The Blessed History of Ghazan Khan: The Biography of a Dynasty

Between 1256 and 1335, descendants of Chinggis Khan ruled the Middle East as a dynasty known to history as the Ilkhanate. Great changes occurred during those eighty years: the demographics of the Middle East were irreversibly changed; Shiʿism became a viable political philosophy; long-standing ideas about kingship and administration were thrown out and new ones invented in their place; Islamic art gained influences from China, Europe, and India. The Mongols changed as well, acculturating to the customs of the sedentary society of the eastern Islamic world. One of the most eventful changes in this regard was the Mongols’ gradual embrace of Islam in place of their previous animist, Buddhist, and Christian beliefs. As with many stories of conversion, this process is frequently attributed to one individual: Ghazan Khan (1295-1304), who converted to Islam in the course of his rebellion to take the Ilkhanid throne. Once on the throne, Ghazan commissioned an official history of his dynasty to be written by his vizier, Rashid al-Din. This paper examines how Rashid al-Din’s portrays the course of his patron’s life as a metonym for the entire process of Mongol rapprochement to Perso-Islamic society. By encapsulating a half century of cultural assimilation into one life story, Rashid al-Din glorifies his patron and legitimizes Ghazan’s otherwise tenuous claim to the throne. In the process of doing this, he gives an overall shape to the history of the Mongols in the Middle East that has dominated subsequent historiography into the modern period.