Although Buddhism made itself finally supreme in the eastern part of the empire, at first the influence of the Christian Church was by no means inconsiderable and great hopes were entertained of the conversion of the Mongols. The Nestorian missionaries in the seventh century had carried the knowledge of the Christian faith from west to east across Asia as far as the north of China, and scattered communities were still to be found in the thirteenth century. The famous Prester John, around whose name cluster so many legends of the Middle Ages, is supposed to have been the chief of the Karaïts, a Christian Tartar tribe living to the south of Lake Baikal. When this tribe was conquered by Chingīz K͟hān, he married one of the daughters of the then chief of the tribe, while his son Ogotāy took a wife from the same family. Ogotāy’s son, Kuyūk, although he did not himself become a Christian, showed great favour towards this faith, to which his chief minister and one of his secretaries belonged. The Nestorian priests were held in high favour at his court and he received an embassy from Pope Innocent IV.[5] The Christian powers both of the East and the West looked to the Mongols to assist them in their wars against the Musalmans. It was Hayton, the Christian King of Armenia, who was mainly instrumental in persuading Mangū K͟hān to despatch the expedition that sacked Bag͟hdād under the leadership of Hūlāgū,[6] the influence of whose Christian wife led him to show much favour to the Christians, and especially to the Nestorians. Many of the Mongols who occupied the countries of Armenia and Georgia were converted by the Christians of these countries and received baptism.[7] The marvellous tales of the greatness and magnificence of Prester John, that fired the imagination of mediæval Europe, had given rise [[222]]to a belief that the Mongols were Christians—a belief which was further strengthened by the false reports that reached Europe of the conversion of various Mongol princes and their zeal for the Christian cause. It was under this delusion that St. Louis sent an ambassador, William of Rubruck, to exhort the great K͟hāqān to persevere in his supposed efforts for the spread of the Christian faith. But these reports were soon discovered to be without any foundation in fact, though William of Rubruck found that the Christian religion was freely tolerated at the court of Mangū K͟hān, and the adhesion of some few Mongols to this faith made the Christian priests hopeful of still further conquests. But so long as Latins, Greeks, Nestorians and Armenians carried their theological differences into the very midst of the Mongol camp, there was very little hope of much progress being made, and it is probably this very want of union among the preachers of Christianity that caused their efforts to meet with so little success among the Mongols; so that while they were fighting among one another, Buddhism and Islam were gaining a firm footing for themselves. The haughty pretensions of the Roman Pontiff soon caused the proud conquerors of half the world to withdraw from his emissaries what little favour they might at first have been inclined to show, and many other circumstances contributed to the failure of the Roman mission.[8]
As for the Nestorians, who had been first in the field, they appear to have been too degraded and apathetic to take much advantage of their opportunities. Of the Nestorians in China, William of Rubruck[9] says that they were very ignorant and could not even understand their service books, which were written in Syriac. He accuses them of drunkenness, polygamy and covetousness, and makes an unfavourable comparison between their lives and those of the Buddhist priests. Their bishop paid them very rare visits—sometimes only once in fifty years: [[223]]on such occasions he would ordain all the male children, even the babies in their cradles. The priests were eaten up with simony, made a traffic of the sacred rites of their Church and concerned themselves more with money-making than with the propagation of the faith.[10]
In the western parts of the Mongol empire, where the Christians looked to the newly-risen power to help them in their wars with the Musalmans and to secure for them the possession of the Holy Land, the alliance between the Christians and the Īlk͟hāns of Persia was short-lived, as the victories of Baybars, the Mamlūk Sultan of Egypt (1260–1277) and his alliance with Baraka K͟hān, gave the Īlk͟hāns quite enough to do to look after their own interests. The excesses that the Christians of Damascus and other cities committed during the brief period in which they enjoyed the favour of this Mongol dynasty of Persia, did much to discredit the Christian name in Western Asia.[11]
In the course of the struggle, the adherents of either faith were at times guilty of much brutality. One example may be taken from the middle of the thirteenth century as told by al-Jūzjānī, who claims to have heard the story, while in Delhi, from the lips of a certain Sayyid Ashraf al-Dīn who had come there from Samarqand. “The eminent Sayyid thus related, that one of the Christians of Samarqand attained unto the felicity of Islam, and the Musalmans of Samarqand, who are staunch in their faith, paid him great honour and reverence, and conferred great benefits upon him. Unexpectedly, one of the haughty Mongol infidels of China, who possessed power and influence, and the inclinations of which accursed one were towards the Christian faith, arrived at Samarqand. The Christians of that city repaired to that Mongol, and complained saying: ‘The Musalmans are enjoining our children to turn away from the Christian faith and from serving Jesus—on whom be peace—and calling upon them to follow the religion of Muṣṭafạ̄[12]—on whom be peace—and, in case that gate becomes unclosed, the whole of our dependents will turn away from the Christian faith. By [[224]]thy power and authority devise a settlement of our case.’ The Mongol commanded that the youth, who had turned Musalman, should be produced, and they tried with blandishment and kindness, and money and wealth to induce the newly-converted Musalman to recant, but he refused to recant, and put not off from his heart and spirit that garment of freshness—the Muslim faith. The Mongol ruler then turned over a leaf in his temper, and began to speak of severe punishment; and every punishment, which it was in his power to inflict, or his severity to devise, he inflicted upon the youth, who, from his great zeal for the faith of Islam, did not recant, and did not in any way cast away from his hand the sweet draught of religion through the blow of infidel perverseness. As the youth continued firm in the true faith, and paid no heed to the promises and threats of that depraved company, the accursed Mongol commanded that they should bring the youth to public punishment; and he departed from the world in the felicity of religion—may God reward and requite him!—and the Musalman community in Samarqand were overcome with despondency and consternation in consequence. A petition was got up, and was attested with the testimony of the chief men and credible persons of the Musalman religion dwelling at Samarqand, and we proceeded with that petition to the camp of Baraka K͟hān, and presented to him an account of the proceedings and disposition of the Christians of that city. Zeal for the Muslim religion was manifested in the mind of that monarch of exemplary faith, and the defence of the truth became predominant in his disposition. After some days, he showed honour to this Sayyid, appointed a body of Turks and confidential persons among the chief Musalmans, and commanded that they should slaughter the Christian company who had committed that dire oppression, and despatch them to hell. When that mandate had been obtained, it was preserved until that wretched sect had assembled in the church, then they seized them all together, and despatched the whole of them to hell, and reduced the church again to bricks.”[13] [[225]]
For Islam to enter into competition with such powerful rivals as Buddhism and Christianity were at the outset of the period of Mongol rule, must have appeared a well-nigh hopeless undertaking. For the Muslims had suffered more from the storm of the Mongol invasions than the others. Those cities that had hitherto been the rallying points of spiritual organisation and learning for Islam in Asia, had been for the most part laid in ashes: the theologians and pious doctors of the faith, either slain or carried away into captivity.[14] Among the Mongol rulers—usually so tolerant towards all religions—there were some who exhibited varying degrees of hatred towards the Muslim faith. Chingīz K͟hān ordered all those who killed animals in the Muhammadan fashion to be put to death, and this ordinance was revived by Qūbīlāy, who by offering rewards to informers set on foot a sharp persecution that lasted for seven years, as many poor persons took advantage of this ready means of gaining wealth, and slaves accused their masters in order to gain their freedom.[15] During the reign of Kuyūk (1246–1248), who left the conduct of affairs entirely to his two Christian ministers and whose court was filled with Christian monks, the Muhammadans were made to suffer great severities.[16]
A contemporary historian, al-Jūzjānī, gives the following account of the kind of treatment to which a Muhammadan theologian might be exposed at the court of Kuyūk. “Trustworthy persons have related that Kuyūk was constantly being incited by the Buddhist priests to acts of oppression towards the Musalmans and the persecution of the faithful. There was an Imām in that country, one of the men of learning among the Muslims … named Nūr al-Dīn, al-K͟hwārazmī. A number of Christian laymen and priests and a band of idol-worshipping Buddhist priests made a request to Kuyūk, asking him to summon that [[226]]Imām of the Musalmans that they might hold a controversy with him and get him to prove the superiority of the faith of Muḥammad and his prophetic mission—otherwise, he should be put to death. The K͟hān agreed, the Imām was sent for, and a discussion ensued upon the claim of Muḥammad to be a prophet and the manner of his life as compared with that of other prophets. At length, as the arguments of those accursed ones were weak and devoid of the force of truth, they withdrew their hand from contradiction and drew the mark of oppression and outrage on the pages of the business and asked Kuyūk K͟hān to tell the Imām to perform two genuflexions in prayer, according to the rites and ordinances of the Muhammadan law, in order that his unbecoming movements in the performance of this act of worship might become manifest to them and to the K͟hān.” Kuyūk gave the order accordingly, and the Imām and another Musalman who was with him performed the ritual of the prayer according to the prescribed forms. “When the godly Imām and the other Musalman who was with him, had placed their foreheads on the ground in the act of prostration, some infidels whom Kuyūk had summoned, greatly annoyed them and knocked their heads with force upon the ground, and committed other abominable acts against them. But that godly Imām endured all this oppression and annoyance and performed all the required forms and ceremonies of the prayer and in no way curtailed it. When he had repeated the salutation, he lifted up his face towards heaven and observed the form of ‘Invoke your Lord with humility and in secret,’ and having asked permission to depart, he returned unto his own house.”[17]
Arghūn (1284–1291) the fourth Īlk͟hān persecuted the Musalmans and took away from them all posts in the departments of justice and finance, and forbade them to appear at his court.[18]
In spite of all difficulties, however, the Mongols and the savage tribes that followed in their wake[19] were at length [[227]]brought to submit to the faith of those Muslim peoples whom they had crushed beneath their feet. Unfortunately history sheds little light on the progress of this missionary movement and only a few details relating to the conversion of the more prominent converts have been preserved to us. Scattered up and down throughout the length and breadth of the Mongol empire, there must have been many of the followers of the Prophet who laboured successfully and unknown, to win unbelievers to the faith. In the reign of Ogotāy (1229–1241), we read of a certain Buddhist governor of Persia, named Kurguz, who in his later years abjured Buddhism and became a Musalman.[20] In the reign of Tīmūr K͟hān (1323–1328), Ānanda, a grandson of Qūbīlāy and viceroy of Kan-Su, was a zealous Musalman and had converted a great many persons in Tangut and won over a large number of the troops under his command to the same faith. He was summoned to court and efforts were made to induce him to conform to Buddhism, and on his refusing to abandon his faith he was cast into prison. But he was shortly after set at liberty, for fear of an insurrection among the inhabitants of Tangut, who were much attached to him.[21]
The author of the Muntak͟hab al-Tawārīk͟h asserts that Ānanda built four mosques in K͟hānbāligh (the modern Peking), which provided accommodation for 1,000,000 men at the time of the Friday prayer; but no credence can be given to this or to his other statements regarding the spread of Islam in China, in view of the fact that he represents Ānanda to have been the successor of Tīmūr K͟hān on the imperial throne and gives an entirely fictitious account of his descendants, several of whom are represented as having professed Islam, though none of the five had any existence except in the imagination of the writer.[22]
The first Mongol ruling prince who professed Islam was Baraka K͟hān, who was chief of the Golden Horde from 1256 to 1267.[23] According to Abu’l-G͟hāzī he was converted [[228]]after he had come to the throne. He is said one day to have fallen in with a caravan coming from Buk͟hārā, and taking two of the merchants aside, to have questioned them on the doctrines of Islam, and they expounded to him their faith so persuasively that he became converted in all sincerity. He first revealed his change of faith to his youngest brother, whom he induced to follow his example, and then made open profession of his new belief.[24] But, according to al-Jūzjānī, Baraka K͟hān was brought up as a Musalman from infancy, and, as soon as he was old enough to learn, was taught the Qurʼān by one of the ʻUlamā of the city of K͟hujand.[25] The same author (who compiled his history during the lifetime of Baraka K͟hān), states that the whole of his army was Musalman. “Trustworthy persons have also related that, throughout his whole army, it is the etiquette for every horseman to have a prayer-carpet with him, so that, when the time for prayer arrives, they may occupy themselves in their devotions. Not a person in his whole army takes any intoxicating drink whatever; and great ʻUlamā, consisting of commentators, traditionists, jurists, and disputants, are in his society. He has a great number of religious books, and most of his receptions and debates are with ʻUlamā. In his place of audience debates on ecclesiastical law constantly take place; and, in his faith, as a Musalman, he is exceedingly strict and orthodox.”[26] Baraka K͟hān entered into a close alliance with the Mamlūk Sultan of Egypt, Rukn al-Dīn Baybars. The initiative came from the latter, who had given a hospitable reception to a body of troops, two hundred in number, belonging to the Golden Horde; these men, observing the growing enmity between their K͟hān and Hūlāgū, the conqueror of Bag͟hdād, in whose army they were serving, took flight into Syria, whence they were honourably conducted to Cairo to the court of Baybars, who persuaded them to embrace Islam.[27] Baybars himself was at war with Hūlāgū, whom he had recently defeated and driven out of Syria. He sent [[229]]two of the Mongol fugitives, with some other envoys, to bear a letter to Baraka K͟hān. On their return these envoys reported that each princess and amīr at the court of Baraka K͟hān had an imām and a muʼad͟hd͟hin, and the children were taught the Qurʼān in the schools.[28] These friendly relations between Baybars and Baraka K͟hān brought many of the Mongols of the Golden Horde into Egypt, where they were prevailed upon to become Musalmans.[29]