For King and What Country? - TSpace

For King and What Country?

Chinggisid-Timurid Conceptions of Rulership and Political Community in

Relation to Territory, 1370–1530

by

Shuntu Kuang

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements

for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations

University of Toronto

© Copyright by Shuntu Kuang 2020

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For King and What Country?

Chinggisid-Timurid Conceptions of Rulership and Political Community in

Relation to Territory, 1370–1530

Shuntu Kuang

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations

University of Toronto

2020

Abstract

This thesis investigates Chinggisid-Timurid conceptions of rulership and political

community in relation to territory, focusing on Perso-Islamic Central Asia and Iran during

the period 1370–1530. It also discusses the thirteenth-century Mongol-ruled world for

backdrop, and highlights the distinctiveness of the said conceptions through comparisons

with contemporaneous European and East Asian/Ming Chinese conceptions of the same. This

is a study of a chapter in the history of “international states system” before the European

model of international states system became the global standard.

The political culture of the Chaghatayids, Ilkhanids, and Timurids included

conceptions of rulership and political community vis-à-vis territory that were rooted in a mix

of Mongol and Perso-Islamic traditions. In the early thirteenth century, the Mongols

conceived of a qan (khan) as leading an ulus, that is, a mobile demographic entity not defined

by specific territory. Tājīk historians in Mongol service appeared to have understood this,

though a number of them also attributed certain territorial characteristics to ulus. The matter

becomes more complicated when Chinggisid-Timurid chancellery documents/diplomatic

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letters are considered, as unlike their European and East Asian counterparts, these documents

lacked straightforward claims of rulership over politico-administrative territory. At the same

time, a certain representation of rulership over territories, in the form of “pādeshāhs of

wilāyats,” can be found in the histories, but this was evidently neither a formal nor a

pronounced representation. By 1402, the Timurids no longer recognized a Chinggisid khan as

their overlord, but they also did not clearly articulate what this meant in terms of the political

community to which they belonged—especially, did they still belong to the ulus of

Chaghatay? This study seeks answers to a basic question concerning the Chaghatayids, the

Ilkhanids, and especially the fifteenth-century Timurids: “What was their country?”

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In memory of my mentor and 恩師

Professor Allison Busch (1969–2019)

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Acknowledgments

I owe my education at the University of Toronto to many remarkable ladies and

gentlemen. These brief acknowledgements could hardly express the extent of my gratitude to

them.

Had it not been for Alan Qo’a, there would not be Chinggisid-Timurid history as we

know it. Thus, long before this humble thesis was conceived, nay, long before this worthless

one chanced upon the world thirty-two years ago, an untold debt had already been owed to

the blessing that is womanhood. Verily, this is beyond doubt! It is therefore fitting that this

worthless one first acknowledges the great women who guided and supported him over the

past six years.

Professor Subtelny took this worthless one under her wings and performed the

miracle of making a “researcher” out of him! Her course on the history of Iran was an

indispensable foundation for my doctoral specialization. And when she was on sabbatical,

she still took time every week to read Persian historical texts with me. During the years of

my thesis writing, Prof. Subtelny closely reviewed every chapter, and did the same for the

full draft—twice. Her care and guidance run through every vein of this thesis. In 2013, I

came to the University of Toronto’s Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations

(NMC) because I knew for sure that I wish to concentrate in Timurid history under Prof.

Subtelny’s mentorship. Which angel was it who guided the ignorant Shuntu to the wisest

decision of his life?!

Mrs. Anna Sousa, our graduate administrator until her retirement in 2019, was our

mama bear, who made sure that every one of us cubs was given warmth. From the day I

arrived at NMC, to my comprehensive exams, to the late stage of my thesis, it was Mrs.

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Sousa who made sure that I had the best logistical backing, without which I would have

become the dictionary’s picture for “unmitigated disaster.” I would also like to bow in salute

to all the staff members who served at NMC from 2013 to 2020 for their amazing daily

support.

Professor Linda Northrup taught me early Islamic-world history, opening my eyes to

historical narratives about the early Muslim community that I had failed to learn elsewhere.

Prof. Northrup oversaw one of my comprehensive exams, and took time from retirement to

be the internal examiner of my thesis. She was also my first TA supervisor. I am simply

fortunate to have enjoyed Prof. Northrup’s guidance throughout my doctoral training.

Professor Beatrice Manz is a most admired scholar of Timurid history. Her work The

Rise and Rule of Tamerlane was for all intents and purposes my introductory textbook that

opened the gates to the subfield. It was my distinct honor and privilege to have Prof. Manz as

the external examiner of my thesis and to have her come from Tufts University, Boston, to

attend my thesis defense amidst the harsh Toronto winter.

Professor Tirzah Meacham was our graduate coordinator during the early years of my

studies at NMC, and I am most grateful to Prof. Meacham for constantly making sure that I

was on track at every stage.

Professor Heather Baker was my TA supervisor, and she represented to me the

highest standard of devotion to teaching. If I become a teacher one day, I will look to Prof.

Baker as an example.

Professor Azita Taleghani gave me the study abroad experience in Iran that I never

had. Her course on Iranian historical linguistics, taught partially in Persian, was the neatest

course I took at NMC.

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I now must acknowledge the great women of my own generation who gave me their

caring support over the years.

In my first year at NMC, bacım Lale was the leader of our Ottoman Turkish reading

group. She generously read Ottoman Turkish with us, as I stumbled over the texts. In later

years, Bacım took care of me on more occasions than I could possibly count. Whenever I had

trouble, I could seek her advice and sympathy. During my preparation for comprehensive

exams, Bacım sat with me to read Yazdī’s Ẓafarnāma. And during my years of nomadizing

between summer and winter pastures, Bacım, bacı erim Samad, and Mary Jiejie gave me

warm hospitality and refuge. Their kindness forms the most beautiful part of my memories in

Toronto.

My good sister Parisa has been a great friend since I arrived at NMC. In my first year

as a PhD student, I enjoyed the Persian conversation group that she organized for us. And

during my preparation for comprehensive exams, Parisa generously spent time with me to

read Rashīd al-Dīn’s Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh. Whenever I had questions about Persian, I could

always count on her to show me the way. And we owe the incredible 21st Annual NMC

Graduate Students’ Association Symposium to Parisa’s leadership and hard work.

I cannot thank enough Maryna Kravets Hocam for aiding and supporting Dr. Lee Joo-

Yup and me in our project “A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Historical Sources and Y-

DNA Studies with Regard to the Early and Medieval Turkic Peoples.”

A special thanks to Dr. Noha Abou-Khatwa for generously taking time to teach me

the details of Arabic diacritics.

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As well, a great big shout out to Dr. Tracy Spurrier, Queen of Mesopotamia. I will

never forget Tracy taking me and Usman to Costco in Toronto—an effective cure for

American homesickness!

At home in the US, my big sister, Jie, continued to be my unwavering pillar of

stability and support. There will not be enough that I could do in this lifetime to thank her.

Surely, it is now time to express gratitude to our ata-aqa!

Professor Victor Ostapchuk spent countless hours teaching me to read Ottoman

Turkish historical texts. For my comprehensive exams and thesis, Prof. Ostapchuk was a de

facto supervisor. It is simply enjoyable to listen to Prof. Ostapchuk’s commentary on all

things! He never holds back and has a most down-to-earth sense of humor. I hope I will

always get to see Prof. Ostapchuk when I visit NMC.

師兄 Dr. Lee Joo-Yup has been a mentor, a supporter, and an elder brother of mine.

He opened my eyes to historical facts via the scientific method, and enhanced my research

training through opportunities to participate in his projects. At the same time, he uniquely

helped me rethink important life questions. As a research historian, Dr. Hyeong represents to

me the highest combined moral-and-academic standard of the profession. Furthermore, he,

Hyeongsu, and the wonderful children, Jae-Hyeon, Jae-Jun, and Jae-In, gave me comfort and

support throughout the years of my doctoral studies and during the most critical and

meaningful of times.

A special taʿẓīm to big barādar, Abolfazl, for his years of moral and tangible support!

I could always count on him for help when I got stuck with Persian texts. Anecdote: One late

afternoon, in the NMC Graduate Lounge, Abolfazl had but a small sandwich for lunch, but

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when I came, he did not hesitate to first offer it to me. May he continue on the Sufi path, ever

closer to union with the Truth.

It is my honor to call friend Dr. Bogdan, who has the dignity of a grand library and

the heart of a noble warrior. His encouragements were constant and his hospitality munificent.

Bogdan will be duly thanked again in Chapter Two.

I am especially thankful for our current graduate administrator, Mr. Michael Godwin.

Mr. Godwin helped me smoothly navigate the road to thesis defense and graduation.

I will always have grateful memories of sitting in the NMC Graduate Lounge and

Nima coming by and generously helping me understand Persian texts. I only wish I could

have learned more from such a repository of knowledge.

Cheers and salutes to old Ottoman Turkish buddies, Monseigneur Nicolas (Aya

Nikola) and Burhan! Though now separated by thousands of leagues, their friendship is

always present.

To Dr. Sajjad, who made me atabeg of his Radiant One, I genuflect nine times!

The marvelous South Asianist Usman Agha was my peer mentor when I arrived at

NMC. I salute this great pādeshāh and thank him for the salt he bestowed upon me.

To fellow history buffs, my awesome pals plus housemates, Jiachen, Bill, and Elton,

加油!

To my good friend Hossein, from whom I learn something fascinating in every

conversation, I wish the very best for his upcoming studies.

To Captain Rob, the incredibly hard-working president of our NMCGSA and the

coordinator of the 20th Annual NMCGSA Symposium, Hip Hip, Horaay! It was an honor to

sail and serve under his leadership. Arrrgh!

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My doctoral studies would not have been possible without those who made possible

the Connaught International Scholarship for Doctoral Students (Fall 2013–Summer 2018),

and the Dissertation Completion Award (Fall 2018–Summer 2019), at the University of

Toronto.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………ii

Acknowledgements…………………..…..………………………………...………………...v

Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………………xi

Abbreviations………………………………………………………………………...…….xiii

Transcription, Transliteration, and Translation…………………….…………………..xiv

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………..1

Overall Thesis Statement ……………………………………………………………..3

Methodology and Rationale …………………………………………………………..6

Persian-Language Primary Sources and the Question of Authenticity in Expressing

the Conceptions of the Ruling Class ………………………………………..……..7

Relevance for Research Field and Subfields ………………………………………..10

Chapter One. THE BACKDROP: CONCEPTION OF ULUS IN RELATION TO

TERRITORY IN ILKHANID AND CHAGHATAYID-TIMURID CONTEXTS…… 15

A Review of Ulus vis-à-vis Territory in Scholarly Literature: People Only or Both

People and Territory? ……………………………………………………………17

Mobility, Borders, Territorial Assignments, and Inertness: Characteristics of Ulus in

the Secret History of the Mongols and the Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh …………………..24

Ulus in the Timurid Era: Both Territorial and Mobile? ……………………………..38

Mamlakat and Mulk versus Ulus as the Object of Rulership ………………………..45

The Middle Mongol Ulus ……………………………………………………………56

Chapter Conclusion ……………………………………………………………….....68

Chapter Two. EMPIRE OF SAMARQAND? GUO (國) OF HARĀT?: A

COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE VIS-À-VIS EUROPE AND EAST ASIA

INFORMED BY DIPLOMATIC ENCOUNTERS………………………………………71

Background Discussion: Representations of Rulership in Chaghatayid, Ilkhanid, and

Timurid Chancellery/Diplomatic Documents …………………………………...73

Spatial/Territorial References in Honorifics ………………………………………..79

European Perspectives: Between Nascent Understanding and Fanciful Imagining of

Timurid Rulership ………………………………………………………………..87

The Chinese Perspective: Timurids as Rulers of Samarqand and Harāt …………..100

Chapter Conclusion ………………………………………………………………..118

Chapter Three. PĀDESHĀHS OF WILĀYATS: THE MID-LATE TIMURID PERIOD

AND NUANCES IN CONCEPTION OF RULERSHIP VIS-À-VIS TERRITORY AS

REVEALED BY HISTORIES ………………………………………………………...…120

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1470–94: The Period of High Fragmentation and General Geopolitical Stability ...122

Brief Overview of the Terms Pādeshāh and Wilāyat ……………………………...125

Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā and the Fifth and Sixth-Generation Timurid Rulers: The Use

of Language in the Histories Expressing Their Relationship to Their

Territories………………………………………………………………………..134

Chapter Conclusion ………………………………………………………………...155

Chapter Four. TOWARDS A FULLER EXPLANATION: THE LEGACY OF ULUS

AND KHANSHIP AND THE TIMURIDS’ INDECISIVE PATH TO FORMAL

INDEPENDENCE ……157

Reassessing Timurid Independence from 1402–49: Kürägäns, Timurid Khans in

Khorāsan, and a Deliberate “Interregnum”? ………………………...………….160

Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā versus Yūnus Khan …………………………………..…..168

Yūnus Khan: Reinstitution of the Old Chinggisid-Timurid Political Order in Central

Asia? …………………………………………………………………………….174

Bābor and his Moghul Uncle-Khans …………………………………………….....186

Chapter Conclusion ………………………………………………………………...197

General Conclusion …………………………………………………………………….…199

Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………………203

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ABBREVIATIONS

Arabic- Ar.

circa- ca.

Chinese- Ch.

died- d.

English- En.

French- Fr.

Latin- Lat.

Mongolian- Mo.

nominative (grammar)- nom.

Persian- Per.

plural (grammar)- pl.

Qurān- Q

ruled (or reigned)- r.

singular (grammar)- sing.

Spanish- Sp.

Turkic- Tur.

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TRANSCRIPTION, TRANSLITERATION, AND TRANSLATION

Transcription of Perso-Arabic Consonants

أ ‘

b ب

p پ

t ت

s ث

j ج

ch چ

ḥ ح

kh خ

d د

ẕ ذ

r ر

z ز

zh ژ

s س

sh ش

ṣ ص

ż ض

ṭ ط

ẓ ظ

ʿ ع

gh غ

f ف

q ق

k ک

g گ

l ل

m م

n ن

w و

h ه

y ی

Note: Only final ـه used to mark consonant is transcribed, for example, پادشاه (pādeshāh). Final ـه used

to mark vowel is not transcribed, for example, خانه (khāna), نامه (nāma). Exceptions are made for the

following commonly used Persian words: که (keh), چه (cheh), سه (seh).

xv

Transliteration of Arabic Vowels

a i u ā آ

ū و

ī ی

á ة ألف مقصور

Transliteration of Persian Vowels (majḥūl vowels not distinguished, otherwise classical

Persian phonology reflected)

a e o ā آ

ū و

ī ی

Transliteration of Chaghatay Turkic Vowels

Back Vowels a o u ı Front Vowels ä e ö ü i

Notes on Transliteration and Transcription

When quoting from Persian-language texts, the transcription of words of Turkic or

Mongolian origin are Persianized, with short vowel transcribed as long vowel if it had been

marked by آ, middle or final .(تیمور e.g., Tīmūr for) in any position ی in any position, or و , ـا

This is to allow the reader to better recreate the original text. Though the English translation

will still reflect Mongol or Turkic phonology (e.g. “Abū Saʿīd Bahadur Khan” in English

translation, but Abū Saʿīd Bahādur Khān in transcription from a Persian text). When not

quoting, or when quoting from a Chaghatay Turkic text, Turkic and Mongolian short vowels

are transliterated to reflect the authentic phonology, and not transcribed as long vowels even

if marked by آ, middle or final و ,ـا, or ی (e.g., Temür for تیمور). This includes words of mixed

etymology (e.g., Moghulestān for مغولستان). Perso-Arabic vocabulary in Turkic are not

Turkicized.

xvi

Notes and Acknowledgements on Translation

English translations are available for multiple primary sources cited in this project. I

consulted these translations to make my translations, which in general attempted to be more

literal, by maximally reflecting the original grammar and all the original words. Such a more

literal translation is meant to support the analytical aims of this project. I am hence

particularly indebted to Prof. J. A. Boyle’s translation of the Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy, Prof.

Wheeler Thackston’s translation of the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, Bābor-nāma,

Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, and Humāyūn-nāma, and Prof. Igor de Rachewiltz and Prof.

Urgunge Onon’s separate translations of the Secret History of the Mongols. These works

have been included in the Bibliography.

I am illiterate in Arabic, Mongolian, Latin, and Spanish, so when required to translate

from these languages, I relied mainly on grammars and dictionaries.

My supervisor, Prof. Maria Subtelny, has bestowed numerous improvements to my

Persian, Turkic, and Arabic translations.

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0ahUKEwigrd7q1_DSAhXK4IMKHYuXCFIQFggmMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgraphemica.com%2F%25E1%25B8%25A5&usg=AFQjCNECnIUFNfmpsPP74KrXPIwkBoXyvg&sig2=KdPVfk4AxfPyBun__b35TA&bvm=bv.150729734,d.amc

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INTRODUCTION

This thesis investigates Chinggisid-Timurid conceptions of rulership and political

community in relation to territory, focusing on Perso-Islamic Central Asia and Iran during

the period 1370–1530. 1 It also discusses the thirteenth-century Mongol-ruled world for

backdrop, as well as Europe and Ming China for comparative purposes. The territorial state,2

or (sovereign) “country,” is taken for granted in the present age. All one hundred-ninety

some sovereign countries are conceived on the basis of a bond between the citizenry, the

monarch (if existent), and the territory, the official name of which is to be treated with a

certain solemnity and dignity. Although only people are capable of conceptions of political

community,3 authority, and duty, it is not considered sufficient to define a state by people

only. Rather, a state must be defined by both people and territory.4 Territory, i.e., artificially

1 “Chinggisid” refers to the dynasty of Chinggis Qan (a.k.a. Genghis Khan, d. 1227), the

founder of what has commonly been called “the Mongol empire.” “Timurid” refers to the dynasty of

the conqueror Temür (Per. Tīmūr, a.k.a. Tamerlane, d. 1405). The Timurid dynasty rose to power in Mongol Central Asia under the formal sovereignty of Chinggisids. The period 1370–1530 starts with

Temür’s rise to power and ends with the death of his great-great-great grandson Ẓahīr al-Dīn

Muḥammad Bābor, the first founder of what has commonly been called “the Mughal empire.” “Perso-Islamic” refers to context in which Islam is the predominant religion and Persian is a native language

or lingua franca. 2 A “territorial state” is a state that claims/has exclusive supreme authority within its borders,

so no outside power can come in and claim/exercise a sphere of authority not subject to the state’s

authority. An overlapping but distinct concept is the “nation-state,” i.e., a state for the benefit of a

“nation,” or roughly “ethnic-group.” The “Nation-state” stands in contrast to the “multi-national

state/empire” and to multiple states whose peoples are of the same “nation.” Virtually all “nation-states” are “territorial states,” but not all “territorial states” are “nation-states.” Our modern concepts

of “territorial state” and “nation-state” are heavily informed by Western historical experience. This

project communicates primarily with the concept of “territorial state,” but the “nation-state” is also worth in-depth research and reflection vis-à-vis the Chinggisid-Timurid world.

3 In this thesis, I use the term “political community” to mean in essence a “state,” but without

presuming either an inherent territorial component or the lack of such a component. This is meant to facilitate the approaching of primary sources with less prior conceptual baggage than the term “state”

carries. Meanwhile, I presume a political community to have a person and/or a class that claims

monopolization or near-monopolization of legitimate use of force. 4 There is a massive literature on this topic. The political science community commonly cites

Max Weber’s definition given in the lecture “Politics as a Vocation” (1919): “Today, however, we

have to say that a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the

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demarcated land, is dragged into the definition of the state, though land is inanimate and thus

has no say in the matter. Within this framework of thought, it makes sense for us to say, for

example, “Germany invaded France,” despite the fact that human beings, not land, do the act

of invading. In pointing to the universality of the territorial state in modern times, my

intention is not to justify a pre-modern history research project on the basis of a modern

agenda or interest. On the contrary, it is to preempt complacency with the idea of the

territorial state, or more broadly speaking, complacency with political community defined by

territory, so that we may proceed to explore history with a caution against projecting the

present onto the past.

Though the origin of the territorial state is a well-known subject of discussion and

debate, especially to specialists of international relations and early modern history of state

formation, it is clear that territory was already widely used as a basis for naming and

identifying polities before the early modern era. While certainly not all medieval European

polities were officially named according to territory, Europeanists do expect to find a world

packed with entities like “Kingdom of France (Regnum Franciæ),” “Kingdom of England”

(Regnum Angliæ), “Kingdom of Aragon (Regnum Aragonum),” etc. East Asianists similarly

expect to find entities like “Great Ming” (大明), “Koryŏ/Chosŏn” (高麗[國]/朝鲜[國]),

“Nihon” (日本[國]), “Annam” (安南[國]), etc.; and the Chinese concept of a territorial

realm in the form of guo (國) can be easily traced to antiquity. It is also not premature to

claim that in pre-modern Europe and East Asia, there were strong mainstream conceptions of

legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. Note that ‘territory’ is one of the

characteristics of the state” (Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. and trans. H. H.

Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), 78).

Today, the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta is de facto without territory, but it used to have territory, and originally included a territorial

component in its definition, as its name reveals.

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territorially-defined rulership. A formal title like “King of England” (Rex Angliæ) or “King

of Chosŏn” (朝鲜國王) defined the object of the kingship and simultaneously implied that

“England” or “Chosŏn” was not just a piece of land or real estate, but also the basis for

forming a political identity group.

“King and country” thus constituted a dual object of loyalty, service, and belonging

for the king’s subjects. From the perspective of upholding the king’s legitimacy and authority,

loyalty and service to “king” and to “country” would have been understood and promoted as

absolutely one and the same, lest anyone opposed the king in the name of serving “the good

of the country.” Nonetheless, “king and country” was still fundamentally a duality. As close

and inseparable as “king” and “country” may have been promoted, the two terms could not

be used as grammatical synonyms (e.g., in the way of “king,” “sovereign,” “monarch,” or a

near synonym, “crown”). Did the Chinggisid-Timurid world then also have this concept of

“king and country,” particularly the “country” component? If there were “countries” in the

said world, what were they officially called at the time? If not, what was the alternative or

nearest equivalent in Chinggisid-Timurid political culture, and what might it teach us about

late medieval-early modern Eurasian history from a comparative perspective?

Overall Thesis Statement

After conducting the research now laid out in the chapters of this work, it is my thesis

that Chinggisid-Timurid political culture contained and developed a number of conceptual

building blocks for “country,” but formal territorial polities ultimately did not arise for

reasons of tradition as well as the Timurid dynasty’s indecisive path to independence from

4

Chinggisid sovereignty. 5 The early thirteenth-century Mongols understood their political

community as an ulus, and a qan (khan) as the holder, leader, and perhaps ruler, of an ulus.

Through the westward conquests initiated by Chinggis Qan (r. 1206–27) and continued by

his grandson Hülegü (r. 1256–65), the Mongols brought their concept of ulus to Central Asia

and Iran, where it was borrowed into the parlance of historians writing in Persian, and

featured in Turkic as well. To what extent then, if any, was ulus a territorial entity? This is an

unresolved question among modern scholars, but the way ulus was conceived in relation to

territory should be treated as critical backdrop to Chinggisid-Timurid conceptions of

rulership and political community in relation to territory. The present research finds that ulus

was originally a purely demographic entity, and this notion was still held by the Timurids in

the early sixteenth century. Yet in Persian-language histories, uluses, particularly the major

uluses, were also attributed territorial characteristics since no later than the 1290s; the de

facto inertness of the major uluses after ca. 1260 may have contributed to this development.

At the same time, the Chaghatayids, Ilkhanids, and Timurids did not actively express

ulus, or any political community for that matter, as the object of rulership in their chancellery

documents, including diplomatic letters. In a time when Europeans and East Asians

formally/legally and regularly operated under frameworks of territorially-defined

rulership/peerage and polity, Chinggisid-Timurid political culture distinguished itself with

alternative representations of rulership vis-à-vis territory through simple Mongol-style

titulature and later, also through the elaborate art of Arabo-Persian honorifics. To be sure,

Timurid histories did express a certain notion of territorial rulership, as they would from time

5 In the context of Chinggisid-Timurid history, I use the term “sovereignty” only to mean

supreme political authority as recognized by the people of the time, without allusion to “sovereignty” as understood in modern international law. In Chinggisid-Timurid political culture, terms denoting

such authority included dawlat (“regal fortune”) and salṭanat (“authority,” “rulership”).

5

to time call a ruler the pādeshāh of a certain place or places; but by the early sixteenth

century, that is, the dusk of Timurid rule in Central Asia and Khorāsān (the eastern part of

historical Iran), this was still neither a formal nor a pronounced notion. In fact, both

chancellery documents and histories emphasized a ruler as being in possession of territory

rather than as being ruler of any territory, thereby keeping territory detached from the formal

definition of rulership. All in all, there were a number of traditions—Mongol and Perso-

Islamic—at work influencing Chinggisid-Timurid conceptions of rulership and political

community in relation to territory.

Traditions of political culture, however, were not insusceptible to change, especially

if faced with new realities, and should therefore only be considered a partial explanation. One

important new reality was the rise of the Timurids from within the ulus of Chaghatay, i.e., the

ulus that was founded in ca. 1226 when Chinggis Qan made his second son, Chaghatay (d.

1242), a ruler in Central Asia. Temür (r. 1370–1405), the Timurid dynasty’s eponymous

progenitor, 6 put himself and his heirs on a path toward formal independence from Chinggisid

sovereignty by not elevating a new khan after the death of Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan b.

Soyurghatmısh in 1402. In the following century, the Timurids indeed enjoyed de facto

independent power, but conceptually, they never found a full new alternative to the ulus of

Chaghatay and its khanship. In Khorāsān, Chinggisid khanship was never restored during the

fifteenth century, but three Timurids—Shāhrokh, Abū al-Qāsim Bābor, Sulṭān-Ḥusayn

Bayqara—sporadically used the title khan, though arguably in a half-hearted manner and

without clarifying what this meant for the ulus. The situation in Central Asia under the

descendants of Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā witnessed a development in a different direction. In

6 Strictly speaking, the term “Timurid” should refer to the offspring of Temür (d. 1405), but

for simplicity, I may include Temür himself in my usage of the term. Temür was, after all, a very self-

made man.

6

the 1470s–80s, the eastern (Moghul) Chaghatayid Yūnus Khan’s entrance into Timurid

politics as a key power figure led to a partial restoration of the old Chinggisid-Timurid order,

i.e., his and his son Sulṭān-Maḥmūd’s overlordship over a number of Timurids from the line

of Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā. On their indecisive path to formal independence, the Timurids as

a dynasty were unable to articulate a clear conception of political community, particularly

concerning how to view the ulus of Chaghatay. Therefore, though ulus stood a realistic

chance of developing into a territorial polity, this did not happen by the time the Uzbeks were

poised to overrun Central Asia and Khorāsān and uproot the power of both the Chaghatayids

and Timurids.

Methodology and Rationale

In using textual sources to examine how rulership and political community were

conceived in relation to territory, I make the distinction between “formal” and “informal”

representations. “Formal” representations, such as the titles of rulers written on coins or in

chancellery documents/diplomatic letters, show us the most deliberate and authoritative

representations, but they are relatively terse. “Informal” representations, garnered from

passages in works of history that concern rulership and/or political community vis-à-vis

territory, are often lengthier, and can reveal broader intricacies and nuances in the ruling and

intellectual elites’ understanding of this matter; but it may be relatively difficult to determine

the extent to which these representations reflected the personal notions of individual authors,

and how carefully or purposefully the authors worded them. Whether examining “formal” or

“informal” representations, it is clear that we are in the realm of the intangible and abstract.

“Rulership,” “territory,” “country,” “state,” are all abstract phenomena. They exist when

7

people conceive of them. The only way we can know how people in history conceived of

them is to study what they have expressed.

Because the phenomena we are trying to understand are intangible and abstract, the

wordings of the sources truly matter. I will hence analyze wordings as rigorously as I am able.

Translations of terms and passages will be accompanied by the original text in transcription

and/or transliteration. The topic of this project would not be accurately described as

belonging to “intellectual history,” as conceptions of rulership and political community in

relation to territory was not, to my knowledge, treated as a scholarly question in the

Chinggisid-Timurid world. Rather, the said conceptions would have mattered in a

foundational and often mundane way to political life in general. For instance, whether or not

an ulus refers to a territory, and what is a khan or pādeshāh supposed to be the ruler of,

would conceivably have mattered to the average Mongol aristocratic commander (noyan,

amīr, beg) who may not have been interested in the fine points of political terminology, but

needed to know the basic nature of his political belonging. Yet the textual sources were

penned by intellectuals, or at least well-educated persons, and so I adopt the intellectual

historian’s methodology of closely examining the language of texts to uncover the ideas

conveyed. Seeking to understand the conceptions of a past people through rigorously

examining their words is a necessary defense against the projection of anachronistic and/or

culturally inaccurate concepts or ideas onto those very people.

Persian-Language Primary Sources and the Question of Authenticity in Expressing the

Conceptions of the Ruling Class

8

The bulk of extant primary sources on Ilkhanid and Chaghatayid-Timurid history

were written in Persian, and this project relies heavily on Persian-language histories and

diplomatic documents. An important question then is to what extent do these sources, almost

all composed by members of the Tājīk intellectual-administrative elite,7 authentically reflect

the conceptions held by the Mongol royalty and aristocracy? The conceptions held by the

Tājīks were important in their own right, but those of the Mongol rulers and aristocrats were

arguably most consequential.

The response(s) to this question should depend on which source is being examined in

relation to which ruler or dynasty and in which period. In general, we should be most

skeptical about early to mid-thirteenth century Persian sources purporting to reveal the

political ideas or conceptions of the Chinggisid rulers, namely the rulers who were basically

alien to Perso-Islamic culture. ʿAṭā-Malik Juwaynī (1226–83), for instance, was a second-

generation scholar-official in Mongol service, and he certainly qualified as an expert on the

Chinggisids. The regular use of untranslated Mongol politico-cultural vocabulary in his

Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy should be credited as evidence of his conscious effort to maintain

cultural-linguistic authenticity. Yet because the Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy was ultimately a

Persian work, thus by and large insulated from direct input by the Persian-illiterate Mongol

7 In this thesis, I refer to “Tājīk” as it was understood in the primary sources of the relevant

period. Tājīks constituted the sedentary population of Central Asia and Iran, and “Tājīk” identity was

understood in a dichotomous relationship with “Türk” identity; see Maria Subtelny, “The Symbiosis

of Turk and Tajik,” in Central Asia in Historical Perspective, ed. Beatrice F. Manz (Boulder: Westview, 1994), 45–61. I do not refer to “Iranian” or “Persian” in lieu of “Tājīk,” because “Iranian”

identity in the period required belonging to geographic Īrān; this meant that the Persian speakers of

Tūrān, which was roughly equivalent to Māwarā al-Nahr (Transoxiana), were not considered

“Iranians.” In English, “Persian” means “of Persia” and “Persia” is basically a synonym of “Iran.” “Persia” is derived from “Pārs” (Fārs), which in Persian only referred to a region in southwestern Iran.

It should also be noted that “Greater Iran” includes the region that Arabic-writing geographers called

“Māwarā al-Nahr.” As this thesis investigates historical concepts, using the historical ethnonym

“Tājīk” would aid in analytical clarity.

9

ruling class, we must regard it as a filtered expression of the Mongols’ political ideas and

conceptions. As faithfully as Juwaynī may have tried to write about Hülegu, for instance, we

must still assume that something could have been lost in cultural-linguistic translation, unless

we find evidence that Hülegu had direct recourse to validating and/or disputing what Juwaynī

had written.

As Mongol rulers became less alien, and eventually non-alien, to Perso-Islamic

culture from the late thirteenth century onward, our doubts about the Persian-language

sources’ ability to authentically transmit the contemporaneous Mongols’ politico-cultural

thoughts should correspondingly subside. It is no matter that the later-generation Mongol

rulers were adept in multiple languages, with Persian being just one of them. As long as we

know that there was no cultural-linguistic barrier keeping a Mongol ruler from understanding

a Persian work commissioned in his name, we no longer have reason to treat the politico-

cultural thoughts attributed to such a ruler in such a work as unauthentic. Once the Mongols

knew Persian, we could say that the Persian sources still represented only one cultural-

linguistic dimension in what was a cosmopolitan milieu, and that they perhaps

underrepresented the Mongol-Turkic dimension, but we could no longer say that the

Mongols’ politico-cultural thoughts recorded in those sources were not what the Mongols’

actually had in mind.

For the Timurid period, we could safely assume that the problem of losing

authenticity to cultural-linguistic translation no longer existed. In introducing his Ẓafarnāma,

for example, Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī detailed Temür’s close supervision of the gathering

and verification of historical information in council with learned men. Turkic and Persian

drafts would be recited, and after all information were reviewed, Temür would make a

10

decision as to their veracity. 8 Ẕahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Bābor’s (1483–1530) Turkic-

language memoirs, popularly known as the Bābor-nāma, will be cited extensively in this

project. Bābor belonged to an era when Turkic written in the Perso-Arabic script was rising

in prestige, thanks in due part to the literary accomplishments of the Harāt-based scholar

ʿAlī-Shīr Nawā’ī (1441–1501). Yet Bābor also knew Persian well, and his Turkic liberally

borrowed Arabo-Persian politico-cultural vocabulary. (Like their Ilkhanid-era predecessors,

the Timurid-era Persian histories also had no problem borrowing Mongol-Turkic politico-

cultural vocabulary.) The Bābor-nāma therefore did not represent a politico-cultural

perspective different from that of the Persian-language histories on account of it being

written in Turkic. The Timurid royalty/aristocracy and the Tājīk intellectual-administrative

elite still constituted two distinct classes with interests that were at times divergent, but in

terms of political culture, there was little that the two classes did not understand about each

other by Bābor’s time. Bābor and his (later-reign) court historian Ghiyās al-Dīn Khwāndamīr,

for instance, could very well have held different outlooks stemming from their respective

social backgrounds, but they did not express politico-cultural ideas alien to one another

merely by the choice of language.

Relevance for Research Field and Subfields

8 Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī, Ẓafarnāma, ed. Sayyid Saʿīd Mīr Muḥammad Ṣādiq and ʿAbd al-

Ḥusayn Nawā’ī (Tehrān: Markaz-e Asnād-e Majlis-e Shūrā-ye Islāmī, 1387/2008–9), 1:246–47.

Aḥmad ibn ʿArabshāh, a contemporary of Temür and one of his harshest critics, also acknowledges

this about Temür: “He was constant in reading annals and histories of the prophets of blessed memory and the exploits of kings and accounts of those things which had formerly happened to men abroad

and at home and all this in the Persian tongue. And when readings were repeated before him and

those accounts filled his ears, he seized hold of that matter and so possessed it that it turned to habit,

so that if the reader slipped, he would correct his error, for repetition makes even an ass wise” (J. H. Sanders, trans., Tamerlane or Timur the Great Amir: From the Arabic Life by Ahmed ibn Arabshah

(London, Luzac, 1936), 299).

11

The mainstay of primary sources I reference are from the Timurid era, and so Timurid

history is this project’s immediate subfield. Temür and the Timurids have been studied in

terms of their maintenance of steppe nomadic heritage in conjunction with their acculturation

to the settled milieu of Perso-Islamic Central Asia and Iran. When examining virtually every

major social-scientific subfield regarding the Timurids from the 1360s to the early sixteenth

century—politics, religion, economics, military, culture and customs, language and

literature—elements of both worlds, steppe nomadic and sedentary, can be identified, with

only the relative prominence of and particular qualities from each world being argued. In

politics, for example, “corporate sovereignty” and “patrimonial household state” are favorite

representatives of the steppe side, while “bureaucracy” and “mirrors for princes” represent

the sedentary side. For religion, there is the yasa versus sharīʿa, hard drinking versus

temperance decrees. For political economics, booty versus agriculture, extortion versus

sustained rational taxation, and military aristocratic privileges versus centralizing reforms,

are key themes in Maria Subtelny’s study of Khorāsān under Temür’s great-great-grandson

Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Bayqara (r. 1469, 1470–1506).9 Even for the Timurid military, which may

seem a most clear-cut steppe nomadic heritage, Beatrice Manz has highlighted the roles of

the settled population.10 In this project, I employ another measure to examine where the

Timurids fell on the steppe-sedentary spectrum: how did this dynasty of pastoral nomadic

origin that settled into the ornate capitals of Samarqand and Harāt view its rulership and

political community in relation to its territories?

9 See the discussion about “Centralizing Reforms and their Opponents” in Maria E. Subtelny,

Timurids in Transition: Turko-Persian Politics and Acculturation in Medieval Iran (Leiden: Brill,

2007), 74–102. 10 See Beatrice Manz, “Nomad and Settled in the Timurid Military,” in Turks, Mongols, and

Others, ed. Reuven Amitai and Michal Biran (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 425–60.

12

The field to which this project belongs is Mongol history. The Timurid dynasty rose

to power from within the ulus of Chaghatay. The ulus of Chaghatay’s territorial holdings in

the early fourteenth century included Māwarā al-Nahr (Transoxiana), the Yetisu region

(Semirechye), Farghāna, and the steppe north of the Taklamakan, along with this desert’s

surrounding ring of oases.11 By the mid-fourteenth century, power in the ulus normally rested

in its major tribes.12 Temür hailed from the Barulas (Tur. Barlas) tribe,13 and traced his

ancestry to Qarachar Noyon, who had served Chaghatay Khan as commander of elite

guards.14 Among scholars, Temür and the Timurids have been varyingly called “Mongol,”

“Turkic,” and “Turko-Mongolian.” Thanks to the recent efforts of Joo-Yup Lee, this matter

has been focally reexamined and clarified. The Timurids were Mongols by lineage and

political heritage, and remained cognizant of their Mongol genealogy, while undergoing

linguistic Turkicization.15 The Timurids also subscribed to a broad identity of “Türk” as

11 See Yuri Bregel, An Historical Atlas of Central Asia (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 38–41. 12 On the power structure and tribal politics of the western half of the ulus in this period, see

Beatrice Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989), 21–

45. 13 According to the Secret History of the Mongols, Chinggis Qan and the Barulas clan was of

the same paternal lineage, with Menen-Tudun as their latest common ancestor; see Igor de Rachewiltz

trans., The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteenth Century, vol.

1 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), § 46; Urgunge Onon, trans., The Secret History of the Mongols: The Life and Times of Chinggis Khan (New York: Routledge Curzon, 2001), § 46.

14 M. Kh. Abuseitova et al., ed. and trans., Muʿizz al-ansāb fī shajarat al-ansāb, Istoriya

Kazakhstana v persidskikh istochnikakh 3 (Almaty: Dayk-Press, 2006), fol. 81b. As explained by Maria Subtelny, Qarachar Noyon in all likelihood commanded Chaghatay Khan’s keshik, i.e., the

royal guards corps (Subtelny, Timurids in Transition, 19–20). See also S. M. Grupper, “A Barulas

Family Narrative in the Yuan Shih: Some Neglected Prosopographical and Institutional Sources on Timurid Origins,” Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 8 (1992–94): 21–38, 77–81.

15 Joo-Yup Lee, “The Historical Meaning of the Term Turk and the Nature of the Turkic

Identity of the Chinggisid and Timurid Elites in Post-Mongol Central Asia,” Central Asiatic Journal

59, nos. 1–2 (2016): 120, 122–24; and Joo-Yup Lee, “Some Remarks on the Turkicisation of the Mongols in Post-Mongol Central Asia and the Qipchaq Steppe,” Acta Orientalia Academiae

Scientiarum Hungaricae 71, no. 2 (2018): 121–44.

13

steppe nomads in general (one that includes Mongols), in contrast to the sedentary “Tājīks.”16

Later Timurids additionally adopted a narrower sense of “Türk” that meant their own

Chaghatay subjects.17 None of this means, however, that the Mongols of Central Asia faded

away upon becoming indistinguishably assimilated into a pre-existing society of Türks; and

so, the Timurids were not direct heirs to pre-thirteenth century Turkic political heritage.18 For

questions of rulership and political community, therefore, it is the Mongol/Chinggisid

backdrop that truly matters for the Timurids. After becoming the preeminent amīr within the

ulus in 1370, Temür’s long-term strategy involved undercutting the power of the tribes. He

reorganized manpower into cross-tribal military units led by commanders personally loyal to

himself, and deployed them on distant campaigns. The result was vast conquests and

Temür’s ability to assert a level of unified authority that had been unseen for generations,

harkening to the example of Chinggis Qan.19 In sum, it is not possible to study Timurid

conceptions of rulership and political community without the thirteenth and fourteenth-

century Mongol backdrop. To better understand early Mongol/Ilkhanid and Chaghatayid

history, particularly concerning “state” formation, territorial divisions, uluses, and

representations of rulership, I relied heavily on a corpus of existing scholarship by “Mongol

empire” specialists such as Michal Biran, Peter Jackson, Lhamsuren Munkh-Erdene, Kim

16 Joo-Yup Lee, “The Historical Meaning,” 101–3, 112, 121–22, 132. For a discussion on

“Türk” versus “Tājīk” in the medieval period, see Subtelny, “The Symbiosis of Turk and Tajik,” 46–

50. 17 Stephen F. Dale, The Garden of the Eight Paradises: Bābur and the Culture of Empire in

Central Asia, Afghanistan and India (1483–1530) (Boston: Brill, 2004): 158, 161. See also Lee, “The

Historical Meaning,” 109n38, 123n122. 18 Lee, “Some Remarks,” 123, 137–38. 19 On Temür’s extraordinary ability to concentrate power in his person, see Manz, The Rise

and Rule of Tamerlane, 66–89. On Temür following the examples set by Chinggis Qan, see Manz,

“Tamerlane and the Symbolism of Sovereignty,” Iranian Studies 21, nos. 1–2 (1988): 105–22.

14

Hodong, Anne Broadbridge, Paul Buell, and Thomas Allsen. Their works are cited at critical

junctures in the chapters.

This project also belongs to the broader discipline of late medieval and early modern

history of the eastern Islamic world and Central Eurasia, in connection with international

relations. Chapter Two compares Timurid representations of rulership vis-à-vis territory to

European and Chinese representations of the same, and investigates the meeting of two pairs

of unalike politico-diplomatic cultures: European-Timurid and Ming Chinese-Timurid. The

aim is twofold: (1) to highlight the diversity in ideas of geopolitical organization across

Eurasia, and (2) to provide alternative fodder for studying international relations. The field of

international relations depends greatly on history for “data” and case studies, to which

European and Euro-centric history has long contributed. There is no reason why Central

Eurasian history should not do the same. This effort has already been under way,20 and I hope

to do my humble portion.

20 See e.g., Timothy Brook, Michael van Walt van Praag, and Miek Boltjes ed., Sacred

Mandates: Asian International Relations since Chinggis Khan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

2018).

15

CHAPTER ONE

THE BACKDROP:

CONCEPTION OF ULUS IN RELATION TO TERRITORY IN ILKHANID AND

CHAGHATAYID-TIMURID CONTEXTS

Understanding Chinggisid-Timurid conceptions of rulership and political community

in relation to territory requires first understanding how ulus was conceived in relation to

territory. By no later than the reign of Güyük Qan (r. 1246–48), the “Great Mongol Ulus”

(Mo. Yeke Mongγol Ulus) was the official designation of the political community originally

founded by his paternal grandfather, Chinggis Qan (r. 1206–27). Güyük Qan was styled the

“Qan of the Great Mongol Ulus [and] of the Ocean” (Yeke Mongγol Ulus-un Dalai-in Qan).

The Mongols also brought their concept of ulus to Central Asia and Iran. Persian-language

histories commissioned by the Ilkhanids and Timurids mention “ulus of the Qa’an” (ulūs-e

Qā’ān), “ulus of Jochi [Khan]” (ulūs-e Jūchī [Khān]), “ulus of Chaghatay [Khan]” (ulūs-e

Chaghatāy [Khān]), “ulus of Hülegü [Khan]” (ulūs-e Hūlāgū [Khān]), and other uluses

identified by the name of the inaugural or an otherwise famous holder; but it is unclear if

these were ever official designations in the way of “Great Mongol Ulus.” It is clear, however,

that ulus as a political concept lasted well into the Timurid period, and that it designated

specifically people of pastoral nomadic origin, as the Tājīk population was categorized

separately, e.g., as raʿiyyat (pl. raʿāyā), roughly “commoner(s), civilian(s), subject(s).” As

ulus was the original object of Chinggisid qanship (khanship), it was in this sense analogous

to the regnum (“kingdom”) of a European king/queen and to the guo (國, “realm”) of an East

Asian ruler. Yet was ulus a territorially-defined polity, as the regnum and the guo were? The

current chapter is focused on the Mongol-ruled world, reserving a comparative perspective

16

vis-à-vis Europe and East Asia for Chapter Two. However, with this underlying comparative

question in mind, the current chapter’s examination of how ulus was conceived in relation to

territory can be purposefully tied to the central question of this thesis: did Chinggisid-

Timurid political culture have a notion of “country”? The current chapter approaches this

question by asking, was an ulus a “country”?

In the first main section, I review two different scholarly views on the relationship

between ulus and territory: did ulus mean only a political community of people, or an entity

comprising both people and territory? I then devote the next two sections to analyzing uses of

the term ulus in primary sources that could support one view or the other. Temporally, these

sources span from the anonymous early thirteenth-century Secret History of the Mongols

(Mongγol-un niuča tobča’an) to the early sixteenth-century memoirs of Ẕahīr al-Dīn

Muḥammad Bābor (a.k.a. Bābor-nāma), so as to trace possible evolution(s) in the meaning of

ulus in the Chinggisid-Timurid world over a three hundred-year period. The subsequent

section will discuss complications to the relationship between rulership and ulus when the

concepts of mamlakat and mulk (commonly translated as “kingdom,” “realm”) were applied

by Tājīk scholar-administrators in Mongol service, particularly ʿAlā al-Dīn ʿAṭā-Malik Abū

al-Manẓar Juwaynī (1226–83) and Rashīd al-Dīn Fażl Allāh Hamadānī (1247–1318). The

final analytical section will attempt to introduce alternative interpretations of information

related to the “Middle Mongol Ulus” ([dum]dadu mongγol ulus), which Matsui Dai

interpreted to mean the ulus of Chaghatay. Altogether, this chapter begins a journey to

understand a particular element of Chinggisid-Timurid political culture from the words of

people who were part of that culture, as well as from others who were engaged with it as

outsiders.

17

Notes on Transliteration of Mongolian Names and Certain Translations

This chapter faces a unique issue within the thesis in that both Mongolian and

Persian-language sources are involved, while the Mongol characters featured had uneven, or

in a few cases no, involvement with the Perso-Islamic world. Since the story here does begin

with the world of the early thirteenth-century Mongol steppes, I will opt for transliterations

that reflect Mongolian pronunciation, rather than Persian or Turkic. However, I exempt

“Chaghatay” (Mo. Cha’adai) from this rule, because this name will be mentioned frequently

in later chapters concerning the Timurid period, for which “Chaghatay” is more familiar to

Anglophone researchers.

Because analyzing the meanings of the following terms is a key task in this chapter or

in Chapter Three, I leave them untranslated to avoid imposing preconceptions and/or falling

into circular reasoning: ulus, mamlakat, mulk, wilāyat.21 I use the term “appanage” to loosely

mean a dynast’s collective politico-economic inheritance, without corresponding to a

particular term in the primary sources.

A Review of Ulus vis-à-vis Territory in Scholarly Literature: People Only or Both

People and Territory?

The Mongol concept of ulus has attracted the attention of modern scholars for several

generations. This is unsurprising, for to put it simply, ulus was the Mongols’ “state.”22

21 The meaning of wilāyat will be more thoroughly analyzed in Chapter Three. 22 For a recent study on the formation and changes of Chinggisid uluses in the thirteenth

century, see Hodong Kim, “Formation and Changes of Uluses in the Mongol Empire,” Journal of the

Economic and Social History of the Orient 62 (2019): 269–317. This article emphasizes that from the Mongol perspective, the “Mongol empire” was in fact an ulus subdivided into uluses. Kim avoids the

use of Euro-centric, Sino-centric, or modern political concepts as substitutes for ulus.

18

Political scientists have long been interested in the theoretical nature of the “state,” while

historians know that across different eras and cultures, what may be regarded as “states” had

different characteristics that need to be closely studied and understood within their respective

contexts. Inner Asianists and Perso-Islamicists have done their parts in attempting to define

ulus, but there is no consensus among them as to how ulus was conceived in relation to

territory (Mo. nuntuq). I will quote a number of scholarly works at length in order to reduce

the chance of my misrepresenting their ideas, and to better show the nuances involved.

There are two contrasting views on ulus in relation to territory. One view is that ulus

was a political community of people only, and did not include territory. Gerhard Doerfer

defined ulus as “embodiment of the subjects of a ruler” and “… a coalition of various tribal

groups, not from the point of view of their relatives, but from the person of the ruler: as

subjects, but without the socially degrading nuance of the term Qarachu.”23 In other words,

Doerfer understood ulus as political subjects in a context where tribes are brought together,

but where loyalty also transcends tribal/kinship lines and is directed towards the ruler—he

perhaps had in mind Chinggis Qan’s new political order in 1206. The examples of ulus in the

Persian sources that he cited do not imply a territorial component. Doerfer knew that the

Turkic word ulush, which is identified as the etymological origin of Mongolian ulus, had a

very clear meaning of “land,” “city”; but this meaning is not considered to have been retained

23 .wmmo. ulus id ← الوس ~ ’Inbegriff der Untertanen eines Herrschers‘ (ūlūs) اولوس“

Genauer: ‘eine Koalition verschiedener Stammesgruppen, nicht vom Standpunkt inhrer Angehörigen

aus gesehen (dazu cf. ارگان), sondern von der Person des Herrschers aus betrachtet: als Untertanen,

jedoch ohne die sozial deklassierende Nuance des Terminus قراچو (q.v.)’. Häufig: Bezeichnung der.

mo. Teilreiche” (Gerhard Doerfer, Türkische und mongolische Elemente im Neupersischen: Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung älterer neupersischer Geschichtsquellen, vor allem der Mongolen- und

Timuridenzeit, 4 vols. (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1963–75), 1:175).”

19

in Mongolian. 24 Doerfer viewed “the right definition” (Die richtige Definition) to be

Constantin d’Ohsson’s (from 1852): “the multitude of people who obey a Tatar sovereign, is

called his ulus, that is to say his people, and the particular territory of a prince, of a chief of

tribe, of a chief of family, is called his yurt.”25 A century later, Boris Vladimirstov further

emphasized that ulus referred to people, as people held more importance than territory for the

nomadic Mongols:

…the word ulus is translatable, with certain reservations, as “patrimony, property”;

but the Mongols, as true nomads, were largely interested in people, and not territory,

in the understanding of this [word]. In fact, the original meaning of the word ulus is

precisely “people.” Therefore, the word ulus can be regarded as “people,” “people-

patrimony,” “people united in such a patrimony, or forming patrimony-inheritance.”

Consequently, ulus also means “people-state,” “people forming a state as an

inheritance,” “state.”26

24 Doerfer, Türkische und mongolische Elemente, 1:178. According to Gerard Clauson, ulush

“…had so completely lost its original meaning that when it was reintroduced into Turkish it appeared in its Mong. form ulus (not uluş) and with its Mong. meaning” (Gerard Clauson, An Etymological

Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 152).

Regarding etymology, we should keep in mind that determining whether or not Mongolian ulus was borrowed from Turkic ulush would firstly on whether or not Turkic and Mongolic have a common

ancestor, and this is part of the heated debate concerning the Altaic language family. See e.g., Claus

Schönig, “Turko-Mongolic Relations,” in The Mongolic Languages, ed. Juha Janhunen (New York:

Routledge, 2003), 403–19. Assuming the two have no common ancestor, we should still bear in mind that there is a much smaller extant corpus of pre-thirteenth century writing in Mongolic languages

than in Turkic, and this might skew our judgment in favor of ulus being of Turkic origin. 25 “La multitude d’hommes qui obéit à un souverain tatare, s’appelle son oulouss, c’est à-dire

son peuple, et le teritoire particulier d’un prince, d’un chef de tribu, d’un chef de famille, se nomme

son yourte” (C. d’Ohsson, Histoire des Mongols: Depuis Tchinguiz-Khan jusqu’a Timour Bey ou

Tamerlan: Tome premier (Amsterdam: Frederik Muller, 1852.), 83n2)—cited in Doerfer, Türkische und mongolische Elemente, 1:176.

26 « В виду этого, слово ulus может быть переводимо, с известными оговорками, как

„удел, владение“; только монголов, как истых кочевников, в понятии этом больше интересуют

люди, а не территория: действительно, первоначальное значение слова ulus и есть именно „люди“. Поэтому слово ulus может быть передано и как „народ“, т. е. „народ-удел“, „народ,

объединенный в таком-то уделе, или образующий удел-владение“. Впоследствии ulus означает

20

Vladimirstov’s definition of ulus influenced John Andrew Boyle, who in his translation of

the Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy wrote in a footnote: “on the ulus or ‘peuple-patrimonine’ as

distinct from the apanage of land, the yurt or nuntuq, see Vladimirstov, Le régime social des

Mongols, 124 et seqq.”27 Wheeler Thackston’s succinct entry on ulus in the glossary of his

translation of the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh by Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadānī et al. is notable for its

pointed exclusion of “geographical area” from the definition: “ulus ( )[-] subjects,

dependents, the ‘nation’ (i.e. the people, not the geographical area) subject to a khan

(D§54).”28 This “people only” definition of ulus is arguably also reflected in a range of

scholarly works that translate ulus simply as “people” when quoting from primary sources.

In contrast to the above viewpoint is the understanding of ulus as having meant both

people and territory. Inner Asianist Paul Buell gave the following definition:

ULUS. Joint patrimony. In the Mongolian system peoples and lands conquered or

held by hereditary right did not belong solely to the individual who held them but to

his entire clan, and had to be shared, as an ulus. Under this system the entire Mongol

Empire was the ulus of the altan uruq (q.v.), “golden uruq,” or imperial clan, as the

yeke Mongol ulus, “the great [or imperial] Mongol patrimony.”29

уже„ народ-государство“, „народ, образующий государство-владение“, „государство“. » (B. Ya.

Vladimirtsov, Obshchestvennĭy stroy mongolov: Mongolʹskiy kochevoy feodalizm (Leningrad:

Izdatelʹstvo Akademii Nauk SSSR), 97). See French translation in B. Vladimirtsov, Le régime social des Mongols, trans. Michel Carsow (Paris: Librairie D’Amérique et D’Orient Adrien- Maisonneuve,

1948), 124. 27 J.A. Boyle trans., Genghis Khan: The History of the World Conqueror (Manchester:

Manchester University Press, 1997), 86n1. 28 Wheeler Thackston trans., Jāmiʿu’t-tawarikh (Compendium of Chronicles): A History of

the Mongols, 3 pts (Cambridge, MA: Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations,

Harvard University), pt. 3, 772. Thackton also cited Doerfer’s definition of ulus. 29 Paul D. Buell, Historical Dictionary of the Mongol World Empire (Lanham: Scarecrow

Press), 279.

21

Another Inner Asianist, Lhamsuren Munkh-Erdene, conducted a study on early Mongol ideas

of “people, state, and empire.” Through his analysis of the Secret History of the Mongols, he

understood the “Mongol ulus” established under Chinggis Qan upon the unification of the

“felt-tent” nomads in 1206 to refer to people, but one that definitely required territorial

demarcation:

Indeed, when we follow the order of the narrative, the ‘felt-tent ulus’ or the

‘Mongolic ulus” became the ‘Mongol ulus’ after they were administratively organised

into ninety-five minqat [lit. thousand] with defined territories (nuntuq) that make up

several territorial tümens [lit. ten thousand] within the territory of the Chinggisid state.

The boundary of the Mongol ulus is revealed by the author’s statement ‘Beside the

Forest People, the noyad [lords] of the Mongol ulus named by Chinggis Khan were

ninety-five’ (Rachewiltz 1972:114). The phrase ‘Beside the Forest People’ (hoi-yin

irgen-ece anggida) signifies the boundary of the Mongol ulus. The author knew that

by 1206 the ‘Forest People’, who were actually incorporated into the Mongolian state

around 1217, were yet to be integrated into the Mongol ulus and he also knew that by

the time of writing the incorporation of the ‘Forest People’ into the Mongol ulus was

complete. ‘Forest People’ was the territorial and demographic limit of the Mongol

ulus, and consequently, the Mongol ulus was a bounded body of population with a

definite territory.30

Here, I digress briefly to note that it was the “Forest People” rather than the forest itself or

any named territory or other topographical feature (e.g., a mountain or river) that was used to

indicate the “boundary” of the Mongol ulus. It appears that the Mongols happened to identify

30 Lhamsuren Munkh-Erdene, “Where Did the Mongol Empire Come From?,” Inner Asia 13,

no. 2 (2011): 217.

22

these particular neighbors by their habitat, but it was these people (irgen) that were regarded

as outside the Mongol ulus at the time. Furthermore, the “Forest People” were located

northwest of the Mongol ulus; if the cited passage implied that the Mongol ulus had an

inherent territorial boundary, what about the remaining borders? The Mongol ulus’s

demographic boundary vis-à-vis the “Forest People” is hence clear, but did this passage from

the Secret History necessarily imply that the “Mongol ulus” was defined by territorial

boundary? Regardless, Munkh-Erdene’s interpretation of ulus as having “definite territory”

represents a clear contrast to the “people only” definition.

Munkh-Erdene’s interpretation also relates to one of the major components of my

overall thesis, that is, whether or not the Chinggisid-Timurid conceptions of rulership and

political community in relation to territory were distinct in a larger world context. Having

construed the “Mongol ulus” as both people and territory, Munkh-Erdene then pointed to

how this was similar to medieval European kingdoms in relation to territory:

Now, we can see that ‘felt-tent people, or ‘Mongolic people’ were the Mongol ulus,

yet only after they were administratively organised under the rule of Chinggis Khan

within the clearly bounded territory. Thus, the Mongol ulus was a population, yet

administratively organised under the rule of a khan within a given territory, a

category of government or the state. As such, Mongol ulus strikingly parallels what

Reynolds maintains for the medieval European kingdoms as she argues, ‘A kingdom

was never thought of merely as the territory which happened to be ruled by a king. It

comprised and corresponded to a “people”’ (1997: 250). Indeed, we can render

23

Mongol ulus as a category of government or a ‘community of the realm’, that is, a

political community formed by the state.31

Whether or not one agrees with Munkh-Erdene’s above-quoted comparison, it serves as an

important reminder that how we understand the Mongols to have conceived the relationship

between ulus and territory has direct implications, and in fact sets the groundwork, for any

comparative study with Europe and elsewhere. This is why the current chapter seeks to

focally examine the Mongol conception of the said relationship, while letting the next chapter

compare the Chinggisid-Timurid conception of rulership vis-à-vis territory to European as

well as Chinese conceptions of the same.

The understanding of ulus as both people and territory has also been held for decades

by Islamic world specialists. Ann Lambton defined ulus as “coalition of tribal groups who

were the subjects of a ruler; the territory held by the ruler of such a coalition (Īl-Khānate).” 32

Lambton’s definition continues to be influential in recent Ilkhanid studies.33 Peter Jackson, a

specialist on the Mongols and the Islamic world, defined ulus as “the complex of peoples and

grazing-grounds held by a Mongol khan or prince.” 34 Patrick Wing, a scholar on the

Ilkhanids and post-Ilkhanid Jalayirds, explained ulus as:

People, as well as territories, were divided primarily among Chinggis Qan’s four

principal sons (that is, those sons born to Chinggis Qan’s wife Börte), and constituted

their personal ulūs. The concept of ulūs was related to the household retinue, but

31 Munkh-Erdene, “Where Did the Mongol Empire Come From?,” 218. 32 Ann K. S. Lambton, Continuity and Change in Medieval Persia: Aspects of Administrative,

Economic and Social History, 11th–14th Century (London: Tauris, 1988), 363. 33 See Bruno De Nicola, Women in Mongol Iran: The Khātūns, 1206–1355 (Edinburgh:

Edinburgh University Press, 2017), 73, 251. 34 Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion (New

Haven: Yale University Press), 420. I am grateful to Prof. Jackson for his further guidance on this

question in January 2018.

24

constituted an expanded version that also included specific territory, as well as the

people who resided in the towns and countryside there.35

Taking all the abovementioned scholarly views into account, I will attempt to put forth an

interpretation of the conceptual relationship between ulus and territory in Ilkhanid and

Chaghatayid-Timurid contexts with evidences from primary sources.

With a few exceptions, my analyses will leave out the Dasht-e Qıpchaq (Qıpchaq

Steppe) and Slavic regions under Jochid rule as well as East Asia under the Qubilaids. This is

purely due to the limitations of my ability and the scope of this research project. In doing so,

I acknowledge that the Jochids and Qubilaids may have held different conceptions of ulus in

relation to territory from those of their cousins in the Perso-Islamic world, and that without a

full comparative perspective, much potentially valuable findings could be missed.36 At the

same time, a limited testing of the two scholarly views with primary sources is arguably

better than no testing, and I affirm aforehand that the present research is far from exhaustive.

Mobility, Borders, Territorial Assignments, and Inertness: Characteristics of Ulus in

the Secret History of the Mongols and the Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh

Before discussing the period of Mongol rule in the Perso-Islamic world, we should

duly take note of the pre-conquest conception of ulus. In the words of Munkh-Erdene, “in

35 Patrick Wing, The Jalayirids: Dynastic State Formation in the Mongol Middle East

(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016), 36. 36 For discussions on ulus in Jochid and Russian contexts, see Charles J. Halperin, Russia and

the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), 30 and Charles Halperin, “Tsarev Ulus: Russia in the Golden Horde,”

Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique 23, no. 2 (1982): 257–63. On ulus in East Asia/China, see Paul

D. Buell, “Tribe, Qan and Ulus in Early Mongol China: Some Prolegomena to Yüan history” (PhD

diss., University of Washington, 1977), 202–7. See also Ulaan Borjigijin, “On Some Versions on ‘State’ and Related Concepts in the Mongolian Historical Documents, Ethno-National Studies, no. 2

(2016), 75–84.

25

fact, if we look at the world through the eyes of the medieval Mongol scribes, we find a

world of uluses and irgens… For example, we locate ulus 106 times and irgen nearly 200

times in the Secret History of the Mongols… alone, throughout the text.”37 As regards to the

conception of ulus vis-à-vis territory, the Secret History importantly also shows us that the

ulus of the steppe was a mobile entity. Take for example, the account of the rescue of Börte,

the first wife of Temüǰin (later entitled “Chinggis Qan”). The Merkits had kidnapped Börte,

so Temüǰin asked for aid from his patron, To’oril Qan (later entitled “Ong Qan”) of the

Kereyit, as well as his anda (“sworn brother”) Jamuqa, to rescue her. The coalition

successfully attacked the Merkits, and as a result, “the ulus of the Merkit (or Merkit ulus)

fled down the Selengge [River] at night…” (Merkid-ün ulus Selengge huru-u söni-de dürbeǰü

yabuqui-tur…).38 In another passage, which concerned the Mongol campaign against the

Naimans, we again see ulus conceived as a mobile entity. Tayang Qan of the Naimans

purportedly said to his son Güchülük:

“We are told that the Mongols’ geldings are lean. Let us move our ulus across the

Altai [mountains]…” (Mongγol-un aqtas turuqat ke’ekdemüi bida ulus-iyan Altai

daba’ulun segü’ülün gödölǰü…).39

While the earlier-mentioned Merkids had been compelled to flee as they were under attack,

this passage on the Naimans shows that an ulus was normatively mobile, meant to be

37 Munkh-Erdene, “Where Did the Mongol Empire Come From?,” 212. Irgen is a term for a

community of people. Munke-Erdene explains that “certainly, the submitted and conquered peoples of the Empire were now the subjects and subordinates of the Mongolian state. They no longer

constituted states in themselves, for their states were destroyed. Thus, the Mongols reduced them to

irgen. Moreover, the Mongol imperial doctrine reduced all the known polities/peoples into irgen. Since the Mongols were determined ‘to bring all nations (or whole world) into subjection’, it

obviously was unacceptable for them to designate their immediate or eventual subjects as states, that

is, ulus…” (ibid., 224–25). 38 Lajos Ligeti, [The Secret History of the Mongols in Latin Transliteration] (Budapest:

Akadémiai Kiadó), § 110; de Rachewiltz trans., § 110; Urgunge Onon, trans., § 110. 39 The Secret History of the Mongols, § 194.

26

moveable at the command of its leader. There are other passages suggesting the mobility of

the ulus, and I have only cited two of the clearest.40 Assuming that early thirteenth-century

Mongols shared in the common sense that territory (nuntuq) is not moveable, the mobility of

the ulus speaks volumes about its fundamentally demographic and non-territorial nature. Of

course, the Secret History focused on the world of the steppe and pastoral nomads, and the

above-cited Merkit and Naiman examples both concerned a time before the accession of

Temüǰin as Chinggis Qan in 1206. The new political order established by Chinggis Qan and

later Mongol exposure to the political cultures of their sedentary neighbors/subjects could

have caused the conception of ulus to change later on to include an inherent territorial

component. Given that extensive politico-cultural contacts and adaptations happened in the

Perso-Islamic world under Mongol rule, it would be unsound to presume that the conception

of ulus vis-à-vis territory never changed in Ikhanid and/or Chaghatayid-Timurid contexts.

It is to the credit of Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadānī et al. that their Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh,

commissioned by Ghazan Khan (r. 1295–1304) in the 1290s, still faithfully portrayed the

Mongol-ruled world as one of uluses. (This stood in contrast to ʿAṭā-Malik b. Muḥammad

Juwaynī’s Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy, as will be discussed two sections later). Most mentions of

ulus in the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh do not appear in a context that might help determine whether

ulus meant people only or both people and territory. However, some of the work’s

characterizations of ulus, including that of the steppe world from which Chinggis Qan arose,

have seemingly territorial features. In one passage, the Naiman commander Köse’ü Sabraq

was described as having raided across the “borders” of Ong Qan’s ulus:

… he (i.e., Köse’ü Sabraq) [went] to the borders of Ong Qan’s ulus and herded back

all of his people, subjects, and quadrupedal animals on the borders of the Telegetü

40 See also Secret History, §§ 96, 130, 148, 190, 208, 242.

27

Pass (… be-sarḥadd-e ūlūs-e Ūng Khān wa īl wa khayl wa ḥasham wa chahārpāyān-e

ū keh dar sarḥadd-e Daladū Amāsara tamāmat rānda wa bāz gashta).41

Moreover, this passage was not an isolated example that may be explained as a less-than-

thoughtful choice of words by the author, as uluses from at least two other accounts were

similarly characterized as having “borders.” In one account:

And because the borders of the ulus of Chaghatay are by the wilāyat of Qaidu, it was

overrun, and therefore they began to fight (wa chūn sarḥadd-e ulūs-e Chaghatāy

bowad bar wilāyat-e Qāydū ghālib āmad bāz chūn āghāz-e jang kardand).42

In another account:

And he (i.e., Qubilai Qa’an) placed Yisüngge, who is paternal cousin of the Qa’an,

with an army of ten tümens on the borders of the ulus, and commanded that they be

there till Ariγ Böke comes, [at which time] they should come accompanying him (wa

Yīsūngga rā keh ʿammzāda-e Qā’ān bowad bā dah tūmān lashkar dar sarḥadd-e ūlūs

begoẕāsht wa farmūd keh ānjā bāshand tā chūn Arīgh Būkā bīāyad bā ū beham

bīāyand).43

In addition to these mentions of uluses as having “borders,” there is one notable passage

where the purported words of the Chaghatayid ruler Baraq (r. 1266–71) appear to imply that

uluses could be used as geographical markers. Significantly, the backdrop of Baraq’s words

was a quriltay convened to negotiate matters concerning war and peace, as well as the

41 Rashīd al-Dīn Fażl Allāh Hamadānī, Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, ed. Muḥammad Rowshan and

Muṣṭafā Mūsavī, 4 vols. (Tehrān: Nashr-e Alborz, 1373/1994–95), 1:368; Thackston trans., Jāmiʿu’t-

tawarikh, pt. 1, 178. See also Secret History, § 162. 42 Rashīd al-Dīn, Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, 1:755; Thackston trans., Jāmiʿu’t-tawarikh, pt. 2, 370. 43 Rashīd al-Dīn, Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, 2:879; Thackston trans., Jāmiʿu’t-tawarikh, pt. 2, 492.

28

distribution of inheritance and territory, between him and his Ogodayid cousins.44 In other

words, this was how Rashīd al-Dīn et al. portrayed Chinggisid princes to have conceived of

ulus in the context of their own dynastic politics:

First Qaidu spoke: “Our good forefather Chinggis Qan seized the world through

wisdom, organization, and dint of sword and arrow. And he had matters of his clan

(ūrūgh, from Mo. uruγ) arranged and prepared, and passed away. Now, if we consider

[our] fathers’ sides, we are all kin to each other. And the other princes are our elder

and younger brothers (āqā wa īnī, from Tur. aqa-ini, in this context, actually paternal

male cousins), and between them there is no conflict or strife. Why must there be

between us?” Baraq spoke: “The state [of things] is as such, but I too am a fruit of

that tree. I too must have a yurt and livelihood assigned. Chaghatay and Ögödei were

the sons of Chinggis Qan. Keeping Ögödei Qa’an’s legacy is Qaidu. And from

Chaghatay, I am [descended]. And from Jochi, who was their eldest brother,

Berkecher and Möngge Temür [are descended]; and from Tolui, who was the

youngest brother, Qubilai Qa’an [is descended]. And he, at this time, has taken the

east and the mamlakat of Khitāy and Khotan, and the expanse of those mamlakats

God knows how big. And Abaγa and his brothers have taken the west from the banks

of the Āmū River (a.k.a. Oxus) to the far end of Syria and Egypt on the basis of

governing [their] father’s patrimony (īnjū, from Mo. emchü). And between these two

uluses lies the wilāyat of Türkestān and Qıpchaqbashı, [which] are under your sphere

of control. Despite this, ye instigate against me in alliance. As far as I can tell, I do

44 For a historical overview of Baraq’s conflict and peace talks with the Ogodayids led by

Qaidu, see Michal Biran, Qaidu and the Rise of the Independent Mongol State in Central Asia (New York: Routledge, 2013), 24–30; and George Lane, Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran: A

Persian Renaissance (New York: Routledge, 2003), 40–41, 81–84.

29

not know of any crime I have committed.” (pīshtar Qāydū goft jadd-e nīkū-ye mā

Chīnggīz Khān be-ra’y wa tadbīr wa zakhm-e shamshīr wa tīr jahān rā begereft wa

jihat-e ūrūgh-e khwīsh murattab wa muhayyā gardānīd wa begoẕāsht aknūn agar be-

sū-ye pedar negarīm hamma khwīsh yakdīgarīm wa dīgar shahzādagān az āqā wa

īnī-ye mā hastand wa meyān-e īshān hīch mukhālafat wa munāzaʿat nīst cherā bāyad

keh meyān-e mā bāshad Barāq goft ḥāl bar īn minwāl ast laykin man nīz samara-e ān

shajara-am marā nīz yūrtī wa maʿīshatī muʿayyan bāyad keh bāshad Chaghatāy wa

Ūgotāy pesarān-e Chīnggīz Khān būdand az Ūgotāy Qā’ān Qāydū yādegār mānad

wa az Chaghatāy man wa az Jūchī keh barādar-e bozorgtar-e īshān būd Barkachār

wa Mongka Tīmūr wa az Tūlūy keh barādar-e kehīn būd Qūbīlāy Qā’ān wa ū īn

zamān ṭaraf-e sharq wa mamlakat-e Khitāy wa Khotan gerefta-ast keh ṭūl wa ʿarż-e

ān mamālik Khodāy bozorg dānad wa ṭaraf-e maghrib az kenār-e Āb-e Āmūya tā

muntahā-ye Shām wa Miṣr Ābāqā wa barādarān-e ū be-ḥukm-e īnjūyī-ye pedar

gerefta-and wa meyān-e īn har do ūlūs wilāyat-e Torkestān wa Qipchāqbāshī ast wa

dar ḥawza-e taṣarruf-e shomā ast maʿhaẕā bā ittifāq be-qaṣd-e man bar khāsta-īd

chandānkeh ta’ammul mīkonam khod rā murtakib-e jarīmatī namīdānam)45

As the passage above indicates, Baraq purportedly spoke of the uluses of Qubilai and Abaγa

as if they were geographical markers for the location of Türkestān and Qıpchaqbashı

(“…between these two uluses lies the wilāyat of Türkestān and Qıpchaqbashı, [which] are

under your sphere of control”). These words, together with the characterization of uluses as

having “borders,” suggest that Rashīd al-Dīn et al.’s understanding of ulus had an inherent

territorial aspect.

45 Rashīd al-Dīn, Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, 2:1068–69; Thackston trans., Jāmiʿu’t-tawarikh, pt. 3,

521.

30

At the same time, however, there are other passages in the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh that

suggest territory may not have been an inherent part of what ulus meant. The language used

in three passages concerning ulus and territories granted to members of Chinggis Qan’s

dynasty points to uluses being conceptually distinct from territorial assignments. At this point,

it is important for us to remember that it would not have been at all contradictory for an ulus

to have meant only a community of people in concept while being assigned to territories. As

Mongols by and large lived on land, an ulus necessarily possessed/occupied territory, but the

question is whether or not an ulus was also defined by its territory; the earlier-mentioned

Merkit and Naiman uluses never ceased to possess/occupy territory, but as uluses, they were

evidently not defined by their (changeable) territories, as they were mobile. In the Jāmiʿ al-

tawārīkh, the ulus of Qachi’un, a full brother of Chinggis Qan, was recorded as follows:

The third son [of Yisügei] is Qachi’un… and his ulus and yurt are on the due east in

the interior of Mongolia to the limits of the wall that the Khitāyīs have stretched from

the Qara Müren (i.e., the Yellow River) to the Jurcha River, and it is close to the

Jurcha wilāyat (pesar-e sevvom Qāchī’ūn… wa ūlūs wa yūrt-e ū be-jānib-e sharqī

bar istiqāmat-e samt-e mashriq ast dar andarūn-e Moghūlestān be-ḥudūd-e dīwārī

keh Khitāyīyān az Qarā Mūrān tā Daryā-ye Jūrcha keshīda-and wa be-wilāyat-e

Jūrcha nazdīk ast).46

This passage tells us that Qachi’un’s ulus is inside a territory (i.e., Mongolia) and near a

territory (i.e., the Jurcha wilāyat), but does not say what territory the ulus itself is or includes.

It is therefore possible to interpret this passage to mean that Qachi’un’s ulus was a

community of people living inside eastern Mongolia. Even more telling perhaps is the

following passage, which concerned Jochi’s appanage:

46 Rashīd al-Dīn, Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, 1:279; Thackston trans., Jāmiʿu’t-tawarikh, pt. 2, 137.

31

Chinggis Qan had made all of the wilāyats and ulus that were on the borders of the

Īrdīsh (Irtysh) [River] and the Altai mountains, as well as the summer and winter

pastures of those vicinities, the appanage of Jochi Khan. And he (i.e., Chinggis Qan)

issued an edict that exclusively appropriated the wilāyat of Dasht-e Qıpchaq and the

mamlakats in those parts to his (i.e., Jochi’s) control. And his yurt was on the borders

of the Īrdīsh and the capital of his mamlakat [was] there. (Chīnggīz Khān tamāmat-e

wilāyāt wa ūlūs keh dar ḥudūd-e Īrdīsh wa kūhhā-ye Āltāy būd wa yāylāqhā wa

qeshlāqhā-ye ān nawāḥī be-Jūchī Khān tūsāmīshī farmūda būd wa yarlīgh nāfiẕ

gardānīda keh wilāyat-e Dasht-e Qepchāq wa mamālikī keh dar ān jawānib ast

mustakhlaṣ gardānīda dar taṣarruf-e ū būd wa yūrt-e ū dar ḥudūd-e Īrdīsh būd wa

maqarr-e sarīr-e mamlakatesh ānjā).47

If Jochi’s ulus inherently included territory (i.e., wilāyats), why was it necessary to mention

“wilāyats and ulus” as being assigned to him? Even if this was a stylistic pairing of two like

terms with the conjunction wa ( و “and”), which admittedly is common in Persian, why was it

necessary to separately mention that the summer and winter pastures in the vicinities of the

Īrdīsh River and Altai mountains were given to Jochi? Was his ulus not inherently inclusive

of the pastures? It also appears that the Dasht-e Qıpchaq was conceived as a grant separate

from the grant of the ulus.

The passage below concerned Alγu, a grandson of Chaghatay, and it similarly implies

an assignment of territory conceptually separate from the assignment of ulus:

And at that time [Qubilai] Qa’an sent a message to Hülegü and Alγu, saying “… and

from the Altai all the way to the Jayḥūn (i.e., the Oxus River), may Alγu command

the el and ulus as his and may he keep it” (wa dar ān zamān Qā’ān pīsh-e Hūlāgū


32

Khān wa Ālghū payghām ferestād keh… wa az Āltāy az ān jānib tā Jayḥūn īl wa ūlūs-

e Ālghū bedānad wa negāh dārad).48

These purported words of Qubilai Qa’an reinforce the idea that the direct object of Alγu’s

rulership was to be the “el and ulus,” rather than the territorial assignment, i.e., the territory

“from the Altai all the way to the Jayḥūn.” As with the information concerning Qachi’un’s

ulus, Alγu’s el and ulus was found inside certain geographical bounds,49 but the text does not

state that the el and ulus itself was or included the territory within those bounds. In sum, the

three above-cited passages give the respective locations of the uluses of Qachi’un, Jochi, and

Alγu, but critically, they do not say that the ulus of Qachi’un, Jochi, or Alγu was any

particular territory, or was formed out of/made up of any particular territory. Rather, they

point to uluses as living within territories (and in the case of Jochi’s ulus, also as having

access to certain nearby pastures), thereby implying that uluses themselves were only

communities of people.

Here, we should additionally note a passage from the Mongolian-language letter that

Ölǰeitü (r. 1304–16) sent to King Philip IV of France (r. 1285–1314) in 1305, as this passage

is comparable to the previously quoted text concerning Alγu with respect to the way that

geographical/territorial boundaries are mentioned in relation to ulus. In the letter, Ölǰeitü


The Turkic word el (Persianized form: īl) basically means “people.” It is commonly used in conjunction with ulus (i.e., as seen in the cited text, īl wa ūlūs).

49 In giving the definitions of el, Gerard Clauson states: “the basic, original meaning was ‘a

political unit organized and ruled by an independent ruler’” (Clauson, An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish, 121). In Chinggisid-Timurid parlance, el still had such a connotation,

and for this reason the construction el wa ulus was often used, suggesting that the el and the ulus were

largely one and the same. By no later than the late fifteenth century, el in Chaghatay Turkic meant

“people” more loosely, e.g., eli Türk dür (“the people are Türks”) in reference to Andijān (Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 2b) and eli tamām Sart wa Fārsīgūy dur (“the people are all Sart and Persian-

speaking”) in reference to Isfara (ibid., 3b).

33

informed Philip about recently established accord among all the Chinggisid branches, and

then stated:

From the land of Nangγiyas (i.e., southern China), where the sun rises, to the ocean,

[we] caused [an] ulus to hold [each other] together [and] to connect by postal stations

(naran urγuqui Nangγiyas-un γaǰar-ača abun Talu dalai-tur kürtele ulus barilduǰu

ǰamud-iyan uyaγulbai).50

The ulus here, which given the context had to mean the ulus encompassing all Mongols,51

was given geographical/territorial boundaries, namely “from the land of Nangγiyas… to the

ocean”; but the passage does not actually state that the ulus was made up of the territory

“from the land of Nangγiyas… to the ocean,” or that the ulus itself stretched from

Nangγiyas… to the ocean.52 The sentence structure is akin to that of the previously cited

Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh text “…from the Altai all the way to the Jayḥūn, may Alγu command the

el and ulus as his and may he keep it.” The prepositional phrase “from the land of

Nangγiyas… to the ocean” indicates the stretch of territory in which the ulus existed, but

50 Transliteration based on Ligeti, 253. See also Antoine Mostaert and Francis Woodman

Cleaves, Les Lettres de 1289 et 1305 des ilkhan Arγun et Ölǰeitü à Philippe le Bel (Cambridge:

Harvard University Press, 1962), 55–56. A facsimile of the original letter can be seen online at Wikipedia Commons, s.v. “Letter from Oljeitu to Philippe le Bel, 1305,” accessed November 16, 2018,

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OljeituToPhilippeLeBel1305.jpg. 51 While the acknowledgment of the Great Mongol Ulus is implied here, the letter evidently

did not see the need to mention the Great Mongol Ulus or the ulus of Hülegü. It should be noted here that while the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh emphasized the Islamic character of Ghazan’s rulership, it did not

suggest that an ulus was no longer the political community of Ghazan, though references to it are

sparse. I was able to find only one Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh passage that refers to the ulus (of Hülegü) in the context of Ghazan as a Muslim: “Amīr Nowrūz was shown absolute favor and an edict commanded

that the entire administration of the ulus be entrusted to him” (Amīr Nowrūz rā nawākht-e tamām

farmūd wa ḥukm-e yarlīq shod keh wizārat-e tamāmat-e ūlūs be-way mufawważ bāshad) (Rashīd al-Dīn, Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, 2:1260; Thackston trans., Jāmiʿu’t-tawarikh, pt. 3, 626–27n3). Moreover, the

high-ranking title amīr-e ulus (“Commander of the Ulus”) continued to be in use well after the reign

of Ghazan (Wing, The Jalayirids, 82–83, 86, 94). 52 On the meaning of Talu dalai (literally “ocean” first in Turkic then in Mongolian), see

Brian Baumann, “Whither the Ocean? The Talu Dalai in Sultan Öljeitü’s 1305 Letter to Philip the

Fair of France,” Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 19 (2012): 60.

34

does not say that this territory formed the ulus. Should we translate the ulus in the passage as

“people” or “community of people,” it would still make perfect sense: “From the land of

Nangγiyas, where the sun rises, to the ocean, [we] caused a [community of] people to hold

[each other] together [and] to connect by postal stations.”

It is also noteworthy that in the passage from the letter, though ulus does not carry a

plural marker, it is implicitly a plural, since barilduǰu (“to cause to hold [each other]

together”) is in the reciprocal voice; and it was almost certainly for this reason that Antoine

Mostaert and Francis Cleaves translated ulus in this instance as a plural in French, namely

“états” (“states”):

… et depuis le pays des Chinois, où le soleil se lève, jusqu’à la mer de Talu, [nos]

états se joignant (= rétablissant les communications), nous avons fait relier entre elles

nos stations de poste.53

For ulus to be plural without plural marker would make sense if ulus meant “people,” i.e., a

multitude of persons—just like the English word “people.” Meanwhile, however, I cannot

rule out that the meaning of ulus in the passage could have included “a collection of

territories,” in which case the reciprocal voice would also be grammatically viable. I raise

these points in case it could lead readers to more relevant findings. For now, weighing

together all of the passages cited in this section, I find it inconclusive whether Rashīd al-Dīn

et al. or the Ilkhanid chancellery understood ulus as people only or both people and territory.

It is true that, as laid out earlier, the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh portrayed several uluses as

having “borders.” However, if the passages concerning the appanages of Qachi’un, Jochi,

and Alγu do in fact demonstrate that the granting of ulus was conceptually separate from the

assignment of territory, then the relationship between an ulus and its territory would have

53 Mostaert, Les Lettres de 1289 et 1305, 56.

35

been limited to one of possession. That it is to say, an ulus itself was only understood as a

community of people, which in turn possessed, owned, occupied, or controlled territory; but

ultimately, territory was not part of what defined an ulus. Territory would undoubtedly have

been one of the most important possessions of an ulus, but it would have been a possession

nonetheless, just like animals, tents, and weapons were possessions. The ulus, being

inherently made up of people, could therefore move by command. It could leave its territory

behind temporarily or change its territory altogether. If the relationship between ulus and

territory was indeed understood this way in the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, then the “borders of Ong

Qan’s ulus,” for example, would make sense; because Ong Qan’s ulus was at any given time

necessarily in possession or occupation of a certain territory, and because that territory had

borders, the ulus had borders (or at least had approximate limits to its de facto territorial

control). There is a passage in the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh saying that soon after Temür Qa’an (r.

1294–1307) succeeded his paternal grandfather, Qubilai Qa’an, “he sent the prince Kököchü

and Körgüz, who was the qa’an’s son-in-law, to the borders of Qaidu and Du’a (…wa

shahzāda Kūkochū wa Kūrgūz rā keh dāmād-e qā’ān ast be-sarḥadd-e Qaydū wa Duwā

ferestād).54 We know of course that Qaidu and Du’a were persons and not territorial entities

in any plausible sense, but because they were in possession of territory, it was conceivable to


The same sentence immediately preceding this passage is of interest, as it mentions the ulus of the prince Ananda, a grandson of Qubilai, in this manner: wa shahzāda Ananda rā bā sar-e laskhar wa

[ūlūs-e] khīsh ferestād be-wilāyat-e Tangqūt (ibid. 2:949). Wheeler Thackston translated this as “He

sent Prince Ananda at the head of his army and ulus to Tangqut territory” (Thackston, pt. 2, 464). If indeed this was the meaning, this would serve as an example of the mobile ulus in the Jāmiʿ al-

tawārīkh. However, the sentence could mean that Ananda was sent to his army and ulus, which had

already been stationed in the Tangqut territory. The Tangqut territory was part of the Ananda’s

appanage, which he had inherited from his father, Mangqala. I could not determine if the accession of Temür Qa’an involved princes converging at the capital with their armies, as had happened in past

quriltays that determined succession.

36

speak of “the borders of Qaidu and Du’a.” This is, however, only a plausible explanation for

ulus having “borders,” not a definitive one.

As for Baraq having purportedly said that Türkestān and Qıpchaqbashı are located

between the uluses of Qubilai and Abaγa, as if these two uluses could be used to reference

the location of territories, there is also a plausible explanation, which if correct, would not

necessitate concluding that ulus was understood as a territorial entity. Baraq’s words can be

reconciled with the notion of the mobile ulus if we put them in the geopolitical context of the

late thirteenth-century Mongol world, a time when the uluses could be described as “inert,”

by which I mean mobile—but in practice not moving very much. We know that by ca. 1260,

major Mongol expansion to the west basically ended. At the southeastern end of Eurasia, the

Mongols continued to attack the Song (宋 960–1279) and finished their conquest thereof in

1279, but this major expansion under Qubilai Qa’an did not alter the location of his ulus

relative to those of the Jochids, Chaghatayids, Ogodayids, and Huleguids. Other political and

military developments after 1260 resulted in the uluses winning or losing territories, but

unlike during the early conquest period, households and armies of the different Chinggisid

branches were not moving around from one corner of Eurasia to another. Before the 1260s,

as major campaigns were carried out jointly by representatives of different branches of the

dynasty, a Chinggisid scion’s territorial holdings were not expected to be necessarily

contiguous, but likely spread in patches across Eurasia.55 The phenomenon of the Qubilaid,

Jochid, Chaghatayid (and at times Ogodayid), and Huleguid houses each controlling a fixed

contiguous territory was not a normative development, but rather a de facto development

55 See Allsen, “Sharing out the Empire: Apportioned Lands under the Mongols,” in Nomads

in the Sedentary World, ed. Anatoly M. Khazanov and André Wink (New York: Routledge, 2001),

173–86. See also Jackson, The Mongols and the Islamic World, 103–4.

37

contrary to the original vision of Chinggis Qan.56 By the last quarter of the thirteenth century,

the new reality nonetheless was that the major uluses had become inert.

The uluses of Qubilai and Abaγa were conceivably inert enough that Baraq could

have counted on them to not move out of place any time soon when he said that Türkestān

and Qıpchaqbashı were located between them. In other words, once the uluses became inert,

they were useable, if not useful, as geographical markers. It would be as if in modern times

we were to say “between the Jones and the Smiths is Spring Street.” The Jones and the

Smiths are inherently families of people, and should they move away to distant places, they

would still be the Jones and the Smiths, but because they settled into long-term residences

flanking Spring Street, they could be spoken of in such terms. The Chinggisid uluses each

had its official territorial assignment, and when not commanded to relocate or go on

expedition, an ulus was not supposed to move outside of its assigned territory. This fact too

would have made it sensible to use uluses as geographical markers, but without necessarily

conceiving of uluses as geographical or territorial entities in the way of “Türkestān” or

“Qıpchaqbashı.” Again however, I cannot prove that this supposition for understanding the

subtext of Baraq’s words is definitely correct.

Overall, the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh is an informative source on the conceptual relationship

between ulus and territory, but I cannot conclusively determine just how Rashīd al-Dīn et al.

understood this relationship. Timurid-era sources, however, can shed further light on this

issue.

56 See Peter Jackson, “From Ulus to Khanate: The Making of the Mongol States, c. 1220–c.

1290,” in The Mongol Empire and Its Legacy, ed. Reuven Amitai-Preiss and David O. Morgan

(Leiden: Brill, 1999), 23–37. On Iran coming under exclusive Toluid/Huleguid rule, see Thomas T.

Allsen, Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001),

19–23. For a lighter but captivating reading, see Jack Weatherford, The Secret History of the Mongol Queens (New York: Broadway Books, 2010), 89–112, which tells how female members of the ruling

clan were stripped of their power and appanages in the decades following Chinggis Qan’s death.

38

Ulus in the Timurid Era: Both Territorial and Mobile?

Over a century after the composition of the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, the Ẓafarnāma by the

Timurid court historian Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī (d. 1454) also regularly featured reference

to ulus. In one passage, Yazdī wrote of territories as being “placed… inside the ulus of

Chaghatay Khan”:

During his (i.e., Temür’s) return from the Dasht-e Qıpchaq campaign, he sent Jangī

Qauchīn’s son, Mūsā-Gah, to rebuild Khwārazm. He (i.e., Mūsā-Gah) fortified

Maḥalla-e Qā’ān (“Qa’an’s District”) and made it flourish. When apportioning

mamlakats to [his] children, Chinggis Qan had placed it (i.e., Maḥalla-e Qā’ān), along

with Kāt and Khīwaq (Khiva), inside the ulus of Chaghatay Khan. And at the present

time, the cultivation (settlement) of Khwārazm is as such… (Hangām-e murājaʿat az

yūrish-e Dasht-e Qebchāq Mūsā-Gah pesar-e Jangī Qauchīn rā beferestād keh

Khwārazm rā be-ḥāl-e ʿimārat bāz āwarad wa ū Maḥalla-e Qā’ān rā keh Chinggiz

Khān hangām-e qismat-e mamālik be-farzandān ān rā bā Kāt wa Khīwaq dākhil-e

ulūs-e Jaghatāy Khān karda būd hiṣār keshīd wa ābādān sākht wa al-ḥāla haẕihi

maʿmūra-e Khwārazm hamān ast).57

The above passage is the clearest example I found that demonstrates the ulus of Chaghatay as

having a territorial nature, as it would not make sense for a community of people to have

territories “placed inside” it. Another passage similarly suggests that Yazdī held such a

conception of the ulus of Chaghatay. In describing the reign of Chechen Khan, also known as

Du’a Khan (r. 1282–1307), Yazdī described one of the khan’s accomplishments using the

words ulūs-e Jaghatāy rā ābādān dāshta, roughly “he made the ulus of Chaghatay flourish

57 Yazdī, Ẓafarnāma, 1:601.

39

[with settlements].” 58 The term ābādān normally implied a flourishing of urban and

agricultural life, including the development of infrastructures, and as such would not have

been applicable to a purely demographic entity.

Nevertheless, the notion of ulus as a mobile community of people was apparently not

lost upon Yazdī. For instance, an impending war between Temür and the Jochid Urus Khan

in 777/1376 was recounted as follows:

After His Highness the Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction (i.e., Temür) dismissed

the envoys of Urus Khan, [his] sublime aspiration set upon the organization of the

army, and he placed Amīr Jaku in charge of the capital Samarqand. He assembled the

entirety of the ulus of Chaghatay, and late in the Year of Dragon (lū yīl, from Tur. lu

yıl), he marched against Urus Khan. And after crossing the Sayḥūn [River] (i.e.,

Jaxartes), the fields of Otrār became the camping grounds of the soldiers [marked by]

the sign of [divine] assistance (i.e., the soldiers of Temür). From that direction, Urus

Khan assembled the entire ulus of Jochi, then arrived and alighted at Sıghnaq, which

is twenty-four leagues to Otrār (ḥażrat-e Ṣāhib-Qirān chūn īlchīyān-e Urūs Khān rā

bāz gardānīd himmat-e ʿālī rā bar tajhīz wa tartīb-e lashkar gomāsht wa Amīr Jākū

rā jihat-e żabṭ-e takhtgāh-e Samarqand bāz dāsht tamāmī-e ulūs-e Chaghatāy rā jamʿ

āwarda ham dar awākhir-e lū yīl mutawajjih-e Urūs Khān shod wa chūn az Sayḥūn

goẕar karda saḥrā-ye Otrār mukhayyam-e ʿasākir-e nuṣrat-shiʿār gasht az ān ṭaraf

58 Yazdī, Ẓafarnāma, 1:213. The section on Chechen Khan’s reign appears at where Du’a

Khan’s reign would be expected, and there is no section for “Du’a Khan.” Niẓām al-Dīn Shāmī calls

this ruler “Du’a-Chechen” (Niẓām al-Dīn Shāmī, Ẓafarnāma: Tārīkh-e futūḥāt-e Amīr Tīmūr Gūrkānī: Mājarā-ye khūnīntarīn qatl-e ʿām-e shahrhā-ye Īrān, ed. Panāhī Semnānī (Tehrān: Intishārāt-e

Bāmdād, 1363/1984), 13).

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Urūs Khān tamām-e ulūs-e Jūchī rā farāham āwarda be-Sighnāq keh tā Otrār bīst wa

chahār farsakh ast rasīda firūd āmad).59

As the passage above shows, the ulus of Chaghatay and the ulus of Jochi were respectively

“assembled” (jamʿ āwarda, farāham āwarda) by Temür and Urus Khan. In this context,

assembling the entire ulus was in essence a general mustering of the army, requiring people

from different places to physically move and gather at one place. It thus harkens to the

mobile ulus, and contrasts with the notions of territories being “placed inside” (dākhil-e…

karda) the ulus and the ulus being made ābādān. Another passage, which concerns the ulus

of Hülegü Khan, lends further insight into how Yazdī conceived of ulus. According to the

Ẓafarnāma, in 806/1404, Temür granted the “Ulus of Hülegü Khan” to his grandson ʿUmar b.

Amīrānshāh:60

Regal favor entrusted the governance of the ulus of Hülegü Khan to Āmīrzāda ʿUmar,

and the world-obeyed edict was stamped by the royal seal [to the effect] that all the

mamlakats of Āẕarbayjān (Azerbaijan) along with [its] dependencies and Rūm (i.e.,

Anatolia) stretching to Istanbūl, and Syria stretching to Egypt, are in the scope of his

command and decree (wa ʻāṭifat-e pādeshāhāna ḥukūmat-e ulūs-e Hūlāgū Khān rā

be- Āmīrzāda ʿUmar tafwīż farmūd wa yarlīq-e ʿālam-muṭāʿ be-āl-e tamghā-ye

humāyūn arzānī dāsht keh tamām-e mamālik-e Āẕarbayjān bā tawābiʿ wa żamā’im

wa Rūm tā Istanbūl wa Shām tā Miṣr dar ḥīṭa-e ḥukm wa farmān-e ū bāshad).61

Even though the original ulus of Hülegü Khan, the dominant power in the Middle East from

1258 to 1335, had by then long disintegrated, it was evidently meaningful to first mention

59 Yazdī, Ẓafarnāma, 1:464–65. The Ẓafarnāma of Niẓām al-Dīn Shāmī does not mention

ulus or use similar language in its corresponding account. See Shāmī, Ẓafarnāma, 75–76. 60 On ʿUmar b. Amīrānshāh’s appanage, see Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane, 141–42. 61 Yazdī, Ẓafarnāma, 2:1235.

41

that ʿUmar was granted governance of the “ulus of Hülegü Khan,” and then list the assigned

territories. Importantly, these territories included Āẕarbayjān, home to the former Ilkhanid

capitals, but not the large tracts of territories in central Iran and Khorāsān. Only about a

quarter of the total territory controlled by the Huleguids during the heyday of their rule was

placed under ʿUmar. This suggests that by the early Timurid era, the “ulus of Hülegü Khan”

was still closely associated Āẕarbayjān, but was not assumed to be synonymous with the

whole territory formerly under Hülegüid rule. To my knowledge, Temür’s original edict is

not available, but from Yazdī’s wording, it appears that “governance of the ulus of Hülegü

Khan” was conceptually separate from command over the mamlakats.

Yazdī’s account that territories were “placed inside” the ulus of Chaghatay, plus the

claim that Chechen Khan made the said ulus flourish using the words ābādān dāshta, are the

most convincing evidence that Yazdī’s conception of ulus included an inherent territorial

component. Meanwhile, his account of the assembling of the Chaghatay and Jochi uluses for

war, and the granting of the ulus of Hülegü Khan to ʿUmar, show that the early Mongol

understanding of ulus still held certain sway. Given the importance of ulus as a political term

in the Mongol-ruled world, was Yazdī cognizant of the implications of his words as to the

nature of ulus vis-à-vis territory? After all, just because this study cares about such

implications does not mean that Yazdī cared about them.

The Muntakhab al-tawārīkh of Muʿīn al-Dīn Naṭanzī suggests that there was a good

reason for Yazdī’s use of language. That is, when an ulus was inert, it was attributed

territorial characteristics, but when movement did occur, such movement was still regarded

as normative. One will notice that the above-cited passages from Yazdī’s Ẓafarnāma all

concerned the uluses of Chaghatay, Jochi, or Hülegü, which were the highest tier of uluses in

42

the Muslim world. In the previous section, I mentioned the inertness of the major uluses

since ca. 1260; and indeed by the Timurid era, the basic locations of these uluses remained

unchanged. Naṭanzī went as far as to refer to major uluses by geographical names, such as

ulūs-e Dasht-e Qebchāq (“ulus of the Qıpchaq Steppe”) and ulūs-e Māwarā’ al-Nahr (“ulus

of Māwarā’ al-Nahr”).62 It is as if these uluses were not expected to ever move away. Also,

he described the geographical scope of the ulus of Jochi under Toqtamısh Khan (r. 1376–80)

as follows:

… he (i.e., Toqtamısh Khan) secured control of the entire ulus from the border of

Lıpqa (Lithuania), which is the farthest settlement of the north, to the borders of

Kaffa, and made Sulṭān Berke’s Sarāy (i.e., New Sarāy) the capital (wa ikhtiyār-e

tamām-e ulūs rā az ḥadd-e Lepqā keh nihāyat-e maʿmūra-e shimāl ast tā ḥudūd-e

Kaffa żabṭ namūd wa Sarāy-e Sulṭān Berke rā dār al-salṭana sākht).63

As I pointed out earlier, an ulus necessarily possessed or occupied territory, and a purely

demographic entity would still need its location identified. Hence, the language of this

passage does not unequivocally imply a conception of the ulus of Jochi as a territorial entity;

but considering Naṭanzī’s use of the name ulūs-e Dasht-e Qebchāq, such a conception was

very likely implied.

Yet in contrast to the impartment of such territorial characteristics to some of the

major uluses, the Muntakhab al-tawārīkh mentioned two clear instances of lower-tier uluses

being mobile. One instance involved Sulṭān-Aḥmad Jalayir (r. 1382–1410), a defeated

opponent of Temür who hailed from the post-Ilkhanid Jalayirs: “Allied with Qarā-Yūsuf, he

(i.e., Sulṭān-Aḥmad) had gone to Rūm from Baghdād with his el and ulus, and had arrived at

62 ulūs-e Dasht-e Qebchāq (Muʿīn al-Dīn Naṭanzī, Muntakhab al-tawārīkh-e muʿīnī, ed.

Parwīn Iṣṭakhrī (Tehrān: Asāṭīr, 1383/2004), 130); ulūs-e Māwarā’ al-Nahr (ibid., 205). 63 Naṭanzī, Muntakhab al-tawārīkh, 89.



43

Sīwās (Sivas)” (be-ittifāq-e Qarā-Yūsuf az Baghdād bā el wa ulūs-e khod rūy be-Rūm

nehāda be-Sīwās rasīda būd).64 The other instance involved Qamar al-Dīn Dughlat, the amīr

who usurped the (eastern Chaghatayid) Moghul ulus after the death of Ilyās-Khwāja Khan in

1368 and then fled from Temür’s repeated expeditions: “Qamar al-Dīn fled. Amīrzāda

‘Umar-Shaykh had his el and ulus migrate and brought to His Highness” (Qamar al-Dīn

gorīkt Amīrzāda ‘Umar-Shaykh el wa ulūs-e ū rā tamām kochānīda be-hażrat āward).65

Sulṭān-Aḥmad Jalayir’s ulus would have constituted a lower-tier ulus vis-à-vis the original

ulus of Hülegü Khan. Qamar al-Dīn Dughlat’s ulus would have constituted a lower-tier ulus

vis-à-vis the Moghul ulus, which itself was formed from the eastern tribes of the original ulus

of Chaghatay Khan.

The early-sixteenth-century Bābor-nāma, which represents the final generation of

Timurid rule in Central Asia, abounds with examples of mobile uluses, but all were lower-

tier uluses. As the Bābor-nāma’s treatment of ulus will be analyzed at length in Chapter Four,

I will only give one of the most unequivocal examples here:

When many el and ulus came from Samarqand, Ḥiṣār, and Qondūz to the wilāyat of

Kābul, [the following] was deemed advisable: Kābul is an impoverished place. It is

[for] sword, not pen (i.e., it is for military purposes rather than civil administration).

There are not enough silver coins for all the people. Some grain is to be given to

every one of the families of these el and ulus, and [then] the army is to be deployed

for raiding. (chūn Samarqand wa Ḥiṣār wa Qondūzdın el wa ulus Kābol wilāyatıgha

kelip edilär maṣlaḥat andaq körüldi kim Kābol muḥaqqar yer dür sayfī dur qalamī

64 Naṭanzī, Muntakhab al-tawārīkh, 277. 65 Naṭanzī, Muntakhab al-tawārīkh, 302.


44

emäs barcha elgä yarmaq khod yetkürüp bolmas bu el wa ulusnıng köchlärigä birär

nemä ashlıq berip cherik wa chapqungha atlanılghay).66

In brief, at least lower-tier uluses were still mobile by the late fifteenth-early sixteenth

century. Considering all the passages cited in this section, I offer the following general

explanation for how Timurid-era historians conceived of ulus vis-à-vis territory: they never

forgot that ulus meant a mobile community of people, and when they witnessed the mobility

of uluses, they recorded it; yet when they observed that an (major) ulus had long been inert,

they considered it fair to attribute territorial characteristics to it. This said, I must admit that

this is only my best explanation made under the assumption that the discussed passages do

not actually contradict one another in regards to the authors’ understanding of ulus vis-à-vis

territory—an assumption for which I have no proof. I propose to summon Rashīd al-Din,

Yazdī, and Naṭanzī before a ǰarγuchi to explain themselves, and for now, keep the case open

for further investigation.

This and the previous section examined how ulus was conceived in relation to

territory on the premise that ulus was the object of rulership in Chinggisid-Timurid political

culture. Persian-language historical sources, however, also ubiquitously portrayed

mamlakat/mulk as the object of Mongol rulership. Mamlakat/mulk versus ulus is hence an

indispensable nuance that should be included in our examination of whether or not the

Chinggisid-Timurid world had a notion of “country.”

66 [Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Bābor.] [Bābor-nāma] The Bábar-náma, facsimile edition by

Annette S. Beveridge. E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series, vol. 1. repr. ed. (London: Luzac, 1971), fol.

144b; [Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Bābor], Bābur-nāma (Vaqāyiʿ): Critical Edition Based on Four

Chaghatay Texts, ed. Eiji Mano, 2 vols. (Kyoto: Syokado, 1995), fol. 144b; [Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Bābor], Baburnama, ed. and trans. W. M. Thackston, Jr., 3 pts (Cambridge, MA: Department of Near

Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, 1993), fol. 144b.

45

Mamlakat and Mulk versus Ulus as the Object of Rulership

In this section, I discuss how the Perso-Arabic understanding of mamlakat and its

close synonym mulk, two terms which to the best of my knowledge had an inherent territorial

basis, stood as a counterpart to ulus. The original Mongol conception of qanship (khanship)

was based on leadership of ulus, but after Tājīk scholar-administrators began to portray their

Mongol masters, ulus could no longer be taken for granted as the sole object of khanship. As

the earlier-cited passage concerning Jochi’s appanage shows, Jochi was regarded as not only

having received an ulus, but also as having a mamlakat (“his yurt was on the borders of the

Īrdīsh and the capital of his mamlakat [was] there”). Furthermore, as mentioned in the

Introduction, once Mongol rulers learned enough Persian to understand what was being

written in their names, we could no longer assume that the Perso-Arabic terminologies and

ideas concerning rulership and political community found in chancellery documents, court

histories, and other official sources did not represent their genuinely-held politico-cultural

ideas. We may, however, find that the Persian-language sources did not convey a full

representation of their rulers, perhaps inadequately expressing the steppe heritage and/or

exaggerating the rulers’ acculturation to Perso-Islamic political culture. With only a rather

small corpus of Mongolian-language chancellery documents and no Mongolian-language

history/chronicle from the Ilkhanids or Chaghatayids being available to us, how might we

critically use the Persian sources to try to attain an accurate understanding of mamlakat/mulk

versus ulus in relationship to Mongol rulership?

For background, it would be useful to examine the scarce but relatively early

Mongolian sources. Igor de Rachewiltz, citing § 244 of the Secret History, noted that “qan is

46

defined as the person whose function is ‘to hold the nation’ (ulus bari-).”67 One of the

earliest official expressions of this relationship between qanship and ulus can be found in the

644/1246 letter of Güyük Qan to Pope Innocent IV (r. 1243–54). That letter was stamped

with a seal bearing the inscription “By the power of the Eternal Tengri, edict of the Qan of

the Great Mongol Ulus [and] of the Ocean…” (Möngge Tengri-yin küchün-tür Yeke Mongγol

Ulus-un Dalai-in Qan-u jarliγ...).68 The main body of the letter was written in Persian, while

its Turkic header was a translation of the aforementioned Mongolian words: “By the power

of the Eternal Tengri, Khan of the kür (entire, powerful, vast) Great Ulus [and] of the Ocean,

Our Edict” (Mängü Tengri küchindä kür Ulugh Ulusnung Taluynung Khanı yarlıghımız).69

“Qan of the Ocean” (Dalai-in Qan, Taluynung Khanı) was likely a figurative expression of

qanship over the world in addition to the ulus.70 The Turkic adjective kür, if meaning “vast,”

would have given a spatial dimension to ulus, though it could very well have meant

67 Igor de Rachewiltz, “Qan, Qa’an, and the Seal of Güyüg,” in Documenta Barbarorum:

Festschrift für Walther Heissig zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Klaus Sagaster and Michael Weiers

(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1983), 277n4. See also Nikolay N. Kradin, “Qamuq Mongqol Ulus and

Chiefdom Theory,” Chronica: Annual of the Institute of History, University of Szeged 7–8 (2007–8): 144–50.

68 Louis Ligeti, ed., Monuments Préclassiques, vol. 1, XIIIe et XIVe siècles (Budapest:

Akadémiai Kiadó, 1972), 20; de Rachewiltz, “Qan, Qa’an, and the Seal of Güyüg,” 274. This formulation of the qan’s title may have preceded Güyük, as Ögödei reportedly referred to others

referring to himself as dalay-yin qaγan (Secret History, § 280). 69 “Letter from Güyük Khan to Innocent IV.” Digital Persian Archive, Philipps-Universität

Marburg. Accessed November 15, 2018. http://www.asnad.org/en/document/249/ 70 De Rachewiltz suggests that the notion of dalai (“sea,” “ocean”) in this context

corresponded to the Chinese politico-cultural term hainei 海内 (“[all] within the sea[s]”), as in (De

Rachewiltz, “Qan, Qa’an, and the Seal of Güyüg,” 274). He defends the interpretation of dalai as

meaning “‘all that is found in the land within the sea(s)’, hence the ‘whole world’ (ibid., 275).” Buell

had earlier interpreted dalai as the qan’s own “estate” (Buell, “Tribe, Qan and Ulus in Early Mongol China,” 36, 36n128–29; 239). Though he later seems to have agreed with de Rachewiltz, translating

the aforementioned seal inscription as “By the Power of the Eternal Heaven, the Edict of the

Universal Qan of the Great Mongol Patrimony…” (Buell, Historical Dictionary, 293). See Hodong

Kim, “Was ‘Da Yuan’ a Chinese Dynasty?,” Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 45 (2015): 286). However, to my knowledge, it has not been definitively proven that dalai-in qan, or dalai-in qahan in reference

to Ögödei (found in Secret History, § 280) was a borrowing from Chinese political culture.

47

“powerful” or “entire, whole” instead. 71 As the Turkic header left the important word

Mongγol untranslated and additionally featured kür, kür Ulugh Ulusnung Taluynung Khanı

may have been an impromptu translation of Yeke Mongγol Ulus-un Dalai-in Qan, rather than

the standard equivalent of the same.72 In any case, neither Dalai-in…/Taluynung… nor kür

appear to have remained as standard elements of the title. The enduring elements of the title

were Yeke Mongγol Ulus-un Qan (“Qan of the Great Mongol Ulus”), which is attested as late

as 1362 in a reference to Chinggis Qan on the stele commemorating Prince Indu.73 This title

has not been attested for use by Chinggis Qan in his own time, and so it might have been

applied retroactively. Significantly, this and other steles (that will be mentioned in the next

section) show that after nine decades of ruling the vast agrarian regions and large cities of

China, the Qubilaids did not abandon “Great Mongol Ulus” (Yeke Mongγol Ulus) as the

official name of their political community, and continued to view ulus as the object of

qanship. In contrast, the Persian histories lent uneven importance to the notion of ulus, while

unanimously presenting the importance of mamlakat and mulk.

The Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy is peculiar in that had it been the only primary source on

the Mongols that survived, we might very well believe that ulus was not important at all. The

only acknowledgement of the word ulus in the Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy was through mentions

of the Turkic title ulush idi ( یدیالوش ا ), ulush being the purported etymology of ulus. Ulus as a

term for political community or politico-military unit is completely absent. In its place,

71 Regarding kür, see Doerfer, Türkische und mongolische Elemente, 3:633–36. 72 There is a 642/1244–45 coin with the inscription Ulugh Monqol Ulus Bek (الغ اولوس منقل بیك)

(“Commander of the Great Mongol Ulus”), which shows a word-for-word Turkic rendering of Yeke

Mongγol Ulus in an official context (M. A. Seifeddini, Monetnoe delo i denezhnoe obrashchenie v Azerbaydzhanie XII–XV vv., vol. 1 (Baku: Elm, 1978), 159).

73 Francis Woodman Cleaves, “The Sino-Mongolian Inscription of 1362 in Memory of Prince

Hindu,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 12, no. 1/2 (1949): 62. Based on its own introduction, this

bilingual stele inscription can be identified as: Mo. Yeke Mongγol Ulus-tur ǰarliγ-iyar Si Ning Ong

Indu-da bayiγuldaγsan bii tas buyu; Ch. 《大元勑賜追封西寧王忻都公神道碑銘》.

48

mamlakat and mulk are expressed as the object of khanship. Juwaynī wrote that Chinggis

Qan’s four oldest sons “are like four pedestals to the throne of the mamlakat and four pillars

to the vault of khanship (… wa takht-e mamlakat rā be-masābat-e chahārpāya wa aywān-e

khānī rā be-maḥall-e chār-rukn būdand).74 The importance of mamlakat/mulk as the object

of rulership was articulated more fully in the following passage, whereby Juwaynī pointedly

described the Chinggisid dynastic political system:

Although in appearance authority and mamlakat are vested in one person, who is

marked by the appellation of khanship, in reality, all the sons, grandsons, and paternal

uncles are partners in property and mulk; and a proof of that is (or, “and for that

reason”), the ruler of the world, Möngge Qa’an, at the second quriltay, apportioned

all the mamlakats; and all the branches of the sons, daughters, and brothers were

given portions. And during the regal fortune of Chinggis Qan, the expanse of the

mamlakat became vast. All were assigned their place of residence, which they call

yurt (harchand az rūy-e ẓāhir ḥukm wa mamlakat yak kas rā ast ke be-ism-e

khāniyyat mawsūm bāshad ammā az rūy-e ḥaqīqat hama awlād wa aḥfād wa aʿmām

dar māl wa mulk mushtarik and wa dalīl-e ānk[e] pādeshāh-e jahān Mongkū Qā’ān

dar qūrīltāy-e dowwum tamāmat-e mamālik rā taḥṣīṣ farmūd wa hama ansāb rā az

banīn wa banāt wa ikhwān rā bakhsh dād wa chūn dar ʿahd-e dawlat-e Chingiz Khān

ʿarṣa-e mamlakat fasīḥ shod har kas rā mawżiʿ-e iqāmat-e īshān ke yurt gūyand

taʿyīn kard).75

Another passage expressed mulk as the object of khanship:

74 ʿAṭā-Malik b. Muḥammad Juwaynī, Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy, ed. Muḥammad Qazwīnī, 3

vols. (Tehrān: Dunyā-ye Kitāb, 1385/2006–7), 1:29; Boyle trans., Genghis Khan, 40. 75 Juwaynī, Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy, 1:30–31; Boyle trans., Genghis Khan, 42.

49

When Güyük arrived [and lived] close to [his] mother, he undertook nothing in the

work of mulk affairs, and the execution of authority of the mulk was set upon

Döregene Qatun, though the khanship was placed upon her son” (chūn Guyūk be-

nazdīk-e mādar rasīd dar kār-e maṣāliḥ-e mulk hīch shurūʿī nanamūd wa bar qarār-e

Tūrāgīnā Khātūn tanfīẕ-e ḥukm-e mulk mīkard chandānk[eh] khānī bar pesaresh

qarār gereft).76

Thus, Juwaynī regarded the Mongol political patrimony as a whole as one mamlakat/mulk,

formally ruled by the person who held the khanship (khāniyyat), but in fact shared by the

ruling clan. The apportioned mamlakats (mamālik) referred to a lower tier of territories, and

should not be confused with a ruler’s mamlakat as a whole. In the sources, we commonly see

such lower-tier mamlakats bearing the names of territories large and small, and mamlakat in

this sense was used interchangeably with wilāyat. Hence, any moderately powerful ruler

would have ruled a single mamlakat, which did not bear a territorial name, while also

possessing multiple mamlakats/wilāyats corresponding to named territories.77 The question

then is why did Juwaynī, despite his extensive knowledge of Mongol officialdom, avoid

using ulus as if this term was not important at all?

I do not know the definitive answer, but I reason that this was a conscious decision on

Juwaynī’s part. Granted, the Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy was written for a Persian-literate audience

at a time when the Mongol ruling class was largely illiterate in Persian. Juwaynī did,

however, incorporate a number of important Mongolian political terms into his work, such as

urūgh (Mo. uruγ- “clan,” “house,” literally “womb”), yarlīgh (Tur. yarlıq, from Mo. jarliγ-

76 Juwaynī, Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy, 1:200; Boyle trans., Genghis Khan, 244. 77 The Ilkhanids had an office called muqāṭiʿ-e mamālik, which serves as yet another

indication that the mamlakat/mulk of the Ilkhans was itself comprised of mamālik. See Rashīd al-Dīn, Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, 2:1061. Thackston translates this office as “assigner of fiefs” (Thackston,

Jāmiʿu’t-tawarikh, pt. 3, 518).

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“edict”), qūrīltāy (Mo. quriltay- “a formal assembly of the ruling class”), and yāsā (Tur. yasa,

from Mo. jasaγ- “law”).78 As shown earlier, he even explained what yurt meant, i.e., “place

of residence” (mawżiʿ-e iqāmat). It is hard to argue that ulus was not an important enough

term to have been borrowed into Juwaynī’s Persian. It is also nearly impossible that Juwaynī

never learned what the Mongols called their political community. He was a career

bureaucrat-administrator who would have read countless official documents; and Güyük

Qa’an’s aforementioned letter to the Pope showed that the importance of ulus was

understood in the Persian chancellery. It is true that the letter’s header was written in

(Arabic-script) Turkic, but Juwaynī was familiar with Turkic political terminology, as

indicated throughout the Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy. He in fact routinely referred to Chingissid

princes by the Turkic title oghul instead of the Mongolian kö’ün. Even if ulus was not a

regular term used in the Persian-language chancellery in which Juwaynī worked, his lifetime

of exposure to the Mongols should have been enough for him to know that his supreme

master, Möngge Qa’an, was the ruler of the Great Mongol Ulus, and that his immediate

master, Hülegü, was a prince of the same. So despite the cross-cultural expertise Juwaynī

demonstrated in his work, his avoidance of ulus should alert us to how the conceptual

representations of Mongol rulership and political community could be distorted.

As shown in the previous sections, the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh and later Persian-language

court histories did not follow the Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy in avoiding the mention of ulus. To a

great extent, the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh authentically portrayed the thirteenth and fourteenth-

century Mongol-ruled world as one of uluses. Yet at the same time, it too extensively utilized

the terms mamlakat and mulk. In one passage, mamlakat and mulk were even put into the

78 See Muṣṭafā Mūsawī, “Wāzhegān-e Torkī wa Moghūlī-e Tārīkh-e Jahāngoshāy-e Juwaynī.”

Āyīna-ye Mīrās (Fall-Winter 1384/1964-65), no. 30–31: 62, 82, 85, 87.

51

mouth of Chinggis Qan, even though it was virtually impossible that he could have used

those terms:

[Chinggis Qan said:] “O children [who are my] successors, know that the time of my

final journey and passing away is nigh. And by divine strength and heavenly

assistance I have exclusively appropriated and prepared for you children an extensive

mamlakat that takes a year’s travel in each direction. Now, [my] will for that is: you

shall be of one mind and stance in defending against enemies and elevating friends so

that you pass the days in glory and ease, and enjoy mulk.” He (i.e., Chinggis Qan)

made Ögödei Qa’an the heir apparent and then gave the testament: “You shall go

attend to [your] mamlakat and ulus, which are being neglected… After I [have died]

you must not act contrary to my laws (Per. yāsāq, from Mo. ǰasaq). Chaghatay is not

here right now. Heaven forbid that when I pass away, he shall act contrary to or

dispute my words in the mulk...” (Ay farzandān-e khalaf bedānīd keh waqt-e safar-e

ākhirat wa dar goẕashtan-e man nazdīk rasīda ast wa man be-quwwat-e yazdānī wa

ta’ayīd-e āsmānī mamlakatī ʿarīẓ-e basīṭ keh az meyāna-e ān be-har ṭarafī yaksāla

rāh bāshad jihat-e shomā farzandān mustakhlaṣ wa pardākhta gardānīda-am aknūn

waṣiyyat-e ān ast keh shomā be-dafʿ-e doshmanān wa rafʿ-e dūstān yak ra’y wa yak

rūy bāshīd tā rūzgār dar tāz wa naʿmat goẕānīd wa az mulk tamattuʿ yābīd Ūgotāy

Qā’ān rā walī al-ʿahd gardānīd wa baʿd az tamāmī waṣiyyat-e naṣīḥat farmūd keh

sar-e mamlakat wa ūlūs rawīd keh mulk muʻaṭṭal wa muhmal ast… shomā bāyad keh

baʿd az man yāsāq-e marā degar gūn nakonīd wa Chaghatāy īnjā ḥāżir nīst mabādā

52

keh chūn man dar goẕaram sokhan-e marā degar gūn karda dar mulk temāchāmīshī

konad…).79

This passage shows that while Rashīd al-Dīn et al. appreciated the importance of ulus, they

did not draw a fine politico-cultural line between mamlakat/mulk and ulus. Both mamlakat

and ulus were portrayed as the object of Mongol rulership since the time of Chinggis Qan.

There is another passage in which the word mamlakat does not appear in all the

original manuscripts of the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, but in those where mamlakat does appear,

mamlakat and ulus were treated as virtually equivalent. This passage is again the purported

words of Baraq, and the context is Baraq speaking with the Ogodayid prince Qıpchaq prior to

the quriltay:

“The other princes of our lineage have great cities and fine livestock. [Yet] I have

[just] this small ulus. And Qaidu and Möngge Temür have instigated against me for

this mamlakat, and they made me wander around the world in distress” (degar

shahzādagān az aqārib-e mā shahrhā-ye muʿẓam wa ʿalaf-khwārhā-ye khurram

dārand magar man keh hamīn mukhtaṣar ūlūs dāram wa Qāydū wa Mangkū Tīmūr

jihat-e īn mamlakat bar qaṣd-e man bar-khāsta-and wa marā parīshān wa sargardān

gerd-e jahān mīdawānand).

79 Rashīd al-Dīn, Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, 1:538–39. Wheeler Thackston translated shomā bā sar-e

mamlakat wa ūlūs rawīd keh mulk muʻaṭṭal wa muhmal ast as: “You go to your realms and peoples,

for your realms are being neglected” (Thackston trans., Jāmiʿu’t-tawarikh, pt. 2, 262). The original text did not say “your,” but I follow Thackston’s interpretation in giving the translation “[your]

mamlakat and ulus,” as this is most plausible given the context, i.e., Chinggis Qan was still alive and

he had reportedly summoned his sons to give his testament, and he dismissed them afterwards. Thackston translated wa Chaghatāy īnjā ḥāżir nīst mabādā keh chūn man dar goẕaram sokhan-e

marā degar gūn karda dar mulk temāchāmīshī konad as “Chaghatay is not here, but when I have

passed away let him not dispute my words in his kingdom” (ibid., pt. 2, 262). The original text

similarly did not say “his.” Here, there is a strong possibility that mulk referred not to Chaghatay’s mulk but to the mulk of the Mongols as a whole, as this part of Chinggis Qan’s testament was

premised upon after his own death.

53

In the above quote, “this mamlakat” (īn mamlakat) referred directly to “this small ulus”

(hamīn mukhtaṣar ūlūs), as if an ulus was a mamlakat. This example notwithstanding, the

Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh did not go as far as to ignore all differences between mamlakat and ulus.

The connotation of mamlakat as spatial (with regards to the size of land) versus ulus as

demographic can still be sensed. For instance, in the earlier-cited testament of Chinggis Qan,

he purportedly spoke of having acquired “a vast mamlakat” (mamlakatī ʿarīẓ-e basīṭ).

Whereas in a separate chapter, Kökechin Qatun, the mother of Temür Qa’an, purportedly

said:

“In the mamlakats of Khitāy and Nangγiyas, our ulus is numerous, and the wilāyat of

Qaidu and Du’a is distant” (dar mamālik-e Khitāy wa Nangiyās ūlūs-e mā besyār ast

wa wilāyat-e Qāydū wa Duwā dūr).80

Thus, while mamlakat was thought of as “vast,” ulus was thought of as “numerous,”

implying a demographic entity.

Into the Timurid period, the concept of mamlakat/mulk remained important and

ubiquitous, but ulus continued to maintain a distinctive importance as well. In summarizing

Temür’s lifetime of conquests, for example, Yazdī deemed it important to first mention that

Temür ruled over the uluses of Chaghatay Khan, Jochi Khan, and Hülegü Khan, and then the

kind of vast mamlakat he had acquired:

In the span of thirty-six years, which were the remainder of His Highness’s lifetime

and the days of conquest and world-rule, he brought all of the ulus of Chaghatay

Khan, the ulus of Jochi Khan, and the ulus of Hülegü Khan, and the greater part of the

territories (or cities) and the mamlakats of a quarter of the inhabited world, as has

been described, under [his] control and subjugation. And he merged the extent and


54

excellence of the mamlakat and the arrangement and soldering together of the

instruments of power (glory, majesty) and rulership into one place. (wa dar ʿarż-e sī

wa shesh sāl keh baqiyyah-e muddat-e zendegānī wa rūzgār-e keshwarsetānī wa

jahānbānī-e ān ḥażrat būd tamām-e ulūs-e Chaghatāy Khān wa ulūs-e Jūchī Khān wa

ulūs-e Hūlāgū Khān wa muʿẓam-e bilād wa mamālik-e rabʿ-e maskūn rā chonāncheh

be-sharḥ wa basṭ sabt oftāda be-ḥawza-e taṣarruf wa taskhīr dar-āwarda wa saʿat

wa basṭat-e mamlakat wa intiẓām wa ilti’ām-e asbāb-e shawkat wa sulṭanat be-jāyī

rasānīd).81

All this was despite the fact that by the time Temür died, the Timurids no longer even had a

Chinggisid khan as their overlord. Chapter Four will further discuss the Timurid approach to

dealing with the legacy of ulus and khanship.

In sum, mamlakat/mulk shared the stage with ulus as the object of rulership in

Ilkhanid and Timurid political culture, but mamlakat/mulk never displaced ulus. One may

still validly argue that mamlakat/mulk is the closest equivalent to “country” in the

Chinggisid-Timurid world. Yet it should be noted that mamlakat/mulk lacked a key

characteristic of the formal territorial polities in Europe (and East Asia). As can be seen from

all the previously cited examples of mamlakat/mulk that denoted a ruler’s collective

territorial holdings, there was no territorial name attached to any of them. Of course, a

territorial name may itself be non-territorial, and perhaps ethnonymic, in origin (e.g.,

“Moghulestān,” “Īrān,” “England,” “France”), so it would not have particularly mattered

81 Yazdī, Ẓafarnāma, 2:1338. This passage shows that the uluses of Chaghatay Khan, Jochi

Khan, and Hülegü Khan were conceived of having been brought under Temür’s “control and

subjugation” (taṣarruf wa taskhīr), but remaining as three officially distinct political communities.

The ulus of Hülegü Khan no longer had a reigning khan, and so the “throne of Hülegü” (takht-e Hūlāgū Khān) was at first given to Amīrānshāh (ibid., 1:724). The Timurids continued to recognize

the ulus of Jochi as having its own khans, which included Toqtamısh Khan (ibid., 1:179, 182).

55

what a mamlakat/mulk was called, so long as it was understood as having an inherent

territorial nature. It was due to the lack of any name fixed to specific land that

mamlakat/mulk could only have served as an informal term for a ruler’s entire realm in a

given period. As mentioned earlier, mamlakat and mulk have often been translated as

“kingdom”; but the European “kingdom” (regnum) had a fixed name and fixed heartland, and

so the identity of the regnum could outlast its ruler and even its dynasty. Whereas a number

of Chinggisid and Timurid rulers had completely different territorial possessions in different

times of their lives. So the mamlakat of Bābor, for instance, would have referred to several

noncontiguous entities on the map during the period 1494–1504. It was the major uluses,

with their fixed names over decades or centuries, that most resembled (and arguably were)

formal political communities; but alas, I still do not know for sure if these uluses, especially

the ulus of Chaghatay [Khan], was ultimately conceived of as territorial in nature.

As the next three chapters will increasingly focus on the Timurid period, it is vital to

keep in mind that despite their rule from urban capitals, Perso-Islamic legitimization projects,

and linguistic Turkification, the Timurids originated from the Mongol Barulas (Tur. Barlas)

tribe and rose to power out of the political system of the ulus of Chaghatay. The ulus of

Chaghatay constituted the immediate political heritage of the Timurids.82 However, the ulus

of Chaghatay is a comparatively understudied topic due to the scarcity of extant Chaghatayid

primary sources. Everything discussed in this chapter thus far about ulus has been based on

non-Chaghatayid sources. There is however, a scholarly find centered on a Mongolian-

language source found in former Chaghatayid-ruled territory, and it happens to be directly

pertinent to the conception of ulus in regards to relative location.

82 See Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane, 21–40.

56

The Middle Mongol Ulus

The research of Matsui Dai revealed the possibility that the ulus of Chaghatay was

known as the “[dum]dadu mongγol ulus (“Middle Mongol Ulus”; Matsui’s translation:

“Middle Mongolian Empire”). 83 Matsui himself expressed his assertion with cautious

wording commensurate to the available evidence,84 but other Mongol history specialists have

thence implicitly treated his findings as conclusive. I am not aware of additional research

since 2009 that has advanced Matsui’s hypothesis into a solid conclusion. If indeed the ulus

of Chaghatay was called the “Middle Mongol Ulus,” perhaps on account of its location

between the other major uluses, it would imply a conception of ulus based implicitly on

relative location to other uluses that my earlier analyses did not adequately take into account.

This question of “Middle Mongol Ulus” is also of particular relevance to the current project

because it could constitute background to the era of the Timurids, who, as mentioned, hailed

from none other than the ulus of Chaghatay. I am, however, not ready to fully jump on the

bandwagon of “ulus of Chaghatay was called ‘Middle Mongol Ulus,’” because we have not

considered alternative interpretations of key non-Mongol sources that Matsui cited to support

this assertion. In addition, the possibility that the “Middle Mongol Ulus” could have been the

ulus of the qa’an has not been considered. Below, I summarize Matsui’s findings and suggest

interpretations he did not consider in his article.

The centerpiece evidence for Matsui’s hypothesis is the bottom fragment of a

Mongolian-language document discovered in Turfan containing the words [dum]dadu

83 Dai Matsui, “Dumdadu Mongγol Ulus ‘The Middle Mongolian Empire,” in The Early

Mongols: Language, Culture and History: Studies in Honor of Igor de Rachewiltz on the Occasion of

His 80th Birthday, ed. Volker Rybatzki, Alessandra Pozzi, Peter W. Geier, and John R. Krueger

(Bloomington: Indiana University Denis Sinor Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 2009), 111–19. 84 “It seems probable that Du’a or his descendants took the brand new official state name

Dumdadu Mongγol Ulus ‘the Middle Mongolian Empire’ in order to affirm that their polity was

renewed” (Matsui, “Dumdadu Mongγol Ulus,” 116).

57

mongγo[l] u(l)us-un (“of the [Mid]dle Mongol Ulus”), the letters in brackets being the most

probable restorations (see Figure 1, in which I marked out the said Mongolian words with red

lines).85

The words immediately before and after [dum]dadu mongγo[l] u(l)us-un are missing, leaving

us without the context of the sentence. As Matsui’s restoration shows, the text as a whole

also does not provide further information about this [dum]dadu mongγo[l] ulus.86 To back up

his proposal that the “Middle Mongol Ulus” referred to the ulus of Chaghatay, Matsui cross-

referenced a number of Latin sources referring to the ulus of Chaghatay as the “Middle

Empire,” as well as a quote from the Moroccan traveler Ibn Baṭṭūṭa (1304–69). As I will be

85 “Turfanforschung.” Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Accessed

November 25, 2019. http://turfan.bbaw.de/dta/u/images/u5981seite1.jpg

This manuscript, shelfnumber U 5981, is part of the Depositum der BERLIN-

BRANDENBURGISCHEN AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN in der STAATSBIBLIOTHEK ZU BERLIN - Preussischer Kulturbesitz Orientabteilung.

86 Matsui, “Dumdadu Mongγol Ulus,” 112.

58

reconsidering these cross-references at some length, I first cite below Matsui’s original words,

so as to more clearly preserve his interpretation. Regarding Latin sources, Matsui writes:

Guillaume Adam describes the empire of «Doa or Caydo», i.e., Du’a or Qaidu, with

the appellation Medium Imperium ‘the Middle Empire’ between 1314 and 1328. By

this period Qaidu, the Ögödeid leader of the anti-Yuan Mongols in Central Asia, had

already passed away (d. 1301), consequently this ‘Middle Empire’ clearly stands for

the Chaghatai Khanate in Central Asia ruled by the descendants of Du’a Imperium

Medium ‘the Middle Empire’ as seen in a letter from Pope Benedict XII of 1338 and

in the report by the Franciscan friar John of Marignolli, who brought the Pope’s letter

to the Yuan; Imp. de Medio ‘the Empire in the Middle’ as seen in Andrea Bianco’s

atlas of 1436. Besides these, we also have Latin appellations for the Chaghatai

Khanate such as Imperium Medie ‘the Empire of Media’ by the Franciscan friar

Pascal of Vittoria or on the Catalan Map, as well as Imperium Medorum ‘the Empire

of Medes’ in the Portulano Mediceo in the Laurentian Library. They are apparently

misnomers of Imperium Medium or Imperium de Medio mentioned above.87

Regarding Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Matsui wrote:

In his Riḥlat, he introduces the Chaghatai Khanate under the reign of Ṭarmāšīrīn (<

Mong. Darmaširi(n) <Skt. Dharmaśrī, r. 1326–34) as follows: bilāduhu

mutawassiṭatun baina ’arba‘atin min al-dunyā al-kibāri wa hum maliku al-ṣīni wa

maliku al-hindi wa malik al-‘irāqi wa al-maliku ūzbaku ‘His (Ṭarmāšīrīn’s) [ruling]

country [is in] the middle between the four of the powerful kings on the earth, i.e.,

King of China, King of India, King of Iraq, and King Özbeg’.88

87 Matsui, “Dumdadu Mongγol Ulus,” 114–15. 88 Matsui, “Dumdadu Mongγol Ulus,” 115.

59

Based on the fragment of the Mongolian document, I accept the possibility that the “Middle

Mongol Ulus” referred to the Ulus of Chaghatay. At the same time, however, there are

alternative explanations for the Latin references and the Ibn Baṭṭūṭa quote that Matsui cited.

If my alternative explanations are valid, then we may be compelled to retreat back to square

one with the fragment.

Looking at the report of Johannes Marignola (a.k.a. John of Marignolli), we would be

immediately reminded of the fact that medieval Europeans applied names to places and

polities in Asia that were often not consistent with those used locally. According to

Marignolli, in 1338, he was sent by Pope Benedict XI with letters and presents on a mission

“to the Kaam (i.e., Qa’an), chief Emperor of all the Tartars” (Kaam, summum omnium

Thartarorum imperatorem).89 Marignolli’s party sailed to Caffa in the Crimea, and went on

from there to “the first Emperor of the Tatars, Usbec (i.e., Özbäk, r. 1313–41)…” (Inde ad

primum Thartarorum Imperatorem Usbec…), then on to “Armalec (i.e., Almalıq) of the

Middle Empire…” (pervenimus in Armalec Imperii medii…), and finally to “Cambalec (i.e.,

Khanbalıq), the chief seat of the Empire of the East” (Qua pertransita pervenimus in

Cambalec, ubi est summa Sedes Imperii Orientis…).90 They were received by the Qa’an

(who at that time would have been Toghon-Temür, r. 1333–70), and the visitors stayed in

Khanbalıq for at least three years. Marignolli had nothing but good words to say about the

hospitality they were afforded, and his party toured southern China as well.91 So if we are to

89 Johannes Marignola, “Observationes Præviæ in Chronicon Marignolæ,” in Monumenta

Historica Boemiae: Tomus II, ed. Gelasius Dobner (Prague: Literis Joannis Joseph Clauser), 84; Henry Yule ed. and trans., Cathay and the Way Thither. Being a Collection of Medieval Notices of

China, 4 vols. (London: Hakluyt Society, 1914–16), 3:210. 90 Marignola, “Observationes Præviæ in Chronicon Marignolæ,” 86–87; Yule ed. and trans.,

Cathay and the Way Thither, 3:211–13. 91 Marignola, “Observationes Præviæ in Chronicon Marignolæ,” 87–88; Yule ed. and trans.,

Cathay and the Way Thither, 3:214–16.

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assume that Marignolli’s notion of “Middle Empire” came from “Middle Mongol Ulus,” then

do we accept that “Empire of the East” was also derived from local nomenclature? Did the

Qa’an consider his realm to be the “Eastern Mongol Ulus”?

Regarding the Qa’an’s polity, we happen to know for certain what it was called.

Qubilai Qa’an and his successors never ceased to consider themselves qa’ans of the Great

Mongol Ulus (Yeke Mongγol Ulus). They regarded this rulership as inherited from Möngge

through Güyük through Ögödei from Chinggis Qan. In 1271, Qubilai additionally adopted

the Chinese “realm designation” (guohao 國號) of “Great Yuan” (大元; Mo. transliteration

from contemporaneous Chinese: Dai Ön; modern Mandarin: Da Yuan). By the reign of

Toghon-Temür Qa’an, “Great Yuan” had apparently taken on importance in Mongolian-

language officialdom as well. The 1338 stele commemorating the official (daruγaci) Jigüntei

referred to Dai Ön kemekü Yeke Mongγol Ulus (“the Great Mongol Ulus, which one calls

Great Yuan”).92 The earlier-mentioned stele commemorating Prince Indu (1362) similarly

referred to Dai Ön Yeke Mongγol Ulus (“Great Yuan Great Mongol Ulus”).93 So it would be

frightening to think of the Qa’an’s fury had he found out that his Great Mongol Ulus had

been truncated into a mere “Eastern Ulus” by Marignolli. The offense to the Great Yuan

would have been even more intolerable, as any remotely educated Confucian understood that

the Son of Heaven (tian zi 天子) is mandated to rule “all under heaven” (tian xia 天下) from

his throne in the Middle Realm (zhongguo 中國). Yet look what this audacious barbarian

92 Francis Woodman Cleaves, “The Sino-Mongolian Inscription of 1338 in Memory of

Jigüntei,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 14, no. 1/2 (1951): 53. Based on its own introduction,

this bilingual stele can be identified as: Mo. ǰarliγ-iyar bayiγuldaγsan ž-in sang sunggon wuu-yin

daruγaci Jigüntei-yin yabuγuluγan sayid üiles-i uγaγulγui bii tas buyu; Ch.《大元勑賜故中順大夫諸

色人匠都總管府達魯花赤竹君之碑》. 93 Francis Woodman Cleaves, “The Sino-Mongolian Inscription of 1362 in Memory of Prince

Hindu,” 8.

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preacher recognizes as the Middle Realm! Is he in cahoots with some traitorous princes in the

West?! In all seriousness, if Marignolli spent three years in Khanbalıq and either never

figured out that he was in the “Great Mongol Ulus” or “Great Yuan,” or did figure out but

still insisted on calling the polity “Empire of the East,” then how much can we trust that his

notion of “Middle Empire” was indeed transmitted from “Middle Mongol Ulus”? On the

other hand, we know that in Marignolli’s itinerary across the three Chinggisid-ruled domains,

the “Middle Empire” was in fact his second and middle designation. He and other Europeans

did not need a Mongolian source to come up with the name “Middle Empire.”

There is further evidence to suggest that “Middle Empire” was independently

conceived by the Europeans based on the fact that they found it to be geographically in the

middle. Guillaume Adam (a.k.a. Guillelmus Adæ and William of Adam) gave an account of

the “four empires of the Tatars” (IIII imperia Tatarorum), and we can see that while he

regarded the ulus of Chaghatay as “Middle Empire,” his primary concern was not with how

the four “empires” were locally named, but rather with their relative locations:

First and greatest is eastern, which is Catay (i.e., Khitāy). Second is northern, which

is Gazariæ (i.e., Khazaria). Third is southern, which is called Persia. Fourth is in the

middle between this southern one and that first one, which is named Doa or Caydo

(i.e., Du’a or Qaidu) (Primum et majus est orientale quod Catay dicitur. Secundum

est aquilonare quod Gazariæ nominatur. Tercium est meridionale, quod Persidis

appellatur. Quartum est medium inter istud meridonale et illud primum, quod Doa vel

Caydo nuncupatur).94

94 Recueil des historiens des Croisades: Documents Arméniens: Tome Second, ed.

l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1906), 530.

62

This shows that Adam understood the ulus of Chaghatay as an “empire” in the middle, but he

believed it to be named after Du’a or Qaidu—which is actually not inaccurate, as uluses were

identifed by the names of their holders. Adam had evidently collected much correct

information about the Mongol world, but since “Catay,” “Gazariæ,” and “Persia” were

nowhere close to the locally used designations, should we not be skeptical that “Middle

Empire” was authentically transmitted from “Middle Mongol Ulus”?

As for the Latin references to the “Empire of Media” or “Empire of the Medes” being

possible corruptions of “Middle Empire,” this would not matter if “Middle Empire” itself

was not derived from “Middle Mongol Ulus.” Even if these references are leads for further

investigation, we must not readily assume that the “Empire of Media” or “Medes” constituted

a corruption of “Middle Empire,” because medieval Europeans sincerely believed in the

continued existence of Biblical peoples and lands. To them, the Mamlūk sulṭān in Egypt was

the “Sultan of Babylon,” so for instance, Adam, in reference to the Jochid-Mamlūk alliance,

wrote that “The emperor of the Tatars of the north is very much allied with the Sultan of

Babylon” (imperator Tartarorum aquilonis cum soldano Bablionie multo federe est

conjuctus).95 In sum, the Europeans had their own convictions about the political geography

of Asia and Africa. This was, after all, the age of Prester John and his mighty empire.

If we can appreciate the Europeans’ interest in the locations of the four “empires” as

opposed to their authentic local designations, then the Ibn Baṭṭūṭa quote could also be

understood in this light. In relating that Ṭarmāšīrīn’s bilād (“territories,” “cities”) are in the

middle (mutawassiṭatun) of the four kings (sing. malik), he was undeniably giving a factual

statement about political geography. Had he learned that the locals called their polity the

“Middle Mongol Ulus” or something to that effect via translation, he could have explicitly

95 Recueil des historiens des Croisades, 530.

63

indicated so in his travelogue. By raising these issues, I only mean to show that there are

plausible alternative explanations for the Latin notion of “Middle Empire” and to Ibn

Baṭṭūṭa’s quote. Meanwhile, the 1338 letter from Pope Benedict XII to the Chaghatayid khan

Changshi (r. 1335–38) that referred to the latter as “the magnificent Prince Chansi, Emperor

of the Tatars from the Middle Empire” (Magnifico Principi Chansi Imperatori Tartarorum

de medio Imperio),96 and the caption in Andrea Bianco’s 1436 atlas indicating the location of

the ulus of Chaghatay as “Middle Empire, i.e., Cocobalech” (inperion de medio, id est

cocobalech),97 are still possible evidence for the transmission of “Middle Mongol Ulus” to

Europe. A thorough investigation of the origin(s) of “Middle Empire” in medieval European

usage would be of great value, and it is presently premature to conclude that the origin of

“Middle Empire” was “Middle Mongol Ulus.”

In interpreting the meaning of “Middle Mongol Ulus,” it may be prudent for now to

regard both the ulus of Chaghatay and the ulus of the qa’an as possible candidates. The

former has the basis of a middle geographical location while the latter has the basis of

political centrality. My inspiration for this idea came from a lecture by Prof. Michal Biran.

The lecture introduced the “Middle Mongolian Ulus” as corresponding to “Mongolian:

Dumdadu Mongol Ulus; Latin: Medium Imperium, Arabic: Wasitat al-‘iqd (the central link in

96 Joseph Maria Fonseca, ed., Annales Minorum Auctore A. R. P. Luca Waddingo Hiberno:

Tomus Septimus, 2nd ed. (Typis Rochi Bernabo, 1733), 212. 97 Andrea Bianco, “Andrea Bianco World Map... Description…pdf file,” Index to Maps &

Monographs, cccessed November 15, 2018, http://www.myoldmaps.com/late-medieval-maps-1300/241-andrea-bianco-world-map/, 9. I have not been able to determine the etymology of

Cocobalech. J. L. Lowes identified it as “the tent of Koublai-Khan,” implying that it meant Khanbalıq

(J. L. Lowes, “The Dry Sea and the Carrenare,” in Modern Philology, vol. 3, ed. Philip S. Allsen et al.

(Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1905–6), 42n5). However, Europeans seemed to have known quiet firmly that Khanbalıq, or “Cambulac,” is in Cathay, which is also shown on Bianco’s map as

(Bianco, 9). In addition, Coco- is considerably different from Latin variants of khan.

64

a necklace).”98 This Arabic term was not in Matsui’s research, and I was unsuccessful in

tracing its source. However, I came across the Persian expression wāsiṭa-e ʿiqd-e mulk in the

beginning of the Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy where Juwaynī explained his motivations for

composing the work:

Nonetheless, as the regions of Māwarā al-Nahr and Türkestān to the borders of

Māchīn and the farthest [part] of Chīn [,?] which is the site of the throne of the

mamlakat and of the house of Chinggis Qan’s descendants, as well as the wāsiṭa of

their ʿiqd-e mulk was observed several times… that which is confirmed and verified

is bounded in writing, and the collection of these stories is referred to as Juwaynī’s

History of the World Conqueror. (wa maʿa haẕā chūn be-chand nawbat diyār-e

Māwarā al-Nahr wa Torkestān tā sarḥadd-e Māchīn wa aqṣa-e Chīn keh maqarr-e

sarīr-e mamlakat wa urūgh-e asbaṭ-e Chinggiz Khān ast wa wāsiṭa-e ʿiqd-e mulk-e

īshān muṭṭālaʿat oftād… ānch[e] muqarrar wa muḥaqqaq gasht dar qayd-e kitābat

keshīd wa majmūʿa-e īn ḥikāyāt rā be-Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy-e Juwaynī mawsūm

gardānīd)99

Before one interprets the wāsiṭa in wāsiṭa-e ʿiqd-e mulk as corresponding to dumdadu in

Dumdadu Mongγol Ulus, one needs to first ascertain what territory Juwaynī was referring to

as wāsiṭa-e ʿiqd-e mulk. I, however, am unable to determine for certain what the antecedent

98 UC Berkeley Events. “Thunder from the Steppes: New Perspectives on the Mongol Empire:

Contacts, Conflicts, and Transformations: September 30, 2016.” YouTube video, 2:34:52. October 6, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUPaT-ZksLE&t=301s

99 Juwaynī, Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy, 1:6–7; Boyle trans., Genghis Khan, 9.

ت و اروغ اسباط چنگز و مع هذا چون بچند نوبت دیار ماوراء النهر و ترکستان تا سرحد ماچین و اقصی چین که مقر سریر مملک

خان است و واسطه عقد ملک ایشان مطالعت افتاد و بعضی احوال معاینه رفت و از معتبران و مقبول قوالن وقایع گذشته را افتاد و از التزام اشارت دوستان که حکم جزم است چون چاره ندید عدول نتوانست و امتثال امر عزیزان را حتما مقضیا استماع

ر و محقق گشت در قید کتابت کشید و مجموعه این حکایات را بتاریخ جهانگشاي جوینی موسوم گردانید دانست آنچ مقر

65

of the relative pronoun keh (“which”) is. Is it (1) Māwarā al-Nahr wa Torkestān, (2) [aqṣa-e]

Chīn, or (3) Māwarā al-Nahr wa Torkestān tā sarḥadd-e Māchīn wa aqṣa-e Chīn?

The one that is the antecedent of keh is what Juwaynī wished to call the “site of the

throne of the mamlakat and of the house of Chinggis Qan’s descendants, as well as the

wāsiṭa of their ʿiqd-e mulk.” The problem with the antecedent being Māwarā al-Nahr wa

Torkestān is that this would have placed the “site of the throne of the mamlakat” (maqarr-e

sarīr-e mamlakat) in the territories of the Ogodayids and Chaghatayids. Furthermore, the

wāsiṭa-e ʿiqd-e mulk in this passage meant not just the geographic middle of the mulk, but

also the best part of the mulk—like the central precious stone of a neckless—thereby

implying special status for whoever ruled it. Now, Juwaynī’s supreme overlord was Möngge

Qa’an, the son of Tolui who became qa’an in 1251 at the expense of the Ogodayid line.100

Hülegü, Juwaynī’s immediate overlord, was a younger brother of Möngge and Qubilai, and

most certainly supported the Toluid claims to qa’anship. Though Möngge Qa’an granted

appanages to Ogodayids not opposed to his accession, the Ogodayid-Toluid relationship

would have been of utmost political sensitivity. So it is improbable that Juwaynī would have

committed a life-threatening faux pas by implying that the “site of the throne of the

mamlakat” rested with the displaced Ogodayid line. As for [aqṣa-e] Chīn, I was tempted to

think of “China” as the “site of the throne of the mamlakat,” but the Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy

covered events till only 1260, and does not appear to have been revised to account for the

accession of Qubilai Qa’an in that year. 101 The third possibility, Māwarā al-Nahr wa

Torkestān tā sarḥadd-e Māchīn wa aqṣa-e Chīn, covers quite a large area, and it could by a

100 See Biran, Qaidu, 19–20. 101 Whereas Mongke Qa’an was referred to as “Mongke Qa’an” even in contexts before he

became qa’an, Qubilai was only referred to as “Qubilai” or “Qubilai Oghul” (“Prince Qubilai”). See

Juwaynī, Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy, 3:5, 64.

66

stretch of interpretation have included the Mongol homeland and the capital Qara Qorum. It

should be noted that the Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy does not have a single territorial name for the

Mongol homeland.102 The Mongol homeland being the “site of the throne of the mamlakat”

and wāsiṭa-e ʿiqd-e mulk would have been most politically correct, but again, it would

require a stretch of interpretation. So alas, I do not have a confident understanding of where

the wāsiṭa-e ʿiqd-e mulk was.

Later in his work, however, Juwaynī clearly identified the Mongol homeland as the

“middle of their mamlakat” (wāsiṭat-e mamlakat-e īshān). The passage concerned the

accession of Ögödei as qa’an:

And the capital of Ögödei, who was the heir apparent, was his yurt at the borders of

Emil and Qūnāq (Qobaq) during the reign of [his] father. When he sat upon the throne

of khanship, it transferred to the original [home]land, which is between Khitāy and

the Uyghur territories (or cities), and that [former] dwelling place he gave to his own

son Güyük; and the account of [his] abodes will be given separately. And Tolui too

was placed adjacent to him. Indeed, that [home]land is the middle of their mamlakat,

like center and circle. (wa takhtgāh-e Ūgotāy keh walī-ye ʿahd būd yūrt-e ū dar ʿahd-

e pedar dar ḥudūd-e Īmīl wa Qūnāq būd chūn bar takht-e khanī neshast be-mawżiʿ-e

aṣlī keh meyān-e khitāy wa bilād-e Ūyghūr ast taḥwīl kard wa ān jāygāh be-pesar-e

khod Guyūk dād wa ẕikr-e manāzil ʿalā-ḥidda musbat ast wa Tūlī nīz muttaṣil wa

102 See Juwaynī, Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy, 1:15; Boyle trans., Genghis Khan, 43.

“Moghūlestān”—indeed referring to “Mongolia,” and not to be confused with the Timurid-period “Moghūlestān,” which referred to the area mostly in present-day Xinjiang—was not used in the

Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy, but it was used later in the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh.

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mujāwir-e ū būd be-haqīqat ān mawżiʿ wāsiṭat-e mamlakat-e īshān ast bar misāl-e

markaz wa dāyira).103

In a later passage, Juwaynī confirmed that the “original [home]land” to which Ögödei Qa’an

moved upon his accession was “by the Orqon River and the mountains of Qara-Qorum”:

He granted the land of his own residence, which was at the borders of Emil, to his

own son Güyük, and he chose the residence and site of the throne of the mamlakat by

the Orqon River and the mountains of Qara-Qorum (mawżiʿ-e iqāmat-e khwīsh keh

dar ḥudūd-e Īmīl būd be-pesar-e khod Guyūk farmūd wa iqāmat wa maqarr-e sarīr-e

mamlakat rā dar ḥadd-e āb-e Ūrqūn wa kūhhā-ye Qarā Qūrum ikhtiyār kard).104

In sum, Juwaynī, who was much closer to the Chinggisids than the Latinate writers or Ibn

Baṭṭūṭa were, tells us that “middle” (wāsiṭat) applied to the Mongol homeland, which was

directly under the qa’an’s rule.

Ultimately, if the “Middle Mongol Ulus” was indeed the ulus of Chaghatay, it would

most likely have been a self-designation rather than a universal Mongol designation, as it is

improbable that the qa’an would have denigrated himself as the holder of a peripheral

(eastern) ulus. Matsui also raised the supposition that the Moghul ulus (Tur. Moghul ulusı;

Per. ulūs-e Moghūl), which was ruled by the Chaghatayids in the east and contemporaneous

with the Timurids, derived its name from “Middle Mongol Ulus,” essentially having dropped

the adjective “Middle.”105 The complicated questions regarding the identity of the Moghuls

will be given a lengthier treatment in Chapter Four. Here, I do not deny this possibility if in

fact “Middle Mongol Ulus” had meant the ulus of Chaghatay. On the other hand, if the

“Middle Mongol Ulus” was the qa’an’s ulus, then it was probably understood in the sense

103 Juwaynī, Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy, 1:31–32; Boyle trans., Genghis Khan, 43. 104 Juwaynī, Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy, 1:191–92; Boyle trans., Genghis Khan, 43. 105 Matsui, “Dumdadu Mongγol Ulus,” 117.

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that while the Great Mongol Ulus (Yeke Mongγol Ulus) was the all-encompassing ulus to

which all Mongols belonged, the “Middle Mongol Ulus” was the ulus under the direct rule of

the qa’an. The weakness of this supposition though is that the Mongols already had a term

for this, namely qol-un ulus, which is attested in the Secret History.106 Furthermore, there is

another question that I hope Mongolianists would consider: if the “Middle Mongol Ulus”

referred to one Mongol ulus amongst multiple Mongol uluses, why “Middle Mongol Ulus”

and not just “Middle Ulus”? In an intra-Mongol context, was “Mongol” necessary? Because

on the steppes, uluses identified by ethnonyms (e.g. Naiman, Merkit, Kereyit) seemed to

have served the purpose of distinguishing one identity group from another. Were there

precedents for applying ethnonyms to uluses in an intra-identity group context? Finally, as a

standard precaution, we must be willing to accept that there are other possibilities for the

meaning of [dum]dadu mongγo[l] ulus hidden in the lost parts of the document. In this

section, I have raised more questions than I have been able to answer, but if “Middle Mongol

Ulus” was indeed a designation of the ulus of Chaghatay, then it must be acknowledged that

in Mongol officialdom, a conception of ulus based on relative location to other uluses did

develop, and the Timurids would have been direct political heirs to the “Middle Mongol

Ulus,” unless this had for some reason been forgotten by their time.

Chapter Conclusion

This chapter examined the relationship between ulus and territory as backdrop to

understanding Chinggisid-Timurid conceptions of rulership and political community in

106 Secret History, § 269. The qol-un ulus handed over to Ogodei upon his accession. Qol-un

ulus has been translated as “ulus of the centre” (Jackson, The Mongols and the Islamic World, 102), “‘pivot’ ulus” (Buell, “Tribe, Qan and Ulus in Early Mongol China,” 36), “core/main ulus” (Munkh-

Erdene, “Where Did the Mongol Empire Come From?,” 223).

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relation to territory. In essence, the chapter attempted to answer the project’s central question,

did Chinggisid-Timurid political culture have a notion of “country”?, by trying to determine

if an ulus constituted a “country.” Existing scholarly literature differs on whether an ulus was

comprised of people only, or both people and territory. This difference in viewpoint was

tested against primary sources, which revealed the following.

As attested in the Secret History, the ulus was a mobile entity, moveable at command

and thus not defined by territory, though naturally always in possession or occupation of

territory. The mobile ulus continued to exist throughout the age of Timurid rule in Central

Asia and Iran, so in this respect, the scholars who subscribed to a “people only” definition of

ulus are correct. At the same time, however, Tājīk historians in Mongol service did attribute

territorial characteristics to ulus, such as having “borders,” having territory “placed inside” it,

being made ābādān, and being named by territories (e.g., ulūs-e Dasht-e Qebchāq, ulūs-e

Māwarā’ al-Nahr). In this respect, the scholarly view that ulus included both people and

territory is viable.

Yet did these territorial characteristics reflect an evolution in the definition of ulus, or

just the empirical observation that after ca. 1260, the major uluses did not move about? How

would Yazdī, for instance, explain his accounts of Chinggis Qan having territories “placed

inside” the ulus of Chaghatay and Chechen Khan making it ābādān versus Temür

“assembling” the entire ulus of Chaghatay for war? In addition, Tājīk historians saw their

Mongol masters as rulers of mamlakat/mulk, and did not always appreciate the differences

between ulus and mamlakat/mulk in relation to territory. Ulus nonetheless survived as an

important political concept, and the term was borrowed into most Persian-language histories,

suggesting that the Tājīk elite in general was aware that mamlakat/mulk could not serve as a

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full substitute for ulus. Finally, in the case of the ulus of Chaghatay, it is possible that it took

on the identity “Middle Mongol Ulus”; if indeed this was so, it would have vital implications

for the questions raised in this chapter. Thus far, however, Matsui Dai’s findings should still

be considered early-stage research, and [dum]dadu mongγo[l] ulus a mystery.

At this juncture, I again affirm that what I have learned about the relationship

between ulus and territory does not conclusively reveal whether or not ulus, especially the

ulus of Chaghatay, from which the Timurids originated, was conceived as a territorial polity,

or “country.” But through this chapter’s examination of ulus vis-à-vis territory, I hope the

reader is convinced that our notions of the “Ilkhanate” and the “Chaghatay Khanate,” to

which we have grown accustomed, require critical reflection. “Khanate,” in the sense of a

(territorial) realm ruled by a khan, has no equivalent in Chinggisid-Timurid political culture.

By applying the familiar European assumption that a ruler rules a formal realm that is

defined by his title, (emperor → empire, king → kingdom, prince → principality, duke →

duchy, hence khan → khanate), we risk overlooking how Chinggisid-Timurid political

culture had its own conceptions of rulership and political community vis-à-vis territory.

Indeed, this leads us again to the comparative question: were the said Chinggisid-Timurid

conceptions in fact distinct in the larger Eurasian context? Since the current chapter’s

examination of ulus in relation to territory has not been conclusive, the next chapter sets

aside the meaning of ulus, and attempts another approach: examining the representations of

rulership and political community vis-à-vis territory in politico-diplomatic culture.

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CHAPTER TWO

EMPIRE OF SAMARQAND? GUO (國) OF HARĀT?:

A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE VIS-À-VIS EUROPE AND EAST ASIA

INFORMED BY DIPLOMATIC ENCOUNTERS

The previous chapter started from the premise that ulus was the object of Chinggisid

rulership, and as such, was analogous to the regnum (“kingdom”) of a European king/queen

and to the guo (國, “realm”) of an East Asian ruler. It then tried to determine whether ulus,

especially the ulus of Chaghatay, was conceived as a territorial polity, but was inconclusive

on this matter. Yet whether or not ulus was so conceived, in one respect the ulus of the

Mongol-ruled Perso-Islamic world was not comparable to the European regnum or to the

East Asian guo: in diplomatic correspondence, the Chaghatayids, Ilkhanids, and Timurids did

not identify uluses, or any kind of political community for that matter, as the object of their

rulership. In European and East Asian politico-diplomatic cultures,107 it would have been no

problem to identify in a diplomatic letter the ruler who sent it and what political community

he/she ruled or claimed to rule. In the early decades of Mongol rule, the supreme qan’s

chancellery in Qara Qorum, Mongolia, provided a similar clarity. As discussed in Chapter

One, the seal used on the 1246 letter of Güyük Qan (r. 1246–48) to Pope Innocent IV (r.

1243–54) was inscribed with the title “Qan (Khan) of the Great Mongol Ulus [and] of the

Ocean” (Yeke Mongγol Ulus-un Dalai-in Qan), “ocean” being a metaphorical expression

107 I use “politico-diplomatic” to mean belonging to the sphere of diplomacy, but often also a

part of domestic politics. Diplomacy is a main theme of this chapter, but much of what will be discussed concerning the representation of rulership in relation to territory were not exclusive to

diplomatic culture.

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denoting universal rule.108 The Chaghatayids, Ilkhanids, and Timurids, however, did not

provide such clarity in their diplomatic letters. Their letters identified the sending ruler, but

left the object of his rulership unsaid. This conspicuous contrast to contemporaneous

European and East Asian practices is a clue that the Mongol courts in the Perso-Islamic

world operated under different conceptions of rulership and political community in relation

to territory.

In the first two analytical sections of this chapter, I discuss Chinggisid-Timurid

conceptions of rulership as expressed by their formal titles (sing. khitāb) and honorifics (sing.

laqab), especially in diplomatic documents. Diplomacy is of particular importance since the

territorially-defined conceptions of rulership in Europe and East Asia were premised upon

there being a community of interacting rulers. “King of England,” for instance, was only a

meaningful title because the King of England was in regular communication with rulers

outside of England, a kingdom amongst many kingdoms. Similarly, when East Asians

presented their political communities to foreigners by official “realm designations” (guohao

國號), it was under the assumption that the world consisted of many “realms,” or guo (國).

Hence, the representation of Chaghatayid, Ilkhanid, and Timurid rulership in diplomatic

correspondence can serve as a window to Chinggisid-Timurid conceptions of the geo-

political organization of the world.

In the subsequent two sections, I examine Timurid diplomatic contacts with Europe

and Ming China, focusing on the period ca. 1370–1490. I limit the discussion to this period

because prior to 1368, Chinggisids themselves ruled supreme in East Asia, whereas after

1368, the Ming polity in China proper represented a general break from Mongol political

108 Ligeti, ed., Monuments Préclassiques, vol. 1, 20; de Rachewiltz, “Qan, Qa’an, and the

Seal of Güyüg,” 274.

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culture. 109 When the Europeans and Ming Chinese encountered the Timurids, their

understanding or misunderstanding of Chinggisid-Timurid conceptions of rulership and

political community in relation to territory illuminated the distinctiveness of those

conceptions. What the Europeans and Chinese had to say about the Timurids in this regard

can show the diversity in conceiving the geo-political organization of the world that existed

in late medieval and early modern Eurasia.

Background Discussion: Representations of Rulership in Chaghatayid, Ilkhanid, and

Timurid Chancellery/Diplomatic Documents

The ulus of Chaghatay was established before the ulus of Hülegü, and the Timurids

originated from within the former. It would thus be ideal to first review Chaghatayid

chancellery conventions for representing rulership in relation to territory, but this is hindered

by the lack of adequate source materials. Michal Biran’s 2008 article on this subject is duly

premised on the “absence of Chaghadaid diplomatic correspondence… due to the nearly

complete lack of indigenous literary sources for Chaghadaid history.”110 As reviewed in her

article, about a dozen intact documents (in addition to fragments) found in Turfan and

published in Die Mongolica der Berliner Turfansammlung, as well as an Uyghur-language

decree of Du’a Khan (r. 1282–1307), and a Mongolian-language decree likely issued by

Muḥammad-Pūlād Khan (r. 1342–43), constitute the entire corpus of extant Chaghatayid

109 By “general break,” I mean the Ming emperors and high-ranking officials by and large did

not know Mongolian, and the Ming court did not retain a multicultural composition comparable to

that of the Yuan court. The Ming did however, retain certain administrative, military, and scientific

institutions established by the Yuan. 110 Michal Biran, “Diplomacy and Chancellery Practices in the Chaghataid Khanate: Some

Preliminary Remarks,” Oriente Moderno 88, no. 2 (2008): 369.

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documents. 111 Such are the present-day limitations for research on the Chaghatayid

chancellery, despite Biran’s efforts in piecing together information and clues from a wide

range of non-Chaghatayid sources—Yuan, Ilkhanid, Jochid, Mamlūk (Egypt), etc. Yet

valuable for the purpose of this discussion are two practices in the composition of

Chaghatayid documents evident from Biran’s research: (1) there is no evidence of the

Chaghatayids officially styling themselves as rulers of anything, and (2) the Chaghatayids

were styled very succinctly: the extant decrees feature the simple formula “personal name +

yarlıghı(n)dın” (Tur. “Decree of…,” or literally, “From the Decree of…”) or “personal name

+ üge manu” (Mo. “Our word”).112 The same formula was used in Ilkhanid Mongolian-

language diplomatic letters and decrees, e.g., Arγun üge manu (“Arγun, Our word”), Γasan

üge manu (“Ghazan, Our word”), Ölǰeitü Soltan üge manu (Öljeitü Sulṭān, Our word), and

Busayid Baγatur Qan üge manu (“Busayid Baγatur Qan, Our word”).113 For the history of the

Mongol-Turkic world, documents issued as yarlıghı(n)dın and sözümiz/sözümüz (Turkic

equivalent of üge manu) really need no introduction.114 Below, I provide a textual sampling

111 The relatively intact documents found in Turfan are in Dalantai Cerensodnom and

Manfred Taube, Die Mongolica der Berliner Turfansammlung (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993),

165–92. The Mongolian decree is translated and analyzed in Dai Matsui, “A Mongolian Decree from the Chaghataid Khanate Discovered at Dunhuang,” in Silk Road Studies XVI: Aspects of Research

into Central Asian Buddhism in Memoriam of Kōgi Kudara, ed. Peter Zieme (Turnhout: Brepols,

2008), 159–78. Matsui expresses some uncertainty about the identity of the ruler, as only “Bolad”

was clearly identified. The Uyghur decree is featured in Dai Matsui, “An Uighur Decree of Tax Exemption in the Name of Duwa-Khan,” International Congress of Asian and North African Studies:

10–15. 09. 2007 Ankara/Türkiye: Papers: Linguistics, Grammar, and Language Teaching 1, no. 38

(2008): 1095–1104. 112 E.g., in Du’a Khan’s decree, only Du’a yarlıqındın (Matsui’s transcription: ṭuw-a yrlq-ïn-

tïn) was written (Matsui, “A Uighur Decree,” 1096). 113 Ligeti, ed., Monuments Préclassiques, 245, 250, 252, 258. “Busayid Baγatur Qan” is Per.-

Ar. equivalent of “Abū Saʿīd Bahādur Khān.” 114 On the titles in the opening of Timurid decrees, see Gottfried Herrmann, “Zur Intitulatio

timuridischer Urkunden,” in XVIII. Deutscher Orientalistentag, vom 1. bis 5. Oktober 1972, in

Lübeck: Vorträge, ed. Wolfgang Voigt, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, supplement 2 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1974): 504–5. Yarlıq was a higher grade of decree than

sözümiz, and hence yarlıghındın was reserved for Temür’s Chinggisid puppets, Soyurghatmısh Khan

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to highlight the fact that the Chaghatayid and Ilkhanid rulers’ preference for styling

themselves simply,115 which left out expressing the object of rulership, was a tradition that

continued into the Timurid era.

This preference was undiminished by the Mongols’ conversion to Islam and adoption

of Arabo-Persian chancellery practices and literary culture, which in general called for

elaborate embellishments rather than simplicity. Admittedly, making this claim for the

Chaghatayids is premature, but without Chaghatayid Persian-language documents, our next

best reference would be Ilkhanid ones. Take for example, a (mainly) Persian-language decree

issued by the regent Amīr Chūbān in the name of Abū Saʿīd Bahadur Khan (Mo. Busayid

Baγatur Qan, r. 1316–35) and addressed to a certain Bay-Temür and his brothers. The names

and titles of the decree’s issuers were presented simply: “Decree of Abū Saʿīd Bahādur Khān

(Bahadur Khan), Chūbān’s Word: Let Bay-Temür and his brothers know that…” (Abū Saʿīd

Bahādur Khān yarlıghındın Chūbān sözi Bāy-Temūr wa barādarān-e ū bedānand keh…).116

In Timurid chancellery documents, the issuing ruler was styled in a similarly concise manner.

The top line of a decree from Temür to Sayyid ʿAlī-Kiyā Gīlānī (d. 1389),117 for instance,

reads only “Temür Küräkän, Our Word” (Tīmūr Gūrakān sözümiz). 118 A slightly more

(r. 1370–84) and Sulṭān-Maḥmud Khan (r. 1384–1402). On protocol disputes over the use of yarlıgh

in the early fourteenth century, see Biran, “Diplomacy,” 389–90. 115 ʿAṭā-Malik Juwaynī commented on this simplicity in Juwaynī, Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy, 1:19. 116 Gottfried Herrmann, Persische Urkunden der Mongolenzeit: Text- und Bildteil

(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004), 90. 117 The Kiyā dynasty was a Zaydi Shia power based in Gīlān from the 1370s–1592. See

Encyclopædia Iranica, s.v. “Kār Kiā” (by Yukako Goto), accessed December 18, 2017,

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kar-kia. 118 ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn Nawā’ī, ed., Asnād wa mukātabāt-e tārīkh-e Īrān: Az Tīmūr tā Shah

Ismāʿīl (Tehrān: Bongāh-e Tarjuma wa Nashr-e Kitāb, 2536/1977), 54. See also (1) a 1396 decree by

Temür’s son Amīrānshāh, issued as “Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan’s Decree, Amīrānshāh Küräkän, Our

Word” (Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan yarlıghıdın Amīrānshāh Küräkän sözümiz) in John E. Woods, “Turco-

Iranica II: Notes on a Timurid Decree of 1396/798,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 43, no. 4 (1984): 336; and (2) a 1398 decree in Dai Matsui, Ryoko Watabe, and Hiroshi Ono, “A Turkic-Persian

Decree of Timurid Mīrān Šāh of 800 AH/1398 CE,” ORIENT 50 (2015), 55.




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elaborate variant of Temür’s style additionally included the title amīr-e kabīr (“Supreme

Commander”) immediately before “Temür Küräkän,” as was the case in the 1402 letter to

King Charles VI of France (r. 1380–1422).119 Documents issued in the name of Shāhrokh b.

Temür (r. independently 1405–47) feature the same simple style. For instance, a decree from

Shāhrokh to Khiżr Khan (r. 1414–21), founder of the Sayyid dynasty (1414–51) based in

Delhi, begins with only “Shāhrokh Bahadur, Our Word” (Shāhrokh Bahādur sözümiz).120

Such was the Chinggisid-Timurid tradition of simple self-representation.

This terseness, ironically, can be informative about what was valued most in rulers’

self-representation. For the Chaghatayids and Ilkhans, it was often just their personal names,

as if to confidently convey the message that everyone knows who the khan is, and while

some might share his name, they would not be issuing decrees. At other times, as seen in the

abovementioned Ilkhanid documents as well as on coinage,121 it was deemed important to

include the ruler’s basic title, particularly qan, or khan.122 As demonstrated in Ilkhanid

convention, khan (خان) was inferior to the qa’an ( انقا ) or qan (قان), i.e., the supreme ruler of

all Mongols,123 but otherwise it was the exclusive prerogative of the ruling descendants of

119 Nawā’ī, Asnād, 127–28. The letter features a variant spelling of Temür Küräkän: امیر کبیر

See also De Sacy, “Mémoire sur une correspondance,” 473–74. A facsimile of the original . تمر کوران

letter can be seen online at Wikipedia Commons, s.v. “Letter of Tamerlane to Charles VI 1402,”

accessed December 18, 2017, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Letter_of_Tamerlane_to

_Charles_VI_1402.jpg. The facsimile appears to show some difference with the edited text in Nawā’ī, Asnād, 127–28.

120 Nawā’ī, Asnād, 143–45. 121 See Stanley Lane-Poole, Catalogue of Oriental Coins in the British Museum, vol. 6, The

Coins of the Mongols in the British Museum (London: Gilbert and Rivington, 1881) and Stanley

Lane-Poole, Catalogue of the Mohammadan Coins Preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford

(Oxford: Clarendon, 1888), 16. 122 While the title ilkhan is widely familiar to modern historians and thus commonly used to

designate the dynasty of Hülegü (r. 1256–65), ilkhan was only used in limited circumstances. See

Reuven Amitai-Preiss, “Evidence for the Early Use of the Title īlkhān among the Mongols,” Journal

of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3rd ser., 1, no. 3 (1991): 353–61. 123 E.g., see the two coins minted in Mūṣul and Baṣra, respectively, in Lane-Poole, Catalogue

of Oriental Coins, vol. 6, 9–10. They were both struck firstly in the name of “the Great Qa’an,

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Jochi, Chaghatay, Ögedei, and Hülegü in the Islamic world. 124 For Temür, the title of

paramount significance was küräkän, i.e., son-in-law of a khan. 125 Being küräkän was one of

the most prestigious statuses a non-Chinggisid male could attain in relationship to the altan

uruq, or “Golden Clan,” as the Chinggisid dynasty was known; and to distinguish himself

from the numerous other amīrs, Temür aptly included amīr-e kabīr in certain documents. For

Shāhrokh, bahādur (Tur. bahadur), or “hero,” held clear importance, demonstrating his

commitment to the warrior ethos inherited from the steppe.126 All in all, it is obvious that

indicating rule over any territory was not considered important enough to be included in

rulers’ titles. Given their considerable territorial possessions, the Chaghatayids, Ilkhanids,

and Timurids could have credibly adopted grand territorial titles and/or accumulated titles to

long lists of territories in the manner of European rulers. Yet the Chinggisids and Timurids

did not find such a representation of rulership to be impressive. This becomes further evident

in their simultaneous use of honorifics, an elaborate Arabo-Persian practice that was

particularly important for addressing foreign rulers in diplomatic letters.

Möngke Qan” and secondly in the name of “Hülegü Khan” ( ان االعظم مونگکا قان هوالکو خانقا ). For an in-

depth discussion on Ilkhanid titulature and coinage, see Mark A. Whaley, “A Rendering of Square

Script Mongolian on the îlkhân Ghâzân Mahmûd’s Coins,” Mongolian Studies 26 (2003–4): 39–88. 124 On the titles qan, qa’an, and khan, see Christopher P. Atwood, Encyclopedia of Mongolia

and the Mongol Empire (New York: Facts on File, 2004), 302–3. According to Kim Hodong, “khan

was not an official title adopted by the Mongol Empire. The official title to designate Chinggisid

princes was kö’ü(n) in Mongolian, and it was translated into oghul in Turkic, shahzāda in Persian, and

wang [王] (or zhuwang [諸王], dawang [大王]) in Chinese… The mode of employment of the khan

title and the zhi bao [之寶] seals suggests the fact that the Hülegüid princes, and probably other rulers

in the three western uluses, practiced a policy of ‘internally emperor, externally king (外王內帝).’

This policy allowed the Mongol Empire to maintain its unity in spite of growing independency of the three western uluses.” See Kim, “Ulus or Khanate?: An Analysis of the Titles of qa‘an and khan in

the Mongol Empire,” Central Asian Studies 21, no. 2 (2016): 28–29 (the abstract is in English, main

text is in Korean). 125 While the Timurid dynasty has long been referred to as the “Son-in-Law Dynasty” (e.g.,

Per. یانگورکان ), the primary sources show that only Timurids who actually married the daughter of an

acknowledged khan were eligible for the title kürägän. This fact will be demonstrated by examples

throughout Chapter Four. 126 Bahādur (from Tur. bahadur) was commonly included in the styles of Temür’s male

descendants.

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In a typical diplomatic letter, immediately following the style of the issuing ruler

would be the name of the recipient, who could expect a thoughtfully formulated (and often

lengthy) string of honorifics. It was possible to be outright impolite in a letter, as seen in one

from Sulṭān-Aḥmad Jalayir (r. 1382–1410) to Temür, who was given plain epithets of

contempt instead of honorifics: “Temür the inauspicious, notorious for tyranny and

oppression” (Tīmūr-e mandbūr be-ẓulm wa setam maʿrūf wa mashhūr).127 However, when

not possessed by the kind of clear enmity that Sulṭān-Aḥmad had for Temür, holding a ruler

in low esteem would still have entailed addressing him with honorifics, which could be

formulated to convey belittlement. In her Rulership and Ideology in the Islamic and Mongol

Worlds, Anne Broadbridge notes the political subtleties and the intended high or low regard

behind the choice of honorifics in letters exchanged between the Mamlūk sulṭāns and the

Ilkhans/Ilkhanid amīrs.128 She also covers the contacts/conflicts between Temür and the

Mamlūks, culminating in Temur’s diplomatic humiliation of Nāṣir al-Dīn Faraj (r. 1399–

1411).129 The same basic culture of using honorifics in diplomatic letters seen in the period

studied by Broadbridge continued through the fifteenth century and beyond. Scholars such as

Colin Mitchell and Sugiyama Masaki researched the “science of epistolary composition”

(ʿilm al-inshā’) during the Timurid era, paying close attention to the Makhzan al-inshā’ by

Ḥusayn Wāʿiz Kāshifī (d. 910/1504–5).130 The Makhzan al-inshā’ uses tables to lay out

127 Nawā’ī, Asnād, 66. On Sulṭān-Aḥmad Jalayir’s history with Temür, see Wing, The

Jalayirids, 156–65. 128 On the use of honorifics in Mamluk letters, see Anne F. Broadbridge, Kingship and

Ideology in the Islamic and Mongol Worlds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 17, 20, 113–14, 139, 146, 160, 163, 185. The Mamluk sulṭāns began their letters with elaborate honorifics for

themselves. 129 Broadbridge, Kingship and Ideology, 187–97. 130 See Colin Paul Mitchell, “To Preserve and Protect: Husayn Vaʿiz-i Kashifi and Perso-

Islamic Chancellery Culture,” Iranian Studies 36, no. 4 (2003): 485–507; and Masaki Sugiyama,

“The Rules and Practices of Writing Letters at the End of the Timurid Era: On the Basis of the




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appropriate honorifics for rulers and other classes of elites,131 and though ultimately just a

guidebook, it provides clear evidence that the proper use of elaborate honorifics was

considered a matter of high culture. It would perhaps not be far-fetched to surmise that the

European or East Asian royal titles formulated on the mere basis of a rank and territory

would have been seen as rather crude by learned men (ahl-e qalam) like Kāshifī. Important

for this discussion, honorifics in diplomatic letters constitute a source for examining how

rulership was represented vis-à-vis territory.

Spatial/Territorial References in Honorifics

Unlike titles (e.g., khan, amīr, küräkän, etc.), Arabo-Persian honorifics were not fixed.

Guided by customary rules of the ʿilm al-inshā’, formulating honorifics for the recipient of a

diplomatic letter was based on the recipient’s political stature and the esteem in which he was

held, with touches of artistic creativity. Multiple letters to the same ruler could feature

considerably different honorifics, but “Temür Küräkän,” for example, would never creatively

turn into “Temür Khan.” The spatial/territorial references in honorifics therefore cannot be

readily compared to the European or East Asian titles that denoted legal claims to specific

territories. Many honorifics were so hyperbolic and/or metaphoric they simply cannot be

interpreted in real-world terms. At the same time, as a widely used device for representing

rulership in official documents, honorifics and the spatial/territorial references therein are

indispensable for understanding the conception of rulership vis-à-vis territory in the Timurid

and larger contemporaneous Islamic world. Below, I cite a small sample of such references in

Description in Makhzan al-Inshā’,” Bulletin of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan 56, no. 1

(2013): 71–83 (abstract is in English, main text is in Japanese). 131 On Kāshifī’s recommendations for how to address rulers, see Ḥusayn Wāʿiẓ Kāshifī,

Makhzan al-inshā’. MS, Kitābkhāna-ye Majlis-e Shūra-ye Islāmī, 2258, fols. 9–10.

80

honorifics to show that though the possession of territory was understood as an important

mark of rulership, rulership and real-world territories were distinctly unlinked in honorifics.

As a general rule, to express recognition of a ruler’s power over vast territories would

involve calling him some sort of “world” or “universal” ruler in his honorifics; and as a

corollary, calling him the ruler of a region, no matter how large, might signify a lower level

of respect. The spatial/territorial references in honorifics therefore cannot be read literally or

legally, but should rather be read politico-culturally. In the deathbed letter of the Fārs-based

Muzaffarid ruler Shāh-Shujāʿ (r. 1358–84) to Temür, for instance, the latter’s honorifics and

title were presented as:

His Sublime Highness of firmament-extent [in whom] the mamlakat takes refuge, the

one marked by justice and characterized by generosity, the great successful

commander, the protector of sulṭāns who is powerful as the firmament, the champion

cavalier of the field of justice and beneficence, the most just of the khosraws of the

earth and of the age, gazed upon by the favor of the King and Judge (i.e., God), axis

of the world and of the faith [chosen] by the Truth (i.e., God), Amīr Tīmūr Gūrakān

(Temür Güräkän) (ʻālī ḥażrat-e gardūn-basṭat mamlakat-panāh[-e] maʻdalat-āsār[-e]

makramat-shiʻār nūyīn-e bozorg-e kāmgār iʿtiżād-e salāṭīn-e gardūn

iqtidār shahsowār-e miżmār-e ʿadl wa iḥsān aʿdal-e akāsira-e zamīn wa zamān al-

manẓūr bi ʿināyat al-Malik al-Dayyān quṭb al-Ḥaqq wa al-dunyā wa al-dīn Amīr

Tīmūr Gūrakān).132

By convention, ḥażrat (literally “presence”) was reserved for the highest tier of Muslim

rulers and the most venerated religious leaders, roughly equivalent to “His Majesty,” “His

132 Nawā’ī, Asnād, 13. Text of the letter based on comparison between multiple sources, as

noted in Nawā’ī, Asnād, 17.



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Highness,” or “His Holiness,” depending on context. The two uses of the word gardūn

(“firmament”), which extends above all lands, emphasized the spatial extent of Temür’s

power as being global—a hyperbole of course, but a clear alternative to representing

rulership over actual politico-administrative territory. There is a reference to Temür’s

mamlakat (“…[in whom] the mamlakat takes refuge”), and as mentioned in Chapter One,

such a mamlakat denoted a ruler’s entire realm without any name fixed to specific land.

Notably, there is no reference to Samarqand, Māwarā al-Nahr, or any named geographical

entity under Temür’s control.

We know from historical context that when this letter was composed, Shāh-Shujāʿ

was very much under pressure from Temür’s rise and worried about the future of the

Muzaffarid dynasty. However, honorifics expressing “world” rulership were not only applied

by the weak to the more powerful; they were also applied to rulers deemed as inferior. Take

for example, a letter from Shāhrokh to the Ottoman ruler Murād II (r. 1421–44, 1446–51).

Murād was called:

His Excellency the great sulṭān, master of the kings in the world, slayer of the

unbelievers and subduer of dissenters, the holy warrior on the path of God in

righteousness of purpose, complete of faith, axis of the mulk (realm, kingdom,

kingship) and of the faith, Sulṭān Murād (janāb-e sulṭān-e aʿẓam mawlá al-mulūk fī

al-ʿālam qātil al-kafara wa qāmiʿ al-fajara al-mujāhid fī sabīl Allāh bi-sidq al-niyya

wa kamāl al-iʻtiqād quṭban li’l-mulk wa al-dīn Sulṭān Murād).133

The use of janāb rather than ḥażrat firstly affords Murād an inferior status, akin to calling

him “His Excellency” rather than “His Majesty” if compared to European protocols. The fact

that Shāhrokh viewed Murād this way was likely due to Temür’s defeat and capture of

133 Nawā’ī, Asnād, 230.


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Murād’s paternal grandfather, Bāyazīd I (r. 1389–1402), at the Battle of Ankara in 1402. Yet

Murād was still courteously called “master of the kings in the world” (mawlá al-mulūk fī al-

ʿālam), which conveys an aura of “world” rulership. It should be noted though that malik (pl.

mulūk) had been considered a lowly title by the Ilkhans, and I surmise that this inferior

connotation of malik was also implied in Shāhrokh’s honorific for Murād, lest the Timurids

be included in the ranks of mulūk.134 Nonetheless, “master of the kings in the world” is still

an example of employing the notion of the “world” to express recognition of the expanse of a

ruler’s power, as opposed to mentioning the actual territory under his control.

Honorifics with references to regional rule may have been intentionally devised to

reflect the recipient’s non-independent and/or low-ranking status. References to regions,

while generally more in accord with geographical realities than references to the “world”

(e.g., ʿālam, jahān, gītī), were still often hyperbolic and/or metaphoric, and thus not intended

to mean politico-administrative jurisdiction over delineated territory. The Muzaffarid Shāh-

Yaḥya (r. 1387–91), for example, was indisputably Temür’s vassal, and in a fatḥnāma

(“conquest proclamation letter”) from Temür, Shāh-Yaḥya’s honorifics followed by his title

were:

The grand shāh, ruler of the lands of the ʿAjam, glory of the mamlakats of Īrān, the

khosraw of the horizons [of the earth], the aid of the world and of the faith, Shāh-

Yaḥya Bahādur (Bahadur)” (shāh-e aʿẓam shahryār-e diyār-e ʿAjam iftikhār-e

mamālik-e Īrān khosraw-e āfāq nusrat al-dunyā wa al-dīn Shāh-Yaḥya Bahādur).135

134 In Juwaynī’s Tārīkh-e jahāngoshāy, malik often referred to men acting essentially as local

governors. See also Jürgen Paul, Lokale und imperiale Herrschaft im Iran des 12. Jahrhunderts:

Herrschaftspraxis und Konzepte (Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2016), 78. The Ilkhans’ Mamlūk rivals, on the other hand, used the title malik prominently; see Broadbridge, Kingship and Ideology, 113n55.


83

Of the three spatial/territorial references in this sequence of honorifics, namely “ruler of the

lands of the ʿAjam,” “glory of the mamlakats of Īrān,” and “the khosraw of the horizons,”136

none can be read as recognition of Shāh-Yaḥya’s rule over actual demarcated territory.

According to the Ẓafarnāma by Niẓām al-Dīn Shāmī, “the governance of Shīrāz was

entrusted to Shāh-Yaḥya” (ḥukūmat-e Shīrāz rā be-Shāh-Yaḥya musallam farmūd) in the

wrap-up of Temür’s 789/1387 Fārs campaign.137 Temür at the same time granted Iṣfahān,

Kermān, and Sīrjān as soyurghals (soyūrghāl karāmat farmūd) to three other Muzaffarids

respectively. 138 The fact that Shāh-Yaḥya received the “governance” (ḥukūmat) of the

Muzaffarid capital, while the other three received soyurghals, suggests that he was installed

as the preeminent ruler of his dynasty. The above-cited honorifics, however, cannot be

interpreted as real-world delineation of Shāh-Yaḥya’s territorial jurisdiction, despite the

reference to “Īrān” (Iran), of which Fārs was the heartland during antiquity.

Rather, they were meant as courteous exaltation—with additional political subtext.

“Ruler of the lands of the ʿAjam” and “glory of the realms of Īrān,” while lofty-sounding,

reflected Shāh-Yaḥya’s status as a regional ruler, i.e., one whose “glory” shines in “Īrān”

(but not Tūrān, etc.) and who has sway over the “lands of the ʿAjam” (but not those of the

Arabs, Türks, Daylamites, etc.). The said “Īrān,” to be sure, also did not denote a politico-

136 Similar to “Caesar,” “Khosraw” was a proper noun that evolved into a common noun

meaning “king,” “ruler.” Famous people named “Khosraw” included the Sasanian kings Khosraw I (r.

531–79) and Khosraw II (r. 590, 591–628), as well as the legendary Kay Khosraw. 137 Shāmī, Ẓafarnāma, 105. See similar account in Yazdī, Ẓafarnāma, 1:597, “the governance

of Shīrāz was entrusted to Shāh-Yahya, paternal nephew of Shāh-Shujāʿ” (ḥukūmat-e Shīrāz rā be-

Shāh Yaḥya barādarzāda-e Shāh-Shujāʿ tafwīż farmūd). See also Manz, The Rise and Rule of

Tamerlane, 70–71. Temür had to end this expedition to counter the Jochid Toqtamısh Khan’s invasion of Transoxiana.

138 Yazdī, Ẓafarnāma, 1:597. Sulṭān-Muḥammad received Iṣfahān, Sulṭān-Aḥmad received

Kermān, and Sulṭān-Abū Isḥāq received Sīrjān. Soyurghal was a form of land grant; see See

Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, s.v. “Soyūrghāl” (by Ann K. S. Lambton), accessed November 1, 2019, https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-

2/soyurghal-SIM_7097.


https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/soyurghal-SIM_7097

https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/soyurghal-SIM_7097

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administrative territory in the 1380s. Rather, it was understood as a geographical and

historical entity. It alluded to the “Īrān” of (what modern people would consider) legend,

harkening back to the Shāhnāma (Book of Kings), and/or to the “Īrān” in the centuries prior

to Arab Muslim conquest.139 Shāh-Yaḥya could be called “glory of the realms of Īrān,” even

though his actual territory was only Shīrāz—and Muzaffarid Fārs by extension—precisely

because “Īrān” in the honorific did not designate a politico-administrative territory, but rather

served as a poetic expression based on historical and literary allusion.140 Meanwhile, “the

khosraw of the horizons” provided an amplified expression of space, thereby capping the

exaltation of Shāh-Yaḥya’s power and satisfying the underlying need for cultural-literary

sophistication dictated by the ʿilm al-inshā’.

At this point, it should be noted that while the artistically embellished references to

world or regional rule in Arabo-Persian honorifics contrasted with the standardized and

straightforward claims of sovereignty over specific territory that were embedded in European

139 Regarding the Ilkhanid and Timurid periods, Ahmad Ashraf notes that “prominent

historians of this period frequently referred to Iran and Irānzamin both as historical notions and as contemporaneous entities.” See Encyclopædia Iranica, s.v. “Iranian Identity iii. Medieval Islamic

Period” (by Ahmad Ashraf), accessed December 19, 2017,

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/iranian-identity-iii-medieval-islamic-period. Indeed, intellectuals kept “Īrān” contemporaneous as a geographical entity, but to the best of my knowledge,

neither “Īrān” nor “Tūrān” were demarcated as politico-administrative territory (e.g., in the way of

Māwarā al-Nahr, Khorāsān, Fārs, etc.) 140 Comparably, in the 1391 Uyghur-script Turkic stone inscription commemorating the

passage of Temür’s army on campaign against the Jochid ruler Toqtamısh Khan, Temür was referred

to as the sulṭān of Tūrān (Turannıng sultanı Temür Bäg). Yet from the substantial corpus of Timurid

histories and government documents, we can be certain that there also was not a politico-administrative entity called Tūrān with Temür as its sulṭān. In ancient Iranian geography, Tūrān was

the peer eastern neighbor of Īrān, so in medieval times, Tūrān was used as a poetic way of referring to

Transoxiana. The said stone was discovered in Karsakpay, Kazakhstan and is kept by the State Hermitage in St. Petersburg. For introduction to the stone, see Thomas W. Lentz and Glenn D. Lowry,

Timur and the Princely Vision: Persian Art and Culture in the Fifteenth Century (Los Angeles: Los

Angeles County Museum of Art, 1989), 25. The inscription begins with the bismillāh in Arabic

followed by main text in Turkic using Uyghur script. For transcription of the inscription, I indirectly referenced Sertkaya, “Timür Bek’in... Kitabeleri,” 36–37 through Qosimjon Sodiqov, Turkiy Til

Tarixi (Tashkent: Toshkent Davlat Sharqshunoslik Instituti), 92.

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and East Asian royal/aristocratic titles, we should not necessarily view the two conventions

as counterparts. For according to the ʿilm al-inshā’, the said references were optional; it was

not as if a Muslim ruler had to be defined in honorifics as a world or regional ruler in the first

place. In the earlier mentioned decree (sözümiz) of Shāhrokh to Ghiyās al-Dīn Khiżr Khan,

for instance, the latter was addressed as:

His Excellency the repository of mamlakat (the one on whom the mamlakat centers),

the magnificent sulṭān, the great khaqan, succor (ghiyās) of the regal fortune and of

the faith (al-dīn), Khiżr Khan (janāb-e mamlakat-ma’āb sulṭān-e muʿaẓẓam khāqān

(khaqan)-e aʿẓam ghiyās al-dawlat wa al-dīn Khiżr Khān). 141

In this case, Khiżr Khan ruled in Delhi, an important capital of Hindustān, and there was no

reference to either world or regional rule in his honorifics. Similarly, upon the death of the

Samarqand-based Naqshbandī master Khwāja ʿUbayd Allāh Aḥrār in 1490, Sulṭān-Ḥusayn

Mīrzā (r. 1469, 1470–1506), who ruled Khorāsān, wrote a letter of condolence to his third

cousin Muʿizz al-Dīn Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā (r. independently 1469–94), who ruled Māwarā

al-Nahr. Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā was addressed as:

His Excellency the repository of brotherliness [who is] of ruling descent, the one who

lays the foundations of kingship and governance, the builder of magnificence and

majesty, the confirmed of the confirmation of the Beneficent King (i.e., God), the

strengthener (muʿizz) of rulership, of the [mortal (transitory, material)] world (al-

dunyā), and of the faith (al-dīn), Sulṭān-Aḥmad Gūrakān (Güräkän)” (janāb-e

ukhūwat-maʼāb-e salṭanat-intisāb mumahhid-e qawāʿid al-salṭanat

wa iyālat mushayyid-e mabānī al-ʿaẓamat wa al-jalālat al-muʼayyid bi ta’yīd al-





86

Malik al-mannān muʿizz al-salṭanat wa al-dunyā wa al-dīn Sulṭān Aḥmad

Gūrakān).142

As the passage above shows, there was no effort to either exalt Sulṭān-Aḥmad as a “world

ruler”—something he might have appreciated given that he sat on Samarqand’s “throne of

world rule” (takht-e jahānbānī)143—or to call him the ruler of a named territory (which

would have been accurate, but very rude).

In sum, the spatial/territorial references in honorifics, when they were used, show an

underlying and arguably common sense notion that possessing territory was a mark of

rulership and power. However, in no sense did such possession translate into a conception of

rulership as being based on a particular territory, or that territory was the fundamental object

of a ruler’s rule. Rather, the very manner in which spatial/territorial references were

formulated shows that the Timurids and their Muslim neighbors did not find straightforward

statements of rulership over actual territory to be impressive. To them, rulership did not need

to be defined by real-world politico-administrative territories because there were well-

established alternatives. Through the exchanges of literarily refined honorifics loaded with

figurative expressions, they practiced a distinct and confident system of inter-ruler

representation that stood in contrast to those of their European and Chinese counterparts, who

claimed legal titles over delineated territories. In diplomatic relations anywhere, the

recognition or non-recognition of titles was likely to be a foundational question. With the

142 Nawā’ī, Asnād, 395. 143 Khwāndamīr referred to the throne of Samarqand as “the throne of world rule” (takht-e

jahānbānī) in the context of Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā’s successful takeover of the city in 1451 (Ghiyās

al-Dīn b. Humām al-Dīn Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar fī akhbār afrād-e bashar, ed. Jalāl al-

Dīn Humā’ī, 4 vols. (Tehrān: Kitābforūshī-e Khayyām, 1333/1954–55, 3rd repr. ed., 1362/1983–84),

4:50). Despite Harāt’s status, the “throne of Samarqand” meant a direct symbolic link to the rulership

of Temür, as will be further discussed in the next chapter.




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kind of titulature practiced by the Timurids, this question was not directly linked to territorial

claims. For Europeans and East Asians, on the other hand, this question was automatically

linked to territorial claims. This was especially true for Europeans, as a European ruler or

nobleman tended to accumulate territorial titles, whereas his East Asian counterpart would

tend to consolidate territorial possessions under a single title. I will further comment on the

broader implications of territorial versus non-territorial conception of rulership in the General

Conclusion of this thesis. For now, I only assert that the Chinggisid-Timurid world’s

conception of rulership vis-à-vis territory was indeed distinct from that of Europe and East

Asia. This distinction was perhaps best highlighted by the views and understandings of

Timurid rulership and political community vis-à-vis territory from England, France, Aragon,

the Teutonic Order, Castile, and Ming China. In these diplomatic encounters, would the

Timurids be understood on their own terms, or would they be refashioned to fit Europe and

China’s territorial conceptions of rulership?

European Perspectives: Between Nascent Understanding and Fanciful Imagining of

Timurid Rulership

In medieval Europe, regnal titles were usually formulated as a rank linked with the

name of a territory or with the name of a people. In Western and Central Europe, people-

based titles, such as the well-known “Emperor of the Romans” (Imperator Romanorum) and

“King of the Franks” (Francorum Rex), tended to be a legacy of the early medieval period.

Territorial titles had become mainstream by the time of our concern, i.e., the fourteenth and

fifteenth centuries. Possessing legitimate title to territories was very important under

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“feudalism,” which matured in the tenth to thirteenth centuries.144 As we will see, Charles VI

of France (r. 1380–1422) wrote a letter to Temür styling himself “King of the Franks”; but he

in fact held the title “King of France” (Middle Fr. Roy de France) as well.145 As we will also

see, King Henry IV of England (r. 1399–1413) wrote to Temür and [A]mīrānshāh Mīrzā b.

Temür using the title “King of England and France” (Rex Angliæ et Franciæ). This was in

the context of the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453), which began as a dispute over the

crown of France upon the death of Charles IV (r. 1322–28), and Edward III (r. 1327–77) was

the first King of England to add “King of France” to his titles. The English never fully

occupied France, where the House of Valois claimed the same title; and though by the end of

the war the English were driven out of all continental France except tiny Calais (which

France seized in 1558), it was not until 1800 that George III finally dropped the title “King of

France.” Such was the importance of territorial titles to the European conception of rulership.

In the 1390s and early 1400s, a number of rulers in Europe had diplomatic contact

with the Timurids. In addition to the aforementioned Charles VI and Henry IV, there were

the (eastern) Roman Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus (r. 1391–1425), King Martin I of

Aragon (r. 1396–1410), King Henry III of Castile and León (r. 1390–1406), and Conrad of

144 For an overview of the development of “feudalism,” see Francois Louis Ganshof,

Feudalism, trans. Philip Grierson (Toronto: Medieval Academy of America, 1996). On the problems

with using the term “feudalism,” see Elizabeth A. R. Brown, “The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism

and Historians of Medieval Europe.” The American Historical Review 79, no. 4 (1974): 1063–88. 145 E.g. The Latin version of the Treaty of Troyes (1420) published in England features

Charles VI’s title as “King of the Franks” (Francorum Rex), while two French copies kept at the

Archives Nationales feature “King of France” (Roy de France); compare the Latin treaty in Thoma Rymer, ed., Fœdera, Conventiones, Literæ et Cujuscunque Generis Acta Publica inter Reges Angliae:

Tomi Quarti Pars III. et IV, 164, with the French in Eugène Cosneau, ed., Les Grands Traités de la

Guerre de Cent Ans (Paris: Libraire des Archives Nationales et de la Sociétè de l’École des Chartes, 1889), 102. Temür’s letter to Charles VI addressed him as “King of France” (ملک ری دفرنسا). See De

Sacy, “Mémoire sur une correspondance,” 473, and Wikipedia Commons, s.v. “Letter of Tamerlane to

Charles VI 1402,” accessed December 19, 2017,

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Letter_of_Tamerlane_to_Charles_VI_14 02.jpg. On the origin of the title “King of France,” see Georges Duby, France in the Middle Ages, 987–1460: From

Hugh Capet to Joan of Arc, trans. Juliet Vale (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1991), 129–30.

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Jungingen, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order from 1393–1407. The history of Temür’s

relations with Christian powers has been treated at length by Adam Knobler and Peter

Jackson.146 In addition, Anthony Luttrell contributed a study on Johannes (En. John; Fr. Jean),

a Dominican bishop who at one point served as the Archbishop of Sulṭāniyya.147 Johannes of

Sulṭāniyya, as he became known, visited European rulers on behalf of Temür and

Amīrānshāh, and was perhaps the main source of information about the Timurids for the

English, French, and Aragonese courts, as well as for the Teutonic Order. Johannes of

Sulṭāniyya’s memoirs in French were published by H. Moranvillé in “Mémoire sur Tamerlan

et sa cour par un Dominicain, en 1403,” and in Latin by Anton Kern in “Der ‘libellus de

notitia orbis’.” In the French work, in which Temür was consistently mentioned as Temir Bey,

it is pointedly stated that his title is Temir Geracan, and that “he is named neither king, nor

emperor, nor other lord” (ne il ne se nomme ne roy, ne empereur, ne autre seigneur).148

While the “Der ‘libellus de notitia orbis’” is an incomplete work, it also does not seem to

refer to Temür as the ruler of anything, but only as “Themur,”149 “Themurlan[k],”150 and

“Themurbey,” 151 and occasionally “lord” (Lat. nom. dominus). I leave it a tentative

hypothesis that Johannes of Sulṭāniyya likely informed the European courts about the

conventions of Timurid titulature, and I now turn to analyzing the European response letters

146 See Adam Knobler, “The Rise of Tīmūr and Western Diplomatic Response, 1390–1405,”

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3rd ser., 5, no. 3 (1995): 341–49; and “Chapter 9: Temür

(Tamerlane) and Latin Christendom” in Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the West, 1221–1410 (New York: Routledge, 2014), 235–55.

147 See Anthony Luttrell, “Timur’s Dominican Envoys,” in Studies in Ottoman History in

Honour of Professor V.L. Ménage, ed. Colin Heywood and Colin Imber (Istanbul: Isis, 1994), 209–29. 148 H. Moranvillé, ed., “Mémoire sur Tamerlan et sa cour par un Dominicain, en 1403,”

Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 55 (1894): 444–45. 149 Anton Kern, ed., “Der ‘libellus de notitia orbis’,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 8

(1938): 121. 150 Kern, “Der ‘libellus de notitia orbis’,” 99, 104, 107, 112–13, 117, 118. 151 Kern, “Der ‘libellus de notitia orbis’,” 110.

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to Temür and Amīrānshāh Mīrzā. The authors of these letters had to decide how to refer to

the respective rulerships of the father and son, and from their decisions we can see the

meeting of two dissimilar politico-diplomatic cultures.

Seven Latin-language letters from European rulers to Temür or Amīrānshāh Mīrzā

are known to exist. Normally, the letters begin with the name and title of the sending ruler

followed by those of the recipient. The styles of the European rulers show no deviation from

the protocols they used in formal diplomatic letters among themselves. There was, however,

no prior protocol in European diplomatic circles regarding how to properly style Temür and

Amīrānshāh, and so unsurprisingly, variations occurred. At the same time though, there are

also major similarities in the way Temür and Amīrānshāh Mīrzā were addressed. For instance,

all the letters called them (Lat. nom.) princeps,152 suggesting a common source of advice—

again, most likely Johannes of Sulṭāniyya. More important, of the seven letters, five did not

address Temür or Amīrānshāh Mīrzā as the ruler of anything.

While the rationale behind the wording of the letters may never be known, there is

evidence that the authors of the English, French, and Teutonic letters understood that

Timurid titulature did not include territorial claims. The opening lines of the letters from

Henry IV of England may be the best example of this:

Henry, by the Grace of God, King of England and France, and Lord of Ireland, to the

magnificent and prepotent Prince lord Temürbey Kürägän Ghāzī, our friend most

beloved in God, greetings and peace in the Savior of all (HENRICUS Dei gratia Rex

Angliæ et Franciæ ac Dominus Hiberniæ magnifico et prepotenti Principi domino

152 The Latin word princeps entered a number of other European languages including English,

and is the origin of the word “prince.” In certain contexts, princeps could mean “leader,” or “chief.” Moreover, several European titles not etymologically related to princeps, became translated or treated

as “prince,” for example, reichsfürst as princeps imperii, or “Prince of the Holy Roman Empire.”

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Themurbeo Kurngan Gazinuus amico nostro, quamplurimum in Deo dilecto salutem

et pacem in omnium Salvatore).153

Henry, by the Grace of God, to the magnificent and potent Prince, Lord Mīrzā

Amīrānshāh, son of Temürbey, our friend beloved in God, greetings in the Savior of

all (Henricus, Dei gratia, etc., magnifico et potenti Principi, Domino Mirassa

Amirassa, filio Themurbey, amico nostro in Deo dilecto, salutem in omnium

Salvatore).154

As the passage above shows, Henry’s rulership, defined by England, France, and Ireland, was

written according to long-existing protocol. Temür and Amīrānshāh, on the other hand, were

“princes” and “lords” without territory. There are indications that the author(s) of the two

letters put in careful consideration over diction. Temür was called “the magnificent and

prepotent Prince” (magnifico et prepotenti Principi) while Amīrānshāh was called “the

magnificent and potent Prince” (magnifico et potenti Principi), with the slight difference

between “prepotent” and “potent” reflecting the father’s higher status. In the letter to Temür,

the words Kurngan Gazinuus were crossed out—maybe out of Christian sensibilities over the

word Gazinuus (Ar. ghāzī- “holy warrior”)—showing an editing mind behind the pen.

Therefore, the fact that Temür and Amīrānshāh were not addressed as the rulers of any

territory was likely also deliberate, and if true, then it would suggest that the representation

of Timurid rulership had been accurately communicated to the authors.

153 Henry Ellis, ed., Original Letters Illustrative of English History Including Numerous

Royal Letters: From Autographs in the British Museum, the State Paper Office, and One or Two Other Collections. Third Series, vol. 1. (London: Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty, 1846), 56.

Year of the letter believed to be 1402 (ibid., 54). 154 Francis Charles Hingeston, ed., Royal and Historical Letters during the Reign of Henry

the Fourth, King of England and of France, and Lord of Ireland, vol. 1, A.D. 1399–1404 (London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1860), 425. Letter was written in February of an uncertain

year (ibid., 426).

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The authors of the letter to Temür from Charles VI of France, and the letters to Temür

and Amīrānshāh from Conrad of Jungingen, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, also did

not address the father or son as ruler of any territory. The opening lines of the three letters are:

Charles, by the Grace of God, King of the Franks, to the most serene and victorious

prince Temürbey, greetings and peace (Carolus, Dei gratiâ, Francorum rex,

serenissimo ac victorioissimo principi Themyrbeo, salutem et pacem).155

To the most illustrious and victorious prince lord Temürbey, Brother Conrad of

Jungingen, Grand Master of the Order of the Blessed Mary’s Jerusalemite Hospital of

the Teutonic House… (Illustrissimo ac victorioissimo principi domino Themerbeio

frater Conradus de Jungingen, magister generalis ordinis beate Marie hospitalis

Jerusalemitani de domo Theutunica salutem et benevolenciam ad omne bonum).156

To the most serene and clement prince, lord Mīrānshāh Mīrzā, son of Temürbey,

Brother Conrad of Jungingen, Grand Master of the Order of the Blessed Mary’s

Jerusalemite Hospital… (Serenissimo ac clementissimo principi domino Miranscha

Anirza filio Themerbey, frater Conradus de Jungingen, magister generalis ordinis

beate Marie hospitalis Jerusalemitani etc. salutem et eterne salutis agnoscere

salvatorem).157

In these three letters, the spelling of Temür and Amīrānshāh’s names, as well as the epithets

afforded them, are different from those in the two letters from the English court. Johannes of

Sulṭāniyya’s influence on the English court’s letters might have been the strongest, as their

spelling Themur matches that in the Latin translation of Johannes’s memoirs. Though again,

155 De Sacy, “Mémoire sur une correspondance,” 521–22. Letter dated June 15, 1403. 156 Kurt Forstreuter, “Der Deutsche Orden und Südosteuropa,” Kyrios: Vierteljahresschrift

für Kirchen- und Geistesgeschichte Osteuropas 1 (1936): 270. Letter dated January 20, 1407. 157 Forstreuter, “Der Deutsche Orden und Südosteuropa,” 269. Letter dated January 20, 1407.

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in all the letters, Johannes’s input in some form would have been likely since he had brought

information about the Timurids to the European courts. I hope that in the future, scholars will

be able to gather the original manuscripts of the response letters and of Johannes’s memoirs,

along with the Latin translations of the two letters to Charles VI from Temür and

Amīrānshāh, respectively,158 and conduct handwriting analyses to better determine the extent

of Johannes’s involvement or influence. With the printed editions of the response letters, I

can only go as far as to point out the varying wordings by which Timurid rulership was

represented.

In contrast to the English, French, and Teutonic letters, the two letters from Martin I,

King of Aragon, refashioned Temür and Amīrānshāh’s titles along European lines of

rulership. The openings of the Aragonese letters are:

Martin etc. to the victorious prince distinguished by victorious titles of justice, martial

renown, and other virtues, Temür Bey, most potent lord of the whole Orient,

greetings... (Martinus etc. victorioso principi victoriosis justitie et militaris glorie

aliarumque virtutum titulis insignito Tamurbeo potentissimo domino totius orientis,

salutem in eo per quem reges regnant et isporsum gloria, si recte in viis domini

ambulaverint, eternature).159

158 The Latin translations of the two letters were published in De Sacy, “Mémoire sur une

correspondance,” 478–80. Amīrānshāh’s original letter is apparently lost. Peter Jackson believes that the Latin translation of Temür’s letter was “drafted, in all probability, by John,” i.e., Johannes of

Sulṭāniyya; see Jackson, The Mongols and the West, 243. 159 Antoni Rubió y Lluch, ed., Diplomatari de l’Orient Català (1301–1409): Colleció de

Documents per a la Història de l’Expedició Catalana a Orient i dels Ducats d’Atenes i Neopàtri.

(Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans, 1947), 700. Letter dated April 1, 1404. A special thanks to

Mamluk and Crusades specialist Dr. Bogdan Smarandache for this translation. I am unable to access

the original manuscript of the letter; Martinus etc. is presumably Martinus Dei gratia rex Aragonum (“Martin, by the Grace of God, King of Aragon”), as written out in the earlier letter from King Martin

I to Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, printed in Rubió y Lluch, ed., Diplomatari, 690.

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Martin etc. to the most serene prince Mīrānshāh Mīrzā, lord of the Medes and

Persians, son of the victorious prince Temür Bey, most potent lord of the whole

Orient… (Martinus etc. serenissimo principi Miranxa Amisa Medorum et Persarum

domino natoque victoriosi principis Tamurbei, potentissimo domino totius orientis,

salutem in eo cuius est regnum et imperium sine fine).160

Though the Timurid letters to Martin are not available, the author(s) of Martin’s letters

almost certainly ignored the Timurds’ self-representation, using instead their own

imagination. Calling Temür “the most potent lord of the whole Orient” was possibly inspired

by the Aragonese knowledge that the Archbishop of Sulṭāniyya claimed jurisdiction over the

“whole Orient.”161 As for Amīrānshāh being “the lord of the Medes and Persians,” this

corresponded to the correct location of the mīrzā’s appanage, but was far from an accurate

translation of any title or style he held. The inspiration for “Medes and Persians” might have

come from the Bible, though it should be noted that for Europeans of the time, Media was

still an existing place.162 By being so far off the mark, the author(s) of the Aragonese letters

revealed in his/their own way the fault lines between the Timurid and European models of

representing rulership. It must have been too strange for the Aragonese that the powerful

Temür, who had conquered so much and even crushed Christendom’s nemesis Bāyazīd I,

160 Rubió y Lluch, ed., Diplomatari, 701. Letter dated April 1, 1404. 161 On the geographical division of Catholic missionary activity in the time of Johannes of

Sulṭāniyya, see Luttrell, “Timur’s Dominican Envoys,” 210. 162 E.g., Ruy González de Clavijo, in passing through Nīshābūr, called the city “the capital of

the territory of Media” (cabeza de tierra de Média), and considered Média to be neighboring but not

part of Khorāsān. See Ruy González de Clavijo, Historia del Gran Tamorlan, ed. Eugenio de

Lalguno Amírola. (Madrid: Don Antonio de Sancha, 1782),128; Clements R. Markham, trans., Narrative of the Embassy (London: Hakluyt Society, 1859), 108; Guy Le Strange, trans., Embassy to

Tamerlane, 1403–1406 (London: The Broadway Travellers, 1928. Repr. ed., London:

RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), 97. In this project, all English translations of passages from Clavijo’s

travelogue were modified from Clements Markham’s Narrative of the Embassy (1859). Markham’s translation as a whole does not take as much liberty as Guy Le Strange’s Embassy to Tamerlane

(1928, reprinted 2005).

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should not have regnal title to any territory or people. The author(s) of Martin’s letters

was/were not the only one(s) who resorted to borrowing from European political culture in

order to fill gaps in understanding of Timurid rulership and political community vis-à-vis

territory.

I now turn to a different kind of source, in the form of the travelogue by Ruy

González de Clavijo (d. 1412), an ambassador to Temür from Henry III, King of Castile and

León. In his travelogue, Clavijo believed there to be a polity called the “Empire of

Samarqand” (Imperio de Samarcante), reigned over by an “Emperor of Samarqand”

(Emperador de Samarcante), as well as other “empires” under Timurid rule. 163 Clavijo

introduced Temür at the beginning of the travelogue in the following way:

The great Lord Temürbek, having killed the Emperor of Samarqand and taken the

Empire, whereby his own lordship commenced, as you will presently hear; and

having conquered all the land of Mongolia, which is contained in the said Empire,

and the land of India Minor; also having conquered all the Empire of Khorāsān,

which is a great lordship… (El gran Señor Tamurbec, aviendo muerto al Emperador

de Samarcante y tomadose el Imperio, onde comenzó la su señoria, segun adelante

oiredes, y aviendo despues conquistado toda tierra de Mogalia, que se contiene con

este dicho Imperio y con tierra de la India menor: otrosi aviendo conquistado toda

tierra é Imperio de Orazania, que es un gran señorio…)164

163 The question of the travelogue’s authorship has not been settled by experts of Spanish,

though I do not believe the eye-witness nature of the work has been doubted. See Patricia E. Mason,

“The Embajada a Tamorlán: Self-Reference and the Question of Authorship,” Neophilologus 78, no.

1 (1994): 79–87. On tentative grounds, I use “Clavijo” to denote the author, whose real identity, if ascertained one day, may be cause to reexamine/debunk my analyses based on the travelogue.

164 Clavijo, Historia del Gran Tamorlan, 25; Markham, Narrative of the Embassy, 3.

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Clavijo never named this “Emperor of Samarqand.” The ambassador recounted later that

Temür “took the wife of the Emperor and married her, and has her as his principal wife today”

(é tomó la muger del Emperador, é casóse con ella, é hoy dia la tiene por su muger

mayor).165 By this account, the “Emperor” would have had to be Amīr Ḥusayn (d. 1370) of

the Qara’unas tribe, the preeminent amīr of the ulus of Chaghatay from 1364–70. Temür

indeed took Amīr Ḥusayn’s wife Sarāy-Malik Khanım b. Qazan Khan as his own principal

wife after Amīr Ḥusayn’s downfall. Clavijo’s description of the “Emperor’s” final flight and

capture also resembles what had happened to Amīr Ḥusayn.166

It is possible that this “Emperor” personality was also partially based on Kābul-Shāh

Khan (r. 1364–70), who like Amīr Ḥusayn, was killed in the aftermath of Temür’s rise to

power in the ulus of Chaghatay, though supposedly without Temür’s approval.167 In Clavijo’s

understanding of Chinggisid history, Chinggis Qan was “an Emperor in Tartaria” (un

Emperador en Tartaria) “and left the son who had been named Chaghatay with the Empire

of Samarqand along with other territory” (é al fijo que avia nombre Chacatáy dexóle este

Imperio de Samarcante con otra tierra).168 Furthermore, Clavijo referred to Sarāy-Malik

Khanım as the daughter of an “Emperor,” who had khan (Sp. can) as part of his name: “…

and this Khanım was the daughter of an Emperor, who was the Lord of Samarqand and all its

territory along with Persia and Damascus, and he was named Ahincan” (é esta Caño fué fija

de un Emperador, que fué Señor de Samarcante é de toda su tierra, con la Persia en

Damasco, é avia nombre Ahincan).169 I am not certain about the origin of “Ahincan,” but by

165 Clavijo, Historia del Gran Tamorlan, 146; Markham, Narrative of the Embassy, 128. 166 Clavijo, Historia del Gran Tamorlan, 145; Markham, Narrative of the Embassy, 127–28. 167 Kābul-Shāh Khan was installed by Amīr Ḥusayn. See Shāmī, Ẓafarnāma, 27 and Yazdī,

Ẓafarnāma, 1:307, 399, and Manz, Rise and Rule of Tamerlane, 57. 168 Clavijo, Historia del Gran Tamorlan, 146; Markham, Narrative of the Embassy, 128. 169 Clavijo, Historia del Gran Tamorlan, 174; Markham, Narrative of the Embassy, 155.

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the logic of the previous two passages, the “Emperor of Samarqand” should have been the

khan of the ulus of Chaghatay. However, in the same account of Chinggisid history, Clavijo

erroneously claimed that Chaghatay Khan was killed in a local uprising, and seemed to imply

that the Chaghatayid house did not continue to rule thereafter.170 In short, Clavijo did not

demonstrate a clear understanding of Chaghatayid khanship vis-à-vis Amīr Ḥusayn’s

amirship.171 Nonetheless, we see that Clavijo basically did not misconstrue the rulership of

Temür, calling him throughout the travelogue only Tamurbec (“Temür Bek”) and señor

(“lord”), and not “emperor” of any kind. Yet at the same time, Clavijo was thoroughly

convinced of there being an “Emperor of Samarqand” and “Empire of Samarqand”—which

was completely different from contemporaneous Timurid understanding.

There are multiple other mentions of “Emperor of Samarqand” and “Empire of

Samarqand” in the travelogue. One passage in particular shows that Clavijo saw the “Empire

of Samarqand” as constituting more than what the locals would have regarded as

“Samarqand,” be it the city (shahr) or the surrounding wilāyat by the same name:

On the Thursday that the ambassadors reached this great river (Oxus), they crossed to

the other side, and, in the afternoon, they arrived at a great city called Termeẕ, which

once belonged to India Minor, but is now in the territory of the Empire of Samarqand,

having been gained by Temürbek, and from this river the Empire of Samarqand

begins. And the territory of this Empire of Samarqand is called the territory of

Mongolia, and the tongue of this people is Mongolian, and those on the other side of

170 Clavijo, Historia del Gran Tamorlan, 146–47; Markham, Narrative of the Embassy, 128–

29. 171 By the time Clavijo embarked on his mission in 1403, Sulṭān-Maḥmud Khan (1384–1402)

had died and was not succeeded by a new khan. Amīr Ḥusayn had been dead for over thirty years. Thus, Clavijo was able to gain first-hand knowledge about Temür, but could only have learned about

the khanship and Amīr Ḥusayn through hearsay.


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the river do not know it, as they all speak the Persian tongue… (E este dicho dia

jueves que los dichos Embajadores llegaron á este gran río, en la tarde fueron en una

gran ciudad que es llamada Termit, é ésta solía ser de la India menor, é agora es del

Imperio de Samarcante, que la ganó el Tamurbec. É deste rio adelante se empezaba

el Imperio de Samarcante: é la tierra deste Imperio de Samarcante se llama tierra de

Mogalia, é la su lengua se llama Mugalia; é non se entiende esta lengua quende el

río, porque fablan todos la lengua Persiana... )172

As the passage above indicates, Clavijo believed “Mongolia” (Mogalia) to be the

geographical name of the place where he was visiting and “Empire of Samarqand” to be the

name of the polity.173 When a new territory like Termeẕ was conquered, it was incorporated

into this “empire.” In reality, Timurid acquisition of wilāyats/shahrs like Termeẕ did not

result in incorporation under a unified territorial name (e.g., “Samarqand”). In a newly

conquered wilāyat/shahr, coins would have been struck, 174 and the Friday sermon (khuṭba)

would have been read, 175 in the conqueror’s name. These two acts signified his legitimate

rule over the territory. Reorganization of administrative borders was always possible,

172 Clavijo, Historia del Gran Tamorlan, 138; Markham, Narrative of the Embassy, 119–20. 173 I benefited from Karen Daly’s point that “the modernity of Clavijo’s narrative lies in the

accurate setting in time and place in the traveler’s present: he scrupulously avoids resorting to fantasy

or imagination in the descriptions of the territory he passes through, as is typical of earlier medieval

travelers” (Karen M. Daly, “Mapping Medieval Space in the Embajada a Tamorlán,” Medieval

Perspectives 23 (2008): 20). At the same time, we should note that Clavijo’s naming of places, e.g., “Media” and “Tartalia [Tartary],” were vastly incongruent with native geographical understanding

(see ibid., 27). 174 For samples of Timurid coins, see Stanley Lane-Poole, Catalogue of Oriental Coins, vol. 7,

The Coinage of Bukhárá (Transoxiana) in the British Museum from the Time of Timur to the Present

Day (London: Gilbert and Rivington, 1882), 3–53; and Lane-Poole, Catalogue of the Mohammadan

Coins, 17. The territorial name could stand alone (e.g., Shīrāz) or be part of the phrase żarb-e… (“mint of/minted in…”), e.g., żarb-e Harāt (“minted in Harāt”) (Lane-Poole, Catalogue of Oriental

Coins, vol. 7, 16, 32.). Either way, the territorial name was not grammatically linked with the name,

title, or honorifics of the ruler(s) on the same coin—the ruler was conspicuously not called the ruler of

the territory/city where the coin had been minted. 175 For an example of a Timurid khuṭba, see Shāhrokh Mīrzā’s decree to Khiżr Khan in

Nawā’ī, Asnād, 145.

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including in peace time, but a conquered territory did not become a subdivision of the

conqueror’s prior-held territory. Clavijo’s belief that Termeẕ was incorporated into the

“Empire of Samarqand” perhaps reflected how he, as a European, understood “empire.” The

Roman Empire, for instance, received its name from its capital city of Rome, and conquered

territories became part of the Roman Empire despite being well outside the bounds of the city.

While Clavijo saw the gaining of a relatively small territory like Termeẕ in terms of

annexation into an “empire,” he did not view the “Empire of Samarqand” as Temür’s all-

encompassing dominion. Larger territories, like “[H]orazania” (Khorāsān) and “Persia,” were

also “empires.” Clavijo repeatedly referred to an “Empire of Khorāsān” (Imperio de

[H]orazania), which as he mentioned in the beginning of the travelogue, was conquered by

Temür. Then in a later chapter, the ambassador elaborated: “Thus it was that he gained these

two Empires, of Samarqand and Khorāsān” (E desta manera ovo estos dos Imperios, el de

Samarcante é Horazania).176 Clavijo considered Khorāsān to have continued as an “empire”

separate from the “Empire of Samarqand.” Tellingly, post-conquest Khorāsān would have its

own “emperor.” On their way to Samarqand, Clavijo and his colleagues were invited by

Shāhrokh Mīrzā to visit Harāt, an offer they declined on grounds that Temür had ordered

them to go directly to Samarqand. As part of this account, Clavijo noted that “this Shāhrokh

Mīrzā was Emperor and Lord of the territory of Khorāsān” (E este Xaharoc Mirassa era

Emperador y Señor desta tierra de Orazania).177 On their return trip, the Castilians were

similarly ordered to go pay homage to ʿUmar Mīrzā b. Amīrānshāh, whom Clavijo called

“Lord and Emperor of Persia and many other territories” (Señor y Emperador de la Persia, é

176 Clavijo, Historia del Gran Tamorlan, 146; Markham, Narrative of the Embassy, 128. 177 Clavijo, Historia del Gran Tamorlan, 128–29; Markham, Narrative of the Embassy, 109.

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de otras tierras asaz).178 It was as if the Timurid world was being remolded in the image of

Europe, where one dynasty could have its members take the crowns of multiple realms and

not necessarily unify all crowns into one.

Clavijo and the author(s) of the Aragonese letters superimposed elements of the

European conception of rulership and political community vis-à-vis territory onto the

Timurids. However, in Clavijo’s representation of Temür as a non-territorially specific “great

lord,” and in the English, French, and Teutonic letters addressing Temür and Amīrānshāh as

non-territorially specific “princes,” we see that some accurate understanding of Timurid

titulature may have been attained. What is certain is that Timurid political culture in this

regard was substantially different from that of Europe. As we saw with Clavijo, even though

he travelled across Iran and Central Asia and directly engaged with the Timurids as a

diplomat, he did not demonstrate an accurate understanding of Timurid amirship in relation

to the ulus of Chaghatay. Instead, he resorted to his imagination along familiar European

lines, presenting to his audiences back home the “Empire of Samarqand.”

The Chinese Perspective: Timurids as Rulers of Samarqand and Harāt

At the other end of Eurasia, the scholar-officials of Ming China did not grasp the

Timurids much better, despite having a much longer period of diplomatic contacts with the

Timurids than the Europeans had. The Ming polity (1368–ca. 1644), which diplomatically

and commercially engaged with the Timurids from the reign of Temür to that of Sulṭān-

Aḥmad Mīrzā, 179 was basically uncomprehending of Timurid conventions of titulature.

178 Clavijo, Historia del Gran Tamorlan, 184; Markham, Narrative of the Embassy, 203. The

word “Emperor” was left out in Markham’s translation. 179 In the last half century, Western studies on the general history and historiography of Ming-

Timurid relations include Morris Rossabi, “Ming China’s Relations with Hami and Central Asia,


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Official logs of daily events at the Ming court and major news from the provinces and abroad

were compiled into so-called Veritable Records (Shilu《實錄》). The Timurids nearly

always show up in the Veritable Records as rulers of territorial polities, though with a

noticeable exception in the case of two entries that followed the return home of the diplomat

Fu An (傅安), as will be discussed. Does this mean that Timurid envoys portrayed their

masters to the Ming court as rulers of territorial polities? This possibility cannot be ruled out,

especially if it was to cater to the Chinese, who had a long tradition of defining rulership and

polity by territory. It was, however, more likely that Ming scholar-officials dogmatically

superimposed their own preconceptions upon the Timurids. In any case, the way in which the

Ming was largely oblivious to the Timurids’ self-representation of rulership during a century

of contacts highlights just how much the two politico-diplomatic cultures differed on this

issue. Before examining this subtle clash of cultures, I briefly review the Chinese

conceptions of rulership and political community vis-à-vis territory, and the vital term guo

(國).

The kings (wang 王) of the Zhou polity (周 1046–256 BCE), with their power base in

the Central Plains,180 claimed to rule “[all] under heaven” (tianxia 天下). Since “[all] under

heaven” was in practice roughly 500,000 square kilometers of land that needed security and

1404–1513” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1970), 63–75, 109–21; Ralph Kauz, Politik und Handel zwischen Ming und Timuriden (Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2005); and Tibor, “The Timurid

Empire and the Ming China: Theories and Approaches Concerning the Relations of the Two” (PhD,

diss., Eötvös Loránd University, 2007). See also Graeme Ford, “The Uses of Persian in Imperial

China: Translating Practices at the Ming Court,” in The Persianate World: The Frontiers of a Eurasian Lingua Franca, ed. Nile Green (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019), 116–19.

180 The Central Plains (zhongyuan 中原) mainly spans the modern provinces of Henan (河南)

and Shanxi (山西). The Zhou had multiple capitals/royal residences. For in-depth studies on early

Zhou geopolitical organization, see Li, Landscape and Power in Early China: The Crisis and Fall of

the Western Zhou, 1045–771 BC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 27–90; and Maria Khayutina, “Royal Hospitality and Geopolitical Constitution of the Western Zhou Polity,” T’oung

Pao 96, no. 1 (2010): 1–73.

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governance, the kings enfeoffed members of the royal house and certain non-royals as lords

of guos. These guos were hereditary territorial holdings autonomous in civil and military

administration; the name of a lord’s guo followed by his rank served as his formal title (e.g.,

when the lord of the guo of Qin carried the rank of gong, he was entitled Qin Gong 秦公).

After 770 BCE, the effective authority of the Zhou kings greatly diminished, leaving the guos

in a five hundred-year period of contention with each other, though the Zhou was still looked

to as a standard for political culture and legitimacy. By the fifth century BCE, borders of the

guos were well demarcated, in some places with defensive walls stretching hundreds of

kilometers.181 The pictographic character for guo began to feature borders on four sides by no

later than the third century BCE (see Figure 1),182 and this basic complexion has remained

into the modern era (see Figure 2). In 256 BCE, a highly reformist and expansionist guo

called Qin (秦國) ended formal Zhou sovereignty by force. Qin

conquered the last of its fellow guos in 221 BCE, and then proceeded

to implement watershed changes. Huangdi (皇帝 “emperor”) replaced

wang (王 “king”) as the title of the sovereign. Refusing to copy the Zhou system of guos, Qin

instead drew up provinces (jun 郡, often translated as “prefecture” or “commandery”) headed

by centrally-appointed governors (junshou 郡守) holding limited tenure. Non-hereditary

governorships continued as the predominant system of regional administration in the long

span of post-Qin history, but the guo as a sub-sovereign polity was revived immediately after

181 According to Li Feng, the early guos “existed as layered clusters of settlements with no

definite demarcating boundaries,” whereas the guos became “clearly demarcated territorial entities” in the fifth to third centuries BCE. See Li, Landscape and Power in Early China, 184.

182 Figure 1 was taken from 國際電腦漢字及異體字知識庫 International Coded Han

Character and Variants Database, s.v. “國” (guo) accessed January 1, 2018,

http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/evolution.jsp?cid=8972#.

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the Qin’s collapse in 207 BCE. The two systems thenceforth tended to coexist unevenly,183

and during times of imperial weakness, certain lords of guos were advantageously positioned

to become emperor. From 202 BCE to 960 CE, it was typical for the lord of a guo to

proclaim himself emperor and continue to use his guo’s name to denote all the territories

unified or claimed under his rule.184 In this context, an emperor’s entire sovereign domain

also came to be known as guo (while the enfeoffment of lords with sub-sovereign guos

remained an imperial prerogative).

Since the early period of Mongol contact with the Chinese cultural sphere, ulus was

translated as guo. The word-for-word rendering of Yeke Mongγol Ulus (“Great Mongol Ulus”)

into Chinese was Da Menggu Guo (大蒙古國, “Great Mongol Guo”).185 In late 1271, Qubilai

Qa’an (r. 1260–94) was ready to adopt an official “guo designation” (guohao 國號) to further

establish his legitimacy from the perspective of Chinese political culture. Yet no territorial

name had defined the rulership of Qubilai Qa’an and his predecessors, and Qubilai’s

mandarins were well aware that the guo designations of the preceding fifteen centuries had

by-and-large been derived from territorial names. They therefore innovatively bent tradition

by adopting the guo designation Da Yuan (大元 “Great Yuan”), meaning “great origin,”

183 On enfeoffment versus direct imperial rule in post-Zhou history, see David McMullen,

“Devolution in Chinese History: The Fengjian Debate Revisited,” International Journal of China

Studies 2, no. 2 (2011): 140–50. 184 The post-Qin guos that rose from sub-sovereignty to sovereignty included the Han (漢 206

BCE–9 CE, reinstated 25–220 CE), Xin (新 9–23 CE), Wei (魏 220–65), Jin (晉 265–420), Sui (隋

581–618), Tang (唐 618–90, reinstated 705–907), and Song (宋 960–1279). “Xin” was derived from

“Xindu” (新都), as Wang Mang (王莽) was “Lord of Xindu” (新都侯) prior to becoming emperor.

The Song was not technically a guo, but it was the Song Prefecture (宋州), where Zhao Kuangyin

(趙匡胤) garrisoned prior to becoming the founding emperor. In the early fourth to fifth century CE,

rulers of steppe nomadic origin commonly adopted guo designations by reinstituting the names of

defunct but historically well-known guos. For example, there was the Han (漢 declared 304, changed

to Zhao 趙 in 319, ended in 329) founded by the Xiongnu (匈奴), the Qin (秦 350–94) founded by the

Di (氐), the Wei (魏 386–557) founded by the Xianbei (鮮卑). 185 See Kim, “Was ‘Da Yuan’ a Chinese Dynasty?,” 285.

104

which alluded to an I Ching quote that defines an ancient concept of divination called qian

(乾): “O great is the origin of the qian; all things take their beginning [from it], [it] thus

permeates (is at the root of) heaven. The clouds move, the rain drops, people and things take

form. [Having] great clarity of beginning and end (of cause and effect), [one] fulfills the six

steps at the [right] time, [as if] by then riding in heaven on six dragons” (大哉乾元萬物資始

乃統天雲行雨施品物流形大明始終六位時成時乘六龍以御天).186 To be sure, we know

that Qubilai Qa’an and his successors drew upon the political cultures of diverse subject

peoples while maintaining key Mongol traditions.187 Paul Buell summarized this important

backdrop:

Although Qubilai’s reign marked the ‘territorialization’ of the Mongols in China and

the adoption by them of various legitimizing guises to gain the support and

recognition of their rule by their preponderately Chinese subjects, it did not mean the

abandonment of the Mongolian governmental and administrative system worked out

under the empire… Yüan China was one evolutionary outgrowth of the Mongolian

186 I consulted Richard Wilhelm’s translation: “Great indeed is the generating power of the

Creative; all beings owe their beginning to it. This power permeates all heaven… The clouds pass and the rain does its work, and all individual beings flow into their forms… Because he sees with great

clarity and cause and effects, he completes the six steps at the right time and mounts toward heaven

on them at the right time, as though on six dragons” (The I Ching or Book of Changes, trans. Richard

Wilhem (New York: Pantheon Books, 1950), 1–2). The I Ching (《易》, 《易經》) is an ancient

classic of divination and philosophy. This explanation for the choice of “Great Yuan” is given in an

edict in which Qubilai proclaimed “the guo designation shall be ‘Great Yuan,’ taking the meaning of

‘the origin of the qian’ in the I Ching” (可建國號曰大元蓋取易經乾元之義) (Song Lian, “Benji 7

Shizu 4,” in Yuanshi, Chinese Text Project, last accessed August 10, 2019, https://ctext.org/) (宋濂著

《元史》本紀第七世祖四至元八年十一月乙亥). 187 See Buell, “Tribe, Qan and Ulus in Early Mongol China,” 175–88, 213–14. See also Kim,

“Was ‘Da Yuan’ a Chinese Dynasty?,” 279–305. On the “Great Yuan” being viewed as the equivalent

of Yeke Mongγol Ulus, I agree on the basis of the Sino-Mongolian inscriptions studied by Francis

Woodman Cleaves, as discussed in Chapter One. As for whether the Mongols viewed the “Great

Yuan” as a successor to the Jin, Song, and earlier Chinese imperial polities, I would tentatively suggest that we should take into account the individual degrees of Sinicization among the Mongol

ruling elites, as this question is in nature one of imagined historical identity rather than historical fact.

105

empire and took over its basic form and structure whatever the terminology applied to

this form and structure locally to achieve local recognition and acceptance.188

Therefore, what the proclamation of the Great Yuan meant for the Qubilaid conception of

political community and rulership must be kept in larger perspective.

The point I make here is that within the sphere in which the Mongols did employ

Chinese political culture, loyalty and service were understood as directed not just to the

emperor, but also to the Great Yuan as a guo. For instance, the Ilkhan Arghun (r. 1284–91)

used a monolingual seal with the engraved text “Precious [seal] for Upholding the Guo and

Bringing Peace to the [Common] People” (fu guo an min zhi bao 輔國安民之寶).189 We

know that the guo mentioned in this seal referred to the Great Yuan and not to Arghun’s own

guo, since “upholding the guo” (輔國), with the word “to uphold” (輔) also meaning “to

assist,” was regarded as the role of a guo’s nobles and officers, and not that of its ruler.

Arghun’s son Ghazan Khan (r. 1295–1304) used a seal engraved as “Precious [seal] of the

Princely (wang)190 Office for Securing the Guo and Governing the [Common] People” (wang

fu ding guo li min zhi bao 王府定國理民之寶).191 “Securing the guo” (定國) was similarly

188 Buell, “Tribe, Qan and Ulus in Early Mongol China,” 227–28. 189 Arghun Khan used this seal on a 1289 letter to Philip IV of France and a 1290 letter to

Pope Nicholas IV. See colored images in Wikipedia Commons, s.v. “Arghun Letter to Philippe le Bel,”

accessed December 18, 2017, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LetterOljeituToPhilipLeBel.

jpg, and s.v. “Letter Arghun to Nicholas IV,” https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LetterArghun ToNicholasIV1290VaticanArchives.jpg. 189 Black and white images of the seal are available in

Antoine Mostaert and Francis Woodman Cleaves, “Trois Documents Mongols des Archives Secrètes

Vaticanes,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 15, nos. 3–4 (1952): Planche VI (six pages after 506, the official last page of the article); and in Vladimir A Belyaev and Sergey V. Sidorovich, “Juchid

Coin with Chinese Legend,” in Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi, ed. T. Allsen, P. B. Golden, R. K.

Kovalev, and A. P. Martinez (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 2013), 16. 190 Soon after the fall of the Qin, wang (王) was instituted as the highest rank of nobility

under the emperor, and is thus commonly translated as “prince” rather than “king” in post-Qin

contexts. 191 For an image of the seal, which was used on a 1302 letter to Pope Boniface VIII, see

Mostaert, “Trois Documents Mongols des Archives Secrètes Vaticanes,” Planche VII (seven pages

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understood as a role for a guo’s nobles and officers. The emperors of the Great Yuan not only

perpetuated the concept of guo, but allowed guo to be treated as the equivalent of ulus,

despite the fact that the former had a deeply rooted territorial connotation while the latter was

originally a mobile political community of (nomadic) people.

For the Ming-era Chinese, it would thus have been second nature to view the

Timurids as rulers of guos. The expulsion of the Yuan emperor and ruling class to the

Mongol steppes was carried out by a rebel movement under Zhu Yuanzhang (朱元璋, regnal

era name: Hongwu 洪武), who reigned from 1368–98 as the first Ming emperor. What was

officially proclaimed in 1368 as the “Great Ming” (Da Ming 大明),192 which entered Timurid

parlance as دای منك or 193,دای مینك was again the official “guo designation” (guohao 國號).194

after 506), or Michot, Ibn Taymiyya: Textes Spirituels I-XVI, 60, or Belyaev, “Juchid,” 16. William

Hung’s (洪業) translation of the seal’s inscription, 王府定國理民之寶, was quoted as “The seal [to

attest the authority] of the Headquarters of His Royal Highness to establish a country and to govern

[its] people” (Mostaert, “Trois Documents,” 483). Translating guo 國 as “country” is understandable,

but “to establish a country” is inaccurate, as ding guo (定國) in this context meant securing an

existing guo (國), rather than establishing a new one. Belyaev and Sidorovich noted that “to the

beginning of Ghazan Mahmud’s reign the Il-khan state already existed for over 30 years,” so they

offered the alternative translation “to bring calm to the state,” the spirit of which is reflected in my

translation (Belyaev, “Juchid,” 18–19n49). We should also keep in mind that every time a seal was used, it symbolized an act in performance of the function prescribed on the seal. So it would have

been bizarre to let the Ilkhan “establish a country” every time he ratified an instrument/document,

whereas “securing the guo” would have been applicable to a wide range of instruments/documents. If a special-use seal for establishing a guo was intended, it should not include the regular function of

“governing the [common] people” (理民). 192 There is no known primary source explanation as to why the guo designation “Great Ming”

was chosen. Modern scholarship has long accepted that “Great Ming” had its origins in the “Ming

Faith” (Ming Jiao 明教), a Manichean-inspired religion that had been adopted by the rebel group in

whose ranks Zhu Yuanzhang rose before becoming emperor in 1368. Du Hong-tao made a strong

argument that because the Ming officially viewed the Yuan as its legitimate predecessor, “Great Ming”

was taken from the same I Ching passage from which “Great Yuan” was derived: “… [Having] great

clarity (ming) of beginning and end (of cause and effect)…” (大明始終). See Du Hong-tao, “The

Title of Ming Dynasty and Legitimacy Connotation,” Historical Review, no. 2 (2014): 52–57. 193 See letter of Shāhrokh to the Ming emperor Yongle in Nawā’ī, Asnād, 134, which was

drawn from Samarqandī, Maṭlaʿ-e saʿdayn, 3:162; see also letter a from Shāhrokh’s grandson ʿAlā’

al-Dawla Mīrza b. Baysunghur in Nawā’ī, Asnād, 279.

107

Given guo’s long history and ubiquitous place in Chinese geopolitical thought and

organization, it formed an integral part of the Ming world view, whereby the Great Ming was

the “centrally-located guo” (zhongguo 中國) surrounded by various (inferior) foreign guos

(fanguo 蕃國, 番國).195 The Veritable Records logged that on what was October 4, 1394, “the

Fuma (駙馬 “royal son-in-law”) of Samarqand Temür dispatched the chieftain Darwīsh and

others to present a memorial and to offer before the Court two hundred horses as tribute.”196

Darwīsh’s status as a diplomat is questionable,197 and the entire content of the dubious

memorial (in Chinese) was to extol the emperor and express gratitude to him using highly

servile language. Tellingly, the memorial had Temür clearly referencing his own guo: “The

tribes within [your] servant’s guo, upon hearing the news of [Your Majesty’s] virtuous

194 See “Taizu,” Ming shilu, Chinese Text Project, http://ctext.org/wiki, last accessed

September 29, 2019, juans (js.) 27, 35, 40 (《大明太祖高皇帝實錄》卷之二十七

洪武元年正月乙亥, 卷之三十五洪武元年十二月壬辰, 卷之四十洪武二年五月甲午) . 195 The usage of these terms as described is well-attested throughout the Veritable Records.

From antiquity to the Ming, polities that self-identified as zhongguo (中國) had varying territorial

sizes and boundaries. 196“Taizu,” Ming shilu, juan (j.) 234 (“撒馬兒罕駙馬帖木兒遣酋長迭力必失等奉表來朝貢

馬二百匹” —《大明太祖高皇帝實錄》卷之二百三十四洪武二十七年九月丙午). 197 Darwīsh was almost certainly a merchant, but the question remains as to whether or not he

actually received Temür’s commission as a diplomat. According to Morris Rossabi, the “early

embassies were not led by official emissaries, but consisted merely of Central Asian merchants who

represented themselves as Tamerlane’s envoys in order to gain access to China,” and Darwīsh’s

memorial “was undoubtedly forged” (Morris Rossabi, China and Inner Asia: From 1368 to the Present Day (New York: Pica Press, 1975), 27). I was unable to find reference to Darwīsh in Timurid

histories, but further cross-referencing work on Ming-Timurid exchanges in the 1380s–90s is

warranted. Concerning Darwīsh’s legitimacy as a diplomat, we should take into account the following: (1) Zhang Wende’s point that the memorial mentioned gratitude for a prior Ming mission that had

delivered an imperial decree (“…and [your servant] was honored with the beneficent comforting and

inquiring after by imperial decree” 又承敕書恩撫勞問)—a risky move for a fake envoy? See 张文德

著《明与帖木儿王朝关系史研究》(北京：中华书局, 2006 年), 33; (2) About ten months later, in

July–August 1395, Darwīsh came with another tribute, this time two hundred twelve horses (“Taizu,”

Ming shilu, j. 239 《大明太祖高皇帝實錄》二百三十九洪武二十八年七月). Assuming this was

not a case of two persons named Darwīsh, how likely would it have been for him to be able to report

back to Temür, who was campaigning in Iraq and the Caucasus in 1393–96, and then return to

Nanjing (南京), all in less than a year?

108

[deeds], knew only to dance in jubilation with feelings of reverence.”198 In truth, over in

Samarqand, Temür and his fellow Chaghatays contemptuously called the emperor “Tanghuz

(‘Pig’) Khan.” 199 What the memorial reveals is that from the Ming perspective, it made sense

for there to be a guo called Samarqand, and for Temür to be “Fuma (‘royal son-in-law’) of

Samarqand.” 200 The Ming’s knowledge of Temür as a “royal son-in-law” based in

Samarqand shows that certain basic information was communicated correctly in this early

period of contact with distant foreigners. Yet the notion of Temür being a “Fuma of

Samarqand” also demonstrated a preconception of territorially-defined rulership—in this

sense comparable to Clavijo’s “Emperor of Samarqand.”

Darwīsh was not the first recorded visitor from Samarqand, but he and his sizeable

tribute may have increased Ming interest in Temür. In the following year, the emperor sent

an embassy led by Fu An (傅安), who appears to have later corrected the notion of Temür

being “Fuma of Samarqand.” Significantly, Fu and his colleagues did not return until July

198 “Taizu,” Ming Shilu, j. 234 (“臣國中部落聞茲德音惟知歡舞感戴”—

《大明太祖高皇帝實錄》卷之二百三十四洪武二十七年九月丙午). 199 See e.g., Yazdī, Ẓafarnāma, 1:863, 2:1002. Clavijo, who was writing about events a

decade later in 1404, noted that Temür had in the past grudgingly sent tribute (trebuto) to the Ming

emperor, and explained why the Chaghatays call the emperor “Pig.” This is a clue suggesting that Temür sent embassies knowingly on an unequal footing, but it does not prove that servile messages

were sent. See Clavijo, Historia del Gran Tamorlan, 151–52; Markham, Narrative of the Embassy,

133–34. 200 Before Darwīsh’s visit in 1394, Temür had been mentioned in three additional entries and

called “the Fuma of Samarqand Temür” (撒馬兒罕駙馬帖木兒) each time. See “Taizu,” Ming shilu,

js. 185, 193, 197 (《大明太祖高皇帝實錄》卷之一百八十五, 一百九十三, 一百九十七). I

translated fuma as “royal son-in-law” rather than “imperial son-in-law” based on the assumption that

the Ming would not have implicitly recognized a foreign “emperor,” but in truth, I do not know how

the Ming perceived the rank and status of the Chaghatay khanship. In the Ming peerage, fuma (駙馬),

short for fuma duwei (駙馬都尉), was the title for the emperor’s sons-in-law. The sons-in-law of

Ming princes (wang 王) held the title yibin (儀賓), short for zhongrenfu yibin (宗人府儀賓), literally

“Ceremonial Guest of the Office for Imperial Clan Affairs.” However, it was presumably also

acceptable for the sons-in-law of foreign princes (wang 王) to hold the title fuma (駙馬), as was the

case for Chosŏn (Korea).

109

1407,201 and the emperor by then was Yongle (永樂, r. 1402–24, personal name: Zhu Di

朱棣). The diplomats had been detained for eleven years before they were released by

Khalīl-Sulṭān Mīrzā b. Amīrānshāh, who additionally sent a goodwill embassy.202 This would

have made them some of the foremost experts on the Timurids in Ming service. In the

Veritable Records’ entry on their return, they were recorded as having reported, “The Yuan

(元) Temür Fuma (“royal son-in-law”) has died and Khalīl succeeded him. He is Temür’s

grandson.” 203 The mentioning of “Yuan” in this context is odd, 204 but the entry clearly

delinked Temür from Samarqand. Moreover, the word order of the formulation “Yuan Temür

Fuma” (元帖木兒駙馬) now matched that of “Temür Kürägän,” whereas the earlier entries

had “Samarqand Fuma Temür” (撒馬兒罕駙馬帖木兒), which must be interpreted as

“Fuma of Samarqand Temür.” A later entry that mentions Temür also called him “the Yuan

(元) Temür Fuma”:

201 “Taizong,” Ming shilu, j. 68 (《大明太宗文皇帝實錄》卷之六十八永樂五年六月癸卯).

The Veritable Records did not log the departure of Fu An in ca. 1395, but only his return in 1407. 202 The Veritable Records entry on Fu’s return confirmed his thirteen-year absence, but

without expressly mentioning detention. The Ẓafarnāma recorded the arrival of the envoys of “Tanghuz (‘Pig’) Khan” in 799/1396–97, though without naming any of the diplomats or mentioning

their detention (Yazdī, Ẓafarnāma, 1:863). The detention is known through an early seventeenth-

century Ming source, the Guo chao xian zheng lu (《國朝獻徵錄》) by Jiao Hong (焦竑); see

Morris Rossabi, “Two Ming Envoys to Inner Asia,” 15. The detention is known through an early

seventeenth-century Ming source, the Guo chao xian hui lu (《國朝獻徵錄》) by Jiao Hong (焦竑);

see Rossabi, “Two Ming Envoys to Inner Asia,” T’uong Pao, 2nd ser., 66, nos. 1–3 (1976): 15. 203 “Taizong,” Ming shilu, j. 68 (“安等言元帖木兒駙馬已卒哈里嗣之乃帖木兒之孫”—

《大明太宗文皇帝實錄》卷之六十八永樂五年六月癸卯). 204 The simple explanation for “Yuan” is that Fu understood Temür to be a kürägän of the

Chinggisid dynasty, and thus a “royal son-in-law” of the Yuan. Indeed, the Yuan continued to officially exist in the Mongol steppes after the founding of the Ming, but from the Ming perspective

of having an exclusive “Mandate of Heaven” (天命), contemporary people still loyal to the Yuan had

to be referred to as being of the “former Yuan” (故元), a term well attested in the Veritable Records.

Whereas calling Temür “Yuan Temür Fuma” would have implied recognition that the Yuan still

existed. There are other definitions of the word yuan (元), but none seem appropriate for the context.

I leave this an unresolved question.

110

Shāhrokh Bahādur of Harāt sent the chieftain Mīr Jalāl and others to present local

products as tribute. They were varyingly bestowed rewards. Shāhrokh Bahādur, the

fourth son of the Yuan (元) Temür Fuma, often clashed militarily with his paternal

nephew Khalīl.205

Fu must have learned during his prolonged mission that the locals did not refer to Temür as

Samarqand Kürägäni in Turkic or Gūrakān-e Samarqand in Persian, and so “Fuma of

Samarqand” could not be justified. However, it does not seem that Fu brought home a

thorough understanding of how the Timurids represented their rulership vis-à-vis territory.

The Veritable Records went on to consistently represent Temür’s heirs as rulers of

territorial polities (and no longer mentions “Yuan”). Shāhrokh was recorded with varying

titles or no title, but he was always referred to as being “of Harāt” (Ch. Halie 哈烈 or Heilou

黑婁). In chronological order, Shāhrokh was initially called “Shāhrokh Bahadur of Harāt”

(哈烈沙哈魯把都兒),206 then “Shāhrokh of Harāt” (哈烈沙哈鲁),207 “Shāhrokh, the prince

(wang) of Harāt” (哈烈王沙哈鲁), 208 again “Shāhrokh of Harāt” (哈烈沙哈鲁), 209 then

“Shāhrokh Sulṭān[, chief (toumu)] of Harāt” (哈烈[頭目]沙哈盧鎖魯檀), 210 and finally

205 Entry is from March 14, 1410. “Taizong,” Ming shilu, j. 101

(“哈烈沙哈魯把都兒遣頭目迷兒即剌等貢方物賜賚有差沙哈魯把都兒元帖木兒駙馬第四子時與

侄哈里構兵”—《大明太宗文皇帝實錄》卷之一百一永樂八年二月丙午). Immediately

afterwards, the emperor sent a reciprocal embassy with a decree urging Shāhrokh to make peace with Khalīl-Sulṭān b. Amīrānshāh, not knowing that Shāhrokh had defeated Khalīl-Sulṭān and taken

Samarqand a year ago. On Khalīl-Sulṭān’s role in the succession struggle, see Manz, Rise and Rule of

Tamerlane, 129–37 and Beatrice Manz, Power Politics, and Religion in Timurid Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007), 16–21.

206 “Taizong,” Ming shilu, j. 101 (《大明太宗文皇帝實錄》卷之一百一). 207 “Taizong,” Ming shilu, j. 169 (《大明太宗文皇帝實錄》卷之一百六十九). 208 “Taizong,” Ming shilu, j. 177 (《大明太宗文皇帝實錄》卷之一百七十七). 209 “Taizong,” Ming shilu, js. 203, 204 (《大明太宗文皇帝實錄》卷之二百三, 二百四). 210 “Xuanzong,” Ming shilu, js. 86, 100, 104 (《大明宣宗章皇帝實錄》卷之八十六, 一百,

一百四).

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“Shāhrokh Mīrzā, the chief (toumu) of Harāt and other localities”

(烈等處頭目沙哈魯米兒咱). 211 References to Ulughbeg Mīrzā (d. 1449), 212 Sulṭān-Abū

Saʿīd Mīrzā (d. 1469),213 Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā (d. 1494),214 and Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad

Bābor (d. 1530),215 were similarly varied but always territorially linked.

The variants are due to the fact that while the Ming treated the Timurids as inferiors

and considered their gifts to be tribute (gong 貢), the emperors did not invest the Timurids

with official titles since the latter never actually submitted to the former. The titles of foreign

rulers who had formally submitted were granted or confirmed by the emperor, and

thenceforth written consistently as a matter of protocol. In Inner Asia, for example, one of the

most long-standing Ming vassal polities was Hami (哈密; a.k.a. Qāmil, modern Uyghur:

Qumul), the easternmost oasis just outside the Chinese-speaking region. In 1404, after a

211 “Xuanzong,” Ming shilu, j. 93 (《大明宣宗章皇帝實錄》卷之九十三). 212 Ulughbeg Mīrzā’s name was transliterated as 兀魯伯 (e.g., “Taizong,” Ming shilu, j. 177

《大明太宗文皇帝實錄》卷之一百七十七). 213 Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā’s name was transliterated as 卜撒因, 速魯檀母撒亦, and 母塞亦

(e.g. “Yingzong,” Ming shilu, js. 267, 282, 352《大明英宗睿皇帝實錄》卷之二百六十七,

二百八十二, 三百五十二). 214 Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā’s name was transliterated as 阿哈麻 and 阿黑麻 (e.g., “Xianzong,”

Ming shilu, js. 239, 249《大明憲宗純皇帝實錄》卷之二百三十九, 二百四十九). 215 The entry on the reception of Bābor’s embassy is from March 1, 1515. Curiously, Bābor

had been completely ousted from Māwarā al-Nahr by late 1512, and one year should have been enough for travel from Samarqand to Beijing. See also Kauz, Politik und Handel, 244–45. Their

“tribute” of pack horses is also a rather miserly one. (We might again suspect that this was a

merchant-led embassy, one that tarried along the way to trade, and then dumped the least precious of

their goods as “tribute”?) The entry states: “Sulṭān(-)Bāyazīd, the Loyal and Submissive Prince of Hami, dispatched diplomatic officer(s) to escort Khwāja-Hāxīn (Ḥasan or Qāsim?) and others, whom

the foreign prince(s) and chief(s) of Samarqand and elsewhere, Sulṭān Bābor and others, had sent to

offer before the Court pack horse(s) and local products as tribute. They were bestowed banquet and

varyingly awarded varicolored silk satin [and] clothing (哈密忠順王速檀拜牙即差使臣伴送撒馬兒

罕等番王頭目速檀把卜兒等所遣火者哈辛等來朝貢馱馬方物賜宴賞綵段衣物有差) (“Wuzong,”

Ming shilu, j. 121《大明武宗毅皇帝實錄》卷之一百二十一正德十年二月甲辰).



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phase of hostilities, the Ming installed Engke-Temür, a scion of Hami’s ruling family,216 and

officially gave him the honorific-and-rank “Loyal and Submissive Prince” (zhongshun

wang 忠順王).217 This was later granted to all of his successors except a few who received

the alternative honorific of “Loyal and Righteous” (忠義).218 Hence, all the rulers of Hami

appear as either the “Loyal and Submissive Prince of [the] Hami [Guard District]”

(哈密[衛]忠順王) or the “Loyal and Righteous Prince of Hami” (哈密忠義王) in the

Veritable Records from 1404 until the last relevant entry in 1519, by which time the (eastern)

Chaghatayid Manṣūr Khan (1485–1543) had annexed Hami.219 That said, the titles of the

Timurids in the Veritable Records could only be regarded as quasi-formal interpretations of

rulership, i.e., they were devised to fall within the parameters of the Ming court’s Sino-

centric doctrine on the nature of external relations, but were not based on formal investiture

or confirmation by the emperor. We should therefore not highlight any one variant of the

titles as the authoritative Ming view of Timurid rulership. Rather, we should look at how the

titles had pronounced territorial associations overall, indicating that the Ming regarded the

Timurids as rulers of territorial polities, particularly of Samarqand and Harāt.

216 For an overview of Hami’s history in this period, see Rossabi, China and Inner Asia, 28–

30, 33–37; for more detailed discussions of Hami, see Rossabi, “Ming China’s Relations with Hami and Central Asia, 1404–1513.”

217 “Taizong,” Ming shilu, j. 32 (《大明太宗文皇帝實錄》卷之三十二). 218 In 1411, Mengli-Temür was the first to be entitled the “Loyal and Righteous Prince of

Hami” (哈密忠義王); see “Taizong,” Ming shilu, j. 120 (《大明太宗文皇帝實錄》卷之一百二十

永樂九年十月癸卯). 219 The variation “Loyal and Submissive Prince of the Hami Guard District” (哈密衛忠順王)

occurs in the Veritable Records, but only during the reigns of Hongzhi (弘治, r. 1487–1505) and

Zhengde (正德, 1505–21). Hami had been designated a “guard district” (wei 衛) on April 15, 1406

( “Taizong,” Ming shilu, j. 121 《大明太宗文皇帝實錄》卷之一百二十一永乐四年三月丁已).

The last mention of the “Loyal and Submissive Prince of Hami” is in “Wuzong,” Ming shilu, j. 171

(《大明武宗毅皇帝實錄》卷之一百七十一正德十四年二月己巳). Manṣūr Khan was the son of

Sulṭān-Aḥmad Khan (1465–1504) and grandson of Yūnus Khan (1416–87).


113

Ming-Timurid diplomatic relations were most active under Yongle’s reign, during

which time Samarqand and Harāt were regularly referred to as guos. Yongle pursued a policy

of vigorous exploration and engagement abroad, which included dispatching the famous

“treasure fleet” led by Zheng He (鄭和) that reached East Africa. As part of this policy, a

“Muslim Institute” (Huihui Guan 回回館) was set up for Perso-Chinese translation work.

The institute used a teaching text called the Zai zi (《雜字》[Miscellaneous Glossary]).220 In

it, pādeshāh was defined—perfectly in my opinion—as jun (君), or “ruler” in the general

sense, and not as the Chinese term for “emperor” (huangdi 皇帝) or for “king/prince”

(wang 王) (See Figure 3).221 Mamlakat was defined as guo (國) (see Figure 4). 222 The

unresolved question then is

whether or not officials in the

Muslim Institute understood that

pādeshāhs in the Perso-Islamic

world ruled mamlakat(s) in a

two-tiered sense, as discussed in

Chapter One. Mamlakat, in the

220 The Zai zi (《雜字》[Miscellaneous Glossary]) can be sourced to as early as a ca. 1371–

72 work entitled Yi yu (《譯語》[Translation]), which was commissioned under Biligtü Qa’an (r.

1370–78, regnal era name “Xuanguang” 宣光), emperor of the Yuan in-exile on the Mongol steppe;

see Zhenhua Hu and Runhua Huang, “Mingdai wenxian weiwuer yi yu,” in Minzu wenhua yanjiu wenji,” ed. Zhenhua Hu (Beijing: Minzu University of China Press, 2006), 289. A copy of the

Miscellaneous Glossary was published in facsimile form in Yingsheng Liu, Huihui guan zai zi yu

huihui guan yu yi (Bejing: China Remin University Press, 2007), 29–172. That copy, held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France, had been scribbled upon by a Frenchman, as visible in Figures 3

and 4. See also the unpaginated Persian volumes of Hua yi yi yu (《華夷譯語》[Sino-Barbarian

Translation]), MS, Peking University Library. 221 Figure 3 is from Liu, Huihui guan, 85. (Respectfully reproduced for fair use.) 222 Figure 4 is from Liu, Huihui guan, 48. (Respectfully reproduced for fair use.)

114

sense of a ruler’s realm as a whole, could have been reasonably translated as guo, since guo

was an East Asian ruler’s realm as a whole; but a mamlakat in this sense did not bear a

territorial name, whereas a guo always bore such a name. Mamlakat, in the sense of a lower-

tier named territorial unit (e.g., mamlakat-e Khorāsān), of which kind a ruler may possess

many, was not equivalent to guo, since an East Asian monarch did not rule multiple guos. A

lower-tier mamlakat would have been equivalent to a xingsheng (行省 “province”) of the

Yuan or Ming. At present, I am unable to determine if the Muslim Institute even considered

this issue. What is evident is that during the Yongle period, Ming scholar-officials outside the

Muslim Institute regarded the Timurids as rulers of guos, but these so-called guos

corresponded to the lower-tier mamlakats of the Perso-Islamic world.

A pronounced example of superimposing guo and its underlying assumption of a

named territorial unit onto Timurid rulership can be found in the Xiyu fanguo zhi

(《西域番國志》[Gazetteer of the Foreign Realms (Guos) in the Western Region]) by Chen

Cheng (陳誠), an envoy in the embassy that Yongle dispatched on October 12, 1413.223

Chen’s gazetteer is the only extant Chinese eye-witness account of the Timurid world. The

so-called guos mentioned in the gazetteer’s title were none other than cities, the names of

which formed the titles of entries. The first entry is “Harāt” (哈烈) and contains a description

of the city’s political, social, economic, cultural, and religious life that is fairly detailed for a

223 “Taizong,” Ming shilu, j. 143 (《大明太宗文皇帝實錄》卷之一百四十三

永樂十一年九月甲午). The embassy reached Samarqand on August 6, 1414 and Harāt the following

September 27. For studies of Chen and his mission, see Rossabi, “Two Ming Envoys to Inner Asia,” 15–29; and Felicia J. Hecker, “A Fifteenth-Century Chinese Diplomat in Herat.” Journal of the Royal

Asiatic Society, 3rd ser., 3, no. 1 (1993): 85–98.

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short-term visit; 224 Chen even picked up a smattering of local vocabulary. 225 When

mentioning Temür, the envoy called him only “Temür Fuma”226 —with no mention of

territory—perhaps having been influenced by the more experienced diplomat Fu An (who did

not accompany this mission). At the same time, however, Chen viewed Shāhrokh as the ruler

of a guo called Harāt, despite knowing that Shāhrokh’s power extended over other

territories.227 In the Harāt entry, Chen repeatedly referred to Shāhrokh as the “master of the

guo” (guo zhu 國主), for example:

Harāt… is located southeast of Samarqand… The master of the guo resides in the

northeastern corner of the city.228

The master of the guo wears a narrow-sleeved garment… and binds his head with

white cloth... [His] preferred color of clothing is white, same as that of the people of

the guo. The people of the guo all call him suoludan (sulṭān). Suoludan is a title of

respect similar to junzhu (“ruler,” “sovereign master”) in the Chinese language. The

224 Morris Rossabi translated the Harāt entry in Morris Rossabi, trans., “A Translation of

Ch'en Ch'eng's Hsi-Yü Fan-Kuo Chih,” Ming Studies 17 (Fall 1983): 49–56. Rossabi transliterated

Xiyu fanguo zhi (《西域番國志》) as “Hsi-Yü Fan-Kuo Chih” using the Wade-Giles system. 225 For a chart of twenty-three local words that Chen used in his Xiyu fanguo zhi, see Hecker,

92. Chen did not note that two languages, Turkic and Persian, were spoken, or that there was a dual

society of Türks and Tājīks. With the exception of aqa (royal lady) and tanka (silver coin), the words

are Perso-Arabic, but all ones that have been borrowed into Turkic prose (at least by the time Ẕahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Bābor’s early sixteenth-century autobiography can attest).

226 E.g., Chen Cheng, Xiyu fanguo zhi, Xiyu xingcheng ji xiyu fanguo zhi, ed. Zhou Liankuan

(Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2000) (陳誠著，周連寬校注《西域行程記》《西域番國志》

(北京：中華書局, 2000 年)), 45, 98, 102. 227 In the entry on Balkh, for example, Chen wrote, “Shāhrokh of Harāt dispatched his son to

guard it (Balkh)” (哈烈沙哈魯遣其子守焉) (Chen, Xiyu fanguo zhi, 86). This implies that Chen

viewed Shāhrokh as the ruler of Harāt, with Balkh in dependence. 228 Chen, Xiyu fanguo zhi, 65. “哈烈...在撒馬兒罕西南...國主居城之東北隅”。Morris

Rossabi translates guo zhu idiomatically as “ruler” (Rossabi, “A Translation,” 49–50).

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wife of the master of the guo is called aha (agha), while his sons are called mierzan

(mīrzā). Mierzan is similar to sheren (“son of nobleman”) in the Chinese language.229

As the passage above shows, Chen also thought of the people of Harāt as “people of the guo”

(guo ren 國人). Elsewhere in the Harāt entry, he referred to the local customs as “customs of

the guo” (guo su 國俗).230 In the brief Samarqand entry, he also referred to Ulughbeg Mīrzā

as “master of the guo,” without noting Shāhrokh as the father-sovereign.231 Chen further

observed that in Samarqand, “for commerce [they] only use silver money, all [of which] this

guo minted itself, while those coming from Harāt also use [the silver money].” 232 The

Veritable Records duly logged the return of the embassy on November 30, 1415, and

included an abridged copy of Chen’s gazetteer.233 A later Veritable Records entry involving

Chen, from January 21, 1418, recorded that “the guos of Harāt and Samarqand each

dispatched envoys. Led by the eunuch officer Lu An, the officer Chen Cheng, and other

[officials], they came before the court to present horse(s) and local products as tribute, and

were varyingly bestowed embroidered brocade(s) and robe(s).”234 Chen was neither the first

nor last Ming traveler/envoy to visit the Timurid territories. Therefore, it is hard to judge how

much he alone influenced the Ming understanding of the Timurid world’s geo-political

organization. What is clear is that in Chen’s time, under the auspices of the emperor Yongle,

229 “國主衣窄袖衣及貫頭衫...以白布纏頭... 服色尚白，與國人同。國人皆稱之曰鎖魯

檀。鎖魯檀者，猶華言君主之尊號也。國主之妻，皆稱之曰阿哈，其子則稱為米兒咱,

蓋米兒咱者，猶華言舍人也” (Chen, Xiyu fanguo zhi, 65–66). 230 Chen, Xiyu fanguo zhi, 70. 231 Chen, Xiyu fanguo zhi, 81. Chen did not mention Ulughbeg by name. 232 “交易亦用銀錢皆本國自造而哈烈來者亦使” (Chen, Xiyu fanguo zhi, 81). 亦 commonly

means “also,” but in context, the secondary meaning “only” fits better. 233 “Taizong,” Ming shilu, j. 169 (《大明太宗孝文皇帝實錄》卷之一百六十九

永樂十三年十月癸巳). Some details differed from what was written in the full gazetteer. 234 “Taizong,” Ming shilu, j. 195 (“哈烈撒馬兒罕諸國各遣使隨中官魯安郎中陳誠等來朝

貢馬及方物賜文綺紗羅襲衣有差”—《大明太宗文皇帝實錄》卷之一百九十五永樂十五年十二

月丙申).

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the Ming regarded Harāt and Samarqand as guos and the Timurids as “masters” ([guo] zhu

[國]主), “princes” (wang 王), or “chiefs” (toumu頭目) of those guos.

The Ming court never changed its mind about the Timurids being rulers of territorial

polities, though there was one change in terminology. From 1435 onwards, Samarqand and

Harāt were regularly referred to as dimian (地面), literally “land surface” or “area.”235

According to the explanation in the Ming shi (History of the Ming《明史》), “those with

large territory were called guo, while those with small [territory] were only called dimian.”236

I do not know the reason behind the decision to start regarding Samarqand and Harāt as

dimians, but it did coincide with the post-Yongle policy to scale down outside contacts. The

titles for the Timurids, however, did not seem to have been downgraded. Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd

Mīrzā, for example, was referred to as “Prince (wang) Abū Saʿīd of the Harāt area (dimian)”

in a 1463 entry,237 and Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā was called “Prince (wang) Sulṭān-Aḥmad of the

Samarqand area (dimian)” in a 1488 entry. 238 “Prince” was the highest title the Ming

recognized for a foreign ruler. In any case, dimian, like guo, distinctly denoted a named

territorial polity. The switch in terminology arguably demonstrated a further gap in politico-

235 For the first references to Samarqand and Harāt as dimian, see “Yingzong,” Ming shilu, js.

4, 84 (《大明英宗睿皇帝實錄》卷之四宣德十年四月壬戌, 卷之八十四正統六年十月辛卯). 236 Zhang Tingyu, “Zhuanlie 220 Xiyu 4,” in Ming shi, Chinese Text Project, http://ctext.org/.

(“地大者稱國，小者止稱地面”—《明史》列傳第二百二十西域四). The Ming shi was an official

history commissioned by the Qing (清) court in the eighteenth century, and used the Ming’s Veritable

Records as a primary source. The explanation of the difference between guo and dimian was in direct

reference to the powers in the “Western Region” (Xiyu 西域, i.e., Central and Inner Asia). The use of

the term dimian for non-Timurid powers in Central and Inner Asia preceded 1435. See Mu Wu and

Zhizhen Dong, “The Relations between the Ming Dynasty and the “Small States” in the Western Regions in China During Hongwu and Yongle Rei[g]ns,” Journal of Yantai University (Philosophy

and Social Science Edition) 25, no. 2 (2012): 89–93. (武沐董知珍著《洪武永乐时期明朝与西域

诸“地面”的关系》《烟台大学学报》( 哲学社会科学版) 2012 年 4 月第 25 卷第 2 期。) 237 “Yingzong,” Ming shilu, j. 352 (“黑婁地面母塞亦王”—《大明英宗睿皇帝實錄》卷之

三百五十二天順七年五月庚寅). 238 “Xiaozong,” Ming shilu, j. 15 (“撒馬兒罕地面速魯壇阿黑麻王”—

《大明孝宗敬皇帝實錄》卷之十五弘治元年六月庚戌).



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cultural communication with the Timurid world. Had Shāhrokh been told that the elchi Chen

Cheng called him the ṣāḥib (“master”) of the mamlakat (=guo) of Harāt, it might have been

forgivable given that Chen was an unknowing foreigner from distant Khitāy. But had any

Timurid learned that he was considered the ruler of a mere “area” (e.g., maḥall) too small to

even qualify as a mamlakat, there would have been an unpleasant diplomatic fallout.

Chapter Conclusion

Under Mongolian and Turkic conventions in chancellery/diplomatic documents, the

Chaghatayids, Ilkhanids, and Timurids did not see a need to express the object of their

rulership, and preferred to use simple personal titulature. In Persian-language documents,

elaborate Arabo-Persian honorifics were exchanged with Muslim counterparts. While these

honorifics often contained spatial/territorial references, they hardly expressed claims of rule

over real-world politico-administrative territories. The Europeans and Chinese encountered

the Timurids, probably scratched their heads over what the Timurids were rulers of, and

reacted with some hint of understanding, but also with considerable misunderstanding. The

authors of the Aragonese response letters and the scholar-officials who composed the Ming’s

Veritable Records were educated men of their era. Ruy González de Clavijo and Chen Cheng

were not only educated, but well-travelled and observant. Their misunderstandings are

testament to just how alien the Chinggisid-Timurid representation of rulership was to people

coming from political cultures in which unambiguous territorially-defined rulership and

political community constituted the norm.

Having made such claims, I must now deal with a fact that could pose a challenge to

them: beyond titles and honorifics, the Timurids (and their Muslim counterparts) have been

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referred to as pādeshāhs of actual politico-administrative territories in native sources, many

of which were works of history written under Timurid patronage, or even by a Timurid in the

case of the Bābor-nāma. What does this reflect about Chinggisid-Timurid conceptions of

political community and rulership? I address this question in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER THREE

PĀDESHĀHS OF WILĀYATS:

THE MID-LATE TIMURID PERIOD AND NUANCES IN CONCEPTION OF

RULERSHIP VIS-À-VIS TERRITORY AS REVEALED BY HISTORIES

This chapter examines nuances in the Timurid conception of rulership in relation to

territory from 1451–1530 as revealed by the use of language in works of history. It will

particularly focus on accounts concerning 1470–94, that is, when the fifth-generation

Timurids held contiguous territories in Central Asia and Khorāsān with generally stable

borders.239 Chapter Two demonstrated that in Chinggisid-Timurid chancellery/diplomatic

documents, simple Mongol-style titulature did not indicate the object of rulership, while

elaborate Arabo-Persian honorifics did not define rulership by real-world politico-

administrative territories; altogether, this reflected a confident set of politico-cultural

traditions that was distinct in contemporaneous Eurasia. Yet there is an elephant in the room

that I have not addressed, namely the fact that from time to time, the histories referred to

Timurid rulers as pādeshāhs of named territories, using the construction “pādeshāh-e

[wilāyat-e/mamlakat-e] (name of certain territory).” This was particularly true in primary-

source accounts concerning the mid-late Timurid period, when the dynasty’s geopolitical

landscape was more fragmented than ever before. So how then can I maintain the assertion of

Chapter Two? Was pādeshāh-e Māwarā al-Nahr, for instance, not essentially “King (or

Emperor) of Transoxiana,” and therefore akin to “King of England” or “Emperor of the Great

Ming”?

239 Counting Temür as constituting the dynasty’s first generation, I refer to his great-great-

grandchildren as the “fifth-generation Timurids.” If counting in terms of generation of descent, then

this generation is descended from Temür in the fourth generation.

121

My answer is that what the use of language in Timurid histories actually reveals is

that a pādeshāh possesses, controls, and administers named territorial units called wilāyat(s)

(pl. wilāyāt), a term used interchangeably with mamlakat (pl. mamālik) or mulk (pl. amlāk) in

the lower-tier sense, but not a formal conception of the Timurids as pādeshāhs of the

wilāyat(s) they possess. What I mean by “formal” is having a widely acknowledged fixed

special meaning that goes beyond the literal meaning(s) of the component word(s). Amīr al-

mu’minīn (“Commander of the Faithful”), for example, was a formal title, carrying special

meanings with wide acknowledgment. Thus, one could not become Amīr al-mu’minīn merely

by being an amīr (“commander”) while exercising leadership over a number of the mu’minīn

(“faithful believers”). Similarly, Shaykh al-islām was a formal title. One could not have

become a Shaykh al-islām merely by being a shaykh (“elder” or “leader”) who professed

Islam. Whereas an appellation like pādeshāh-e Māwarā al-Nahr that appears in Timurid

histories, for instance, was not a formal title (khiṭāb), but rather an informal description of the

ruler in question; pādeshāh-e Māwarā al-Nahr should hence not be translated in the manner

of “King of Transoxiana,” but as “ruler of Transoxiana,” as in “the person who happens to

exercise rule over Transoxiana.” This point will be demonstrated in later parts of this chapter

by analyzing a number of examples from primary sources.

Moreover, though the construction “pādeshāh-e [wilāyat-e] (name of certain

territory),” or its Turkic equivalent “(name of certain territory) [wilāyatı] pādeshāhı,” was

used in the histories, it was not used regularly. The Timurid rulers were more commonly

mentioned as becoming pādeshāh “in” a territory, having “taken” or “given” a territory, or

using other, more flowery language, such as having “raised the banner of authority” (ʿalam-e

salṭanat bar afrāsht) in a territory. This shows that a Timurid ruler’s existence as ruler was

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not fundamentally defined by the territory in his possession, e.g., in the way of “King of

England” or a would-be “Pādeshāh of Farghāna.” A wilāyat bearing the name of a territory

certainly belonged to the ruler, but the ruler did not belong to the wilāyat in the sense of

occupying an “office” (naturally the highest political office) in the wilāyat. Such a wilāyat

was hence not imparted an existential political importance on par with that of the ruler, and

therefore could not have served as an object of loyalty and service. Overall, the use of

language in the histories suggests that a Timurid ruler, while possessing wilāyat(s), was not

conceived of as being ruler of wilāyat(s) on a formal level. At the same time, however, the

fact that the construction “pādeshāh-e [wilāyat-e] (name of certain territory)” was used

across multiple histories is evidence that it was, at least on a literal level, conceivable for a

Timurid to be ruler of a territory—a conceptual building block perhaps for the potential

formation of territorial polities. As this chapter will feature many pādeshāhs and many

wilāyats, it would be hazardous to proceed without a geopolitical overview supplemented by

historical backdrop.

1470–94: The Period of High Fragmentation and General Geopolitical Stability

The period 1470–94 uniquely witnessed a combination of high political fragmentation

and general geopolitical stability. I present here a brief overview of how this situation came

about and what the geopolitical map looked like in the said period.240 In the heyday of his

reign (c. 1459–68), Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā, a fourth-generation Timurid of Amīrānshāh’s

240 Two maps of the Timurid world in 1469–99 and an overview of the geopolitical situation

can be found in Bregel, An Historical Atlas of Central Asia, 47–49. Another overview is given in

Dale, The Garden of the Eight Paradises, 74–75. For a broader discussion of the geography of

medieval Khorāsān and Transoxiana, see G. Le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate: Mesopotamia, Persia, and Central Asia from the Moslem Conquest to the Time of Timur (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1905), 421–45.

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line, was the dynasty’s paramount ruler and on a trajectory of expansion. He had under his

control two heartland territories, Khorāsān and Māwarā al-Nahr, as well as a number of

outlying areas such as Türkestān, Farghānah, and Kābol in the east, and Māzandarān and

Jorjān in the west. 241 In early 1468, he launched an expedition toward Āẕarbāyjān

(Azerbaijan), but was thoroughly defeated and captured by Uzun Ḥasan (d. 1478) of the Aq

Qoyunlu at the Battle of Qarabāgh in early 1469. Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd was handed over to and

then executed by Yādgār-Muḥammad Mīrzā, a fifth-generation Timurid of Shāhrokh’s line

who was effectively under Uzun Ḥasan’s patronage. At the time of Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s death,

his sons Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā, ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā, and Ulughbeg Mīrzā were governing

Māwarā al-Nahr, Farghānah, and Kābol, respectively. Another son, Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzā,

was a participant in the doomed Āẕarbāyjān expedition, but managed to retreat back to

Khorāsān with an army. Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Mīrzā, a fifth-generation Timurid of ʿUmar-Shaykh b.

Temür’s line, had been leading the life of a qazaq, or political vagabond, for about twelve

years, mostly in Khwārazm. 242 Throughout the 1460s, Sulṭān-Ḥusayn had continuously

defied Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s authority and raided into Khorāsān, though militarily, the qazaq

and his small band of followers posed a minor threat. However, what Sulṭān-Ḥusayn lacked

in fighting men, he made up for in ambition and perseverance.

241 For a map of the territories in Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā’s possession, see Bregel, An

Historical Atlas of Central Asia, 45. The map also shows the Qıpchaq Steppe under Abū al-Khayr

Khan (r. 1428–68) of the Uzbeks, whose geopolitical history was interconnected with that of the

Timurids. Abū al-Khayr Khan militarily supported Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā in taking Māwarā al-Nahr in 1451, thus playing an important role in the mīrzā’s rise to power. Abū al-Khayr Khan’s death,

coincidentally very close to Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s death, resulted in political fragmentation among the

Uzbeks. The resurgence of Uzbek power under Abū al-Khayr’s grandson Muḥammad Shıbanī Khan (d. 1510) in the first decade of the sixteenth century was achieved in great part through the conquest

of Timurid territories in Māwarā al-Nahr and Khorāsān. 242 On Sulṭān-Ḥusayn as a qazaq, see Subtelny, Timurids in Transition, 43–73. For the most

comprehensive study on the qazaq experience as a socio-political phenomenon and its role in state formation, see Joo-Yup Lee, Qazaqlïq, or Ambitious Brigandage, and the Formation of the Qazaqs

(Leiden: Brill, 2016).



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Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s death resulted in a power vacuum in Khorāsān, and from 1469–70,

the brothers Sulṭān-Aḥmad and Sulṭān-Maḥmud in alliance, Yādgār-Muḥammad (backed by

Uzun Ḥasan’s troops), and Sulṭān-Ḥusayn vied for control of this territory. Sulṭān-Ḥusayn

turned out as the ultimate victor, executing Yādgār-Muḥammad and securing Khorāsān for

himself until his death in 1506. Sulṭān-Aḥmad and Sulṭān-Maḥmud retreated to Māwarā al-

Nahr, where Sulṭān-Aḥmad would continue to rule until his death in 1494. Sulṭān-Maḥmud

soon went off to Ḥiṣār, where he received the allegiance of local amīrs and took over a

region that also included Termeẕ, Chaghāniyān, Baghlān, Khuttalān, Qondūz, and

Badakhshān to the Hindu Kush. In Ḥiṣār, he reigned until 1494, when he moved to

Samarqand to succeed the recently deceased Sulṭān-Aḥmad, but he died just half a year later.

ʿUmar-Shaykh (d. 1494) and Ulughbeg (d. 1502) continued to rule in Farghānah and Kābol,

respectively, until their deaths. This general geopolitical stability from 1470–94 is

remarkable in that the death of Temür in 1405 and the death of Shāhrokh in 1447 were each

followed by a period of fragmentation and intensive internecine wars, out of which rose a

paramount Timurid ruler who reinstated general order.243 The death of Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd in

1469, in contrast, was followed by a period of fragmentation, but not the rise of a comparably

paramount ruler. Rather, fragmentation under the five less powerful but relatively long-

reigning rulers—Sulṭān-Ḥusayn in Khorāsān, Sulṭān-Aḥmad in Māwarā al-Nahr, Sulṭān-

Maḥmud in Ḥiṣār, ʿUmar-Shaykh in Farghānah, and Ulughbeg in Kābol—became the new

norm.

243 On the crises and succession struggles following the death of Temür, see Manz, The Rise

and Rule of Tamerlane, 128–47; and Manz, Power, Politics and Religion in Timurid Iran, 16–33. On

the crises and succession struggles following the death of Shāhrokh, see Manz, Power, Politics and

Religion in Timurid Iran, 245–74. For a briefer overview of these two crisis periods, see Maria

Subtelny, “Tamerlane and His Descendants: From Paladins to Patrons,” in The New Cambridge History of Islam, vol. 3, The Eastern Islamic World, Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries, ed. David O.

Morgan and Anthony Reid (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 180–85.










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From a comparative perspective, the Timurid geopolitical situation of 1470–94 most

closely resembled that of their European counterparts, i.e., multiple modest-sized

neighboring powers constantly concerned with balance of power. Periodic wars were fought

between Sulṭān-Ḥusayn and Sulṭān-Maḥmud and between Sulṭān-Aḥmad and ʿUmar-Shaykh,

but none of the belligerents disappeared from the map as a result. The 1485 conflict over

Tashkand (Tashkent) between Sulṭān-Aḥmad and ʿUmar-Shaykh did lead to a major geo-

political change, i.e., Tashkand’s ownership being settled upon Yūnus Khan, thereby creating

a new, Chaghatayid Moghul power in the region. While this resolution took a significant

territory out of Timurid control, it did not destabilize Sulṭān-Aḥmad or ʿUmar-Shaykh’s rule,

and importantly, it appears to demonstrate a preference for peace through balance of power

between multiple rulers over imperial consolidation through war. With the geopolitical

context summarized above, we can now proceed to the main task of this chapter, namely

examining the use of language in histories, especially the implications of the construction

“pādeshāh-e [wilāyat-e] (name of certain territory).” Let us start with the two key words in

question.

Brief Overview of the Terms Pādeshāh and Wilāyat

As groundwork for better understanding the “pādeshāh-e [wilāyat-e] (name of certain

territory)” construction, this section discusses the terms pādeshāh and wilāyat in the Timurid

context. To be sure, how these two terms were used separately is a different question from

how the construction “pādeshāh-e [wilāyat-e] (name of certain territory)” should be

interpreted (as mentioned, I make the assertion that the construction was used to render an

informal description of what territory a ruler ruled, rather than a formal definition of





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rulership based on territory). A construction made up of multiple terms often becomes a term

in its own right, with its own unique meanings. The purpose of an overview of pādeshāh and

wilāyat as individual terms is only to give us context for considering the nature of the

construction “pādeshāh-e [wilāyat-e] (name of certain territory)” when we discuss its

appearances in the sources, as will be done in the subsequent sections of this chapter.

The Timurid scion Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Bābor explained rather clearly how it

was he who adopted pādeshāh as a title regularly attached to one’s name. According to his

Bābor-nāma:

Up to this date (913/1507–8) the descendants of Temür Beg were [simply] called

mīrzā although they were ruling. At this time I ordered that I be called pādeshāh

(oshbu tārīkhqacha Temür Begning awlādını bā wujūd-i salṭanat mīrzā derlär edi

oshbu nawbat buyurdum kim meni pādeshāh degäylär).244

Thus, although Bābor referred to his father as a pādeshāh, he consistently called him

“ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā,” not “Umar-Shaykh Pādeshāh.”245 Similarly, although Bābor referred

to his paternal uncle Sulṭān-Aḥmad and his more distant uncle (third cousin once removed)

Sulṭān-Ḥusayn as pādeshāhs, 246 he consistently called them “Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā” and

“Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Mīrzā,” respectively. It was also no contradiction that Bābor said “I became

pādeshāh at the age of twelve” (on iki yashta pādeshāh boldum),247 an event that took place

upon the death of his father in 1494, but ordered his followers to start calling him “Bābor

244 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 215a. The coinage of Bābor, his son Humāyūn, and his grandson

Akbar also features pādeshāh as a title. E.g., see Henry Nelson Wright, Catalogue of the Coins in the

Indian Museum Calcutta, vol. 3, Mughal Emperors of India (Oxford: Clarendon, 1908), 1, 3, 9. To my knowledge, this was not the case for the coinage of earlier Timurids, e.g., in Lane-Poole,

Catalogue of Oriental Coins, vol. 7, 3–53. 245 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 5b. 246 References to Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā as pādeshāh: Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 15b–16a.

References to Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā as pādeshāh: Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 21a, 85a. 247 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 1b.





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Pādeshāh” over a decade later at the aforementioned date of 913/1507–8, when he was based

in Kābol. This is why in pro-Timurid sources written after 913/1507–8, Bābor and his

successors were referred to with pādeshāh attached to their names (e.g., “Bābor Pādeshāh,”

“Humāyūn Pādeshāh”).248

Bābor adopted pādeshāh as a formal title for himself, but apparently his father,

paternal uncles, and paternal grandfather did not do so for themselves. Had they done so,

then all the histories that kept referring to them only as mīrzā were failing to acknowledge

their formal title of pādeshāh; and for the many pro-Timurid histories, there would have been

no good reason for such failure to acknowledge. Why, for example, would the Tārīkh-e ḥabīb

al-siyar fī akhbār afrād-e bashar (by Ghiyās al-Dīn b. Humām al-Dīn Khwāndamīr)

regularly refer to Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd as “Mīrzā Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd” and not “Pādeshāh Sulṭān-

Abū Saʿīd,” when it does refer to him as pādeshāh-e Māwarā al-Nahr wa Khorāsān?249 By

way of comparison for example, Richard III’s (r. 1483–85) being the “King of England”

made him “King Richard,” but Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s being pādeshāh-e Māwarā al-Nahr wa

Khorāsān did not make him “Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Pādeshāh.” This was because pādeshāh was

248 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, who respected and acknowledged Bābor and Bābor’s son and

successor Humāyun, consistently called them “Bābor Pādeshāh” and “Humāyūn Pādeshāh,”

respectively, in the Tārīkh-e rashīdī (Mirza Haydar Dughlat, Tarikh-i-Rashidi: A History of the

Khans of Moghulistan, ed. and trans. W. M. Thackston, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA: Department of Near

Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, 1996); and Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. ʿAbbās Qulī Ghaffārī Fard (Tehrān: Mīrās-e Maktūb, 1383/2004)). The Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar refers to

Bābor in many variations, such as “… Bābor Mīrzā” (without pādeshāh or pādeshāhī in any part of

the title) (Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar 4:100, 312, 308, 312), “Ḥażrat-e Pādeshāhī Muḥammad Bābor [Mīrzā]” (ibid., 4:95, 194, 311), “Pādeshāh-e Jamjāh Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Bābor” (ibid., 4:96),

“Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Bābor Ghāzī” (without either mīrzā or pādeshāh) (ibid., 4:100, 226, 282),

“Ḥażrat-e Pādeshāh-e ʿĀlījāh Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Bābor Mīrzā” (ibid. 4:225, 286), “Pādeshāh-e Setūda-Khiṣāl Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Bābor Mīrzā” (ibid., 4:225), Pādeshāh-e Mu’yad-Kāmrān

Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Bābor” (ibid., 4:305), “…Bābor Pādeshāh” (without mīrzā) (ibid., 4:96, 100,

305, 307, 356), etc. This suggests that Khwāndamīr was keenly aware of Bābor’s command to be

called pādeshāh, but chose to neither consistently drop mīrzā nor always use pādeshāh when mentioning him.

249 Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, 4:429.

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at that time not a formal title (and, as will be explained at length later in this chapter, neither

was pādeshāh-e Māwarā al-Nahr wa Khorāsān). Before Bābor turned it into a formal title,

the Timurids understood pādeshāh as a generic term for “ruler,” and in this sense

synonymous with sulṭān (pl. salāṭīn) and khaqan (Ar. pl. khawāqīn).250 The same was true

for the Chinggisid khans, who conventionally had khan but not pādeshāh attached to their

names as titles, though they were regularly referred to as pādeshāhs in the histories spanning

from the early fourteenth to early fifteenth century. Niẓām al-Dīn Shāmī’s Ẓafarnāma, for

example, referred to “Tughluq-Temür, who was pādeshāh of the Moghul wilāyat” (Tūghlūq-

Tīmūr keh pādeshāh-e wilāyat-e Moghūl būd).251 ʿAbd al-Razzāq Samarqandī’s Maṭlaʿ-e

saʿdayn wa majmaʿ-e baḥrayn referred to the Jochid ruler Muḥammad Khan as “pādeshāh of

the Özbäk (Uzbek) wilāyat”:

In this year, [in] the month of Ramażān [825] (August–September 1422)… from the

direction of the Dasht-e Qıpchaq, the envoys ʿĀlim-Shaykh Oghlan and Fūlād arrived

from Muḥammad Khan, pādeshāh of the Özbäk wilāyat… (dar īn sāl māh-e

Ramażān… az aṭrāf-e Dasht-e Qebchāq az pīsh-e Muḥammad Khān pādeshāh-e

wilāyat-e Ūzbak īlchīyān ʿĀlim-Shaykh Oghlān wa Fūlād rasīda…).252

Also for example, Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat’s Tārīkh-e rashīdī, in mentioning Yūnus Khan’s

return to Moghulestān (ca. 1454), states that “at the age of forty-one he again became

250 In Chinggisid-Timurid parlance, sulṭān was a generic term for “ruler” (e.g., al-Sulṭān al-

Aʿẓam, as often seen inscribed on coins). It was also a formal title attached to the names of Chinggisid scions who were not khan. These uses of sulṭān should not be confused with “Sulṭān” as part of a

name, e.g., “Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā.” When the Timurids were referred to as pādeshāh, sulṭān, or

khaqan in the generic sense of “ruler,” it did not necessarily imply equality with or substitution of Chinggisid khanship, which entailed the adoption of khan as a formal title attached after a personal

name (e.g., “Yūnus Khan”). 251 Shāmī, Ẓafarnāma, 10. Tughluq-Temür (r. 1347–63) will be further discussed in Chapter

Four. 252 Kamāl al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Razzāq Samarqandī, Maṭlaʿ-e saʿdayn wa majmaʿ-e baḥrayn, 4

vols. (Tehrān: Pezhūheshgāh-e ʿulūm-e Īnsānī wa Maṭāliʿāt-e Farhangī, 1372/1993–94), 3:351.



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pādeshāh in Moghulestān (dar chehel-o-yak sālegi bāz dar Moghūlestān pādeshāh shod).”253

So though often translated as “king” or “emperor,” the pre-Baborid pādeshāh was not a

formal title in the way “king” and “emperor” were in Europe. Before Bābor’s innovation,

pādeshāh was used as a generic term meaning “ruler” for khans and for Timurid mīrzās who

were ruling independently.

Like pādeshāh, wilāyat also had both generic and specific meanings. In his translation

of the Tārīkh-e rashīdī, Wheeler Thackston notes that “vilayat, ‘the province,’ is used

indiscriminately for the settled regions of Central Asia. Sometimes it indicated Transoxiana

as a whole, but mostly it seems to mean the province of Fergana.”254 This note was of course

in the context of the Moghuls and Moghulestān versus the Chaghatays and Chaghatay-held

wilāyats. From the Moghul perspective, wilāyat, along with shahr (“city” or “region”), can

mean “settled area” in general as opposed to any specifically named territory. For example,

in recounting how the amīrs of Yūnus Khan (1416–87) justified their deposing him during

his first attempt to lead his Moghul followers into settled life, the Tārīkh-e rashīdī attributed

the following words to the mutinous amīrs:

“The khan tries to [bring] us to shahr and wilāyat. We greatly abhor being in shahr

and wilāyat.” The khan relented, saying that he will henceforth not desire shahr and

wilāyat. (Khān mārā be-shahr wa wilāyat saʿy mīnamāyad wa mārā dar shahr wa

wilāyat būdan be-ghāyat mustakrah ast Khān nīz tawba kard keh min baʿd ārezū-ye

shahr wa wilāyat nakonad).255

253 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 26a. 254 Mirza Haydar Dughlat, Tarikh-i-Rashidi: A History of the Khans of Moghulistan, trans. W.

M. Thackston, vol. 2, Sources of Oriental Languages and Literatures, 38, 42n2. 255 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 33a–33b.

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Bābor made a statement that similarly associates wilāyat (along with pādeshāh) with the

Timurid-held settled region in contrast to Moghūlestān:

Beg Telbä, who was in Moghulestān since he was born and grew up among Moghuls,

had never entered wilāyat and never served pādeshāhs of wilāyat, and had only

served khans (Beg Telbä kim tā tughup edi Moghulestānda edi moghul arasıda

ulghayıp edi wilāyatqa kirmäydür edi wilāyat pādeshāhlarıgha khidmat qılmaydur

edi khanlargha oq khidmat qılıp edi).256

In this passage, Bābor meant that Beg Telbä had never gone to a settled region. However,

when not used in this sedentary versus nomadic context, the term wilāyat was regularly

paired with the name of specific territory (e.g., wilāyat-e Farghāna, wilāyat-e Astarābād),

and Moghulestān too was referred to as a wilāyat.257 This arguably lends some justification

for translating wilāyat as “province.”258 However, this translation has its inadequacies.

Whereas “province” in modern English conjures up the sense of a precise

category/tier of sub-sovereign territorial-administrative division (e.g., the provinces of

Canada), in the Timurid world, there appears to be ambiguity as to what counted as a wilāyat

and what did not. Take Māwarā al-Nahr, for example. Was Māwarā al-Nahr a wilāyat or a

collection of wilāyats (pl. wilāyāt)? According to Bābor,

256 Babur, Bābor-nāma, fol. 71b–72a. 257 Wilāyat-e Moghūlestān, e.g., Shāmī, Ẓafarnāma, 170; Samarqandī, Maṭlaʿ-e saʿdayn,

4:358. 258 Today, wilāyat is the official term for “province” in four Persian and/or Turkic-speaking

Central Asian states, namely Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. In China,

Kāshghar, Aqsu, Khotan, Altay, and Tarbagatay are also officially called wilāyats in Uyghur, though these are sub-provincial “prefectures” (two tiers below the central government). While modern uses

of wilāyat should not be read back upon history, the fact that this term has evolved to mean “province”

or “prefecture” across Afghanistan, China, and the former Soviet Union, three states with

interconnecting but divergent modern histories, suggests that the pairing of the term wilāyat with specific place names in pre-modern times had a lasting impact, leading later people to determine that

wilāyat is, after all, the closest equivalent to “province.”

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Shāhrokh Mīrzā had given all the wilāyāt of Māwarā al-Nahr to his eldest son,

Ulughbeg Mīrzā (Shāhrokh Mīrzā jamī‘ Māwarā al-Nahr wilāyātı ulugh oghlı

Ulughbeg Mīrzāgha berip edi).259

Yet also according to Bābor,

When Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Mīrzā reached Balkh, he gave Balkh to Badīʿ al-Zamān Mīrzā

in the interests of the wilāyat of Māwarā al-Nahr (Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Mīrzā Balkhgha

yetkändä Māwarā al-Nahr wilāyatı maṣlaḥatı üchün Balkhnı Badīʿ al-Zamān

Mīrzāgha berip).260

Similarly, there is the case of Farghāna in relation to Andijān. Let us compare the following

two passages. In the first, Bābor stated:

There are seven towns: …one is Andijān, which is in the middle; it is the capital of

the wilāyat of Farghāna (yeti pāra qaṣabası bar… bir andijān dur kim wasaṭta vāqiʿ

boluptur Farghāna wilāyatınıng pāytākhtı dur).261

259 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 50b. There are other references to the wilāyāt of Māwarā al-Nahr.

See for example, Samarqandī, Maṭlaʿ-e saʿdayn, 4:1010; Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, 4:102, 223, 384.

260 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 36a. There are other references to the wilāyat of Māwarā al-Nahr.

See e.g., Samarqandī, Maṭlaʿ-e saʿdayn, 4:741, 890, 895, 927, 1012, 1047; Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, 4:21. I had difficulty determining the translation for Māwarā al-Nahr wilāyatı

maṣlaḥatı in this passage. I defer to Wheeler Thackston’s translation of “in the interests of

Transoxiana” (Baburnama, ed. and trans. W. M. Thackston, 72). In context, however, we know that

Māwarā al-Nahr never belonged to Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Mīrzā, who had just concluded an incursion into the territories of the late Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Mīrzā. It is probable that Māwarā al-Nahr wilāyatı

maṣlaḥatı üchün meant “for the affair of [launching potential future attacks into, and/or defending

against potential attacks coming from,] Māwarā al-Nahr.” In the British Library manuscript of ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Khan-e Khanān’s Persian translation of

the Bābor-nāma, the text reads: داده یرزاالزامن م یعبجهت ماورالنهر بلخ را به بد یدبه بلخ رس یرزام ینان حسسلط ,

with مصلحت evidently added later, above بجهت ماورالنهر ([Bābor-nāma], MS, British Library, Or. 3714, fol. 46r). Unlike the main text, مصلحت is not in Nastaʿlīq, but a rather unaesthetic handwriting. All this

suggests that during or before the production of the manuscript, someone already found maṣlaḥat to

be confusing, and decided to leave it out. In future investigation, we might consider the possibility

that maṣlaḥatı was a misspelling of maslaḥatı (Māwarā al-Nahr wilāyatı maslaḥatı üchün- “to garrison, or fortify, against the wilāyat of Māwarā al-Nahr”).

261 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 2a.

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In the second, he stated:

Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā at first gave Kābol to ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā, made Bābā

Kābolī [his] beg atäkä, 262 and granted [him] permission to depart… After the

[circumcision] feast, in keeping with Temür Beg’s having given the wilāyat of

Farghāna to ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā the Elder (i.e., ʿUmar-Shaykh b. Temür), he

(Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd) gave the wilāyat of Andijān [to ʿUmar-Shaykh b. Sulṭān-Abū

Saʿīd], made Khodāberdi Tughchı Temür-Tash the beg atäkä, and sent [him] off.

(Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā awwal Kābolnı berip ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzāgha Bābā

Kābolīnı beg atäkä qılıp rukhṣat berip edi… toydın songra ol munāsabat bilä kim

Temür Beg ulugh ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzāgha Farghāna wilāyatını bergändür Andijān

wilāyatını berip Khodāberdi Tughchı Temürtashni beg ätäkä qılıp yibärdi).263

From these two passages, it would appear that Andijān, while clearly being part of the

wilāyat of Farghāna, was itself a wilāyat. How might we explain this phenomenon? One

explanation is that wilāyat was an informal term, akin to “region” in modern English; so for

example, something as big as the “Central Eurasian region” can include something as small

as “the Aral Sea region.” This might explain why a territory like Māwarā al-Nahr or

Farghāna could be both a wilāyat and contain wilāyāt.

At the same time, however, when specifically named wilāyats were granted to

Timurid mīrzās, there needed to be official borders to demarcate the mīrzās’ jurisdictions;

262 A beg atäkä, literary “lord-little father,” fulfilled the role of a guardian. 263 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 6b. Switching his sons’ appanages was a practice that Temür

used to maintain personal concentration of power. For more on appanages and princely power under

Temür, see Beatrice Manz’s discussion of “the armies of the princes” in Manz, The Rise and Rule of

Tamerlane, 84–89. See also Manz, “Administration and Delegation of Authority.” Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s

death in 1469 meant that for his sons, there was no longer a sovereign-father who may change their appanages. This arguably contributed to ruler-territory permanency as part of the new geo-political

norm till 1494.

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and within each mīrzā’s territory, official subdivisional borders would have been necessary

for administration. In Rajab 905/February 1500, for example, Bābor had to accept an

agreement to divide Farghāna between himself and his brother Jahāngīr, who was under the

control of a rebellious beg referred to as Sulṭān-Aḥmad “Tanbal” (pronounced Tambal—a

pejorative meaning “the Lazy”). As Bābor recounted,

It was a peace in this manner: the wilāyats on the Akhsī side of the Khojand River

would fall under Jahāngīr. The wilāyats on the Andijān side would fall under me.

Uzkan would also be placed under our administration after [the rebellious begs’]

families are evacuated. (bu yosunlugh ṣulḥ boldı kim Khojand Suyınıng Akhsī ṭarafı

wilāyatlar Jahāngīrgha ta‘alluq bolghay Andijān ṭarafı wilāyatlar manga ta‘alluq

bolghay Uzkandnı ham köchlärini chıqarghandın song bizing dīwāngha

qoyghaylar)264

This passage shows that in dividing up the wilāyat of Farghāna, which itself consisted of

multiple wilāyats, the question of where the border between the two brothers’ territories

would lay was well on the minds of the begs who negotiated this agreement. Also, at least in

Bābor’s later recollection, delineating the border was understood in conjunction with fiscal

administration (dīwān). Therefore, when a named place is called a wilāyat (e.g., the wilāyat

of Farghāna), it usually denoted a formal and administratively precise territorial unit; and it

was also normal that the subdivisions within such a wilāyat were also called wilāyats. While

perhaps semantically confusing, there is no logical contradiction in this; in our own times,

there is the example of the autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan being part of the

Republic of Uzbekistan. Having reviewed pādeshāh and wilāyat as individual terms, I turn to



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interpreting the construction “pādeshāh-e [wilāyat-e] (name of certain territory)” and what it

meant with respect to Timurid rulership in relation to territory.

Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā and the Fifth and Sixth-Generation Timurid Rulers: The Use

of Language in the Histories Expressing Their Relationship to Their Territories

Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā’s reign from 1451 to 1469 was characterized by active

territorial expansion, and ended in his defeat at the Battle of Qarabāgh by Uzun Ḥasan of the

Aq Qoyunlu in 1469. First taking over Māwarā al-Nahr and then Khorāsān, Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd

held both Samarqand and Harāt, the two cities recognized as capitals (dār al-mulk, dār al-

salṭanat) of the Timurid dynasty. His campaigns meant that he regularly traveled and resided

across different wilāyats. As such, Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s reign stood in contrast to those of his

sons, who either chose to or were compelled to stay put within a wilāyat for about three

decades. Whatever one may ultimately conclude about the conception of rulership vis-à-vis

territory during the period of the fifth-generation Timurids from 1470 to 1494, the reign of

Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd was the most immediate context. It hence serves as the basis for us to

identify continuity or change in the said conception in the post-Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd era. Below,

I will examine several references to Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd as the “pādeshāh of” one or more

territories.

In the Maṭlaʿ-e saʿdayn, Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd was the main subject of about a dozen

sections (Ẕikr-e…). I was able to find one instance where Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd was mentioned in

the aforementioned way:

Mīrzā Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd, who was the pādeshāh of Māwarā al-Nahr and Türkestān,

took up residence in Balkh, the Dome of Islam (Mīrzā Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd keh

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pādeshāh-e Māwarā al-Nahr wa Torkestān būd dar Qubbat al-islām Balkh maskan

dāsht).265

This was part of a list of seven rulers who invaded and/or occupied parts of Khorāsān during

the chaotic period of 1457–58. Besides Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd, they were Mīrzā Jahān-Shāh b.

Qara-Yūsuf, Malik-Qāsim b. Iskandar, Mīrzā ʿAlā’ al-Dawla b. Baysunghur, Mīrzā Sulṭān-

Ibrāhim b. ʿAlā’ al-Dawla, Mīrzā Sulṭān-Sanjar b. Ḥājjī Sayf al-Dīn, and Mīrzā Shāh-

Maḥmūd b. Abū al-Qāsim Bābor. Yet none of these seven were mentioned as having become

the pādeshāh of any of the Khorasanian territory they occupied. Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd, as seen

above, “took up residence in Balkh” (dar Balkh… maskan dāsht), but without having his

“title” lengthened to pādeshāh-e Māwarā al-Nahr wa Torkestān wa Balkh, despite the fact

that Balkh was a symbolically important territory as the “Dome of Islam.” It therefore hints

that pādeshāh-e Māwarā al-Nahr wa Torkestān was not a formal title, but a way of providing

information about the territories Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd already controlled at the time he took

Balkh. This may be further supported by examining the reference to Jahān-Shāh b. Qara-

Yūsuf of the Qara Qoyunlu in the same passage.

Besides Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd, Jahān-Shāh was the only other ruler among the seven who

was mentioned as the “pādeshāh of” a territory in the Maṭlaʿ-e saʿdayn:

Mīrzā Jahān-Shāh, who was the pādeshāh of the mamlakats of Āẕarbāyjān and the

two ʿIrāqs, seized power from Astarābād to Sabziwār and quartered in Isfarāyin

(Mīrzā Jahān-Shāh keh pādeshāh-e mamālik-e Āẕarbāyjān wa ʿIrāqayn būd az

Astarābād tā Sabziwār dar qabża-e iqtidār āwārda dar Isfarāyin manzil farmūda).266

265 Samarqandī, Maṭlaʿ-e saʿdayn, 4:822 266 Samarqandī, Maṭlaʿ-e saʿdayn, 4:821.

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Now let us compare this with the title of the section in the Rawżāt al-jannāt fī awṣāf

madīnat-e Harāt (by Muʿīn al-Dīn Muḥammad Zamchī Isfizārī) devoted to Jahān-Shāh’s

entrance into Khorāsān, namely “On the accession of the pādeshāh of the Türkmān

(Turkmen) to the throne of authority over the mamlakat of Khorāsān” (Dar julūs-e pādeshāh-

e Torkmān bar sarīr-e salṭanat-e mamlakat-e Khorāsān).267 So in the Rawżāt al-jannāt,

Jahān-Shāh was “pādeshāh of the Türkmān”; and as for ʿIrāq and Āẕarbāyjān, these

territories were described as having been granted to Jahān-Shāh by Shāhrokh Mīrzā: “During

the third expedition to ʿIrāq and Āẕarbāyjān, His Majesty granted that mamlakat to him” (ān

hażrat dar yūresh-e seyyum-e ʿIrāq wa Āẕarbāyjān ān mamlakat rā bedū arzānī farmūda

būd).268 So was there a discrepancy between Samarqandī and Isfizārī as to what title Jahān-

Shāh held as pādeshāh? Was he “Pādeshāh of the mamlakats of Āẕarbāyjān and the two

ʿIrāqs” or “Pādeshāh of the Türkmān”? I believe there was no real discrepancy. Samarqandī

was attempting to give a very concise description of Jahān-Shāh’s background when listing

who the seven rulers were, from where they came, and what parts of Khorāsān they occupied;

he did not wish to digress into other details about Jahān-Shāh. Isfizārī, on the other hand, did

not feel the need to condense “Āẕarbāyjān and the two ʿIrāqs” into the section title, as he had

the rest of the section to give more information about Jahān-Shāh, including what territories

the Qara Qoyunlu ruler held. In short, neither “Pādeshāh of the mamlakats of Āẕarbāyjān and

the two ʿIrāqs” nor “Pādeshāh of the Türkmān” was a formal title of Jahān-Shāh.

The Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar covers Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s reign in about two dozen

consecutive sections, but similar to the Maṭlaʿ-e saʿdayn, the one mention of Sulṭān-Abū

267 Muʿīn al-Dīn Muḥammad Zamchī Isfizārī, Rawżāt al-jannāt fī awṣāf madīnat-e Harāt

(Tehrān: Dāneshgāh-e Tehrān: 1338/1959), 2:213. 268 Isfizārī, Rawżāt al-jannāt, 2:213. For an account of Jahān-Shāh submitting to Shāhrokh

and receiving favor, see Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, 3:624, 626.

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Saʿīd as the ruler of specific wilāyats appears to be out of a need to concisely provide

background information:

In that same year, Mīrzā Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Gürägän, the pādeshāh of Māwarā al-Nahr

and Khorāsān, desiring the subjugation of the mamlakats of Jahān-Shāh, set out for

ʿIrāq and Āẕarbāyjān (ham dar ān sāl pādeshāh-e Māwarā’ al-Nahr wa Khorāsān

Mīrzā Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Gūrakān be-ṭamʿ-e taskhīr-e mamālik-e Jahān-Shāh

mutawajjih-e ʿIrāq wa Āẕarbāyjān shod).269

This passage was not in the sections devoted to Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s reign, but rather in a

section focusing on the Türkmāns. It is likely therefore that this reference to Sulṭān-Abū

Saʿīd as pādeshāh-e Māwarā’ al-Nahr wa Khorāsān was meant to give what Khwāndamīr

saw as a necessary reminder to the reader about what territories Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd held when

he invaded ʿIrāq and Āẕarbāyjān. Curiously, Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd was not mentioned here as

pādeshāh of Türkestān. To be sure, the Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar did mention Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd

as “pādeshāh-e (name of certain territory)” in the sections devoted to his reign, namely as

pādeshāh-e Īrān wa Tūrān (“pādeshāh of Īrān and Tūrān”).270 Khwāndamīr’s choice of

pādeshāh-e Īrān wa Tūrān was arguably to employ some poetic license to strengthen the

dramatic tone of the immediate account, which was about Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s defeat at

Qarabāgh. Indeed, pādeshāh-e Īrān wa Tūrān corresponds well with pādeshāh-e Māwarā al-

Nahr (i.e., Tūrān) wa Khorāsān (i.e., Īrān). Yet one of the basic characteristics of formal

titles was that they could not be readily poeticized into another variant. By the fifteenth

century, “His Majesty the King of France” was not readily interchangeable with “His

Majesty the King of Gaul.” Khwāndamīr’s use of pādeshāh-e Īrān wa Tūrān shows that there

269 Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, 4:429. 270 Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, 4:90.

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was no one fixed way of defining the rulership (pādeshāhī) of Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd vis-à-vis

Māwarā al-Nahr and Khorāsān. In this politico-historiographical culture, the panegyrical

historian was afforded license to express rulership in relation to territory, a practice

comparable to the art of honorifics discussed in Chapter Two.

In the Tārīkh-e rashīdī, Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd was mentioned at much shorter length than

in the Maṭlaʿ-e saʿdayn and the Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, but again one mention of him as the

“pādeshāh of” a territory can be found:

The other time [when] he (Esän-Buqa Khan) again raided the [unspecified] wilāyat in

this very manner, Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā had at that time become pādeshāh of

Māwarā al-Nahr (martaba-e degar bāz be-īn dastūr tākht bar sar-e wilāyat bord

Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā dar ān zamān pādeshāh-e Māwarā al-Nahr shoda būd).271

Like the passage in the Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar which referred to Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd as the

“pādeshāh of Māwarā al-Nahr and Khorāsān,” this passage in the Tārīkh-e rashīdī did not

feature Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd as the main subject; rather, Esän-Buqa Khan was the main subject,

making it advisable to provide a concise piece of background information explaining what

territory Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd held at the time the khan attacked westward. What the Maṭlaʿ-e

saʿdayn, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, and Tārīkh-e rashīdī all appear to show is that on the one

hand, the construction “pādeshāh-e (name of certain territory)” was not a random mutation in

the use of language, as all three sources apply it to Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd; but on the other hand,

this construction was not very pronounced, as the author of each source used it sparingly, and

most often in places where it seemed appropriate to concisely note what territories Sulṭān-

Abū Saʿīd held at a particular time. Altogether, the evidence suggests that Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd

did not hold a formal title in the way of “pādeshāh-e (name of certain territory),” and that his

271 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 28a.

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being a pādeshāh entailed control over territories, but his territories were not the basis of

what defined him as a pādeshāh.

With Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s case as backdrop, I now examine the fifth-generation

Timurid rulers and the way the sources mentioned them in relation to the territories they held.

The Tārīkh-e rashīdī very pointedly mentioned these rulers as pādeshāhs of territories, using

a slight variation of the construction “pādeshāh-e (name of certain territory),” i.e., pādeshāhī

(“rulership,” pādeshāhat in other manuscript) instead of pādeshāh (but one must presume

that pādeshāhī or pādeshāhat implies the existence of a pādeshāh):

At that time Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā had died in ʿIrāq and the pādeshāhī (pādeshāhat)

of [Harī (Harāt)] and Khorāsān went to Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Mīrzā, and the pādeshāhī

(pādeshāhat) of Samarqand to Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā ibn Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā, and

Qondūz and Badakhshān to Mīrzā Sulṭān-Maḥmud ibn Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā, and

the pādeshāhī (pādeshāhat) of the wilāyat of Farghāna to Mīrzā ʿUmar-Shaykh ibn

Mīrzā Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd (dar ān zaman Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā dar ʿIrāq morda būd

wa pādeshāhī-e Harī wa Khorāsān be-Sulṭān Ḥusayn Mīrzā qarār yāfta būd wa

pādeshāhī-e Samarqand be-Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā ibn Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā

muqarrar shoda būd wa Ḥiṣār wa Qondūz wa Badakhshān be-Mīrzā Sulṭān-Maḥmud

ibn Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā būd wa pādeshāhī-e Andijān wa wilāyat-e Farghāna be-

Mīrzā ʿUmar-Shaykh ibn Mīrzā Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd).272

In addition, there is another reference to Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā as pādeshāh-e Samarqand:

272 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 32b. See variant edition, ed.

Ghaffārī Fard, 121:

بود و یافتهقرار یرزام یندر عراق مرده بود و پادشاهت خراسان به سلطان حس یرزام یددر آن زمان سلطان ابو سعسلطان یرزامقرر شده بود و حصار و قندوز و بدخشان به م یرزام ید ابن سلطان ابو سع یرزاپادشاهت سمرقند به سلطان احمد م

بود ید سلطان ابو سع یرزاابن م یخعمر ش یرزافرغانه به م یت اندجان و وال اهت بود و پادش یرزام ید محمود ابن سلطان ابو سع







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[Yūnus Khan’s] first child is Mehr-Negār Khanım, whom he married to Sulṭān-

Aḥmad Mīrzā, the pādeshāh of Samarqand (nakhostīn farsand-e īshān Mehr-Negār

Khanım keh be-Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā pādeshāh-e Samarqand nisbat farmūda

būdand).273

Are these references in the Tārīkh-e rashīdī proof that the rulership (pādeshāhī) of these

fifth-generation Timurids was fundamentally defined by their respective territories?

Before drawing such a conclusion, we should compare these references with their

counterparts in other sources. Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā, the eldest son of Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd, was

already placed in Samarqand with a beg atäkä before his father’s death. According to the

Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar,

After the conquest of Khorāsān, the Fortunate Sulṭān (i.e., Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā)

entrusted the governance (iyālat) of the capital of His Highness the Lord of the

Auspicious Conjunction (i.e., Temür) to that joy-of-the-eye (i.e., Sulṭān-Aḥmad

Mīrzā), and appointed Jānī-Bek Dūldāy (Dulday), younger brother of Sulṭān-Bek

Kāshgharī, as the atabek274 of the prince (wa sulṭān-e saʿīd baʿd az fatḥ-e Khorāsān

iyālat-e dār al-salṭanat-e ḥażrat-e Sāḥib Qirān rā badān qurrat al-ʿayn mufauważ

sākht wa Jānī-Bek Dūldāy barādar-e khūrdtar-e Sulṭān-Bek Kāshgharī rā be-atabekī-

e shāhzāda muqarrar karda).275

273 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 94b. This reference to Sulṭān-

Aḥmad Mīrzā as the pādeshāh-e samarqand appears in a section mainly surveying Mīrzā Ḥaydar’s

kinsmen; Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā is not the main subject. 274 An atabek (also atabeg), literarily “father-lord,” fulfilled the role of a mīrzā’s guardian. 275 Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, 4:94. While I translate iyālat here as “governance,”

iyālat can also denote independent rule. There is, for example, a reference to the iyālat of Sulṭān-Abū

Saʿīd (one of whose sons is Sulṭān-Murād Mīrzā): “Mīrzā-Sulṭān Murād, in the time of his father’s

rule, stepped onto the seat of governance in the province[s] of Garmsēr and Qandahār (Mīrzā-Sulṭān Murād dar zamān-e iyālat-e pedar dar wilāyat-e Garmsēr wa Qandahār qadam bar masnad-e

ḥukūmat nahād) (Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, 4:94).







141

While Khwāndamīr naturally would not call Sulṭān-Aḥmad a pādeshāh at that point since

Sulṭān-Aḥmad was not ruling independently, he could have referred to him as the “governor

of Samarqand” (wālī-e Samarqand) at that time, as Isfizārī did in the Rawżāt al-jannāt.276

While there is no reason to believe that Khwāndamīr would have found any fault with

applying an appellation like wālī-e Samarqand to Sulṭān-Aḥmad, the phraseology of his

aforementioned passage suggests that he did not deem such an appellation to be critical.

Rather, the critical information was only that Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd entrusted the “governance”

(iyālat) of Samarqand to Sulṭān-Aḥmad. Another one of Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s sons who

received an appanage during the father’s lifetime and continued to rule that same territory in

subsequent decades was Ulughbeg Mīrzā:

Mīrzā Ulughbeg Gürägän, during the lifetime of his exalted father, was honored with

authority over the mamlakat of Kābol and Ghaznīn and their dependencies (Mīrzā

Ulugh-Bīk Gūrakān dar zamān-e ḥayāt-e wālid-e nāmdār-e khwīsh be-salṭanat-e

mamlakat-e Kābol wa Ghaznīn wa tawābiʿ wa lawāḥiq-e ān muftakhir wa sar-afrāz

būd).277

As the passage above shows, Khwāndamīr again only deemed it important to mention which

territories Ulughbeg Mīrzā received, and not the acquisition of any title or appellation

associated with those territories.

Khwāndamīr similarly did not mention any territorially-based title for Sulṭān-

Maḥmud Mīrzā, a younger and full brother to Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā. Sulṭān-Maḥmud no

The notion of entrusting the governance of a territory to a mīrzā, rather than ennobling him

with a title to the territory, can be found in the early Timurid histories. E.g., “[Temür] entrusted the

whole wilāyat of Khorāsān to Amīrzāda Shāhrokh” (majmūʿ-e wilāyat-e Khorāsān rā be-Amīrzāda

Shāhrokh tafwīż karda) (Shāmī, Ẓafarnāma, 167). 276 Isfizārī, Rawżāt al-jannāt, 2:325. 277 Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, 4:100.








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longer had possession of an appanage after his father died and Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Mīrzā took

over Khorāsān, so he had to remake his fortunes. The Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar related Sulṭān-

Maḥmud Mīrzā’s acquisition of his territories this way:

Amīr Qanbar-ʿAlī, who at that time was the governor (ḥākim) of that wilāyat (i.e.,

Ḥiṣār), elevated Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzā to authority (power, rulership), and that Royal

Highness raised the banner of authority in the wilāyāt of Termeẕ, Chaghāniyān, Ḥiṣār,

Khottalān, Qondūz, Baghlān, and Badakhshān up to Kotal of the Hindukush (Āmīr

Qanbar ʿAlī keh dar ān waqt ḥākim-e ān wilāyat būd Mīrzā Sulṭān-Maḥmud rā be-

salṭanat bar dāsht wa ān ḥażrat dar wilāyāt-e Termeẕ wa Chaghāniyān wa Ḥiṣār wa

Khottalān wa Qondūz wa Baghlān wa Badakhshān tā Kotal-e Hendūkosh ʿalam-e

salṭanat bar afrāsht).278

To digress briefly back to the theme of the last chapter, had Sulṭān-Maḥmud been a ruler in

the European tradition, he would have acquired a laundry list of titles, becoming formally

styled along the lines of “His Royal Highness the Prince of Ḥiṣār, Duke of Termeẕ, Duke of

Chaghāniyān, Marquis of Qondūz, Count of Baghlān, etc.” Khwāndamīr’s use of

circumlocution, namely “raising the banner of authority” “in” those wilāyāts, further suggests

that “pādeshāh-e [wilāyat-e] (name of certain territory)” was but one of multiple ways

rulership could be described in relation to territory. The recounted occasion, while certainly

regarded as an important transformation for Sulṭān-Maḥmud that involved specific formal

rituals, such as the reading of the khuṭba in his name,279 made no mention of any title in

relation to the acquired territories. Nor did it seem to involve any elevation in the status of

those territories to reflect that they were no longer just governed by an amīr acting as ḥākim,

278 Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, 4:97. 279 Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, 4:97.






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but were now ruled by a Timurid mīrzā; rather, they continued to be referred to as wilāyats. It

is perhaps precisely the lack of a conception of rulership formally defined by territory that

gave Khwāndamīr room to employ the language he did.

If Timurid political culture indeed had formal titles signifying rulership over

territories, is it likely that Khwāndamīr would have repeatedly failed to mention them for the

sons of Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd? Whereas if these titles did not exist, then we know that the earlier-

cited Tārīkh-e rashīdī passage with the construction “pādeshāhī-e (name of certain territory)”

and the reference to Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā as pādeshāh-e Samarqand were informal uses of

language to describe what territories the fifth-generation Timurid mīrzās ruled. It is also

telling that, similar to the Tārīkh-e rashīdī, the Bābor-nāma uses the Turkic version of the

said construction sparingly, while primarily portraying the fifth and sixth-generation Timurid

rulers as possessing or controlling wilayāts. In the Bābor-nāma, Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā was

mentioned once as the pādeshāh of Samarqand:

ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā’s elder brother the pādeshāh of Samarqand, Sulṭān-Aḥmad

Mīrzā, and the khan of the Moghul ulus, Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan, allied with each other

because of ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā’s misconduct (ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzānıng aqası

Samarqand pādeshāhı Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā wa Moghul ulusınıng khanı Sulṭān-

Maḥmūd Khan, chūn ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzānıng bad-maʿāshīsıdın mutażarrir erdilär,

birbirläri bilä ittifāq qılıp…).280

Here again, we face the question: was “pādeshāh of Samarqand” (Samarqand pādeshāhı)

Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā’s formal title, or an informal appellation indicating a territory he

happened to rule as pādeshāh? I am convinced it is the latter. Firstly, Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā

ruled more than the city (shahr) and the larger wilāyat of Samarqand. He ruled much of







144

Māwarā al-Nahr. So why did he not assume the “title” “pādeshāh of Māwarā al-Nahr,”

which the Maṭlaʿ-e saʿdayn and Tārīkh-e rashīdī attribute to his father?

Secondly, Bābor’s use of language overall shows that rulers possess and control

territory (e.g., “his wilāyats were,” “he took,” “in his control”), but not that rulership itself

was defined by territory. The following passage is from the biographical section devoted to

Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā, and it represents the typical way Bābor related Timurid rulers vis-à-vis

their territories:

His wilāyats were Samarqand and Bokhārā, which his father had given him. After

ʿAbd al-Quddūs killed Shaykh-Jamāl he took Tashkand, Shāhrokhiyya, and Sayrām,

[which] were in his control for some time. Later, he gave Tashkand along with

Sayrām to his younger brother ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā. Khojand and Ura Tepä were

also for some time Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā’s. (wilāyātı Samarqand wa Bokhārā erdi kim

atası berip edi Shaykh Jamālnı ‘Abd al-Quddūs öltürgändin song Tashkand wa

Shāhrokhiyya wa Sayrāmnı alıp edi nechä maḥall taṣarrufıda edi songra Tashkand

bilä Sayrāmnı inisi ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzāgha berip edi Khojand wa ura tepä ham

nechä maḥall Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzāda edi).281

Bābor related Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzā to his territories using similar language:

His wilāyats: Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā had given him Astarābād… Since then, the

wilāyāt south of the Iron Gate and the Kohtan Mountain such as Termez,

Chaghāniyān, Ḥiṣār, Khuttalān, Qondūz, Badakhshān to the Hindu Kush Mountain

were under Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzā’s control. After his older brother Sulṭān-Aḥmad

281 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 19b. ʿAbd al-Quddūs was an amīr of Yūnus Khan. Shaykh Jamāl

was the Chaghatay governor of Tashkand who had taken Yūnus Khan captive in collusion with a number of Yūnus Khan’s amīrs when the khan led his followers toward Tashkand, seeking a settled

life. See Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 32a–33b.









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Mīrzā died, his (i.e., Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā’s) wilāyāt was also under his (i.e., Sulṭān-

Maḥmud Mīrzā’s) control. (wilāyātı Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā Astarābādnı berip edi…

andın beri Qah[lu]qa bilä Kohtan Taghınıng janūb ṭarafıdaqı wilāyāt misl-e Termez

wa Chaghāniyān wa Ḥiṣār wa Khuttalān wa Qondūz wa Badakhshān Hindūkosh

Taghıghacha Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzānıng taṣarrufıda edi aqhası Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā

ölgändin song anıng wilāyātı daghı munıng taṣarrufıda boldı).282

When Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā died without a son in 1494, his territories were inherited by

Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzā.

A new pādeshāh in Samarqand for the first time since Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s death in

1469 was presumably a significant event in the Timurid world, as the “throne (takht) of

Samarqand” meant not just possession of Samarqand or even Māwarā al-Nahr, but also

inheriting the legacy of Temür and therefore a potential claim to pre-eminence in the dynasty.

The Bābor-nāma describes Sulṭān-Maḥmud as “sitting upon the throne” (takhtqa olturdı), but

not becoming “ruler of” any territory:

After Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā’s death, the begs reached an agreement to dispatch

posthaste a person to Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzā via the mountain road and invite him…

As soon as this news reached Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzā, he came to Samarqand without

delay and sat upon the throne without trouble (Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā wāqiʿasıdın song

beglär ittifāq qılıp tagh yolı bilä Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzāgha kishi chapturup

tilädilär… Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzāga bu khabar yetkäch oq bī-tawaqquf

Samarqandgha kelip bī-zaḥmat wa bī-mashaqqat takhtqa olturdı).283

282 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 26b. 283 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 23a.
















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Since the Tārīkh-e rashīdī called Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd pādeshāh-e Māwarā al-Nahr and Sulṭān-

Aḥmad Mīrzā pādeshāh-e Samarqand, one would expect Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzā to have

inherited one or both of these “titles,” if that was indeed what they were. However, at least

regarding this occasion, Mīrzā Ḥaydar did not feel it necessary to mention such an

inheritance of title:

Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzā came from Ḥiṣār and sat on the throne of Samarqand in place

of his brother. He exercised rulership (pādeshāhī) for six months and died a natural

death. In his place Mīrzā Baysunghur became pādeshāh. (Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzā az

Ḥiṣār āmad wa dar takht-e Samarqand be-jā-ye barādar neshast shash māh

pādeshāhī kard wa be-marg-e ṭabīʿī mord wa be-jā-ye way Mīrzā Bāysunghur

pādeshāh shod).284

The expressions “sat on the throne” and “exercised rulership” appear to have been adequate

substitutes for becoming “pādeshāh of Samarqand” or “pādeshāh of Māwarā al-Nahr.”

As for ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā b. Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd, did he hold a formal title based on

territory? In addition to the earlier-mentioned passage explaining why Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd

switched ʿUmar-Shaykh’s appanage from Kābol to Farghāna,285 Bābor wrote another section

specifically on what his father’s wilāyats were, using the same format as he used in the

biographies of his uncles:

His wilāyats: His father gave [him] the wilāyāt of Farghāna. For some time Tashkand

and Sayrām, which his elder brother Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā had given him, were also

under his control. He took Shāhrokhiyya by deception and was in control of it for

some time. In later times, Tashkand and Shāhrokhiyya departed from [his] grip.

284 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 43b. 285 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 6b.







147

(wilāyātı atası Farghāna wilāyatını berip edi nechä maḥall Tashkand wa Sayrām

ham mīrzānıng taṣarrufıda edi kim aqhası Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā berip edi

Shāhrokhiyyanı farīb bilä alılıp nechä maḥall mutaṣarrif edi ākhir chaghlarda

Tashkand wa Shāhrokhiyya eligtin chıqıp edi).286

Plus, given the details Bābor put into recounting his life and world,287 we should reasonably

expect him to have mentioned the time he himself became “Pādeshāh of Farghāna,” had this

in fact been a formal title held by ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā. Instead, however, this was Bābor’s

account of himself becoming pādeshāh, written at the very beginning of his memoirs:

In the month of Ramażān in the year 899[/1494], in the wilāyat of Farghāna, at the

age of twelve, I became pādeshāh (Ramażān ayı tārīkh sekiz yüz toqsan toquzda

Farghāna wilāyatıda on iki yashta pādeshāh boldum).288

In a sentence accounting for his becoming a pādeshāh and mentioning Farghāna, Bābor’s

phraseology is strong inductive indication that there was not a formal title of “Pādeshāh of

Farghāna” passed down from father to son. The Tārīkh-e rashīdī chose a variant phraseology

in accounting for Bābor succeeding his father:

And the amīrs of ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā did manly (brave) deeds (i.e., securing

Farghāna against an invasion by Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā) and elevated to rulership the

son of ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā, Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Bābor Pādeshāh, who was

286 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 8a. 287 For discussions on the Bābor-nāma itself, see Dale, The Garden of the Eight Paradises,

23–27 and Wheeler Thackston trans., The Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor (New

York: Modern Library, 2002), xvii-xxix.. 288 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 1b. While the Turkic locative case (da/de) can be used as

substitute for the possessive, making a construction like Farghāna wilāyātıda pādeshāh potentially

interchangeable with Farghāna wilāyātı pādeshāhı, this is almost certainly not the case here given

that on iki yashta is written between wilāyatıda and pādeshāh. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Khan-e Khanān

certainly determined it to be a real locative case, hence translating as dar wilāyat-e Farghāna ([Bābor-nāma], MS, British Library, Or. 3714, fol.1v; Baburnama, ed. and trans. W. M. Thackston,

vol. 1, 2).



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twelve years of age, and they applied to Sulṭān-Maḥmud Khan [b. Yūnus Khan] for

protection (wa umarā-ye ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā mardānagī kardand wa pesar-e

ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Bābor Pādeshāh rā keh dawāzdah

sāla būd bā pādeshāhī bar dāshtand wa iltijā be-Sulṭān-Maḥmud Khān bordand).289

Admittedly, Mīrzā Ḥaydar would not have needed to mention Farghāna in this passage, since

earlier on the same folio, he had written the earlier-cited passage “… the pādeshāhī of the

wilāyat of Farghāna to Mīrzā ʿUmar-Shaykh ibn Mīrzā Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd” (pādeshāhī-e

Andijān wa wilāyat-e Farghāna be-Mīrzā ʿUmar-Shaykh); 290 a reader would naturally

deduce that Bābor inherited none other than Farghāna. At the same time, Mīrzā Ḥaydar’s

phraseology “they elevated [Bābor] to rulership” (bā pādeshāhī bar dāshtand) is congruent

with Bābor’s phraseology “I became pādeshāh” (pādeshāh boldum) in that neither saw the

need to emphasize the rulership as being of a territory. More about Bābor will be discussed

along with other sixth-generation Timurids. For now, I return to the discussion of fifth-

generation Timurids.

The Bābor-nāma, which employs the least ornate language among the sources

discussed in this chapter, prefers the phraseologies (1) being a ruler “in” a territory, (2) a

territory being “given” to someone, and (3) his “wilāyat(s) are.” In the biography of Sulṭān-

Ḥusayn Mīrzā, for example, Bābor wrote:

289 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 32b. The Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-

siyar uses similar wording: “the amīrs and pillars of regal fortune elevated that Royal Highness to rulership” (umārā wa arkān-e dawlat wa akābir wa aʿyān-e wilāyat ān hażrat rā ba pādeshāhī bar

dāshtand) (Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, 4:226). 290 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 32b. The word pādeshāhī

does not precede ḥiṣār wa qondūz wa badkhshān. This may be because Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzā had the khuṭba read in the name of Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā before that of his own (Samarqandī, Maṭlaʿ-e

saʿdayn, 4:998; and Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, 4:97).






149

For nearly forty years when he was pādeshāh in Khorāsān, there was not a day when

he did not drink after the midday prayer, but he never drank in the morning (qırq

yılgha yavuq kim Khorāsānda pādeshāh edi, hīch kün yoq edi kim namāz-e peshīndın

song ichmägäy walī hargiz ṣabūhī qılmas edi).291

His wilāyat: Khorāsān was his wilāyat. Its eastern [boundary] is Balkh, its western

[boundary] Bisṭām and Dāmghān, its northern [boundary] Khwārazm, its southern

[boundary] Qandahār and Sīstān. When a city like Harī (Harāt, Herat) fell to his hand,

day and night he did nothing except indulge in luxury and pleasure. (wilāyatı

Khorāsān wilāyatı edi sharqı Balkh gharbı Bisṭām wa Dāmghān shimālı Khwārazm

janūbı Qandahār wa Sīstān chūn Harī dek shahr eligigä tüshti tün wa kün ʿaysh wa

ʿisharttın özgä ishi yoq edi).292

Regarding Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Mīrzā as a pādeshāh, Bābor also referred to him this way:

For a grand pādeshāh like Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Mīrzā, the pādeshāh of a city of Islam like

Harī (i.e., Harāt, Herat), it is incredible that of these fourteen sons, only three were

not illegitimate children (Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Mīrzā dek ulugh pādeshāh Harī dek Islām

shahrınıng pādeshāhı bu ʿajab tur kim bu on tört oghlıdın üchi walad al-zinā emäs

edi).293

Though in no sense could “the pādeshāh of a city of Islam like Harī” be a formal title of any

sort, and we know that Sulṭān-Ḥusayn was ruler of Khorāsān, not just the city of Harī. If one

referred to the King of England as “the king of a city of Christendom like London,” this

would have been regarded as inaccurate language, as London was not a kingdom. Whereas

291 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 164b. 292 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fols. 165b–66a. For an overview of the geography of Khorāsān under

Timurid rule, see V. V. Barthold, An Historical Geography of Iran, ed., C. E. Bosworth, trans. Svat Soucek (Princeton: Princeton, University Press, 1984), 55–58.

293 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 169b.

150

Bābor could call Sulṭān-Ḥusayn “the pādeshāh of an Islamic city like Harī” because Sulṭān-

Ḥusayn’s being pādeshāh was not formally defined by Khorāsān in the first place.

Moreover, though Bābor called Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā “pādeshāh of Samarqand”

(Samarqand pādeshāhı), he did not use this construction for four of his paternal cousins or

for himself. Badīʿ al-Zamān Mīrzā and Muẓaffar-Ḥusayn Mīrzā, for example, were sons of

Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Mīrzā, and this was how Bābor related them to the territories they held:

When Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Mīrzā reached Balkh, he gave Balkh to Badīʿ al-Zamān Mīrzā

in the interests of the wilāyat of Māwarā al-Nahr, and he gave his (i.e., Badīʿ al-

Zamān’s) wilāyat of Astarābād to Muẓaffar-Ḥusayn Mīrzā. They were made to

genuflect for Balkh and Astarābād respectively in the same assembly (Sulṭān-Ḥusayn

Mīrzā Balkhgha yetkändä Māwarā al-Nahr wilāyatı maṣlaḥatı üchün Balkhnı Badīʿ

al-zamān Mīrzāgha berip anıng wilāyatı Astarābādnı Muẓaffar-Ḥusayn Mīrzāgha

berdi har ikäläsini Balkhgha wa Astarābādgha bir majlista yükündürdi).294

On these occasions, when the elder and younger brothers (i.e., Badīʿ al-Zamān Mīrzā

and Muẓaffar-Ḥusayn Mīrzā) were co-rulers in Harī, he (i.e., Ẕū al-Nūn Arghun) was

in the service of Badīʿ al-Zamān Mīrzā as lord plenipotentiary (bu furṣatlarda kim

Harīdä agha ini shirkat bilä pādeshāh edilär Badīʿ al-Zamān Mīrzā qashıda bu ṣāḥib

ikhtiyār edi).295

The first passage mentioning the assembly in which the two mīrzās genuflected for receiving

their appanages is a reminder that such an occasion was viewed with importance, and called

for ceremonial formalities. So had Timurid mīrzās received formal titles defined by their

294 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 36a. The ritual of genuflection involved the bending of the right

knee to the ground as a show of respect and obedience. 295 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 205a.

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appanages, it is reasonable to assume that such titles would show up regularly in the sources,

but this is not the case.

Two other cousins of Bābor—Sulṭān-Masʿūd Mīrzā and Baysunghur Mīrzā—were

the sons of Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzā. How Baysunghur Mīrzā is related to the territory he ruled

is of particular importance, as he succeeded to the “throne of Samarqand” after his father’s

death. In this capacity, he should have been viewed as successor to Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd as

pādeshāh-e Māwarā al-Nahr and to Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā as pādeshāh-e Samarqand. While

Bābor fought against Baysunghur Mīrzā and seized Samarqand from him in 1498, his

assessment of Baysunghur Mīrzā in the Bābor-nāma was largely laudatory,296 and in fact

starkly contrasted with the profound contempt he showed for Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzā.297 Thus,

had pādeshāh-e Māwarā al-Nahr or pādeshāh-e Samarqand been formal titles, or even just

important representations of rulership, Bābor would have had no reason to leave them out.

Yet this was how Bābor accounted for Baysunghur Mīrzā’s rulership vis-à-vis territory:

During his lifetime, Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzā gave Ḥiṣār to his eldest son Sulṭān-

Masʿūd Mīrzā and Bokhārā to Baysunghur Mīrzā, and granted his sons permission to

depart. At his death, neither [son] was present. After Khosraw-Shāh departed

Samarqand, the begs of Samarqand and Ḥiṣār reached an agreement to send a person

to Bokhārā to have Baysunghur Mīrzā come and be seated on the throne of

Samarqand. When Baysunghur Mīrzā became pādeshāh he was eighteen years old.

(Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzā hayātıda ulugh oghlı Sulṭān-Masʿūd Mīrzāgha Ḥiṣārnı berip

296 Bābor says that Baysunghur Mīrzā “was justice-dispensing, humane, good-natured, and

learned prince” (ʿadālatpēsha wa ādamī wa khushṭabʿ wa fażīlatlıqh pādeshāhzāda edi) (Bābor,

Bābor-nāma, fol. 68b). 297 About his uncle Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzā, father of Baysunghur Mīrzā, Bābor says that

“…he was by nature inclined to tyranny and vice… Moreover, Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Mīrzā’s begs and retainers were all tyrants and men of vice” (ṭabʿī ẓulm wa fisqqa māyil edi… beg wa begchä wa nökär

südäri tamām ẓālim wa fāsiq edilär) (Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 23b).








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Baysunghur Mīrzā Bokhārānı berip oghlanlarıgha rukhṣat berip edi bu wāqiʿada

hīch qaysı ḥāżir emäs edi Khosraw-Shāh chıqarghandın song Samarqand wa Ḥiṣār

begläri ittifāq bilä Bokhārāgha Baysunghur Mīrzā kishi yibärip keltürüp Samarqand

takhtıgha olturghuzdılar Baysunghur Mīrzā pādeshāh bolghanda on sekiz yashar

erdi).298

His wilāyats: his father, Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Mīrzā, gave [him] Bokhārā. After his father

[died], the begs assembled and agreed to make [him] pādeshāh in Samarqand.

Bokhārā was also within his dīwān for some time. [Bokhārā] left his control after the

tarkhans’ revolt. When I took Samarqand, he went to Khosraw-Shāh. Khosraw-Shāh

took Ḥiṣār and gave it [to him]. (wilāyātı atası Sulṭān-Maḥmud Mīrzā Bokhārānı

berip edi atasıdın song atasınıng berläri yıghılip ittifāq bilä Samarqandta pādeshāh

qıldılar Bokhārā ham nechä maḥällghacha munıng dīwānıgha dākhil edi tarkhanlar

yaghılıqıdın song anıng taṣarrufıdın chıqtı men samarqandnı alghanda Khosrau-

Shāhqa tartar bardı Khosraw-Shāh Ḥiṣārnı alıp berdi).299

In sum, Bābor acknowledged that Baysunghur Mīrzā inherited the “throne of Samarqand”

and became pādeshāh, but did not call him “pādeshāh of Māwarā al-Nahr” or “pādeshāh of

Samarqand.” Tellingly, Bābor also did not claim either of these two “titles” for himself,

though he certainly saw himself as the legitimate pādeshāh to sit on the “throne of

Samarqand” after Baysunghur Mīrzā.

Bābor treated his own takeover of Samarqand in 1498, and again in 1500, as the

highest achievements of his early reign. These two victories were the basis for his claim to

higher honor than he had initially been afforded when he paid a visit to Badīʿ al-Zamān

298 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 30a. Khosraw-Shāh was a powerful amīr of Sulṭān-Maḥmud

Mīrzā. 299 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 69a.





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Mīrzā in Khorāsān during the fall-winter of 1506.300 (Bābor again occupied Samarqand from

autumn 1511 to summer 1512, but we do not know his perspective on his third reign in the

city due to the incompleteness of his memoirs.301) Hence, as far as the 1498 takeover was

concerned, Bābor would have had no reason to deny himself the “title” pādeshāh-e Māwarā

al-Nahr or pādeshāh-e Samarqand had they been formally important. He certainly did not

overlook adding ghazī (“holy warrior”) to his title after his defeat of Rānā Sangā in 1527.302

Yet Bābor referred to his takeover of Samarqand in 1498 in the following ways:

As soon as I sat on the throne of Samarqand, I favored the begs of Samarqand as they

had been before (Samarqand takhtıgha olturgach Samarqand beglärini burunqı dek

oq riʿāyat wa ʿināyat qıldım).303

This time I exercised padeshahship in Samarqand city for one hundred days (bu

nawbat Samarqand sharıda yüz kün pādeshāhlıq qıldım).304

Bābor’s lack of a pronounced sense of becoming the “ruler of” a territory he had acquired is

also seen in his account of the two other watershed events in his reign, i.e., his takeover of

Kābol in 1504, and his entrance into former Lōdī territory after the Battle of Pānīpat in 1526:

Toward the end of the month of Rabīʿ al-awwal, by God’s grace and generosity, the

mulk and wilāyat of Kābol and Ghaznī were subdued without fighting (Rabīʿ al-

awwal ayınıng ākhiride Tengri taʿālā fażl wa karamı bilä Kābol wa Ghaznī mulk wa

wilāyatını bī-jang wa jadal muyassar wa musakhkhar qıldı).305

300 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 187a. 301 For an account of Bābor’s third reign in Samarqand, see Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e

rashīdī, fols. 121–26.

302 See Wright, Catalogue of the Coins in the Indian Museum Calcutta, vol. 3, 1. 303 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 50b. 304 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fols. 53a–53b. 305 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 128a.

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Up until this date, on which I conquered Hindustān, five Muslim and two infidel

rulers have ruled in Hindustān (bu tārīkhda kim men Hindustān fatḥ qıldım besh

musalmān pādeshāh wa iki kāfir Hindustānda salṭanant qılurlar erdi).306

Of further note is that while Bābor formalized pādeshāh as a title for himself in 913/1507–8,

he did not mention elevating the wilāyat of Kābol to a “padeshahdom” to reflect his new

status.

While Bābor appears to have minimally used the construction “pādeshāh-e (name of

certain territory),” his recollections elsewhere in the Bābor-nāma reveal some of the closest

associations between being pādeshāh and having wilāyat. The following is a recollection of

how he felt after losing not only Samarqand in the spring of 1498, but also his original

territory of Farghāna due to the rebellion of a number of his begs:

Ever since I became pādeshāh, I had not been separated in such a way from nökär[s]

and wilāyat (tā pādeshāh bolup edim bu nawʿ nökärdin wa wilāyattın ayrılmaydur

edim).307

From this, we sense that while not defining his rulership by territory, Bābor saw the

importance of having wilāyat as being on par with that of having nökärs, or liegemen.308 It

306 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 270b. 307 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 54a. 308 It is noteworthy that in this case, the people to whom Bābor attached importance were

nökärs rather than the whole community of his subjects of steppe heritage (el wa ulus) or the

sedentary common people (raʿiyyat). The institution of nökär (Mo. nökör) was of early Mongol

origin. A nökär owed to his lord a personal allegiance that transcended tribal allegiance. Chinggis Qan relied on his nökörs as one of the most important sources of his politico-military power. Nökörs

served as bodyguards and members of his retinue, enjoying physical proximity to the ruler. Chinggis

Qan later appointed some of his most trusted nökörs as field commanders and viceroys of conquered regions. See Urgunge Onon, The Secret History of the Mongols, 7–8.

Elsewhere in the Bābor-nāma, there are a number of instances in which Bābor attached

importance to his bond with common people, especially those of Samarqand. It was in relation to

Samarqand that Bābor tended to emphasize the idea of “justice” (ʿadl, ʿadālat, dād) and portray himself as a “just” ruler. For examples of Bābor claiming to protect the people of Samarqand from

plunder, see Bābor-nāma, fols. 39b, 40, 51. See also Bābor’s account of how the people of

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was as if to say that human political bonds alone were not sufficient for rulership. Wilāyat

had value to Bābor beyond being mere land or property. Bābor did not lament being deprived

of palaces, treasures, cash, livestock, arms and equipment, or any other material possession

that a ruler would be expected to have. His words in this one sentence arguably showed a

stronger sense of bond between ruler and territory than all the mentions of “pādeshāh-e

(name of certain territory)” seen elsewhere in the sources, which while literally referring to a

pādeshāh as being “of” a territory, did not emphasize a territory’s importance to being

pādeshāh at an existential level.

Chapter Conclusion

When a historian like Khwāndamīr penned the words pādeshāh-e Māwarā al-Nahr

wa Khorāsān, did he think of Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s being a pādeshāh as fundamentally defined

by those very territories, or was this construction just one of the ways he found suitable for

providing information about Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd in using the Persian language? Through this

chapter’s analyses, I conclude the latter. “Pādeshāh-e [wilāyat] (name of certain territory)”

did not constitute a formal title, and neither was its use in the histories very pronounced.

Rather, it was an informal appellation used to give facts about a ruler and the territories he

ruled. At the same time, however, the idea of a Timurid being the pādeshāh of a territory was

clearly conceivable at a literal level. Moreover, given other evidences of close association

between pādeshāh, territory, and subjects (e.g., Bābor’s lamentation “ever since I became

pādeshāh I had not been separated in such a way from my nökär[s] and wilāyat”), we can say

that the fifth and sixth-generation Timurids had conceptual building blocks for potentially

Samarqand welcomed him upon ousting the Uzbeks in 1500 in Bābor-nāma, fol. 54. Another expression of people and territory being on par can be seen in the construction mulk wa millat (e.g.,

Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, 3:48).

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developing formal territorial polities. For the mid-fifteenth to early sixteenth century,

however, the construction “pādeshāh-e [wilāyat-e/mamlakat-e] (name of certain territory)”

cannot be viewed as a formal conception of rulership based on territory. I hope the elephant

in the room has been fed an adequate meal, but may this not be its last.

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CHAPTER FOUR

TOWARDS A FULLER EXPLANATION:

THE LEGACY OF ULUS AND KHANSHIP AND THE TIMURIDS’ INDECISIVE

PATH TO FORMAL INDEPENDENCE

Chapter One discussed how the notion of the mobile ulus was still prevalent in the

Timurid era, but the major uluses, including the ulus of Chaghatay, was attributed certain

territorial characteristics. Chapter Two demonstrated that in Chinggisid-Timurid politico-

diplomatic culture, the representation of rulership lacked a clear object in Mongol-style

titulature, while Arabo-Persian honorifics artistically and irregularly applied spatial/territorial

references to Muslim rulers, altogether distinguishing itself from the corresponding

conventions in European and East Asian politico-diplomatic cultures. Chapter Three showed

that while Timurid political culture had literal expressions of rulership “of” territories, it did

not have a formal or pronounced notion of the same. Taking all these phenomena together,

how do we explain the lack of an officially named political community—be it an ulus,

mamlakat, or wilāyat—unambiguously expressed as the object of rulership by the end of

Timurid rule in Central Asia? Why was there no straightforward expression of a concept of

“king and country”? Chapters One and Two have already provided a partial answer to this

question by demonstrating the weight of tradition in Chinggisid-Timurid political culture.

Since ulus was the original Mongol concept of political community as well as the object of

khanship, then perhaps no wonder the Timurids did not formally regard themselves as the

pādeshāhs of their wilāyats, for they were the amīr and amīrzādas of the ulus of Chaghatay.

And since Mongol-style titulature and Arabo-Persian honorifics constituted the pre-existing

convention, the Timurids were merely perpetuating the same. The Timurids’ observance of

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traditions, however, does not serve as a complete answer, for we know that the Timurids

actively sought to express their sovereignty independent of Chinggisid khanship.

Modern historians, observing the puppet roles of Soyurghatmısh Khan (r. 1370–84)

and his son Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan (r. 1384–1402) and the fact that Temür did not even

elevate a new khan after Sulṭān-Maḥmūd’s death, have understandably not paid much heed to

the institution of Chinggisid khanship in Timurid politics.309 We should appreciate, however,

that when the two puppet khans reigned, they provided clarity to the conception of political

community: Soyurghatmısh Khan and Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan, though Ogodayids by

bloodline, were khans of the ulus of Chaghatay, and Temür was the chief amīr of the same.

Recounting the initiation of hostilities between Temür and the Jochid Urus Khan in 777/1376,

Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī understood Temür as having led none other than the army of the

ulus of Chaghatay:

His Highness the Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction (i.e., Temür)… assembled the

entirety of the ulus of Chaghatay, and late in the Year of Dragon, he marched against

Urus Khan (ḥażrat-e Ṣāhib-Qirān… tamāmī-e ulūs-e Chaghatāy rā jamʿ āwarda ham

dar awākhir-e lū yīl mutawajjih-e Urūs Khān shod).310

309 An exception is the relatively in-depth treatment of Temür’s legitimation through

Chinggisid khanship in John E. Woods, “Timur’s Genealogy,” in Intellectual Studies on Islam: Essays Written in Honor of Martin B. Dickson, edited by Michel M. Mazzaoui and Vera B. Moreen

(Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1990), 98–109. Woods view Shāhrokh as one who “began

to carry out the definitive break with the Mongol past. Indeed, throughout the course of his long reign, a number of sources attest to his intentions to Islamize the ideology and the conduct of his

administration” (ibid., 115–16). I do not deny Shāhrokh’s Islamization policies, but I question

whether such policies necessarily implied break with the Mongol past, particularly in regards to the

institutions of ulus and khanship. This chapter treats not only the case of Shāhrokh, but also those of other fifteenth-century Timurid rulers.

310 Yazdī, Ẓafarnāma, 1:464–65.

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Yet once Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan’s reign ended and there was no successor khan, to what

political community did the Timurids belong? Was the ulus of Chaghatay considered to have

ended, and if so, what political community was understood to have taken its place?

This chapter examines the extent to which the institution of khanship and the ulus of

Chaghatay as a political community did or did not have a place in Timurid political culture

through the fifteenth century. While the extant historical sources generally portrayed an

image of the Timurids as independent rulers not in need of khanship, thereby allowing the

ulus of Chaghatay to essentially fade from relevance, the same sources also indicated that the

fifteenth-century Timurids never found a comprehensive alternative to the formal sovereignty

of Chinggisid khanship. There are evidences to suggest that after Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan’s

death in 1402, Temür deliberately instituted an indefinite “interregnum,” whereby in theory,

sovereignty still rested in khanship. In the subsequent decades, different Timurid rulers

implicitly or explicitly adopted different approaches to khanship and ulus. In Khorāsān,

Shāhrokh, Abū al-Qāsim Bābor, Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Bayqara, half-heartedly experimented with

exercising khanship themselves. Ulughbeg b. Shāhrokh and Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd appeared to

emphasize the institution of kuraganship, while ʿAbd al-Laṭīf b. Ulughbeg elevated a

Chinggisid khan, though for a particularly sinister purpose. In Central Asia, the entrance of

Yūnus Khan (d. 1487) and his son Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan (r. 1487–1508) into Timurid

politics turned the normative notion of Chinggisid sovereignty into more of an actuality

during the 1480s–90s, reinstating a version of the original Chinggisid-Timurid political order

in the region. Altogether, this chapter offers a critical reassessment of formal Timurid

independence from Chinggisid khanship, and demonstrates that from Temür to Bābor, the

Timurids in varying ways treated the ulus of Chaghatay as a zombie institution—

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simultaneously dead and alive—resulting in trouble articulating an unambiguous official

conception of political community. This ambiguity, stemming from the Timurids’ indecisive

path to formal independence, is in turn a key reason why we should not expect a clear

conception of “king and country” for at least the first six generations of their rule, even

though they had conceptual building blocks for formal territorial polities, as previously

discussed.

Reassessing Timurid Independence from 1402–49: Kürägäns, Timurid Khans in

Khorāsan, and a Deliberate “Interregnum”?

While I do not dispute that Temür and his ruling descendants held de facto power

independent of Chinggisid khans, or that the Timurids adopted various symbols of

sovereignty to express their independence, I argue that formal Timurid independence from

Chinggisid khanship after 1402 needs to be reassessed. Changes and continuities in

conceptions of rulership and political community have a close interactive relationship with de

facto political power, but conceptions themselves fall squarely in the realm of the abstract,

i.e., in the minds of people. Therefore, the de facto absence of khans as nominal overlords

may or may not have led to changes in the fifteenth-century Timurids’ and the wider ruling

class’s perspectives on the questions of (1) what are the Timurids rulers of, now that there are

no reigning khans, and (2) do the Chaghatays still belong to the ulus of Chaghatay—does this

ulus still exist? Modern historians basically discount the ulus of Chaghatay as a political

community after the deaths of Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan and Temür in 1402 and 1405,

respectively. Few if any would consider labelling “ulus of Chaghatay” (or “Chaghatay

Khanate”) on a map of fifteenth-century Central Asia and Iran, for the history from Shāhrokh

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to Bābor is considered “Timurid history” in its own right, not “Chinggisid history” or

“Chaghatayid history.” However, if we could for a moment examine conceptions of rulership

and political community separate from de facto power, we might find that Timurid

independence from Chinggisid/Chaghatayid khanship and the end of the ulus of Chaghatay

are not so clear-cut.

One fact that stands to question formal Timurid independence from Chinggisid

khanship is the continuation of Timurid kuraganship after the death of Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan

b. Soyurghatmısh. Temür and several of his ruling descendants, e.g., his grandson Ulughbeg,

his great-grandson Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd, and Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s sons Sulṭān-Aḥmad, Sulṭān-

Maḥmūd, and ʿUmar-Shaykh became kürägäns on account of their marriages to daughters of

Chinggisid khans.311 During the reigns of Soyurghatmısh Khan and Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan,

coins were minted with the name of the reigning khan followed by that of Temür.312 On these

coins, the subordination of Temür as kürägän was expressed as his name followed that of the

khan, for instance, Soyurghatmısh yarlıghı Amīr Tīmūr Kūrakhān (“By the edict of

Soyurghatmısh, Amīr Temür Kürägän”), or Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khān Amīr Tīmūr Kūrakān.313

By 806/1402–3, which was soon after Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan’s death, coins were minted in

Temür’s name only, for instance, Tīmūr Kūrakān Amīr […].”314 On the one hand, the minting

of such coins bearing only Temür’s name could certainly have been read as an assertion of

independence from Chinggisid khanship. On the other hand, could someone bearing the titles

kürägän and amīr have been understood as occupying a status other than of subordination

311 For a discussion of “The Timurids as an In-Law Dynasty,” see Manz, “Women in Timurid

Dynastic Politics,” in Women in Iran: From the Rise of Islam to 1800, ed. Guity Nashat and Lois

Beck (Urbana: University of Illinois Press 2003), 122–24. 312 Lane-Poole, Catalogue of Oriental Coins, vol. 7, 4–18. 313 Lane-Poole, Catalogue of Oriental Coins, vol. 7, 7, 11. 314 Lane-Poole, Catalogue of Oriental Coins, vol. 7, 19.

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vis-à-vis khanship? This question must especially be asked regarding the title kürägän, which

since the time of Chinggis Qan had been applied to the sons-in-law of Chinggisid rulers. Any

notion that a kürägän was somehow not inferior to a khan would have run smack in the face

of common sense. Even if the khanship was to be forgotten, a coin minted in the name of a

kürägän would still have left the question “kürägän in which political community?”.

After Temür’s death, Shāhrokh eventually emerged as the paramount Timurid ruler,

and Harāt, Khorāsān, became the new political center. Shāhrokh and two later Harāt-based

Timurid rulers, namely Abū al-Qāsim Bābor (r. 1449–57) and Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Bayqara (r.

1469, 1470–1506), claimed the title of khan. It is noted among researchers that the Timurids

were often hesitant to adopt khan as a title (khitāb) following their names, though they sought

opportunities to encroach upon the regal prerogatives of khanship.315 In Shāhrokh’s case, he

commissioned certain coins with the inscription “The Great Sulṭān, Shāhrokh Bahadur Khan”

(al-Sulṭān al-Aʿẓam Shāhrokh Bahādur Khān).316Abū al-Qāsim Bābor and Sulṭān-Ḥusayn

Bayqara commissioned coins with similar inscriptions.317 These Timurid khans, however,

ultimately represented an encroachment rather than advancement for the dynasty.

315 See Manz, “Tamerlane and the Symbolism of Sovereignty,” 105–7, Manz, “Temür and the

Problem of a Conqueror’s Legacy,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3rd ser., 8, no. 1 (1998): 34–

40, and Subtelny, “Bābur’s Rival Relations: A Study of Kinship and Conflict in 15th–16th Century

Central Asia.” Der Islam 66, no. 1 (1989): 115–16. 316 Stanley Lane-Poole, Catalogue of Oriental Coins in the British Museum, vol. 10,

Additions to the Oriental Collection 1876–1888: Additions to Vols. V–VIII, pt. 2 (London: Gilbert and

Rivington, 1890), 151. 317 Al-Sulṭān al-ʿAẓam [A]bū al-Qāsim Bābor Bahādur Khān, as shown on a coin from

854/1450–51 (Lane-Poole, Catalogue of Oriental Coins, vol. 7, 45), and al-Sulṭan al-‘Azam Ḥusayn

Bahādur Kh[an], as shown on a coin from 785/1383–84 (ibid., 46). See also Sulṭān-Ḥusayn’s seal with the inscription Abū al-Ghāzī Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Bahādur Khān versus contemporaneous seals and

decrees without the title khan in Shivan Mahendrarajah, “Two Original Decrees by Sulṭān-Ḥusayn

Bayqarā in the National Archives in Kabul,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 71,

no. 2 (2018): 161–78. The headers of the two documents did not contain pretension to khanship, containing only “Abū al-Ghāzī Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Bahadur, Our Word” (Abū al-Ghāzī Sulṭān-Ḥusayn

Bahādur sözümiz), but one of the seals used on the back of the decree from 896/1491 contains “Abū

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For their pretensions were not universally recognized even within the dynasty. The

Bābor-nāma, for example, consistently referred to them only as mīrzā. The Maṭlaʿ-e saʿdayn

referred to Shāhrokh by name numerous times, but on two occasions, it called him “Shāhrokh

Bahadur Khan,” once in the context of his birth and once in a context when Temür was still

alive.318 As Prof. Maria Subtelny pointed out to me, these claims to khanship were possible

because Khorāsān did not historically belong to the ulus of Chaghatay. Indeed, distance from

the old Chaghatayid power base would have helped embolden such pretensions. At the same

time, the way the Maṭlaʿ-e saʿdayn sporadically and mimially refers to Shāhrokh with the title

khan suggests there was a limit to Shāhrokh’s willingness to invest political capital into his

khanship. Had he intensely promoted himself as khan, he would have undoubtedly faced the

question: “khan of what?” If khanship was still understood in terms of holding an ulus, he

would have needed to either claim the khanship of the ulus of Chaghatay or proclaim a new

ulus. The same question would have applied to Abū al-Qāsim Bābor and Sulṭān-Ḥusayn.

Also, if these Timurid khans intended to unequivocally appropriate the khanship of the

Chinggisids, why did they not entitle their sons oghlan, their daughters khanım, and their

sons-in-law kürägän? These limitations in articulating and propagandizing the significance

behind Timurid khanship is an indication that the fifteenth century was a time when the

Timurid dynasty was experimenting, and not always successfully, with ways to formulate

conceptions of rulership that brought greater prestige without raising awkward questions

about political heritage.

Following Shāhrokh’s death in 1447, his son Ulughbeg, who had been governing

Māwarā al-Nahr from the dynasty’s old capital of Samarqand, contended to be the next

al-Ghāzī Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Bahadur Khan” (ibid., 166, 169, 172–73). This shows that even within a single document, the pretension to khanship may not have been consistent.

318 Samarqandī, Maṭlaʿ-e saʿdayn, 2:497, 667.

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paramount Timurid ruler. Ulughbeg bore the title kürägän thanks to his marriage to Aq

Sulṭān Khanika, daughter of Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan.319 When he briefly took over Harāt in

852/1448, a coin was struck in the name of “Tīmūr Kūrakān… Ulughbeg Kūrakān…”320 It

was not a very common practice to feature the name of a deceased predecessor on coinage,

so this inscription appears to have been a pointed effort to draw upon Temür’s legacy to

legitimate Ulughbeg’s rule during a time of dynastic turmoil. Hence, nearly half a century

after Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan’s death, Ulughbeg was prominently promoting himself as a

kürägän whose grandfather was a kürägän. With Temür’s aforementioned 806/1403–2

coinage and Ulughbeg’s 852/1448 coinage, what happened was the official continuation of

kuraganship with a defunct khanship. Ulughbeg’s commissioning of coins bearing the

unmistakably subordinate title kürägän, rather than succeeding to the khanship his father had

(half-heartedly) claimed, should lead us to question just how far the Timurids were willing to

go to assert their formal independence from Chinggisid sovereignty.

ʿAbd al-Laṭīf b. Ulughbeg was recorded infamously in histories as having elevated a

khan in order to pronounce a judgment against his own father, who was then sent on a

pilgrimage to Mecca and murdered. According to ʿAbd al-Razzāq Samarqandī,

In the custom (yosun) of His Highness the Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction (i.e.,

Temür), Mīrzā ʿAbd al-Laṭīf elevated a khan. He commanded a group to genuflect

before the khan. They petitioned that “Mīrzā Ulughbeg has killed our people unjustly

and we seek retribution.” The khan commanded, “Do whatever is in accordance with

the religious law.” (Mīrzā ʿAbd al-Laṭīf be-yūsūn-e ḥażrat-e Ṣāḥib-Qirān khān bar

dāshta būd jamʿī rā farmūd keh pīsh-e khān zānū zada ʿarża dāshtand keh Mīrzā

319 Muʿizz al-ansāb, fol.140a. Ulughbeg was also married to the Moghul Chaghatayid Ḥusn-

Negār Khanika, daughter of Shamʿ-e Jahān Khan b. Khiẕr-Khwāja Khan b. Tughluq-Temur Khan. 320 Lane-Poole, Catalogue of Oriental Coins, vol. 7, 38.

165

Ulughbeg kasān-e mā rā be-ghayr-e ḥaqq koshta ṭalab-e qiṣāṣ mīkonīm khān farmūd

keh harcheh muqtaża-e sharʿ bāshad bar ān mūjib ʿamal namāyīd).321

Timurid historians were loath to confer legitimacy upon either this unnamed khan or ʿAbd al-

Laṭīf’s six-month reign. Khwāndamīr was particularly harsh in his words about this event:

“That dishonorable man (i.e., ʿAbd al-Laṭīf) imitated His Highness the Lord of the

Auspicious Conjunction, seating a miserable wretch of a Chinggisid on the throne of

khanship” (ān nā-jawānmard taqlid-e Ṣāhib-Qirān karda maflūkī az awlād-e Chinggīz Khān

rā bar masnad-e khānī neshānd).322 Despite the distastefulness expressed, there appears to be

agreement that ʿAbd al-Laṭīf’s installment of a khan was in imitation of Temür; and we know

that Temür’s khans, Soyurghatmısh and Sulṭān-Maḥmūd, were none other than khans of the

ulus of Chaghatay. Furthermore, Samarqandī’s words “he commanded a group to genuflect

before the khan” (jamʿī rā farmūd keh pīsh-e khān zānū zada) and “the khan commanded”

(khān farmūd) seem to acknowledge this Chinggisid scion as a khan, thereby not disputing

the officiality of his khanship. Therefore, however much of a farce ʿAbd al-Laṭīf’s act may

have been in people’s minds, his raising of a khan to the throne had to have occurred with an

implicit consensus that the ulus of Chaghatay still existed, and that khanship itself was a

legitimate institution. Only then would it have been conceivable to regard ʿAbd al-Laṭīf’s act

as following the precedent set by Temür, as opposed to viewing it as an anomaly stemming

solely from ʿAbd al-Laṭīf’s own whim.

Now, let us place the above-discussed points, from Timurid kuraganship without

reigning khans to ʿAbd al-Laṭīf’s puppet khan, into the larger historiographical context. After

321 Samarqandī, Maṭlaʿ-e saʿdayn, 4:685. 322 Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, 4:33.

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Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan’s death, the “ulus of Chaghatay” and its khanship largely faded from

the historical accounts of the Timurids. Take Yazdī’s Ẓafarnāma, for example. It records:

When the news of this event (i.e., the death of Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan) reached His

Highness the Lordship of the Auspicious Conjunction, the fire of sorrow burned

inside the hearth of [his] body, and tears of sympathy followed from his royal eyes,

and he opened the divinely-assisted tongue with the recitation of the noble verse ‘We

are God’s, and to Him we return’ (Q 2:156)” (wa chūn khabar-e īn wāqiʿa be-hażrat-

e Ṣāhib-Qirānī rasīd ātesh-e ḥuzn dar kānūn andarūn ishtiʿāl yāfta āb-e riqqat az

dīda-e humāyūn rawān shod wa zabān-e tawfīq be-karīma-e inna lillahi wa inna

ilayhi rājiʿūna begoshād).323

Here, Temür was portrayed as devoted to his khan, but the Ẓafarnāma then proceeded to

other narratives, as if life just went on. Yet if the ulus of Chaghatay ended with the death of

Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan, what political community became the official successor? I propose

that what actually happened after the khan’s death was not the official establishment of a new

political community to replace the ulus of Chaghatay, but rather a deliberately drawn-out

“interregnum.”

The Chinggisid world was no stranger to interregnums. After both the death of

Chinggis Qan in 1227 and the death of Ögödei Qa’an in 1241, there was an approximately

two-year gap before the accession of the successor. While there was no qan (or qa’an) during

the interregnum, there would have been no doubt that the Great Mongol Ulus still existed,

and that the members of the ruling class, i.e., the queens, princes, and commanders, were still

legitimate holders of their titles and offices. Much closer to Temür’s time, there was the

precedent of Tughluq-Temür Khan. According to the Tarīkh-e rashīdī, the Moghuls

323 Yazdī, Ẓafarnāma, 2:1165.

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recognized no khan after the death of Esän-Buqa Khan (r. 1310–18) until Amīr Bolaji

Dughlat elevated Tughluq-Temür (r. 1347–63) to the throne.324 From Temür’s perspective in

1402, it would have made ample sense to let an “interregnum” happen. When he elevated

Soyurghatmısh Khan in 1370, it was an act to help legitimize his own authority as the

preeminent amīr in the ulus of Chaghatay, for the previous khan, Kābul-Shāh (r. 1364–70),

had been enthroned by Amīr Husayn of the Qara’unas, Temür’s ally-turned-chief rival. In the

following three decades, Soyurghatmısh Khan and Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan provided Temür

with the official mandate to build up his power to unprecedented levels. So by the time of

Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan’s death in 1402, a new khan could have done little to give Temür more

authority than he already had.

Yet a new khan would still have been his overlord, and therefore a potential center of

gravity for forming opposition. Should disaffected members of the ruling class, such as tribal

amīrs or perhaps one of Temür’s own sons had wished to rebel, going over to the khan and

attempting to override Temür’s authority in the khan’s name would have been a natural move.

The fact that the khan would be Temür’s puppet would not have been seen as a fail-safe. In a

political system heavily reliant on personal loyalties, a puppet khan could become powerful

overnight if members of the ruling class turned to him. Tughluq-Temür owed his khanship to

Amīr Bolaji, but turned out to be a powerful enough ruler to lead the conquest of Māwarā al-

Nahr. By letting an indefinite “interregnum” happen, Temür prevented his overlord from

turning against him and/or being used against him, while not having to contradict the

fundamental framework of political legitimacy under which he had operated for over thirty

years. The usurpation and ultimate failure of the Moghul amīr Qamar al-Dīn Dughlat,

324 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 6a. The exact history of the

post-Esän-Buqa Khan interregnum should be treated cautiously, as the Tārīkh-e rashīdī tends to have

questionable accounts of reigns and dates.

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moreover, would have served as a lesson to Temür. 325 If indeed Temür engineered an

“interregnum” as I suggest, then it was an ingenious ploy, as it allowed him and his heirs to

enjoy the new political order without having to pay the potential cost of tearing down the old.

In sum, if the “Timurid” period from 1402 till at least 1449 was formally understood as a

Chaghatayid “interregnum,” then the prominent displays of the title kürägän on Temür and

Ulughbeg’s coins as well as ʿAbd al-Latif’s elevation of a khan would have made total sense,

because after all, who said the ulus of Chaghatay had ended?

Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā versus Yūnus Khan

In the internecine wars that followed the death of Shāhrokh, the ultimate winner was

Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā. Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd had been a member of Ulughbeg’s retinue, but

during the time of turmoil he betrayed his patron and sought to seize Samarqand for himself.

Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd was initially unsuccessful, but he ultimately succeeded in 1451 with the aid

of Abū al-Khayr Khan of the Uzbeks. Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd had been given the hand of the

khan’s daughter Khanzāda Begim.326 In 860/1456 (according to the Tarīkh-e rashīdī, but

likely 1459 or later),327 Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd formed an alliance with the Moghul Yūnus Khan,

and married Yūnus’s elder sister Qutlugh-Sulṭān Khanım.328 There is a coin (year obliterated)

325 For Temür’s expeditions against Qamar al-Dīn Dughlat, see, Hodong Kim, “The Early

History of the Moghul Nomads: The Legacy of The Chaghatai Khanate,” in The Mongol Empire and

Its Legacy, ed. Reuven Amitai-Preiss and David O. Morgan (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 299–307. 326 Muʿizz al-ansāb, fol. 154b. 327 This alliance was said to have been made when Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd met with Yūnus Khan in

Khorāsān (Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 28a). Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd first

occupied Harāt in 1457, and did not permanently take over Harāt until the final days of 1468 (Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, 4:67, 76).

328 In the list of Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s wives, there is “Qutlugh-Sulṭān Khanım, from the khan”

(Qutlugh-Sulṭān Khanım az khān ast) (Muʿizz al-ansāb, fol. 154b). Bābor does not give the name of

this khanım, but wrote that Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd married Yūnus Khan’s elder sister (Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 10b). Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 29b gives the year of the

alliance as 860/1456.

169

minted in Samarqand featuring the inscription “The Great Sulṭān, Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Kürägän”

(al-Sulṭān al-Aʿẓam Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Kūrakān).329 I have been unable to determine whether

it was his marriage to the Jochid Khanzāda Begim or to the Chaghatayid Qutlugh-Sulṭān

Khanım that first allowed him to bear the title kürägän, but in any case, the inscription shows

that he was following in the tradition of Temür and Ulughbeg—albeit with a certain nuance.

If Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s kuraganship was based on marrying Khanzāda Begim, it would show

that even a Jochid khan was seen as affording Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd a legitimacy similar to that

held by Temür and Ulughbeg. So even though Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd swindled Abū al-Khayr

Khan upon capturing Samarqand, and thereby established himself as a de facto independent

ruler,330 he continued to base a certain part of his political status from his Jochid marriage. If,

on the other hand, Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s kuraganship was solely based on marriage to Qutlugh-

Sulṭān, then it would mean that he was recognizing the eastern (Moghul) line of Chaghatayid

khans. (The prerogative of the eastern Chaghatayids to be overlords of the Timurids will be

further discussed.) Either way, it shows that at the time the coin was minted, Chinggisid

khanship itself, and not necessarily through the western royal line of the ulus of Chaghatay,

continued to afford legitimacy to Timurid rule in the form of kuraganship.

Yet regarding Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s view of the Chinggisid-Timurid relationship, a

particular passage in the Tarīkh-e rashīdī must be examined at length. This passage has

gained the attention of modern scholars, and on the surface, it demonstrates Sulṭān-Abū

Saʿīd’s assertion of full formal independence from Chinggisid khanship:

[Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā] sat on the same throne with Yūnus Khan in a pavilion in

the Zāghān Garden in Khorāsān, gave the khan regal banquets, and they swore to

329 Lane-Poole, Catalogue of Oriental Coins, vol. 7, 40. 330 Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, 4:50.

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pacts, stipulations, and contracts. One of them was [as follows]: Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd

Mīrzā said to the khan: “The amīrs did not obey Mīr Temür as they ought to have

when he first emerged. But if he had set about reducing them to naught, it would have

sapped his strength. The amīrs said, ‘A khan must be elevated as we would obey the

khan.’ Mīr Temür made Soyurghatmısh Khan the khan, and the amīrs bowed their

heads in obedience to the khan. Mīr Temür kept the khan, and the tughra and Turkic

decrees were in his name. When he (i.e., Soyurghatmısh) died, [Temür] elevated his

(i.e., Soyurghatmısh’s) son Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan to his position. After Mīr Temür

until the time of Mīrzā Ulughbeg this rule was maintained, but of the khanship there

was nothing more than a name. Toward the end, the khan was mostly kept imprisoned

in Samarqand. Now my turn for rulership has arrived. My authority has reached such

bounds that a khan is not necessary for me. Now I have taken you out of the rags of

poverty, garbed you in the robe of rulership, and sent you to your original yurt. It

shall be stipulated that henceforth you will not claim, as did the forefathers and khans

of the past, that ‘Mīr Temür and his family are our liegemen (nökär) from generation

to generation,’ because although it was formerly so, it is not so any longer. I am now

pādeshāh in my own right. How can anyone claim that I am his liegeman? You must

now forego the [relationship] in the name of servant-and-master and address me in

the name of friendship, and you must not write to me in the manner the khans used to

write to the Timurid mīrzās, but maintain a friendly correspondence with me.

Henceforth, from [one generation of] descendants to [another], this rule shall be

observed.” To this effect contracts were made, and Yūnus Khan accepted everything

in good faith. They swore to solemn confirmed pacts, and the khan was given leave to

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depart. (wa dar Khorāsān dar kūshk-e Bāgh-e Zāghān dar yak takht neshast wa

ṭūyhā-ye pādeshāhāna be-khān keshīd wa ʿahd wa sharṭ-e chand wa qarārdādhā

kardand az jumla yakī-e ān būd keh Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd goft be-khān keh Mīr Tīmūr rā

dar awwal-e khurūj umarā iṭāʿat kamā yanbaghī nakardand wa agar jamīʿ rā istīṣāl

mīfarmūd mūjib-e kasr-e quwwat-e khod mīshod umarā goftand khānī bāyad naṣb

kard tā mā khān rā iṭāʿat konīm Mīr Tīmūr Sūyūrghātmīsh Khān rā khān sākht wa

umarā gardan-e iṭāʿat be-khān nehādand Mīr Tīmūr khān rā negāh mīdāsht wa

ṭughrā-ye wa farāmīn-e torkī be-nām ū būd chūn ū wafāt kard pesaresh Sulṭān-

Maḥmūd Khān rā be-jā-ye way nasb farmūd baʿd az Mīr Tīmūr tā zamān-e Mīrzā

Ūlūgh-Bīg īn amr marʿī mībūd amā az khānī juz ismī bīsh nabūd dar awākhir-e ḥāl-e

khod khān aksar dar Samarqand dar band mībūd ḥālyā chūn nawbat-e pādeshāhī-e

man rasīd istiqlāl be-ḥaddī shoda ast keh marā be-khānī iḥtiyāj namānda ast aknūn

man shomā rā az lebās-e faqr bar āwardam wa khilʿat-e pādeshāhī pūshānīdam wa

bā yūrt-e aṣlī shomā rā ferestādam maʿḥūd wa mashrūṭ ān ast keh min baʿd bar

khilaf-e aslāf wa khawāqīn-e māżī keh daʿwā mīkardand keh Mīr Tīmūr wa dūdmān-e

Mīr Tīmūr nūkar-e mā and āban ʿan jadd īn daʿwā nakonīd zīrā keh agarcheh qadīm

chonān būd ammā chonān namānd ḥālyā man pādeshāh be-sar-e khodam dīgarī chūn

daʿwā-e nūkarī-e man konad aknūn mībāyad keh shomā nām-e khādim makhdūmī rā

bar andāzīd wa ism-e dūstī rā iṭlāq konīd wa be-ṭarīq-e khawānīn bā mīrzāyān-e

Tīmūr-nezhad nanewīsīd balk kitābat-e dūstāna marʿī dārīd wa hamchonīn man baʿd

farzand be-farzand mīyābad keh īn amr marʿī bāshad azīn maqūlāt qarārdādhā

kardand wa Yūnus Khān hamma rā az del wa jān qabūl kard wa barīn ʿahdhā wa

sharṭhā rā be-sowgand-e mughallaẓ mu’akkad kardand wa khān rā rukhṣat dād).331

331 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fols. 28b–29a. See variant edition,







172

To be sure, anywhere from seventy to ninety years passed between the purported making of

this statement by Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd to the penning of this statement in the Tarīkh-e rashīdī.

The accuracy, if not authenticity, of this statement must therefore be treated with extra

caution. Assuming that this statement is authentic and the wording is basically accurate, then

Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd clearly intended to use his support of Yūnus Khan as an opportunity to

formally claim Timurid independence from, and equality with, the Chinggisids once and for

all.

For Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd to have had this intention should not be too much of a surprise.

From Temür’s decision to not elevate a new khan in 1402, it was already obvious that the

Timurids felt no genuine loyalty to the Chinggisid house. If the Timurids had an endgame, it

was to continuously build up their own prestige so that they could one day realize precisely

the kind of independence that Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd purportedly asserted. The immediate context

of Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s statement, however, may reveal another side to the narrative.

According to the Tarīkh-e rashīdī, Yūnus Khan was by then a forty-one year old (as with the

ed. Ghaffārī Fard, 110–11:

ند و قراردادها به خان کشید و عهد و شرط چ و در خراسان در کوشک باغ زاغان در یک تخت نشست و طویهای پادشاهانه

کردند. از جمله یکی آن بود سلطان ابوسعید میرزا به خان گفت که میر تیمور را در اول خروج امرا گردن اطاعت کما ینبغی

طاعت کنیم. نمینهادند و اگر جمع را استیصال میفرمود، موجب کسر قوت خود میشد. امرا گفتند، خانی باید نصب کرد تا خان را ا

غاتمیش خان را به خانی نشاند و امرا گردن اطاعت به خان نهادند. میر تیمور خان را نگاه میداشت و طغرا و میر تیمور سویور فرامین ترکی به نام او بود. چون او وفات یافت، پسرش سلطان محمود خان را به جای وی نصب فرمود، بعد از میر تیمور تا

انی جز اسمی بیش نبود در اواخر حال، خود خان اکثر در سمرقند بند میبود. ین امر مرعی میبود اما از خزمان میرزا الوغ بیگ ا

حالیا چون نوبت پادشاهی به من رسید، استقالل من به حدی شده است که مرا به خان احتیاج نمانده است. اکنون من شما را از لباس معهود و مشروط آن است که من بعد بر خالف یورت اصلی شما را فرستادم. فقر برون آوردم و خلعت پادشاهی پوشانیدم و با

اسالف و خوانین ماضی که دعوی میکردند که میر تیمور و دودمان میر تیمور نوکر مآند، ابا عن جد این دعوي نکنند، زیرا که

یباید شما نام دعوي نوکری من کند. اکنون ماگر چه در قدیم چنان بود، اما چنان نماند حالیا من پادشاه بسر خودم، دیگری چون خادم و مخدوم را برآرید و اسم دوستی را اطالق کنید و به طریق خوانین با میرزایان تیموري نژاد ننویسید بلکه کتابت دوستانه

د و یونس خان همه مرعی دارید و همچنین من بعد فرزند به فرزند میباید که این امر مرعی باشد. از این مقوالت قراردادها کردن

رد نمود و بر این عهد او شرطها را به سوگندان مغلظ مؤکد کردند و خان را رخصت داد. را قبول ک

whether there was in fact a ascertainI was unable to khan imprisoned in Samarqand by Ulughbeg. According to John E. Woods, the Tarīkh-e rashīdī is the only source that suggests this happened

(Woods, “Timur’s Genealogy,” 116, 124n129).

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year 860/1456, there is possibly an inaccuracy here).332 He had left Moghulestān when he

was a teenager after losing a power struggle to the coalition that supported his brother Esän-

Buqa Khan (r. 1429–62).333 In the following decades, Yūnus Khan basically lived as a

politically powerless scholarly figure in the Timurid territories and ʿIrāq. Hence, what

Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd was doing was setting up Yūnus Khan as a viable counterweight to Esän-

Buqa Khan, who had fought against Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd and continued to be a threat looming

in the east. For all intents and purposes then, Yūnus was at the time Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s

puppet, to be used in undermining Esän-Buqa. Yet from the purported statement, it would

appear that from Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s perspective, even this puppet khan to be sent off to rule

Moghuls had serious potential to one day assert sovereignty over him and his heirs based on

Chinggisid-Timurid historical precedent. Therefore, it was necessary to give a speech on how

times had changed, and to make Yūnus Khan solemnly acknowledge a relationship of

equality. Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s words and actions reveal an underlying lack of confidence and

suggest that even by the late 1450s, there was still broad consensus that Chinggisid khanship

was normatively superior to Timurid rulership.

Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd may very well have been moving toward full, formal, and

permanent independence from Chinggisid sovereignty. However, his premature death in

1469 led to a massive redrawing of the Timurid geo-political map, and Yūnus Khan would

enter deep into the political affairs of Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s sons. In the following section, I will

focus on Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s ruling heirs, and how they became absorbed back into a version

of the old Chinggisid-Timurid political order.

332 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 29b. 333 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 25b.

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Yūnus Khan: Reinstitution of the Old Chinggisid-Timurid Political Order in Central

Asia?

In this section, I assert that during the period 1470–94, when Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s sons

Sulṭān-Aḥmad, Sulṭān-Maḥmūd, ʿUmar-Shaykh, and Ulughbeg each ruled a domain, Yūnus

Khan was able to reinstate a version of the old Chinggisid-Timurid political order. He began

by making kürägäns of Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s sons.334 To be sure, the extant histories, all pro-

Timurid in attitude, do not explicitly present Yūnus Khan’s relationship with his Timurid

sons-in-law as one between overlord and vassal. By reading between the lines and cross-

referencing the sources, however, a strong case can be made that such a relationship did exist,

though unevenly with each mīrzā. ʿUmar-Shaykh arguably felt Yūnus Khan’s authority most

strongly, while the other mīrzās were at best under the khan’s influence. Now before delving

into this discussion, we should first answer a fundamental question: from the Timurids’

perspective, was it conceivable for an eastern Chaghatayid khan to hold sovereignty over

them? My answer is “yes,” but this too has to be derived from between-the-lines reading and

cross-referencing. So before analyzing Yūnus Khan’s role in Timurid politics, I must go into

a background discussion about Timurid view(s) of Moghul Chaghatayid rulership.

All the Timurid histories, as well as the pro-Timurid Tarīkh-e rashīdī, agree that by

the time of Temür, “Chaghatay” and “Moghul” (a.k.a. “Jätä”) were two separate identity

groups. In other words, certain changes in political identities had occurred in the fourteenth

century. For we know that during the thirteenth century, the “Mongol” (Mo. Mongγol, Per.

Moghūl) identity encompassed all Mongols in the world, while the “ulus of Chaghatay

334 Mehr-Negār Khanım b. Yūnus was married to Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā, Sulṭān-Negār

Khanım b. Yūnus was married Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Mīrzā, and Qutlugh-Negār Khanım Khanım b. Yūnus was married to ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā.


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[Khan]” constituted a subgroup of Mongols assigned to Chaghatay Khan. Joo-Yup Lee

emphasized that the Mongol origin, heritage, and identity of Temür and the Chaghatays were

never lost upon Muslim historians, both Timurid and non-Timurid.335 Though by Temür’s

time, the “Moghul ulus” only meant a grouping of tribes in the eastern territories of the

original ulus of Chaghatay Khan. Despite Moghūl being but the Persianized variant of

“Mongol,” it is as if the eastern grouping were no longer part of a larger “ulus of Chaghatay,”

despite its khans being Chaghatayid, while the western grouping (i.e., the “Chaghatays”) was

no longer part of a larger “Mongol ulus” despite identifying by the name of Chaghatay Khan

(who was definitely a Mongol!).336 However ironic this may be, it is what the sources say,

and modern scholars have understandably studied late fourteenth and fifteenth-century

“Chaghatay” and “Moghul” identities based on the Timurid-era sources. 337 Importantly

335 Joo-Yup Lee, “The Historical Meaning,” 122–24 and Joo-Yup Lee, “Turkic Identity in

Mongol and Post-Mongol Central Asia and the Qipchaq Steppe,” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia:

Asian History. Oxford University Press, 2019, 9–11. https://oxfordre.com/asianhistory/view/10.1093/

acrefore/9780190277727.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277727-e-443. 336 Khwandamīr at one point referred to Tughluq-Temür Khan as “pādeshāh in the ulus of

Chaghatay of the Jätä” (dar ulūs-e Jaghatāy-e Jata pādeshāh būd) (Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-

siyar, 3:398). The context was Tughluq-Temür Khan about to invade Samarqand. This reference suggests that though “Chaghatay” and “Moghul” became separate neighboring identity groups, it was

never forgotten that the Moghul ulus was derived from the original ulus of Chaghatay Khan. In the

understanding of Ḥaydar Dughlat, Chinggis Qan divided the “world” amongst four sons, each with his ulus. “One of the four was ‘Moghul’ and the ‘Moghul’ became divided into two parts, one [being]

‘Moghul’ and the other ‘Chaghatay’ (az ulūs-e arbaʿa yakī Moghūl ast wa Moghūl be-do qism

maqsūm shoda-ast. Yakī Moghūl va dīgarī Chaghatāy)” (Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed.

Thackston, fol. 58; ed. Ghaffārī Fard, 190). So from this perspective, the “Moghul ulus” was equivalent to the original ulus of Chaghatay Khan, and the (western) Chaghatays separated from this

Moghul ulus. See also Lee, Qazaqlïq, 132–33. 337 See Beatrice Manz, “The Development and Meaning of Chaghatay Identity,” in Muslims

in Central Asia: Expressions of Identity and Change, ed. Jo-Ann Gross (Durham, NC: Duke

University Press, 1992), 36–44; and Ali Anooshahr. “Mughals, Mongols, and Mongrels: The

Challenge of Aristocracy and the Rise of the Mughal State in the Tarikh-i Rashidi,” Journal of Early Modern History 18 (2014): 571. Many scholars believe that the Moghuls referred to the Chaghatays

as “Qara’unas” with the meaning of “mongrel,” a definition based on Marco Polo (see Peter Jackson,

“The Mongols of Central Asia and the Qara’unas,” Iran 56 (2018): 92). Peter Jackson proposed that

“the relatively shortlived paramountcy of the Qara’unas amirs within the western khanate may itself have justified the application of the term to the western khanate by the Mughals in the east” (ibid.,

100). Since the Qara’unas was a real tribe in the Ulus of Chaghatay, it is unlikely that the sole

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however, no one ever denied that the Moghul khans belonged to the dynasty of Chaghatay

Khan, and this fact alone would have legitimized the Moghul khans to rule the “Chaghatays”

in the west.

Despite the clearly articulated division between the Chaghatays and Moghuls, the

Timurids do not appear to have challenged, on the basis of this division, the legitimacy of

Moghul khans to extend their rule to the western half of the original ulus of Chaghatay Khan.

Kim Hodong argued that “our notion about the Chaghatai disintegration may have originated

from a post factum judgement made by later generations. People living in the old Chaghatai

realm do not seem to have thought in that way at least to the end of the fourteenth

century.”338 Indeed, as Kim noted, the Ẓafarnāma of Niẓām al-Dīn Shāmī acknowledged that

“thirty-one individuals have exercised rulership in the ulus of Chaghatay Khan” (wa-ammā

ānhā keh dar ūlūs-e Chaghatāy Khān pādeshāhī karda-and sī-o-yak tan and), and then listed

those individuals. 339 In the list, the twenty-fourth ruler is “Buyan-Qulı Khan, son of

Sorghatu,” the twenty-fifth is “Temür-Shāh, son of Yosun-Temür Khan,” the twenty-sixth is

“the pādeshāh Tughluq-Temür, son of Emil-Khwāja,” the twenty-seventh is “Ilyās-Khwāja,

son of Tughluq-Temür,” the twenty-eighth is Kābul-Sulṭān, son of Durchi,” the twenty-ninth

is “ʿĀdil-Sulṭān, son of Muḥammad,” the thirtieth is “Soyurghatmısh Khan,” and the thirty-

first is “Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan, son of Soyurghatmısh Khan.” This list clearly inserted

Tughluq-Temür and Ilyās-Khwāja into the same line as the western khans, including Temür’s

two puppet khans. By this reckoning, Tughluq-Temür and Ilyās-Khwāja were not khans of

prevalent definition of Qara’unas at the time was the derogatory “mongrel.” It is also plausible that

many Moghuls could have still considered themselves “Chaghatay” in the sense of belonging to the

ulus of Chaghatay Khan, and therefore it would have made sense to refer to their counterparts in the

west by another name. 338 Kim, “The Early History of the Moghul Nomads,” 317. 339 Shāmī, Ẓafarnāma, 13–14.

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the Moghul ulus who happened to have subjugated the ulus of Chaghatay, but rather khans

who “have exercised rulership in the ulus of Chaghatay Khan.” The Ẓafarnāma of Yazdī

includes the same basic list, but with more biographical information. In Yazdī’s words,

“thirty-two individuals who are rulers of Chinggisid descent have sat upon the throne of

khanship in the ulus of Chaghatay” (pādeshāhān-e Chinggīz-nezhad keh dar ulūs-e Jaghatāy

bar takht-e khanī neshasta-and sī wa do tan-and).340 Tughluq-Temür and Ilyās-Khwāja’s

Chaghatayid lineage, backed by actual military conquest and the servitude of many western

amīrs (including Temür), evidently gave them their place in Timurid historiography as

legitimate rulers of the ulus of Chaghatay.

Another indication that the Timurids viewed Moghul Chaghatayids as potential khans

of the entire ulus of Chaghatay, both in the east and the west, may be inferred from the

Timurids’ apparent non-recognition of Khiżr-Khwāja b. Tughluq-Temür (r. 1390–99) as

khan. Khiżr-Khwāja restored khanship to his house after the demise of Qamar al-Dīn Dughlat.

However, Shāmī’s Ẓafarnāma always referred to Khiżr-Khwāja as “Khiżr-Khwāja Oghlan,”

never as “Khiżr-Khwāja Khan.”341 There is a section called “On the Amīr Lord of the

Auspicious Conjunction’s Sending Khiżr-Khwāja Oghlan’s Son Before the Father and the

Request for a Daughter” (Ẕikr-e ferestādan-e Amīr Ṣāhib-Qirān pesar-e Khiżr-Khwāja

Ūghlān rā pīsh-e pedar wa khwāstārī-e dokhtar kardan).342 In this episode, Temür sent

Khiżr-Khwāja’s son Shamʿ-e Jahān (later khan, r. 1399–1408) back to Khiżr-Khwāja with a

marriage request, and this resulted in Tükäl Khanım being married off to Temür. Later, when

recounting the news of Khiżr-Khwāja’s death reaching Temür, Shāmī mentioned the friendly

340 Yazdī, Ẓafarnāma, 1:200. See similar list placing Tughluq-Temür and Ilyās-Khwāja

amongst the western Chaghayids (ibid., 219–20). 341 Shāmī, Ẓafarnāma, 116, 169, 171, 273. 342 Shāmī, Ẓafarnāma, 169.

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relations that had been established, but again referred to the Moghul ruler as “Khiżr-Khwāja

Oghlan.” “Khiżr-Khwāja Oghlan” was also consistently mentioned throughout the

Ẓafarnāma of Yazdī, except in the title of the corresponding section on the marriage proposal:

“On His Highness the Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction’s Requesting a Daughter of

Khiżr-Khwāja Khan…” (Goftār dar khwāstārī namūdan-e hażrat-e Ṣāhib-Qirān Dokhtar-e

Khiżr-Khwāja Khān rā…). 343 In this one instance, the Moghul ruler was referred to as

“Khiżr-Khwāja Khan,” but in the very first sentence that followed the section title, Yazdī

reverted back to “Khiżr-Khwāja Oghlan.”344 This shows that the Timurids knew full well

Khiżr-Khwāja was a khan, and Yazdī’s single inconsistent reference might have been a slip

of the pen.

Malikat Agha, another daughter of Khiżr-Khwāja, was married to Temür’s son

ʿUmar-Shaykh, and then to Shāhrokh after her first husband’s death. The genealogical work

Muʿizz al-ansāb fī shajarat al-ansāb therefore recorded Malikat Agha’s name among ʿUmar-

Shaykh’s wives as well as among Shāhrokh’s, and in both instances referred to her as

“daughter of [Khiżr] Oghlan.”345 The Muʿizz al-ansāb’s non-recognition of Khiżr-Khwāja’s

khanship is likely why it referred to neither ʿUmar-Shaykh nor Shāhrokh as kürägän. (In

contrast, Amīrānshāh b. Temür and Ulughbeg b. Shāhrokh were both referred to as kürägän,

and they each had a wife listed explicitly as the daughter of a khan.346) So why did the two

Ẓafarnāmas and the Muʿizz al-ansāb not recognize Khiżr-Khwāja’s khanship? The only

reason I can suggest is that Khiżr-Khwāja’s khanship conflicted with Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan’s.

343 Yazdī, Ẓafarnāma, 1:855. 344 Yazdī, Ẓafarnāma, 1:855. 345 Under “Amīrzāda ʿUmar-Shaykh Bahadur,” she is recorded as “Malikat Agha, daughter of

an oghlan” (Malikat Āghā dokhar-e ūghlān) (Muʿizz al-ansāb, fol. 101b). Under “Amīrzāda Shāhrokh

Bahadur,” she is recorded as “Malikat Agha, daughter of Khiżr Oghlan” (Malikat Āghā dokhar-e Khiżr Ūghlān) (ibid., fol. 134a).

346 Muʿizz al-ansāb, fols. 123b, 140b.

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As an additional note, the Muʿizz al-ansāb recognized Khiżr-Khwāja’s successor, Shamʿ-e

Jahān, as “Shamʿ-e Jahān Khan.”347 Since Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan died in 1402 and Shamʿ-e

Jahān reigned till 1408, recognizing the latter would not necessarily have contradicted the

legitimacy of the former. If my interpretation is correct, it would mean that the early

Timurids saw themselves and the Moghuls as still theoretically belonging to one overarching

ulus, and thus allowing for only one khan at a time. I now return to the protagonist of this

section, Yūnus Khan.

With historical memory of a unified ulus and the precedent of Tughluq-Temür and

Ilyās-Khwāja, it would have been entirely conceivable for Yūnus Khan to establish himself

as the khan of the entire ulus of Chaghatay, with overlordship over the Timurids. Again, if

Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s statement recorded in the Tarīkh-e rashīdī is reliable, then we see that he

was very much concerned about Yūnus Khan stepping into the role of Chaghatayid overlord

based on historical precedent. Even if the passage was not authentic, it still reveals that when

Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat penned it, it was conceivable to the people of the time (1520s–60s)

that a Moghul khan had the potential to become overlord of the Timurids. Ironically for

Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd, Yūnus Khan headed very much in the direction of becoming such an

overlord. The sources did not say outright just what kind of formal political relationship

Yūnus Khan had with the heirs of Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd. What the Tarīkh-e rashīdī, and to an

extent the Bābor-nama, presented was that Yūnus Khan was a benevolent father-in-law and

gentle political force, trying to keep Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā and ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā from

each other’s throats, and magnanimously forgiving ʿUmar-Shaykh when he turned against

347 Ulughbeg’s wife Ḥusn-Negār Khanika is noted as “daughter of Shamʿ-e Jahān Khan”

(dokhtar-e Shamʿ-e Jahān Khān) (Muʿizz al-ansāb, fol. 140b).

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him.348 It is as if the crucial question of whether Yūnus Khan and the mīrzās were equals or

not was deliberately not given a straightforward answer. However, the sources still give us a

number of clues to be examined.

Let us start with the in-law relationship. There are coins from Bokhārā struck in the

name of “The Great Sulṭān, Sulṭān-Aḥmad Kürägän” (al-Sulṭān al-Aʿẓam Sulṭān-Aḥmad

Kūrakān), with one dated 879/(1491–92), which was relatively late in the mīrzā’s reign.349

Yūnus Khan had died in 1487, and I am not aware of Sulṭān-Aḥmad having ever struck coins

in Yūnus Khan’s name. If he had, it would be slam-dunk proof that he recognized the

sovereignty of the khan. Yet assuming Sulṭān-Aḥmad never did strike coins in Yūnus Khan’s

name, it is still evident that the mīrzā prominently promoted his status as a kürägän. In

Chapter Two, I mentioned a letter of condolence on the death of Khwāja ʿUbayd Allāh Aḥrār

(d. 1490) from Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Mīrzā addressed to “Sulṭān-Aḥmad Gūrakān (Güräkän).”350

Sulṭān-Aḥmad’s kürägän title being inscribed on coins well after Yūnus Khan’s death and

being acknowledged in Sulṭān-Ḥusayn’s letter suggest that this kuraganship was taken

seriously within the Timurid dynasty. Why then, was Sulṭān-Aḥmad emphasizing to the

world that he is a kürägän when he was a de facto independent ruler? Did he not expect the

world to know that a kürägän was the son-in-law of a khan, and by historical tradition

subordinate to a khan? A plausible explanation would be that Sulṭān-Aḥmad did not mind

being publicly regarded as a kürägän in the old Chinggisid-Timurid political order.

While not much is known about Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Mīrzā and Ulughbeg Mīrzā’s

relationship with Yūnus Khan, it should be noted that Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā was the most

senior among the four ruling brothers; so if Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā promoted his title of

348 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 34a. 349 Lane-Poole, Catalogue of Oriental Coins, vol. 7, 42; vol. 10, pt. 2, 155. 350 Nawā’ī, Asnād, 395.


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kürägän, implicitly acknowledging inferior status to Yūnus Khan, it would have been

unlikely that Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Mīrzā or Ulughbeg Mīrzā disputed the khan’s overlordship.

Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā and Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Mīrzā were full brothers, and they were known to

have been close, especially in the aftermath of Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s Qarabāgh debacle when

the two brothers allied to face off adversaries like Sultan-Husayn Bayqara. As noted in

Chapter Three, though Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Mīrzā left his older brother to establish his own rule

in Ḥiṣār, he had the khuṭba read in the name of Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā before that of his

own.351 Therefore, if Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā recognized Yūnus Khan as his overlord, Sulṭān-

Maḥmūd Mīrzā would naturally have been a further rank lower in status vis-à-vis the khan. It

would also have been plausible for Ulughbeg Mīrzā to fall in line given his relatively small

power base of Kābol. ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā’s relationship with Yūnus Khan deserves a

separate discussion, as he had the closest and most dependent political ties with the khan.

ʿUmar-Shaykh’s ties with the Moghul ulus itself ran deep. His mother, Shāh-Sulṭān

Begim, was a Moghul. 352 Bābor recounted that “in the summertime, except when he (i.e.,

‘Umar Shaykh Mīrzā) was holding court, he wore a Moghul cap” (yazlar ghayr-e dīwānda

aksar Moghulī börk keyär edi). 353 ʿUmar-Shaykh’s appanage of Farghāna bordered

Moghulestān, and there were frequent visits between ʿUmar-Shaykh and Yūnus Khan.

According to Mīrzā Ḥaydar,

ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā went many times to Moghulestān, staying a month or two at a

time. Sometimes he brought the khan to Andijān, and he stayed a month or two in

ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā’s home. During those days, the mīrzā would incessantly

persuade the khan to go to Samarqand and take the rule of Samarqand from Sulṭān-

351 Samarqandī, Maṭlaʿ-e saʿdayn, 4:998 and Khwāndamīr, Tārīkh-e ḥabīb al-siyar, 4:97. 352 “Shāh-Sulṭān Begim, Dokhtar-e Moghūl” (Muʿizz al-ansāb, fol. 154b). 353 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 7a.


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Aḥmad Mīrzā, who was the khan’s elder son-in-law, and give it to ʿUmar-Shaykh

Mīrzā. However, the khan was not pleased. When this notion of ʿUmar-Shaykh’s was

heard by Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā, he set out to outfit his army to repulse ʿUmar-Shaykh.

ʿUmar-Shaykh sought protection from the khan, who came and was given some

[territory] from his wilāyat [of Farghāna]. Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā could thus take no

hostile action. This happened several times. In the end, it turned out that the khan

came to Andijān every winter, while all of the Moghul ulus stayed in Moghulestān.

The khan came with the men who were in [his personal] service to ʿUmar-Shaykh,

and ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā gave the khan what part of his wilāyat the khan chose.

When spring came, the khan returned to Moghulestān, and the mīrzā took back

control of his wilāyat. (ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā bārhā be-Moghūlestān mīraft yak māh

wa do māh ānjā mībūd wa gāhī khan rā mīāward be-Andijān wa khān yak māh wa do

māh dar khāna-ye Mīrzā ʿUmar-Shaykh mībūd dar ān ayyām khān rā targhīb besyār

kard keh be-Samarqand rawad wa pādeshāhat-e Samarqand rā az Mīrzā Sulṭān-

Aḥmad keh dāmād-kālān-e khān bāshad gerefta be-ʿUmar-Shaykh dahad ammā khān

rāżī namībūd chūn īn khayāl-e Mīrzā ʿUmar-Shaykh Sulṭān-Aḥmad mīshenawad az

pay-e dafʿ-e ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā dāʻīya-e lashkar mīnamūda ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā

iltijā be-khān mībord khān mīāmad wa be-khān baʿżī az wilāyat-e khod rā mīdād

Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā az īn jihat taʿarruż namītawānest kard wa chand martaba īn

ṣūrat bar āmad ū dar awākhir ḥāl-e chonān shod keh khān har zemestān be-Andijān

mīdar āmad wa hamma-e ulūs-e Moghūl dar Moghūlestān mīmāndand wa khān bā

mardomī keh ahl-e khidmat būdand be-Andijān mīdar āmadand wa ʿUmar-Shaykh

Mīrzā az wilāyat-e khod keh mukhtār-e khān būd be-khān mīdād chūn bahār mīshod




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khān bāz be-Moghūlestān mībar āmad Mīrzā bā wilāyat-e khod rā mutaṣarrif

mīshod).354

According to René Grousset’s interpretation, “On various occasions Yūnus had to protect

ʿUmar-Shaykh against [Sulṭān]-Aḥmad. As a result, the Timurid principality of Farghāna fell

into vassalage of the khan, who beat him when he revolted, and forgave him and came to

hold his court in Andijān” (“A diverses reprises Younous eut à protéger 'Omar-cheîkh contre

Ahmed. De ce fait le principauté timouride du Ferghâna tomba dans sa vassalité pour le khan

qui le battait quand il se révoltait, lui pardonnait et venait tenir sa cour chez lui à

Andidjân”).355 Grousset did not go into depth to demonstrate that the relationship between

Yūnus Khan and ʿUmar-Shaykh was indeed one between lord and vassal, rather than

between equal allies, and his interpretation does not appear to have gained traction in later

scholarship. Yet his interpretation is also not far-fetched if we consider the account of

ʿUmar-Shaykh’s “revolt” as related in the Tarīkh-e rashīdī:

Once, ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā, in fear of his elder brother Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā,

petitioned and brought over Yūnus Khan and gave the khan Akhsī. The khan set up

winter quarters in Akhsī. When this news reached Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā, Mīrzā

Sulṭān-Aḥmad ceased hostilities. Once ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā felt secure from Sulṭān-

Aḥmad’s hostile action he began to consider the khan in Akhsī a burden, as Akhsī is

one of the greatest towns of Farghāna. He therefore turned against the khan, and a

354 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 34a. This account is

confirmed by Bābor in briefer fashion in Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 5b. 355 René Grousset, L’empire des steppes: Attila, Gengis-Khan, Tamerlan (Paris: Payot, 1939),

544. Grousset also wrote that “On various occasions Yunus protected ‘Umar-Shaykh against [Sulṭān]-

Aḥmad’s attempts. As a result, the Timurid of Farghāna became a vassal for the khan, who beat him

when he rebelled, and forgave him and came to court at his home in Andijān” (“A diverses reprises

Younous protégea 'Omarcheîkh contre les tentatives d’Ahmed. De ce fait le Timouride du Ferghâna devint un véritable vassal pour le khan qui le battait quand il se révoltait, lui pardonnait et venait tenir

sa cour chez lui à Andidjân”) (ibid., 372).

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battle was fought at the bridge at Täkkä Segritkü. No matter how much the khan

advised the mīrzā against it, it was of no use. In the end, battle was joined, and

ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā was defeated. They captured and brought the mīrzā bound

before the khan. The khan rose, went forward, and immediately released the mīrzā’s

hands, granted the mīrzā many favors, and sent him [away], saying “God forbid, your

men suffer destruction. Go quickly. I will follow you home.” As ʿUmar Shaykh Mīrzā

went to Andijān, the khan dismissed the Moghul ulus to Moghulestān, and came with

his household and a few others to Andijān. He spent two months as guest at ʿUmar-

Shaykh Mīrzā’s home without any rancor between them. (yakbarī Mīrzā ʿUmar-

Shaykh az jihat-e tawahhum-e barādar-e kalān Mīrzā Sulṭān-Aḥmad Yūnus Khān rā

ṭalabīda āward wa Akhsī rā be-khān dād khān dar Akhsī qeshlāq andākht chūn īn

khabar be-Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā rasīd Mīrzā Sulṭān-Aḥmad faskh-e taʿarruz kard

chūn ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā rā khāṭir az taʿarruz-e Mīrzā Sulṭān-Aḥmad jamʿ shod

būdan-e khān rā dar Akhsī gerān mīshod Akhsī baʿżī umm al-bilād-e Farghāna ast

azīn jihat be-khān yāghī shod dar sar-e pol-e Takkā Sakrītkū jang shod khān har

chand naṣīḥat kard be-mīrzā sūdmand nabūd ākhir jang dar paywastand shekast be-

Mīrzā ʿUmar-Shaykh oftād mīrzā rā gerefta pīsh-e khān basta āwardand khān bar

khāst wa pīshwāz āmad wa dast mīrzā rā goshāda hamān laḥẓa mīrzā rā ʿināyāt-e

besyār karda ferestāda keh mabādā mardom-e shomā wīrān shawand zūdtar beraw

man ham mutaʿāqib be-khāna-e shomā mīrawam chūn ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā be-

Andijān raft khān ulūs-e Moghūl be-Moghūlestān rukhṣat dād keh bar āyand wa khod

maʿ kūch wa maʿdūdī chand be-Andijān raft do māh dar khāna-e Mīrzā ʿUmar-

Shaykh mehmān būd kulfat dar meyān nashod).356

356 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 34a. This passage should also





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The wording “granted the mīrzā many favors” (mīrzā inʿāmāt karda, or mīrzā rā ʿināyāt-e

besyār karda) strongly suggests a lord-vassal relationship. Moreover, if we think about this

inductively, even if ʿUmar-Shaykh had not formally sworn fealty to Yūnus Khan before the

Battle of Täkkä Segritkü, how likely would it have been for the mīrzā to have been brought

bound before the khan, released, and then act like a political equal to the khan in their

subsequent relations? Yūnus Khan would have had to be the most liberal father-in-law in the

whole history of the Orient to have spent those later two months in Andijān as ʿUmar-

Shaykh’s buddy.

Lastly, we should analyze how Yūnus obtained control of Tashkand in 1485, a geo-

political change with major consequences for the Timurids in the twenty years following.

According to Mīrzā Ḥaydar, fighting broke out when Sulṭān-Aḥmad tried to take Tashkand

from ʿUmar-Shaykh, and “the khan sent his elder son, Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan, against Sulṭān-

Aḥmad Mīrzā with thirty thousand men dripping in iron and steel” (khān nīz pesar-e kalān-e

khod Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khān rā dar muqābila-e Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā sī hazār kas dar gharq-e

āhan wa fūlād ferestād).357 Then, Khwāja ʿUbayd Allāh Aḥrār (d. 1490), the preeminent

Naqshbandī Sufi master based in Samarqand, brought Yūnus Khan, Sulṭān-Aḥmad, and

ʿUmar-Shaykh together to meet for peace talks, and decided upon giving Tashkand to the

be noted for the apparent evidence of a mobile “Moghul ulus,” distinct from Moghulestān (khān ulūs-

e Moghūl be-Moghūlestān rukhṣat (ijāzat) dād). See variant edition, ed. Ghaffārī Fard, 125:

عمر شیخ از جهت توهم برادر کالن میرزا سلطان احمد، یونس خان را طلبید و اخسی را به خان داد. یکبارگی میرزامر شیخ خان در اخسی قشالق انداخت. چون این خبر به سلطان احمد میرزا رسید، سلطان احمد میرزا فسخ تعرض کرد. چون ع

در اخسی گران میداشت، چه اخسی اعظم بالد فرغانه بلکه میرزا را خاطر از تعرض میرزا سلطان احمد جمع شد، بودن خان را

ام البالد فرغانه است. از این جهت به خان یاغی شد. در سر پل تکاسگروتکو جنگ شده خان هر چند نصیحت کرد به میرزا را بسته بودند خان شکست بر جانب میرزا افتاد. میرزا را گرفته پیش خان میآوردند، میرزا سودمند نبود. آخر جنگ در پیوستند.

برخاست و پیش و از آمده دست میرزا گشاده همان لحظه میرزا را عنایات بسیار کرده فرستاد، که مردم تو ویران نشوند زود برو

ندجان رفت، خان الوس مغول را اجازت داد که به مغولستان برآیند و من نیز متعاقب به خانه تو میروم. چون عمر شیخ میرزا به ا

مع کوچ و معدود چند به اندجان رفت. دو ماه در خانه میرزا عمر شیخ مهمان بود، هیچ کلفت در میان نشد اندجان رفت. دو و خود ماه در خانه میرزا عمر شیخ مهمان بود، هیچ کلفت در میان نشد.

357 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 41a.

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khan.358 This compromise was arguably face-saving for both Sulṭān-Aḥmad and ʿUmar-

Shaykh if we consider that the prize went to someone senior in status to both of them. Upon

taking Tashkand, Yūnus Khan arranged for Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan to marry Sulṭān-Aḥmad

Mīrzā’s daughter Qara Köz Begim. 359 Moreover, relations between Sulṭān-Aḥmad and

ʿUmar-Shaykh improved. (ʿUmar-Shaykh’s son) Bābor went to Samarqand in circa 1487 (at

age five) and according to custom, the grown-ups had him remove the veil of Sulṭān-Aḥmad

Mīrzā’s new bride by the name of Khwānzāda Begim.360 During that visit, little Bābor also

got himself a fiancé, Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā’s daughter ʿĀyisha-Sulṭān Begim.361 The roughly

two years of amicability (1485–87) suggest that the settlement Khwāja ʿUbayd Allāh

brokered was seen as an honorable one from the perspectives of Sulṭān-Aḥmad and ʿUmar-

Shaykh. Could it have been seen this way if Tashkand had been given to the khan of a

foreign ulus who was the mīrzās’ equal?

Bābor and his Moghul Uncle-Khans

If one is not impressed by my proposal that Yūnus Khan was acknowledged as the

overlord of his Timurid kürägäns, perhaps one can at least be convinced that the relationship

between Yūnus Khan’s son Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan and Bābor was one between lord and

358 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 41b. On Khwāja ʿUbayd-

Allāh’s influential role in Timurid political and economic life, see Jo-Ann Gross and Asom Urunbaev,

ed. and trans., The Letters of Khwāja ʿUbayd Allāh Aḥrār and His Associates (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 13–20.

359 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 41b. The begim would not

arrive in Tashkent until after Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan and Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā concluded a truce two

years later. 360 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 20b. 361 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 20a.

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vassal prior to Bābor’s flight to Kābol.362 The first time Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan and Bābor met

was in 1495 in Shāhrokhiyya. According to Bābor’s account, he genuflected before the khan:

On this occasion, Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan came to Shāhrokhiyya. Prior to this, when

Sultan Ahmad Mīrzā went to the vicinity of Andijān, the khan too had gone and laid

siege to Akhsī, as has been mentioned. It crossed my mind that since the distance was

slight and since the khan was like my father and elder brother, if I were to go pay

homage and patch up our past differences, it would be regarded well when heard near

and afar. So saying, I went to pay homage to the khan in the garden built by Ḥaydar

Beg outside of Shāhrokhiyya. The khan was seated in a large pavilion set up in the

middle of the garden. Immediately upon entering the tent I genuflected thrice. The

khan also saluted and rose. After our interview I returned [to my place] and

genuflected, and then he invited me to his side and showed me much kindness. (Bu

furṣatta Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan Shāhrokhiyyagha kelip edi mundın burunraq Sulṭān-

Aḥmad Mīrzā Andijān navāḥīsıgha kelgända Khan ham kelip Akhsīnı qapap edi,

nechük kim maẕkur boldı khāṭirgha yetti kim ara muncha yawuq bolghanda khan

chūn ata-aqa durlar barıp mulāzamat qılsam ötkän kudūratlar rafʿ bolsa yıraqta

yawuqta eshitür körärgä yakhshı bolghay dep kelip Shāhrokhiyyadın tashqarı Ḥaydar

Beg salghan bāgda khangha mulāzamat qıldım khan bāgnıng ortasıda salghan ulugh

chārdara üydä olturup edilar üydin kirgäc üç yükündüm khan ham taʿẓīm qılıp

362 To be sure, this is not to say that Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan simply inherited any and all

sovereignty Yūnus Khan enjoyed—we know better than to expect this of the Chinggisid-Timurid

political system by this point. After Yūnus Khan died in 1487, ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā, followed by

Sulṭān-Aḥmad Mīrzā, each tried to take Tashkand, but both were repelled by Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan (Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fols. 41b–42b). We also know that

hostilities/“revolt” did not preclude near-future reconciliation. It’s just a family matter, after all.

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qoptılar körüshüp yanıp yükügändin song yanlarıgha tiläp qalın shafaqat wa

mehrbānlıqlar körsättilär).363

In subsequent years, there were occasions when Bābor went to Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan for aid,

and Bābor was at times completely dependent on the khan. In 1502, Bābor along with his

mother took refuge in Tashkand with the khan. As Bābor recollected,

During this period in Tashkand, I endured much hardship and misery. I had no

wilāyat and no hope of wilāyat. Most of my liegemen had departed. The few who

were left were too wretched to move about with me. If I went to my uncle the khan’s

gate, I went sometimes with one other person and sometimes with two—at least it

was a good thing that he was a kinsman and not a stranger. After meeting with my

uncle the khan, I used to go to see Shāh Begim, as though I were entering my own

house, bareheaded and barefoot. (Bu muddatta kim Tashkandta edim khaylī qallāshlıq

wa khwārlıq tartıldı wilāyat yoq wilāyat omēdwārlıqı yoq nökär aksar tarqadı

maʿdūdī kim qalıp edi qallāshlıqtın mening bilä yürüy almas edilar khan dadamning

eshikigä barsam gāhī bir kishi bilä gāhī iki kishi bilä barur edim walī yakhshılıq bu

edi kim yat emäs edilär, tughqan edilär khan dadamgha körünüsh qılıp Shāh Begim

qashıgha kelür edim öz üyüm dek bash yalang ayaq yalang kirär edim).364

Thus, even though Bābor claimed to have become a pādeshāh (pādeshāh boldum) in 1494

upon succeeding his father,365 which is credible in the sense that he was an appanage holder

with begs (or, amīrs) serving him, he was definitely not independent vis-à-vis Sulṭān-

Maḥmūd Khan.

363 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fols. 31b–32a. 364 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fols. 101a–101b. Shāh Begim was a wife of Yūnus Khan and the

mother of Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan, but not Bābor’s maternal grandmother. Bābor’s mother was Qutlugh-Negār Khanım, daughter of Yūnus Khan and Esän-Dawlat Begim.

365 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 1b.

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To my knowledge, there is no known Timurid coin minted in the name of Yūnus

Khan or Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan. If in fact no such coin was ever minted, it should not

necessarily be read as conclusive indication that vassalage did not exist. Rather, given the

aforementioned information in the Tārīkh-e Rashīdī and Bābor-nāma, not minting such coins

would most likely have been the result of the khans’ relative lack of administrative power

and/or attention to enforce this conventional symbolic act. None of the accounts of Yūnus

Khan or Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan’s overlordship over the Timurids suggested takeover of any

mīrzā’s administration. Of comparable note, according to the Tārīkh-e Rashīdī, Bābor sent

his cousin Mīrzā-Khan to the Safavid ruler Shāh Ismāʿīl (r. 1501–24) in 1511 with a message

offering “obedience and pleading for support” (iṭāʿat wa inqiyād wa iltimās-e kūmak wa

madad), which Ismāʿīl granted.366 Bābor then commissioned coins with Shīʿa inscriptions,

such as the names of the twelve imams and the declaration “ʿAlī is the friend of God” (ʿAlī

walī Allāh), but the only ruler’s name on the coins was “Sulṭān Bābor Bahādur.”367 This

shows that in practice, there was room for autonomy in minting coins under conditions of

vassalage; an overlord whose power had not reached into the administrative apparatus of his

vassal, particularly one with his own army and kingly ambitions, was in effect dependent on

his vassal to mint coins that adequately expressed submission.

Whereas Bābor’s allegiance to Ismāʿīl and pro-Shīʿa phase were not acknowledged in

the Bābor-nāma, Bābor did not shy away from recounting his relationship with Sulṭān-

Maḥmūd Khan. Even though Bābor expressed many misgivings about this uncle-khan of his,

as well as about Moghuls in general, he wished for his readers to know that he never

harbored any thought of disloyalty. With Bābor under his protection, Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan,

366 Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlat, Tārīkh-e rashīdī, ed. Thackston, fol. 118. 367 Lane-Poole, Catalogue of Oriental Coins, vol. 10, pt. 2, 163.

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joined by his brother Sulṭān-Aḥmad Khan with an army from Moghulestān, launched an

expedition to take Farghāna, which was then occupied by Sulṭān-Aḥmad “Tanbal,” an amīr

of Moghul origin formerly in the service of ʿUmar-Shaykh Mīrzā. However, Sulṭān-Maḥmūd

Khan gave the recovered territories in Farghāna to Sulṭān-Aḥmad Khan, promising Bābor

Samarqand in the future instead.368 Bābor felt unhappy, helpless, and even suspicious about

this treatment, but he related the following story that happened soon afterwards:

In the presence of Ulugh Khan (“Great,” or “Elder” Khan, i.e., Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan)

we mounted on horses to go see Kichik Khan (“Little,” or “Young” Khan, i.e.,

Sulṭān-Aḥmad Khan). Qanbar-ʿAlī Beg, known as Sallākh, rode up beside me and

said, “You see? They have taken away the wilāyats you had in the bag. Nothing’s

going to come your way from these people. As Osh, Marghīnān, Ūzkand, and the

wilayāts and the el and ulus that have submitted are in your hands, you should now go

to Osh and reinforce those who are there. Then send somebody to make peace with

Sulṭān-Aḥmad Tanbal, strike the Moghuls and drive them out, and then divide up the

wilayāts [between you and Jahāngīr Mīrzā] as brothers. “Would such a thing be

proper?!” I said, “the khans are my kinsmen, it is more suitable for me to serve them

as liegeman (nökärlik qılghanım) than to reign over Tanbal as pādeshāh.” (Ulugh

Khannıng qashıda biz atlanıp Kichik Khannı körä baradurghanda Qanbar-ʿAlī Beg,

kim Sallākhqa mashūr edi, manga yandashıp kelip ayttı kim kördüngiz mu fī’l-ḥāl

bolghan wilāyatlarnı aldılar sizgä bulardın ish achılmas baq-kim Osh wa Marghīnān

wa Ūzkand wa kirgän wilāyat wa el wa ulus eligingizdä dür fī’l-ḥāl barıp Oshqa kirip

qorghanlarnı berkitip Sulṭān-Aḥmad Tanbalgha kishi yibärip yarashıp Moghulnı

urup chıqarıp wilāyatlarnı agha-ini ḥiṣṣa qılıshıng men de[d]im kim rawā [bol]ghay


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khanlar tuqqanlarım bulargha nökärlik qılghanım Tanbalgha pādeshāhlıgh

qılghandın artuqraq).369

The most revealing term in this passage is perhaps nökärlik, or “state of being a nökär.”

Since the early Mongol period, nökärs were liegemen in close attendance on their lords, often

serving as trusted bodyguards. In Babor’s time as well, there could have been no mistake that

a nökär owed his lord fealty and service.

There is a separate matter that I have yet to discuss, namely Bābor’s account that he

genuflected three times during his first audience with Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan. To have only

genuflected three times instead of nine may indicate that the khan granted Bābor a special

favor, and perhaps recognized Bābor as holding an extraordinarily high rank. (Or perhaps the

khan’s audience with Bābor was not considered a formal enough occasion to warrant nine

genuflections). For when Sulṭān-Aḥmad Khan came with his army to aid Sulṭān-Maḥmūd

Khan, the younger khan genuflected nine times before his elder brother:

From there they set out in the direction of Tashkand. My uncle Ulugh Khan had also

come out three or four leagues from Tashkand in greeting. Canopies were set up in an

area, and Ulugh Khan sat there. As Kichik Khan came face-to-face, and as he got near,

he circled around behind the khan’s left, and stopped in front of him. When he

reached the place for the meeting, he genuflected nine times before proceeding for the

encounter. Ulugh Khan rose as Kichik Khan approached, and they met. They stood

embracing each other for a long time. Kichik Khan genuflected nine times as he

withdrew. He genuflected many times as the gifts were presented. After that he came

forward, and they sat down. (Ol yerdin Tashkand sarı mutawajjih boldılar Ulugh

Khan dädäm ham Tashkanddın üch-tört yıghach yol utru chıqıp keldi Bir yerdä

369 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fols. 108a–108b.

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shāmiyānalar tikip Ulugh Khan olturdı Kichik Khan rūbarūdın kelädür edi yavuq

yetkäch khannıng sol qolı bilä käyindin evrülüp kelip khannıng alıda tüshüp keldi

Körüshür yergä yetiship toquz qatla yükünüp kelip körüshti Ulugh Khan ham Kichik

Kan yaqın yetkäc qopup körüshtilär. Ghalaba quchushup turdılar. Yanghanda ham

Kichik Khan toquz qatla yükündi. Tartıgh tartqanda ham qalın yükündi. Andın song

kelip olturdılar).370

Moreover, just before this ceremonious meeting between the two khans, Bābor, who had

ridden out in front of the welcoming party, already greeted Sulṭān-Aḥmad Khan. On that

occasion, Bābor genuflected before Sulṭān-Aḥmad Khan, but Sulṭān-Aḥmad Khan’s sons

genuflected before Bābor:

I genuflected and went forward to meet him. Flustered and agitated, he ordered

Sulṭān-Saʿīd Khan and Bābā-Khan Sulṭān to dismount, genuflect, and meet me. Of

the khan’s sons only these two had come. They were thirteen or fourteen years old.

(Yükünüp barıp körüshtüm iżṭirāb wa infiʿālda bolup fī'l-ḥāl Sulṭān-Saʿīd Khān bilä

Bābā-Khan Sulṭānnı buyurdılar kim tüshüp mening bilä yükünüp körüshkäylär.

Khannıng oghlanlarıdın oshbu iki sulṭān oq kelip edi on üch-tört yashta bolghaylar

edi).371

Bābor was about twenty years old at the time, so by familial status he was an “older brother”

(aqa) to his two cousins. Nonetheless, genuflection was inherently political as well, and for

Bābor to have received such homage from Chaghatayid princes (sulṭāns) further suggests that

he was regarded as having a high rank. In sum, Bābor’s own words conclusively reveal that

370 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fols. 102b–103a. Nine was considered an auspicious number and of

ritual importance, as shown in Sulṭān-Aḥmad Khan’s nine genuflections. Gifts, for example, were

also expected to be given in nines on important ceremonial occasions. 371 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 102b. The reference to Sulṭān-Saʿīd as “Sulṭān-Saʿīd Khan” (r.

1514–33) is retroactive.

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he was a vassal of Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan and was also inferior in rank to Sulṭān-Aḥmad

Khan, but with the above accounts regarding the number of times of genuflection, it is not

clear exactly how this relationship was understood. Interestingly perhaps, in the

approximately ten years that Bābor interacted closely with his two uncle-khans, he was not

made a kürägän, so the traditional khan-kürägän relationship was not replicated in this case.

(But admittedly, I have not found out whether there was a bachelorette khanım available for

Bābor at the time). This unclarity makes it difficult for us to determine the conception of

political community underlying Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan and Bābor’s relationship.

When Bābor was with Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan, was the khan recognized as the khan of

the ulus of Chaghatay [Khan]? Or was Bābor considered to have entered the Moghul ulus, of

which Sulṭān-Maḥmūd was khan? Or was it understood that Bābor was a sort of “foreign”

vassal to Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan of the Moghul ulus? Bābor explicitly wrote of Yūnus Khan

and Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan as possessing the khanship of the Moghul ulus.372 This stands in

contrast to when Shamī and Yazdī acknowledged Tughluq-Temür and Ilyās-Khwāja as ruling

the ulus of Chaghatay. In fact, in the Bābor-nāma, I have not found any reference to the “ulus

of Chaghatay [Khan].” From this fact, it would be hard to argue that Yūnus Khan and Sulṭān-

Maḥmūd Khan were formally recognized as khans of the ulus of Chaghatay [Khan] by the

Timurids. At the same time, however, there are two passages that might indicate that Bābor

considered the Chaghatays, or “Türks,” and the Moghuls to be part of a common ulus, but

neither of these passages is solid proof. One passage is from his description of Samarqand.

Bābor mentioned that Moghuls and Türks call Samarqand “Semīzkand,” meaning “Fat City.”

372 Bābor recounted that Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā “made him (i.e., Yūnus) khan in the Moghul

Ulus” (moghul ulusıda khan qılıp) (Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 10b). Bābor also mentioned that “on this

occasion, the khanship of the Moghul Ulus was held by Yūnus Khan’s eldest son, my maternal uncle Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan” (bu furṣatta Moghul ulusınıng khanlıghı Yūnus Khannıng uluq oghlı mening

ṭaghayım Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khanda edi) (ibid., fol. 6a).

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The wording he used was Moghul wa Türk ulusı ‘Semīzkand’ derlär.373 Moghul wa Türk

ulusı could be read as “the (unified) ulus of Moghul and Türk,” but it might also have meant

“the Moghul ulus and the Türk ulus,” with ulus mentioned only once in order to not be wordy.

A unified ulus of Moghul and Türk would have been none other than the original ulus of

Chaghatay Khan,374 but if this was indeed what Bābor meant, why did he not simply refer to

this instead of Moghul wa Türk ulusı? It is possible that this Moghul wa Türk ulusı did not

imply an ulus in the strictest sense of political community, but rather “people” in a more

general sense. Elsewhere in his memoirs, Bābor referred to both the Moghuls under his

command in Samarqand during his first takeover of the city (1497–98), and the Moghuls

under Khosraw-Shāh in 1504, as “Moghul ulus” (Moghul ulusı).375 Bābor definitely knew

that there was the grand “Moghul ulus” ruled by khans like his maternal grandfather and

uncle,376 but in these two contexts, he was referring to smaller groupings of Moghuls as

“Moghul ulus” too. So if Moghul ulusı was not a strict term to Bābor, Moghul wa Türk ulusı

might not have been one either.

In another passage, Bābor referred to an ulus that appears to have meant a common

ulus to which Moghuls and Türks belonged. The backdrop was Bābor in Tashkand, and the

passage is as follows:

Through the intermediary of Khwāja Abū al-Makārim, I (i.e., Bābor) stated the

following case [to Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan]: an enemy like Shıbaq Khan (i.e.,

373 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 44b. 374 As Joo-Yup Lee clarifies, “Chinggisid and Timurid historians used Türk as a term

relational to Tajik, meaning the sedentary Iranian population, not as an antonym of Mongol” (Lee, “The Historical Meaning,” 121). Bābor subscribed to this broad notion of Türk, while also using Türk

in a narrower sense to mean the (western) Chaghatays under Timurid rule (ibid., 109n38, 123n122). 375 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fols. 52a, 122b–23a. For more on Türk ulusı in the Bābor-nāma, see

Dale, The Garden of the Eight Paradises, 158, 161. Khosraw-Shāh was an amīr of Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Mīrzā, but by 1504, he had become a virtually independent lord.

376 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fols. 5b–6a.

195

Muḥammad Shıbanī Khan of the Uzbeks) had appeared on the scene, and he posed a

threat to Türk and Moghul alike. He should be dealt with now while he had not yet

successfully defeated (attacked) the ulus or grown too strong. (Khwāja Abū al-

Makārimnıng tawassuṭı bilä bu sözni aragha saldım kim Shıbaq Khan dek ghanīm

paydā boluptur munıng żararı Türkkä wa Moghulgha musāwī dur munıng fikrini

ḥālālıqta kim ulusnı hanūz yakhshı basmaydur wa köp ulghaymaydur qılmaqlıq wājib

tur).377

Here, since “Türk and Moghul” were mentioned in the same category in the immediately

preceding sentence, it is reasonable that this ulus should be inclusive of both. It cannot be

ruled out, however, that ulus here referred only to Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan’s Moghul ulus. Alas,

because the Bābor-nāma never even mentioned the “ulus of Chaghatay [Khan],” I am not

willing to definitively claim that the relationship between the khan and Bābor was that

between the khan of the ulus of Chaghatay and a mīrzā of the same.

Nonetheless, we can conclude with ninety-nine percent certainty that Bābor was a

vassal of Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan, and we know with absolute certainty that Sulṭān-Maḥmūd

Khan was regarded as a Chaghatayid. Bābor gave a genealogy of Yūnus Khan that traced

back to Chaghatay Khan, 378 and Bābor’s daughter Golbadan Begim literally called the

Moghul ruling family “Chaghatayid” (Chaghatayya).379 At the same time, maternal familial

ties notwithstanding, Bābor did not consider himself “Moghul.” So with a Chaghatayid khan

377 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 101b. 378 Bābor, Bābor-nāma, fol. 9b. 379 “For a period of full eleven years, in the land of Māwarā al-Nahr, he (i.e., Bābor) had

battled and struggled with the Chaghatayid, Timurid, and Uzbek rulers such that the tongue of pen is

too weak and feeble to recount” (muddat-e yāzdah sāla kamāl dar olka-e Māwarā al-Nahr bā salaṭīn-

e Chaghatayya wa Tīmūriyya wa Ūzbakiyya janghā wa tarradudāt namūda and keh zabān-e qalam az sharḥ-e taʿadād-e ān ʿājiz wa qāṣir ast) (Golbadan Begim, Humāyūn-nāma, in Three Memoirs of

Humáyun, ed. and trans. W. M. Thackston (Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 2009), fol. 3a).

196

as overlord and a Timurid mīrzā as vassal, to what political community did they belong, if

not to the (unified) ulus of Chaghatay Khan? I pose this rather rhetorical question because for

Temür, Ulughbeg b. Shāhrokh, ʿAbd al-Laṭīf b. Ulughbeg, Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd, the ruling sons

of Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd, and Bābor, if we are to ask regarding any one of them “what was he a

kürägän of?” or “what was he a mīrzā of?,” the evidences point back to the ulus of Chaghatay.

However, these very evidences raise another question: why should we have to read between

the lines to surmise that the ulus of Chaghatay was still the political community to which the

Timurids belonged? A political community and its official name should have been at the

center of political identity, unambiguously and ubiquitously appearing in the sources. Would

one studying the fifteenth century need to read between the lines to identify a king or

nobleman as belonging to the “Kingdom of France”?

The ulus of Chaghatay that appears in the sources as a shadowy entity arguably

reflects the Timurids’ indecisiveness in articulating an unambiguous official conception of

their political community. If indeed Temür deliberately started an “interregnum” for the

reasons I proposed, such a scheme could not have been propagandized and integrated into the

representations of Timurid rulership. Without solemnly declaring a new political community,

the ulus of Chaghatay did not officially end, but without reigning khans, actively promoting

the ulus of Chaghatay would have made the Timurids’ position awkward—“why does our

ulus of Chaghatay not have a Chaghatayid khan?”, people would have asked. When ʿAbd al-

Laṭīf Mīrzā did elevate a khan, the subsequent fratricide and the mīrzā’s own demise soon

afterwards meant that this episode was unflattering for all parties involved, Chinggisid and

Timurid, and thus hardly a foundation for clarifying political identity vis-à-vis the ulus.

Yūnus Khan and his son Sulṭān-Maḥmūd stepped into the role of overlord, especially for

197

ʿUmar-Shaykh and Bābor, respectively. Yet perhaps Yūnus Khan, being magnanimous as he

was, did not wish to pressure his sons-in-law over the status of the ulus, lest he appear as

insecure as their father. Offbeat speculation aside though, we know that Yūnus Khan, unlike

Tughluq-Temür over a century earlier, was not an all-out conqueror. Rather, he adopted a

mixed approach of hard and soft power, and only modestly expanded his territory by

acquiring Tashkand. Yūnus Khan was arguably not in a position to re-stamp “ulus of

Chaghatay” all over the Timurids—but his sons-in-law were not declaring an alternative

political community either, so the khan too could have acted as if the ulus of Chaghatay

needed no further emphasis. Bābor acknowledged Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan as his overlord, but

both dynasties were about to be uprooted by the Uzbeks, and neither party had both the real

power and the imperative to clarify the status of the ulus of Chaghatay.

Chapter Conclusion

Our notions of the “Timurid period,” “Timurid empire,” and “Timurid dynasty,”

terms so ubiquitous in the subfield, are implicitly premised upon Timurid independence from

the old Chinggisid/Chaghatayid political order. This chapter demonstrated that while the

Timurids certainly attained de facto independence, they were never fully independent from

the legacy of ulus and khanship. Temür, Ulughbeg, and Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd still actively

promoted themselves as kürägäns. Samarqandī and Khwāndamīr perceived ʿAbd al-Laṭīf’s

elevation of a khan as following tradition rather than breaking with existing norms. In

Khorāsān, at least three Timurid rulers—Shāhrokh, Abū al-Qāsim Bābor, Sulṭān-Ḥusayn—

claimed the title khan, but with neither the consistency nor the full articulation of the

Chinggisids’ claim to khanship. By the late fifteenth century, Yūnus Khan and Sulṭān-

198

Maḥmūd Khan were even able to restore a version of the old Chinggisid-Timurid political

relationship in Central Asia. This relationship, however, did not apply to Sulṭān-Ḥusayn

Mīrzā and his successors in Khorāsān, which should be treated more focally in future

examination of this topic.

The extant sources provide many anecdotes and hints, but I could not find a straight

answer to the following question: to what formal political community did the Timurids

belong after the death of Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Khan b. Soyurghatmısh in 1402? Or in other words,

what were the Timurids formally the rulers of after 1402? As shown in the analytical sections

of this chapter, the best answer is “ulus of Chaghatay,” but this is hardly the obvious answer.

It is not obvious because the fifteenth-century Timurids did not have the incentive to make it

obvious, and this had fundamental implications for the development of conceptions of

rulership and political community in relation to territory. Ulus, as discussed in Chapter One,

was originally a mobile demographic entity, but later acquired territorial characteristics in

Persian-language writings. The fact that the major Mongol uluses did not move about after ca.

1260 would have been conducive to the ulus of Chaghatay evolving more and more into a

territorial polity in the minds of people. As such, the ulus of Chaghatay stood a realistic

chance of becoming a “country” in the Chinggisid-Timurid world, a world which certainly

did not lack “kings.” Yet because the legacy of ulus and khanship put the Timurids on what

turned out to be a long indecisive path to formal independence, the ulus of Chaghatay ended

up as a zombie political institution.

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GENERAL CONCLUSION

In the Introduction, the following question was raised: did the Chinggisid-Timurid

world have a concept of “king and country,” particularly the “country” component? In

keeping with the scientific method, I had my (evolving) hypothesis as I undertook each stage

of this project, but it was after the research of the four analytical chapters that the current

“overall thesis statement” in the Introduction was formulated. The said statement is therefore

my conclusion. Here, I will reiterate the central ideas of this work, and discuss potential ways

to build upon the present research.

The political culture of the Chinggisid-Timurid world included its own conceptions of

rulership and political community vis-à-vis territory. Without closely studying this

conception from the words of the people of the said world, we risk assumption and distortion.

In modern studies and maps of the Chinggisid-Timurid world, “empires” and “khanates,”

particularly the “Mongol empire,” “Chaghatay khanate,” “Ilkhanate, “Timurid empire,” and

“Mughal empire,” are omnipresent. Once terms like these become convention, even

researchers who are most conscientious about choice of words may decide to conform in

order to ease communication within the field. The problem, however, is whether these

“empires” and “khanates” actually existed to the people of the Chinggisid-Timurid world. If

not, then we are making them up. Like us, the people of the past lived with both the tangible

and the intangible/conceptual. Historians are unequivocally loath to make things up when it

comes to the historical tangible. Temür should not be feasting on a big sumptuous turkey in

his tent, no matter how much this image may appeal to us. At the same time, however, we

tend to give ourselves much leeway when it comes to the historical intangible/conceptual. I

undertook this project because of what I saw and feared as a general complacency about

200

“empires” and “khanates,” which are rooted in the European conception of rulership and

political community formally defined by territory, and largely similar to the East Asian

conception of the same.

This project demonstrated that before the “territorial state” became the global

standard, in a large swath of Eurasia, particularly Central Asia and Iran, the Chinggisids and

Timurids operated in a political culture—Mongol and Perso-Islamic in origin—that did not

necessitate a territorial conception of rulership or political community. The ulus of the early

thirteenth-century Mongol steppes was a mobile political community that did not require

specific territory to exist. Later, in the Perso-Islamic world, ulus was given certain territorial

attributes, but even by the early sixteenth century, the notion of the mobile ulus was still

evident. Even if the major uluses had in fact become understood as full-fledged territorial

polities, Chaghatayid, Ilkhanid, and Timurid politico-diplomatic culture eschewed formal

representations of rulership based on territory, as was common in Europe and East Asia.

During the fifteenth century, the Timurids were ruling from ornate capital cities, and by the

end of the century, appanages to mīrzās were usually recorded in the histories as taking the

form of wilāyat rather than ulus. However, despite their transition to higher intensity of

sedentary governance, and despite the general geopolitical stability of 1470–94, by the dusk

of their rule in Central Asia and Khorāsān, the Timurids still did not formally define rulership

according to politico-administrative territory.

If the territorial characteristics attributed to ulus and the informal expressions of

pādeshāhs being “of” territories are any indication, Timurid political culture might have been

on course to developing formal conceptions of territorial rulership and political community.

Moreover, the Timurids were definitely open to innovating political culture and institutions.

201

For Temür to have been called the “Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction” (Sāḥib-Qirān) was

an ingenious way to elevate his status beyond amirship and kuraganship. His leaving the

throne of the khan empty after 1402 was an institutional change that demonstrated a deep

desire for formal independence from the Chinggisids. Yet in the subsequent century, the

Timurids failed to clearly articulate such independence and a new political community. Then

in late fifteenth-century Central Asia, a particularly ironic story unfolded. Yūnus Khan, who

was pursuing the Timurid model of sedentary governance and eventually achieved it in

Tashkand, reinstated a version of the old Chinggisid-Timurid relationship. He thereby

diverted the descendants of Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā from the path to independence—

something the old mīrzā had emphatically asked him not to do! There is still much room to

investigate the issues of Chapter Four, but future researchers may have to accept that the

Timurids were deliberately vague about the status of the ulus of Chaghatay as their political

community after 1402. In any case, the Uzbek conquests ended the development of Timurid

political culture in Central Asia and Khorāsān, so we cannot know for certain if in fact there

was an evolution underway towards formal territorial rulership and polities.

The temporal and geographical limits of this project are due to the limitations of my

training and abilities. I hope that future research may extend the research questions of this

project into (1) the pre-Mongol Islamic world; (2) the Jochids and Qubilaids in-depth; (3)

non-Mongol powers of pastoral nomadic heritage from the thirteenth through fifteenth

centuries, particularly the Turkmens; and (4) Central Asia, Iran, and South Asia from the

early sixteenth century to nineteenth century—did the Shibanids, Timurids (Baburids), non-

Chinggisid Uzbeks, Safavids, Afsharids, Qajars, etc. develop any conception of formal

territorial polity on their own during this three-century period, or was it definitively the West

202

that brought the “territorial state” model to these regions? There is also one thematic limit to

this project that I hope may be transcended in the near future: the tümens in the Chinggisid-

Timurid world vis-à-vis wilāyats. Tümens, as the largest military-administrative divisions in

Chinggis Qan’s new political order, were essentially the immediate building blocks of uluses.

Tümens were important in the ulus of Chaghatay when Temür rose to power, and by the time

Bābor wrote his memoirs, he still spoke of tümen begs. Attaining better understanding of the

tümens and their relationship to wilāyats, especially during the fifteenth century, would lead

to a fuller picture of Timurid geo-political organization.

This project was only able to preliminarily describe and explain the Chinggisid-

Timurid conceptions of rulership and political community in relation to territory. At the same

time, however, I hope that the following ideas have been adequately highlighted and may

lead to further reflections on late medieval and early modern geo-political history of Eurasia:

(1) even in Central Asia and Iran’s settled/urban regions, where administrative territorial

borders were indispensable, rulership and political community did not have to be defined by

territory; (2) before the European-style “territorial state” became the global standard,

Chinggisid-Timurid political culture had its own standard, one that turned out to be the

Neanderthal; there used to be a more diverse “landscape” of geo-political conceptions, one

that would require sustained research to uncover and understand; (3) when land is not made a

part of moral-political identity, no one could claim to act in the interest of the “fatherland” or

“motherland,” which unlike a real father or mother, cannot speak for him or herself. May

historians keep striving to resist projecting the present onto the past, and may present-day

people continue to mine history for inspiration.

203

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