In Persia, where Hūlāgū founded the dynasty of the Īlk͟hāns, the progress of Islam among the Mongols was much slower. In order to strengthen himself against the attacks of Baraka K͟hān and the Sultan of Egypt, Hūlāgū accepted the alliance of the Christian powers of the East, such as the king of Armenia and the Crusaders. His favourite wife was a Christian and favourably disposed the mind of her husband towards her co-religionists, and his son Abāqā K͟hān married the daughter of the Emperor of Constantinople. Though Abāqā K͟hān did not himself become a Christian, his court was filled with Christian priests, and he sent envoys to several of the princes of Europe—St. Louis of France, King Charles of Sicily and King James of Aragon—to solicit their alliance against the Muhammadans; to the same end also, an embassy of sixteen Mongols was sent to the Council of Lyons in 1274, where the spokesman of this embassy embraced Christianity and was baptised with some of his companions. Great hopes were entertained of the conversion of Abāqā, but they proved fruitless. His brother Takūdār,[30] who succeeded him, was the first of the Īlk͟hāns who embraced Islam. He had been brought up as a Christian, for (as a contemporary Christian writer[31] tells us), “he was baptised when young and called by the name of Nicholas. But when he was grown up, through his intercourse with Saracens of whom he was very fond, he became a base Saracen, and, renouncing the Christian faith, wished to be called Muḥammad K͟hān, and strove with all his might that the [[230]]Tartars should be converted to the faith and sect of Muḥammad, and when they proved obstinate, not daring to force them, he brought about their conversion by giving them honours and favours and gifts, so that in his time many Tartars were converted to the faith of the Saracens.” This prince sent the news of his conversion to the Sultan of Egypt in the following letter:—“By the power of God Almighty, the mandate of Aḥmad to the Sultan of Egypt. God Almighty (praised be His name!) by His grace preventing us and by the light of His guidance, hath guided us in our early youth and vigour into the true path of the knowledge of His deity and the confession of His unity, to bear witness that Muḥammad (on whom rest the highest blessings!) is the Prophet of God, and to reverence His saints and His pious servants. ‘Whom God shall please to guide, that man’s breast will He open to Islam.’[32] We ceased not to incline our heart to the promotion of the faith and the improvement of the condition of Islam and the Muslims, up to the time when the succession to the empire came to us from our illustrious father and brother, and God spread over us the glory of His grace and kindness, so that in the abundance of His favours our hopes were realised, and He revealed to us the bride of the kingdom, and she was brought forth to us a noble spouse. A Qūriltāy or general assembly was convened, wherein our brothers, our sons, great nobles, generals of the army and captains of the forces, met to hold council; and they were all agreed on carrying out the order of our elder brother, viz. to summon here a vast levy of our troops whose numbers would make the earth, despite its vastness, appear too narrow, whose fury and fierce onset would fill the hearts of men with fear, being animated with a courage before which the mountain peaks bow down, and a firm purpose that makes the hardest rocks grow soft. We reflected on this their resolution which expressed the wish of all, and we concluded that it ran counter to the aim we had in view—to promote the common weal, i.e. to strengthen the ordinance of Islam; never, as far as lies in our power, to issue any order that will not tend to prevent bloodshed, remove the ills of men, [[231]]and cause the breeze of peace and prosperity to blow on all lands, and the kings of other countries to rest upon the couch of affection and benevolence, whereby the commands of God will be honoured and mercy be shown to the people of God. Herein, God inspired us to quench this fire and put an end to these terrible calamities, and make known to those who advanced this proposal (of a levy) what it is that God has put into our hearts to do, namely, to employ all possible means for the healing of all the sickness of the world, and putting off what should only be appealed to as the last remedy. For we desire not to hasten to appeal to arms, until we have first declared the right path, and will permit it only after setting forth the truth and establishing it with proofs. Our resolve to carry out whatever appears to us good and advantageous has been strengthened by the counsels of the Shayk͟h al-Islām, the model of divines, who has given us much assistance in religious matters. We have appointed our chief justice, Qutb al-Dīn and the Atābak, Bahā al-Dīn, both trustworthy persons of this flourishing kingdom, to make known to you our course of action and bear witness to our good intentions for the common weal of the Muslims; and to make it known that God has enlightened us, and that Islam annuls all that has gone before it, and that God Almighty has put it into our hearts to follow the truth and those who practice it.… If some convincing proof be required, let men observe our actions. By the grace of God, we have raised aloft the standards of the faith, and borne witness to it in all our orders and our practice, so that the ordinances of the law of Muḥammad may be brought to the fore and firmly established in accordance with the principles of justice laid down by Aḥmad. Whereby we have filled the hearts of the people with joy, have granted free pardon to all offenders, and shown them indulgences, saying, ‘May God pardon the past!’ We have reformed all matters concerning the pious endowments of Muslims given for mosques, colleges, charitable institutions, and the rebuilding of caravanserais; we have restored their incomes to those to whom they were due according to the terms laid down by the donors.… We have ordered the pilgrims to be [[232]]treated with respect, provision to be made for their caravans and for securing their safety on the pilgrim routes; we have given perfect freedom to merchants, travelling from one country to another, that they may go wherever they please; and we have strictly prohibited our soldiers and police from interfering with them in their comings or goings.” He seeks the alliance of the Sultan of Egypt “so that these countries and cities may again be populated, these terrible calamities be put down, the sword be returned to the scabbard; that all peoples may dwell in peace and quietness, and the necks of the Muslims be freed from the ills of humiliation and disgrace.”[33]
To the student of the history of the Mongols it is a relief to pass from the recital of nameless horrors and continual bloodshed to a document emanating from a Mongol prince and giving expression to such humane and benevolent sentiments, which sound strange indeed coming from such lips.
This conversion of their chief and the persecutions that he inflicted on the Christians gave great offence to the Mongols, who, although not Christians themselves, had been long accustomed to intercourse with the Christians, and they denounced their chief to Qūbīlāy K͟hān as one who had abandoned the footsteps of his forefathers. A revolt broke out against him, headed by his nephew Arghūn, who compassed his death and succeeded him on the throne. During his brief reign (1284–1291), the Christians were once more restored to favour, while the Musalmans had to suffer persecution in their turn, were dismissed from their posts and driven away from the court.[34]
The successors of Takūdār were all heathen, until, in 1295, G͟hāzān, the seventh and greatest of the Īlk͟hāns, became a Musalman and made Islam the ruling religion of Persia. During the last three reigns the Christians had entertained great hopes of the conversion of the ruling family of Persia, who had shown them such distinguished favour and entrusted them with so many important offices of state. His immediate predecessor, the insurgent Baydū K͟hān, who occupied the throne for a few months only in [[233]]1295, carried his predilection for Christianity so far as to try to put a stop to the spread of Islam among the Mongols, and accordingly forbade any one to preach the doctrines of this faith among them.[35]
G͟hāzān himself before his conversion had been brought up as a Buddhist and had erected several Buddhist temples in K͟hurāsān, and took great pleasure in the company of the priests of this faith, who had come into Persia in large numbers since the establishment of the Mongol supremacy over that country.[36] He appears to have been naturally of a religious turn of mind, for he studied the creeds of the different religions of his time, and used to hold discussions with the learned doctors of each faith.[37] Rashīd al-Dīn, his learned minister and the historian of his reign, maintained the genuineness of his conversion to Islam, the religious observances of which he zealously kept throughout his whole reign, though his contemporaries (and later writers have often re-echoed the imputation) represented him as having only yielded to the solicitations of some Amīrs and Shayk͟hs.[38] “Besides, what interested motive,” asks his apologist, “could have led so powerful a sovereign to change his faith: much less, a prince whose pagan ancestors had conquered the world?” His conversion, however, certainly won over to his side the hearts of the Persians, when he was contending with Baydū for the throne, and the Muhammadan Mongols in the army of his rival deserted to support the cause of their co-religionist. These were the very considerations that were urged upon G͟hāzān by Nawrūz, a Muhammadan Amīr who had espoused his cause and who hailed him as the prince who, according to a prophecy, was to appear about this time to protect the faith of Islam and restore it to its former splendour: if he embraced Islam, he could become the ruler of Persia: the Musalmans, delivered from the grievous yoke of the Pagan Mongols, would espouse his cause, and God, recognising in him the saviour of the true faith from utter destruction, would bless his arms with victory.[39] After hesitating a little, G͟hāzān [[234]]made a public profession of the faith, and his officers and soldiers followed his example: he distributed alms to men of piety and learning and visited the mosques and tombs of the saints and in every way showed himself an exemplary Muslim ruler. His brother, Uljāytū, who succeeded him in 1304, under the name of Muḥammad K͟hudābandah, had been brought up as a Christian in the faith of his mother and had been baptised under the name of Nicholas, but after his mother’s death, while he was still a young man, he became a convert to Islam through the persuasions of his wife.[40] Ibn Baṭūṭah says that his example exercised a great influence on the Mongols.[41] From this time forward Islam became the paramount faith in the kingdom of the Īlk͟hāns.
The details that we possess of the progress of Islam in the Middle Kingdom, which fell to the lot of Chag͟hatāy and his descendants, are still more meagre. Several of the princes of this line had a Muhammadan minister in their service, but they showed themselves unsympathetic to the faith of Islam. Chag͟hatāy harassed his Muhammadan subjects by regulations that restricted their ritual observances in respect of the killing of animals for food and of ceremonial washings. Al-Jūzjānī says that he was the bitterest enemy of the Muslims among all the Mongol rulers and did not wish any one to utter the word Musalman before him except with evil purpose.[42] Org͟hana, the wife of his grandson and successor, Qarā-Hūlāgū, brought up [[235]]her son as a Musalman, and under the name of Mubārak Shāh he came forward in 1264 as one of the claimants of the disputed succession to the Chag͟hatāy K͟hānate; but he was soon driven from the throne by his cousin Burāq K͟hān, and appears to have exercised no influence on behalf of his faith, indeed judging from their names it would not appear that any of his own children even adopted the religion of their father.[43] Burāq K͟hān is said to have “had the blessedness of receiving the light of the faith” a few days before his death in 1270, and to have taken the name of Sulṭān G͟hiyāt͟h al-Dīn,[44] but he was buried according to the ancient funeral rites of the Mongols, and not as a Musalman, and those who had been converted during his reign relapsed into their former heathenism. It was not until the next century that the conversion of Ṭarmāshīrīn K͟hān, about 1326, caused Islam to be at all generally adopted by the Chag͟hatāy Mongols, who when they followed the example of their chief this time remained true to their new faith. But even now the ascendancy of Islam was not assured, for Būzun who was K͟hān in the next decade—the chronology is uncertain—drove Ṭarmāshīrīn from his throne, and persecuted the Muslims,[45] and it was not until some years later that we hear of the first Musalman king of Kāshgar, which the break-up of the Chag͟hatāy dynasty had erected into a separate kingdom. This prince, Tūqluq Tīmūr K͟hān (1347–1363), is said to have owed his conversion to a holy man from Buk͟hārā, by name Shayk͟h Jamāl al-Dīn. This Shayk͟h, in company with a number of travellers, had unwittingly trespassed on the game-preserves of the prince, who ordered them to be bound hand and foot and brought before him. In reply to his angry question, how they had dared interfere with his hunting, the Shayk͟h pleaded that they were strangers and were quite unaware that they were trespassing on forbidden ground. Learning that they were Persians, the prince said that a dog was worth more than a Persian. “Yes,” replied the Shayk͟h, “if we had not the true faith, we should indeed be worse than the dogs.” Struck with his reply, the K͟hān ordered [[236]]this bold Persian to be brought before him on his return from hunting, and taking him aside asked him to explain what he meant by these words and what was “faith.” The Shayk͟h then set before him the doctrines of Islam with such fervour and zeal that the heart of the K͟hān that before had been hard as a stone was melted like wax, and so terrible a picture did the holy man draw of the state of unbelief, that the prince was convinced of the blindness of his own errors, but said, “Were I now to make profession of the faith of Islam, I should not be able to lead my subjects into the true path. But bear with me a little; and when I have entered into the possession of the kingdom of my forefathers, come to me again.” For the empire of Chag͟hatāy had by this time been broken up into a number of petty princedoms, and it was many years before Tūqluq Tīmūr succeeded in uniting under his sway the whole empire as before. Meanwhile Shayk͟h Jamāl al-Dīn had returned to his home, where he fell dangerously ill: when at the point of death, he said to his son Rashīd al-Dīn, “Tūqluq Tīmūr will one day become a great monarch; fail not to go and salute him in my name and fearlessly remind him of the promise he made me.” Some years later, when Tūqluq Tīmūr had re-won the empire of his fathers, Rashīd al-Dīn made his way to the camp of the K͟hān to fulfil the last wishes of his father, but in spite of all his efforts he could not gain an audience of the K͟hān. At length he devised the following expedient: one day in the early morning, he began to chant the call to prayers, close to the K͟hān’s tent. Enraged at having his slumbers disturbed in this way, the prince ordered him to be brought into his presence, whereupon Rashīd al-Dīn delivered his father’s message. Tūqluq K͟hān was not unmindful of his promise, and said: “Ever since I ascended the throne I have had it on my mind that I made that promise, but the person to whom I gave the pledge never came. Now you are welcome.” He then repeated the profession of faith and became a Muslim. “On that morn the sun of bounty rose out of the east of divine favour and effaced the dark night of unbelief.… They then decided that for the propagation of Islam they should interview the princes one by one, and it should be [[237]]well for those who accepted the faith, but those who refused should be slain as heathens and idolaters.” The first to be examined was a noble named Amīr Tūlik. The K͟hān asked him, “Will you embrace Islam?” Amīr Tūlik burst into tears and said: “Three years ago I was converted by some holy men at Kāshgar and became a Musalman, but from fear of you I did not openly declare it.” Then Tūqluq K͟hān rose up and embraced him, and the three sat down again together. In this manner they examined the princes one by one, and they all accepted Islam, with the exception of one named Jarās, who suggested a trial of strength between the Shayk͟h and his servant, an infidel who was above the ordinary stature of man and so strong that he could lift a two-year-old camel. The Shayk͟h accepted the challenge, saying: “If I do not throw him, I will not require you to become a Musalman. If it is God’s wish that the Mongols become honoured with the blessed state of Islam, He will doubtless give me sufficient power to overcome this man.” Tūqluq K͟hān and those who had become Musalmans with him tried to dissuade the holy man, but he persisted in his purpose. “A large crowd assembled, the infidel was brought in, and he and the Shayk͟h advanced towards one another. The infidel, proud of his own strength, advanced with a conceited air. The Shayk͟h looked very small and weak beside him. When they came to blows, the Shayk͟h struck the infidel full in the chest, and he fell senseless. After a little he came to again, and having raised himself, fell again at the feet of the Shayk͟h, crying out and uttering words of belief. The people raised loud shouts of applause, and on that day 160,000 persons cut off the hair of their heads and became Musalmans. The K͟hān was circumcised, and the lights of Islam dispelled the shades of unbelief.” From that time Islam became the established faith in the settled countries under the rule of the descendants of Chag͟hatāy.[46] But many of the nomad Mongols appear to have remained outside the pale of Islam up to the early part of the fifteenth century, judging from the violent methods adopted for their conversion by Muḥammad K͟hān, who was K͟hān of [[238]]Mug͟halistān[47] about 1416. “Muḥammad K͟hān was a wealthy prince and a good Musalman. He persisted in following the road of justice and equity, and was so unremitting in his exertions, that during his blessed reign most of the tribes of the Mongols became Musalmans. It is well known what severe measures he had recourse to, in bringing the Mongols to be believers in Islam. If, for instance, a Mongol did not wear a turban, a horseshoe nail was driven into his head: and treatment of this kind was common. May God recompense him with good.”[48]
Even such drastic measures were ineffectual in bringing about a general acceptance of Islam, for as late as at the close of the following century,[49] a dervish named Isḥāq Walī found scope for his proselytising activities in Kāshgar, Yārkand and Khotan, where he spent twelve years in spreading the faith;[50] he also worked among the Kirghiz and Kazaks, from among whom he made 180 converts and destroyed eighteen temples of idols.[51]
In the preceding pages some attempt has been made to indicate some of the steps by which the Muslims won over to their faith the savage hordes who had destroyed their centres of culture. By slow degrees, Islam thus began to emerge out of the ruins of its former ascendancy and take its place again as a dominant faith, after more than a century of depression. In the course of the struggle between the followers of rival creeds for the adherence of the Mongols, considerations of political expediency undoubtedly operated in favour of the Muslim party, and the intrigues of Western Christendom caused the Christians to become suspect, as agents of a foreign power; but at the beginning such of the Mongols as were Nestorians could put forward a better claim to be the national party and could attack the Musalmans as adherents of a foreign faith. Aḥmad Takūdār [[239]]was denounced by Arghūn as a traitor to the law of his fathers, in that he had followed the way of the Arabs which none of his ancestors had known.[52] The insurrection that caused Ṭarmāshīrīn to be driven into exile, gained strength from the complaint that this monarch had disregarded the Yassāq or ancient code of Mongol institutes.[53] But though the issue of the struggle long remained doubtful, Islam gradually gained ground in the lands of which it had been dispossessed. The means whereby this success was achieved are obscure, and the scanty details set forth above leave much of the tale untold, but enough has been recorded to indicate some of the proselytising agencies that led to individual conversions. Ānanda drank in Islam with his foster-mother’s milk;[54] and the remnant of the faithful, especially the older families of Muhammadan Turks, exercised an almost insensible influence on the Mongols who settled down in their midst. But of special importance among the proselytising agencies at work was the influence of the pīr and his spiritual disciples. In the midst of the profound discouragement which filled the Musalmans after the flood of the Mongol conquest had poured over them, their first refuge was in mysticism, and the pīr, or spiritual guide, and religious orders—such as the Naqshbandī, which in the fourteenth century entered on a new period of its development—breathed new life into the Muslim community and inspired it with fresh fervour. “In the hands of the pīr and his monks, the Musalman in Asia came to be an agent, at first passive and unconscious, later on the adherent of a party—the party of the national faith, in opposition to the rule of the Mongols, which was at once foreign, barbaric and secular.”[55]
Let us now return to the history of Islam in the Golden Horde. The chief camping ground of this section of the Mongols was the grassy plain watered by the Volga, on the bank of which they founded their capital city Serai, whither the Russian princes sent their tribute to the k͟hān. The conversion of Baraka K͟hān, of which mention has been made above, and the close intercourse with Egypt that [[240]]subsequently sprang up, contributed considerably to the progress of Islam, and his example seems to have been gradually followed by those of the aristocracy and leaders of the Golden Horde that were of Mongol descent. But many tribes of the Golden Horde appear to have resented the introduction of Islam into their midst, and when the conversion of Baraka K͟hān was openly proclaimed, they sent to offer the crown, of which they considered him now unworthy, to his rival Hūlāgū. Indeed, so strong was this opposition, that it seems to have largely contributed to the formation of the Nogais as a separate tribe. They took their name from Nogāy, who was the chief commander of the Mongol forces under Baraka K͟hān. When the other princes of the Golden Horde became Musalmans, Nogāy remained a Shamanist and thus became a rallying point for those who refused to abandon the old religion of the Mongols. His daughter, however, who was married to a Shamanist, became converted to Islam some time after her marriage and had to endure the ill-treatment and contempt of her husband in consequence.[56]
To Ūzbek K͟hān, who was leader of the Golden Horde from 1313 to 1340, and who distinguished himself by his proselytising zeal, it was said, “Content yourself with our obedience, what matters our religion to you? Why should we abandon the faith of Chingīz K͟hān for that of the Arabs?” But in spite of the strong opposition to his efforts, Ūzbek K͟hān succeeded in winning many converts to the faith of which he was so ardent a follower and which owed to his efforts its firm establishment in the country under his sway.[57] A further sign of his influence is found in the tribes of the Ūzbeks of Central Asia, who take their name from him and were probably converted during his reign. He is said to have formed the design of spreading the faith of Islam throughout the whole of Russia,[58] but here he met with no success. Indeed, though the Mongols were paramount in Russia for two centuries, they appear to have exercised very little influence on the people of that country, and least of all in the matter of [[241]]religion. It is noticeable, moreover, that in spite of his zeal for the spread of his own faith, Ūzbek K͟hān was very tolerant towards his Christian subjects, who were left undisturbed in the exercise of their religion and even allowed to pursue their missionary labours in his territory. One of the most remarkable documents of Muhammadan toleration is the charter that Ūzbek K͟hān granted to the Metropolitan Peter in 1313:—“By the will and power, the greatness and mercy of the most High! Ūzbek to all our princes, great and small, etc., etc. Let no man insult the metropolitan church of which Peter is the head, or his servants or his churchmen; let no man seize their property, goods or people, let no man meddle with the affairs of the metropolitan church, since they are divine. Whoever shall meddle therein and transgress our edict, will be guilty before God and feel His wrath and be punished by us with death. Let the metropolitan dwell in the path of safety and rejoice, with a just and upright heart let him (or his deputy) decide and regulate all ecclesiastical matters. We solemnly declare that neither we nor our children nor the princes of our realm nor the governors of our provinces will in any way interfere with the affairs of the church and the metropolitan, or in their towns, districts, villages, chases and fisheries, their hives, lands, meadows, forests, towns and places under their bailiffs, their vineyards, mills, winter quarters for cattle, or any of the properties and goods of the church. Let the mind of the metropolitan be always at peace and free from trouble, with uprightness of heart let him pray to God for us, our children and our nation. Whoever shall lay hands on anything that is sacred, shall be held guilty, he shall incur the wrath of God and the penalty of death, that others may be dismayed at his fate. When the tribute or other dues, such as custom duties, plough-tax, tolls or relays are levied, or when we wish to raise troops among our subjects, let nothing be exacted from the cathedral churches under the metropolitan Peter, or from any of his clergy: … whatever may be exacted from the clergy, shall be returned threefold.… Their laws, their churches, their monasteries and chapels shall be respected; whoever condemns or blames this religion, shall [[242]]not be allowed to excuse himself under any pretext, but shall be punished with death. The brothers and sons of priests and deacons, living at the same table and in the same house, shall enjoy the same privileges.”[59]