaded than that
of Confucian officials later on, but even these Chinese certainly saw the Mongols as very different.
How did their reactions predict wider Chinese distaste for Mongol rule?
What other problems, according to the wider-reaching historical account by Fairbank, did the Mongols have in consolidating power in China?
Could they have adopted more durably successful policies?
Li CHIH-CH’ANG
The people live in black waggons and white tents; they are all herdsmen and
hunters. Their clothes are made of hides and fur; they live on meat and curdled
milk. The men wear their hair in two plaits that hang behind the ears. The married
women wear a head-dress of birch-bark, some two feet high. This they generally
cover with a black woollen stuff; but some of the richer women use red silk. The
end (of this head-dress) is like a duck; they call it ku-ku. They are in constant fear
of people knocking against it, and are obliged to go backwards and crouching
through the doorways of their tents.
They have no writing. Contracts are either verbal or recorded by tokens carved
out of wood. Whatever food they get is shared among them, and if any one is in
trouble the others hasten to his assistance. They are obedient to orders and
unfailing in their performance of a promise. They have indeed preserved the
simplicity of primeval times.
Both men and women plait their hair. The men‟s hats are often like yüan-shanmao
[theatrical caps], trimmed with all kinds of coloured stuffs, which are embroidered
with cloud-patterns, and from the hats hang tasseled pendants. They are worn by
all holders of official rank, from the notables downwards. The common people
merely wear round their heads a piece of white muslin about six feet long. The
wives of rich or important people wind round their heads a piece of black or purple
gauze some six or seven feet long. This sometimes has flowers embroidered on it
or woven patterns. The hair is always worn hanging down. Some cover it in a bag
of floss-silk which may be either plain or coloured; others wear a hag of cloth or
plain silk. Those who cover their heads with cotton or silk look just like Buddhist
nuns. It is the women of the common people who do so. Their clothes are
generally made of cotton, sewn like a straining-bag, narrow at the top and wide at
the bottom, with sleeves sewn on. This is called the under robe and is worn by
men and women alike. Their carriages, boats and agricultural implements are
made very differently from ours. Their vessels are usually of brass or copper;
sometimes of porcelain. They have a kind of porcelain that is very like our Ting
[delicate] ware. For holding wire they use only glass. Their weapons are made of
steel. In their markets, they use gold coins without a hole in the middle. There are
native written characters on both sides. The people are often very tall and strong;
so much so that they can carry the heaviest load without a carrying-beam. If a
woman marries and the husband becomes poor, she may go to another husband.
If he goes on a journey and does not come back in three months, his wife is
allowed to marry again. Oddly enough some of the women have beards and
moustaches. There are certain persons called dashman who understand the
writing of the country and are in charge of records and documents.
CHINA UNDER MONGOL RULE: JOHN K. FAIRBANK
Only gradually did the Mongols face the fact that conquered Chinese villagers,
merchants, and city artisans could not be incorporated into the Mongol tribal
society. Yeh-lü Ch‟u-ts‟ai, as chief minister in the conquered parts of North China
after 1230, set up schools and held examinations to recruit Chinese into a
bureaucracy. But the Mongols . . . found they could not rise the rather simple dual
type of divided Sino-‟‟barbarian” administration. . . . The Yuan therefore continued
the administrative structure of the Tang and Sung [dynasties], particularly the sixfold division under the Six Ministries at the capital. During the thirteen hundred
years from the early Tang to 1906, this basic structure remained the same. The
Yuan also continued a threefold division of central government among civil
administrative, military, and supervisory (censorial) branches. Innovation was
greater in provincial administration, where they followed the Chin example and
made provincial governments into direct extensions of the central chancellery, an
important step in perfecting the Chinese imperial structure.
The Mongol conquerors faced the age-old problem of how to rule in a Chinese
fashion and still retain power. The Chinese populace had to be persuaded to
acquiesce in foreign rule. To accomplish this, an alien dynasty had to maintain
local order, give Chinese talent the opportunity to rise in bureaucratic political life,
and lead the scholar-official class by fostering Confucian ideology and culture. For
this exacting task the rank and file of Mongols were unprepared. Much of their
success in the early Yuan era must therefore be ascribed to the commanding
personality of Khubilai and his use of Confucian principles and collaborators.
The Mongols differed from their subjects in very striking ways, not only in
language and status. For costume, they preferred the leather and furs of steppe
horsemen. For food they liked mare‟s milk and cheese, and for liquor the
fermented drink made of mare‟s milk. Bred on the almost waterless grasslands,
the Mongols were unaccustomed to washing. They lacked even surnames. Their
different moral code gave greater (and in Chinese eyes, immoral) freedom to
women. Moreover, the Mongols‟ non-Chinese traits were constantly reinforced by
their contact with a vast area outside China. They were the only full nomads to
achieve a dynasty of conquest. The gap between them and the Chinese was thus
greater culturally to begin with and was more strongly perpetuated politically. To
make the division between conquerors and conquered even more complete, the
recruiting of Southern Chinese talent for the Yuan bureaucracy was impeded by
the heritage of Sung hatred for the plundering “barbarian.” Later Chinese
chroniclers, who have always had the last word on their conquerors, depicted the
Mongols as primitive savages capable only of destruction and orgiastic excess.
One later Chinese account states, “They smell so heavily that one cannot
approach them. They wash themselves in urine.”
In the face of native hostility, the Mongols in China as elsewhere employed many
foreigners, particularly Muslims from Central and Western Asia. As Marco Polo
recorded, “You see the Great Khan had not succeeded to the dominion of Cathay
[China] by hereditary right, but held it by conquest; and thus, having no
confidence
in the natives, he put all authority into the hands of Tartars, Saracens, or
Christians, who were attached to his household and devoted to his service, and
were foreignors in Cathay.” The Mongols set up a hierarchy of social classes: they
were the top class, and their non-Chinese collaborators second, followed by the
Chinese of the North who had capitulated earlier, and, at the bottom, by those of
the South, who of course outnumbered all the rest. Meanwhile the Mongol ruling
class remained separate from Chinese life with separate systems of law -for
Chinese and for Mongols. The Great Khan- kept his summer residence north of
the Wall at Shang-tu (Coleridge‟s “Xanadu,” meaning “Superior Capital”). His alien
rule injected a heightened degree of centralized and ruthless despotism into the
traditional Chinese Empire.
Life under the Yuan Dynasty
Kbubilai on his accession had protected the Confucian temples, and he soon
revived the state cult of Confucius. Later he exempted Confucian scholars from
taxation. But on the more fundamental issue of recruitment for government
service, Khubilai did not seek out the talent of South China. The examination
system had ceased to function in the North after 1237 and in the South after
1274. Its revival was delayed until 1315. Chinese clerks of course staffed the
bureaucracy, but Confucian scholars did not often rise to the top.
The scholar class was antagonized also by the Mongols‟ patronage of foreign
religions. In Persia many had embraced Islam, and in Central Asia, Nestorian
Christianity. In China religious establishments of the Buddhist, Taoist, Nestorian,
and Islamic faiths, like the Confucian temples, were all exempted from taxation.
The Chin and Yuan periods saw many new Taoist monasteries built in North
China. This multiple religious growth was a distinct setback for the Neo-Confucian
doctrines of the Chu Hsi school.
paper currency. Marco Polo, coming from a much less economically advanced
Europe, was amazed at this use of paper for money.
The superstitious Mongols, with their background of shamanism, tended to accept
the debased form of Buddhism that had developed in Tibet… . In the thirteenth
century it spread rapidly into Mongolia and also China, with imperial support.
Khubilai moved the Great Khan‟s capital from Karakorum in Outer Mongolia to
Peking, where the main entrance through the Great Wall leads down to the North
China Plain. There he built a new city called Khanbaligh (Marco Polo‟s
„„Cambaluc”), meaning in Turkish, „„city of the Khan.‟‟ Within it was a palace
enclosed by double walls and complete with parks, treasuries, a lake and a big hill
dredged from it. To feed the new capital, grain was transported from the lower
Yangtze by extending the Grand Canal north to Peking from the Yellow River
[Huang He]. On the stone embankments of this second Grand Canal system ran a
paved highroad horn Hangehow to Peking, a distance of eleven hundred miles,
which took forty days to traverse.
Khubilai was hailed by the Buddhist clergy in China as an ideal Buddhist
monarch. Under his patronage the number of Buddhist establishments, including
the great mountain retreats at Mount Wu-t‟ai in Shansi, rose to 42,000 with
213,000 monks and nuns. . . . All this patronage of a religious cult could not be
offset, in the eyes of the Confucian scholar class, by the emperor‟s performance
of Confucian ritual. He lacked the personnel and the policies to patronize Chinese
accomplishments in literature, the arts, and thought. Instead of performing this
function of upper-class leadership in China, the Mongols maintained a
cosmopolitan regime, under which the Chinese bureaucratic class was given little
scope.
In fostering the people‟s livelihood, on the other hand, Khubilai had some
temporary success. The landholding element of the Southern Sung was nor
dispossessed, taxation of land and labor and the usual government monopolies
were developed, and trade was facilitated by the far-flung contact with the rest of
Asia. Arab and Persian seafarers and merchants frequented the great port cities
like Canton and Ch‟üan-chou (Zayton). Foreign trade by land was chiefly
conducted by Muslim merchants of Central Asian origin. Their corporate groups
not only served as trading associations but also became tax-farmers for their
Mongol patrons. These “merchant companies,” whose members guaranteed one
another, played a key role in collecting the agrarian surplus of the Yuan Empire
and channeling some of this accumulated capital into an expanded commerce.
They also shared in the inordinate graft and corruption which accompanied
Mongol rule. Commerce was aided eventually by a unified nation-wide system of
Khubilai‟s grandson Temur, who succeeded him iii 1294, maintained a strong
central administration, but after his death in 1307 the Mongols hold on China
rapidly weakened. In the next twenty-six years, seven rulers occupied the throne.
Open civil war began after 1328. Meanwhile paper money, which had earlier
stimulated trade, was now issued in increasing quantities without backing, and so
paper notes were no longer accepted for tax payments and steadily depreciated.
In addition, the Yellow River was causing recurrent floods which ruined the wellwatered productive areas of northern Anhwei and Kiangsu and southern
Shantung. Financial, moral, and political bankruptcy thus came hand in hand.
Source.
Li Chih Ch‟ang. The Travels of an Alchemist, trans. Arthur Weley
(Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1976) 67-68, 106-7.
John K. Fairbank. Edwin O. Reischauer, & Albert Craig. East Asia:
Tradition and Transformation. Rev. ed.167-70. Copyright 1989 by
Houghton Mifflin Co.
Selections from The Devil's Horsemen - James Chamber
The Mongol War Machine
In the 13th century the Mongol army was the best army in the world. Its
organization and training, its tactical principles and its structure of command
would not have been unfamiliar to a soldier of the twentieth century. By contrast
the feudal armies of Russia and Europe were raised and run on the same lines
as they had been for several hundred years and their tactics would have
seemed unimaginative to the soldiers of the Roman Empire.
At the time of Chingis Khan's birth the nomads of the eastern steppes lived in a
feudal society. Each tribe was led by its khan, and were divided into clans
which formed an ordu, the Mongol word for a camp (and source of the English
word horde). Within the ordu each family lived in a yurt, a tent made of felt
stretched over a wooden frame, and even for the rich families, life was often
frugal: at the end of winter when the preservation of the herds was of
paramount importance they would travel for several days without eating in
search of fresh pasture and game. For the many poor, life was always squalid.
The men of the clan spent their time hunting, tending their herds and fighting: a
man's survival may have depended on his ability as a horseman and an archer,
but his success depended on his strength as a warrior and his cunning as a
bandit. Since the easiest way to acquire more horses and cattle was to steal
them and the simplest way to look after them was to have it done for you by
slaves, the nomad clans were constantly raiding each other. But the objectives
of these raids was sometimes even more than the capture of animals and ablebodied men: the nomad warriors were polygamous and tradition forbade them
to marry within their own clan.
Chinggis Khan's genius for organization
Once Chinggis Khan had united the tribes by force of arms, he began to
suppress those customs that had preserved their poverty and discord. He
forbade any man to own a Mongol slave, made cattle-theft and kidnaping
punishable by death, and , to spread among all the Mongol people the loyalty
that had previously been limited to members of the same clan, divided the
clansmen among the different units of his new army. It was to be an army for
which the keen-eyed mounted archers were almost perfect raw material. The
life that had given them their incomparable powers of endurance had also
made them sullen, fatalistic, phlegmatic and callous. They could suffer without
complaint and kill without pity and they were easily led. In an age when
conditions in the camps of campaigning armies were often appalling, Mongol
soldiers would live as they had always lived in the yurts of their ordu. To turn
these reckless warriors into disciplined soldiers required only organization and
tactical training.
It was Chinggis Khan's genius for organization that was to turn a confederation
into a nation. It was called Mongol after his own tribe. It was the cohesion and
persistence that he inspired and the structured military society that he left
behind that were to distinguish the Mongol conquerors from the other nomad
raiders...
who washed the bodies of the dead, were liable for military service. When
messengers brought the order to mobilize, trained men would collect their
weapons and equipment from the officer in charge of the armory in their ordu,
select a small herd of horses and set out to join their unit.
The bow
The bow was easily the Mongols' most important weapon. The mediaeval
English longbow had a pull of 75 pounds and a range of up to 250 yards, but
the smaller bows used by the Mongols had a pull of between 100-150 pounds
and a range of over 350 yards. The velocity was further increased by the
difficult technique known as the Mongolian thumb lock: the string was drawn
back by a stone ring worn on the right thumb which released it more suddenly
than the fingers. A soldier could bend and string his bow in the saddle by
placing one end between his foot and the stirrup and he could shoot in any
direction at full gallop, carefully timing his release to come between the paces
of his horse, so that his aim would not be deflected as the hooves pounded the
ground.
Whenever possible Mongols preferred to ride mares, since their milk as well as
their blood, and in the last resort their flesh, provided them with everything they
needed to survive. The Mongol nomads valued their horses far above all other
possessions. Horses played their part in traditional ceremonies and folklore and
there was a whole period in Chinese art when all the statues and paintings
were of horses, since the Mongol patrons desired nothing else. War horses
were treated with the same sentimental respect as any other comrade in arms.
A horse that had been ridden in battle was never killed for food and when it
became old or lame it was put out to grass, although when a soldier died his
favorite horse was killed and buried with him so that their spirits would ride
together.
To their enemies, the inexplicable coordination with which Mongol armies
achieved their separate and common objectives was often astounding.
Although their battlefield tactics were no more than the adaptation and
perfection of those that had been developed by nomad archers over the past
seven or eight hundred years, each carefully-designed campaign was a
masterpiece of original and imaginative strategy and Mongol commanders
could not have planned with as much breadth and daring as they did without
absolute confidence in their communications. ...The Mongol army was a
„modern' army and the differences between it and the armies of the twentieth
century can all be accounted for by progress in science and in technology, but
not in the art of war.
Copyright © 2000 The American Forum for Global Education
Khanate of the Golden Horde (Kipchak)
The Golden Horde is best known as that part of the Mongol Empire established in
Russia. Originally, however, it consisted of the lands Genghis Khan (1165-1227)
bequeathed to his son Jochi (1184-1225): the territories west of the Irtysh River
(modern Kazakhstan) and Khwarazm (consisting of parts of modern Uzbekistan
and Turkmenistan). Jochi, however, did not have the opportunity to expand his
realm as he died in 1225, two years prior to his father's death.
The third ruler was Mongke Temur (1266-1279), who continued much as his
predecessors did: warring against the Il-Khans. In addition, the Golden Horde
increasingly dominated trade and was the most powerful state in Europe, often
exerting its influence with threats of invasion into Poland and Hungary, or through
its vassal, Bulgaria. After Mongke Temur's death, many of the khans became
puppets controlled by generals, such as Nogai (d. 1299).
During the reign of the successor of Genghis Khan, Ogodei Khan (d.1240/41), the
Jochid Ulus or realm greatly expanded in size. In 1237, Jochi's son Batu (12271255), assisted by the famous Mongol general Subedei, led a large army
westward. In route they destroyed the Bulgar khanate on the Volga River, pacified
the numerous Turkic tribes of the steppes, and conquered the Russian cities.
Then in 1240, Mongol armies invaded Hungary and Poland, winning victories over
the knights of Europe at Mohi in Hungary and Liegnitz in Poland. As news spread
of the ferocity of the Mongols, Europe trembled in anticipation of an attack that
never came. In 1241 Ogodei Khan died, which forced the Mongol armies to
withdraw to Russia in order to elect a new khan.
Between 1313 and 1341 during the rule of Uzbek Khan, the Golden Horde
reached its pinnacle in terms of wealth, trade, influence, and military might. Uzbek
Khan also forced the conversion of the Golden Horde to Islam, thus the cities of
Sarai and New Sarai emerged as major Muslim centers. During the middle of the
fourteenth century, however, the Golden Horde weakened as it suffered-like much
of the world-from bubonic plague, civil wars, and ineffectual rulers (between 1357
and 1370, eight khans ruled). It is even thought that bubonic plague spread to
Europe after the Mongols laid siege to the port of Kaffa on the Crimean peninsula
in 1346. After their own forces were stricken with plague, the Mongols catapulted
their corpses over the walls into Kaffa. The ships that left Kaffa and returned to
Italy carried the disease.
Despite an intense rivalry with Güyük Khan, Ogodei's son, Batu established the
Golden Horde as a semi-independent part of the Mongol Empire. The origins of
the name Golden Horde are uncertain. Some scholars believe that it refers to the
camp of Batu and the later rulers of the Horde. In Mongolian, Altan Orda refers to
the golden camp or palace. Altan (golden) was also the color connoting imperial
status. Other sources mention that Batu had a golden tent, and it is from this that
the Golden Horde received its name. While this legend is persistent, no one is
positive of the origin of the term. In most contemporary sources, the Golden
Horde was referred to as the Khanate of the Qipchaq as the Qipchaq Turks
comprised the majority of the nomadic population in the region (the Ulus Jochid).
Batu died in 1255, and the next significant ruler was his brother Berke (12551267) who had converted to Islam and focused most of his energies against the IlKhans of Persia. His conversion marked the first time an important leader among
the Mongols abandoned the traditional shamanistic religion. Hulegu, the founder
of the Mongol Il-Khanate, had sacked Baghdad in 1258 and killed the Caliph of
Islam. Berke forged an alliance with the Mamluks of Egypt who were also
enemies of the Il-Khans. The war with the Il-Khans lasted until the final collapse of
the Il-Khanate in 1334.
In addition to their wars with the Il-Khanate, the Golden Horde dominated the
Russian principalities. Although much has been written about an oppressive
Mongol Yoke, the Russians also reaped numerous advantages in terms of trade
and protection, and eventually supplanted the Golden Horde as the dominant
power in the steppes of Asia. Indeed, even after the initial invasion in the
thirteenth century, the Russians viewed the Mongols as a preferred alternative to
the Swedish or German crusaders existing on their western border. While the
Mongols sometimes exacted onerous demands, they more or less left the
Russians to their own devices. The German crusaders, surely would have forced
conversion to Catholicism upon the Russians had they prevailed. The Russians'
first victory was against Mamai, a general who usurped the throne of the Golden
Horde. Although he sacked Moscow in 1380, he was later defeated at the battle of
Kulikovo. The Russians claimed it as a major victory; but, in reality, it
accomplished little as Toqtamish (1383-1391) also defeated Mamai in 1383, and
then proceeded to sack Moscow again.
Toqtamish may have been able to restore the Golden Horde to its former glory-he
did reunite it-but he became embroiled in a series of wars with Tamerlane (13691404) who emerged victorious and sacked Sarai and New Sarai. The trade routes
never recovered from these disruptions, and Toqtamish died in obscurity in 1391.
With the death of Toqtamish, the Golden Horde went into a downward spiral and
eventually fragmented. By the middle of the 15th century, the Golden Horde had
shattered into the Crimean Khanate, the Astrakhanate, the Sibir Khanate, Kazan
Khanate, the Nogai Horde and the Great Horde. The final death knell came in
1480 when the Muscovites on the Ugra River defeated the Great Horde. Although
the Golden Horde ended, several inner Asian nations still trace their origins to it.
The Uzbeks, the Kazakhs, and, of course, the numerous Tatars of Kazan and
Crimea perceive themselves as descendents of the Golden Horde. Indeed, some
scholars view the rise of Moscow and the Russian Empire as an heir to the legacy
of the Golden Horde.
Dr. Timothy May, Assistant Professor of History, Young Hall
North Georgia College and State University
The Golden Horde
As a much more powerful and influential Khanate than the Chagatai, the Golden
Horde is one of the better known of the Mongol empires, particularly because of
its effect on modern Russian history. For the purposes of this tutorial, however,
the Golden Horde is significant not because of its ties to Russia, but to the Islamic
world. This empire, like the Chagatai, was a product of the division of power that
followed the death of Genghis Khan in 1227, when several of his relatives
inherited their own regions to rule. Great Khan Ogodei, Genghis Khan's son,
ordered the invasion of Russia in 1236, which was led by Ogodei's nephew, Batu.
Russia at this time was not a unified state, but rather a collection of principalities
known as Rus.
Between 1236 and 1240, Batu led the invading Mongols through a series of
attacks on Russian cities, including Moscow and Kiev. By 1241 the Mongols had
reached Poland and Hungary, and they were planning an attack on Croatia when
Batu received word that Great Khan Ogodei had died back in Mongolia. Batu
immediately withdrew his army from Europe and retreated to the steppe region
north of the Black Sea, the home of the Islamic Volga Bulgars. Batu supported his
cousin, Mongke, in the struggle for the position of Great Khan against several
challengers, and after ten years, Mongke finally prevailed in 1251. Batu was
rewarded by the Great Khan for his support during the succession struggle, and
his empire enjoyed Mongke's patronage for the duration of his reign. Batu built a
capital, Sarai, on the Volga River, and he named his empire the Golden Horde.
The word "horde" is derived from the Turkic-Mongol word, ordu, meaning
"encampment." The Golden Horde became one of the most powerful of Genghis
Khan's successor states.
Batu was a shamanist, like most Mongols at this time, which meant that he
acknowledged the existence of one God, but he also viewed the sun, moon,
earth, and water as higher beings. Islam would not influence the Golden Horde's
rulers until after Batu's death in 1255. After the brief reigns of two of Batu's sons,
the Khanate passed to his brother, Berke, who took power in 1258. Berke was the
first Muslim ruler of the Golden Horde, and although he was unable to establish
Islam as the Khanate's official religion, his faith caused a serious rift to develop
between him and his cousin, Hulegu, the Mongol ruler of the Il-Khanate in Persia.
As we will see later in this chapter, Hulegu's army was responsible for the
collapse of the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad, and the murder of the caliph
himself. For Hulegu, who was a shamanist with Buddhist sympathies, the sacking
of Baghdad was just another military conquest, but the Muslim Berke, watching
from Sarai, was appalled. The resulting animosity between the two leaders led to
several wars, the first to pit Mongol armies against each other.
In addition to their religious differences, Berke and Hulegu fought over control of
the Caucasus Mountains, over which both leaders claimed jurisdiction. So intense
was the rivalry that Berke reportedly ordered the troops he had loaned to Hulegu's
army years earlier to defect to the Egyptian Mamluk army following the sack of
Baghdad. The Mamluks then won a decisive victory over Hulegu in 1260.
Additionally, Berke concluded a peace treaty with the Mamluks in 1261, in order
for the two groups to ally themselves against Hulegu. It was the first alliance
between a Mongol and non-Mongol state in which both parties were equal.
Also around 1260, Berke removed the Great Khan Kublai's name from the Golden
Horde's coins. Kublai, Mongke's brother, had succeeded as Great Khan that year,
after a lengthy struggle with another brother, Arik-Boke. Hulegu had supported
Kublai's claim, while Berke supported Arik-Boke. Kublai's victory pushed Berke
and his Islamic faith further into isolation from his Mongol brethren. Removing
Kublai's name from the Golden Horde's coins was the ultimate repudiation of
allegiance to the Great Khan.
Berke died in 1267, only a year after Hulegu, and the feud between the Golden
Horde and the Il-Khans died down. Berke's immediate successors were not
Muslim, and thus they were not as hostile to Hulegu's successors, who also were
not Muslim. Still, the Golden Horde retained its isolation from the other Mongol
Khanates, and the cultural, linguistic, and religious influence of its mostly Muslim
Turkish population increasingly affected the Golden Horde's Mongol leaders. By
the end of the 13th century, Turkish had virtually replaced Mongol as the
language of administration, and in 1313, with the ascension of a Muslim, Ozbeg,
to the Khanate, Islam became the official religion of the Golden Horde.
By assimilating into the Islamic Turkish culture of the south, rather than the
Christian Russian culture of the north, the Golden Horde set itself up for its
eventual collapse at the hands of the increasingly powerful Russian principalities.
While the Golden Horde lasted longer than many other Khanates, by the mid-14th
century it began to fall apart. The increasingly powerful territories of Moscow and
Lithuania began absorbing pieces of the disintegrating Golden Horde, while the
invasion of Timur's army in the late 14th century added to the destruction. By the
mid-15th century, separate Khanates were established in Kazan, Astrakhan, and
the Crimea. The Russian tsar, Ivan the Terrible, annexed Kazan and Astrakhan in
1552 and 1554, while Crimea survived under the protection of the Ottoman
Empire until 1783, when Catherine the Great annexed it to the Russian Empire.
The Islamic Tatars of the Golden Horde, as Europeans have historically called the
Mongols, survive today in small population groups, primarily in southern Russia.
The Golden Horde
The Golden Horde of Batu had more time and more room for expansion of its
territories than any other Mongol khanate. The Mongols maintained sovereignty
over eastern Russia from 1240 to 1480, and they controlled the upper Volga area,
the territories of the former Volga Bulghar state, Siberia, the northern Caucasus,
Bulgaria (for a time), the Crimea, and Khwarizm. By applying the principle of
indirect rule, the Golden Horde Mongols were able to preserve the Mongol ruling
class and the local dynasties for more than 200 years. The influence that the
Golden Horde Mongols came to have over medieval Russia and other areas was
immense and lasting. They played a role in unifying the future Russian state,
provided new political institutions, influenced imperial visions, and, through
indirect rule, facilitated the appearance of a Muscovite autocracy.
The Golden Horde capital at Sarai became a prosperous center of commerce.
Here, as in China, Mongol rule meant free trade, the exchange of goods between
the East and the West, and also broad religious toleration.
In the mid-thirteenth century, the Golden Horde was administratively and militarily
an integral part of the Mongol empire with its capital at Karakorum. By the early
fourteenth century, however, this allegiance had become largely symbolic and
ceremonial. Although certain Mongol administrative forms--such as census and
postal systems--were maintained, other customs were not. The Golden Horde
embraced Islam as its state religion and, with it, adopted new and more complex
administrative forms to replace those of the old regime that had been devised for
conquest. Even though most Mongols remained steppe nomads, new cities were
founded, and a permanent urbanized bureaucracy and social structure took shape
at Sarai. The Golden Horde allied itself with the Mamluks and negotiated with the
Byzantines to combat the Ilkhans in a struggle to control Azerbaijan. Rather than
isolating Russia, the Mongol presence and extensive diplomatic system brought
envoys to Sarai from central and southern Europe, the Pope, Southwest Asia,
Egypt, Iran, Inner Asia, China, and Mongolia.
The Mongols' vast contacts opened Russia to new influences, both Eastern and
Western. The reason the Mongols did not occupy Russia itself, but left its
administration to local princes, was not inability to administer a society that was
both urban and agrarian, or Russian resistance. Rather, some historians believe
that Russia had little to offer the Mongols in terms of produce or trade routes, and
even tax revenues were insignificant compared with the wealth of the southern
realms under their control. The inability of cavalry to operate in forests and
swamps--a factor that limited the northward advance of the Mongols and largely
determined the northern frontier of their empire--was undoubtedly a distinct
disincentive as well.
In time the Golden Horde Mongols and the Mongol Tatars, although still nomads,
lost their original identities and--as happened to Mongols in China and Iran-became largely synonymous with the local Turkic peoples, the Kipchak. Arabic
and Tatar replaced Mongol as the official language of the Golden Horde, and
increasing political fragmentation occurred. The power of the Golden Horde khans
slowly declined, particularly as a powerful new state rose in central Russia.
Russia and the Golden Horde
Mongol Invaders Required Grand Princes to Pay Tribute to the Khan
Grand Princes of Russia were chosen by khans and paid visits to the Golden
Horde in exchange for peace with Mongol invaders.
The first years of the 13th century saw death and destruction throughout Eastern
Europe. The Mongols had worked their way through central Asia, into, Russia and
beyond. The Mongol army killed everyone in its path, bringing down cities,
torturing captives, and striking fear into peasants and noblemen alike. By the
middle of the century, most of Russia was under Mongol control.
The Golden Horde's Headquarters in Sarai
Although Temuchin, better known as Genghis Khan, was the instigator of the
Mongol conquest, other khans followed his lead. The khan set up a headquarters
outside of Mongolia on the lower Volga River in Sarai. This stronghold became
known as the Golden Horde. It was to Sarai that many Russian grand princes, as
well as would-be grand princes or those who coveted the title, would go to pay
tribute and to gain the khan's favor. Yaroslav II was the first Russian grand prince
to act as vassal of the khan.
The Khan's Appointment of Grand Princes
While the khan appointed the grand prince, Russian princes could rule as they
chose as long as tribute was paid. The khan favored strong grand princes who
could maintain order and encourage or force his people to pay taxes for tribute.
When one grand prince died, those claiming the right to rule would visit the khan
in hopes of the khan granting him charter. This situation encouraged political
maneuvering, and intrigue, and murder. Nevertheless, the khan sometimes
appointed grand princes according to whim. Though traditions of succession were
often followed, the khan had final word in the appointment of Russian grand
princes.
Tribute Money
In order to maintain relative peace, Russian princes were forced to pay tribute
money to the khan. Tribute money was collected in the form of taxation. The
poorest peasants dealt with increasing taxes as tribute requirements increased.
The ensuing unrest created resistance against the Mongols, which lead ultimately
to more murder and destruction of property. While legends tell of the residents of
Russian cities like Ryazin who died rather than give into the demands of the
Golden Horde, it was understood that tribute money was the only way to keep the
Mongols from slaughtering the population. Alexander Nevsky was one leader who
set an example for dealing with the Horde by accepting the khan's terms.
References
Duffey, James P. and Ricci, Vincent L. Czars: Russia's Rulers for Over One Thousand Years. New
York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1995.
Massie, Suzanne. Land of the Firebirds: The Beauty of Old Russia. Blue Hill: HeartTree Press,
1980.
The Ilkhanate
Although the Chagatai Khanate and the Golden Horde both established
themselves in regions already inhabited by Muslims, their invasions of Central
Asia and Russia, respectively, did not have the catastrophic effect on the native
Islamic faith that the Mongol invasion of Persia and Iraq had. Although the faith
prevailed, and the Mongol invaders were eventually converted to Islam, the
Mongol destruction of the Islamic heartland marked a major change of direction
for the region. By destroying the Islamic empires that existed before they came,
the Mongols instigated a new era for the Islamic world, in which most of the
region's power would fall to three great empires - the Ottoman, the Safavid, and
the Mughal.
The Mongols began their push into Central Asia and Persia in the early 13th
century under Genghis Khan. The cities of Bukhara and Samarkand, later to
become part of the Chagatai Khanate, fell to Genghis Khan's armies in 1220.
From there it was not difficult to raid Persia, and by 1221 the Persian cities of
Merv, Nishapur, and Balkh had fallen. In the inevitable pillaging that followed
Mongol attacks, the invaders decimated the population of these regions, sparing
only the artisans they deemed useful. The Mongols also uprooted many Muslim
graves in their wake, including that of Harun al-Rashid, the 8th century Abbasid
caliph who was featured in The Thousand and One Nights fables.
The Muslims inflicted their first defeat on the Mongols in 1221 at the Battle of
Parwan, in present-day Afghanistan, under the leadership of Jalal al-Din, son of a
Central Asian Muslim ruler. The victory provided a temporary morale boost for the
Muslim army, but the Mongols soon regrouped and devastated Jalal's troops later
that year. After that initial setback, the Mongols swept through Central Asia into
Persia and Iraq. The Persian city of Isfahan fell in 1237, and the Mongols
gradually moved closer to Baghdad, the centre of the Abbasid caliphate.
The decision to attack the Abbasid caliphate was made at the same time as the
election of the Great Khan Mongke in 1251. The Chagatai Khanate and the
Golden Horde were already firmly established empires in the Islamic world, and
the Great Khan disliked the fact that his new Muslim subjects worshipped a man the caliph - that they deemed to be in a higher position than the Great Khan.
Mongke decided to send his brother, Hulegu, into Iraq at the head of the invading
Mongol army, with the goal of sacking Baghdad and destroying the Abbasid
caliphate there. Hulegu set out in 1253, and en route he encountered the Muslim
group known as the Assassins, an Ismaili sect that practised an extreme version
of Shi'ism. The Assassins were based in Alamut, in northwestern Persia, which
Hulegu reached in 1255. The Mongols easily destroyed the small Assassins force,
and the remaining members of the group fled south to the Sindh region of
present-day Pakistan, where they lived as an underground sect for centuries.
After this victory, the Mongols had an open path into Baghdad. Great Khan
Mongke had instructed Hulegu to attack the Abbasid caliphate only if it refused to
surrender to the Mongols. The Abbasids, led by the caliph, Musta'sim, indeed
refused to surrender, making a battle inevitable.
Before the fighting even began, the Abbasids were at a disadvantage. While they
theoretically had a large enough army to compete with the Mongols, their troops
had been neglected by the caliphate and were not prepared for battle at the time
of the Mongol invasion. Another problem for the Abbasids was the centuries-old
rift between the Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims. The caliphate was Sunni, as were
most of its subjects, but there was a Shi'ite minority under Abbasid control who
welcomed the Mongol invaders as a potential means of bringing down the Sunni
caliph. Many Shi'ites in Iraq joined the Mongol forces for that reason. Additionally,
the caliph's vizier, or second-in-command, was himself Shi'ite, and it has been
suggested that he might have also co-operated with the Mongols in attacking the
caliphate. The Mongols also had the support of non-Muslims under Abbasid
control. Many Christians in the region saw the Mongols as saviours, hoping that
by decimating Islam's adherents, the faith itself would also be destroyed. Indeed,
in return for Christian support, the Mongols - some of whom were Nestorian
Christian themselves - spared Christian churches and communities from their
pillaging.
With all these factors working against the Abbasids, the fall of Baghdad and the
destruction of the caliphate in 1258 came rather quickly. The caliph himself,
Musta'sim, was captured and killed, and the 500-year-old Abbasid dynasty came
to an abrupt and violent end. With Iraq and Persia thus under Mongol control,
Hulegu continued west, towards Syria and Egypt. Ayyubid descendants of Saladin
held power in Syria at this time, while the European Crusaders had a tenuous
hold on the Syrian coast. Egypt, meanwhile, was still recovering from the coup
that had ousted the Ayyubids and brought the Mamluks, a class of Turkish slave
soldiers, to power. As professional soldiers, the Mamluks would present the
Mongols with their only serious and continuous challenge. Syria, however, was
easily defeated, since the Ayyubids and Crusaders refused to join forces in
defending their territory. The major cities of Aleppo and Damascus fell within a
month of each other in 1260, but an immediate invasion of Egypt was halted by
the death of the Great Khan Mongke in Mongolia.
While Hulegu was distracted by the ensuing succession struggle between his
brothers, Kublai and Arik-Boke, the Mamluks launched an attack on the Mongols
in Syria. It was the first time in almost 50 years that a Muslim army initiated an
attack on the Mongols, and it paid off for the Muslim Mamluks, who defeated the
Mongols and occupied their Syrian base at Gaza. A few months later, a second
Mamluk attack succeeded in killing Hulegu's commander and driving the Mongols
out of Syria altogether. The Mamluks continued to defeat Hulegu's army for the
duration of its presence in the region. One reason for the Mamluk success was
their status as professional soldiers. The Mamluk state featured very little cultural,
intellectual, or administrative development; its existence was devoted solely to
military training, and thus the quality of the Mamluk army easily matched that of
the powerful Mongols. A second reason that has been suggested for the
Mamluks' success is the fact that the Mamluks had been using horseshoes for
their horses since about 1244. The Mongols did not use horseshoes, and the
rocky terrain of Syria reportedly injured the Mongol horses' hooves to the extent
that they were unable to fight effectively. Additionally, the Mamluks realised that
grasslands were needed to pasture the Mongols' horses. Therefore, the Mamluks
often burned grasslands in Syria in their wake, to prevent the Mongol horses from
grazing.
At any rate, the initial Mamluk victories over the Mongols in 1260 were a turning
point for Hulegu's army, as several challenges arose after that point. Mongke's
death had signalled an end to a united Mongol Empire, as the struggle over his
successor split the realm. As we saw in the previous section on the Golden
Horde, their Muslim Khan, Berke, had become hostile to Hulegu following the
latter's destruction of the Abbasid caliphate in 1258. Berke supported Arik-Boke's
claim to the Great Khan position, while Hulegu supported Kublai. When Kublai
prevailed in 1260, Hulegu enjoyed the Great Khan's favour for his support, and an
increase in cultural interaction between Hulegu's Persian empire and Kublai's
Chinese empire ensued, but the unity of the Mongol Empire as a whole was
destroyed by Berke's refusal to recognise Kublai. This rift deepened as the years
went by. Following Kublai's victory, Hulegu named his empire the Il-Khanate, or
"subordinate Khanate," as a sign of his allegiance to Kublai and the greater
Mongol Empire. By 1263, Berke had negotiated an alliance between the Golden
Horde and almost all other states surrounding Hulegu's Il-Khanate: the Mamluks
in Egypt, the Byzantines in Constantinople, and even the Italian city-state of
Genoa, which provided a much needed naval link between the Golden Horde and
Mamluk Egypt. The Golden Horde was soon fighting a full-scale war with the IlKhanate, which continued after the deaths of Hulegu in 1265 and Berke in 1266.
Shi'ites. He focussed his religious persecution instead on the Buddhists, who had
been so intolerant of Muslims for the past 30 years in the Il-Khanate. Ghazan
converted all Buddhist temples to mosques, and he forced the Buddhist priests
and monks to either convert to Islam or return to India, Tibet, or China. Christians
were also persecuted, in retaliation for their special treatment at the expense of
the Muslims under the Buddhist rulers of the Il-Khanate. Ghazan reorganised the
administration of the Il-Khanate to reflect its new official Islamic faith. He replaced
traditional Mongol law with the Sharia, or Islamic code of law, and adopted Islamic
military codes for the Mongol army. At Ghazan's death in 1304, virtually all
Mongol elements in the Il-Khanate had been absorbed into Islamic culture.
Hulegu's son and successor, Abaqa, ended the war some years later, and the
religious reason behind the animosity between the two groups ended when they
both eventually became Islamic states. Before that happened, however, Islam in
the Il-Khanate suffered under a string of Mongol Buddhist Khans. Many Mongols
had adopted Buddhism early in the 13th century, as they were exposed to the
religion in China, Tibet, and northern India. Hulegu had adopted some Buddhist
customs, but he is primarily regarded as a traditional Mongol shamanist. The fact
that he was buried with several young women testifies to this fact, since neither
Buddhism nor Islam would have sanctioned human sacrifice. Abaqa, Hulegu's
son, was a devout Buddhist who mercilessly persecuted the Muslims of the IlKhanate. He even promoted Christian interests ahead of Muslim, simply to harass
the Muslims. Abaqa's son, Arghun, also a Buddhist, was even harder on Muslims
than his father had been. During this period of Buddhist leadership in traditionally
Islamic lands, many Buddhist symbols appeared. Numerous Buddhist temples
dotted the landscape of Persia and Iraq, none of which survived the 14th century,
unfortunately. The Buddhist element of the Il-Khanate died with Arghun, however,
and Islam soon spread from the population to the ruling classes.
One instigator for the change was Arghun's brother, Gaykhatu, who succeeded
him. Eager to make a name for himself as an Il-Khan, Gaykhatu introduced paper
money from China into Islamic trading circles. Islamic merchants in the Il-Khanate
refused to accept the unrecognisable new money, however, and trade came to a
virtual standstill. The experiment was such a disaster that Gaykhatu was forced to
abandon it after six months, and the ensuing rebellion ousted him from power in
1295. His successor, Arghun's son, Ghazan, was the first Muslim of Mongol
heritage to rule the Il-Khanate, and all rulers of Persia since him have been
Muslim. Ghazan adhered to the Sunni form of Islam, but he was tolerant of
Ghazan's successor, his brother, Oljeitu, took the empire in a different direction.
Oljeitu was a Shi'ite Muslim, and he embarked on a campaign against the majority
Sunnis of the realm. His persecution of Sunnis damaged the Il-Khanate's
relationship with the neighbouring Mamluks in Egypt, who were Sunnis. Relations
between the two groups were almost at the point of war when Oljeitu died in 1316.
Oljeitu's son and heir, Abu Said, was the first Mongol to have an Islamic name
since birth. He restored Sunnism as the state religion of the Il-Khanate and made
peace with the Mamluks. Peace to the west did not mean peace to the north,
however, since the alliance between the Mamluks and the Golden Horde had
dissolved after Berke's death in 1266. Abu Said thus found himself involved in a
renewed conflict with the Golden Horde over the territory of the Caucasus
Mountains. Abu Said died in 1335 while at war with the Golden Horde, and his
death marked the beginning of the Il-Khanate's decline and eventual collapse.
A series of succession struggles after 1335 weakened the empire, as did the loss
of soldiers and civilians to the Black Death, which had been ravaging Persia. The
chaos opened the way for foreign invasion, which occurred in 1357 when the
Golden Horde Khan, Jani Beg, attacked Tabriz, the Il-Khanate capital. Although
the Golden Horde was not successful in annexing the Il-Khanate to its own
empire, it succeeded in adding to the political turmoil of the land. When Timur
invaded from Central Asia in 1393, the Il-Khanate was swallowed up into his
rapidly expanding empire.
The Mongol invasion of the Islamic heartland had mixed effects. On one hand, the
Islamic world never regained its previous power. Much of the six centuries of
Islamic scholarship, culture, and infrastructure was destroyed as the invaders
burned libraries, replaced mosques with Buddhist temples, and destroyed intricate
irrigation systems. In fact, the irrigation equipment necessary for farming in the
Mesopotamian desert was not rebuilt until the 20th century. Additionally,
Gaykhatu's attempt to introduce paper money at the end of the 13th century
virtually destroyed trade in the region, from which it was difficult to recover.
On the other hand, the Mongol invasion was not entirely negative for the Islamic
world. Perhaps the most significant achievement for the Muslims under Mongol
rule was their ability to absorb the Mongols into their Islamic culture, rather than
allowing its destruction at Mongol hands. This feat can be seen in the triumph of
the Islamic faith over Mongol shamanism and Buddhism. It had occurred so
quickly, in fact, that only 40 years after the fall of the Abbasid caliphate in 1258,
the Mongols responsible for it had themselves adopted Islam as the official
religion of their empire.
A similar trend is seen in language. Because the majority of the inhabitants of the
Central Asian steppe were Turks, and the Mongol army and administration often
employed more Turks than Mongols, it did not take long for the Turkish language
to replace Mongol in certain regions of the Il-Khanate. The province of Azerbaijan
in northern Persia, for example, which is an independent country today, has
remained a Turkish-speaking region since Mongol times. Turkish did not become
the language of administration in the Il-Khanate, as it had in the Golden Horde by
1280, but it was influential nonetheless. The Seljuk Turks in Asia Minor
particularly benefited from their status as Mongol vassals. Perhaps because of
their fierce determination to retain their Turkish language and culture under the
foreign rulers, or perhaps because of the Mongol favouritism towards the Turks,
The Chagatai Khanate
After Genghis Khan's death in 1227, his vast empire was divided between two of
his sons, Ogodei and Chagatai. Ogodei became Great Khan after his father's
death, and thus controlled most of the Mongol Empire. Chagatai, however, was
also given a small area of Central Asia to control, while maintaining allegiance to
Ogodei as Great Khan. The region under Chagatai's control was populated mostly
by Turkish nomads, many of which had already converted to Islam. The great
Central Asian cities of Bukhara and Samarkand also fell within Chagatai's sphere,
both of which were influential centres of Islamic scholarship. For the most part,
however, the Chagatai Khanate ruled non-urbanised communities, thereby
preserving the traditional nomadic ways of the Mongols while other Khanates
became more settled and urbanised. It is generally agreed that the Chagatai
Khanate was the weakest of all Mongol-controlled empires because it was small,
and thus it was easily absorbed into the spheres of influence of more powerful
neighbouring Khanates.
After Chagatai's death in 1242, the Khanate retained the name of its original
leader, but it fell into Ogodei's realm under the control of his grandson, Kaidu.
Following Kaidu's death in 1301, a handful of the Mongol rulers of the Chagatai
the Turkish language in the Seljuk region was used for literary purposes for the
first time, and it received official recognition.
The Muslims could also thank the Mongols for introducing them to gunpowder,
which the Mongols brought from China. While China is generally accepted as the
empire that invented gunpowder, the Muslims are credited with applying the
invention as a propellant, and thus a weapon. This spread of the native language
and culture to the Mongol invaders is seen in the Il-Khanate as well as the
Mongol-ruled Yuan Dynasty in China, both of which had rich cultural, linguistic,
and religious traditions that pre-dated the Mongol invasion. By comparison, the
Golden Horde in southern Russia, despite converting to Islam and adopting the
Turkish language, remained true to its Mongol heritage as pastoral nomads and
warriors. The Mongols of the Golden Horde remained Mongols; in the Il-Khanate
and China, however, the Mongols were so absorbed into the native culture that
hardly any trace of them remained by the 16th century. Their legacy was not
easily forgotten, however, particularly in Persia, where the Mongol invasion had
fuelled the age-old Persian nationalism that would eventually result in the
formation of the powerful Safavid Empire there in the 16th century.
Khanate were Muslims, indicating that Islam had penetrated the region. It was not
until the ascension of Tarmashirin to the throne in 1326, however, that the
Chagatai Khanate became an officially Muslim state. All Khans after him were
Muslim, and Central Asia has remained Islamic ever since. With the conversion of
the Chagatai Khanate, all three western Mongol empires, including the Golden
Horde and the Il-Khanate - as we will see later in this chapter - were Islamic. It is
rather remarkable, considering the usual pattern in world history of a conquering
power imposing its culture on its new subjects, that the Mongol conquerors of the
Islamic world instead adopted the culture and religion of their subjects.
The Chagatai Khanate fell to Timur, himself a native of Samarkand, in the mid14th century, more about which will come later in this chapter. Timur's successors
were in turn ousted from the Chagatai Khanate by the Sheibanids, descendants of
a brother of Batu, the original Khan of the Golden Horde. The Sheibanids later
called themselves the Uzbeks, the name by which they are still known today.
Another Islamic group, known today as the Kazakhs, originated as dissident
Uzbeks during the same period. Both groups became part of the Soviet Union in
1917, making up two of the five Muslim republics of that country. Today,
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are independent countries, living remnants of the
Chagatai Mongol legacy in Central Asia.
Chagatai Khan (alternative spellings Chagata, Chugta, Chagta, Djagatai, Jagatai),
a son of Genghis Khan (1206—1227), controlled the part of the Mongol Empire
which extended from the Ili river (eastern Kazakhstan) and Kashgaria (western
Tarim Basin) to Transoxiana. He inherited most of what are now the five Central
Asian states and northern Iran after the death of his father which he ruled until his
death in 1242. The Empire later came to be known as the Chagatai Khanate, part
of the Mongol Empire. These territories would later become the Mongol-Turkish
states.
Mongol Successor States
Genghis Khan's empire was inherited by his third son, Ögedei, the designated
Great Khan who personally controlled the lands east of Lake Balkash as far as
Mongolia. Tolui, the youngest, the keeper of the hearth, was accorded the
northern Mongolian homeland. Chagatai, the second son received Kasharia, with
his capital at Almarikh in the modern Sinkiang area of western China, and
Tranoxania between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers in modern Uzbekistan.
Apart from problems of lineage and inheritance, the Mongol Empire was
endangered by the great cultural and ethnic divide between the Mongols
themselves and their mostly Islamic Turkic subjects.
When Ögedei died before achieving his dream of conquering all of China, there
was a smooth transition to his son Güyük (1241) overseen by Ögedei's wife
Töregenem who had assumed the regency for the five years following Ögedei's
death. It had to be ratified in a quriltai, which was duly celebrated but without the
presence of Batu, the independent-minded khan of the Golden Horde. After
Güyük's death, Batu sent Berke, who maneuvered with Tolui's widow, and in the
next quriltai (1253), the Ögedite line was passed over for Möngke, Tolui's son,
who was said to be favourable to Nestorian Christianity. The Ögedites did not
immediately go into opposition but they retained their Mongolian domains.
The Chagatai Khanate after Chagatai
Chagatai died shortly after Ögedei. The Chagataites, who had previously
accepted Guyuk, consented to the succession to Möngke as Great Khan with
some reluctance, but on the whole the Mongol Empire did not disgregate. Möngke
died during his campaign against Song China. Kubai (Qubilai) succeeded him as
Great Khan in 1260, but faced a succession crisis. His younger brother, Arigboka
(Arigboqa), claimed the great khanate. Kublai brought him to heel with the help of
Alghu, the Chagatai Khan. But Alghu began to act independently of Kublai.
Alghu was succeeded as khan by Baraq (Barak), based in Transoxiana. Baraq
was at odds with Abaqa, the Ilkhan or Lesser Khan who ruled in Persia. The
Ögedite Kaidu (Qaidu) saw in these troubles an opportunity to re-assert the
imperial claim of his own line. He made an alliance with the Ilkhanids to make war
on Baraq, who attacked first but was defeated and became a vassal of Kaidu. The
wars between Baraq and Persia continued until Baraq was finally defeated and
killed by Abaqa.
Kaidu joined forces with the Chagatai prince and pretender Duwa, who
recognized the suzerainty of Kaidu, and together they invaded the Tarim, whose
Uigur inhabitants had remained loyal to the line of Genghis (Jenghiz), now
represented by Kublai, who in 1279 had conquered China. This was tantamount
to a declaration of war and Kublai had to repel the attack mounted by Kaidu and
Duwa. The results of these wars was the independence of the Chagatai Khanate,
as well as the separation of the Ilkhanate from Mongolia.
When Kublai Khan died in 1294, the former Mongol Empire was divided into
independent khanates: Kublai's imperial state continued in Mongolia and China;
the Golden Horde ruled the western steppes; Ilkhanid Persia dominated the
Middle East; and the Chagatai Khanate covered Central Asia. The Golden Horde
contested Azerbaijan with Ilkhanid Persia, but was at peace with the
Chaghataites, whose independence it had actively encouraged. Ilkhanid Persia
faced growing Mameluke power in Syria, following the death of Baraq was no
longer threatened from Transoxiana. Persia and the Golden Horde were Islamic,
as were the Chagatai domains in Transoxiana and Uiguria. But the Chagatai
Mongols of the steppes clung tenacioulsy to their traditional customs. The
Chagatai Khanate was turbulent and unsafe because of the efforts of Kaidu and
his vassal Duwa to integrate the original ulus (dynasties) of Ögedei and Chagatai.
In India, the Delhi Sultanate was led by war-like, despotic anti-Hindu rulers. Duwa
was active in Afghanistan and attempted to extend Mongol rule to India, but there
he was defeated by a formidable foe, Ala-ud-Din, who had ascended to the throne
of Delhi in 1296. The Mongols thereafter repeatedly invaded northern India. On at
least two occasions, they came in strength. The second time around, they took
Delhi but could not keep their hold on the Sultanate. Kaidu persisted in trying to
conquer Mongolia, the key to China, but he died fighting the Kublaids (1301).