A History of the Muslim World since 1260

The Making of a Global Community

Vernon O Egger, Vernon Egger

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351724746
• Subtopic: 19th Century History
• Index: History

A History of the Muslim World since 1260 continues the narrative begun by A History of the Muslim World to 1750 by tracing the development of Muslim societies, institutions, and doctrines from the time of the Mongol conquests through to the present day. It offers students a balanced coverage of Muslim societies that extend from Western Europe to Southeast Asia. Whereas it presents a multifaceted examination of Muslim cultures, it focuses on analysing the interaction between the expression of faith and contemporary social conditions.

This extensively updated second edition is now in full colour, and the chronology of the book has been extended to include recent developments in the Muslim world. The images and maps have also been refreshed, and the literature has been updated to include the latest research from the last 10 years, including sections dedicated to the roles and status of women within Muslim societies throughout history.

Divided chronologically into three parts and accompanied by a detailed glossary, A History of the Muslim World since 1260 is a perfect introduction for all students of the history of Muslim societies.

PART ONE
Mongol Hegemony, 1260–1405

The Mongol conquests dwarfed those of the Arabs, which had occurred some six centuries earlier. Between 1206 and 1260, the Mongols subjugated northern China, Central Asia, Iran and Iraq, eastern Anatolia, the Caucasus, and the vast steppe region from Mongolia to the area now occupied by eastern Poland. By 1279, they completed the conquest of southern China, as well. On the one hand, then, the achievement is greater than the Arabs on sheer scale. On the other hand, the Mongols did not create a civilization, and most of their conquests were lost within three generations.

The Mongols are not easy to dismiss as a destructive, one-time wonder, however. In spite of the fact that they soon lost control of their possessions, their legacy was remembered, revered, and emulated for centuries thereafter throughout much of the vast region they had conquered. In Western and Central Europe, too, the legacy lingered, but in a peculiar fashion: Rumors that a great force in the East had brutalized part of the Muslim world during 1219–1222 sparked hope in Europe that a potential ally, perhaps even a Christian king, existed outside Europe who would help destroy Islam. This was the origin of the legend of Prester John, a great Christian king in the East with whom the Europeans should join forces against Islam. The hope was so strong that when, in 1238, the Nizari Imam at Alamut and the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad jointly dispatched an embassy to Europe, appealing for help against the Mongols, they were rebuffed. Europe, particularly in the person of the pope, was pursuing a diametrically opposed policy of attempting to form a great Christian alliance with the Mongol Great Khan—whom some thought to be Prester John—against the world of Islam. Even the crushing Mongol defeat of European knights three years later at Liegnitz did not dissipate the fantasy of Prester John, who continued to fascinate and lure Europeans for centuries to come.

But the Mongols were not merely the stuff of memory and legend. They transformed enormous areas of Eurasia. These horsemen from the steppes, who destroyed so many cities, began to rebuild urban economies once they assumed power. Agriculture, unfortunately, languished, but long-distance trade flourished as never before. From the Pacific to the Black Sea, the Mongols held bandits in check, built caravanserais, and established diplomatic networks. The famous career of the Venetian Marco Polo in the last third of the thirteenth century would be unthinkable without the Mongols. He and his father and uncle traveled from Constantinople to Beijing and back with less fear for their lives or property than they would have felt had they journeyed anywhere in the Mediterranean basin. Taking advantage of the pax Mongolica, Venice quickly established a vast trade network that extended from the Pacific to Scandinavia.

The Mongol Empire affected the histories of all its neighbors as well as of peoples beyond its immediate reach. The history of a large part of the Muslim world was irrevocably altered. The Mongols and their desperately ambitious scion Timur Lang dominated Southwest Asia for only a century and a half, but Mongol hegemony had such a profound influence on the course of Muslim history that it merits a separate section in this book. Chapter 1 establishes the historical framework for the period. It examines the history of the three Mongol states whose rulers eventually converted to Islam, traces the rise of three other powerful Muslim states during this period, and explores the destructive effects of the plague and Timur Lang on Southwest Asia. Chapter 2 examines the cumulative effects of these and other events on Muslim intellectual and religious life. The evidence undermines the widely held view that the Mongol era caused Islamic civilization to decline. Despite frequent outbreaks of political chaos and the long-lasting economic depression of some regions, Islamic culture continued to thrive and break new ground in a wide variety of fields. More striking still, the period marks a transition from an era of several centuries during which the frontiers of the Muslim world had remained largely static to an era of expansion into far-flung regions. The period of Mongol hegemony would be followed by the rise of three powerful Muslim empires and the spread of Islam into areas that now contain half the followers of the Prophet Muhammad.

CHRONOLOGY
1210–1236	Reign of Iltutmish, founder of Delhi Sultanate
1219–1222	Campaigns of Chinggis into Muslim world
1240s	Batu founds Saray, begins to administer the Golden Horde
1250	Mamluks seize power in Egypt and Syria
1253–1260	Hulagu’s campaign
ca. 1250–ca. 1290	Career of Hajji Bektash
1260	Mamluks defeat Hulagu’s army at ‘Ayn Jalut
1260–1265	Hulagu is first ruler of Il-khanate, establishes Maragha observatory
1261	Byzantines regain Constantinople from Latin Kingdom
1269	Marinids replace Almohads in Morocco
1271–1295	Marco Polo’s adventures in the Mongol Empire
ca. 1280–1326	Career of Osman, founder of Ottoman dynasty
ca. 1280–1334	Career of Shaykh Safi al-Din
1291	Mamluks capture the last crusader castle in Syria
ca. 1290–1327	Career of Ibn Taymiya in Mamluk Empire
1310–1341	Third, and most successful, reign of Mamluk ruler, al-Nasir Muhammad
1313–1341	Reign of Uzbeg and the Islamization of the Golden Horde
1325–1351	Reign of Muhammad ibn Tughluq of Delhi
1325–1349	Ibn Battuta’s journey east; serves Ibn Tughluq seven years
1326–1362	Reign of Orhan of Ottoman Sultanate
1334	Schism in Chaghatay Khanate, Transoxiana is lost
1335	Collapse of Il-khanate
ca. 1335–1375	Career of Ibn al-Shatir
1347	First wave of plague
ca. 1350–1390	Career of Hafez
ca. 1350–1398	Career of Baha al-Din Naqshband
ca. 1350	Consensus has been achieved in most madhhabs that, theoretically, ijtihad is no longer permitted
1359–1377	Civil war in Golden Horde; Toqtamish secures control
ca. 1360–1406	Career of Ibn Khaldun
1368	Ming dynasty overthrows Yuan dynasty of the Mongols in China
1370	Timur’s career begins in Transoxiana
1381–1402	Timur’s campaigns from Ankara to New Saray to Delhi
1405	Death of Timur

CHAPTER 1
The Great Transformation

By 1248, the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula had seized all Muslim territory north of the Strait of Gibraltar except for the small principality of Granada. Almost immediately thereafter, a similar process of conquest and consolidation of power was taking place in the eastern Muslim world. During the 1250s, the second major Mongol invasion of Southwest Asia took place. Millions of Muslims were now under the rule either of Christian Europeans or of pagan Mongols. For the first time since the Islamic calendar began, half or more of the world’s Muslims were subject to governments dominated by non-Muslims.

In spite of the similarities, the situation in the eastern Muslim world differed from that of the Iberian Peninsula. The challenges facing Muslims in Iberia were insidious and chronic, but those in the east were violent and episodic and transformed the eastern Muslim world in profound ways. Whereas the Iberian Muslim community slowly suffocated under increasing restrictions, Muslims in three of the four Mongol empires rejoiced at the conversion of their rulers to Islam by the early fourteenth century. Their joy was short lived, for all three dynasties suddenly lost their grip on power in the middle third of the fourteenth century. Anarchy and widespread destruction became the order of the day. As the dynasties were collapsing, the worldwide epidemic of plague began its deadly work, leaving large areas of the Muslim world underpopulated. The first wave of the plague had hardly subsided when a half-Turk, half-Mongol warlord named Timur Lang began his career. His inexplicably vicious campaigns ranged from Delhi to Damascus and caused the horrors of Chinggis and Hulagu to pale by comparison. From 1380 to 1405, the very mention of his name sent panic into the hearts of multitudes, and his conquests laid waste to vast regions. The region from the Aegean Sea to the Ganges River had been violently shaken, with consequences that would reverberate for centuries.

The Mongol Khanates

Shortly before his death in 1227, Chinggis Khan gave each of his four sons a portion of his great empire. He did so in accordance with the ancient Mongol custom of establishing a home for the eldest son at the furthest distance and assigning the youngest to tend the family hearth. Accordingly, Jochi, the eldest, received the steppe land that lay north of the Aral sea and extended westward “as far as the hooves of Mongol horses have reached,” whereas Tolui, the youngest, received the ancient Mongol homeland that is now eastern Mongolia. The second son, Chaghatay, and the third, Ogedai, divided the lands that lay between those extremes. Ogedai succeeded his father as Great Khan, and his son Guyuk replaced him in the 1240s. In 1251, Tolui’s eldest son Mongke became the Great Khan.

From his capital at Qaraqorum in modern Mongolia, Mongke (1251–1259) planned a new campaign of expansion. Leaders of Christian Europe hoped that he was Prester John, and they appealed to him to join them in a crusade against Islam, but he was unwilling to do so unless the Christian rulers and the pope submitted themselves to him. Confident that the Lord of the Sky had entrusted the world to the Mongols, he embarked upon an ambitious campaign of conquest on his own terms. He sent one brother, Qubilai, to conquer the Sung dynasty in southern China and another brother, Hulagu, to subjugate Southwest Asia. When Mongke died, he was succeeded by Qubilai (1260–1294), who completed the conquest of China and is regarded as the first ruler of the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) in China. He symbolized his new status by moving his capital from Qaraqorum to Beijing.

During the rule of Mongke and Qubilai, the Mongol domains became more or less institutionalized: The Great Khan ruled over Mongolia and China; Jochi’s son Batu and his successors ruled over the Golden Horde in the vast steppe that extended from north of the Aral Sea almost to the Baltic Sea; the Chaghatay Khanate ruled over the area that now comprises the Chinese province of Xinjiang and eastern Afghanistan, as well as the territory north of the Amu Darya River; and Hulagu’s Il-khanid regime comprised Iraq, eastern Anatolia, the southern Caucasus, and Iran to just east of Herat.

The Golden Horde

Europeans from the sixteenth century on referred to the domain of Batu’s successors as the Golden Horde. The origin of the name is lost in obscurity. The English word Horde derives from the Mongol word ordu, meaning “camp” or “domain,” but the meaning of the term Golden has spawned considerable debate, with no consensus having emerged. The name Golden Horde is commonly used in English to refer to the entire period of the dominance of the Mongols on the Eurasian steppes. Europeans have also frequently referred to the people of the Golden Horde as Tatars, a word that has been very loosely used throughout history. Understood in its linguistic sense, however, it has some value, because the various Tatar dialects belong to the Qipchaq division of the Turkic languages. In fact, the Golden Horde’s neighbors in the east knew it as the Qipchaq Khanate, which is a more appropriate name for it. For ease of reference, this discussion will refer to the khanate as the Horde.

MAP 1.1 The Mongol Empire, ca. 1300.

At its height, the Horde dominated the area from eastern Poland to the Siberian forests. The core was the vast, grassy plain known as the Qipchaq steppe that extended from northwest of the Black Sea to northeast of the Caspian Sea. This sea of grass was broken by three of the great rivers of Russia: the Dnieper, the Don, and the Volga. Batu had no doubt immediately recognized that the level, endless plains were ideal for his horse culture. The rivers complicated travel on an east–west axis but facilitated travel and trade on a north–south axis.

This core region of the khanate was populated by numerous ethnic groups but was dominated by the Qipchaq Turks. Batu’s followers quickly became assimilated into the majority Turkic culture when their Mongol leaders intermarried with local Qipchaq elites and adopted the local language. The “Mongol” elite of the khanate always boasted of their lineal ties with Chinggis Khan and retained certain aspects of their Mongol culture, but they were soon indistinguishable from their Qipchaq subjects.

Our knowledge of the first century and a half of the history of the khanate is frustratingly scanty, due to Timur Lang’s destruction of its cities and written records in the 1390s. What we know about it is derived largely from the observations of outsiders and from archaeological evidence. It began with Batu, whose invasion in the late 1230s inflicted major damage on parts of Russia. Cities that resisted his initial call to surrender were pummeled into ruins by catapults and battering rams, and thousands of people were slaughtered. Cities that surrendered immediately were usually spared. The Horde exercised direct control over the Qipchaq steppe, but it exacted tribute in a system of indirect control over the forested north and west. The latter region covered a vast area that included Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Lithuanian, and Latvian cities. The most important among these were Kiev, Novgorod, and Moscow. The ruling elite preferred to remain nomadic, whereas the majority of the population lived in towns and villages. Unlike the Mongols in China and Iran, who assimilated into the local culture, the Qipchaqs did not live among the Russians or in any way become integrated into Russian society. On the whole, the rulers resisted the urge to raid and loot their territory, but retribution for failing to pay the heavy tribute was typically severe. Armies of the Horde often engaged in slave raiding even in areas that had not been targets of punishment.

The economy of this new empire was quintessentially Mongol, based on pastoralism and long-distance trade; the leaders of the Horde were interested in agriculture only insofar as it generated the revenue among the Russians that enabled them to pay tribute. Pastoralism was the means of subsistence that most Mongols wanted to retain, but they recognized the benefits that long-distance trade could bring. The security that the various Mongol regimes successfully enforced across the huge region from the Pacific Ocean to the Black Sea enabled merchants of all nationalities to benefit from the new commercial possibilities. Batu, like other Mongol rulers, was interested in trade, which would augment the revenues derived from taxes on peasants and townsmen. In pursuit of this objective, he established his capital of Saray near the Volga delta, situated at the crossroads of trade routes that connected China with Eastern Europe in one direction and Scandinavia with Iraq and Iran, in the other. It rapidly became a commercial center with a distinctly international air. From the forested zones to the north came amber, furs, timber, Russian slaves, and honey, to be exchanged for textiles, tools, and scientific instruments from the Muslim heartland and for spices from the East.

Merchants from all nations were encouraged to live in the capital, and a wide variety of religious missionaries—Muslim, Catholic, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, and Nestorian—were tolerated. The Horde established correct relations with the Byzantines once the latter had recaptured Constantinople from the Italians in 1261, but they also welcomed Italian traders to Saray. The regime encouraged trade with both the Latin Catholics and the Greek Orthodox, despite their hostility toward each other. The Mamluk regime took particular pains to foster good relations with the government at Saray because of the abundance of Qipchaq boys available to be shipped to Egypt as mamluks. Many Egyptian and Syrian craftsmen made their way to Saray to create objects of art in the Mamluk style. By contrast, the Horde’s relations with its fellow Mongol regime, the Il-khanids, were hostile throughout the thirteenth century due to competing...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Maps
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Note on Transliteration, Dating, and “the Muslim World”
• Introduction The Making of a Civilization, 610–1260
• Part One Mongol Hegemony, 1260–1405
• Part Two Muslim Ascendancy, 1405–1750
• Part Three The World Turned Upside Down, 1750–Present
• Glossary
• Index