Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 THE JALAYIRIDS, MUZAFFARIDS AND SARBADĀRS
- 2 TĪMŪR IN IRAN
- 3 THE SUCCESSORS OF TĪMŪR
- 4 THE TÜRKMEN DYNASTIES
- 5 THE SAFAVID PERIOD
- 6 THE SAFAVID ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM
- 7 EUROPEAN CONTACTS WITH PERSIA, 1350–1736
- 8 TRADE FROM THE MID-14TH CENTURY TO THE END OF THE SAFAVID PERIOD
- 9 SOCIAL AND INTERNAL ECONOMIC AFFAIRS
- 10 THE EXACT SCIENCES IN TIMURID IRAN
- 11 PERSIAN SCIENCE IN SAFAVID TIMES
- 12 RELIGION IN THE TIMURID AND SAFAVID PERIODS
- 13 SPIRITUAL MOVEMENTS, PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY IN THE SAFAVID PERIOD
- 14 CARPETS AND TEXTILES
- 15 (a) TIMURID ARCHITECTURE
- (b) SAFAVID ARCHITECTURE
- 16 (a) THE PICTORIAL ARTS IN THE TIMURID PERIOD
- (b) THE ARTS IN THE SAFAVID PERIOD
- 17 (a) PERSIAN LITERATURE IN THE TIMURID AND TÜRKMEN PERIODS (782–907/1380–1501)
- (b) HĀFIZ AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
- (c) PERSIAN LITERATURE IN THE SAFAVID PERIOD
- 18 PERSIAN POETRY IN THE TIMURID AND SAFAVID PERIODS
- Bibliographies
- Plate section
- Plate section
- Plate section
- Maps
- References
4 - THE TÜRKMEN DYNASTIES
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- 1 THE JALAYIRIDS, MUZAFFARIDS AND SARBADĀRS
- 2 TĪMŪR IN IRAN
- 3 THE SUCCESSORS OF TĪMŪR
- 4 THE TÜRKMEN DYNASTIES
- 5 THE SAFAVID PERIOD
- 6 THE SAFAVID ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM
- 7 EUROPEAN CONTACTS WITH PERSIA, 1350–1736
- 8 TRADE FROM THE MID-14TH CENTURY TO THE END OF THE SAFAVID PERIOD
- 9 SOCIAL AND INTERNAL ECONOMIC AFFAIRS
- 10 THE EXACT SCIENCES IN TIMURID IRAN
- 11 PERSIAN SCIENCE IN SAFAVID TIMES
- 12 RELIGION IN THE TIMURID AND SAFAVID PERIODS
- 13 SPIRITUAL MOVEMENTS, PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY IN THE SAFAVID PERIOD
- 14 CARPETS AND TEXTILES
- 15 (a) TIMURID ARCHITECTURE
- (b) SAFAVID ARCHITECTURE
- 16 (a) THE PICTORIAL ARTS IN THE TIMURID PERIOD
- (b) THE ARTS IN THE SAFAVID PERIOD
- 17 (a) PERSIAN LITERATURE IN THE TIMURID AND TÜRKMEN PERIODS (782–907/1380–1501)
- (b) HĀFIZ AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
- (c) PERSIAN LITERATURE IN THE SAFAVID PERIOD
- 18 PERSIAN POETRY IN THE TIMURID AND SAFAVID PERIODS
- Bibliographies
- Plate section
- Plate section
- Plate section
- Maps
- References
Summary
INTRODUCTION: THE TURKISH BACKGROUND
With the conquest of Baghdad in 656/1258, the Mongols dealt a deathblow to the empire of the caliphate. This event, together with the dramatic circumstances that attended it, is often regarded as a dividing-line between two historical epochs. This view is justified only in so far as the fall of the caliphate destroyed the last tie which, up till that time, had with difficulty been holding together the world of Islam. Yet the historical significance of this event should not be over-estimated. It is true that, apart from the liquidation of the 'Abbasids, it represented the prelude to new historical developments, such as the rise of the Il-Khanid dynasty, which was to be of great importance in the history of Persia. But its total effect on the history of the Islamic world was of a more or less superficial nature. For the political organisation of the caliphate which the Mongols had destroyed was little more than an outer shell, which had long been crumbling away, around heterogeneous structures which as a whole had very little to do with the Islamic empire of the early 'Abbasids, and which indeed actually negated the raison d'être of a common polity.
In spite of the catastrophic effect of the Mongol assault upon the people of that time, and in spite also of the changes which it caused and the traces which, here and there, it left behind it, eighty years later it already belonged to the past. Of distinctly greater historical significance were other developments which had begun long before.
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- Information
- The Cambridge History of Iran , pp. 147 - 188Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1986
References
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