Shiraz in the Age of Hafez: The Glory of a Medieval Persian City

2. Things Fall Apart: Shiraz under the Mongols and Their Successors

2 Things Fall Apart: Shiraz under the Mongols and Their Successors O Sa’adi, did I not tell you not to look at the Turks? —Sa’adi THE SALGHURIDS SELF-DESTRUCT Things fell apart in Shiraz soon after the death of Atabek Abu Bakr b. Sa’d in 1260. After the harsh and tough-minded Salghurid rulers, who had known when to yield to superior force, came a series of drunkards, braggarts,and children. Abu Bakr’s immediate successor was his son Sa’d, who was returning from attendance at the Mongol camp at the time of his father’s death.Before reaching Shiraz,he sickened and died at Tafresh after only twelve days of rule. Following Sa’d came his young son, Azod al-Din Mohammad b. Sa’d. The young Atabek’s mother,Torkan Khatun,brought her husband’s body to Shiraz and buried him in the Madraseh-ye-Azodiyeh (named for their son) which she had founded in the Bagh-e-Now district.Then the Khatun, acting as regent,ordered the previous minister secretly executed (see above, Chapter 1) and replaced him with the able Nezam al-Din Abu Bakr. She also took the essential step of sending letters and presents to the Mongol ruler Hulagu Khan, who confirmed her son’s right to rule in Fars. Two years later,however,the young ruler died after falling oª a roof.His mother lamented: What wind is this that tore oª the flower bud? And what flood is this that uprooted my lofty evergreen? The next two rulers brought disaster to the Salghurid family.Mohammad Shah b. Salghur b. Sa’d b.Zangi,a nephew of Atabek Abu Bakr (see table 2.1), married Salghom, the daughter of Torkan Khatun. While this ruler spent most of his time in drunken orgies, his brother Saljuqshah, imprisoned in the castle of Estakhr, wrote an appeal for release. Things Fall Apart 19 Abesh (1264-82) m. Mengu Timur b. Hulagu Sa’d b. Zangi (r.1198-1226) Korduchin (d. 1338) Olghanchi Salghom Mohammad (1260-62) Saljuqshah (1263–64) m . Torkan Khatun Mohammad Shah (1262-63) m. Salghom Sa’d (1260) m. Torkan Khatun Salghur Abu Bakr (1226-1260) Table 2.1. The Last Salghurids My chains are long and my pain and sorrow are deep. Your pleasure and music are lofty. Rely neither on this depth nor that height, For destiny has a thousand tricks up its sleeve. Mohammad Shah ignored this advice,but after a few months of debauchery , Torkan and her advisers arrested him and delivered him to Hulagu.1 The Shirazis illuminated the city and Saljuqshah was freed from prison and placed on the throne. Like his brother, the new ruler lived only for wine and pleasure. He married Torkan (who must have been much older than he), but in a fit of drunkenness had a slave murder her. He then turned on the Mongol o‹cers in Shiraz and killed them and their households. Shams al-Din Miyaq, who had been Torkan’s lover and a slave-o‹cer in her first husband ’s court,escaped to the Mongol camp and reported the state of aªairs in Shiraz. Hulagu’s response was to execute Mohammad Shah and send an army to Shiraz. Contingents from Lorestan, Shabankareh, and Yazd, where the ruler, Atabek Ala al-Dowleh, hoped to avenge the murder of his sister Torkan, joined the Mongol forces. Saljuqshah foolishly defied the Mongols, ignored oªers of clemency, and was defeated and captured at Kazeroun in 1264. Soon afterwards the Mongols murdered him at the Qal’eh-ye-Sefid.2 The Shirazis had disliked Torkan Khatun because of her illicit relationship with her husband’s o‹cer,Miyaq.They had also considered her “ill-omened” (bad-qadam) because, soon after she married Atabek Abu Bakr’s son Sa’d, the Mongols killed the last Abbasid caliph (1258) and ended that five-hundred-year-old dynasty.But despite these poor notices, and despite some Iranian historians’ criticisms of the “corrupting influence of the Turkish and Mongol khatuns,” Torkan should earn credit for working to save Salghurid rule in Fars with the most unpromising male material.3 Shiraz had seen four Atabeks in four years, and now the only surviving members of the Salghurid family were Salghom and Abesh,the daughters of Sa’d b.Abu Bakr.Thus,in 1264,coins were...