Despite the existence of some general overviews, the institution of the Mongol tribunals has not been studied in a satisfactory way. A great deal of details are unclear and the functioning of the whole legal procedure is shrouded in obscurity. The present paper makes an attempt to elucidate an aspect of the historical development of this Turco-Mongolian institution in Ilkhanid Iran, one of the Chingisid uluses, namely what were the preconditions and prescriptions of being appointed to the rank of a Mongol judge? The focal point will be the three charters of appointment (or yarlik samples) presented by Muḥammad ibn Hindūshāh Nakhchivānī (ca. 679/1280 – after 768/1366), in his Dastūr al-kātib fī tacyīn al-marātib (“Guidelines of the Secretary for Defining the Echelons”), a manual of Ilkhanid and Jalayirid administration, accomplished in the 1360s.

The Chronology of Ancient Nations mirrors both al-Biruni the polymath and Mongol Iran in its wide calendrical, geographical and historical horizons. The pictorial programme highlights multi-ethnicity, Iranian national sentiment and religion: orthodox and heretical Islam, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Christianity (Annunciation and Baptism).1

This paper explores some different, interrelated versions of the history of the Pīshdādiyān, the earliest dynasty represented in the Shāhnāmeh, especially the recently edited text of Rashīd al-Dīn's Jāmi‘al-tawārīkh. This is compared with Bal‘amī’s Persian version of the History of al-Ṭabari and Qāḍī Baiḍāwī’s Niẓām al-tawārīkh, of which the latter is shown to provide much the closer basis for Rashīd al-Dīn's work — especially when confronted with the manuscripts of the Jāmi‘al-tawārīkh contemporary with the life of Rashīd al-Dīn. Comparison with both the early Arabic and Persian witnesses of the work suggests that the printed edition does not represent Rashīd al-Dīn's original text, but later reworkings of his chronicle — such as that by the fifteenth-century historian, Ḥāfiẓ-i Abrū — which draw more directly on the Shāhnāmeh. In so far as there is discernible subtext to Rashīd al-Dīn's coverage of these earliest periods of Iranian monarchical history, it is more to emphasise the didactic message of the Shāhnāmeh and the justice and constructive achievements of the first kings, than to follow Firdausī’s narrative. Despite the potency of idea of the Shāhnāmeh as expressing Persian kingly traditions, it is suggested that perhaps it was only after the time of Rashīd al-Dīn and the Islamisation of the Mongol rulers that historians appreciated and emulated the literary and narrative aspects of the text for their own sake.

This article investigates the history of the Mongol period as seen from the provinces, looking not only through the historian's lens of written documents but also through the art historian's gaze on art and architecture. It focuses on the town of Warāmīn and its multiple shrines and shows how buildings and their furnishings, notable the extensive revetment in signed and dated lustre tiles, can be rich sources for writing history.

The biography of the Nestorian patriarch Mār Yaḇalāhā III and of his teacher Rabban Ṣawmā is a well-known book, arguably the most interesting historical work in Syriac, and an important source for the history of the Ilkhanate and its relations with Western Europe.

In recent years the image of the Mongols has undergone a steady change. This shift reflects a growing interest in the development of the Chinggisid Empire and its assimilation of the peoples and cultures that it absorbed and conversely the absorption, not always voluntarily, of things Mongol by the sedentary cultures which acted as the Mongols’ hosts. It was not only military technology, cuisine, medicine, art, and the practicalities and instruments for enhancing the quality of life and commerce which were exchanged but the intellectual ideas and ideals which underpinned the life styles of those who were encountered. Chinggis Khan famously aspired to provide his wives and children with the fineries of life and the best the world had to offer. But it was not just the material world that he aspired to but also the intellectual luxuries of scholarship and learning. Throughout the Chinggisid Chronicles there are references to wise men and learned advisors who were consulted on the great decisions but also not infrequently there are references to debates often described in language more reminiscent of jousting tournaments or duels than intellectual exchange. These learned debates, usually between clerics of rival faiths, were staged by various princes in courts throughout the empire for sport and entertainment. Their popularity highlights aspects of the regimes’character.

This paper will consider the nature of these debates and the traditions from where they might have emerged and at the same time it will consider the role of ‘wise men’ in Chinggisid society.

Pre-modern historians of the Persianate world have primarily been used by modern historians as sources of factual information and rarely to gain insight into the means, methods and world-views of the historians themselves. The 15th C Persian historian Mīrkhwānd is a case in point despite the fact that his extensive discussion on the utility of history lends itself well to an historiographical assessment. While his understanding of the purpose of history may differ in some aspects for the modern discipline, his concerns and application were not as distinctive as we might like to think.