An epic historical consideration of the Mongol conquest of Western Asia and the spread of Islam during the years of non-Muslim rule The Mongol conquest of the Islamic world began in the early thirteenth century when Genghis Khan and his warriors overran Central Asia and devastated much of Iran. Distinguished historian Peter Jackson offers a fresh and fascinating consideration of the years of infidel Mongol rule in Western Asia, drawing from an impressive array of primary sources as well as modern studies to demonstrate how Islam not only survived the savagery of the conquest, but spread throughout the empire. This unmatched study goes beyond the well-documented Mongol campaigns of massacre and devastation to explore different aspects of an immense imperial event that encompassed what is now Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Afghanistan, as well as Central Asia and parts of eastern Europe. It examines in depth the cultural consequences for the incorporated Islamic lands, the Muslim experience of Mongol sovereignty, and the conquerors’ eventual conversion to Islam.

The Ilkhanate: from Tegüder Aḥmad to Öljeitü -- Muslim Ilkhans, the Buddhists and the People of the Book -- Rashīd al-Dīn, Islam and the Mongols -- The Islam of Ghazan, his generals and his minister: the view from outside -- EPILOGUE -- Legitimation by Chinggisid descent -- Allegiance to Mongol norms and institutions -- Turkicization -- The exodus of Muslims from the Mongol world -- The spread of Islam across Eurasia -- The movement of peoples and the emergence of new ethnicities -- The integration of Eurasia within a single disease zone: the Black Death -- CONCLUSION -- APPENDIX 1 Glossary of Technical Terms -- APPENDIX 2 Genealogical Tables and Lists of Rulers -- NOTES -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX

Russia has long played an influential part in its world of Islam, and not all the dimensions are as widely understood as they ought to be. In Russia and Its Islamic World, Robert Service examines Russia's interactions with Islam at home and around the globe and pinpoints the tsarist and Soviet legacy, current complications, and future possibilities. The author details how the Russian encounter with Islam was close and problematic long before the twenty-first century and how Russia has recently chosen to interfere in Muslim states of the Middle East, building alliances and making enemies. Service reveals how some features of the present-day relationship continue past policies; others are starkly and perilously different, making the current moment in global affairs dangerous for both Russians and the rest of us. He describes how the Kremlin dominates Muslims in the Russian Federation, exerts a deep influence on the Muslim-inhabited states on Russia's southern frontiers, and has lunged militarily and politically into the Middle East. Foreign Muslims, he shows, do not value the leadership in Moscow except as a means to an end; Putin's pose as a friend of the Islamic world is no more than a pose—and a hypocritical one at that.

The Mongols’ Middle East: Continuity and Transformation in Ilkhanid Iran offers a collection of academic articles that investigate different aspects of Mongol rule in 13th- and 14th-century Iran. Sometimes treated only as part of the larger Mongol Empire, the volume focuses on the Ilkhanate (1258-1335) with particular reference to its relations with its immediate neighbours. It is divided into four parts, looking at the establishment, the internal and external dynamics of the realm, and its end. The different chapters, covering several topics that have received little attention before, aim to contribute to a better understanding of Mongol rule in the Middle East and its role in the broader medieval Eurasian world and its links with China. With contributions by: Reuven Amitai, Michal Biran, Bayarsaikhan Dashdondog, Bruno De Nicola, Florence Hodous, Boris James, Aptin Khanbaghi, Judith Kolbas, George Lane, Timothy May, Charles Melville, Esther Ravalde, Karin Rührdanz

This book brings together a series of studies that deal with the impact of the Mongols in the eastern Muslim world. Their focus is the state established around 1260 by HÃ1/4legÃ1/4, grandson of Chinggis Khan, and the subjects covered include: the development of the land-tenure system; the title ilkhan; the use of Arabic sources for the history of the Ilkhanate; the eventual conversion of the Mongols to Islam; and - most prominently - the ongoing war with the Mamluk Sultanate to the west.

The Mongols had a huge impact on medieval Europe and the Islamic world. This book provides a comprehensive survey of contacts between the Catholic West and the Mongol world-empire from the first appearance of Chinggis Khan’s armies in 1221 down to the death of Tamerlane (1405) and the battle of Tannenberg (1410). This book considers the Mongols as allies as well as conquerors; the perception of them in the West; the papal response to the threat (and opportunity) they presented; the fate of the Frankish principalities in the Holy Land in the path of the Mongol onslaught; Western European embassies and missions to the East; and the impact of the Mongols on the expanding world view of the maturing Middle Ages. For courses in crusading history and medieval European history.

This book documents the relationship and wisdom of Asian cartographers in the Islamic and Chinese worlds before the Europeans arrived.