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The Islamisation of Hülegü: Imaginary Conversion in the Ilkhanate1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2016

MICHAL BIRAN
MICHAL BIRAN*
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalembiranm@mail.huji.ac.il
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Abstract

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.

Type
Part II: The Mongol World
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 26 , Issue 1-2 , January 2016 , pp. 79 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2016 

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Footnotes

1

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n. 312397. I would especially like to thank Mr Or Amir (The Hebrew University), who translated many of the biographies that serve as the basis for this article and helped me with searching the Arabic databases; Mr Yoni Brack (University of Michigan) for several references and brain storming; and Dr Eliyahu Stern (The Hebrew University) for his insights on Sufi terminology and karāmāt.

References

2 Bazzāz, Ibn, Ṣafwat al-ṣafā (Tehran, 1994), p. 195 Google Scholar. Berke is considered the first Mongol prince to adopt Islam, yet his conversion is usually attributed to the Kubrawī shaykh Sayf al-Dīn al-Bākharzī. See DeWeese, D., Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde (Philadelphia, 1994), pp. 83–90 Google Scholar. On Burhān al-Dīn Muḥaqqiq, see Lewis, F. D., Rumi: Past and Present, East and West (Oxford, 2000), pp. 96–118 Google Scholar.

3 Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī (d. 748/1348), Ta'rīkh al-Islām, (ed.) ‛U.‛A. Tadmurī (Beirut, 1995-2004), LVII, p. 182; Khalīl b. Aybak al-Ṣafadī (d. 1363), al-Wāfī bi'l-wafayāt, (ed.) Helmut Ritter et al., new edition (Beirut, 2008), XXVII, p. 400; hence Muḥammad b. Shākir al-Kutubī (d. 764/1363), Fawāt al-wafayāt (Beirut, 2000), II, p. 581; Ibn al-Taghrībirdī (d. 874/1470), al-Manhal al-ṣāfī wal-mustawfā ba‛d al-wāfī (Cairo, 2005), XII, pp. 51-52.

4 Ẓāhir al-Dīn ‛Alī b. Muḥammad al-Baghdādī Ibn al-Kāzarūnī’s surviving work, Mukhtaṣar al-ta'rīkh, is a short history from the creation to the fall of the Abbasids, including a rather benign description of the Mongol conquest. Najm al-Dīn b. al-Bawwāb is mentioned in this book as one of Kāzarūnī’s sources (Mukhtaṣar al-Ta'rīkh, (ed.) M. Jawwād [Baghdad, 1970], pp. 266-280; p. 273 for Ibn al-Bawwāb). Ibn al-Kāzarūnī was also a teacher of Ibn al-Fuwaṭī, the famous Baghdadi historian: Ibn al-Fuwaṭī, Talkhīs majma‛ al-ādāb, (ed.) Muḥammad al-Kāẓim (Tehran, 1416/1995), I, p. 550, and IV, pp. 141, 204, 424; al-Dhahabī, Ta'rīkh al-Islām, LVI, p. 39.

5 On Najm al-Dīn, see, e.g., Ibn al- Fuwaṭī, Majma‛, II, pp. 552-553; III, pp. 149-150; IV, p. 203.

6 On al-Ṭūsī, Hülegü’s chief astronomer and one of the leading Muslim polymaths, see e.g. H. Daiber, “al-Ṭūsī, Naṣīr al-Dīn”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, available at http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/al-t-u-si-nas-i-r-al-di-n-COM_1264 (accessed 5 January 2015).

7 There were several astronomers called Fakhr al-Dīn in Marāgha. The one mentioned here is probably Fakhr al-Dīn al-Marāghī (Ibn al-Fuwaṭī, Majma‛, III, pp. 149-150), or Fakhr al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥasan ‛Alī b. Tāj al-Dīn al-Ḥusayn b. ‛Alī b. Aḥmad Ibn Yūsuf b. Ḥammād al-Khazā’ī al-Jārdahī al-Dāmghānī (Ibn al-Fuwaṭī, Majma‛, III, pp. 79-80).

8 Fakhr al-Dīn al-Khilāṭī (d. 680/1281 or 682/1283 or 686/1287-8), one of the founding fathers of Marāgha, who was not only a qāḍī but also a physician, astronomer and Sufi, see e.g. Ibn al-Fuwaṭī, Majma‛, III, pp. 54-56; al-Dhahabī, Ta'rīkh al-Islām, LVIII, p. 356; al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī, XVIII, p. 515.

9 Tamar, daughter of Jigda Khatun and of the Georgian king Ulu David, who fought with Hülegü in Baghdad, is mentioned in the Georgian Chronicle, but without any reference to her marriage to Hülegü: Kartlis Ckhovreba, A History of Georgia, translated D. Gamqrelidze, M. Abashidze and A. Chanturia; (ed.) R. Metreveli and S. Jones (Tbilisi, 2014), p. 351; online edition, available at http://www.science.org.ge/books/Kartlis%20cxovreba/Kartlis%20Cxovreba%202012%20Eng.pdf (accessed 19 December 2014). She is not to be confused with the famous Georgian queen, Tamar Khatun (r. 579-609/1184-1212), and her granddaughter Tamar Khatun, known also as Gurji Khatun, who married the Seljuq sultan of Rum Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kai Khosraw II (r. 633-42/1236-45). See Kartlis Ckhovreba, pp. 324, 328, 335, 336, 351, 370-371.

10 See n. 3.

11 al-Dhahabī, Ta'rīkh al-Islām, LVII, p. 182.

12 Ibid ., p. 181; see also al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī, XXVII, p. 399. Both refer to Quṭb al-Dīn al-Yūnīnī (d. 726/1326) as the source of this information; indeed it appears in Hülegü’s biography in al-Yūnīnī’s work, where the conversion story is not mentioned: Quṭb al-Dīn al-Yūnīnī, Dhayl mir’āt al-zamān (Hyderabad, A.P., 1954-61), I, pp. 357-360.

13 For Doquz Khāṭūn, see Charles Melville, “Dokuz Khātūn”, Encyclopedia Iranica, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/dokuz-doquz-katun (accessed 2 January 2015).

14 For Hülegü’s wives, see Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍlallāh, Jāmi‛ al-tawārīkh, (ed.) B. Karīmī (Tehran, 1338/1959), II, pp. 678-679; translated W. M. Thackston, Jami'u’t-tawarikh [sic] Compendium of Chronicles (Cambridge, MA, 1998-9), II, pp. 471-472 (5 wives, all Mongolian); “Mu‛īzz al-Ansāb”, in A. K. Muminov (ed.), Istorii Kazakhstana v persidskikh istochnikakh, III (Almaty, 2006), p. 74 (13 wives).

15 See e.g. al-Athīr, Ibn, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athīr for the Crusading Period, translated Richards, III, D. S. (Aldershot, 2008), p. 244 Google Scholar, where around 630/1233 a Seljuq prince of Erzurum converts to Christianity in order to marry a Georgian queen and becomes the King of Georgia. The queen later desired a certain Mamluk and was ready to let him stay Muslim as long as she could have him. This may echo the story of the marriage of Queen Rusudan to Ghiyāth al-Dīn to a Seljuq prince who was kept captive in Georgia, after she had forced him to embrace Christianity.

16 This is reminiscent of the cases in ḥadīth criticism, where, when the isnād is too good, the tradition looks fake.

17 al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī, XVIII, p. 515.

18 See F. Rosenthal, “Ibn al-Sā‛ī”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition: Brill Online, 2014, available at http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/ibn-al-sa-i-SIM_3350 (accessed 16 December 2014), and see there for his extant works; Ma‛rūf, N., Tā’rīkh ‛ulamā’ al-Mustanṣiriyya (Baghdād, 1965), II, pp. 74–78 Google Scholar, esp. the list of works on p. 77.

19 Rosenthal, ibid.

20 Pseudo-Ibn al-Sā‛ī, Kitāb mukhtaṣar akhbār al-khulafā’ (Cairo, 1309/1891-2), title page, pp. 136-142.

21 Ibid ., p. 139.

22 For the Abbasid Caliphate in Egypt, see B. Lewis, “‛Abbāsids”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition: Brill Online, 2015, available at http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/abba-sids-COM_0002 (accessed 16 December 2014).

23 Pseudo-Ibn al-Sā‛ī, Kitāb, pp. 126-128. This tradition, probably originally referring to the Turks, is cited in various versions in connection to the Mongol conquest of Baghdad and its apocalyptic nature. See M. Biran, “Violence and non-violent means in the Mongol conquest of Baghdad”, in Robert Gleave (ed.), Violence in Islamic Thought, II, forthcoming.

24 A city and district in in the western part of the Persian province of Ādharbāydjān., near lake Urmiya. See C. E. Bosworth, “Salmās”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition: Brill Online, 2015, available at http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/salma-s-SIM_6560 (accessed 3 January 2015).

25 See e.g. al-Ṣafadī, A‛yān al-‛aṣr wa-a‛wān al-naṣr, (ed.) Fāliḥ Aḥmad al-Bakkūr (Beirut and Damascus, 1419/1998), III, p. 30; and the first page in the Tiryāq.

26 See e.g. al-Dhahabī, Ta'rīkh al-Islām, LX, pp. 206-209, and LXI, p. 71; al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfi‛iyya al-kubrā, VIII, pp. 6-15; Ibn Rāfi‛ al-Sulāmī, Tā’rīkh ‛ulamā’ Baghdād al-musammā Muntakhab al-mukhtār (Baghdad, 1938), pp. 18-20, 84-86. For al-Ṭībī, see e.g. Kauz, R., “The maritime trade of Kish during the Mongol period”, in Komaroff, L. (ed.), Beyond the Legacy of Genghis Khan (Leiden, 2006), pp. 58–59 Google Scholar.

27 ‛Izz al-Dīn Aḥmad al-Fārūthī, al-Nafḥa al-miskiyya fī al-sulāla al-Rifā‛iyya al-zakiyya (al-Āsitānah, 1301/1883); ‛Izz al-Dīn Aḥmad al-Fārūthī, Kitāb irshād al-muslimīn li-ṭarīqat shaykh al-mutaqīn (Cairo, 1307/1889).

28 The two shaykhs and the conversion story are mentioned in al-Fārūthī’s biography, introduced by the anonymous editor of his al-Nafḥa al-miskīyah in the book's first pages (pp. 2-3), but not in the text itself; the editor often cites the Tiryāq, which was probably his source for this anecdote; Abu ’l-Hudā Efendi al-Rāfi‛ī al-Khālidī al-Ṣayyādī, Tanwīr al-abṣār (Cairo 1306/1888-9), p. 28, mentions among the people of Fārs the great wālī al-sayyid Jalāl al-Dīn Makhdūm Jahānayn al-Ḥusaynī al-Najjārī, who heard from ‛Afīf al-Dīn ‛Abdallāh al-Maṭarī, who heard from the latter's father Jamāl al-Dīn al-Maṭarī, who in turn heard from al-Fārūthī. Yet it is hard to determine whether this refers to ‘our’ Makhdūm al-Jahānayn.

29 al-Fārūthī, Kitāb irshād, p. 129, mentions among Rifā‛ī’s disciples al-Shaykh ‛Alī b. Na‛īm al-Baghdādī, named also in the Tiryāq (p. 16), who may have been the father of Aḥmad b. ‛Alī mentioned in pseudo-Ibn Sā‛ī; Shaykh Thābit b. ‛Abdallāh b. Thābit al-Ja‛rāwī al-Wāsiṭī (p. 131) may be identical to Shaykh Thābit b. ‛Abdallāh b. Thābit al-Wāsiṭī of pseudo-Ibn Sā‛ī. The most interesting disciple of al-Rifā‛ī mentioned there is Shaykh Aḥmad al-Yasawī al-Turkistānī al-Khutanī (p. 129).

30 C. E. Bosworth, “Rifā‛iyya”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition: Brill Online, 2013, available at http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/rifaiyya-SIM_6296 (accessed 2 October 2013); J. Pfeiffer, “Conversion to Islam among the Ilkhans in Muslim narrative traditions: The case of Aḥmad Tegüder”, PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 2003, pp. 377-383.

31 On Tegüder, see P. Jackson, “Aḥmad Takūdār”, Encyclopædia Iranica, I, fasc. 6, pp. 661-662, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ahmad-takudar-third-il-khan-of-iran-r (accessed 2 January 2015); Amitai, R., “The conversion of Tegüder Ilkhan to Islam”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 25 (2001), pp. 15–43 Google Scholar; J. Pfeiffer, “Conversion to Islam”, passim.

32 al-Dhahabī, Ta'rikh al-Islām, LI, p.140; MS British Library Or. 1540, fol. 23b-24a, as cited in Amitai, “The conversion of Tegüder”, p. 18; Pfeiffer, “Conversion to Islam”, p. 356; and see ibid., pp. 356-361, for a discussion of other occurrences of this theme in Mamluk sources. See also Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Manhal al-ṣāfī, II, p. 255; al-Dhahabī, Ta'rīkh duwal al-Islām (Beirut, 1985), pp. 381-382.

33 For details, see Pfeiffer, “Conversion to Islam”, pp. 362-369.

34 Pfeiffer, “Conversion to Islam”, p. 399 (she was unaware of Hülegü’s story).

35 al-Dhahabī, Ta'rīkh al-Islām, LI, p.140; for ‛Abd al-Raḥmān, see Amitai, “The conversion of Teguder”, pp. 20-22.

36 Pfeiffer suggested that the story was connected to Tegüder's letters to the Mamluks, which spread widely among Mamluk sources. Yet those seem to be of a rather different genre from the two stories here.

37 al-Ṣafadī, A‛yān al-‛aṣr wa-a‛wān al-naṣr, III, p. 30.

38 Pfeiffer, “Conversion to Islam”, pp. 382-383.

39 Ibid ., p. 317, where the letter is cited; see Amitai, “The conversion of Teguder”, pp. 18-20, where the unlikely possibility that the fire trial took place in Mongolia is discussed.

40 al-Dīn, Rashīd, Ta'rīkh-i mubārak Ghāzānī, (ed.) Jahn, K. (Prague, 1941), p. 10 Google Scholar; cited in Amitai, “The conversion of Teguder”, p. 17.

41 See DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde, pp. 159-179.

42 ‛Abdallāh b. As‛ad al-Yāfi‛ī, Nashr al-maḥāsin al-ghāliya fī faḍl al-mashāyikh al-ṣūfiyya, (ed.) I.‛A. ‛Awḍ (Cairo, 1961), p. 329; see the citation in http://shamela.ws/browse.php/book-12798/page-178 (accessed 30 December 2014).

43 Ibid ., pp. 35-36.

44 al-Subkī, II, pp. 306-344, for the biographical details, see pp. 306-307; and see Jawid Mojaddedi, “Abū Turāb al-Nakhshabī”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Brill Online, 2014, available at http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3/abu-tura-b-al-nakhshabi-COM_23350 (accessed 20 August 2014).

45 Ibid ., pp. 342-343 and see also http://shiaweb.org/books/alensaf_2/pa47.html (accessed 30 December 2014); His classification of the karāmāt is cited in Y. al-Nabhānī, Jāmi‛ karāmāt al-awliyā’ (Beirut, 2001), I, pp. 47-50. See also al-Yāfi‛ī, Nashr al-maḥāsin al-ghāliyya, p. 329, in http://shamela.ws/browse.php/book-12798/page-178 (accessed 30 December 2014).

46 See e.g. Amitai-Preiss, R., Mongols and Mamluks. The Mamluk-Īlkhānid War, 1260-1281 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 202–213 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 For Ibn Taymiyya's polemics against the Rifā‛iyya, see Pfeiffer, “Conversion to Islam”, pp. 385-388.

48 Jackson, P., “Hülegü Khan and the Christians: The making of a myth”, in Edbury, P. and Phillips, J. (eds.), The Experience of Crusading: Defining the Crusader Kingdom (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 196–213 Google Scholar.

49 Dan Martin and Jampa Samten, “Six Tibetan Epistles for the Mongol rulers Hulegu and Khubilai, and for the Tibetan Lama Pagpa”, forthcoming in the Eliott Sperling Festschrift. Uposatha is the Buddhist day of observance.

50 For Islamic justifications of the Mongol invasion and the fall of the Caliphate, see Biran, M., Chinggis Khan (Oxford, 2007), pp. 113–114 Google Scholar.

51 For the Golden Horde, see DeWeese, Islamization. For the Chaghadayids, see Levi, S. C. and Sela, R., Islamic Central Asia: An Anthology of Historical Sources (Bloomington, IN, 2010), pp. 149–153 Google Scholar.