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Arghun Aqa: Mongol Bureaucrat

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

George Lane
George Lane*
Affiliation:
The School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
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Extract

The question of who ran the Mongol Empire has long challenged historians, and various theories have emerged and retreated in answer to this problem. As far as the question of who ran the Persian part of the empire the answer has been made more elusive by the nature of the sources. Though excellent primary source material for this period abounds, for the most part it is written by the bureaucrats of the Il-Khanate themselves, most of whom were Persian. Very little Mongol material survives. It is this lack of Mongolian material that has prompted historians to speculate that perhaps none ever existed and thus that “the Mongols were happy to leave the tedious minutiae of government to those best qualified to cope with them.” In the case of Persia “those best qualified to cope” meant the traditional bureaucratic classes, and such individual luminaries as ᶜAta Malik Juvaini and Rashid al-Din and families such as the Qazvinis and Simnanis spring to mind.

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Articles
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Iranian Studies , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , Fall 1999 , pp. 459 - 482
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1999

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References

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24. Juvaini/Boyle, 544.

25. Ibid., 511.

26. Eljigitei had been dispatched by Guyuk to subdue the west. See Jackson, Dissolution, 200, 215.

27. Juvaini/Boyle 512.

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54. Juvaini/Boyle, 33-4.

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65. Kirakos, 268.

66. Ibid.

67. The same destruction as had occurred in 1243.

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69. Grigor, 321.

70. Ibid.

71. Juvaini/Boyle, 507-8.

72. See Boyle's note concerning this date, ibid., 510, n. 10.

73. Ibid., 510.

74. Sayfi, 172

75. Ibid., 170. It is not clear if this first 50,000 dinars is the same gift as the one given during the visit to Tus or another.

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79. Ibid, 299-300, g 362-3

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89. Step'annos Orbelean, Histoire de la Sioune, 232.

90. Ibid., 230.

91. Ibid., 233.

92. Ibid., 236.

93. Juvaini/Boyle, 523.

94. Ibid., 524.

95. Allen, History of the Georgian People, 115.

96. Kirakos 225-6.

97. See Bedrosian, The Turco-Mongol Invasions, 197.

98. Ibid. 196; Histoire de la Georgie, 529-30.

99. Allen, 116-7. On Hajji Aziz see Histoire de la Georgie, 561-65.

100. Kirakos, 325-30.

101. Vardan, 218.

102. Ibid.

103. Ibid.

104. Kirakos, 327.

105. Histoire de la Georgie, 563.

106. Rashid al-Din, 1061.

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115. Rashid al-Din, 1078.

116. Ibid., 1079, 1101.

117. Ibid., 1083. Khwandamir, 3, 85-86.

118. Rashid al-Din, 1084.

119. Ibid., 1086-87; Wassaf, 74; Ayati, 42-43.

120. Wassaf, 75.

121. Rashid al-Din, 1088.

122. Cited in Sayfi, 330. Baraq is reported as having returned to Bukhara, where he converted to Islam and took the name Sultan Ghiyath al-Din before suffering a paralysing stroke. In the Year of the Goat, 1270, he went to Qaidu Khan where he was given a poisoned drink that killed him. See Khwandamir, 3: 83, 87; Thackston translation, 47, 49; Ayati, 44; Wassaf, 76.

123. Histoire de la Georgie, 591; Peter Jackson “Arghun Aqa” citing A.G. Galstyn

124. See Vladimir Minorsky, Iranica, Tehran, 1964, 299-305.

125. Ibid., 299, 303.

126. Ibid., 301, 304.

127. Ibid., 301, 305.

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129. Wassaf, 313; Ayati, 190.