Mongol Legacy Exam

Abu Said

1. Initially thought of as a good leader for opening hajj routes through Mamluk territory and being a patron of Persian poetry. He led a stable and artistically rich Ilikhanate until his death in 1335. However, he had no male heir, nor did he appoint a female regent to rule in place of one. His lack of heir and second in command when he died caused a power vacuum that caused the instability of Persia from 1335 until the restoration of order under Timur.

Ghiyath al Din Rashidi:

1. Son of the Persian writer Rashid al Din, he served as a vizier and patron of the arts in the Ilikhanante after his father’s execution in 1318 by Abu Said. He was hired for his loyalty to the Mongol state while belonging to a prestigious Perisan family at the time. Under his reign the Great Mongol Shahnameh was copied and illustrated in 1330, featuring the same Persian text of the shahnameh with new illustrations featuring Mongols visually depicted in them as the heroes and supporting characters.

Jalayrids

The Jalayrids were a Chiggisid dynasty ruled by Malik Ashraf who claimed descent from Elegei, who was a commander in Hulegu’s army. They continued the Persian shahnameh tradition the Mongol government started and like the Mongol government before them sought to insert themselves as Mongols into its illustrations. However, the warmongering and cruelty of Malik Ashraf, took over tabriz whom artistic works were created for, resulted in his overthrow in 1347 by peasantry aligned with the rival Chobanids

Muzzafrids:

The Muzaffarids were a Persian Muslim dynasty that rebelled against the Ilkhanate, which claimed descent from an Arab family that migrated from Khawf in Northern Iran to Yazd in Southern Iran. The Muzzafrids also wrote their own copy of the shahnameh while also taking ownership by copying Arab Abbasid era texts, such as Kaila wa Dimna, and creating new illustrations for them. The Muzzafrids were highly literate and attempted to preserve an old Arab order from the Abbasid era using their education gained at the Mongol court.

The dynasty’s most prominent ruler, Shah Shuja (r. 1358–1384), gained a reputation for literary refinement and courtly patronage. His court attracted poets, scholars, and artists, who found in Shiraz a relatively stable environment compared to other parts of Iran that were more directly affected by conflict.^[15][16]

Injuids

1. The Injuids were a iranian dynasty that were originally Persian tax agents for Mongol lands (inju)  and headed the collection of natural resources from these lands.  The injuids claimed descent from the Prophet muhammad and were highly invested in creating hagiographies for the sufis in their administration, employing the famous Persian poet Hafez to write them. They ruled over  Isfahan and fars and were able to establish their rule by both claiming to be sayyids while also creating beautiful divinely focused poetry praising themselves to appeal to messianist groups within the kingdom. 

2. •Their dynastic name derives from a position held by an ancestor as agents of the Ilkhans, raised revenues from crown lands (inju)

   •Came from wealthy classes of Fars

   •Claimed descent from 11^th C. Herati Sufi ‘Abdallah Ansari; sayyids

   •Patrons of the arts and literature (famously Hafez)

   •Ibn Battuta says of Abu Ishaq (Inju ruler) that he was popular among the Shirazis

   •Were initially in control of Fars and Isfahan, lose to the Muzaffarids by 1356

Sarbandars

1. a dynasty of local landowners leading peasants  in Khorasan that rose up and expelled their Ilikhan tax collector Toghay Temur. The Sarbandars were mainly led by messianists who convinced imams, and dervishes to lead Pahlavans (local militias like minutemen) of peasants. The Sarbandars had no line of succession and succession was mainly merit based. The Sarbandars’ radical revolution that sought to eject the cruel Mongol tax collectors for their high taxes was justified as a religious revolution against corruption, with Sarbandar leaders claiming to be next messiahs to guide lower classes to God through class revolution. The Sarbandars lasted for the longest out of the successor states because of their appeal to imams and their congregations. 

Mujadid

1. Mujadid refers to the religious revival that began in the early 14th century under Khan Oljeitu. The idea of Mujadid referred to a person who claimed to be a Islamic reformer for the 1000th year after the Hijra as the prophet's hadith stated would happen. The title of the Mujadid was used as a title for the warring leaders of the Chupanids and the Ilikhans and after the Timurid conquest of Iran was appropriated by Shah Rukh to demonstrate the religious legitimacy he held as a non sectarian, orthodox Muslim that sought to enforce the sharia on all the empire’s subjects. 

Letterism

1. the 14th century occult science that believed that each letter in Arabic, usually of a title or given name, had an inherent numerical value, and this value added or multiplied up to a total value that often represented the amount of power a ruler had. Letterism started as a way of analyzing each of the 99 names of Allah before the 14th century but then transitioned to legitimize rulers after the mid 14th century through their titles, which were often those like Shah Jahan, meaning the king of the world, which had a value of 1000 to mark 1000 AH. Letterism spread as an art throughout the Persianate world in the 14th century and acted as a soft power competition between rival dynasties of which ruler was more powerful, making use of mathematics, linguistics, and astrology to legitimize rule.

Walaya

Walaya in the Persianate context refers to pursuit of the sacred, often mystic  power of a shah. The Walaya was a way for sufi scholars of the magical sciences to highlight the God-given powers of their patrons as a way of showing religious legitimacy over rival leaders, often through letterism, alchemy, and astrology. The concept of Walaya started a sufi “Arms race” to prove which leader was more powerful in a religious sense in an increasingly fragmented Persia after the fall of the Ilikhante. authority of god

Gawhar Shah

the wife of Timur’s son, Shahrukh and was a powerful noblewoman in the Timurid government. She was the daughter of Ghiyath al Din Tarkhan, an important general in Timur’s army and her brothers were skilled generals, so she often was a master political strategist while Shahrukh was the religious and symbolic head of the government.  She also had immense amounts of private property and her own set of guards and servants. Gawhar Shad acted as a bridge between Shahrukh's settled family and her own family of Turkic nomadic commanders who fought rival Turkic tribes, cementing the relationship between the military, religious, and diplomatic spheres during Shahrukh's reign

The Hongwu emperor

1. Zhu Yuangzhang, was the founder of the Ming dynasty, a successor state to the Khanate of the Great Khan that fell in 1368. Zhu Yuangzhang broke from the Khanatte and attempted to erase the Mongol influence through rules like mandating dress and hairstyles be kept in Chinese fashion. The effect of increasingly Chinese nationalistic rules like these dress codes was the result of a greater conflict between the Ming and the Timurids, which led Timur to draw up plans to conquer China, which had limited trade with the Timurids,  in the 1380s. 

Kitabkhana

The artistic workshop in all mediums under the patronage of Timurid prince Baysanghur in Herat, an influential trade city on the silk road. These Kitabkhana often created artwork that fused artistic trends from eastwards in China with local artworks in the Persianate world to create art to sell throughout the region and back to China. The Kitabkhana were a form of soft power the Timurids under Shahrukh used in order to showcase the economic power of the Timurid government to both its traders and to traders from China and India. 

‘Ali Shir Navai

Ali Shir Navai was a Turkic polymath and Mualam under Timur who advocated for the use of Chaghatay Turkish as a literary language. Navai argued that Chaghatay Turkish literature was underdeveloped because of the exclusive use of Persian as a written language among Timurid scholars, keeping in line with previous trends that centered Persian as a literary language. Ali Shir navai claimed that the Turks, as sons of yapith, should have their language be the language of the Timurid empire and therefore linked Turkic as a language with a pre Mongol steppe identity. Navai’s writings reflected an increasing Turkicization and revival of steppe culture to challenge Persian cultural dominance in the later Timurid years, with turkizicization being a source of legitimacy for Babur to gain support among his Turkic nomadic followers.

Zij il Sultan

1. an astronomical table produced by Amir Ulugh bey in 1439. It was a book that had the positions of the stars, moon, and planets listed as well as other stars, facilitated by the construction of a new observatory in Samarkand with financial support from Shah Rukh (timurs son). This book was an advanced scientific guide to astronomy that represented the start of a Timurid renaissance under Shah Rukh until the end of the empire in 1501, a scientific and artistic revolution designed to promote the legitimacy of the king through attributing the conjunction of the stars with a king’s rule.  

Herat

1. Herat was the capital of Shahrukh’s empire and the then end point of the silk road from Ming China. Herat since the ilikhanid period had been a wealthy trading city and hence became a main producer of ceramics and painting in the Persianiate world. Shahrukh’s shift of the capital from Samarkand in the Northwest to Herat farther in the East marked a shift from his father’s nomadic Chigissid inspired call to legitimacy to a more international, Islamo-Persianate focused identity that started the Timurid renaissance in sciences and arts. 

Aq Quonlyu

2. The Aq quonlyu were a powerful nomadic turkic tribe led by Uzun Hasan that later joined the Safavid sufi order through the marriage of Hasan’s daughter to the Safavid Haydar, giving birth to Shah Ismail and his brother Yakub. The Aq Quonlyu as strong fighters with the Safavid family’s religious legitimacy had significantly weakened Timruid reign in Khorasan. However, Shah Ismail, in a vie for power with his brother yakub, could use his family’s legitimacy as the strongest rebel faction (thanks to the Aq Quolnyu) against the Timurids to then rally support rival Turkic support against yakub and the Aq Quolonlyu, eventually conquering them in 1508. rise of rge safavids 

3. After years in hiding, the teenage Ismail emerged, united the Qizilbash tribes, exploited the Aq Qoyunlu's internal collapse, declared himself Shah in 1501, proclaimed Twelver Shia Islam as the state religion (a revolutionary move), and founded the Safavid Empire — one of the great Islamic gunpowder empires, and the foundation of modern Iran.

Sayyids

1. A Sayyid is a person who claims descent from the prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Many rival dynasties after the collapse of the Ilikhanate claimed descent from the prophet Muhammad in a vie for political dominance through religious legitimacy, such as the injuids and the later Safavids under Shah Ismail. With the fall of the Abbasid regime in 1258 and the collapse of the Ilikhanate in 1335, a religiously connoted title like Sayyid became a desirable title for political leaders to unify populations under their rule, claiming to be messiahs guiding their subjects closer to Islam while attempting to fill a political power vacuum. 

 Pari Khan Khanum

1. the daughter of Shah Tahmasap. After Tahmasp’s death Pari Khan was regent and brought her brother Ismail II to the throne. However, Ismail II’s half brother Mohammad Khodabanda came to the throne and his wife advised him to assassinate her because of her influential pro Ismail position. Pari Khan Khanum’s unique position as one of the few female regents since the fall of the Ilikhanate demonstrates that despite men almost exclusively being the official heads of the government in the post Ilikhanid period women often still held positions of power in the absence of men. The ruling power of women in the absence of men of a comparable rank was a trend taken from pre Islamic Mongol practice. 

2. Pari Khan initially allied with Ismail II to bring him to power

3. But Ismail II quickly turned against her, restricting her influence almost immediately after taking the throne

4. After Ismail II died (1577, likely poisoned), she again played a kingmaker role in bringing Mohammad Khodabandato power

5. It was Mohammad Khodabanda's wife, Mahd-e Olya (not his mother) who orchestrated Pari Khan's assassination in 1578

6. safavids

 Oriental Despotism

1. The idea of oriental despotism is the European idea, originating in the mid 17th century, that Middle Eastern and other rulers east of western Europe ruled through violence and lacked basic features of then modern governance, like bureaucracies or corporations. This idea also attributed the lack of competence of Middle Eastern leaders to climatic degradation due to the hot climates everywhere outside Northern and Western Europe. This idea was one of the first orientalist ideas that sought to discredit Middle Eastern leaders for their racial background and uphold European secular supremacy over the Middle East.

Muhammad Shibani Khan

1. the first Khan of the Shibanid empire in the former Golden Horde Khanate. Muhammad Shaybani Khan fully defeated the Timurids and pushed the rival Mughals led by Babur out of Samarkand with turkic nomads he called “Uzbeks” who combined steppe practices like the Yasa with the Sharia. Muhammad Shibani Khan was one of the first leaders in the Middle East to create a specific political label that became an ethnic label to describe the Turkomen that sided with him as Uzbeks in opposition to the rival, genetically related Turkoman Kazakhs. By the 17th century Uzbek and Kazakh became separate, permanent political identities through people living in distinct territories.

2. Shaybani pushed Babur first out of Samarkand, then out of Central Asia altogether — essentially forcing the Mughal Empire into existence by making India Babur's only remaining option

3. This is a wonderful historical irony — one of the great empires of India exists partly because Shaybani Khan kept winning

The endpoint:

• Shaybani himself was killed in 1510 at the Battle of Merv by Shah Ismail I of the Safavids — the same figure from your earlier flashcards

• Legend holds that Ismail had his skull made into a jeweled drinking cup, which tells you something about the intensity of their rivalry

• Political label → ethnic group — the Uzbek/Kazakh split started as "which Khan do you follow?" and ended as "what ethnicity are you?" This took about 150 years and a lot of territorial separation.

• Ismail wins the last round — Shaybani defeated the Timurids and Babur, but was ultimately killed by Shah Ismail I in 1510, connecting this flashcard back to your Safavid material

Kazakhs

2. The Kazakhs are the Muslim Turkomen who reside on the opposite side of the Jarxantes river from their genetic neighbors, the Uzbeks. The Kazakhs were a group of Turkomen who belonged to the Chaghatay Khanate until in the mid 15th century when the Uzbeks under Abu l Khair split off and then attempted to conquer them. The Kazakhs’ more nomadic, religiously syncretic identity compared to the more settled and Islamicized Uzbeks drove a wedge between the groups, as the rival Uzbeks began to condemn their Kazakh neighbors for their questionable practices like slavery, and pillaging even through both groups were guilty of the same crimes.

3.  The Kazakh Khanate^[a] was a nomadic state in Central Asia that existed from c. 1465 to the early 19th century. It emerged after the fragmentation of the Golden Horde.Ulus System: Genghis Khan’s division of land into "uluses" (such as the Ulus of Jochi) provided the administrative foundation for the later Kazakh state

4. While the ruling elite carried Mongol ancestry, they merged with local Turkic peoples. This produced a hybrid culture that combined Turkic language with Mongol military traditions and administrative systems.
   

Beyliks

1. the small princely states in the east of the greater Ilikhan territory of Anatolia. After the fall of the Ilikhanate, Anatolia split into these princely states which also resisted a sweeping reconquest of Anatolia by the Byzantine empire, with states like the Germiyanids fighting the Karamayids. With many states fighting one another, the Ottomans allied with rival states to the Germiyanids and Qaramaynids to eliminate large enemy states in their favor, eventually gaining control over Anatolia by the mid 15th century.

2. The Ottoman Empire absorbed most Anatolian beyliks between the 14th and 16th centuries to unify Anatolia, primarily through military conquest, marriage alliances, and purchase

3. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rum's central power established in Konya was largely a result of using these clans under appointed beys/warrior chieftains called uç bey or uj begi (especially in border areas to ensure safety against the Byzantines); uç is a Turkish term that denotes a border or frontier territory equivalent to marches, with the similar term margrave used in other parts of Europe. These clans, led by beys, would receive military and financial support from the Seljuks in return for their fealty.

   However, Mongol invasions from the East saw a decline in Seljuk power. The Ilkhanate commanders in Anatolia then gained strength and authority which encouraged the beys, who had until then been vassals to the Sultanate of Rum, to declare sovereignty over their dominions.

Babur

1. Babur was the founder of the Mughal Empire and son of Timurid Amir Umar Sheikh Mirza, the ruler of the Farghana province where he hailed from.

2. decnednt of GK. Babur as a teenager was forced out of Samarkand in 1501 when Uzbek forces allied with the Safavids conquered Samarkand, with Uzbek forces seeking to kill Babur as a high value enemy leader. Babur from a young age becomes driven to conquer lands for power, and then eventually defeat the Uzbeks which drives him to conquer from his exile in Kabul to Delhi. However, by the time his conquest of India was complete, the Uzbeks had been defeated by the Safavids, becoming a new enemy for the Mughals. 

3. Babur therefore carried Chinggisid blood, but he was not a Mongol. He proudly identified himself as a Timurid, and ethnically he was a Chaghatay Turk, a group that had become more culturally “refined” and distinct from the nomadic Mongols, or “Moghuls,” of Moghulistan.

4. The Baburnama, literally the “letters” or memoirs of Babur, is a remarkable historical source. It provides a unique insight into the societies of Islamic Central Asia, Afghanistan, and north India at the turn of the sixteenth century.

Fatih Memet II

1. Faith Mehmet II was the Ottoman sultan who defeated the Byzantines at Constantinople, and expanded the Ottoman empire westward beyond Anatolia into Eastern Europe. Mehmet II upon conquering Constantinople constructed his own architecture inspired by existing Byzantine styles, converting the 500+ year old Hagia Sofia into a mosque to support his image as the rightful successor to the Romans in Anatolia. Mehmet II would fulfill his mission as a Ghazi commander in defeating both the strong Christian kingdoms of the Hungarians and the Wallachians and establish Islam firmly in Eastern Europe, blending Christian and Muslim influences throughout the Balkans.  Expanded the empire By the end of his reign in 1481, he had placed the Ottoman Empire firmly into Europe, at the doorstep of Venice and Hungary in the west, and the Russians in the east by making the Khanate of Crimea one of the Ottomans’ vassal tributaries

 

Shaybani Khan

1. an Uzbek leader who consolidated various Uzbek tribes and laid the foundations for their ascendance in Transoxiana and the establishment of the Khanate of Bukhara. He was a Shaybanid or descendant of Shiban. (political affiliation to racial group), source of stablity when timurid empire is falling apart, tried to combine islamic norms w mongol norms, never gave up steppe identity

2.  

He fought successful campaigns against the Timurid leader Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire.^[11] In 1501 he recaptured Samarkand and in 1507 also took Herat, the southern capital of the Timurids.

Melville claims that the Mongols in Iran underwent only a "rudimentary acculturation" to Persian political and social norms (328). What does this mean, and how can it explain the Ilkhanate's eventual disintegration? Do you agree with this statement, why or why not? 

• Once the mongols conquered more sedentary people they began to adorpt more cultural norms, but they still held on to Mongolian norms like religion (ex, sedentary capital but rulers still traveled around) cultural split between noyat and nobles and persion citizens, meant less loyalty to rulers from noyat and citizens when sucession came into play 

• Ilkhanate split between being Mongolian and being persian—ex, no quiriltai (less strong loyalty to center khanate by 14^th century as larger empire disintegrated) to decide sucession, but had sometimes, no one cultural norm 

• Role of women diminished  

• Neither fully Persianized nor fully retaining mongol norms, makes them flexible, not fully one or the other means they are not catering to any of the groups they are trying to appease (muslim, persian, mongol traditionalist) 

• Enact a lot of mongol norms gets accusations of not taking care of persian flock by viziers  

• Persian and mongol based tax systems which was bad for the average citizen 

• Ghazan centralizing, reduction in power of women, increased the treasury but decreased strong female regents to defend against sucession crisis, too persianizing 

• Balance almost impossible for mongols to maintain 

• -This occurred at the end of the 13th century, start of a settled life created conflicts between settled and nomadic identities

  -Little invested in ruling populations, more invested in having pasture land

  
  

  Issue of succession: Abu Said had no heir, couldn’t get a successor because there was no quriltai (ended by 14th century)

  
  

  Appropriation of Persian art forms drove a conflict between the Mongol supporters (purely tribal populations, like Turks and Mongolian settlers) and Persian fanboys (the state)

  -Sedentary people were ruled, ruling class was nomadic= not present in the capital= inability to reinforce order to stop messianists from gaining power with middle/lower class

  
  

  Mongols were flexible in their religious and cultural/ethnic attachment and this was useful in the beginning

  -But because they never catered to a particular group, they never had the full loyalty of a single group (and had to deal with groups that fought)

  -Quriltai discontinued after Abaqa, loyalty to the Mongolian leadership strained

  -Predatory taxes, reduction of power of royal women= no regents after Ghazan Khan’s rule= split into Persianate successor states that were constantly at war with each other with no unifier

How did Tabriz and its associated port cities act as a nexus for Mongol political and economic activity? How did it connect eastern empires to the Latin West? Why was there economic and political decline here from the mid-14^th century?  

• Port cities that had been part of the silk road 

• Became more dangerous, merchants killed, did not want to return 

• Detah of abu said, disintegtration of the khanate, brought instability to the region, no politity to take control of cities like Tabriz so foeigners couldn’t establish permanent safe outposts there 

• Originally important space for trade, location and proxitmity to west made appealing, ilkhans went out of there way to make it a hospitable space to tranders from all over, Italians, kept it robust, made it impratnt stopping point it augment their power, able to take reasonable customns duties to make it an attractive place 

• Usual stance of religious plurality attractive to westerners 

• Genovese contrasct w the ilkhan, taxes for protection  

• Jacanids under malik ashwath acttacked tibriz and took it over (overthrow by jalyrids who couldnt restore trust)  

• Port cities were unstable because rival dynasties fought over it when the ilikhanate fell apart in 1335

-Tabriz: located in Northwestern Iran, close to Anatolia (start of Europe) while also being a Muslim majority realm

-Perfect truck stop for Europeans, impose customs on trade passing through, churches in Tabriz= friendly place to non Muslims

-European traders granted official representative status, received protection from the Ilikhan military while subject to taxes (orotogh)

-Venetian and Genoese Black sea trade as bringing European goods to tabriz

-Chupanids attacked Tabriz, disintegration of the ilikhanate in 1335 meant conflict increased

-Tabriz over taken by Timurtash (decline) and trade shut off (and plundered) by Malik Ashraf= embargo on Chupanids by Genoese

-Disintegration of the Ilikhanate meant alliances with the west became fractured, lack of trust in overland trade across central asia

-Silk road was gone permanently by the 1357, when regions of anatolia near the Black sea swarmed with bandits from Turkic Beyliks

-Persian export trade shifted eastwards towards China and India under the Timurid empire as Eastern half of the Persian world more politically stable than the west

-Timurid empire arose out of competing tribal groups, control established over an eastern trade route that centered Tabriz but cut off trade from Western Europe

-By end of 15th century Europeans adopt sea trade, first landing in Goa in 1498 and first conquest of the Americas in 1492

How did the Sarbadars gain actual power in Western Khurasan at the time of Ilkhanid disintegration? How were they able to establish a relatively strong state despite their unusual and apparently chaotic political system?  

• Middle class support? 

• Imams and priests and dirvishes were on board--> refered top themsleves as caliphs on coinage , gods chosen to rebel  

• Religion forms of messianism and dervish peirty and why it is attractive 

• Black death & death of abu said created power vacuum and weakened Ilkhanate power 

• Grassroots rebellion, people were frustrated by high taxes 

• Idealized by Russian scholars who supported rise of the middle class 

• Wealthy business conglomerate 

• Adaptable  

• Assinations, ended w temur 

• Joining of political power and some local military strength from neighborhood watch type organizations Pahlavans (civilian guard) 

• Middle class messianic landowners who rose up against the Ilikhans and took power

-Black death and Abu Said’s death severely weakened the Ilikhanate

-Taxes were too high, caused rebellion of landowners, killed local tax collectors

Dual power structure: Military and religious leaderships, used in conjunction with one another

- enlisted armed rebels among the citizenry, large army of part time soliders  (pahlavans)

-Legitimacy drawn from the fact that they promised to protect the citizens from the bad taxes, that it was a religiously sanctioned rebellion against corruption 

-Support of local dervishes and Imams, acted to call citizens to arms with religious authority

-Called themselves caliphs on coinage, while also claiming lineage from the 12 imams, lasted for 100 years (longer than other dynasties) because of their relatively universal class appeal, and flexible alliances (including with other states against Ilikhans)

How does Temur's title, the Lord of Conjunction (Sahib-i Qirān), reflect the continued legacy of Mongol political legitimacy in the Persianate sphere as well as the rise of occultism and the charismatic power of Sufism? 

– favorable astrology, indicated divine favor in a way that sets him up as a ordained savior foretold, approved leadership 

Mandate of heaven (mongol) -> Islam makes clear Allah gave no son 

• Mongol ideas but also intertwined with sufi ideas 

• Discuss how local sufi shacks would discuss how temur was destined to be ruler of this area 

• Signs more then astrology, they are sign of god and heavens favor 

• Lord of Auspicious conjunction (sahib al Qiran): Timur being born when Saturn and Jupiter were seen in the sky together

-Spriitual legitimacy to rule, connection to Ali as a divinely appointed ruler

-Rise of astrology is a result of a rise of sufism

Timur saw himself as the next chiggis khan, needed to take over the entire realm

-Brutal military conquests (attacks on civilians of resistant kingdoms) meant to strike fear into enemies, strategy utilized from Chinggis Khan

-Heavenly mandate to rule as trend started under Chiggis Khan, started a shift toward sufism in Persia

Madrasa (completed 1399): Large Quranic verses put on Madrasa, meant to show off to sedentary populations he was a Muslim 

-Patronage of Nashqabandi sufi order

Rising interest in the occult scenes, hurufism (letterism) rising under Yazdi under Shahrukh

-Aligns with a greater trend to identify as a descendant of Timur under Shahrukh, mirroring trends to identity with Chiggis Khan’s family as a reward for his loyalty to shahrukh

-Shahrukh as claiming to be the rightful descendant of Timur, restoring order

-Timur’s widow given to Shaykh Hasan in marriage

-Gur I Amir: His tomb designed by Ulegh beg, describes him as the son of Alan Qoa and Ali Ibn Abu Talib

-Commissioning of Khanaqas and mosques, rise of the state sponsored single sufi order

-Yazdi: Court letterist of shahrukh, rise of letterism (sums of letters for importance of titles) as a magic alongside astronomy by Ulegh Beg’s time

How did Shahrukh maintain stability within the empire after the death of his father? In what ways did his rule continue practices of Timur and in what ways did they differ? 

• Maintianed stabliyt by following timur and not following timu 

• Timur relied on small circle of amirs 

• Sharcukh did not rely on existing military elite, rather he created his own circle of military allies 

• Sharuck could delegate power as long as it was centrerized under him, as opposed to timut 

• Used this to reincorporate provinces like ajerbaijan that had broken away, focused on what was necessary for stability whereas timur conquered for its own sake to promote image of khan 

• Centerized state, beauraracy sharusk, rather then timurs charismatic personalty, sharuckh was foucwed on ensuring empure suirvived 

• Sharrauh Leaned into islam as form of religious legitimacy, used Islamic rhetorica and patronized Islamic religious buildings, quiz shah, leans more into islam then his father, though still allowed mongol relirgion  

• Unlike his father sharkruh had less of a traditional monfol upbringing, timut preferred dervish whereas shakrah moved away 

• Ruling and fighting in a highly Persianate ans Islamized space 

• Sharukh gave more grace, but timut if someone cross him cut out hold family, in text example fo different where sjaruckh excecuted guy but allowed family to retain positions 

• Shahrukh ran a mostly decentralized state, delegated power 

-Sharp change from the paternal state of Timur

-Reintegrated Azerbaijan

Shahrukh’s use of military was mostly limited, mainly to hold onto power not to take more territory

-Attempted to build a more settled, Perso Islamic themed soiciety

-Islam and the sharia became a form of strongly identifying with Islam, bans alcohol and clubs

-Shift to Islam shifted to a more orthodox version of Islam, result of Persianate and highly islamic space 

Rewarded loyal political allies. like Amir Shaykh Hasan originally of the Jalayrids, with an attractive marriage to Timur’s widow (an educated chigissid woman)

-Didn’t punish amir’s family, just fired the bad one and put their brother in charge

Outsourced art to Kitabkhana under his younger son Baysanghur, older son given control of Samarkand and built observatory

Sharukh overall was a less militaristic ruler than his father, focus was more on preserving power

But still echoed his father, like his father echoed divine right to rule through past figures (Chiggis khan versus timur)

-Zafarnama created by yazdi but commissioned by him (genealogy of timur and chiggis khan fused), Gur I Amir commissioned 

How does political conflict create a platform for intellectual, artistic, and scientific production? (Discuss this either in terms of the period of post-Ilkhanid decentralization or during the Timurid period) 

• Intellectual means of powering legitimacy 

• Mixed mongol motiefs w Persianate/Islamic 

• In times of conflict more people agther together and mix cultures and spark new idea,s more pressure to show uo and look the best 

• Post timur and post ilkhanat epersiante space had become more persian and more islamaized and liked more arts and partonage of religious sites so it became favorable for leaders to adhere to these things to boost their legitimacy similar to how engaging in mongol stuff once was 

• Multiple centers of patronage rather then one created high compition and production 

• Timur moving people around to different places, albeit mot always willingly, facilitated connection between groups that might not have met otherwise & cultural explain 

• Republic of letters (timur had monopoly on power but still rivals) 

• Conflict creates a greater desire for scientific and artistic advancements

-Way of legitimizing the government in the face of crisis

Persianate space: patronage of buildings, arts of the books, was a way of showing power in the Persianate world, which the Timurids really held onto

-”republic of letters”= cold war of letters within timurid empire of competing factions of priinces

How was the authority of Chinggis’ lineage and Mongol custom able to maintain its influence/relevance into the early modern period? In which ways did empires of this period move away from Chinggisid norms? Discuss this answer using the specific historical developments of TWO of the following empires: Mughal, Safavid, Uzbek, Ottoman. 

• Mughals and mongols were both religiously tolerant 

• Ottomans heavily influenced by Christian aesthetics which strays from mongol tradition and values -> tolerant in early phrases, safavids practiced forced conversion 

• One theme, two empires  

• Can discuss confessional ambiguity between Mughals and early ottomans, disnt identify w particular sect os islam, amin rhetoric was that ghazis were warriors fro spread of islam, not spcifc branch, religiously kind of open abt things both to other religious and themselves, not secreatrian  

• Sufi shia divide is cntextial and often politically related 

• Mughals and early Ottomans drew on ideas of confessional ambiguity, which started under the Ilikhanate

-Ghazis for Islam, but mainly to control regions not necessarily to force people to become Muslim (all the way up until late 16th century)

-Many of their enemies were other Muslims, not war waged on religious difference (Beyliks in Anatolia, Delhi Sultans in India)

-Appreparating Christian aesthetics (Hagia sofia being Sultan Mehmet II’s crown building even though it was a church), Mughals drawing on Persianiate building styles while also sometimes fusing Indian styles (Taj Mahal and Red Fort drawing on Islamic and Hindu architectural styles)

Mughals: allies with the hindu Rajput dynasty, also allied with hindu kings against the Delhi sultanate

-Akbar (1580s): Din Illahi was a bold plan under Akbar to abolish the Jizya and start to diversify the state bureaucracy with Hindus and Zoroastrians alongside Muslims

Ottomans: space in eastern Anatolia was mostly Muslim, but allied with other turkic beyliks to fight the Germanyids and Karamaynids

-Use of the Dhimmi system (no conversion but taxed) alongside the vilayat system, gave different religions their own rulers and rules while paying taxes

What role did millenarian ideas play in shaping what ideas and religious inclinations became prominent in the post-Ilkhanid period (from the mid-13^th C. into the 16^th C.)? (You can speak generally about millenarian/messianic ideas and then focus on a specific group, Sarbadars, Timurids, Safavids, etc.) 

• Temurtash messianic revolt, father of two Javaid brothers, (?), midevil anotolia 

• Lean on messianism 

• Milenarims, milleniam abt to happen which signifced end of time,s many apolcoplytic things that would come so needed messiah or mahdi to lead you through it, safavids did this, promised establishment of justice in shia understanding, different shades within sunni community, sabadars saying god chosen who understood words of god and could change situation of peole 

• Safavids most clear example, took on this mantle of miliarianism and took on and held a ton of territory using it 

• Timur leadeding up to what the safavids did completely 

• Millenarims, anticipation fo year 1000 of Islamic millennium, which would come in 15000(?), obsession with time, dating messy, allowed people to take it up in differemntw ays 

•  anxiety of 1000 years since the hijira of prophet muhammad was approaching from the late 14th century to the 16th century

-Idea of doomsday, messianists thought this and started declaring themselves the saviors to guide people

-Safavids take onto the idea of messianism, Shah Ismail being the next mahdi and declaring it explicitly through poetry as the chosen one (descendent of Ali and Fatima) 

-Use of the Qizilbash as a military force held together by their following of Ismail as a saint with powers (no armor on battlefield= good morale)

The core of Ismail's power was the Qizilbash ("Redheads"), a coalition of Turkoman Sufi tribes who wore distinct 12-pointed red caps in honor of the12 Shiite Imams. They were devoted to Ismail with messianic zeal, viewing him as a savior whose, reign would replace the existing world order.

-Declaration of himself as a Ghazi for the Shia doctrine, sectarian ideas grow in Iran (burning Sunnis to death if they don’t convert to shiism)

-Calls himself Shah, return of the title shah for the first time since Sassanian years 

-Return of Shanameh tradition alongside passion plays under tahmasep, Ahura Mazda recast as mirroring Ali’s values is effect

The Impact of Chaldiran (1514)
The myth of Ismail’s divinity was severely shaken—though not immediately destroyed—by his major military defeat by the Ottoman Sultan Selim I at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514

What are some differences and similarities between the collapse of Yuan and Ilkhanate? 

1. Yuan collapsed due to disease which caused economic crisis, further worsened by natural disaster

Yuan are overthrown by peasants, chased out of China

Versus the Ilikhanate fell because of messianic leaders that won support of the people 

-Messianic leaders remain powerful in Iran and Iraq

• Ilkhanate, political fragmentation and struggle with successors, week leadership plauge 

• Rebilleions natural disasters, yuan 

• Inabliyy to identify sucessors/people believed that could rule overlapping with outside factors like natural disastors -> economic collapse 

• Di8fferences: yuan more focused on regaining what was lost when mongols cam ein, focus on restoring to what it orginally was, the han, not really as mush of a concern for ilkhan, weren’t trying to displace overlords, bunch of little ethings that came together and caused collapse 

• Red turban specifc rebellion reb ellion versus ilkahnate no specific group of people , mostly mongol noyat causeing problems (besides sabadars) doing anything, rathe rthen indigenous people 

• Yuan collapse, yuans chased out of sourthen china, mongols become part of nrw configurations in irna Iraq oither area 

• Likely not on xam 

What made the Ottomans so successful in Anatolia in the midst of so many competing beyliks and the Byzantines? (Discuss at least 3 concrete reasons) 

• Luck, wouldn’t have been able to predict they'd take over 

• Byrzantines in decline 

• Juruseaum mecca and medina, guardians of holy cities, bale to make alliances 

• Ghazi spirt  , In a similar way, what combined well with the raiding frontier society nature of the early Ottoman polity was the ideology of ghaza — a raid carried out not simply for the sake of booty and material gain but for the higher cause of propagating Islam. The Ottomans themselves had been using the word ghaza to describe their conquests, and adding the appellation ‘Ghazi’, a champion warrior of Islam, to their sultans since the fifteenth century. In 1937 Paul Wittek offered what became known as the ‘Ghazi theory’, proposing that the early Ottoman conquests were fuelled by the Ghazi spirit, which played a crucial part in the success of the early Ottoman expansion and thus in the formation of the Ottoman Empire (Wittek 1958).

• Promoting islam not fighting for sake of fighting 

• Strong fighters, able to establish strong legal system and bureaucracy that was very stircking jansysaires 

• No succession problems at first which helped them solidy group solidary, as other groups had to infight and pick of rivals 

• Many political and marriage based alliance s

• Ottomans successful due to the weakening of the Timurids, while the Byzantines overthrown by Mehmet II

-No succession problems, had a strong system of succession meant could pick off rivals

Janissaries were strong

The Janissaries were an elite, standing infantry corps of the Ottoman Empire (c. 1365–1826) that served as the Sultan's personal bodyguards and the army's core, famous for their strict discipline and early adoption of firearms. Originally formed from Christian boys via the devshirme slave levy, they were forced to convert to Islam, trained rigorously, and held to strict celibacy, eventually becoming a powerful political force that influenced, and often deposed, sultans before being destroyed in 182