The imperial bestowal, as a major way of distributing the Buddhist canon, profoundly affected the contours of Buddhism in late imperial China. But why did the inner court engage in the distribution? How did it choose the recipient from the outside world? How was it possible for an aspirant to the canon to win out among the competitors? These questions concern the dynamics and mechanism behind the diffusion of the canon. They also cast new light on the relationship between Buddhism and the state and local society by revealing how the two otherwise separated worlds interacted. This paper is intended to tackle these unexplored questions by examining the extensive bestowal of the Ming Beizang during the Wanli court (1573–1620). It first makes a survey, revealing how uneven the distribution was in terms of both time and region. It then explores the motives of the imperial members as patrons in the context of court politics. Its focus, however, is on the agents and elements working behind the selection of the beneficiaries, and how their interplays conditioned the influence of the canon in local societies. In the process, the roles of the emperor, court women, eunuchs, officials, monks, and local elites are all examined.

As is well known, Hülegü, Chinggis Khan's grandson and the founder of the Ilkhanate (r. 658–664/1260-65), never converted to Islam. Moreover, as the man who annihilated the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258), that had led the Islamic umma for more than half a millennium, Hülegü was often portrayed—albeit mainly outside his realm—as one of the great destroyers of Islam. Yet around the mid-seventh/fourteenth century we find at least two different conversion stories relating to Hülegü in both Ilkhanid and Mamluk sources, both allegedly originating in Baghdad. This paper aims to present these narratives and analyse their origin and use in the context of the later or post-Ilkhanate period. I may say already at this stage that I have more questions than answers, and that my explanations as to why such stories were invented are rather speculative.

Three women dominated the politics and government of the Mongol Empire in the decade of the 1240s. Töregene and Oghul-Qaimish ruled as regents and are credited with corruption and petty politics throughout their regencies, while Sorqoqtani Beki became a paragon of virtue throughout the world for her adherence to the yasa of Chinggis Khan. Curiously, very little attention has been paid to this period to verify the accuracy of the statements. This study examines the role of all three women, but also attempts to place their actions in context, examine their role in commerce and how that affected their activities and their legacies. It argues that while the overall depiction of Töregene and Oghul-Qaimish may not be inaccurate, it overlooks some crucial elements and motives in their actions which also reveal that Sorqoqtani's actions were not as virtuous as the sources state.

When Chinggis Khan died in 1227, his sons inherited different parts of the empire that had been built by their father. Chinggis Khan's second son, Chaghatai (d. c. 1241), became the ruler of the lands of present-day Central Asia, conforming the origin of what became to be known as the Chaghataid Khanate. After the death of its founder, this political entity experienced a long succession crisis that lasted for a decade until a woman, Orghīna Khātūn, took control of the khanate in the name of her son. Although a ruling woman is not an exceptional case in the Mongol empire, she was the first and only woman that ruled over the Chaghataid Khanate, and that did so peacefully and without major upheavals for nine years. Additionally, she did not adopt a passive role but was involved in the running of the khanate, playing her cards in the always-unstable political arena of the Mongol empire. This article looks at the ascension to the throne, the reign and the legacy of this Mongol woman in Mongol Central Asia by contextualising her rule within the history of the region in general and in that of the Mongol empire in particular.

The Chinggisids clearly favoured specific in-law clans through policies of repeated marriage over generations. This paper charts the fortunes of one such clan, the Oirats, who first joined the Chinggisids when Chinggis Khan and Börte's daughter Chechiyegen wedded an Oirat prince. Thereafter Chechiyegen's own daughters married back to the Toluid, Jochid and Chagatayid families. This paper follows those Oirats who intermarried with the Ilkhanids, beginning with Chechiyegen's daughter Güyük and ending with the Toluid-Oirat Ilkhan, Abū Sa‘īd (r. 1317-1335).

Various Near Eastern and European writers of the thirteenth century remarked on the outlandish appearance of the Mongol warriors then rampaging across Eurasia. One aspect of this was their distinctive headgear. From our sources it is clear that Mongol costume could be exploited by non-Mongols in the Near East for a variety of purposes; how these distinctive hats were described, and how contemporary artists depicted them, will also be discussed.

Perhaps, appropriately, crime and criminality only enter the local histories of Yazd, the ‘Tārīkh-i Yazd and the Tārīkh-i Jadīd-i Yazd, by stealth.1 The interests and concerns of the authors of the local histories lay elsewhere, in describing the topography of the city, its religious edifices and shrines, noting its pious, learned and great inhabitants and recording its history from earliest times; and indeed if the authors were writing about a city endowed with the title Dār al-ʿIbādaʾ, the Abode of Piety, it is unsurprising that crimes or criminal acts are largely absent from the text and so, only one or two accounts of crime feature in the local histories. However, the ordering of society and the maintenance of this order constitute a central topic in medieval Persian writings, including the histories.