Which of the following best describes the historical circumstances of rashid al-din’s career?

1 H. Chan, ‘Liu Ping-chung (1216-1274)’, in In the Service of the Khan: Eminent Personalities of the Early Mongol-Yüan Period (1200–1300), (eds.) I. D. Rachewiltz, H. Chan, H. Chʾi-shʾing and P. Geier (Wiesbaden, 1993), pp. 245-269.

2 M. Biran, Qaidu and the Rise of the Independent Mongol State in Central Asia (Richmond, 1997), pp. 1-3.

3 T. Allsen, Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles (Cambridge, 1997), p. 9.

4 The native elite's responses to the domination of foreign powers in the pre-modern world is an issue of great interest. Morgan, for example, has drawn an analogy between Rashid al-Din and Cassiodorus Senator in late fifth-century Italy with relation to the viziers’ responses to Barbarian rule in the two states. Delving into their writings, he has pointed out a certain degree of continuity that existed between the basic administration of the invaders and that of their predecessors in post-conquest Iran and Ostrogothic Italy. See Morgan, D., ‘Cassiodorus and Rashīd al-Dīn on Barbarian Rule in Italy and Persia’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 40, 2 (1977), pp. 302-320CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 For further discussion on the life and works of Rashid al-Din, see, for example, S. Kamola, Making Mongol History: Rashid al-Din and the Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh (Edinburgh, 2019); D. Morgan, ‘Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn Ṭabīb’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, (eds.) P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_6237 (accessed 10 January 2020); S. Blair, ‘Patterns of Patronage and Production in the Ilkhanid Iran: The Case of Rashid al-Din’, in The Court of the Il-khans, 1290-1340, (eds.) J. Raby and T. Fitzherbert (Oxford, 1996), pp. 39-62; R. Amitai-Preiss, ‘New Material from the Mamluk Sources for the Biography of Rashid al-Din’, in The Court of the Il-khans, 1290-1340, (eds.) J. Raby and T. Fitzherbert (Oxford, 1996), pp. 23-37; B. Hoffmann, ‘Speaking about Oneself: Autobiographical Statements in the Works of Rashīd al-Dīn’, in Rashid al-Din: Agent and Mediator of Cultural Exchanges in Ilkhanid Iran, (eds.) A. Akasoy, C. Burnett and R. Yoeli-Tlalim (London, 2013), pp. 1-14; Rashid al-Din, M. Minuvi and I. Afshar, Waqf Nāma-yi Rabʿ-i Rashīdī (Tehran, 1971), pp. 32-37.

6 Chan, H., ‘Liu Ping-chung: A Buddhist-Taoist Statesman at the Court of Khubilai Khan’, Tʾoung Pao 53, 1/3 (1967), pp. 98-146Google Scholar.

7 Chan, ‘Liu Ping-chung’, p. 265.

8 For example, see Thomas Allsen's three publications on Bolad: Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia (Cambridge, 2001); ‘Biography of a Cultural Broker: Bolad Chʾeng-Hsiang in China and Iran’, in The Court of the Il-khans, 1290-1340, (eds.) J. Raby and T. Fitzherbert (Oxford, 1996), pp. 7-22; ‘Two Cultural Brokers of Medieval Eurasia: Bolad Aqa and Marco Polo’, in Nomadic Diplomacy, Destruction and Religion from the Pacific to the Adriatic, (ed.) M. Gervers and W. Schlepp (Toronto, 1994), pp. 63-78.

9 I. D. Rachewiltz, ‘Sino-Mongol Culture Contacts in the XIII Century: A Study on Yeh-lü Chʾu-tsʾai’ (unpublished PhD diss., Australian National University, 1960), pp. 55-56.

10 Chan, ‘Liu Ping-chung: A Buddhist-Taoist Statesman’, p. 100.

11 Ch. Atwood, Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongolian Empire (New York, 2003), p. 600.

12 Rachewiltz, ‘Sino-Mongol Culture Contacts’, p. 68.

13 Chán is a tradition of Mahayana Buddhism.

14 Chan, ‘Liu Ping-chung: A Buddhist-Taoist Statesman’, pp. 118-122.

15 Chan, ‘Liu Ping-chung’, p. 249.

16 Chan, ‘Liu Ping-chung: A Buddhist-Taoist Statesman’, p. 131.

18 Rachewiltz, ‘Sino-Mongol Culture Contacts’, pp. 67-68.

19 A. Soudavar, ‘The Han-Lin Academy and the Persian Royal Library-Atelier’, in History and Historiography of Post-Mongol Central Asia and the Middle East: Studies in Honour of John E. Woods, (eds.) J. Pfeiffer and S. A. Quinn (Wiesbaden, 2006), pp. 467-484.

20 H. Chan, ‘Chinese Official Historiography at the Yuan Court: The Composition of the Liao, Chin, and Sung Histories’, in China under Mongol Rule, (ed.) J. D. Langlois, Jr. (Princeton, 1981), pp. 56-106. For further discussion about the reasons for the postponement, see pp. 64-66.

23 While the majority of the intermediaries were Central and West Asian Muslims, other non-Chinese administrators and merchants, such as the famous Venetian Marco Polo, also took part in the formation of the intermediary bureaucracy known as semu guan (officials of various categories). See J. N. Lipman, Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China (Seattle, 1997), p. 33.

24 M. Rossabi, ‘The Muslims in the Early Yüan Dynasty’, in China under Mongol Rule, (ed.) J. D. Langlois, Jr. (Princeton, 1981), pp. 257-295. See particularly pp. 263-268.

25 Atwood, Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongolian Empire, p. 340.

26 Rossabi, ‘The Muslims in the Early Yüan Dynasty’, p. 270.

27 Atwood, Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongolian Empire, p. 340.

28 The office of dārūghachī (or ta-lu-hua-chʾih which is the Chinese equivalent) was the key institution in Mongol administration of China. For a detailed study of the office of dārūghachī, see E. Endicott-West, Mongolian Rule in China: Local Administration in the Yuan Dynasty (Cambridge, Mass., 1989).

29 Rossabi, ‘The Muslims in the Early Yüan Dynasty’, pp. 271-273.

30 Atwood, Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongolian Empire, p. 606.

31 On the Islamisation of the Ilkhans, see Amitai-Preiss, R., ‘Sufis and Shamans: Some Remarks on the Islamisation of the Mongols in the Ilkhanate’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 42, 1 (1999), pp. 27-46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; P. Jackson, The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion (London, New Haven, 2017), pp. 352-380. On the conversion of Ghazan Khan, see M. Hope, Power, Politics, and Tradition in the Mongol Empire and the Īlkhānate of Iran (Oxford, 2016), pp. 159-181. On the nature of Ghazan Khan's Islamic belief from the perspective of Mamluk sources, see Amitai-Preiss, R., ‘Ghazan, Islam and Mongol Tradition: A View from the Mamlūks Sultanate’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 59, 1 (1996), pp. 1-10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 K. Jahn, ‘Kāmalashrī - Rashīd al-Dīn's “Life and Teaching of Buddha”: A source for the Buddhism of the Mongol Period’, in Rashid al-Din's History of India, (ed.) K. Jahn (Berlin, Boston, 1965), pp. xxxi–lxxvii.

33 The political self-perception of the Ilkhans after conversion was also reflected in the establishment of a new coinage system in which the traditional Islamic coin names dinar and dirham were used. See B. Fragner, ‘Ilkhanid Rule and its Contributions to Iranian Political Culture’, in Beyond the Legacy of Genghis Khan, (ed.) L. Komaroff (Leiden, 2006), pp. 68-80. More importantly, Ghazan Khan omitted the name of the Khaqan from the coins and inscribed his own name alone. “Ruler of the World/Sultan, the Supreme/Ghazan Muhammad/May God Prolong his Reign” is one example of the inscriptions on the coins. For more examples, see T. Allsen, ‘Changing Forms of Legitimation in Mongol Iran’, in Rulers from the Steppe: State Formation on the Eurasian Periphery, (eds.) G. Seaman and D. Marks (Los Angeles, 1991), pp. 223-241. See particularly pp. 230-231.

34 Allsen, ‘Biography of a Cultural Broker’, p. 11; Allsen, T., ‘Notes on Chinese Titles in Mongol Iran’, Mongolian Studies 14 (1991), pp. 27-39Google Scholar.

36 Morgan, ‘Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn Ṭabīb’. In the endowment deed of the Rabʿ-i Rashidi, Rashid al-Din refers to other charitable complexes (abwāb al-birrs), which he had founded in Sultaniyya, Hamadan, Yazd, and Bastam; see Rashid al-Din, Minuvi, and Afshar, Waqf Nāma-yi Rabʿ-i Rashīdī, p. 241.

37 Blair, S., ‘Ilkhanid Architecture and Society: An Analysis of the Endowment Deed of the Rabʿ-i Rashīdī’, Iran 22 (1984), pp. 67-90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Rashid al-Din, Minuvi, and Afshar, Waqf Nāma-yi Rabʿ-i Rashīdī, pp. 237-241. See also W. M. Thackston's translation of parts of this edition of the waqf nāma in A Compendium of Chronicles: Rashid al-Din's Illustrated History of the World (London, 1995), pp. 114-115. For further discussion on the manuscripts produced every year in the Rabʿ-i Rashidi, see N. Ben Azzouna, ‘Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍl Allāh al-Hamadhānī's Manuscript Production Project in Tabriz Reconsidered’, in Politics, Patronage and the Transmission of Knowledge in 13th-15th Century Tabriz, (ed.) J. Pfeiffer (Leiden and Boston, 2014), pp. 187-200.

39 For a description of the manuscripts commissioned by the Ilkhans and produced in the workshop of the Rabʿ-i Rashidi, see Blair, ‘Patterns of Patronage’, pp. 48-54. Soudavar, ‘Han-Lin Academy’, pp. 473-475.

40 Berlekamp, P., ‘The Limits of Artistic Exchange in Fourteenth-Century Tabriz: The Paradox of Rashid al-Din's Book on Chinese Medicine, Part I’, Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World 27 (2010), pp. 209-260Google Scholar.

41 The collection of all the books and treatises compiled by Rashid al-Din is called Jāmiʿ al-Taṣānīf-i Rashīdī (Complete Works of Rashid al-Din).

42 Blair and Rashid al-Din, A Compendium of Chronicles, p. 90. Rashid al-Din's manuscript production project is further discussed in N. Ben Azzouna and P. Roger-Puyo, ‘The Question of the Formation of Manuscript Production Workshops in Iran According to Rashīd al-Dīn Fḍl Allah al-Hamadhānī's Majmūʿa Rashīdiyya in the Bibliothèque nationale de France’, Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 7 (2016), pp. 152-194 (see particularly p. 156, n. 9), and N. Ben Azzouna, ‘Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍl Allāh al-Hamadhānī's Manuscript Production Project’, pp. 187-200.

43 D. Morgan (ed.), Medieval Historical Writing in the Christian and Islamic Worlds (London, 1982), p. 120.

44 For a full discussion on the Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh, see Ch. Melville, ‘Jāmeʿ al-Tawāriḵ’, Encyclopædia Iranica, XIV, 5 (2012), pp. 462-8, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/jame-al-tawarik (accessed 17 February 2020).

A division of the Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh on the life and reign of Ghazan Khan was published by Karl Jahn in 1940 as an independent volume entitled Tārīkh-i Mubārak-i Ghāzānī. The book consists of three main sections. The first part deals with Ghazan's royal lineage. The second part gives an account of his reign. The third part, which is the largest section of the book, addresses Ghazan's orders and operations and praises his moral features.

45 For the third section of the account of Ghazan Khan in the Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh, see Rashid al-Din Fazl Allah Hamadani, Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh, (eds.) M. Roshan and M. Musavi (Tehran, 1994), vol. 2, pp. 1327-1540.

46 R. Shabaneh, ‘The Political and Social Desires of Rashid al-Din in the Tārīkh-i Mubārak-i Ghāzānī [in Persian]’, Kitāb-i Māh-i Tārīkh va Jughrāfīyā 96 (2005), pp. 20-23.

47 The epithet of Pādshāh-i Islām appears also in the account of Vassaf al-Hazra (d. 1329), a historian of the Ilkhanid court. Interestingly, he uses two different versions of the epithet: Shāhzāda-yi Islām (Prince of Islam) referring to Ghazan before his victory over Baydu (r. March-October 1295), and Pādshāh-i Islām (King of Islam) referring to Ghazan following the victory. See Vassaf al-Hazra, Tahrīr-i Tārīkh-i Vaṣṣāf, (ed.) Abd al-Muhammad Ayati (Tehran, 1967), pp. 192, 197.

48 Rashid al-Din's agenda to render a legitimate picture of Ghazan Khan is also reflected in the coinage minted during the reign of the Ilkhan. For instance, Ghazan's name on the dirhams stamped in Tabriz and Nishapur was accompanied by pādshāh and shahanshāh, the epithets that originated in the royal tradition of ancient Iran. However, the use of Iranian honorific titles on the coins as a means of legitimisation of Mongol rulers was not widely welcomed by all the Ilkhans. Apart from Ghazan, this strategy is evident only in the coins struck under Abaqa Khan and Abu Saiʿd (S. Shamsi, M. Shateri, and A. Ahmadi, ‘The Study of the Legitimisation of the Ilkhans via Ilkhanid Coins, 657-736 ah [in Persian]’, Justār hā-yi Tārīkhī 9, 2 (2018), pp. 93-121).

49 Rashid al-Din's approach to the issue of the legitimisation of Ghazan Khan in the Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh can be discussed in the broader context of the books generally known as Sīyāsatnāma (Book of Government), the most well-known of which is the Sīyāsatnāma (or Sīyar al-Mulūk) compiled by Nizam al-Mulk (d. 1092), the Persian vizier of the Turkish Seljuq sultans, Alp Arslan (r. 1063-72) and Malik Shah (r. 1072-1092). The justification of current political state on the one hand and providing ethical advice on government and administration on the other hand are two primary themes pursued in the Sīyāsatnāmas (M. Ranjbar, ‘The Tradition of Writing of Sīyāsatnāma in Iran [in Persian]’, Tārīkh-i Islām dar Āyina-yi Pazhūhish 9 (2006), pp. 91-124). For further discussion on the Sīyāsatnāma of Nizam al-Mulk, see, for instance, A. Khalʿatbari and N. Dalir, ‘The Concept of Iranzamīn and Khwaja Nizam al-Mulk [in Persian]’, Muṭāliʿāt-i Tārīkh-i Farhangī 2 (2009), pp. 27-61. Interestingly, in addition to the common themes of the Sīyāsatnāma and the Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh, Hamdallah Mustawfi draws an analogy between Nizam al-Mulk and Rashid al-Din and presents the former as an antetype for the latter (Kamola, Making Mongol History, p. 170).

50 According to the Qurʾan, vādī-yi ayman is the holy land where God spoke to Moses. Vādī-yi ayman is a Persian term coming from the Qurʾanic term al-wād al-ayman (الواد الایمن ) which means the right side of the valley (The Qurʾan, 28:30).

52 Rashid al-Din Fazl Allah Hamadani, Tārīkh-i Mubārak-i Ghāzānī, (ed.) K. Jahn (London, 1940), p. 127.

53 Shabaneh, ‘Political and Social Desires’, p. 22; Rashid al-Din, Tārīkh-i Mubārak-i Ghāzānī, p. 148.

54 Petrushevsky, I., ‘Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn's Conception of the State’, Central Asiatic Journal 14, 1/3 (1970), pp. 148-162Google Scholar.

55 Morgan, ‘Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn Ṭabīb’.

56 D. Morgan, ‘Rašīd al-dīn and Ġazan Khan’, in L'Iran Face à la Domination Mongole, (ed.) D. Aigle (Tehran, 1997), pp. 179-188.

57 Kamola, Making Mongol History, p. 81.

58 Rachewiltz, ‘Sino-Mongol Culture Contacts’, p. 7.

59 According to Rashid al-Din's description of the Jāmiʿ al-Taṣānīf-i Rashīdī (Complete Works of Rashid al-Din), this work included fourteen titles four of which were translations from Chinese. They were titled Scientific and Folk Medicine of the Chinese; Simple Chinese Medicines; Simple Mongol Medicines; On Chinese Government and the Management of the Chinese State (Kamola, Making Mongol History, pp. 113-114).

60 Jahn, K., ‘Rashīd al-Dīn and Chinese Culture’, Central Asiatic Journal 14, 1/3 (1970), pp. 134-147Google Scholar.

61 Rashid al-Din, Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh, vol. 2, pp. 900-904.

63 Rashid al-Din, Jāmiʻ al-Tawārīkh: Tārīkh-i Aqwām-i Pādshāhān-i Khitāy, (ed.) M. Roshan (Tehran, 2006), p. 8.

64 Rashid al-Din, Jāmiʻ al-Tawārīkh: Tārīkh-i Hind va Sind va Kashmir, (ed.) M. Roshan (Tehran, 2005), p. 2.

65 Rashid al-Din, Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh, vol. 2, pp. 863-931.

66 Qarshī is a generic name for such imperial buildings. It means palace and palatial hall in Mongolian (Rashid al-Din, Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh, vol. 3, p. 2385).

67 Nāʾur in Mongolian means sea or lake (Ibid., p. 2414).

68 Rashid al-Din, Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh, vol. 2, pp. 903-904.

69 Chan suggests that Rashid al-Din in fact refers to the main structural compound of Shangdu, which is known as Daʾan Ge (Great Peace Pavilion), the Mongol ruler's audience hall. See H. Chan, ‘Exorcising the Dragon: A Legend about the Building of the Mongolian Upper Capital (Shangdu)’, Central Asiatic Journal 55, 1 (2011), pp. 1-32. See particularly pp. 12-13.

70 On Shangdu's dragon legend, see Ibid.

72 Rashid al-Din also gives a detailed description of the construction of the city of Daidu (Rashid al-Din, Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh, vol. 2, pp. 901-903). According to Chinese sources, Liu was connected with the choice of location as well as the design of the city. Daidu was planned on the basis of the model of the ideal capital described in the classical Confucian text of the Zhou Li, the Rituals of the Zhou dynasty. See Tomoko Masuya, ‘The Ilkhanid Phase of Takht-i Sulaimān’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, New York University, 1997), p. 214; N. Steinhardt, ‘The Plan of Khubilai Khan's Imperial City’, Artibus Asiae 44, 2/3 (1983), pp. 137-158. The Rituals of Zhou (Zhou Li) became one of the nine Confucian Classics during the Tang dynasty (618-907). The text had been written in early classical Chinese. The Rituals is an idealised blueprint for government organisation; see B. Elman and M. Kern, Statecraft and Classical Learning: The Rituals of Zhou in East Asian History (Leiden and Boston, 2010), pp. 1-29.

73 Atwood, Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongolian Empire, p. 4.

74 Lipman, Familiar Strangers, p. 36.

75 Rashid al-Din, Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh, vol. 2, pp. 915.

76 The word finjān is derived from the Chinese word pingzhang (ping žang or ping čang); see Rashid al-Din, Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh, vol. 3, p. 2377.

77 Chengxiang (or chīngsāng as it appears in Persian sources) was transmitted from Chinese to Mongolian and from Mongolian to Persian. It means chancellor or prime vizier in Chinese and vizier of state in Mongolian (Rashid al-Din, Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh, vol. 3, p. 2357).

78 Rashid al-Din, Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh, vol. 2, pp. 906-907.

79 Bolad or Bulad is the same pūlād or fūlād which means steel in Persian. Apparently the word is of Turkish origin that later passed into Mongolian language. The Mongols and Turks believed that if they called their children with the names of tough objects, they would be strong; see Rashid al-Din, Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh, vol. 3, p. 2042.

80 Rashid al-Din, Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh, vol. 2, pp. 1059-1060.

81 According to Marco Polo even the selection of the Ilkhans’ wives happened under the supervision of the Khaqans; see Masuya, ‘Ilkhanid Phase of Takht-i Sulaimān’, p. 91. For further discussion on the broader issue of the relationship between the Khaqans in China and the Ilkhans, see Ibid., pp. 8-40.

83 Noyan was a title used for Mongol amirs.

84 Rashid al-Din, Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh, vol. 2, p. 1161.

85 Allsen, ‘Two Cultural Brokers’, pp. 66-67.

86 Rashid al-Din, Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh, vol. 1, p. 197.

88 Allsen, ‘Biography of a Cultural Broker’, p. 8. For further discussion on Bolad's appointments in Yuan China, see P. Berlekamp, V. Lo, and W. Yidan ‘Administering Art, History, and Science in the Mongol Empire: Rashid al-Din and Bolad Chengxiang’, Seminar presented at China Centre for Health and Humanity, UCL, 19 January 2015, pp. 56-60.

89 According to al-ʿUmari cited in Allsen, ‘Two Cultural Brokers’, p. 67.

90 Abu al-Ghasim Kashani, Tārīkh-i Öljeytü, (ed.) M. Hambly (Tehran, 1969), p. 42.

91 Kashani, Tārīkh-i Öljeytü, p. 147.

92 Rashid al-Din, Tārīkh-i Mubārak-i Ghāzānī, p. 171.

93 Kamola, Making Mongol History, p. 81.

94 Melville, ‘Jāmeʿ al-Tawāriḵ’.

95 Allsen, ‘Biography of a Cultural Broker’, pp. 14-15.

96 Allsen, Culture and Conquest, p. 67.

98 Jahn, ‘Rashīd al-Dīn and Chinese Culture’, p. 146.

99 Rashid al-Din, Jāmiʻ al-Tawārīkh: Tārīkh-i Hind va Sind va Kashmir, p. 1.

100

100 Allsen suggests that Bolad was a close associate of Liu Bingzhong during the early stage of his career in China. He apparently cooperated with Liu in establishing the Imperial Archive or the Imperial Library Directorate (Mi-shu chien) of China in 1273, controlling the production and preservation of government documents (Allsen, Culture and Conquest, pp. 68, 95). Given the fact that the cooperation between Bolad and Liu happened after Liu's retirement when he was no longer the councillor of the Secretariat, the idea of close association between the two figures needs to be supported by further evidence.

101

101 For Liu's scheme, see Chan, ‘Liu Ping-chung: A Buddhist-Taoist Statesman’, pp. 119-122.

102

103

103 Kamola, Making Mongol History, pp. 168-169.

104

104 Jonathan Brack, ‘Mediating Sacred Kingship: Conversion and Sovereignty in Mongol Iran’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 2016), p. 274.

105

105 I would like acknowledge that this work was generously supported by the Barakat Trust.