Mongols and the Islamic World, from Conquest to Conversion by Peter Jackson (review)

The general history of Mongol rule over Muslim territories has been examined by comprehensive studies including David Morgan's The Mongols (1986), as well as in Bertold Spuler's Die Mongolen in Iran (1939). But as Peter Jackson mentions, the Mongols have not been the discrete focus of any single-authored book, an objective that Jackson tries to fulfill in Mongols and the Islamic World, from Conquest to Conversion.

In the first paragraph, the author mentions the main themes of the book, "This book sets out to explore two questions. First, it investigates the impact on the Islamic world (Dar al-Islam) of the campaigns of conquest by the armies of Temujin, better known as Chinggis Khan (d.1227), and his first three successors, under whom the empire of the Mongols (or Tatars, as they were often termed) came to embrace all the Muslim territories east of Syria and the Byzantine Greek oecumene. And second, it examines the long-term legacy of infidel Mongol rule over Muslims down to the conversion of the various Mongol Khans to Islam" (5).

The research is largely based on the works of thirteenth-and fourteenth-century authors writing in Persian and Arabic, as well as on material in Latin and Old French produced by Western European observers and visitors to the Mongol empire. For Armenian, Georgian, Syriac, Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongolian sources the author has consulted in translation. Since the author does not refer to any newly found sources and manuscripts, this book can be seen as a re-examination of the main primary sources on the Mongol rule.

The Mongol invasions and their positive and negative effects are one of the main themes. Jackson specifies that for present-day Muslims, Mongol violence in the Near East is still a byword; since the appearance of Bernard Lewis's article published in 1968, which underscores the advantages of Mongol hegemony particularly in the political sphere, there has been a growing tendency in Western historiography to accentuate the more positive repercussions of the Mongol's rule in the extensive regions of Asia that they conquered. Drawing on both Chinese and Islamic sources, Jackson accordingly highlights the active role the Mongols played in the promotion of economic and cultural activity: their stimulation of commercial networks that covered the entire breadth of Asia and their deliberate fostering of intellectual exchanges, notably between Iran and China, across fields as diverse as medicine, astronomy, geography, agronomy, and cuisine.

Looking at the subject through the perspective of Muslims rather than Mongols, the author tries not to minimize the devastating results of the Mongol conquest that accompanied the campaigns in the west. However, he emphasizes that at the first appearance of Chinggis Khan and his forces in the Khwarazmshahid empire in 1219–20, and also forty years later when Hulegu attacked the Caliphate, the Mongol army included a large number of Muslim troops. Jackson also gives prominence to the role of Muslim allies in developing the military capacity of the Mongol war-machine and in facilitating the subjugation or peaceful submission of their co-religionists.

Chapter one provides a thorough review of the principal works of Sunni and Shi'i Muslim authors in Persian and Arabic, the works of some eastern Christians who wrote under Mongol domination, as well as the works of a few observers from Latin Europe. The author asks why historians told the story in the manner they did, to locate them in their respective contexts, to ascertain their preoccupations and guiding purposes, and to identify the intended readers.

Chapter two, "The Islamic World and Inner Asian Peoples down to the Mongol Invasion," provides a detailed background survey of the relations between the Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb, the war zone. The third chapter covers the history of Mongol expansions in the Islamic world especially the eastern territories under the Khwarazmshah down to 1252. "Apportioning and Governing an Empire (c.1221-c...