The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion by Peter Jackson (review)

One of Professor Peter Jackson's objectives in Mongols and the Islamic World is to refute outlandish assertions that have sprung up after a legitimate attempt to reevaluate the position of the Mongols in history. In the 1980s, specialists sought to offer a balanced appraisal of the Mongols rather than the popular image of savage and barbarian interlopers who devastated much of Asia. Without ignoring the massacres and destruction the Mongols engendered, scholars of their history also write about the Mongols' roles in promoting contacts among Eurasian civilizations, constructing capital cities in Daidu (or Beijing) and Tabriz, supporting the arts, and restoring the old Silk Road trade. Unlike popularizers, who actually perform very useful services, vulgarizers go beyond these interpretations, perhaps to attract wider audiences. They claim that Chinggis Khan (d. 1227) played a role in the making of the modern world, believed in religions toleration, supported women's rights, and ruled via democratic practices; Chinggis Khan allegedly transmitted his policies and practices to his descendants. Perhaps an even more extraordinary claim is that the rampages and destruction of the Mongol invasions scarcely differed in scale from the killings and damage in the contemporaneous conflicts in Europe. Such conceptions have gained currency among the general public, as well as with a few policy makers, students, and even deans of prestigious business schools.

Jackson performs a signal service in demolishing these myths. He shows that the Mongol invasions were more devastating than the medieval European wars of the same time. Chinggis Khan ordered appalling massacres. When his favorite grandson died in a battle at Bamiyan, he "ordered his troops to kill every living creature and decreed that nobody should ever live there [after the city fell]" (p. 158). Both resistance and submission could lead to annihilation. On other occasions, the Mongols killed captured adult males and enslaved women and children. Bloodbaths persisted in the campaigns of Chinggis's grandson Hülegü (d. 1265) in Central Asia and Iran. The Persian accounts no doubt exaggerate the figures for people killed, but after carefully sifting the evidence, Jackson labels some of the incidents as "slaughters" (pp. 157, 170). Forcible migrations of the subjugated contributed to the economic catastrophes. The battles and conquests also damaged considerable amounts of land, and the Mongol pastoralists were not careful about agricultural land. Nor were they solicitous of irrigation complexes. The economies of the regions they conquered eventually recovered, and commerce, which the Mongols favored, revived rapidly. Jackson also dispels myths concerning the Silk Road commerce. He suggests that overland trade was not always safe, and merchants and caravans still encountered perils in undertaking long-distance commerce. Conflicts among the various khanates also, on occasion, impeded such trade. Yet other researchers, citing the travels of Genoese merchants, the Nestorian Rabban Şawma (d. 1294), and Marco Polo (1254–1324), note that travel across Eurasia continued despite the hazards.¹

Jackson then challenges the Mongols' vaunted policy of religious toleration. He cites numerous instances of Mongol purges directed at specific religions. The Ilkhan Ghazan (r. 1295–1304), who converted to Islam, initiated an assault on Buddhism, ordering the destruction of Buddhist images, converting Buddhist temples into mosques or madrasas, and compelling Buddhist monks to accept Islam. The Ilkhan Abū Saʾid (r. 1316–1335) destroyed Christian churches in his capital city in Tabriz. In 1280, Khubilai Khan (1215–1294), who relied on Muslims for their administrative and financial skills, nonetheless forbade circumcision, the Muslim method of slaughtering animals, and the recitation of prayers five times a day. Jackson also points out that the Mongol conquerors of West Asia burned down or damaged mosques, although, unlike the Christians in Spain and other regions, they did not convert mosques into churches. They also destroyed mausoleums, shrines, madrasas, and libraries, which housed Islamic and Christian texts. As Jackson writes, "the new masters of Asia did not simply permit the observance of all faiths...