The Written Arts in the Ilkhanate

Persia had many great poets in its long history. Under the Seljuks, some poets wrote book-length works on personal subjects, while others wrote poems praising their rulers. During the first decades of the Mongol conquest, however, poetry declined in Persia. Many poets and other artists either died during the invasions or fled to other countries. Under Mongol rule, poetry never regained the prominence it once had. The city of Shiraz, however, escaped Mongol destruction, and it produced several notable poets. One of these was Sadi (c. 1184-1291), who followed a branch of Islam called Sufism. Sufis believe a person must go beyond the rules and regulations of religious life and search for a direct experience of God. Sadi’s most famous work, the Gulistan (Rose Garden), uses poetry and short sayings to instruct others-especially rulers-on how to live a good and meaningful life. He wrote (quoted in Http://classics. mit. edu/Sadi/ gulistan.2.i. html), “All this is nothing as it passes away: Throne and luck, command and prohibition, taking and giving.” Power and riches, the poet meant, did not last forever, and were not important to living a spiritual life.

Although poetry struggled under the Mongols, another form of literature reached its peak. Historiography is the study of history using different original sources over time, trying to show how earlier historians may have distorted facts or made errors. It is the history of the history of a particular subject, and requires a historian to carefully weigh other historians’ methods and prejudices. Under the Mongols, Persian scholars excelled at historiography and general history. Writing in The Cambridge History of Iran, J. Rypka says, “ . . . the principal historical works of the Mongol period are amongst the finest ever produced by any of the Islamic people.”

The historical writing of the Ilkhanate rested on several key factors. For one, the Mongols believed they were on a divine mission to rule the world, and they wanted their reign well documented. The Persians also had access to documents from all across the Mongol Empire, and some historians lived through the events they described, so they were able to add descriptions and quotes from their direct knowledge. At their best, the Persians wrote history with the flair of good literature.

A Sufi Who Fled

The first Mongol conquest under Chinggis dramatically changed the life of another Sufi poet. Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-1273) was born on the eastern edge of the Persia, in what is now Afghanistan. When the Mongols roared through that region around 1221, Rumi fled to Syria and then settled in what is now Turkey. During his travels, he met religious figures who shaped his beliefs, and those beliefs influenced his art. Rumi not only wrote poetry, he also developed a type of spinning dance that leads to a form of religious meditation. Some Sufis, known as "whirling dervishes," still do this dance. Rumi's poetry was largely unknown in the Western world until relatively recently. Now he is often read and quoted by people who follow spiritual paths that stress love and tolerance for all people, as the poet did.

The first of the great Persian historians under the Mongols was Ju-vaini (1226-1283). He worked for the Mongol government, serving in Baghdad. His greatest work was the three-volume History of the World Conqueror, about Chinggis and the Mongol Empire until 1258. The first volume detailed Chinggis’s rise to power and included the brief rule of his son Kuyuk. The second focused on Khorazm and Persia and the Mongol presence there, while the last dealt with Mongke Khan’s reign in the 1250s.

Even more notable was Rashid al-Din (1247-1318). Like Ju-vaini, he served as a Mongol official as well as a historian. Originally trained as a doctor, Rashid al-Din worked for the Ilkhan Ghazan, who asked him to write a history of the Mongols in Persia. The scholar went beyond that, writing a multi-volume work that also included a history of Mongol China and Europe.

Burial Monument

The tomb of Ulijaytu Khodabendeh still stands in Sultaniyya, Iran, a testament to to the lavish tombs wealthy Mongols of the Ilkhanate built for themselves.