Early accounts of the mongols

In order to appreciate the Humāyūn-nāmah’s significance, it is important to first understand the early historiography of Mongol-ruled Iran. The first histories sympathetic to the Mongols were either written or patronized by secretaries and governors loyal to the new regime. Such loyalty only appeared after the Mongols consolidated their control over Iran following the permanent settlement of Mongol armies in Greater Azerbaijan and Khurasan in 1230.

It is sometimes easy to forget that prior to the arrival of the Mongols, the few historians who did mention them often did so reluctantly, from the frontiers of the empire. The disruption of the initial invasion was not conducive to writing good history. Those who survived the Mongol attacks were often displaced and lacked the stability to write. One of the earliest authors to describe his flight from the Mongol army, Shihāb al-Dīn Nasavī, recalled the spoliation of a library in the Shāfi’ī mosque of his home town of Nisa. While he was able to preserve some texts, he lost them in the end, when forced to flee from one refuge to another. Nasavī later recalled that the loss of these books was the thing that he most regretted from the loss of his home.Footnote ⁶ As a scribe, the loss of his books robbed Nasavī of his vocation and identity as a member of the secretarial class (ahl-i qalam). It was not until his escape to Syria, following the death of his master, Jalāl al-Dīn Mingubirtī (d. 1231), that Nasavī was able to tell the story of the Mongol invasion and the end of the Khwārazmshāh dynasty (1077–1231). Najm al-Dīn Rāzī (d. 1256) faced a similar problem, noting in his Mirṣād al-‘Ibād that he had been unable to complete his work earlier due to his constant state of movement in Iraq and Khurasan, where “each day some new disaster would emerge.”Footnote ⁷ It was only when Rāzī left Iran for Anatolia that he found the stability and patronage to complete his work.

Trauma also played a role in preventing prospective authors from putting pen to paper, as people from all walks of life abandoned their old vocations. A poem of Sa’dī Shīrāzī (d. 1291–1292) in the Būstān (1257) recalled a meeting with an old “warlike acquaintance” from Isfahan, who had lost his swagger and looked like an “aged fox.” The acquaintance informed the author that he had “driven strife-seeking away from my head” following the Mongol invasion: “We through cowardice further resistance forsook.”Footnote ⁸ It is unclear whether Sa’dī actually met such a man or was simply voicing the general feeling of despondency following the invasion. His tone, however, does match that of Ibn al-Athīr (d. 1232–1233), the first chronicler to record the Mongol onslaught in West Asia. Writing a full decade after the arrival of the Mongols, Ibn al-Athīr’s account appeared in his al-Kāmil fī’l-Tā’rīkh (the Quintessence of History), which documented the history of the Islamic world from Adam to the author’s time, ending in 1231, when the work was most likely completed. Ibn al-Athīr’s history was written progressively, over an extended period, but his account of the Mongol invasion of Iran appears to have only been penned in response to a Mongol garrison army appearing in Azerbaijan, threatening his home in northern Iraq. Prior to that point, Ibn al-Athīr was reluctant to discuss the topic, stating that “it horrified me and I was unwilling to recount it,” for “who is there who would find it easy to write the obituary of Islam and the Muslims?”Footnote ⁹ While these sentiments are understandable, they leave modern historians with an unclear picture of the invaders and their intentions.

Indeed, it was not Ibn al-Athīr’s intention to provide a detailed account of the Mongols, only mentioning three by name and providing virtually no information on their origins or leadership.Footnote ¹⁰ Having not encountered the Mongols himself and reliant on the partial accounts of refugees fleeing through Iraq, he regularly drew on poetry and Qur’anic verse to fill gaps in his record of battles or sieges.Footnote ¹¹ Indeed, he began his account of the Mongol invasion by reciting the verse: “What happened happened, something I shall not mention. Think the best and do not ask about the facts.”Footnote ¹² Ibn al-Athīr’s objective was not to recount the history of the Mongols or their war with the Khwārazmshāh, his chief concern was to rally resistance to the recently arrived Mongol army in Azerbaijan. His history is full of allegorical stories equating piety with resistance to the Mongols and unbelief with surrender or flight from their armies, for “A man in distress is throttled by every rope.”Footnote ¹³ Ibn al-Athīr’s sentiments echo those of Najm al-Dīn Rāzī, who fled before the Mongols arrived yet admonished his royal readers to show moral leadership: “O kings of the world, hasten forth to save some remnant of the faith. Islam is lost, and you are unaware; Unbelief engulfs the earth, and you slumber on.”Footnote ¹⁴ Even the anonymous Isma’īlī poet of the Divan-i Qa’imiyat, compiled in the first half of the 13th century, encouraged his readers that “this rule of the Turks [i.e., Mongols] will expire.”Footnote ¹⁵ With the focus on building a new Muslim coalition to resist the invaders, these early authors provide scant information on the Mongols themselves.

Shihāb al-Dīn Nasavī (d. 1250) departed only slightly from this model. He had read Ibn al-Athīr’s work and elaborated on the earlier author’s account. Like Ibn al-Athīr, Nasavī viewed the Mongol conquest as a test of piety and compared those who fled to the sinners who turned their backs on Noah, who “no matter how much he counselled them they became more cunning.”Footnote ¹⁶ Yet unlike the earlier author, Nasavī knew some basic information on the Mongols’ origins and early history, which he included in his Sīrat (biography) of Jalāl al-Dīn Mingubirtī (d. 1231). Nasavī’s use of Chinese titles strongly suggests that he derived much of his material from Qara-Khitan refugees, which he supplemented with the accounts of Khwārazmian envoys and officials.Footnote ¹⁷ While this information helps provide a more informative account of the Mongol motivation for the invasion, it does not substantively change Nasavī’s depiction of them from Ibn al-Athīr’s earlier history. Like the earlier author, Nasavī’s purpose was to evaluate the behavior of the Muslim rulers, whose actions he believed provoked the Mongol invasion, determined their strategy, and guaranteed their success.Footnote ¹⁸ Also like the earlier authors, Nasavī sought a pious leader who would rally Muslims to expel the Mongols from Iran. For a time, he believed Jalāl al-Dīn was the most promising candidate. The author recalled fondly how Jalāl “made merry and was joyous like the rise of the morning sunlight” in battle with the Mongols, and “showed them [the Muslims] how to stick blades into the pagans.”Footnote ¹⁹ Yet these victories were short-lived, and it soon became clear that the warrior prince was not able to transfer his success in the saddle to ruling his people. He hemorrhaged support following the Mongols’ withdrawal from Iran in 1223 and his final defeat at the hands of a newly arrived Mongol army in 1230 put an end to both his career and Nasavī’s history.

This new Mongol army’s permanent settlement in Iran did, however, change the way a new generation of Iranian scholar-bureaucrats wrote history by the mid-13th century. The first Mongol invasion of Iran lasted from 1220–1223, at which point Chinggis Khan returned to Mongolia. A second army was sent to Iran at the behest of Chinggis Khan’s son and successor, Ögödei (r. 1229–1241), who ordered the resurgent Khwārazmian army under Jalāl al-Dīn be put down.Footnote ²⁰ One division, numbering roughly 30,000 soldiers, led by Chormaqan Noyan, pursued Jalāl al-Dīn out of Azerbaijan before scattering his forces near Amid in 1231. A second army of similar size, under the leadership of Dayir Noyan, was stationed in Shaburghan and Badghis in modern day Afghanistan, where they were to make inroads against the Sultanate of Delhi.Footnote ²¹ The newly arrived armies in Khurasan and Azerbaijan immediately began seeking partners in Iran to help them achieve their military objectives and impose fiscal control over the region.

Some of the earliest recruits were acquired shortly after Chormaqan arrived in Khurasan in 1229. His army was followed by the Qara-Khitan scribe, Chin Temür, who had been appointed governor of Urgench (Khwārazm) by Chinggis Khan’s son Jochi. Urgench lay close to Chormaqan’s line of march to Khurasan, so Chin Temür was expected to provide reinforcements and provisions to the incoming commander.Footnote ²² When Chin Temür crossed the Āmū-daryā, he found Khurasan in a state of upheaval. Chormaqan’s representatives were being overthrown by remnants of the Khwārazmian army, who had taken to banditry. The historian Juvaynī summed up the situation, stating: “that man would attack this, and this man seize and kill that.”Footnote ²³ Chin Temür’s army were therefore immediately put to work dealing with an uprising in Nishapur. Having quelled the rebellion, Chin Temür set about repopulating the city and sent a delegation to Tus to demand the return of refugees who had fled there, including Juvaynī’s father, Bahā’ al-Dīn. Fearing such refugees would be put to death, Juvaynī was surprised when Chin Temür “welcomed my father and the chief men with every kind of attention.”Footnote ²⁴ He subsequently dispatched one of Ögödei’s representatives, Kul-Bolat, to inform the qa’an that the province had been pacified. Kul-Bolat was accompanied by several leading dignitaries from Khurasan, including Malik Bahā’ al-Dīn of Suluk and Malik Nuṣrat al-Dīn of Kabud-Jamah. The maliks were welcomed by Ögödei, who held a feast upon their arrival and confirmed them in their posts. He even expanded their domain, giving Nuṣrat al-Dīn dominion from Kabud-Jamah to Astarabad, while Bahā’ al-Dīn was given the towns of Isfarayn, Juvayn, Jajarm, Jurbad, and Arghiyan.Footnote ²⁵ Meanwhile, Chin Temür’s control of Khurasan was confirmed and Bahā’ al-Dīn Juvaynī was named Ögödei’s sahib divan (chancellor).

This early interaction between Juvaynī’s father and the Mongol governor undoubtedly shaped the historian’s impression of the Mongols, as he was born in 1226 and thus had no first-hand experience of the Mongol invasion. Although he may have had vague memories of their settlement in Khurasan in 1229, he often cited his father’s stories about this period.Footnote ²⁶ These memories were also supplemented by information derived from Juvaynī’s acquaintances in the Mongol administration, one of whom was the Oyirat commander Arghun Aqa, Chin Temür’s eventual successor in Khurasan (d. 1232) before assuming overall control of Iran in 1241.Footnote ²⁷ Bahā’ al-Dīn Juvaynī continued to serve in his old role as Arghun’s ṣāḥib dīvān, but ‘Alā al-Dīn Juvaynī was also enlisted into Arghun Aqa’s entourage and accompanied him on a journey to the qa’an’s court in 1251–1252. Arghun even appointed ‘Alā al-Dīn Juvaynī to be chief administrator of Iraq and Khurasan during his prologued absence from the court of Möngke Qa’an in 1255–1256.Footnote ²⁸ Though never explicitly naming Arghun as his source of information about the Mongols, he appears the most likely conduit for some of the Mongol documents mentioned by Juvaynī in his text, such as the “yasaq-nāmah”: a long scroll containing the proclamations and orders of the Mongols. Whatever his source, Juvaynī’s history included an unprecedented level of detail on the rise and unification of the Mongols prior to their invasion of Iran.

Not all officials were integrated into Mongol service so easily. Writing in Greater Armenia in 1265, the chronicler Kirakos recounted his kidnapping by one of Chormaqan’s commanders, Mular Noyan. Kirakos was one of several monks, including the vardapet (bishop) Vanakan, to be taken captive by Mular, whom he claimed treated them like “horses on a raid,” with guards surrounding them to the extent that they “could not even go out to perform their bodily functions.”Footnote ²⁹ Yet there are also signs that Mular wanted the monks’ cooperation, as he needed their skills in his chancery. In their initial meeting, Mular told Kirakos that if the monks had simply come to the Mongols in peace and friendship, he would “command that all that is yours be left unharmed, great and small.”Footnote ³⁰ At other times, Kirakos recounted how Mular would ask the monks, “What do you need? Perhaps you are hungry? I shall give you horsemeat for food.” Such offers were curtly refused, as the Mongol diet was considered “unclean,” before the monks again repeated their request to be released as soon as possible.Footnote ³¹ Eventually, Mular agreed to sell Vanakan but tried to keep Kirakos, telling him: “I shall honour you as one of my grandees. If you have a wife, I shall bring her to you. If not, I shall give you one of our women” and “Tomorrow I shall give you a horse and make you happy. Stay loyal.”Footnote ³² As he escaped that very night, Kirakos did not remain long enough to discover if these promises would be honored. There is, however, good reason to assume that Mular was being sincere, as Kirakos himself acknowledged that several Armenian princes were soon incorporated into Chormaqan’s court, receiving Mongol brides and confirmation of their lands and titles from the qa’an.Footnote ³³ Indeed, Kirakos’s friend and contemporary, Vardan Arewelc’i, found a place for himself at the Mongol court of Möngke’s brother, Hülegü (d. 1265), shortly after entering Iran in 1256.Footnote ³⁴

The appointment of Iranian secretaries, maliks, and commanders to Mongol service resulted in a gradual shift in how mid-13th-century historians described the Mongols. For instance, a significant shift is discernable in how historians such as Juvaynī and his contemporary Minhaj al-Din Juzjani described Chinggis Khan and his successor Ögödei. Juvaynī’s description of Chinggis Khan gives the reader very little sense of his character, either due to the author’s lack of information or conflicting opinions on the life and career of the conqueror. Juvaynī leaves no doubt that the khan was the heaven-ordained, awe-inspiring, prophetic law-giver of the Mongols.Footnote ³⁵ Yet, as with previous authors, Juvaynī found it difficult to attribute any human characteristics to the conqueror beyond his rage toward the Khwārazmshāh Sultan Muḥammad (r. 1200–1220), who provoked the khan’s invasion of Iran by murdering his merchants.Footnote ³⁶ This remoteness may be attributed to the reverential way in which the Mongols treated Chinggis Khan’s memory, but might also be due to the fact that Juvaynī had no memory of the khan, who had died one year after Juvaynī’s birth. His description of Ögödei, however, whom Arghun Aqa served as a bitikchi (scribe) from early adulthood, was far more colorful.Footnote ³⁷

Juvaynī’s history of Ögödei’s reign is punctuated by a series of seasonal banquets, where those in attendance were granted their every wish, causing Juvaynī to proclaim Ögödei “a Hātim in bounty and a Khusrāū in affability.”Footnote ³⁸ The longest section of this history of Ögödei is dedicated to an “Account of the Deeds and Actions of the Qa’an,” in which Juvaynī recounts a series of short anecdotes, illustrating the khan’s mercy, compassion, generosity, and good humor, especially toward his Muslim subjects.Footnote ³⁹ Juvaynī also includes stories of Ögödei’s severity and anger, fearing that readers may not give credence to stories of the khan’s generosity and benevolence alone.Footnote ⁴⁰ Thus, Juvaynī’s account of Ögödei stands in sharp contrast to the history of Chinggis: whereas Chinggis is mercurial and two-dimensional, Ögödei is humanized, encouraging readers to draw comparisons with legendary Iranian kings of the past. This shift led George Lane to speculate that Juvaynī identified the justice and piety of Chinggis Khan’s successors as the “secret intent” of God.Footnote ⁴¹ In a strange twist of history, Juvaynī posited that the Chinggisids were in fact the leaders Ibn al-Athīr and Nasavī had called for in their earlier histories.

It is unknown whether the “Account of the Deeds of Ögödei” was based on stories Juvaynī heard from his Mongol superiors or the account was a product of the author’s imagination. Ögödei’s famed generosity and benevolent rule are confirmed by the Chinese dynastic history of the Mongols, the Yuan shi, albeit with far greater brevity.Footnote ⁴² The commemorative stele of Ögödei’s chief secretary, Yehlu Chucai, also confirms the khan’s affability and fondness for drink, while crediting the secretary with most of the charitable works of his reign.Footnote ⁴³ The one surviving Mongolian text that documents Ögödei’s reign, The Secret History of the Mongols, likewise contains very few stories celebrating his generosity or compassion. The only resonance we find with the stories of Juvaynī is the Mongolian description of the qa’an’s seat as the “throne of joy,” due to his redistribution of the empire’s wealth among his followers.Footnote ⁴⁴ It therefore seems far more likely that Juvaynī’s account originated in Iran.

The burgeoning Mongol administration in Khurasan was one of the most likely places for such panegyric literature to appear. Juvaynī’s repeated claim that Ögödei favored the Muslims above his other subjects gives away the account’s intended audience. Moreover, the didactic nature of the tales, linking good kingship to wisdom and justice, is clearly in line with the style of advice literature (pand-nāmah) repeated in later verse histories.Footnote ⁴⁵ The likely Iranian provenance of the stories is also affirmed by the fact that Minhāj al-Dīn Jūzjānī repeated the same stories.Footnote ⁴⁶ Jūzjānī was no friend to Chinggis Khan or the Mongols, whose invasion forced him to flee his home and find sanctuary in Uchcha.Footnote ⁴⁷ Following the example of Ibn al-Athīr and Nasavī, Jūzjānī wrote to encourage the Islamic ecumene to unite against the pagan invaders. Whereas Nasavī believed that the leader of this Islamic resistance may have been Jalāl al-Dīn, Jūzjānī assigned this role to the Sultan of Delhi, Nāṣir al-Dīn Maḥmūdshāh (r. 1246–1265).Footnote ⁴⁸ Yet Jūzjānī had also heard that Ögödei favored Muslims and may have even considered converting, repeating the same tales of his inordinate generosity found in Juvaynī’s history. As the two men completed their works hundreds of miles apart in 1260, it is unlikely they copied from one another. Jūzjānī did travel back to Khurasan on several occasions after the Mongol conquest, however, making it likely that he did share the same sources as Juvaynī.

We are unlikely to ever know the true provenance of these stories, as neither Juvaynī nor Jūzjānī reported where they obtained their material. Indeed, it is possible that the stories were the work of multiple panegyrists and Juvaynī was simply the first to compile them. Arghun Aqa employed Muslim secretaries from all over Iran and Central Asia to serve as scribes (bitikchis), including Sharaf al-Dīn Khwārazmī, an enemy of the Juvaynīs and the chief representative of Ögödei’s nephew, Batu, in Iran.Footnote ⁴⁹ Sharaf al-Dīn Khwārazmī was replaced by Khwājah Fakhr al-Dīn Bihishtī, another resident of Khwārazm, whom Juvaynī described as a “good and kind-hearted man.”Footnote ⁵⁰ Other Mongol princes also appointed Muslim officials to represent their interests to Arghun Aqa, including: Malik Nāṣir al-Dīn ‘Alī and Khwājah Sirāj al-Dīn Shujā’ī, the agents of Dowager Empress Sorqoqtani Beki; Niẓām al-Dīn Shāh and Khwājah Najm al-Dīn ‘Alī, who represented the descendants of Ögödei’s brother Jochi; and their deputy, ‘Izz al-Dīn Tahir, whom Juvaynī similarly praises.Footnote ⁵¹ Juvaynī gives the impression that Arghun Aqa’s court was thronged with Persian-speaking officials, any of whom could have composed the stories in his history. Indeed, Juvaynī wrote that Arghun Aqa’s retinue included the “celebrities and notables of Khurasan, Iraq, Lur, Azerbaijan and Shirvan.”Footnote ⁵² This concentration of scribes would certainly explain why Jūzjānī’s account of Ögödei’s good deeds is far shorter than that of Juvaynī, who had closer interactions with Arghun’s circle of officials. For Juvayni’s writing, the importance of Arghun’s circle only increased during the reign of Möngke (r. 1251–1259), when the qa’an ordered this circle to take a census and reform the tax system in preparation for the arrival of his brother, Hülegü, and the conquest of Baghdad, both of which Juvaynī played a role in.

The case of ‘Alā al-Dīn Juvaynī illustrates how important the consolidation of Mongol rule was to the development of new literary circles in Iran. Writing was an essential qualification for the Iranian secretarial class and the concentration of expertise in the chancery of the latent Mongol administration in Iran encouraged the proliferation of a new type of court historiography. The collaboration between the Mongols and their Iranian allies ensured that new histories included more detailed information about the conquerors and their rule, as well as treated them more sympathetically, as human beings not entirely dissimilar to the Iranians themselves. It was in this environment that Ḥakīm Zajjājī joined a parallel literary circle in the Mongol administration of Azerbaijan, with the support of both Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn Tabrīzī and ‘Alā al-Dīn’s brother, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Juvaynī.

The Tabriz circle

Like the Tārīkh-i Jahāngushā, the Humāyūn-nāmah was shaped by its author’s early life and environment. It is therefore essential to know more about Ḥakīm Zajjājī to appreciate the value of his text. Unfortunately, there is little information about Ḥakīm Zajjājī, aside from what is written in the Humāyūn-nāmah. Born in 608 AH/1211–1212 AD to a master glassmaker in Tabriz, Zajjājī was enrolled in a maktab at the age of five, where he studied the Qur’an and learned the holy passages by heart.Footnote ⁵³ Artisans and religious scholars were intimately affiliated in towns across the Middle East, so Zajjājī’s education was typical of his class. Ibn Khallikān’s (d. 1282) biographical dictionary, Wafiyāt al-a’yān, even contains other examples of glassmakers who practiced their craft while studying the Islamic sciences, such as grammar and composition.Footnote ⁵⁴ It is likely that Zajjājī received similar instruction, as his aptitude lay in poetry rather than theology. His education was, however, interrupted when the building he was studying in collapsed on him. He recovered from his injuries with the help of a physician, but his studies were again disrupted at the age of nine by the death of his father. Zajjājī suffered a great deal from this loss and compared his situation to that of “a bird having its wings clipped” or “a sheep without a shepherd.”Footnote ⁵⁵ In his father’s absence, the family’s servants refused to follow their young master’s orders and even stole from him. Although Zajjājī does not say so, the death of his father coincided with the Mongol invasion, which may also explain his underlings’ insubordination. The Mongol attack caused widespread social dislocation across Iran, leading ‘Alā al-Dīn Juvaynī to remark that it was “the famine year of generosity and chivalry and the market day of error and ignorance,” when “the mighty are subservient to the base by compulsion and the discriminating are captive in the hands of the ignoble.”Footnote ⁵⁶ Under these dire conditions, Zajjājī took up his father’s profession, from which he derived his title – zajjājī, “the glassmaker.” He flourished in this work but also spent much of his time composing poetry, for which he achieved some renown and caught the eye of Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Juvaynī (d. 1284), the ṣāḥib dīvān (chancellor) of the Īlkhānid Mongol court (1258–1335).

The extent of Zajjājī’s relationship with Shams al-Dīn Juvaynī is not entirely clear, but the latter appears to have been a prospective patron of his poetry. Zajjājī never explicitly claims to have received funding from Juvaynī but does make several allusions to his generosity, hinting that Zajjājī sought such support. There are signs that the two men were acquainted before Juvaynī was appointed ṣāḥib dīvān in 1263. The Tārīkh-i Jahāngushā cites a qiṭ’ah (couplet) by “the poet in Tabriz they call Zajjājī.” The poem ridicules a secretary named Jamāl al-Dīn ‘Alī Tafrishī, who was appointed tax collector in Tabriz by Juvaynī’s enemy, the ulugh bitikchi (grand secretary) Sharaf al-Dīn Khwārazmī. No sooner had Jamāl ‘Alī taken up this position than Sharaf al-Dīn died, leaving Zajjājī to satirically write:

Further confirmation that Ḥakīm Zajjājī was writing poetry on behalf of his allies in Tabriz is provided by the Mughal compendium Farhang-i Jahāngīrī, by Jamāl al-Dīn Ḥusayn Shīrāzī (1594–1624), which attributes the following verse to Zajjājī: “The beauty [jamāl] of the bejewelled khwājah [master] in the silver palanquin is like the procession of the moon in the path of the night sky.”Footnote ⁵⁸ The sardonic reference to jamāl in the silver palanquin is most likely a jab at Jamāl ‘Alī’s reputation for imposing heavy taxes on the people of Tabriz. Jamāl ‘Alī was appointed during the reign of Güyük Khan (r. 1246–48) and Sharaf al-Dīn’s death occurred in 1249, suggesting our author was already insinuating himself in Juvaynī’s party around this time.

Zajjājī’s connection to the Juvaynīs was most likely facilitated by another patron, Ṣadr al-Dīn. Rashkī and ‘Abbāsī have convincingly argued that Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn Tabrīzī, the governor of Azerbaijan, is the most likely candidate, as he replaced the basqaq (overseer) of Tabriz in 1249 around the same time Zajjājī began writing poetry on behalf of the Juvaynī faction to which both men belonged. ‘Alā al-Dīn Juvaynī claims that Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn was confirmed in his office by Möngke Qa’an (r. 1251–9), who appointed Ṣadr al-Dīn as the malik of Arran and Azerbaijan alongside a number of other Iranian princes, including: Malik Nāṣir al-Dīn ‘Alī of Nishapur and Tus, Malik Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Kart of Herat, and Emir Maḥmūd of Karman and Sanquran, all of whom were connected to Arghun Aqa’s circle. Each was given a tiger-headed paiza (Mong. gerege), or diplomas of investiture.Footnote ⁵⁹ Ṣadr al-Dīn’s appointment therefore coincided with the overthrow of Juvaynī’s enemy, Sharaf al-Dīn Khwārazmī, bringing a shift in the leadership of Azerbaijan. The Tārīkh-i Jahāngushā notes that the Mongol governor of Iran, Chormaqan (d. 1240), had appointed an opponent of Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn, a commander named Möngke Bolad, as the basqaq of Tabriz. In 1249, Möngke Bolad was overthrown and Arghun Aqa elevated Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn to replace him.Footnote ⁶⁰ Rashīd al-Dīn confirms that Hülegü also named Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn as ruler of Azerbaijan, sending him with a tümen of Tajik levies (charīk) to help the Mongols recapture Mosul after its 1262 rebellion.Footnote ⁶¹ Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn suffered an arrow wound to the head during the siege and returned to Tabriz via Hülegü’s court in Alādāq, where he updated the prince on the war’s progress. Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn was also confirmed in his office by Hülegü’s heir, Abaqa, in 1265, before dying in 1269, the same year Zajjājī mourned the passing of his patron in the Humāyūn-nāmah, thereby confirming the identity of Zajjājī’s patron and the dating of the history.Footnote ⁶²

The timeline of Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn Tabrīzī’s career corresponds almost perfectly to the major events described in Zajjājī’s history, which spans the first Mongol incursion into Iran in 1220 to Hülegü’s conquest of Baghdad in 1258. The relationship between the two men is important because Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn appears to have been one of the key sources for Zajjājī’s history, in addition to being his chief patron. The other source was likely Shams al-Dīn Juvaynī. Indeed, we can date the Humāyūn-nāmah’s production to first decade of Abaqa’s reign. Zajjājī claims his history took ten years to write.Footnote ⁶³ He also makes two references to his advanced age during the writing process: once when he was sixty and again at sixty-seven. With his date of birth given as 608/1211–1212, we can say that he began writing the Humāyūn-nāmah no earlier than 665/1266–1267 and completed the text no later than 678/1279–1280.Footnote ⁶⁴ These dates coincided with Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn’s ascendance and death and Shams al-Dīn Juvaynī’s appointment as ṣāḥib dīvān. These men’s involvement in both provisioning the Mongol armies and fighting their wars, not to mention their proximity to the Mongol court in Mughan and Arran, allowed them to feed Zajjājī information found in no other sources. Zajjājī’s close relationship to Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn and his own observations about Tabriz after the Mongol conquest make his one of the earliest and most authoritative accounts of early Mongol rule in Iran.

The Mongol administrators closest to Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn were those based in Arran and Mughan, namely Baiju Noyan and Eljigidei Noyan. Indeed, Zajjājī’s first mention of Ṣadr al-Dīn is in a passage devoted to the Mongol invasion of Seljuk Anatolia in 1243, which was led by Baiju Noyan. Zajjājī recalls that Baiju had been goaded into attacking the Seljuk ruler, Sultan Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kaykhusraū (r. 1237–1246), who threatened to invade Azerbaijan if the Mongol commander did not come to do battle with him. Baiju supposedly laughed out loud at receiving this threat before mobilizing his army.Footnote ⁶⁵ Zajjājī’s account of the war is short and most of the details are confirmed by other contemporary authors, such as Bar Hebraeus and Ibn Bībī, who were also a part of Shams al-Dīn Juvaynī’s circle in Tabriz.Footnote ⁶⁶ Both Ibn Bībī and Bar Hebraeus echo Zajjājī’s criticism of Sultan Ghiyāth al-Dīn’s arrogant and heedless attitude toward the Mongols after they encroached on Erzurum in 1241.Footnote ⁶⁷ These authors also affirm other details of Baiju’s campaign, from the route of his march – through Köse Dağ to Kayseri and then back to Sivas, Erzincan, and Azerbaijan – to Ghiyāth al-Dīn’s use of Syrian troops.Footnote ⁶⁸ Yet Zajjājī’s account appears to predate both Bar Hebraeus (1276) and Ibn Bībī (1282) and was most likely procured directly from Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn, who was present on this campaign. According to the Humāyūn-nāmah, Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn was with the Mongol army when they besieged Kayseri and subsequently drafted a message to Sivas warning the town to surrender, thereby averting further bloodshed.Footnote ⁶⁹ These are the earliest references to Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn in the Humāyūn-nāmah and imply that he was Zajjājī’s primary source of information on the conquest of Anatolia.

The account of Baiju’s conquest of Anatolia prefaces a broader narrative about early Mongol rule in Iran and Azerbaijan. Baiju was naturally at the center of this story, as he had assumed control of the Mongol army dispatched to Iran by the great khan Ögödei (r. 1229–1241) in 1229.Footnote ⁷⁰ The army was recruited from other Mongol divisions, who levied troops, animals, and commanders to form a new composite force (tamma). Several of the commanders of this new division, which numbered 30,000 soldiers, already had experience in Iran. Tainal Noyan, one of Baiju’s compatriots, participated in the conquest of Urgench in 1221.Footnote ⁷¹ He appears to have remained near Khwārazm for several years after and is named, alongside Baiju, as leading an incursion into Iran in 625/1227–8.Footnote ⁷² Both Baiju and Tainal were under the command of Chormaqan Noyan in the new tamma division, which crossed into Azerbaijan and imposed direct Mongol rule on the region in 1230.Footnote ⁷³ Zajjājī is one of several sources to name the commanders of this division, along with the contemporaneous Armenian history by Grigor Aknerts’i (1273) and the biography (sīrat) by Shihāb al-Dīn Nasavī. Zajjājī appears to have drawn on Nasavī’s history in other parts of the Humāyūn-nāmah (see below), yet the Mongol commanders listed in his text differ from those in the sīrat. Nasavī lists only six commanders, whereas Zajjājī names nine. While only five of these names overlap, Grigor Aknerts’i’s far more expansive list confirms the names of the other four commanders.Footnote ⁷⁴ These differences again suggest that Zajjājī drew on independent, albeit generally accurate, information from his circle in Tabriz. This assumption is confirmed by his account of the tamma’s assault on Baghdad, led by Tainal Noyan, in 632/1234–5. Zajjājī heard that Tainal and his compatriot Taimas had successfully ambushed an ‘Abbāsid army, killing 99% of the ‘Abbāsid soldiers.Footnote ⁷⁵ Zajjājī derived this information from the fact that Tainal and Taimas sold the plunder and captives from this expedition in Tabriz, making many locals rich overnight. One of the notables of Tabriz, a man named Ḥasan, had been spotted by Zajjājī splashing around his newfound wealth, buying a garden and a palace, while also parading through the streets on a gold-caparisoned horse.Footnote ⁷⁶ Zajjājī’s position at the heart of the new Mongol administration in Tabriz gave him a clear view of events taking place elsewhere in the empire.

Yet Zajjājī is most informative on the leadership of the Mongol army in Azerbaijan after 1240. Zajjājī is one of the first authors to report that Chormaqan, the commander of the tamma army, had succumbed to an illness, presumed to be a stroke. Zajjājī provides eloquent details on this affliction, which he claims struck Chormaqan in 634/1236–7, causing his arms and legs to tremble as he lost the power to speak. Chormaqan’s poor health caused him to abort a campaign he had led against Irbil in the same year.Footnote ⁷⁷ His illness and later death created a leadership vacuum at the head of the Mongol army in Iran, temporarily filled by Chormaqan’s wife before Ögödei (or perhaps his wife Töregene Khatun) appointed Baiju as successor in 1240.Footnote ⁷⁸ The status of Baiju and the tamma within the broader Mongol Empire has been the subject of great scholarly interest in recent years. Baiju had joined the tamma from the army of Chinggis Khan’s eldest son Jochi in the Qipchaq Steppe. It has, therefore, been assumed that Baiju’s appointment played a role in extending the reach of Jochi’s son, Batu, over the west, including Iran and Anatolia.Footnote ⁷⁹ Contemporary observers from Khurasan to Armenia confirm that Batu’s agents collected revenue throughout much of Iran prior to the arrival of Hülegü in 1256, and Baiju’s appointment to head the tamma army seems to have completed the Mongol ascendancy.Footnote ⁸⁰

Zajjājī’s account confirms that there was coordination between the tamma of Azerbaijan and Batu’s armies shortly after Chormaqan’s illness. Indeed, Baiju appears to have played a direct role in solidifying Batu’s control over the Qipchaq Steppe. Ögödei had assigned Batu an army to help him crush the remaining Qipchaq forces in the Donbas, along with the recalcitrant Bulgar and Rus princes, at roughly the same time that he sent Chormaqan’s tamma army to Iran.Footnote ⁸¹ The khan’s focus on the war against the Jin dynasty of northern China in 1231–4 delayed further progress on the western front, but Ögödei renewed his commitment to conquering the Qipchaq Steppe in 1235 and sent reinforcements for Batu in the following year. Stephen Pow has speculated that the simultaneity of previous campaigns against Iran and the Qipchaq Steppe suggests a degree of coordination, and Ḥakīm Zajjājī lends some support to this theory.Footnote ⁸² After successful campaigns in the Volga against the town of Bilar and the Qipchaq chieftain Bachman, Batu sent his cousin Möngke to trap the remaining Qipchaq forces in the north Caucasus before devastating the Ossetian city of Magas.Footnote ⁸³ At the same time, Zajjājī states that Batu sent an elchi (messenger) to Baiju, telling him to march his army to the Darband (also Derbent) and Shirvan, preventing the Qipchaqs from escaping southwards via Ardabil into Iran. Zajjājī reports that Baiju achieved his objective and rendered both regions subject (īl) to the Mongol Empire.Footnote ⁸⁴ The Humāyūn-nāmah therefore provides the first testimony supporting the theory that the Mongols coordinated their campaign against the Qipchaqs across multiple fronts, from Russia to the Caucasus and even Iran and Anatolia.

Whether Baiju considered himself to be Batu’s subject is less clear. Zajjājī appears to have viewed the great khan’s representative as the supreme power in Iran. Zajjājī gave the title “shahanshāh” to the head of the regional secretariat in Mavarannahr, Maḥmūd Yalavāch.Footnote ⁸⁵ The Uyghur secretary, Körgüz, subsequently headed a new secretariat in Iran, which was responsible for overseeing the collection of census data and taxation. Zajjājī echoes the chronicle of Kirakos Ganjakets’i (1271), who testified that both the Georgians and the Mongols were offended by Körgüz’s officials and many left Tabriz to escape exaction before he was replaced in 1242 by Arghun Aqa, whom Zajjājī likewise titles “shahanshāh.”Footnote ⁸⁶ The reverence with which Zajjājī, and by extraction his patrons, treated the regional secretariat again suggests that his information came from within Arghun Aqa’s circle, whether Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn or Shams al-Dīn Juvaynī.

Baiju’s ascendancy over the tamma of Azerbaijan was, however, cut short by the appointment of a new commander, Ejigidei Noyan, during the reign of Güyük Khan (r. 1246–8). Eljigidei was one of the most mercurial figures in the early history of Mongol-ruled Iran. According to Juvaynī, Eljigidei was placed in charge of his own tamma, recruited by a levy of two out of every ten soldiers in the empire, with the objective of subduing the Nizārī Ismā’īlīs.Footnote ⁸⁷ This army would apparently act as a vanguard for a much larger force commanded by Güyük himself. But Güyük died near Besh-Baliq in 1248 and it is unclear what Eljigidei managed to achieve in Iran, if anything. ‘Alā al-Dīn Juvaynī noted that news of Güyük’s death coincided with Eljigidei’s arrival in Iran and he remained at Badghis prior to the winter of 1248–9.Footnote ⁸⁸ Eljigidei is not mentioned at all by Juvaynī’s contemporary, Minhāj Sirāj Jūzjānī, whose position to the east of Iran may have prevented him from receiving more detailed news of the Mongol army in Azerbaijan. Eljigidei was given an entry by the Mamluk encyclopedist al-‘Umarī (d. 1349), who claimed Eljigidei was sent to arrest Batu’s agents in Iran but was apprehended himself when news of Güyük’s death spread. Following his arrest, Eljigidei was sent to Batu, who boiled him alive in a vat.Footnote ⁸⁹ The Chinese history of the Yuan dynasty, the Yuan shi, contains a slightly different version of events, stating instead that Güyük sent Eljigidei to assume control of the army of Chormaqan (Choszuman) in the eighth month of 1247. When Güyük died, however, his successor, Möngke, sent a prince named Qadan to kill Eljigidei and re-register his family into new fighting divisions.Footnote ⁹⁰ The Armenian friar Kirakos confirms that Güyük sent Eljigidei to assume Baiju’s command of the army in Armenia. Yet Eljigidei received word of Güyük’s death while en route and did not advance to his final station until the tamma commanders received orders from Batu to put him to death.Footnote ⁹¹ These varied accounts reinforce the idea that Baiju had a close relationship with Batu, which Güyük wished to curtail. But they leave us precious little information on how far Eljigidei advanced and whether he ever managed to assume his position before being overthrown and killed.

The clearest source of information on Eljigidei’s movements in Iran is Vincent of Beauvais (d. 1264), who copied his account from the earlier Speculum Historiale by Simon of St. Quentin (1240s). Both chronicles contain a record of Friar Ascelin of Cremona’s 1245 papal mission to the Mongols. Ascelin traveled as one of four papal envoys, only one of which made it all the way to Güyük’s court.Footnote ⁹² The successful mission, led by John of Plano Carpini, traveled via the Black Sea and Qipchaq Steppe, while Ascelin was sent across the Mediterranean to Anatolia, where he encountered Baiju’s camp in Azerbaijan in May of 1247. The meeting between Friar Ascelin and Baiju was far from cordial, as the papal envoy failed to bring gifts for its host and refused to observe the Mongol rules of comportment and courtly etiquette.Footnote ⁹³ Baiju may have even contemplated killing Ascelin at one point, before news of Eljigidei’s appointment reached him in late June. Ascelin reported that Baiju immediately began preparing mare’s milk and other provisions to receive Eljigidei, who arrived in Iran along with delegations from Aleppo and Mosul. The celebrations were so raucous that Ascelin’s departure was postponed until July, at which point he returned with a letter encouraging the pope to provide military support to the Mongols.Footnote ⁹⁴ Ascelin left before Güyük’s death and so Beauvais reports nothing of Eljigidei’s fate.

The Humāyūn-nāmah confirms Ascelin’s account of Eljigidei’s arrival in Iran and adds further details on his demise. It seems again that Zajjājī’s information was derived from Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn, who Zajjājī claims traveled to Güyük’s court in the company of Arghun Aqa in 1246. Ṣadr al-Dīn was, therefore, present at the quriltai (meeting of notables) that occurred shortly before Eljigidei’s assignment to Iran and was most likely involved in the procurement of supplies mentioned by Ascelin.Footnote ⁹⁵ Five years later, Ṣadr al-Dīn and Arghun Aqa again traveled to the court of the great khan, this time Möngke, and were returned with similar instructions to collect targhu (provisions) for the army in 1256.Footnote ⁹⁶ Both Arghun Aqa and Ṣadr al-Dīn would therefore have been acutely aware of both Baiju and Eljigidei’s itineraries, as they needed to prepare campsites, food, and other necessities for the commanders. Zajjājī notes that Eljigidei entered Iran via Balkh before progressing to Herat, and that many Iranian princes (maliks) were humbled by the Mongol commander.Footnote ⁹⁷ Eljigidei then moved west to Hamadan, pronouncing that any who ignored his orders would be executed. Baiju traveled to meet Eljigidei there, a fact not recorded in any other history but fits with Zajjājī’s explanation that Eljigidei’s primary objective was to attack Baghdad.Footnote ⁹⁸ Hamadan was also the staging ground from which Hülegü launched his successful campaign to conquer Baghdad in 1257. Eljigidei was never given the chance to fulfil this objective, as he scrambled back to the Amū-daryā upon receiving word of Güyük’s death.Footnote ⁹⁹

The death of Güyük allowed Baiju to resume his old position as head of the tamma army, and Zajjājī confirms that Baiju was also involved in Eljigidei’s apprehension. Indeed, the Humāyūn-nāmah affirms that Eljigidei had been sent to replace Baiju, who dutifully followed Güyük’s orders and “did not question him as was appropriate.”Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Zajjājī claims that many of the emirs and soldiers in the tamma army feared Eljigidei, as he had killed and disposed of several of them, “planting the seeds of hatred toward him.”Footnote ¹⁰¹ The same behavior was meted out to the Mongol contingents in Khurasan, but Güyük’s death presented an opportunity to topple the newly arrived tyrant. In the ensuing confusion, Zajjājī observes that the empire notables turned to Batu for leadership, promising to follow his direction. Batu soon sent orders to Baiju to arrest Eljigidei, dispatching Baiju to the Qipchaq Steppe. Batu promised Baiju that he would be handsomely rewarded for this service, and the commander dutifully obliged, sending his deputy, Chaghadai Kūchik, and ten braves (bahādurs) to Khurasan. The group seized Eljigidei and “tied his hands and legs so that he looked like a stone.” The captive commander was then sent, “tearful and repentant,” with an escort of 300 Mongols to Batu, who put Eljigidei to death, thereby bringing an end to his brief but disruptive period as the head of the Mongol army in Iran.Footnote ¹⁰²

The particularities Ḥakīm Zajjājī relays about tamma commanders Baiju and Eljigidei are among the most detailed and novel sections of the Humāyūn-nāmah. The information Zajjājī presents also reveals his likely source: Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn and, by extension, Arghun Aqa. As it was these men’s duty to keep the Mongol army in northwestern Iran supplied with provisions, they were informed of the army’s numbers, names, and movements to an extent few other sources could match. We can therefore see that the development of permanent administrative and fiscal structures to support the Mongol army in Azerbaijan produced its own pool of experts capable of writing court histories, parallel to those assisting ‘Alā al-Dīn Juvaynī in Khurasan. Arghun Aqa and Shams al-Dīn Juvaynī were the common denominators in both of these regional circles, however, and their influence led to a cross pollination between the two groups, as we see in the next section.

Ḥakīm Zajjājī and Īlkhānid historiography

Ḥakīm Zajjājī’s affiliation with the Juvaynīs and Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn meant that he was intimately involved in the history of Mongol-ruled Iran. The Humāyūn-nāmah betrays clear sympathy for his factional allies, whom he compares favorably with earlier Islamic rulers. This sympathy extended to the Mongols, who are described as bestowing favors and honor upon Zajjājī’s home town of Tabriz. At times, his history assumes an almost didactic purpose, situating the Mongols at the terminus of other dynastic histories and inviting comparisons with earlier periods of political transition. Zajjājī uses these analogies to advance the view that the Mongol conquest was part of God’s plan to renew and rejuvenate Islam, with his hometown of Tabriz playing a central role in the new emerging order. This perspective brought him into alignment with the Tārīkh-i Jahāngushā and the wider historiographical agenda of the Juvaynīs, who were supporting the production of other historical works at roughly the same time.

It should first be acknowledged that there are some impediments to deciphering the core narrative of the Humāyūn-nāmah, not least the fact that the manuscript has degraded over time. Sections of the manuscript have been corrupted and large fragments of text are missing altogether, including the entire first volume, robbing us of the history of the Prophet Muḥammad, Rāshidūn Caliphate, and early Umayyads, in addition to the author’s preface. Nevertheless, the text’s basic structure is not difficult to identify, as it is arranged into chapters devoted to dynasties organised chronologically, from the ‘Abbāsids (750–1258) and the subsequent Persian and Turkish families who held sway over Iran to the Būyids (934–1062) and the Seljuks (1040–1157). The Mongols are not given their own chapter, instead appearing at the tail of the ‘Abbāsid, Seljuk, and Eldigüzid (1148–1225) sections. In each case, the Mongols emerge to end dynasties that Zajjājī believed had become corrupt and debased. In some instances, he makes these arguments by drawing on information from earlier histories. Yet, Zajjājī’s fidelity to this source material makes it easy to determine where he copied from other texts and where he made his own contribution to the history of the Mongols. In some instances, the literature Zajjājī drew on also ties him back to the Juvaynīs’ literary circles, providing a clear picture of how early Īlkhānid court histories were produced in concert.

The theme of fitna (spiritual turmoil/conflict) reoccurs throughout Zajjājī’s account of the Mongol conquests. The term fitna was borrowed from early Islamic history, where it was used to describe the first civil war among the Muslims. The First Fitna erupted after the murder of the third caliph, ‘Uthmān b. ‘Affān (r. 644–656), when the Prophet Muḥammad’s widow, ‘Ā’isha, contested the appointment of his cousin, ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib (r. 656–661), as the new caliph. ‘Ā’isha was defeated at the Battle of the Camel (656), but ‘Uthmān’s relatives, the Umayyads (661–750), continued her opposition to ‘Alī until his murder in 661. Contemporary observers and subsequent historians all lamented the First Fitna, as it fractured the Islamic community, pitting the Prophet’s former family and companions against one another.Footnote ¹⁰³ The First Fitna also provoked a shift away from the supposedly more virtuous rule of the “Rightly Guided” (rāshidūn) caliphs (632–661) towards the hereditary, clan-based government of the Umayyad dynasty (661–750). A fitna was not, therefore, just a civil war, but more a disruption to the basic moral order of Islamic society.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Zajjājī’s use of the earlier nomenclature is perhaps not surprising in a volume that begins with the overthrow of the Umayyads, but he expands the theme to include the Islamic dynasties toppled by the Mongols in his own time.

In almost all cases, the Mongols are described as bringing fitna to an end, restoring moral and political order. One of the longest extracts concerning the Mongols follows the history of the Eldigüzid atabegs of Arran and Azerbaijan. The Eldigüzids assumed control of the region in the years following the death of Sultan Mas’ūd (d. 1152) and the division of the Seljuk Empire into regional power blocks.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ Yet by the early 13th century, the Humāyūn-nāmah bemoans a string of rebellions led by Eldigüzid commanders against their atabeg, Özbek (r. 1210–1225). These insurrections were often agitated by the Khwārazmshāh Sultan Muḥammad (r. 1200–1221), who had his own regional ambitions and wished to weaken the Eldigüzids, causing “fitna to emerge from hiding.”Footnote ¹⁰⁶ The constant conflict led to soldiers being billeted in the homes of common people, who were thus “afflicted with suffering,” “rendering those homes, ruined.”Footnote ¹⁰⁷ This situation was only compounded by the arrival of Khwārazmshāhid troops, who were fleeing from the Mongols. Under these circumstances, even mosques were not immune from violence and it became difficult for Özbek to distinguish friends from enemies.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ By contrast, Zajjājī claims that the Mongols were led by “that shāh, [the] sāḥib qirān, from whom the eyes of the stars were dazzled.”Footnote ¹⁰⁹ For Zajjājī, there was a clear contrast between the Khwārazmshāhs and Eldigüzids, who harassed the people of Tabriz, and the Mongols, for whom “That anger and spite [was] converted to affection.”Footnote ¹¹⁰ Zajjājī recalls that Shams al-Dīn Ṭughrā’ī, a scion of one of the ancient families of Tabriz, advised Özbek to send gifts and garments to the Mongols to buy their favor. The ploy worked, as the Mongols proclaimed: “this fine city is our vassal (īl), which helps our army and horde; Such a golden city shall be the khan’s private demesne (khāṣṣ), there is no finer [town] than this in the world.”Footnote ¹¹¹ In short, the city had gone from a state of chaos (i.e., fitna) under the Eldigüzids to the protected space of the Mongol khan.

In the Humāyūn-nāmah, the manifold benefits of working with the Mongols are extolled. Zajjājī reproduces the yarliq (royal edict), issued by order of the great khan, granting Tabriz amnesty and protection. The edict stated that those who submitted without resistance would not be harmed and would retain their lands and possessions. Moreover, in return for contributing soldiers to the military levies (charīk), the people of Tabriz would also be given a share of the bounty from new conquests. As the yarliq claimed: “Since the denizens of Tabriz have done these things in submission to us their luck has sharpened.”Footnote ¹¹² It is unclear where Zajjājī obtained a copy of the yarliq, although the most likely explanation is that his friend, the Mongol basqaq of the city, Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn, provided the document. Zajjājī may have also relied in part on his own memory of the Mongol conquest, albeit he was only nine years old when the yarliq was written. Whatever the case, Zajjājī’s work is the only history to give a first-hand account of the Mongol conquest of Tabriz and the terms under which the city submitted to the khan. This history provides an overwhelmingly positive account of Tabriz’s interaction with the conquerors, in sharp contrast to most other texts from the 13th century, which more readily emphasize the brutality of the Mongol conquest of Iran.

Zajjājī believed the Mongol invasion had also put an end to fitna in other parts of the world, such as the Khwārazmshāh Empire (1138–1231). The Khwārazmshāhs, like the Eldigüzids, had capitalized on the collapse of Seljuk power to seize control of Khurasan and Transoxiana. As the descendents of a Seljuk slave, Anūshtakīn (d. 1097), the Khwārazmshāhs owed fealty to the Buddhist Qara Khitai Empire (1124–1218) in Central Asia and derived much of their military strength from the still largely pagan Qipchaq nomads of Turkistan.Footnote ¹¹³ The Khwārazmshāhs’ less than prestigious origins and the brutality with which they imposed their rule over Khurasan made them unpopular across much of the Islamic world. Zajjājī refused to give the Khwārazmshāhs their own chapter, instead situating them in the section on the ‘Abbāsids. This ordering was dictated by the fact that the last Khwārazmshāh, Sultan Muḥammad, had begun an unsuccessful war with the caliph al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh. Zajjājī derived his information on this conflict from the Sīrat-i Jalāl al-Dīn Mīnkubirnī by Shihāb al-Dīn Nasavī, which blamed the conflict on Sultan Muḥammad, who had “quit [what is] advisable for the wise and sound and the path of the people of the faith.”Footnote ¹¹⁴ Muḥammad demanded that al-Nāṣir afford him the same titles and deference shown to earlier Seljuk rulers, but al-Nāṣir refused. This diplomatic snub caused Muḥammad to launch a failed invasion of Baghdad in the name of a sayyid whom he proclaimed the new caliph in 1217. The invasion was aborted when the Khwārazmshāh army was decimated by a winter storm while passing across the Zagros Mountains into Iraq.Footnote ¹¹⁵ Nasavī concluded that the storm had been sent by God to show that “any who challenged that house [i.e., the ‘Abbāsids] will see nothing but punishment.”Footnote ¹¹⁶ Indeed, Nasavī believed Muḥammad’s war against the caliphate was just one of several sins that caused his downfall, including the unjustly murder of Bilge Khan of Utrar, one of Muḥammad’s oldest allies, on the unfounded suspicion that the khan might rebel during the sultan’s absence in Iraq.Footnote ¹¹⁷ These and other outrages caused observers to “weep blood” and convinced Nasavī – and Zajjājī – that the Mongol invasion was simply God’s justice. Nasavī noted that the fall of the Khwārazmshāhs contained “the divine secret of the downfall of other dynasties,” namely that their demise was as much due to their moral degradation as any political or military defeat.Footnote ¹¹⁸

Sultan Muḥammad’s fate did not concern the ‘Abbāsids, so the subsequent demise of the Khwārazmshāh Empire and its brief revival under Muḥammad’s son, Jalāl al-Dīn (d. 1231), was omitted from Zajjājī’s history of al-Nāṣir. The Humāyūn-nāmah only re-joins the story of the Mongols later, in the chapter devoted to the Eldigüzids. Yet instead of borrowing from Nasavī’s history, Zajjājī chose to quote from the earlier chronicle of Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fī’l-Tā’rīkh (1231). This switching of sources may have been dictated by the fact that, while Nasavī briefly entertained hopes that Jalāl al-Dīn would be the savior of Muslim Iranians, Ibn al-Athīr held no such hopes. Indeed, Ibn al-Athīr regarded Jalāl al-Dīn as a false prophet, who spent as much time fighting fellow Muslims in Iraq and Anatolia as he did the heathen Mongols. While Nasavī and Ibn al-Athīr followed a similar narrative, there is one key point of difference between the two texts, which Zajjājī chose to emphasis: the story of Jalāl al-Dīn’s infatuation with the slave Qilij. Jalāl al-Dīn’s brother, Ghiyāth al-Dīn, murdered Qilij before absconding from the Khwārazmshāh army, but Jalāl al-Dīn refused to accept the loss of his friend and likely lover. He spiralled into near insanity, insisting the corpse be placed next to him on a chair, pretending that Qilij was still alive and obliging his courtiers to do the same.Footnote ¹¹⁹ The body was eventually transported to Tabriz for burial, where both Ibn al-Athīr and Zajjājī claimed the townspeople were forced into public displays of mourning and berated for showing insufficient grief.Footnote ¹²⁰ Ibn al-Athīr used Jalāl al-Dīn’s macabre infatuation with Qilij to prove that he had lost not only his mind but also the right to rule: “No wonder that God Almighty did not spare him for long and he suffered his defeats at the hands of both Muslims and Tatars.”Footnote ¹²¹ Zajjājī was happy to echo this assessment before recalling how the Mongol tamma hunted Jalāl al-Dīn until his death in the mountains of Kurdistan near Amid, bringing an end to another cause of instability in the Islamic world.Footnote ¹²²

Like most other histories written in the second half of the 13th century, Ḥakīm Zajjājī also referenced the Mongol conquest of the Nizārī Ismā’īlīs. They too had been a source of disruption, “having brought fitna to the world.”Footnote ¹²³ Zajjājī was, therefore, understandably jubilant when the Mongol prince Hülegü toppled their leader, Rukn al-Dīn Khūrshāh, in 1256: “One thousand praises be upon such a shāh.”Footnote ¹²⁴ The Ismā’īlīs were important players in the Humāyūn-nāmah, in so far as their feud with the people of Qazvin caused the qadī of that city to journey to the court of Möngke – Hülegü’s brother – and request an army be sent to put a stop to their oppression.Footnote ¹²⁵ The disruption caused by the Ismā’īlīs gave Möngke the pretext he needed to send his brother to assume control of Iran. Yet, as pious as Möngke’s intentions supposedly were, at least according to Zajjājī, the Humāyūn-nāmah devotes relatively little space to the conquest of the Ismā’īlīs. They were not considered a legitimate dynasty and did not warrant their own chapter. They simply had to be mentioned because the conquest of the Ismā’īlīs presaged Hülegü’s war against the ‘Abbāsids in 1258.

The Humāyūn-nāmah relied on another source of information for the Mongol war against the ‘Abbāsids, the “Account of the Fate of Baghdad.”Footnote ¹²⁶ This record was penned by the polymath and advisor to Hülegü, Nāṣir al-Dīn Muḥammad Ṭūsī (1201–1274), who was present during the siege of the city and whose narrative was also appended to ‘Alā al-Dīn Juvaynī’s Tārīkh-i Jahāngushā in the author’s lifetime. Zajjājī remained incredibly faithful to Ṭūsī’s text, digressing only slightly. For instance, Zajjājī periodically referred to Hülegü as “ejen” (Mong. lord), a term also employed sparingly by Rashīd al-Dīn.Footnote ¹²⁷ The Mongols used this title in place of their former ruler’s name, which became taboo after his death.Footnote ¹²⁸ Zajjājī may have heard the title, but he used it inconsistently, suggesting he simply employed it to keep the meter of his rhyming couplets. Ṭūsī, whose Dhayl was finished before Hülegü’s death, did not use the title.

The two sources also differ in several other places, including the route taken by the army of the right wing, led by Baiju and Sughunjaq, on its march to Baghdad. Ṭūsī claimed that the army traveled via Irbil in northern Iraq, while Zajjājī stated that it passed through Mosul. Irbil seems like a more likely route, given that Zajjājī reported prisoners from Baghdad were sent north to intimidate Badr al-Dīn Lu’lu’, the ruler of Mosul, while the siege was still ongoing.Footnote ¹²⁹ Ḥakīm Zajjājī’s account of the siege also differs from that of Ṭūsī, as the former stressed the role of ‘Abbāsid vizier Ibn al-‘Alqamī in negotiating the surrender of the caliph’s troops. The Humāyūn-nāmah claims the vizier was brought to Hülegü during the siege of Baghdad and he advised the Mongol prince to show mildness, to lull the ‘Abbāsid commanders into submission. Ṭūsī, by contrast, simply claimed that envoys were exchanged, without giving names or details of the messages.Footnote ¹³⁰ Ibn al-‘Alqamī’s collaboration with the Mongols was reported by other contemporary sources, such as Ibn al-Sā’ī (1196–1276), the librarian of the Mustanṣiriyya and Niẓāmiyya madrasas, who lived through the siege and remained in Baghdad under Mongol rule. Ḥusayn Baṭīṭī, a Shī’ī author based in Amul, and Minhāj Sirāj Jūzjānī likewise reported that Ibn al-‘Alqamī invited Hülegü to conquer Baghdad.Footnote ¹³¹ The vizier’s opposition to al-Musta’ṣim was based primarily on the caliph’s attack on the Shī’ī quarter of al-Karkh, which resulted in a general massacre and the abduction of women and children.Footnote ¹³² These contemporaneous accounts indicate that rumors of Ibn al-‘Alqamī’s collusion with the Mongols had spread widely soon after the fall of Baghdad, even though some modern historians have questioned the veracity of these reports. Nasir al-Din Ṭūsī was himself a Shī’ī who may have sympathized with the vizier’s plight and wished to keep any rumors of his betrayal secret to protect his own position. Zajjājī had no such inhibitions and even expressed some admiration for one of Ibn al-‘Alqamī’s rivals, the Kurdish commander Sulaymānshāh.Footnote ¹³³ Zajjājī was, therefore, discriminating in what information he chose to copy and what he decided to leave out. Indeed, his reproduction of Ṭūsī’s account ceases before the execution of the caliph and the massacre of his family. Like ‘Alā al-Dīn Juvaynī, Zajjājī probably found it difficult to explain the Mongols’ complete eradication of the ‘Abbāsids and wished to avoid the more gruesome details.Footnote ¹³⁴

Hülegü’s objective in the conquest of Baghdad is left unclear in Zajjājī’s history. The conquest appears out of place in a chapter on the demise of the Umayyads at the hands of Abū Muslim and the inauguration of the ‘Abbāsid dynasty. The positioning of the text suggests some thematic continuity, presenting the Mongols as the natural terminus for the history of the caliphate, in the same way they had brought an end to the various Turkish and Persian dynasties of Iran. Packaging the heroic Abū Muslim’s victory over the Umayyads together with Hülegü’s triumph over the ‘Abbāsids may have also been intended to invite comparisons legitimating the Mongol capture of Baghdad.Footnote ¹³⁵ Yet this seems unlikely, as the text of Hülegü’s conquest does not fit neatly into the narrative of the ‘Abbāsid Revolution. Moreover, other digressions into the history of the Mongol Empire appear in their proper chronological place, and it would be out of keeping with the manuscipt’s structure to address the Mongol conquest of Baghdad in 750. It is far more likely that we are dealing with a simple jumbling of the folios, a problem that afflicts other parts of the Humāyūn-nāmah and complicates the reading of the manuscript.

The position of the Juvaynīs in Zajjājī’s history is, by contrast, far more obvious, as their placement coincides with the broader theme of the Mongol conquest and renewal of Islam. In 1269, Zajjājī’s patron, Malik Ṣadr al-Dīn, died. While Zajjājī celebrated the appointment of Ṣadr al-Dīn’s son, ‘Imād al-Dīn, to his father’s post in 668/1269–1270, the author pivoted to praising Shams al-Dīn Juvaynī as the “vizer, he is the shah, and he is the head of the army,” who helped secure Zajjājī’s appointment.Footnote ¹³⁶ Indeed, the fall of the ‘Abbasid dynasty is followed by praise of Shams al-Dīn, under whose oversight “the world is glad of the blessings of his good fortune.” Juvaynī is described as the Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction (ṣāḥib qirān), praying that the world remain joyful with “no fitna or sorrow in his time.”Footnote ¹³⁷ In other words, the theme of fitna reaches its conclusion with the rise of Zajjājī’s patrons, who were ultimately responsible for the end of the disorder and the rejuvenation of Islam. Such hyperbole reflects Zajjājī’s position, one stage removed from the royal court. As such, Juvaynī’s patronage and support were much more consequential to Zajjājī’s position in the literary circle of Tabriz.

Ḥakīm Zajjājī’s verse history is therefore one of the earliest texts to present the Mongol conquest of Iran as a positive and permanent change. The same interpretation is given, though more explicitly, in ‘Alā al-Dīn Juvaynī’s Tārīkh-i Jahāngushā, which was produced at least a decade earlier. Juvaynī viewed the Mongol Empire as the vehicle through which Islam would spread to new corners of the world, particularly China. Rashīd al-Dīn continued this work, arguing that the Mongol conquest was the first step in a divine plan to renew Islam.Footnote ¹³⁸ Zajjājī’s perspective was, by contrast, far less expansive, focusing primarily on his own experience of Mongol rule in Tabriz. Both he and his patrons had benefitted from the Mongols’ arrival and this optimism was reflected in his writing, which describes the Mongols and their Iranian allies bringing order to the fitna of the early 13th century. The Humāyūn-nāmah therefore stands alongside the Tārīkh-i Jahāngushā as one of the first publications in a distinctly Īlkhānid historiography to view the Mongol conquest and rule in a positive light. Zajjājī was, however, far more than a simple apologist for Mongol rule. He and his patrons were witnesses to the people and events they documented, making the Humāyūn-nāmah a valuable source of information on early Mongol rule in Iran.