History of Iran: Mongols and Il Khanid

This is part of a series of an overview of Iranian history--please refer to my posts of 5.10, 5.11 and 5.19.

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After unifying the various Mongol and Turkic forces in Central Asia, Genghiz Khan conquered much of Asia in the 13th century. The destruction in some areas was unprecedented (the destruction of Merv is still considered to be the deadliest ever conquest of a city), but also with the Mongol Empire came a regional stability that allowed a flowering of trade routes, including the ones followed by Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta (imagine, only one visa required!). In Iran, Genghiz Khan's grandson Hulagu Khan founded the Ilkhanate dynasty. The disintegration of the Ilkhanate kingdom in the mid-14th century brought with it a series of minor rulers over now Iran, until the conquests of Tamerlane from now Uzbekistan in the 15th century. Tamerlane's dynasty was even more fleeting, largely over by the reign of his grandson.

When one thinks of Mongols one may think of barbarians on horses, nomadic people whose thirst for violence and pillaging was greater than any appetite for civilization or culture. However, by the time of the establishment of Ilkhanid control over now Iran, the Mongols had adopted much of the civilization of the areas they had conquered, commissioning great Islamic art as well as spreading Chinese art forms in western Asia.

In Iran it is possible to see many relics of the Mongol and Ilkhanid periods, including two true wonders, both commissioned by Sultan Oljeitu (1280-1316), the great-grandson of Hulagu Khan. The Ilkhanid Sultan from 1304-1316, Oljeitu was first baptized a Christian, but later converted to Buddhism, Sunni Islam and then Shiite Islam, showing the great diversity of religious belief in the Mongol domains and the difficulties that the Mongols had in choosing which religion to adopt.

One Oljeitu-reign masterpiece is the prayer hall that he commissioned for the Friday Mosque of Esfahan, now called the Oljeitu chamber.


The most memorable part of the chamber, and one of the single most impressive art works in all of Iran, is the stucco mihrab.



Another Oljeitu masterwork is his tomb (by some accounts originally built for the bodies of the earliest Shiite Imams, which he wanted to bring from Iraq), a stupendously large domed mausoleum in the Ilkhanid capital of Soltaniyeh, now a few hours west of Tehran. The building, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, remains the largest brick dome in the world and one of the earliest examples of a double dome, prefiguring such buildings as the Taj Mahal.


Upstairs gallery of the Oljeitu Mausoleum. The patterns on the back wall are said to resemble Mongolian textiles.


Perhaps most immediately evoking the Asian-ness of the Mongols is their pottery. Clearly handed down from a Chinese tradition, pottery of the era, though presumably made in now Iran, feature faces that are clearly east Asian.