From Shadow to Light: Transition of Chinggisid Kingship under Ilkhanid Ruler Ghazan Khan and its Revival under Mughal Emperor Akbar

King's Silk Roads Seminar, Friday 18 October, 2 pm
The second of this term’s Silk Roads seminars will take place this Friday, 18 October, at 2 pm, in Keynes Hall at King's, and also online at: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYtdO-trT4sE9HCss9W1YcVeokk-LJ0Z7g4#/registration. 

Dr Said Reza Huseini (Cambridge) will be giving a talk entitled: 'From shadow to light: the transition of Chinggisid kingship under the Ilkhanid ruler Ghazan Khan and its revival under the Mughal emperor Akbar’ (detailed abstract below). The talk will be followed by refreshments and further discussion – all are very welcome to attend! 

Abstract

In the autumn of 1295, at the grasslands of Qarabagh in Arran (modern Azerbaijan), Ghazan Khan ascended the Ilkhanid throne as a Mongol Khan (r. 1295–1304). Though he was converted to Islam, his coronation ceremony was arranged based on the Chinggisid tradition. As a Chinggisid ruler, Ghazan Khan married his father’s wife, Bulghan Khatun, who was a non-Muslim and once his grandfather’s wife and raised Ghazan Khan in childhood. His marriage was justified as legal (sharʿan) based on the Islamic ritual (nikāḥ). Ghazan Khan’s coronation and marriage ceremonies reflected his embracement of two different traditions. On the one hand, he was the Khan of the Mongols who should perform the Chinggisid commands (yāsā), and on the other hand, he was a Muslim king expected to be loyal to the Islamic laws (shariʿa). Moving between these two different traditions raises a fundamental question. How could he represent himself as a Chinggisid Khan and a Muslim king? 
Knowing the contradictions between the two traditions, Ghazan Khan initiated an intellectual project to sacralise himself as a divine king connected to the cosmos. The outcomes of his intellectual experiments are mainly reflected in Rashid al-Din’s Jamiʿ al-Tawarikh and Shams al-Din Kashani’s Shahnama-yi Chinggisi, two significant works conducted under his direct supervision. This project provided a space for the mythic complex of the Chinggisids, which was Islamicised and Persianised but retained many potent features, especially Chinggisid sacred kingship. The project used an Islamic framework but directly challenged the Islamic erasure of cosmic kingship by adding the Chinggisid idea of the Khan’s Heavenly supernatural origin and his sun worship. The chapter further argues that the Ghazanid sacred kingship project later allowed Muslim rulers, namely the Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605), to follow him and engage the cosmos to sacralise himself.  

About the speaker

Said Reza Huseini specialises in Indo-Persian and Islamic history in the connected regions of Khurasan and North India over the longue durée, from Late Antiquity to the early modern era. His research is based on a wide range of documentary and literary sources in Persian, Middle Persian, Bactrian, Sogdian and Arabic. He completed his PhD Dissertation on Arab Muslim conquests of Bactria at Leiden University. He is currently working as part of King’s Silk Roads Programme, writing a monograph entitled The Mongols in Persian Discourse: Continuity and Changes 1252-1582. He has published various articles on the socio-political situation in late antique Bactria, fiscal system in pre-Mongol Khurasan and co-authored several articles on Neoplatunic kingship in Mughal India. His first book, The Arab Conquests of Bactria: Local Power Politics and Arab Domination (651–750 CE), will be published by Edinburgh University Press.
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Dr Angus Russell (he/him)
Research Fellow, Silk Roads Programme
King’s College, Cambridge