Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- A Note on Transliteration
- Maps
- Introduction: The Study of Women in the Mongol Empire
- 1 Women and Politics from the Steppes to World Empire
- 2 Regents and Empresses: Women's Rule in the Mongols’ World Empire
- 3 Political Involvement and Women's Rule in the Ilkhanate
- 4 Women and the Economy of the Mongol Empire
- 5 Mongol Women's Encounters with Eurasian Religions
- 6 Concluding Remarks
- Glossary
- List of Abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - Women and Politics from the Steppes to World Empire
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 December 2017
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- A Note on Transliteration
- Maps
- Introduction: The Study of Women in the Mongol Empire
- 1 Women and Politics from the Steppes to World Empire
- 2 Regents and Empresses: Women's Rule in the Mongols’ World Empire
- 3 Political Involvement and Women's Rule in the Ilkhanate
- 4 Women and the Economy of the Mongol Empire
- 5 Mongol Women's Encounters with Eurasian Religions
- 6 Concluding Remarks
- Glossary
- List of Abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The king's underlings must not be allowed to assume power, for this causes the utmost harm and destroys the king's splendour and majesty. This particularly applies to women, for they are wearers of the veil and have not complete intelligence. … But when the king's wives begin to assume the part of rulers, they base their orders on what interested parties tell them, because they are not able to see things with their own eye in the way men constantly look at the affairs of the outside world.
Nizam al-Mulk, Siyāsat'nāmahThese words are attributed to the vizier of the Saljuq dynasty in Iran, Nizam al-Mulk (d. 485/1092), who painted this portrait of female rule in his work, the Siyasatnamah or Siyar al-muluk, almost 250 years before the arrival of the Mongols. Apart from any personal convictions about the matter, Nizam al-Mulk had political reasons for justifying the exclusion of women from politics: the influential role played by Terken Khatun, consort of Sultan Malik Shah (d. 1092), in the court of the Great Saljuqs was a challenge to his hegemony over state affairs. However, the Mongols’ perception of women's political involvement appears to have been very different when we consider the accounts contained in The Secret History of the Mongols. For example, the survival of Chinggis Khan and his subsequent political success was, according to this source, determined by the actions of the women in his family. Consequently, rather opposing views on the role of women in politics are presented here: the more restricted approach expressed by the Persian vizier and the more receptive one contained in the Mongol sources. In turn, when the Mongols expanded throughout Eurasia and conquered Khurasan in the first half of the thirteenth century, these two contrasting conceptions of women's involvement in politics came up against each other. It is in this context that this chapter explores the evolution of female rule in Eurasia before the establishment of the Mongol Empire. The first section examines women's participation in political affairs before the appearance of Chinggis Khan in the political arena of the Mongolian steppes. Based mostly on The Secret History of the Mongols, we explore the way in which pre-imperial nomads explained their mythological origin and early history.
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- Women in Mongol IranThe Khatuns, 1206-1335, pp. 34 - 64Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2017