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Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia In the thirteenth century the Mongols created a vast transcontinental empire that func- tioned as a cultural ªclearing houseº for the Old World. Under Mongol auspices various commodities, ideologies, and technologies were disseminated and displayed across Eurasia. The focus of this path-breaking study is the extensive exchanges between Iran and China. The Mongol rulers of these two ancient civilizations ªsharedº the cultural resources of their realms with one another. The result was lively traYci n specialist personnel and scholarly literature between East and West. These exchanges ranged from cartography to printing, and from agriculture to astronomy. Unexpectedly, the principal conduit of this transmission was an obscure Mongol tribesman, Bolad Aqa, who Wrst served Chinggisid rulers of China and was then posted to Iran where he entered into a close and productive collaboration with the famed Persian statesman and historian, Rashõd al-Dõn. The conclusion of the work examines why the Mongols made such heavy use of sedentary scholars and specialists in the elaboration of their court culture and why they initiated so many exchanges across Eurasia. The book is infor- mative and erudite. It crosses new scholarly boundaries in its analysis of communica- tion and culture in the Mongol Empire and promises to become a classic in the Weld. thomas t. allsen is Professor in the Department of History, The College of New Jersey, Ewing. His publications include Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles (1997).CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION Editorial board David Morgan (general editor) Virginia Aksan, Michael Brett, Michael Cook, Peter Jackson, Tarif Khalidi, Roy Mottahedeh, Basim Musallam, Chase Robinson Published titles in the series are listed at the back of the bookCulture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia THOMAS T. ALLSEN The College of New Jersey, Ewingpublished by the press syndicate of the university of cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom cambridge university press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK 40 West 20th Street, New Y ork, NY 10011±4211, USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, VIC 3166, Australia Ruiz de Alarcín 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org Thomas T. Allsen 2001 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2001 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge Typeface Times NR MT 10/12pt System QuarkXPress! [se] A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Allsen, Thomas T. Conquest and Culture in Mongol Eurasia / Thomas T. Allsen. p. cm. ± (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0 521 80335 7 1. China ± Relations ± Iran. 2. Iran ± Relations ± China. 3. Mongols ± Eurasia. 4. China ± Civilization ± 13th century. 5. Iran ± Civilization ± 13th Century. I. Title. II. Series. DS740.5.I7 A45 2001 303.48¢ 255051¢ 09022 ± dc21 00-054700 ISBN 0 521 80335 7 hardbackContents Preface page ix Note on transliteration x Abbreviations xi PART I BACKGROUND 1 Introduction 3 2 Before the Mongols 8 PART II POLITICAL±ECONOMIC RELATIONS 3 Formation of the Il-qans, 1251±1265 17 4 Grand Qans and Il-qans, 1265±1295 24 5 Continuity and change under Ghazan, 1295±1304 31 6 Sultans and Grand Qans, 1304±1335 35 7 Economic ties 41 8 Overview of the relationship 51 PART III INTERMEDIARIES 9 Marco Polo and Po-lo 59 10 Qubilai and Bolad Aqa 63 11 Rashõd al-Dõn and Pulad chõnksank 72 PART IV CULTURAL EXCHANGE 12 Historiography 83 13 Geography and cartography 103 14 Agriculture 115 15 Cuisine 127 16 Medicine 141 17 Astronomy 161 18 Printing 176 viiPART V ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSIONS 19 Models and methods 189 20 Agency 193 21 Filtering 203 22 Summation 210 Bibliography 212 Index 238 viii ContentsPreface The present study originated some twenty-Wve years ago with a chance dis- covery that the Mongolian courts in China and Iran both sponsored the com- pilation of agricultural manuals in the course of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. A few years later I discovered, again quite by accident, that this was not mere coincidence, and that there were indeed ªagronomical relationsº between these two courts. This in turn led to an interest in other types of cultural exchange between the Il-qans and the Y uan, an exchange that became the focal point of my research over the last decade. My initial intention was to cover all facets of the interchange in one large monograph but this was clearly impractical. Consequently, I have concen- trated here on cultural exchanges in the Welds of historiography, geography, cartography, agronomy, cuisine, medicine, astronomy, and printing technol- ogy. My investigations into other areas of their contact ± language study, popular entertainments, and economic thought, as well as the transfer of mil- itary technology and the transcontinental resettlement of artisans of varied specialties ± will appear as separate studies. I have had the opportunity to present my preliminary Wndings in the form of lectures at a number of academic institutions and the response has always been welcoming and the questions and comments from these audiences most helpful in shaping the direction of my subsequent research. To these various students and scholars I oVer my thanks for their guidance and encouragement. I must also record my gratitude to the National Endowment for the Humanities which awarded me a Fellowship for the academic year 1998±99 that permitted me to complete research and prepare a Wrst draft of the manuscript. Peter Golden and Stephen Dale read and commented on this manuscript and helped to improve it in many substantial ways. So too did the many sug- gestions and corrections of the anonymous reviewers of the Press. I am deeply indebted to all of these scholars. I must also oVer special thanks to my current department chair , Daniel Crofts, who has supported and facilitated my research over the last several years. Finally, I again express my profound gratitude to my wife, Lucille Helen Allsen, whose enthusiasm, patience, and editorial and word-processing skills are essential ingredients in all my scholarly endeavors. ixNote on transliteration For Persian, Arabic, and Russian I have used the Library of Congress system. Chinese is in Wade-Giles, and for Mongolian I have used the system found in Cleaves' translation of the Secret History. Lastly, for Turkic, I have followed Nadeliaev et al., Drevnetiurkskii slovar. xAbbreviations AEMA Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi. AOASH Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. Bar Hebraeus Bar Hebraeus, The Chronography of Gregory Abu©l- Faraj . . . commonly known as Bar Hebraeus, trans. by Ernest A. Wallis Budge, London: Oxford University Press, 1932, vol. I. BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. CAJ Central Asiatic Journal. DTS Nadeliaev, V . M. et al., eds., Drevnetiurkskii slovar, Leningrad: Nauka, 1969. EI, 2nd edn Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edn, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960±97, 9 vols. to date. Farquhar, Government Farquhar, David M., The Government of China under Mongolian Rule: A Reference Guide, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1990. Golden, Hexaglot Golden, Peter B., ed., The King's Dictionary: The Rasulid Hexaglot, Fourteenth Century Vocabularies in Arabic, Persian, Turkic, Greek, Armenian and Mongol,Leiden:Brill,2000. HJAS Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. Hsiao, Military Hsiao Ch'i-ch'ing, The Military Establishment of the Yuan Dynasty, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978. Ibn Battutah/Gibb Ibn Battutah, The Travels of Ibn Battutah,tr ans .b y H. A. R. Gibb, Cambridge University Press for the Hakluyt Society, 1958±94, 4 vols. JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society. JRAS Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. Juvaynõ/Boyle Juvaynõ, ¨Ata-Malik, The History of the World Conqueror, trans. by John A. Boyle, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958, 2 vols. Juvaynõ/Qazvõnõ Juvaynõ, ¨Ata-Malik, Ta©rõkh-i Jahangusha, ed. by xiMõrza Muhammad Qazvõnõ, E. J . W . Gibb Memorial Series, vol. XVI; London: Luzac, 1912±37, 3 vols. Juzjanõ/Lees Juzjanõ, Tabaqat-i nasirõ, ed. by W. Nassau Lees, Bibliotheca Indica, vol. XLIV; Calcutta: College Press,1864. Juzjanõ/Raverty Juzjanõ, Tabaqat-i nasirõ, trans. by H. G. Raverty, repr., New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corp., 1970, 2 vols. Kirakos, Istoriia Kirakos Gandzaketsi, Istoriia Armenii, trans. by L. A. Khanlarian, Moscow: Nauka, 1976. KodoTasaka Tasaka Kodo, ªAn Aspect of Islam[ic] Culture Introduced into China,º Memoirs of the Research Department of Toyo Bunko 16 (1957), 75±160. Laufer, Sino-Iranica Laufer, Bertold, Sino-Iranica: Chinese Contributions to the History of Civilization in Ancient Iran, repr., Taipei: Ch'eng-wen, 1967. Marco Polo Marco Polo, The Description of the World,t r an s .b y A. C. Moule and Paul Pelliot, London: Routledge, 1938, vol. I. Mongol Mission Dawson, Christopher, ed., The Mongol Mission: Narratives and Letters of the Franciscan Missionaries in Mongolia and China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, New Y ork: Sheed and Ward, 1955. MS Monumenta Serica. MSC Wang Shih-tien, Mi-shu chih, Taipei: Wei-wen tu-shu pan-she, 1976. Needham, SCC Needham, Joseph et al., Science and Civilization in China, Cambridge University Press, 1954±. Pelliot, Notes Pelliot, Paul, Notes on Marco Polo, Paris: Adrien- Maissoneuve, 1959±61, 2 vols. Qashanõ/Hambly Al-Qashanõ,Ab u al-Qasõm, Ta©rõkh-i Uljaytu, ed. by Mahin Hambly, Tehran: BTNK, 1969. Rashõd/Alizade Rashõd al-Dõn, Jami¨ al-tavarõkh, ed. by A. A. Alizade, A. A. Romaskevich, and A. A. Khetagurov, Moscow: Nauka, 1968±80, vols. I and II. Rashõd/Boyle Rashõd al-Dõn, The Successors of Genghis Khan, trans. by John A. Boyle, New York: Columbia University Press, 1971. Rashõd/Jahn I Rashõd al-Dõn, Ta©rõkh-i mubarak-i Ghazanõ, ed. by Karl Jahn, 's-Gravenhage: Mouton, 1957. Rashõd/Jahn II Rashõd al-Dõn, Ta©rõkh-i mubarak-i Ghazanõ, ed. by Karl Jahn, London: Luzac, 1940. Rashõd/Karõmõ Rashõd al-Dõn, Jami¨ al-tavarõkh, ed. by B. Karõmõ, Tehran: Eqbal, 1959, 2 vols. xii AbbreviationsRashõd/QuatremÜre Raschid-eldin [Rashõd al-Dõn], Histoire des Mongols de la Perse, trans. and ed. by E. QuatremÜre, repr., Amsterdam: Oriental Press, 1968. Rubruck/Jackson Jackson, Peter, trans., and David O. Morgan, ed., The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck, London: Hakluyt Society, 1990. Seifeddini Seifeddini, M. A., Monetnoe delo i denezhnoe obrashchenie v Azerbaidzhane XII±XV vv., Baku: Elm, 1978±81, 2 vols. SH/Cleaves The Secret History of the Mongols, trans. by Francis W. Cleaves, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982. SH/de Rachewiltz de Rachewiltz, Igor, Index to the Secret History of the Mongols, Indiana University Publications, Uralic and Altaic Series, vol. CXXI, Bloomington, 1972. TP T'oung Pao. ¨Umarõ/Lech Al-¨Umarõ, Ibn Fadl Allah, Das mongolische Weltreich:al-¨Umarõs Darstellung der mongolischen Reiche in seinem Werk Masalik al-absar fõ mamalik al-amsar, trans. by Klaus Lech, Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1968. VassafV a ssaf al-Hazrat, Ta©rõkh-i Vassaf, Tehran: Ibn-i Sina,1959. YS Yuan shih, Peking: Chung-hua shu-chö, 1978. YTC Ta-Yuan sheng-cheng kuo-ch'ao tien-chang, repr. of the Yuan edn, Taipei: Kuo-li ku-kung po-wu yuan, 1976. Yule, Cathay Yule, Sir Henry, Cathay and the Way Thither, being a Collection of Medieval Notices of China, repr., Taipei: Ch'eng-wen Publishing Company, 1966, 4 vols. YWL Su T'ien-chöeh, Yuan wen-lei, Taipei: Shih-chiai shu- chö ying-hsing, 1967. Abbreviations xiiiPART I BackgroundONE Introduction The goals and themes of this work have undergone substantial change in the course of the basic research. As originally conceived, this monograph was to explore the political and diplomatic relationship between the Mongolian courts of China, the Yuan, and Iran, the Il-qans/Il-khans. I was particularly interested in their joint eVorts to stave oV the military challenge of their rivals and cousins in central Asia, the lines of Chaghadai and Ögödei, and the western steppe, the line of Jochi, in the last half of the thirteenth century and the early decades of the fourteenth century. To sustain one another against their mutual enemies, the regimes in China and Iran shared economic resources, troops, and war matériel. As time passed, I became increasingly aware that this exchange was far more wide-ranging and diverse, embracing as it did an extensive traYc in specialist personnel, scholarly works, material culture, and technology. My interest in these issues grew and I soon came to the conclusion that these cultural exchanges were perhaps the most conse- quential facet of their relationship. This, however, was only the Wrst phase of the work’ s transformation. H aving settled on the issue of cultural exchange as the central theme, I naively assumed that I would proceed by identifying speciWc exchanges and then assess their “inXuence”: for example, the impact of Chinese physicians in Iran on Islamic medicine. This, I quickly discovered, posed formidable problems of method, interpretation, and evidence. The most obvious diYculty is that any attempt to establish such inXuence requires a detailed knowledge of Chinese and Islamic medicine before, during, and after the Mongolian conquests. The same stricture, of course, applies to all other areas of contact, such as agron- omy, astronomy, etc. And, beyond the intimidating range of topics, I came to realize that I simply lacked the formal training and experience to make mean- ingful evaluations of these complex issues, most of which are highly technical. This realization led to one further modiWcation of the goals and themes of the work: in this monograph I will speak primarily to the question of the nature and conditions of the transmission of cultural wares between China and Iran, not the vexed issues of receptivity or rejection of new elements on the part of subject peoples. In other words, I am mainly concerned with how 3these two courts utilized the cultural resources of their respective domains, Iran and China, in their eVorts to succor and support one another. This reorientation means that early sections on the diplomatic, ideological, and economic relations between the Chinese and Iranian courts, while inter- esting in themselves, are presented here to provide the political and institu- tional context in which the Mongolian-inspired cultural exchange took place. A full-scale diplomatic history of Yuan China and Il-qan Iran, sensitive to the changing power relations between the M ongolian, Christian, and M uslim