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  1. Home
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  3. The Cambridge History of Iran
  • Cited by 37
  • Volume 5: The Saljuq and Mongol Periods
  • Edited by J. A. Boyle
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
March 2008
Print publication year:
1968
Online ISBN:
9781139054973
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521069366
Subjects:
Middle East Studies, Area Studies, History, Regional History Before 1500, Middle East History
Series:
The Cambridge History of Iran
Collection:
Cambridge Histories - Middle East & African Studies
Information

Book description

The Cambridge History of Iran is an eight-volume survey of Iranian history and culture, and its contribution to the civilisation of the world. All aspects of the religious, philosophical, political, economic, scientific and artistic elements in Iranian civilisation are studied, with some emphasis on the geographical and ecological factors which have contributed to that civilisation's special character. The aim is to provide a collection of readable essays rather than a catalogue of information. The volumes offer scope for the publication of new ideas as well as providing summaries of established facts. They should act as a stimulus to specialists, but are primarily concerned to answer the sort of questions about the past and present of Iran that are asked by the non-specialist. Volume 5 is a survey of every aspect of the civilisations which flourished in the Iranian region between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries: the rise and decline of the Saljuqs, the Mongol invasion and the establishment of a Mongol regime which dominated the Middle East for more than a century. It is the first attempt in modern times to study in detail a period of the greatest significance in Iranian history.

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Contents

Contents
  • 1 - THE POLITICAL AND DYNASTIC HISTORY OF THE IRANIAN WORLD (A.D. 1000–1217)
    pp 1-202
  • View abstract

    Summary

    For nearly a thousand years, Iran has generally been ruled by non-Persian dynasties, usually Turkish, but sometimes Mongol or Kurdish. The first alien rulers were the Saljuq Turks, who appeared in the Iranian world in the first half of the 5th/11th century. This domination at the highest level has had less effect on Iranian national psychology and literary consciousness than might be expected, for all of the alien ruling dynasties have come from races of low cultural development, and thus they have lacked the administrative expertise necessary for ruling a land of ancient settlement and civilization. The collapse of the native Iranian dynasties of the north-east was followed within a few decades by a major migration of Turkish peoples, the Oghuz, from the outer steppes. When the Saljuqs first appeared in Transoxiana and Khurasan in the 5th/11th century, they came as marauders and plunderers. The Saljuqs belonged to the Oghuz Turks, who appear in history as the Toquz Oghuz.
  • 2 - THE INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF THE SALJUQ EMPIRE
    pp 203-282
  • View abstract

    Summary

    In this brief examination of the internal structure of the Saljuq Empire the author has attempted to show that nothing, religious or temporal, lay outside the care and concern of the sultan. Ghazali's new definition of the relationship between the sultanate and the caliphate was an attempt to authorize the sultan's government. The Saljuqs, who had started out as the leaders of a tribal migration, were gradually transformed, partly under the influence of Ghazali and Nizam al-Mulk, into the rulers of a centralized state. The main features of the new organization of state-notably the structure of the divan, the iqtac system, and the close connexion between the assessment of taxes and the levy of troops-are also to be found in the Safavid and Qajar periods. Through the officials of the divan, the muqta's and provincial governors, the officials of the religious institution, and local officials, the sultan came into contact with all aspects of the life of his people.
  • 3 - RELIGION IN THE SALJUQ PERIOD
    pp 283-302
    • By A. Bausani, Oriental Institute, University of Naples
  • View abstract

    Summary

    In the religious history of Iran the Saljuq period is particularly interesting, for it is the period of the Isma'ills. This chapter devotes to the three main aspects of religious life in Iran during this period: the development of Sunnism, the ferment of Shi'I ideas, and Sufism. The importance of the Saljuq period in the religious history of Iran lies in its formative richness, expressed in various directions of thought: first, Ash'ari Sunnism reached its final systematisation in the great synthesis of Ghazali. Secondly, Sufism was first organized into great brotherhoods, and important schools were created. Thirdly, the philosophy of Suhravardi Maqtul opened up new paths to Iranian theosophical speculation. And fourthly, Shii ferment pullulated in Iran in the double aspect of Isma'Ilism, with its highly interesting esoteric theology, and Twelve Imamism, which, though now comparatively weak, created a wide network of propaganda centres, during the Saljuq period.
  • 4 - DYNASTIC AND POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE IL-KHĀNS
    pp 303-421
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The chronology of Sultan Muhammad's first contacts with the Mongols is extremely confusing, and it is difficult and sometimes impossible to reconcile the accounts of the various authorities. Sultan Jalal al-Dln remained in India for nearly three years. He was joined, on the very banks of the Indus, by a number of stragglers from his defeated army and after several successful encounters with bodies of Indian troops in the Salt Range found himself at the head of some three to four thousand men. By the virtual extinction of the Isma'ili sect, Hülegü had rendered a great, if unintentional, service to orthodox Islam. The armies passed through the mountain pastures of Ala-Tagh to the east of Lake Van: Hülegü was pleased with this region, afterwards a favourite summer resort of the IL-Khans, and gave it a Mongol name. The terms which Abaqa's emissary transmitted to Baraq were generous enough.
  • 5 - THE ISMĀ‘ĪLĪ STATE
    pp 422-482
  • View abstract

    Summary

    In the midst of states held together by direct military power alone, the Ismā‘īlīs, or "Assassins of Alamϋt", formed a challenging exception. In the cultural life of the time, moreover, the Ismā‘īlī state played a perceptible role, even to the point of acting as host to prominent non-Ismā‘īlī intellectuals. Shi‘is had never been satisfied with the compromises of official Muslim life, which Sunnis had accepted as more or less inevitable up to a point. The Ismā‘īlīs of the Iranian highlands and the Fertile Crescent were not destined to overthrow the Saljuqs but rather to found a society apart, which was set over against Muslim society as a whole. The rigor and self-sufficiency of the doctrine were appropriate to the new sternness required of a movement in active and universal revolt. The justification of the schism, however, was quite legitimately doctrinal.
  • 6 - THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONDITION OF IRAN UNDER THE ĪL-KHĀNS
    pp 483-537
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter discusses three periods in the socio-economic history of Iran during the Mongol dominion, ranging from the twenties of the thirteenth century to the eighties of the fourteenth century. In the Middle Ages invasions by conquering nomads of cultivated settled areas were normally devastative. The Saljuq conquest of Iran was accompanied by pillage and destruction. The destructive nature of the invasion of Khurāsān by the Oghuz of Balkh in the fifties of the twelfth century is notorious. The Mongol conquest took an equally heavy toll in Tabaristān (Māzandarān). The reforms of Ghazan and the temporary transfer of a leading political role in the State from the nomad Mongol-Turkish aristocracy to the Iranian civil bureaucracy made some economic improvement possible, especially in agriculture. The Mongol conquest had a great and in general evil influence on the economic development of Iran; it had much less influence on the social structure of the country.
  • 7 - RELIGION UNDER THE MONGOLS
    pp 538-549
    • By A. Bausani, Oriental Institute, University of Naples
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The Mongol invasion of Persia, which began in 1220, together with the subsequent fall of the Baghdad caliphate and the killing of the last ‘Abbāsid caliph, al-Musta‘sim billāh, brought the entire Muslim world and especially Persia face to face with unexpected and formidable problems. The Mongol invasion, then, strengthened the non-Muslim communities in Persia. At the time of the Mongol invasion two tariqas had a predominant influence in Iran: the Kubrāviyya in the East and the Suhravardiyya in the West. In the history of religion in Iran, the Mongol period is important for a number of reasons. First, it saw a strengthening of Shī‘sm as a consequence of the fall of the ‘Abbāsid caliphate, and this was accompanied by a proportionate mitigation of the Shī‘ī-Sunnī dispute, the appearance within Shī‘sm of trends towards Shī‘sm, and a leaning towards a certain tashayyu' hasan ("moderate" Shī‘sm) in Sunni circles. And finally, Shī‘sm made particularly noteworthy progress, especially in its doctrinal tendencies.
  • 8 - POETS AND PROSE WRITERS OF THE LATE SALJUQ AND MONGOL PERIODS
    pp 550-625
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter touches on the era of the "Great Saljuqs" only in its last phase, that is, towards the end of the reign of Sultan Sanjar, a monarch who was then decadent though he was later idealized. The Saljuqs are a remarkable phenomenon, and we should therefore cast at least a cursory glance back to the period of their real greatness; for this wholly Turkish dynasty, holding sway over an immense area, played a very considerable part in the expansion of the Persian literary language and of Persian culture in general. The official language was Persian, and in it was conducted the official correspondence of the court, in contrast to the practice under Mahmud. Poetry also flourished during the period of the decline and fall of Saljuq rule, but the forms perfected by the old masters were already dying out and poetry was developing in an entirely new direction. Sa'di's principal didactic works are the Bustdn and the Gulistdn.
  • 9 - THE VISUAL ARTS, 1050–1350
    pp 626-658
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The period of Iranian history covered in this discussion began with the rise of the Turkish dynasties of the Ghaznavids and of the Great Saljuqs and ended with the small Iranian or Mongol dynasties which followed and contributed to the fall of the Il-khanid empire. In painting and the decorative arts, if we except the unique but comparatively short-lived art of objects on a broad social base which developed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the principal novelty of the period consists in the first moments of the known history of Iranian painting. Mutatis mutandis and without in any way suggesting a relation of cause and effect between the two traditions, it may be suggested that Iranian painting of the fourteenth century stands toward later painting in the same relationship as Giotto and the Intenational Style stand to the Italian Quattrocentro.
  • 10 - THE EXACT SCIENCES IN IRAN UNDER THE SALJUQS AND MONGOLS
    pp 659-680
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Throughout the Middle Ages a succession of Muslim scholars worked along two lines, one of which led them to generalize the concept of a number. The second can be thought of as an examination of the nature of euclidean geometry which, in modern times, culminated in the appearance of the various non-euclidean geometries. Of the latter, only the first faint foreshadowing occurred in Saljuq and Mongol Iran. Saljuq and Mongol times are to be regarded as a period of consolidation in trigonometry rather than one of innovation. In antiquity a few individuals, notably Aristotle and Seneca, had attempted explanations of rainbow formation, but with little success. That these achievements were of a lesser order than those of Archimedes, and that their consequences were incomparably less significant than the scientific breakthrough which followed the work of Newton and Leibniz is perhaps irrelevant. The scientists of Saljuq and Mongol Iran were the best of their age.

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