The Fading Ilkhanate and the Kartids

The Kartid kingdom bequeathed by Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kart to his son and heir, Shams al-Dīn Kart (III) (r.c. 729–30/1329–30), was stable, prosperous, and encompassed (more or less) the lands itemized in Möngke’s yarlīgh of 649/1251. Shams al-Dīn had been appointed qāʾīm-i maqām (locum tenens) by his father during sundry absences. He was the anointed heir despite his alcoholism. Ghiyāth al-Dīn had tried to curtail the crown prince’s alcoholism, but once the father died, his drinking spun out of control. He died of “ill-health,” surely, alcohol abuse. During his fleeting reign, security slipped. His successor was Ghiyāth al-Dīn’s second son, Ḥāfiẓ Muḥammad (r.c. 730–32/1330–32). He was of artistic bent and averse to governing. Ghurid amirs ran roughshod over him and ultimately assassinated him inside Herat’s citadel.

The next successor was Ghiyāth al-Dīn’s third son, Muʿizz al-Dīn. He was instated by Ghurid power brokers. He secured for himself the customary robe of honor and diploma from sultan Abū Saʿīd. The youthful malik worked diligently and diplomatically to pull the support of the royal retinue and Kartid army’s diverse constituents to his person—namely, the army’s non-Ghurid elements (Herati, Baluch, Khalaj, Sijzī, Pashtun, Nikudari, Mongol)—to balance putative Ghurid opposition. He quelled the civil unrest that had gripped Herat and its environs consequent to the rebellion of Ghurid units and regicide of his brother in 732/1332. He co-opted ulama to help impose a sense of direction and normalcy within the populace, by imposing, for instance, the Islamic duty “to promote the good and forbid the reprehensible” (al-amr biʾl maʿrūf waʾl-nahy ʿan al-munkar), through the hand of Shaykh al-Islam Niẓām al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Mābīzhān-Ābādī (Khwāfī) (d. 738/1337f.).

The fraying of the Kartid state was not entirely the result of ineffectual leadership by Shams al-Dīn (III) or Ḥāfiẓ Muḥammad Kart. The Ilkhanate had been disintegrating in the last years of sultan Abū Saʿīd’s reign. This impacted upon the Kartid state at a critical juncture: the phase bracketed by the death of Ghiyāth al-Dīn and accession of Muʿizz al-Dīn.