the golden horde and the black sea 173
to congratulating the Sultan on his return to power and wishing him con-
tinued victories.115
Given the functional connection between the Golden horde’s Mamluk
policy and Ilkhanid policy, it is not surprising that the same resignation
seen in relations with egypt also sapped toqta’s energy in the matter of
retaking transcaucasia in the last years of his reign: this feeling of pow-
erlessness can be read in the Ilkhanid chronicles’ dry report of the last
embassy to arrive in persia from Sarai across the mountains, on 30th May
1310.116
toqta’s Black Sea policy in the first decade of the fourteenth century
showed itself first and foremost in relations with the Genoese: the policy
was a subset of the triangular relation Sarai-cairo-tabriz, or more exactly,
of the khan’s relations with the Sultan, so that shifts in policy closely fol-
lowed the course of these relations. Genoese merchants profited most, as
intermediaries between the two states, while good relations lasted, but
were also the first to suffer from the khan’s measures directed against the
Mamluks.
Such a reading of toqta’s Genoese policy finds support in his successor
Özbek’s attitudes to the merchants: determined by the same basic factors,
pursuing the same goals, relations followed essentially the same course.
4.2.4 Özbek: Cooperation Reaches Its Peak
toqta died childless in august 1312,117 and his nephew met with several
months’ resistance from rebellious princes and emirs who supported
other candidates before he could succeed. Özbek was only able to take
the throne in January of the following year, whereupon he unleashed a
bloodbath of his adversaries.118
the key player, to whom the new khan quite literally owed his throne,
was Qutlugh temür, the “emir of Sarai,”119 who served toqta as a minister.
115 tiesenhausen, Sbornik, I, pp. 144–145 (al-Nuwayrī), 185 (al-Mufaḍḍal), 316 (Ibn
Duqmāq), 484–485 (al-‛aynī), 98 (Baybars, who records the message as arriving in cairo
in 1310/1, so that Zakirov, Otnosheniya, p. 71, considers that there must have been two
consecutive embassies; cf. Spuler, Horde, p. 86 note 9).
116 Qāshānī/parvisi-Berger, p. 82; Spuler, Horde, p. 84.
117 Qāshānī/parvisi-Berger, pp. 127, 230 note 294; Spuler, Horde, pp. 84–85.
118 the fullest account is in Qāshānī/parvisi-Berger, pp. 126–168; this is also mentioned
by Ibn Duqmāq/tiesenhausen, Sbornik, I, p. 316, and Ibn Khaldūn, ibid., p. 371, who follow
Qāshānī’s account, while other oriental chroniclers simply mention a change of ruler (cf.
Spuler, Horde, p. 86 note 9).
119 Given this curious title in Qāshānī/parvisi-Berger, p. 127.