The Mongols in Iran

Chingiz Khan to Uljaytu 1220–1309

Judith Kolbas

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136802966
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Estudios étnicos

This book explores the administration of Iran under Mongol rule through taxation and monetary policy. A consistent development is evident only from abundant numismatic material, from the conquest of Samarqand by Chingiz Khan to the reign of the penultimate ruler, Uljaytu. In many cases, the individuals responsible for initiating and conducting the policies can be identified from the histories or remarks of the mint master. The structure of the empire is clearly demarcated by mint production, coin styles and type of metal. This illuminates many controversial historical points such as the meaning and function of an Il-khan and the establishment of the Toluid dynasty under Hulagu. The Mongols broke the crust of an inflexible and archaic Islamic monetary tradition that had hampered economic development by encouraging extensive trade and the sciences (especially astronomy and higher mathematics) through determined and always pragmatic programmes.

Part I
The Governors

1
Aristotle to Nasir Al-Din Tusi

Traditions ready for development

Economic theory and Islamic numismatic history

When the Mongols conquered the Rum Saljuqs in 641 H/1243 AD, they gained possession of the birthplace of coinage. Stamped pieces of precious metal were first made in the southwestern interior of Anatolia in approximately 700 BC. Their use expanded east to the Iranian plateau and south to the maritime city-states, such as the Rhodian League, from which coins became part of the commercial life of the Greek peninsula. About 300 BC, the Greek political situation changed: the empire of the Athenian League, based on strategic ports with the land behind remaining in the hands of local “barbarians”, advanced to a new stage in Macedonia, the northern, almost land-locked area of the peninsula. Alexander claimed all the land but, like his southern Athenian predecessors, used cities as the controlling mechanism. As he marched east and south, he founded one city after another, leaving behind not only Greeks but also their customs. In this way, the habit of using money of hard metal dutifully followed the footsteps of Alexander: coinage entered Parthia, Bactria and India. The territorial limit of his armies was also the final point for the use of coins.

Economic theory

Although empires had changed, the retention of the system was due in part to the fact that the basic theories of a market economy, money and taxation had already been formed, most of them amalgamated into the works ascribed to Aristotle as head of the Peripatetic School. These theories were based on the premise that man is a social being, so the discourses considered the way a person functioned in society, clearly stating that an individual related to himself and others through immutable laws. This social theory was in conflict with that of the Pythagorean School, whose teachings stressed mathematical concepts. The Pythagorean beliefs have not been preserved in general, only portions remain in the writings of its opponents, chief of whom was Aristotle; yet, many Pythagorean tenets, often attributed to Aristotle by Islamic thinkers, were impossible to dismiss and were included in subsequent philosophic discussions.

Greek social theory quickly discovered three spheres for ordering life which today are labeled divine, positive and natural law. Aristotle, who did not have a Semitic religion, defined the highest plane as follows:

Every art, and every science … and in like manner every action and moral choice, aims … at some good: for which reason a … description of the Chief Good is “that which all things aim at”,¹ … the best thing of all.²

Although man strove for good, it was also given to him, economically, by “God”, who provided for his creatures. Since He created life, what His creatures received was what they needed. According to Aristotle, existence:

is chiefly nature’s [responsibility], for it is her part to supply her offspring with food; for everything finds nourishment left for it in what produced it; for which reason the natural riches of all men arise from fruits and animals.³

After the Chief Good, the next sphere was positive law or the person and rules by which divine law was fulfilled:

Ranging under this [are] the most highly esteemed faculties, such as the art military, and that of domestic management [economics] … Since this uses all the other practical sciences, and moreover lays down rules as to what men should do, and from what to abstain, the End of this must include … The Good of man. And grant that this is the same to the individual and to the community, yet surely that of the latter is plainly greater and more perfect to discover and preserve: for to do this even for a single individual were a matter for contentment; but to do it for a whole nation, and for communities generally, were more noble and godlike.⁴

Economically, this meant that:

the art of getting money is the business [of the one] who is at the head of a family or a state, and though not strictly so, it is however very necessary; for as a politician does not make men, but receiving them from the hand of nature employs them to proper purposes; thus the earth, or the sea, or something else ought to supply them with provisions, and this it is the business of the master of the family to manage properly.⁵

Pursuant to the good and legislation, the third level was natural law, which consisted of two parts: “nobleness and justice … [which] are supposed by some to exist conventionally only, and not in the nature of things”.⁶

Nobleness was the distribution through individual honour or status of both social position and wealth, accomplished in a manner resembling the functioning of the human body. Aristotle did not discuss this analogy as fully as Plato did, whose ideas were later absorbed and remodeled by al-Farabi (fl. about 870—950 AD), considered the “second Aristotle” by Muslims. In the words of al-Farabi:

The heart comes to be first and becomes the cause of the existence of the other organs and limbs of the body …⁷ This applies to all existents.⁸ …

[In particular] the excellent city resembles the perfect and healthy body, all of whose limbs co-operate to make the life of the animal perfect and to preserve it in this state. Now the limbs and organs of the body are different and their natural endowments and faculties are unequal in excellence, there being among them one ruling organ, namely the heart, and organs which are close in rank to that ruling organ, each having been given by nature a faculty by which it performs its proper function in conformity with the natural aim of the ruling organ. Other organs have by nature faculties by which they perform their functions according to the aims of those organs which have no intermediary between themselves and the ruling organ; they are in a second rank.⁹

According to the body politic theory, in which the head or heart was the chief organ, the parts were rewarded by their rank; or, in other words, the distribution of social and natural wealth was analogous to the hierarchy of the human body.

The other term involved in Aristotle’s “the nature of things” or natural law was justice. It was envisioned as a mid-point or balance that performed equality of measure. Therefore, it had to include the Pythagorean concept that the universe was organized by quantifiable relationships, the use of numbers being the simplest method of recognizing and ordering the function of its parts. Aristotle discussed the matter by identifying Particular Justice, which he defined as follows:

One species is that which is concerned in the distributions of honour, or wealth, or such other things as are to be shared among the members of the social community … [equally so that] the Unjust is unequal [while] the Just is equal … and as the equal is a mean the Just must also be a mean: … it follows then that the Just is both a mean and equal. … The Just in distribution ought to be according to some rate … a certain proportionable thing. For proportion does not apply merely to number in the abstract, but to number generally, since it is equality of ratios. …¹⁰

In dealings of exchange such a principle of justice as the Reciprocative forms the bond of union; but then it must be Reciprocation according to proportion and not exact exchange.¹¹ … It is therefore indisputable that all things which can be exchanged should be capable of comparison and for this purpose money has come in and comes to be a kind of medium, for it measures all things and so likewise the excess and the deficient. … It is what it is not naturally but by custom or law, and it rests with us to change its value, or make it wholly useless.¹² … And further, money is a kind of security to us in respect of exchange at some future times …; the theory of money being that when one brings it one can receive commodities in exchange: it is of a more permanent nature than the commodities it represents. And this is the reason why all things should have a price set upon them. … So money, like a measure, making all things commensurable equalises them. … in fact, all things are measured by money.¹³

Therefore, natural justice was defined by the mathematical principle of proportion, particularly that of the mean. In order to make all things equal, there must be a single standard to which unlike things may be compared. In the realm of economics, this physical standard was money verified by the balance. Its active purpose as a medium of exchange was to allow the distribution of goods. Its passive function was to store value for future transactions. Its static purpose was to determine value by calculating numerical equivalence or price.¹⁴ Goods, labour and honour were measured in money. If the man-made determinants of weight and substance instituted by positive law did not adhere to a standard, money became dysfunctional, causing the economy to collapse. Good money meant to the ancients a sound economy consisting of many items at fair prices, fast turnover and a plentiful money supply to facilitate such activity.

The standard measure of money had man-made characteristics established by practicality and consensus: a set weight, a certain substance and a stamp to assure the presence of the previous two:

… for it is not everything which is naturally most useful that is easiest of carriage; for which reason they invented something to exchange with each other which they should mutually give and take that, being really valuable itself, should have the additional advantage of being of easy conveyance, for the purpose of life, as iron and silver, or anything else of the same nature: and this at first passed in value simply according to its weight or size; but in process of time it had a certain stamp, to save the trouble of weighing, which stamp expressed its value.¹⁵

Whoever controlled these components of the measure provided the correct functioning of the world order: “Good is produced in the categories of substance, quality, and relation”.¹⁶ Therefore, sound money emanated from a responsible ruler serving God’s directive.

In conclusion, legal justice or positive law was the pivot between God and nature or was the act between potentiality and existence. Thus, the purpose of a ruling body, whether group or individual, was the establishment of merit and the production and verification of the standard of equality or the means of measuring. Natural justice was the self-evident manner to provide for man’s needs through distributing goods directly on merit or indirectly through money. The two forms of natural law, nobleness and justice, were clearly discussed in terms of biological or mechanical similes. In a less picturesque and accurate view, the process of justice moved vertically and horizontally.

After establishing the fundamental concepts, Greek economic theorists addressed the market. The theory of its function, like today’s, rested on price to equalize the supply and demand of a product or service. On the demand side, value theory was based on utility and, on the supply side, on labour:

[The] measure of all things … is really and truly the Demand for them, which is the common bond of all such dealing. For if the parties were not in want at all … there would … not be any exchanges. And money has come to be, by general agreement, a representation of Demand.¹⁷

The utility of an object or service consisted of three possibilities: (1) subsistence or the capacity to hold its value, which conserved surplus, (2) the ability to be consumed, destroyed or made unique, which reduced surplus, and (3) the ability to create further gain, which added to surplus. The first point, that of equilibrium, was rarely commented upon. The second was manifested mainly by the abhorrence of hoarding; it was morally a sin and legally prohibited. The third led to an active and growing market. As a result, it was this last factor of demand that chiefly concerned supply.

God’s natural resources were a given, but labour was man’s addition to them and enhanced supply. In fact, to be human meant to work. This led man to his two main goals, self-...