Rebuilding Herat: Mongol Initiatives

Early Ilkhanid development efforts were haphazard and rudimentary. Il-Khans also circumscribed rejuvenation efforts; for instance, there was a prohibition on construction inside Herat. The Ghurid era Friday mosque remained dilapidated; inner Herat’s bazaars were yet to be revamped. Three pavilions were erected near Khūsh Gate and roofed seven shops. Sometime after 653/1255, shaḥna Merkidaï erected a pavilion and possibly two other structures. Reconstruction was episodic until 699/1299f., when Fakhr al-Dīn Kart defied the Mongols by initiating fortification projects. He apparently employed Nikudaris to advance his political objectives, and received from them a share of the spoils. These monies allowed him to underwrite his construction projects.

An example of episodic development by the early Ilkhanids is the case of the major workshop (kār-khānah-yi ʿālī) erected beside the Firūzābād Gate in 663/1264 by Shams al-Dīn Kart. He also built a bazaar opposite the workshop. The workshop was patronized by Abāqā and inspected by him. Architects and builders from Khurasan were engaged for the project. Shams al-Dīn’s ambitions, however, were circumscribed by the Il-Khan: despite objections, Abāqā insisted that bazaar and workshop be located outside the walled city.

The kār-khānah was imperial property, but what it produced is not publicized by Sayfī. The workshop must have profited the Empire and Ilkhanid notables, otherwise it would not have been founded. Given the prominence of silk and cotton fabrication in Herat before the Mongol invasions, and the Empire’s economic interest in gilded and embroidered fabrics, it probably produced precious textiles. The events surrounding the return of ʿIzz al-Dīn Muqaddam al-Harawī to Herat are illuminating.

ʿIzz al-Dīn Muqaddam had crafted exquisite fabrics for the Mongols during his Central Asian exile. He informed Ögödei that Herat’s climate was more conducive to textile production than Besh Baliq (Turkistan), where the Khurasanians were being held captive; that he could annually “double” (aẓʿāf ) revenues flowing to the Empire’s treasury (khazīna), relative to current production. Consequently, a subset of the 1,000 households (khāna-wār) of Persian captives was released by Ögödei in 635/1237f. (ʿIzz al-Dīn’s cohort); a second and larger cohort followed in 637/1239f.