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The ‘Great Yāsā of Chingiz Khān’ and Mongol law in the ĪLkhānate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

D. O. Morgan
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Extract

One of the odder features of the Persian sources on the history of the Mongol period is the vagueness and comparative rarity of references to the ‘Great Yāsā of Chingiz khān’. This struck me with renewed force after reading Professor David Ayalon‚s articles on the Yāsā in Studia Islamica. My suspicions about the whole matter having thus been aroused, it seemed to me that it might be an interesting exercise to look again at the origin and nature of the Yāsā before trying to estimate how Mongol law worked in the Ilkhānate. And so, as I hope to show in this in this paper, it proved.

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Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , February 1986 , pp. 163 - 176
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1986

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References

1 D. Ayalon, ‘The Great Yāsa of Chingiz Khān : a reexamination’, A, Studia Islamica, 33, 1971, 97–140; B, 34, 1971, 151–80; C(1), 36, 1972, 113–58; c(2), 38, 1973, 107–56. (Hereafter Ayalon.)

2 Paris, 1710. English translation as The history of Genghizcan the Great, London, 1722. I quote from the translation

3 ibid., 78

4 ibid., 79

5 Tientsin, 1937. See also Alinge, C., Mongolische Gesetze, Leipzig, 1934;Google ScholarVernadsky, G., ‘The scope and contents of Chingis Khan’s Yasa’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, III, 1938, 337–60;CrossRefGoogle Scholar‘Juwaini’s version of Chingis Khan’s Yasa’, Annales de I‘Institut Kondakov, XI, 1939, 33–46; idem,Google ScholarThe Mongols and Russia, New Haven and London, 1953, 99–110;Google ScholarHaider, M., ‘The Mongol traditions and their survival in Central Asia (XIV-XV centuries)’, Central Asiatic Journal, XXVIII 002F;1–2, 1984, 57–79.Google ScholarRatchnevsky, P., ‘Die Yasa (Ĵasaq) Činggis-khans und ihre Problematik’, Schriften zur Geschichte und Kultur des alten Orients 5 : Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur der altaischer Vŏlker, Berlin, 1974, 471–87, is an interestings discussion of the problems .Google Scholar See also his Činggis-khan sein Leben und Wirken, Wiesbaden, 1983, 164–72.Google Scholar

6 Ligeti, L., ed., Histoire secrète des Mongols, Budapest, 1971, 173–4.Google Scholar Translation from de Rachewiltz, I., ‘The Secret History of the Mongols’, Papers in Far Eastern History, 21, 04 1980, 27.Google Scholar For another translation see Cleaves, F. W., The Secret History of the Mongols, Cambridge, Mass., 1982, 143–4,Google Scholar

7 Tr. Rachewiltz, de, PFEH, 13, 04 1976, 46–7; ed. Ligeti, 109; tr. Cleaves, 81.Google Scholar

8 On the ‘blue book’ see Pelliot, P., ‘Notes sur le“Turkestan” M. W. Barthold’, and ‘Les kökö-däbtä et les hou-k‘eou ts‘ing-ts‘eu’, T‘oung Pao, 27, 1930, 38–42 and 195–8. Pelliot does not suggest a link between the incident of 1206 and the Yāsā.Google Scholar

9 op. cit., 27. Riasanovsky's italics.

10 al-Dīn, Rashīd, Sbornik letopisei, ed. and tr. I. N., Berezin, Trudy vostochnago otdêleniya Imperatorskago Russkago Arkheologicheskago Obshchestua, XIII and XV, 1868–88. The text only is cited. (Hereafter Berezin). XIII, 238–9.Google Scholar

11 Berezin xv 65.

12 Ayalon, A, 139.

13 Juwaynī, , Ta‘rikh-i Jahān Gushā, ed. Qazwīnī, M. M., 3 vols, Leiden and London, 1912, 1916, 1937 (hereafter Juwayni), 2 vols, 17–18;Google Scholar tr. Boyle, J. A., The history of the world conqueror, 2 vols, Manchester, 1958 (hereafter Boyle), I, 25. I have made a number of changes in Boyle's translation of this passage.Google Scholar

14 Ayalon, A, 133.

15 Ayalon, A, 134–5.

16 Juwaynī, I, 17 ; Boyle, I, 24.

17 Juwaynī, III, 3 ; Boyle, II, 549.

18 Lech, K., Das mongolische Weltreich, Wiesbaden, text, 8, tr., 95.Google Scholar

19 ed. M. M. Isfahānī, Bombay, 1952–3, 17.

20 Majmū'a-i rasāja Nasir al-Din, ed. Radawi, M., Tehran, 1957, 31.Google Scholar see Minorsky, V., ‘Nasī al-Dīn Tūsī on finance’, in his Iranica, Tehran, 1964, 70.Google Scholar

21 Pelliot, P. and Hambis, L., Histoire des campagnes de Gengis Khan, I, Leiden, 1951, introduction.Google Scholar

22 Ayalon, B.

23 Wassāf, 66.

24 cleaves, F. W., ‘The “fifteen ‘palace poems’” by K‘o Chiu0ssu’, HJAS, XX, p. 428, n. 10 ; pp. 429–33, nn. 14-15. I owe this reference to the late Professor Joseph Fletcher. The remarks on the Yāsā inGoogle ScholarCh‘en, P., Chinese legal tradition under the Mongols: the code of 1291 as reconstructed, Princeton, 1979, esp . 4–8, while accepting the authority of Risasnovsky and being ‘pre-Ayalon’ on the Yāsā’s contents, do not seem to show that the evidence of the Chinese sources is irreconcilable with the arguments advanced in this paper. Indeed, it has been said that the Mongol Yüan dynasty was unique in Chinese history in that it did not have a formal penal code. It is even suggested that the notion of such codes was meaningless to the Mongols, and that they preferred to rule through individual regulations and legislation in China. seeGoogle ScholarLanglois, J. D. Jr, ., in Langlois, , ed., China under Mongol rule, Princeton, 1981, p. 10, n.20, eiting Uematsu Tadashi.Google Scholar

25 Juwaynī, I, 29 ; Boyle, I, 40.

26 Juwaynī, I, 227 ; Boyle, I, 272,

27 Juwaynī I, 162 ; Boyle, I, 206.

28 Jāmi' al-tawārīkh, II/1, ed. Alizade, A. A., Moscow, 1980, 183–6; tr. Boyle, J. A., The successors of Genghis Khan, New York and London, 1971, 77.Google Scholar

29 Wassāf, 284.

30 Tabaqā-i Nāsirā, ed. ‘,A., Habībī, 2 vols, 2nd ed., Kabul, 1342–3/1964–5, 152; tr. Raverty, H. G., Tabakāt-i Nāsirī, 2 vols, London, 1881, II, 1108.Google Scholar

31 Juwaynī, I, 211 ; Boyle, I, 256. I have altered the translation.

32 Lech, op. cit., text, 41, tr., 118–19.

33 Jāmi' al-tawārikh, ed. A. A., Alizade, Baku, 1957 (hereafter Alizade), 511.Google Scholar

34 ed. M. Hambly, Tehran, 1969,98, with additional word(omitted form the edition)from the unique MS, Aya Sofya 3019, f. 178a.

35 AbŪ, Bakr al-Qutbī al-Ahrī, Ta'rīkr-i Shaikh Uwais, ed. and tr. Loon, J. B.van, The Hague, 1954, text, 158, tr., 59.Google Scholar

36 Muhammad b. Mahmū, Amuli, Nafā'is al-funūn, ed. Sha'rānī, A.., et al 3 vols, Tehran, 1377–9/1957–60, ii, 250.Google Scholar

37 The travels of Ibn Battūta, tr. H. A. R., Gibb, iii, Cambridge, Hakluyt Society, 1971, 560–1.Google Scholar

38 Alizade, 171-2, 199, 202, 205, 226, 305, 313, 317, 327, 343, 363.

39 ibid., 359.

40 Dhayl-i jami' al-tarvārikh, ed. Bayani, K., 2nd ed., Tehran, , 1350/1972–, 76.Google Scholar

41 Juwaynī, I, 36 ; ii, 233–6 ; in, 48, 52.

42 e.g. Alizade, 202, 204, 313.

43 ed. M. Bastani-Parizi, Tehran, 2535/1976-7, 156.

44 ibid., 192.

45 ibid., 275-6.

46 ed. A. A. Alizade, Moscow, 1976 (hereafter Dastur), 29–35. Parts of t h i s material, without any precise identification, were quoted by Riasanovsky, op. cit., 41–2.

47 See above, n. 6. The word also occurs elsewhere in the Secret History, ed. Ligeti, 202. This adds little except the information that Shigi-Qutuqu might have assistants in hearing Jarqus.

48 , Jāmi‘al-tawārīkh, i/l, ed. Romaskevich, A., Khetagurov, L. and Alizade, A. A., Moscow, 1965, 180.Google Scholar

49 Dastur, 30.

50 ibid., 32.

51 ibid., 31, 32, 33.

52 ibid., 30, 32. An interesting later parallel is found in a document from the Safavid shrine at Ardabil, dating from 793/1390–1. In this it is claimed that a horse was made off with in accordance, not with the shar' of Muhammad, but with the yarghū (not yāsā) of Chingiz Khān. (Document no. 282 : unpublished. I am indebted to Mr. Morton, A. H. for the loan of his transcript of the document.)Google Scholar

53 Dastūr, 30. Tūra is a synonym for yāsĐ.

54 ibid., 31. As was remarked above, a large selection of Chingiz Khတn's biligs (bīlīk) is preserved by Rashīd al-Dīn. See Berezin, xv, 178 ff. On how these were taken down and recorded, see Boyle in The successors of Genghis Khan, 13.

55 Dastur, p. 33, n. 11.

56 ibid., 31.

57 ibid., 35.

58 ibid., 31, 33, 34.

59 ibid., 31.

60 ibid., 31.

61 ibid., 32, 34, 35.

62 A remote ancestor of this article formed part of an unpublished doctoral thesis, the research for which was supervised by Professor A. K. S.Lambton