Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T19:27:54.110Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - RELIGION UNDER THE MONGOLS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

A. Bausani
Affiliation:
Oriental Institute, University of Naples
Get access

Summary

As we have already seen, at the time of the Mongol conquest most of Iran was Sunnī; indeed, says Molé, this was “one of the most Islamked countries in the Middle and Near East”. Small Zoroastrian minorities existed in one or two centres, but played only a secondary role in the country's religious life. There were also Jews and Christians, but the latter were far less numerous than in the Arabic-speaking countries of Syria, Egypt, and Iraq. A summary of the distribution of the various Muslim schools and sects in Iranian territory has been given above, pp. 283–302.

The Mongol invasion of Persia, which began in 1220, together with the subsequent fall of the Baghdad caliphate (1258) and the killing of the last ‘Abbasid caliph, al-Musta‘Ṣim billāh, brought the entire Muslim world and especially Persia face to face with unexpected and formidable problems. For the first time in the history of Islam a great part of the Muslim world found itself under the rule of a non-Muslim power—and not only non-Muslim, but one which, to begin with, was in general anti-Muslim. At the same time, however, when the Mongols destroyed the external and political power of the reformed Ismā‘īlism of Alamūt, they thus saved orthodox Islam from the continual menace which it represented. And their destruction of the Sunnī caliphate in Baghdad meant that for the first time Sunnism was deprived of every semblance of political authority, and this could only be an advantage for Shī‘sm. The presence of a Shī‘ī theologian, and one of the greatest of the time, among Hülegü's advisers was, to say the least, significant.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1968

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

al-Tiqtaqā, Ibn. Kitāb al-Fakhrī. Cairo, 1317/1899. Tr; Whitting, C. E. J. : Al Fakhri. London, 1947.Google Scholar
Molé, M.. “Les Kubrawiya entre sunnisme et shiisme aux huitième et neuvième siècles del'hégire.” Revue des Etudes Islamiques. 1961.Google Scholar
Petrushevsky, I. P. Zemkdelie i agrarnïe otnošeniya v Irane XIII-XIV vekov. Moscow, Leningrad, 1960
Qazvīnī, Mīrzā Muhammad. “Mas'ud-i Sa'd-i Salman.” J.R.A.S., 1905, 1906.Google Scholar
Safa, Z. Ta'rtkh-i adabiyyāt dar Iran. Vol. II, part 1. Tehrān, 1341/1962.
Spuler, B. Die Mongolen in Iran. Berlin, 1955 (see especially).
Strothmann, R. Die Zwölfer-Scbī'a, Zwei religionsgeschichtliche Charakterhilder aus der Mongolenzeit Leipzig, 1926.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×