chapter threethe disintegration of the empire:
intra- and extra-mongol commercial rivalries
3.1 The Jochid-Ilkhanid Struggle for Tabriz
the problem of its legitimation was a besetting flaw for the ilkhanate
from beginning to end.1
this fundamental flaw was particularly painful because until 1295, the
ilkhanids stubbornly emphasised their relation with the empire and its
sources of power in the very title that they bore: il-khan simply means
‘subordinate khan,’ dependent on the head of state.2 ghazan, hülegü’s
great-grandson, cut the remaining ideological links with the great Khan
in china in 12953 and adapted his national doctrine to the new situation,
saying that his ancestors had won the country with the sword and he
would defend it with the sword.4 neither his own bravura nor his ances-
tors’ bravery could provide a legal foundation that would make his claims
acceptable to the other chinggisid dynasties, and ghazan acknowledged
that the ilkhanate was a usurper state.5
the legal questions surrounding the foundation of the ilkhanate are far
less important, however, than the practical consequences of the new state
of affairs both within and beyond the nominal chinggisid empire.
1 as a constant source of violent conflict at the time and the subject of much propagan-
dist misrepresentation, the matter is still not entirely clear today, shrouded by obscurities
which prevent historians from reaching any consensus. it is especially difficult to unravel
since, as well as the general lack of documentary evidence, there is the added inconven-
ience that the principle sources are strongly biased; these are the persian court historians
Juwaynī and rashīd al-dīn, who had access to the iranian mongol archives of state. on
behalf of their patron power, they subtly omitted and falsified material in ways which still
confuse the reader today.
2 Jackson, “dissolution,” pp. 231–232, for the most rigorous analysis of this question.
3 spuler, Mongolen, p. 79.
4 in a message sent to the khan of the golden horde, toqta, in 1303, in reply to
his demand that the transcaucasian provinces be ceded back to the ulus of Jochi; cf.
al-mufaḍḍal (tiesenhausen, Sbornik, i, pp. 176–178), spuler, Horde, pp. 80–81, Zakirov,
Otnosheniya, pp. 18–19.
5 Without considering this argument specifically, Jackson, “dissolution,” p. 222, cat-
egorically and convincingly concludes that “the position of the ilkhans of iran was based
upon an act of usurpation.”