The Mongol Empire and inter-civilizational exchange

MICHAL BIRAN

In the early thirteenth century, Chinggis Khan and his heirs built the largest contiguous empire the world has ever seen, an empire that at its height stretched from Korea to Hungary, from Burma and Iraq to Siberia.

The Mongols, a group of demographically marginal nomads, were able to create such a huge empire only by fully mobilizing the resources - both human and material - that they extracted from the regions under their control. More specifically, the formation of the empire, its continued expan­sion, and the establishment of its administration entailed a vast mobilization of people, goods, techniques, institutions, texts and ideas throughout its territory and farther afield. This process constituted the first step towards a robust inter-civilizational exchange.

Unprecedented human mobility informed the unified and constantly growing empire (1206-60). It continued on a smaller yet highly significant scale when the polity was divided into four khanates, each a regional empire headed by Chinggis Khan's descendants. The Khanate of the Great Khan, later known as the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), ruled over China, Mongolia,

I would like to thank Tom Allsen for his valuable comments.

Tibet and Manchuria, and enjoyed a nominal, though not uncontested, primacy over its counterparts. The Ilkhanate (1260-1335), literally ‘the empire of the submissive khans', ruled in modern Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Turkmeni­stan, parts of Anatolia, and the Caucasus. The Chaghadaid Khanate held power in Central Asia, from eastern Xinjiang (China) to Uzbekistan, until Timur's rise to power in 1370, and over eastern Central Asia through the late 1600s. The Golden Horde (1260-1480) governed the northwestern Eurasian steppe, from the eastern border of Hungary to Siberia, as well as the Russian principalities. Despite the many, often bloody, disputes between the four polities, they retained a strong sense of Chinggisid unity. In the mid­fourteenth century all four khanates were embroiled in political crises that led to the collapse of the Ilkhanate (1335) and Yuan China (1368), while considerably weakening the steppe khanates. The fall of the Yuan is generally deemed to be the end of the Mongol period, although from a Muslim vantage point, the ‘Mongolian moment' sometimes extends until the Timur- ids' demise in 1500 (see Map 20.1).

Although the Mongol era was relatively short in imperial terms, the Chinggisids' impact on world history has been much more enduring. The primary reasons for this were their active promotion of inter-civilizational contacts and the transformations - not always intended - of religious and ethnic identities that were triggered by their population movements. More­over, it is hard to ignore the imperial legacy that the Mongols bequeathed to ambitious dynasties across Eurasia, and a host of functioning institutions. This contribution holds true both for empires that paid homage to the Chinggisids (Timurid and Uzbek Central Asia, Qing China and Mughal India) and for those that ardently denied any such debt (Ming China, Muscovy and the Ottomans).

Running the gamut from the “Tatar Yoke” to the Pax Mongolica, the question of the empire's influence on world history has been debated for centuries in a discourse that is often freighted with strong nationalist under­tones.

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Map 20.i. The Mongol conquests and the Four Khanates

The focus of this chapter is on the Mongols' promotion of cultural, religious and economic exchange. In addition, it will discuss the legacy that they bequeathed to future empires. Before we proceed, though, let us set the stage with a sketch of the Mongols' imperial enterprise.

Empire building

In 1206, when Temujin united the Mongolian tribes after more than two decades of in-fighting and was enthroned as Chinggis Khan, he had no intention of conquering the world. However, the ensuing spate of victories convinced both Chinggis Khan and everyone else around him that he was destined to rule the planet. The political fragmentation of Eurasia in the centuries that preceded the Mongols' rise and the emergence of post- nomadic states in eastern, central and western Asia were contributing factors, but Chinggis Khan's policies - above all the creative use of the Inner Asian cultural legacy and his pragmatic willingness to learn from others - merit the lion's share of credit behind the Mongols' success.

The basis for supra-tribal unity in Mongolia was the legacy of the prior steppe empires, most notably the Turks (c. 552-743), as these polities bequeathed a religio-political ideology and templates for military organiza­tion. Steppe ideology centred around the belief in Tengri (Heaven), the supreme sky god, who conferred heavenly charisma (suu) and the right to rule on earth to a single clan, each of whose members could be elevated to the khaqanate - the supreme office of the ruler. As Tengri did not bestow his mandate on every generation, its possession by the khaqan was confirmed by triumph on the battlefield and by the shamanic apparatus. The sovereign had certain shamanic functions, and his legitimacy was reinforced by controlling the sacred territory of the Orkhon River in Central Mongolia, where the Turks etched the Orkhon inscriptions and the Mongols built their capital, Qara Qorum, some four hundred years later. Following the demise of the Turks' successors, the Uighurs in Mongolia (744-840) and the Khazars in the western steppes (c. 618-965), no khaqan had tried to unite the steppe. However, the ideology was merely held ‘in reserve', waiting to be put to fruition by future unifiers like Chinggis Khan.

More practical means behind the conquest's success was the organization of the army: Chinggis Khan retained the typical decimal unit that was characteristic of former Inner Asian empires, in which armies were arranged into units of ten and larger units based on powers of ten, but abolished its linkage to the tribal system: the new Mongol units often combined people from different tribes and were led by Chinggis Khan's nokers (personal allies), rather than tribal chiefs. Chosen on the basis of merit and loyalty, this new elite provided the Mongols with a most professional military leadership. Moreover, the khan could confidently assign troops to fight on the extrem­ities of Eurasia without fear of treason. Since every Mongol was a soldier (women offered logistical support), this reorganization begat social revolu­tion: The soldiers' loyalty was transferred from tribe to commander and, higher up the chain, to the Chinggisid family.

The decimal organization was also a convenient means for incorporating new soldiers: During their campaigns, the Mongols eliminated existing nomadic elites and reorganized their troops into units headed by their loyal followers. This enabled them to impose a single, centralized authority across the whole steppe and mobilize its chief military resource - mounted archers. In turn, this system was broadened to include soldiers from the sedentary population. As a result, the more the Mongols conquered, the more man­power they had for their next conquests. As the troops advanced, the Mongols built roads and bridges and seized arms, thereby laying the ground­work for further expansion. In the process, they collected arms along with artisans who were transferred eastward in the service of the empire.

Chinggis Khan also retained the Inner Asian institution of the Royal Guard (keshig) that became the incubator of the military and administrative elite. The guard was responsible for the khan's personal security and general well­being: its ranks included officers who were responsible for his food and drink, garments, weapons, and herds; others were charged with writing his decrees and recording his deeds. The keshig also carried out police functions and served as the imperial crack troops. Its men were recruited from the decimal units, as commanders were instructed to assign both their sons and top warriors - regardless of their genealogy - to the elite guard. Consequently, the keshig served as both a reservoir of potential hostages (to which sons of subject rulers and high officials were later added) and a training centre for future Mongol commanders.

This organization, the quality of the commanders, the loyalty of the troops and their skill in mobile warfare, combined with meticulous operational planning, were among the keys to the Mongol success. Another factor was the devastation and massacres on an unprecedented scale that accompanied the conquests. This violence should not be interpreted as wanton cruelty, for it was a strategic ploy that went beyond psychological warfare. The destruc­tion was a brutal yet effective means of compensating for the Mongols' numerical inferiority and preventing future resistance: More specifically, the empire ravaged much more territory than it kept, thereby creating a wide belt of destruction around its borders. This buffer protected Mongol territory from future incursions, facilitated the Mongols' continuous expan­sion and increased their pasture lands. At later stages of the conquest (e.g. South China), the devastation was substantially reduced, as by then the conquerors had realized that their subjects were more useful alive. In some areas, the restoration was as potent as the wreckage.

Another major reason for the Mongol success was their willingness and capacity to learn from others. A case in point was the Chinese and Iranian siege engineers whose skills were used by the empire. For the campaign in South China, it even built a navy. However, the Mongols' eye for talent and innovation was most conspicuous in the field of administration, where they lacked not only numbers but experts and skills. As early as 1204, Chinggis Khan adopted the Uighur script for writing Mongolian, thereby creating a literate staff. Afterwards, he drew on experienced subjects to administer the conquered territories.

The administration evolved with the empire's growth and was system­atized, first and foremost, by two of Chinggis' heirs, the khans Ogodei (r. 1229-41) and Mongke (r. 1251-9). While the bureaucracy's lower echelons were manned primarily by the subjected population, Mongols played a major role in its upper levels, which were inherently patrimonial. The Central Secretariat, a sort of Mongol government, evolved out of the keshig and its members were personally loyal to the khan. The Secretariat was based in Qara Qorum, the Mongol capital, which Ogodei erected in 1237. Its chief priority was to secure resources for the empire's functioning and continued expansion.

For the most part, Mongol rule was direct. This was partly because many of the elites were eliminated during the conquests. That said, former steppe empires usually settled for indirect administration, leaving former elites to govern their own lands. Mongol direct rule was administered by mobile secretariats (xingsheng) that branched off from the central government. The xingsheng indeed governed North China, Turkestan, and Northern Iran, eventually serving as the nucleus for Yuan China, Ilkhanid Iran and the Chaghadaid administrations. Led by experienced non-Mongol administrators, such as the Khwarizmian merchants Mahmud Yalawach and his son Mas‘ud Beg or the Khitan Yelu Chucai, their main duties were census taking and tax collection. The census, which was adopted from the Chinese, was the key element in Mongol efforts to harvest their domains, as it was used to impose taxes, recruit troops and labour and identify natural and human resources. The Mongols usually retained existing taxes, but also tacked on the Qubchir (contributions), a special levy to meet the rulers' immediate needs, and later the Tamgha, a commercial tax. The nomads also paid taxes and were rewarded, above all, from the centrally collected and then redistributed booty.

The Mongol administration had a dual character in several respects: From Ogodei's time onwards, the military and civil administrations were mostly separated. In addition, the Mongols often preferred double-staffing adminis­trative posts, frequently pairing together home-grown and foreign officials. This method is well-documented in the Yuan dynasty, but was apparently also employed in the Ilkhanate. The idea was to have the two officials keep each other in check, a technique that the Mongols were indeed very fond of. Since the empire viewed the administration of all the sedentary lands - whether in China, Turkestan or Iran - as basically the same (despite local variants), they often exchanged administrative personnel.

In a number of cases, though, local dynasts were permitted to remain in place and govern with the empire's stamp of approval and under the supervision of Mongolian-appointed imperial residents known as darughachi, basqaq or shihna - a post inherited from the Qara Khitai. These officials also served in directly administered territories. This indirect administration existed mainly in regions north of the steppe: most prominently the Rus' principalities, but also the northern tribes of Manchuria and Siberia and various kingdoms on the khanates' margins, such as Armenia, Georgia, Anatolia, Tibet and Korea. These polities had to pay tribute to the Mongol treasury, participate in the census, provide military units when required, and send their leaders' relatives to the imperial guards.

Communication across the vast empire was maintained by the Jam, the mounted postal courier system. Though perhaps based on Khitan precedent, the Jam was systematized by Ogodei: Each station was located about every 33 to 45 kilometres from the next, and provided horses, fodder and couriers for authorized travelers who were able to cover about 350-400 kilometres a day. This network enabled the khan to transmit his orders efficiently, acquire information from the far reaches of the empire, and secure the roads for ambassadors and merchants.

The khan's attempts at centralization were balanced by the nomadic conception of the empire as the common property of all the Chinggisids, whereby the ruler was but primus inter pares. A prime example of this mindset was the appanage (Qubi). During the conquest period, vast territor­ies were parcelled out to various Chinggisids, including women. While the central government administered the appanages, their revenues were for­warded directly to their owners. In a similar vein, the mobile secretariats were staffed with appointees of both the khan and the different princes, so that the interests of the entire Chinggisid clan were taken into account. Reforms to the administration were usually implemented in tandem with new waves of expansion. One reason for this timing was that the government had then secured funds for new campaigns, but it also stemmed from the need for further expansion in order to gain the traditional Mongol elites' consent for increased centralization. The empire's expansion and centraliza­tion reached their peak under Mongke, although even he failed to abolish the appanages. The dismantlement of the united empire after Mongke's death in 1259 - due to succession struggles, the sheer girth of the polity and the fact that it had reached the steppe's ecological borders - appreciably curtailed the resources that each khanate could muster for further expansion. Apart from South China, where the area's wealth and prestige justified the great effort needed for conquest, there was no significant Mongol expansion after the empire's dissolution. With respect to administration, local strategies became more important to the four successor states, but Mongol institutions (such as the keshig, Jam, and tax apparatus) were retained and the khanates continued to exchange administrators.

Cross-cultural exchange

The immense size of the Mongol Empire encouraged cross-cultural ties both within and beyond its borders, as no polity had hitherto commanded such a large portion of Eurasia's talent pool. However, as adeptly illustrated in the seminal works of Thomas T. Allsen,¹ the Mongols were not simply a passive medium that enabled such contacts to take place. Instead, they were the main agents who promoted and directed such contacts. What is more, they served as a filter that determined which particular cultural elements would be diffused across the continent. As a result, the Mongols' nomadic culture ^[641] had an enormous impact on what the sedentary civilizations exchanged. This connection was initiated by the Mongols' invasion of Turkestan in the 1220s, which drew on the human and material resources of northeast Asia. Following this campaign, the Mongols returned home with talent and material goods from the Muslim world. In fact, the process of empire building, which as aforementioned involved a massive flow of human and material resources, was often the first stage of cross-cultural ties. Since the Chinggisids regarded skilled individuals as a form of booty to be distributed across the empire and amongst the family, myriads of people were trans­ferred across Eurasia to provide for the empire's needs - military, adminis­trative and cultural.

The first and most potent catalyst for this mobilization was the army, as the Mongols appropriated the defeated and submitted populations - both nomad and sedentary - and organized them into decimal units, which were sent to wage war across the continent. In turn, the advance of this formidable army instigated a mass flight of people, as throngs of refugees from all classes and professions sought to escape the approaching storm. Furthermore, the empire transferred thousands of farmers and artisans to repopulate and revive the devastated areas. The Mongols also looked for experts in fields as varied as administration, military technology, trade, religion, craftsman­ship, science and entertainment. The recruitment of professionals was sys­tematized as early as the late 1230s by means of a census in which people were classified according to vocational skills. Later on, the different khanates competed for and exchanged specialists for the purpose of optimizing their sedentary lands' economic and cultural wealth and enhancing their kingly reputation. Additionally, the Mongols' reputation for rewarding loyal retain­ers, their encouragement of trade, and their religious pluralism attracted many gifted people to Chinggisid courts.

Dating back to the time of Chinggis Khan, the Mongol administration's recruitment of foreign specialists encouraged further mobilization and exchange. This policy was fine-tuned in Yuan China (where the demographic imbalance between rulers and ruled was far greater than in other regions), as a special category of semuren (‘people of various kinds', i.e. non-Mongols and non-Chinese) was created for the many foreigners who played a significant role in the bureaucracy. With respect to privileges, the semuren outranked the local Chinese subjects and were second only to the Mongols themselves. The empire preferred immigrants from nomadic and post-nomadic empires such as those of the Khitans, Uighurs, or Khwarazmians because they were not only well-versed in the laws of the cities, but had connections to the steppe. That said, the case of Marco Polo epitomizes the fact that other talented people were also welcome. For the purpose of winning over the loyalty of these newcomers, the Mongols sought to give them ‘a taste of home', importing foreign (mostly Muslim) food, medicine and entertainment to, say, Yuan China. While the situation in China is far better-documented than in other khanates, there is evidence of a certain presence of Far Eastern food, medicine, knowledge and entertainment in Mongol Iran and apparently the steppe khanates.

Most of what was conveyed throughout the empire was not the Mongols' own culture, but rather elements from that of their sedentary subjects. However, it was the Chinggisids who initiated the bulk of these exchanges. The prime movers of this culture were imperial agents, including diplomats, merchants, administrators, artisans, soldiers and hostages. The particular cultural goods that diffused across Eurasia were those compatible with Mongol norms and beliefs, such as medicine (i.e. healing), astronomy and divination (reading of the heavens), geography and cartography (reading of the earth), and thus the Mongols also promoted scientific transfers. In short, the flow of people, ideas, and goods across Eurasia was determined to a large extent by the Mongols' affinities and needs.

The extensive mobilization along with growing trade (discussed below) elicited a constant and voluminous movement of people, objects and ideas throughout Eurasia. These developments not only encouraged integration, but also inspired the creation of tools such as maps, multilingual dictionaries and travel literature that facilitated further contacts both within and outside the empire. For example, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, multi­lingual dictionaries could be found not only in Iran and China, but also in Armenia, Korea, North India, Egypt, Yemen and Crimea. Likewise, the two most famous travelogues, those of Marco Polo and of Ibn Battuta, were compiled by natives of Venice and Tangier (in North Africa), respectively. The broadening of intellectual horizons under the Mongols finds expression in, among other works, the first true history of the world, which was compiled for the Ilkhans in Persia by their vizier Rashid al-Din (d. 1318) - a polymath of Jewish origin whose diverse interests included medicine, the­ology, cooking, agriculture, history and geography. His Compendium of Chronicles (Jami’ al-tawankh) offered not only a detailed history of the Mongols from the pre-Chinggisid period to the reign of Qubilai's successor, Temur Oljeitu (r. 1307-1311), but also sections dedicated to the annals of China, India, the Muslim world, the Jews, and the Franks, as well as comprehensive genealogical and geographical appendixes (see Figure 20.ι).

Figure 20.ι The Birth of the Prophet Muhammad, miniature from the 'Jdmi' al-tawdrιkh of RashTd al-DTn, c. 1307 (vellum) (Edinburgh University Library, Scotland. With kind permission of the University of Edinburgh / Bridgeman Images)

Like the official histories in China, this tome was compiled by a team of research assistants under the direction of RashTd al-DTn. The result was that more information about the world (especially East Asia) became available in the Muslim Middle East. Produced in the 1330s with the help of Muslim cartographers, maps showing, inter alia, over a hundred places in western Europe and over thirty in Africa, also increased knowledge about the world in Yuan China. Correspondingly, the Europeans expanded the limits of their own knowledge to Central, East, South and Southeast Asia, and Mongols and Tatars were extolled in European literary works from The Canterbury Tales to The Divine Comedy.

The main axes of Mongol cross-cultural exchange ran between the Sinitic and Islamic civilizations, whereas the Christian Orthodox were a relatively marginal partner. This was mostly because China and the Muslim world, roughly equivalent in terms of culture, had much more to offer the Mongols than did the hinterlands of Orthodox Christianity that came under the empire's control. Although the Russians supplied soldiers and artisans to the far corners of Eurasia, they lacked both administrative personnel with experience in serving nomadic rulers, and scientists - astronomers, geog­raphers, mathematicians - of the stature of their prestigious Chinese, Central Asian or Iranian counterparts. Furthermore, the Mongols shared the same territory with their sedentary subjects in Iran, Central Asia and China, a fact that encouraged all the parties to share economic resources and enhance

The Mongol Empire & inter-civilizational exchange collaboration between their specialists. Conversely, the Mongols in the Golden Horde remained on the steppe, at a distance from their Russian subjects who were allowed to retain their own leaders. In addition, the political alliance between Yuan China and Ilkhanid Iran encouraged mutual exchange.

Another facet of cross-cultural exchange was the direct impact that Mon­golian culture had on the Mongols' subjects and neighbours. The unparal­leled success of the Chinggisids spawned imitation throughout Eurasia in all that concerned Mongolian names, clothes, hair style, diet and music. For instance, elements of ‘Tatar dress' (the medieval equivalent of blue jeans), including fabric with small patterns, vests, and fur trim were adopted in fourteenth-century England, in Yuan and Ming China, Ilkhanid and post- Ilkhanid Iran, Chaghadaid and Timurid Central Asia, Mamluk Egypt and North India. Tent furnishings such as rugs and tapestries, which the Mongols used to make their palaces resemble tents, became high fashion among ruling elites from the Pacific to the Adriatic. Pasta, originating in the Middle East and favoured by the Mongols, spread into both China and Italy. Additionally, Eurasian elites became well-versed in Chinggisid lore. Mongol social norms also penetrated their subjects' lives. For instance, levirate marriages, con­demned by both Islamic law and Confucian ethics, were not rare in Ilkhanid Iran and Yuan China. Lastly, following in the footsteps of their Mongol counterparts, Persian and Korean princesses attained an elevated status and became intimately involved in politics.

What were the ramifications of these cross-cultural ties in the post­thirteenth century world? It appears as though not all the imported know­ledge was received with open arms or had a lasting impact. A case in point is intellectual property, such as medical theories. These sorts of goods did not travel well, for they were closely linked to particular worldviews. Technolo­gies disseminated more easily: the Mongols introduced gunpowder from China to the West (at this stage, though, it was far from a military ‘game changer'), while the art of distilling sugar arrived East from the Muslim world. Material culture, especially art, was often well-received and adapted to local conditions and tastes. The enduring influence of Chinese painting on Persian art is a well-documented legacy of the Mongol period, which even left its mark in Italy. Chinese-inspired Ilkhanid paintings and attendant new methods surfaced throughout the lands of Islam, where they became the standard for quality painting from the Ottoman Empire to Mughal India. In sum, Mongol policies fostered Eurasian integration on an unprecedented scale.

Religious exchange

The Mongols neither preached nor tried to force their indigenous faith - a complex polytheistic religion featuring Tengri, the sky God, and shamanic practices - on their subjects. However, their policies and inclinations culmin­ated in substantial religious transformations throughout Eurasia, most notably the appreciable expansion of Islam and the flourishing of Tibetan Buddhism.

Even the empire's harshest critics have praised its ‘religious tolerance'. In fact, the Chinggisids sprang forth from a multi-religious environment where no religion was considered exclusive. Moreover, they drew a distinction between the purview of their own indigenous beliefs and that of world religions: the former, now generally termed Shamanism, influenced the conditions in this life; and world religions stressed the afterlife. These faiths were not seen as competitors of Mongol Shamanism, but as another path to Tengri, the supreme god who is revered by all religions, each in their own way. Spiritual leaders who impressed Chinggis Khan, such as Changchun (1148-1227), the Daoist priest he summoned to reveal the secret of longevity - received tax exemptions and other privileges, in return for which they were supposed to pray for the leader's well-being. Under Chinggis' heirs, this policy was broadened to include experts from all the dominant faiths (Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Islam and Christianity). However, the privileges were not extended to the clergy of religions without state power, such as Judaism, Manichaeism or Zoroastrian­ism. The Mongols also quickly realized the benefit of securing acquiescence through spiritual leaders and freedom of worship. As such, their relative religious tolerance was a component of their realpolitik. In other words, it was not only meant to soothe the deities, but to shore up their rule in the subjugated lands. Chinggis Khan was ready to let everyone observe their own rite, so long as it neither contravened the Mongol faith nor posed a threat to his political standing. If it did pose a threat, as in the case of the shaman Teb Tengri, who tried to divide Chinggis Khan's family, he immediately had him killed. Similarly, the Mongols did not hesitate to exploit religious sensitivities: when Jebe and Subetei reached Armenia in the 1220s, they painted crosses on their troops' shields as a tactical ploy against their Christian enemies. When the Armenians lowered their guard upon seeing the holy symbol, the Mongol generals immediately launched their attack.^[642]

As an imperial elite, the Mongols were a coveted prize for missionaries of various creeds. So long as the empire was united, Tengri remained the sole god of the ruling class. However, after its dissolution, each khanate adopted a world religion either to ingratiate itself with the local population or, con­versely, to accentuate its ideological independence. Muslim civilization, by far the most mobile, mercantile and cosmopolitan society in the empire, had already amassed considerable experience assimilating people, including many nomads, and was the great winner in the conversion race: Adopted by three out of the four Mongol khanates, Islam also expanded into other regions, such as China, India, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Its unbridled expansion, which began even before the Islamization of the khanates, was one of the unintended ramifications of Mongol population movements.

The Islamization of the Mongol khanates - the Ilkhanate in 1295, and the Golden Horde and Chaghadaids over the next fifty or so years - was a gradual and complex process, stemming mainly from the deep ties between the Chinggisids and their Muslim subjects, notably the Turkish officers and soldiers comprising the bulk of the Mongol armies. Conversion stories suggest that Mongol Islamization began with a royal conversion and then spread downward. However, at least in the case of the Ilkhanate and the Chaghadaids, the process seems to have started with the military's rank and file, primarily due to acculturation, intermarriage and charismatic preachers. While spirituality's role in conversion dynamics cannot be denied, political motives must also be factored into the equation, at least with respect to the leadership: For example, the Ilkhan Ghazan (1295-1304) embraced Islam during his struggle for the crown, thereby winning the support of Muslim segments in the army, not least a senior Mongol commander. Furthermore, the annihilation of the caliphate meant that there was no longer a universal leader of Islam (as the pope purported to be for Western Christendom). For this reason, the Mongols were immediately in the running for the position upon converting to Islam. Furthermore, they instantly merited a degree of legitimacy in the eyes of their Muslim subjects that was beyond the reach of any ‘infidel'. This may have been another incentive behind, or at least a favourable by-product of, the conversion of the Ilkhanids. In contrast, the Islamization of the Golden Horde's rulers set them apart from their Christian Russian subjects, while drawing them closer to the area's Turks.

Another factor that promoted conversion was the Sufis. By dint of their emphasis on respect for other religious traditions and their capacity for ‘magic' (i.e. healing), Sufis were the impetus behind many royal conversions, and have maintained their position as leading agents of Islamization ever since. Royal conversions and the campaigns against non-believers that usu­ally ensued (such as the persecution of Buddhism in Iran during Ghazan's reign) further consolidated Islam's position in the Mongol khanates. While most of the population in the Ilkhanate was already Muslim, the conversion of the Chaghadaid and Golden Horde's khans enabled Islam to penetrate the steppes of Central Asia and eastern Europe. By the mid-1300s, the Islamiza­tion of the Chinggisids gave rise to a new Turco-Mongolian elite between the Tian Shan mountains (in Kyrgyzstan and China) and the Volga. This group practised Islam, spoke Turkish, and honoured the traditions of the Mongol Empire. It is difficult to recall another era in which such a vast expanse of land shared so much in terms of language, religion, and culture.

Mongol China never embraced Islam, but the Muslim presence therein expanded considerably during this period. Muslims arrived both as con­scripts, not least the thousands of relocated artisans, and of their own volition, mainly merchants or experts who often found jobs in the Yuan administration. Prominent officials, such as Sayid Ajjal (d. 1283), Qubilai's governor of Yunnan, attracted many co-religionists to the region. Lastly, a few Mongol princes and their troops converted to Islam as well.

Although less directly, the Mongols also pushed Islam into the Indian subcontinent, mostly in the form of several waves of Central Asian refugees fleeing the army of Chinggis Khan and later upheavals in the Chaghadaid Khanate. Taking a page out of the Mongol attitude towards human talent, several Delhi sultans actively enticed Muslim religious scholars, scientists, merchants and soldiers into their realm. These immigrants enhanced the religious prestige of the newly established Delhi sultanate and bolstered its expansion into southern India. The growth of maritime trade also led to the establishment of sizeable Muslim communities in Indian ports, especially along the Gujarat coast. Some of these communities later played a key role in the conversion of other regions.

More indirectly still was the Mongols' part in the Islamization of South­east Asia and Africa. Since the main catalysts were traders, the thriving commerce in the Mongol Empire galvanized this process. Marco Polo observed that the kingdom of Perlak in northern Sumatra ‘is so much frequented by the Saracen merchants that they have converted the natives to the law of Muhammad'. As in China and India, the Muslim faith began to thrive in Africa long before the Mongol period, especially in Mali, Zanzibar and Zimbabwe. The Islamization of these regions was far from complete in the thirteenth century, but Islam continued to make strides in most of them.

The Mongol period was also fecund in terms of Muslim relations with members of other faiths, as the empire brought together experts on Islam, Buddhism, Christianity and Shamanism. ‘Ala' al-Din al-Simnani (d. 1336), a famous Sufi who was raised in the Ilkhanid guard, recorded his conversations with Buddhist monks and Mongol shamans in the court of the Ilkhan Arghun (r. 1284-91). He even concluded that the Dharma, Buddhist law, is tanta­mount to shari‘a law. Sufi analogies between various religions and water in different colours (i.e. essentially the same) are also reminiscent of the above­mentioned Mongol outlook.

A fascinating manifestation of these interfaith contacts can be found in Ilkhanid and Timurid art. For the first and last time in the history of Muslim art, we find visual representations of Muhammad (and other prophets). In these renderings, Muhammad is placed in Buddhist or Christian models. For instance, the Prophet's birth in the Compendium of Chronicles is based on the Christian Nativity scene (see Figure 20.ι). These portraits must have appealed to the Chinggisids' taste, as they surface in competing Sunni and Shi‘ite works aimed at proselytizing the Mongols. Put differently, the missionary use of visual culture that is characteristic of Buddhism was adopted in Muslim Iran, where religious art merged Buddhist, Christian and Chinese elements.^[643]

Another example of a royal conversion took place in China: Qubilai's adoption of Tibetan Buddhism under the influence of Phags Pa (1235-80), a brilliant Tibetan monk. This religion, which was quite popular among Ilkhanid and Chaghadaid rulers before their Islamization, further legitimized Qubilai's rule. Like many outside rulers of China before him, Qubilai was presented as chakravartin - the ideal universal Buddhist king who turns the wheel of Dharma. The specific attraction of Tibetan Buddhism, aside from its political nature and shamanic magic and colours, was that it conspicuously distinguished the Mongols from their Chinese subjects, while appealing to the Tibetan and Uighur populace. Unlike the Mongols' adoption of Tibetan Buddhism in the sixteenth century or their conversion to Islam, embracing Buddhism at this stage was a highly elitist phenomenon that won few souls among the Mongol rank and file. In any event, the Chinggisids' favourable attitude towards Buddhism and tolerant outlook brought together Buddhists of different cultural backgrounds and streams. For example, the description of the faith in the Compendium of Chronicles includes elements of Chinese, Tibetan, Uighur, and Kashmiri Buddhism. In Yuan China, Korean and Japanese Buddhists also took part in this intra-faith exchange. Multiple translations of Buddhist texts (mainly from Tibetan to Mongolian, Uighur and Chinese) appeared in China and Central Asia. Furthermore, the artistic and architectural forms of Tibetan Buddhism became integral components of Yuan palaces. The Mongols oversaw the completion of Tibet's unseating of India as the centre of Buddhism, and the beginning of theocratic rule in Tibet. Tibetan Buddhism remained an imperial cult even in Ming China (1368-1644), and its standing only improved under the Manchu Qing dynasty (1644-1911), which presented its emperors as incarnations of Chinggis Khan and Qubilai. The main spiritual competition on the steppe during the post­Mongol era pitted Islam against Tibetan Buddhism.^[644]

In contrast, plagued by doctrinal schism, stressing exclusivity, less adept in magic and expecting the khans to accept the pope's superiority, Christianity failed, despite intensive missionary efforts, to translate the freedom and access into new territories under the Chinggisids into durable achievements.

Economic exchange

Similar to the cultural sphere, the Mongols cultivated economic ties that extended well beyond the empire's borders. They inherited, invigorated, and extended various trade routes as well as sundry means for resource extrac­tion and exchange, including plunder, asset redistribution, taxation or tribute, and gift giving. Not only did the Mongols provide security and transportation infrastructure, but they were also active participants in trade as both invest­ors and consumers.

Trade had long been essential to nomads, as their own resources did not always cover all their needs and nomadic political culture requires leaders to redistribute wealth among their followers. The very formation of nomad states heightened the demand for precious metals, gems, and especially fine cloth, for the newfangled regime needed these items to assert its authority. Chinggis Khan was certainly aware of the benefits of commerce, which was the premise behind his expansion into Central Asia. Likewise, Muslim and Uighur merchants were among his earliest supporters. As the empire grew, systemic plunder was the major source of luxury goods. Redistributed among the Mongol elite, the khans and princes often chose to invest these considerable fortunes in international trade. Consequently, they entrusted their capital to agents, ortoqs (partners), most of whom were Muslims and Uighurs. The ortoq was a trader (or trading company) acting on behalf of or financed by a Mongol or other notable, in return for a share of the profits. To a large degree, the revenues were expended on the lavish consumption that typifies the nouveau riche. The establishment of Qara Qorum also induced trade, for the resources of Mongolia could hardly support a city that was large by steppe standards and the Chinggisids were ready to pay handsome sums to enjoy the best of the sedentary world while remaining on the steppe. Many traders eagerly exploited these opportunities, benefiting from the safe roads and access to imperial post stations. As a result, international trade in both luxury and bulk goods resumed soon after the conquests.

The slowing of Mongol expansion after the empire's division accelerated the expansion of trade. As taxation replaced booty as the main source of revenue, the different Mongol governments continued to advance both local and international commerce, which provided taxes, markets, profits, and prestige. The khanates competed for commercial specialists, established the infrastructure for transcontinental travel and played a significant role in both trans-civilizational (East-West) and trans-ecological (North-South) exchanges. In the far north, furs were obtained from Siberia and Manchuria by dint of traditional barter arrangements and tributary relationships. At the centre, Chinggisid royal courts were undergirded by redistribution, namely rulers lavishing goods that they extracted from the sedentary populace on their retinues and collaborators. Mongol capitals in Azerbaijan, the Volga region and North China became the hubs of international markets, so that trade routes shifted northwards. New urban centres of exchange materialized along the Silk Roads in Central Asia, and particularly in the Volga region.

The overland routes flourished during the united empire period, and picked up again in the first half of the fourteenth century, after the 1304 peace between the Mongol khanates. Yet the maritime routes also thrived, especially from the 1280s onward, due to the Mongol takeover of the Song dynasty, not least its busy ports, and the enmity between the Yuan and the Mongol princes in Central Asia, which encouraged the shift from land to sea. South China's ports, notably Quanzhou (in modern Fujian), became centres of international trade that reached far beyond the empire's borders, attracting merchants from India, the Muslim world, Southeast Asia and Europe. The main axes of exchange were between South China - the terminus for goods from East and Southeast Asia - and India; and between the latter and the Persian Gulf or Red Sea. From there, the cargos continued either by land to Iran, Iraq, Anatolia and Europe (both eastern and western) or via the maritime routes through Egypt and the Mediterranean to Europe or from Aden to the shores of East Africa. Shorter sea routes catered to the lively slave trade between the Golden Horde's ports on the Black Sea and Egypt, involving Muslim, Italian and Byzantine traders. The maritime and overland routes were often closely linked: the Black Sea ports serviced luxury goods arriving from the East over continental routes and caravans headed inland from the Indian coast during seasons unsuited for sailing. This extensive network, indeed, connected the entire Old World. Furthermore, sophisti­cated market-driven exchange prevailed in the more developed economies of the south. For example, Yuan workshops imported cobalt from northern Europe in order to produce blue and white porcelain, which was in high demand throughout the Muslim world. Likewise, the Ilkhanid court's fiscal policy took into account currency exchanges and bullion flows that ranged from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. Yuan paper money was backed by silver, and much of the Song dynasty's silver reserves reached westwards through the ortoqs. In fact, the period spanning the 1280s and 1360s - from the conquest of Song China to the fall of the Yuan - bore witness to a sharp rise in the use of silver across Eurasia, from England to Bengal and North Africa. Uncoined silver became the standard unit for pricing transactions throughout Eurasia, even when paid by other means.^[645]

The key non-Mongol players in this global network were the Indian kingdoms and the Italian city-states. The latter established permanent, government-backed colonies in Caffa and Tana on the Black Sea and in Ilkhanid Tabriz, while many Italian adventurers and entrepreneurs (the best known of whom is Marco Polo) embarked on private ventures further east.

Apart from commerce, taxation and booty, several other institutions underpinned economic exchange both within and outside the empire. The Mongol system of appanages linked up the various khanate economies: After the empire's dissolution, most princes had appanages in other Chinggisid realms. The proceeds from these estates were collected by the local khanate, sometimes under the supervision of the owner's representatives, and trans­ferred to the beneficiary. However, the revenues were frozen in the event of a war between the two domains. For instance, when Chapar b. Qaidu, the Ogedeid prince, ended a forty-year conflict by submitting to the Yuan in 1310, he received the dormant profits from his father's Chinese appanages.

Another form of exchange was gift giving, an integral part of any diplo­matic mission. These sort of embassies, which Chinese sources viewed as tributary delegations, brought their hosts exotic items (e.g. jewellery, hunting cheetahs, and beautiful slaves), frequently combining statecraft with business, private and/or governmental. In 1297-8, for example, the Ilkhan Ghazan dispatched Fakhr al-Din al-Tibbi, a merchant from Kish (an island in the Persian Gulf), to Yuan on a threefold mission: to advance diplomatic objectives; to collect the ruler's appanage revenues; and to invest 100,000 gold dinars. Needless to say, Fakhr al-Din concomitantly pursued his own business opportunities.

The thriving international exchange survived the fall of the Ilkhanate (1335), as the trade routes merely shifted to the Golden Horde. However, the Yuan collapse (1368) on the heels of the Black Plague in Europe and the Middle East, which coincided with upheavals in the Golden Horde, seriously undermined the Mongol international system of trade.

The legacy of Mongol statecraft

Until a few decades ago, even scholars commonly viewed the Mongol period as a short and bloody interlude that either left no impact on Eurasian history or was responsible for all the troubles that befell the empire's conquered civilizations from that period on. It was easy to overlook the Chinggisids' impact because they did not leave behind an ethnic culture, language, or religion of their own, but a complex and heterogeneous imperial culture. Moreover, they bequeathed a different institutional legacy to each of the various civilizations that they encountered. The deepest imprint was on regions where they ruled the longest and those without a strong indigenous tradition of a centralized state, namely Central Asia and Russia. A certain institutional imprint is also perceptible in China, Iran and even beyond the empire's limits, primarily in the Muslim world. Finally, a distinction must be drawn between the practical use of Mongol institutions and embracing Chinggisid political ideology.

Mongol imperial rule left its mark on subsequent Eurasian empires, both steppe and sown, that is, both nomadic pastoralists and settled agricultural­ists. Creative manipulations notwithstanding, the Chinggisid principle, the basic tenet of Mongol ideology according to which only descendants of Chinggis Khan were eligible for supreme rulership, remained valid in Central Asia until the eighteenth century, influencing monarchical behaviour and social hierarchies in Qing China, Mughal India, Muscovy and even the Ottoman Empire. The ever-evolving Yasa played a significant role in the Muslim world, despite various glaring contradictions with Islamic law. The Mongol institution of the postal system was adopted in Ming and Qing China, Safavid Iran and Muscovy; the empire's military organization was adhered to in Ming China and Muscovy (up to the rise of firearms); Chinese provincial borders date back to Yuan times; and the empire's commercial taxation and monetary policies continued to be implemented in Russia, Iran and Central Asia.

Geopolitically, the Mongols relocated the capitals of the khanates towards the northeast, perhaps on account of the nomads' preference for residing closer to the steppe: the Chinese capital was transferred from Kaifeng and Hangzhou to Beijing; in the eastern Islamic world, it moved from Baghdad to Tabriz (in Azerbaijan); Kiev first gave way to Saray (southeast of Kiev) and ultimately to Moscow (northeast yet again); and in Central Asia, Balasaghun (in Kyrgyzstan) ceded to the Almaliq region (in northern Xinjiang). While Azerbaijan retained its importance up to the end of the sixteenth century and Samarkand superseded Almaliq in Central Asia by the late 1300s, the pre­eminence of Beijing and Moscow remains unchallenged.

Furthermore, the Mongols revived the notion of Iran as a distinct political entity within the Muslim world. In China, they created a unified entity that remained undivided throughout the later imperial period and laid the foun­dation for a multi-ethnic polity, which also controlled large swaths of nomadic lands. Similarly, they turned a group of city-states into the nucleus of a huge Russian empire. With respect to Central Asia, the main effect of the Mongol period was a major ethnic reconfiguration: Mongol population movements led to the disappearance of various established steppe people, such as the Khitans, Tanguts, Uighurs and Qipchaqs, and the emergence of new collectivities, such as the Uzbeks, Qazakhs and Tatars, who became the modern Central Asian Muslim peoples.

Conclusion

The nomadic Mongols embarked upon an unprecedented mobilization of peoples, goods and ideas to forge the largest contiguous empire the world has known. In so doing, they bolstered Eurasian integration and broadened the horizons of their subjects and neighbours. Mongol nomadic culture had an enormous impact on Eurasian exchange under their auspices. While adhering to the legacy of former nomadic empires, the Chinggisids faced a much more complex set of problems, for they not only ruled over the steppe, but over centres of the sedentary civilizations as well. Taking advantage of personnel, institutions and imperial concepts from both East and West, the Mongols developed an imperial administration and culture that merged their indigenous norms with various elements of their subjects' cultures, especially those of the Muslims and Chinese, thereby creating sophisticated means for ruling both steppe and sown. These means continued to stand at the disposal of large Eurasian political units well into the early modern era, and eventu­ally led to the division of the steppe between Muscovy and Qing China at the expense of the nomads.

That said, the Chinggisids' legacy transcended the continental empires. By advancing long-distance commercial and financial exchanges, improving its maritime prowess, forming new collectivities, and ratcheting up the ‘con­nectivity' between different regions, the Mongol Empire ushered in the early modern period. As Samuel Adshead puts it, ‘if Europe came to dominate the world, it was because Europe first perceived there was a world to domin­ate’.^[646] When Columbus set out on his first voyage in 1492, his principal objective was to find the land of the ‘Great Khan' that emerges from the Book of Marco Polo, whom he ardently admired. Against this backdrop, our globalized world can be viewed as a progeny of the Mongols' imperial enterprise.

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