Download PDF | Shivan Mahendrarajah - A History of Herat_ From Chingiz Khan to Tamerlane-Edinburgh University Press (2022).
397 Pages
Introduction
Consider this World an Ocean, [and] Khurasan an Oyster within [it] And the City of Herat, the Pearl in its Midst1 This is a history of Herat, a storied city of the medieval Islamic east. Herat has since fallen on hard times, a consequence of Iran’s loss of Herat in 1857 pursuant to a treaty imposed on its hapless Qajar shahs (r. 1796–1925) by British imperialists. Herat—the Pearl of Khurasan—an Iranian (Tajik) metropolis and epicenter of Islamic learning and ethos, has been trapped inside an alien body.2 This Persian city was savaged by Chingiz Khan in 1222,3 but revitalized by his progeny and an autochthonous Tajik dynasty, the Kartids (1245–1381), which originated in the Ghūr mountains of eastern Persia.
Chingiz Khan’s grandson and heir, Grand Qaʾan Möngke (r. 1251–58), fostered the Kartid dynasty through his appointment in 649/1251 of Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Kart as the ruler of Herat, its dependencies, and territories. Kartid domains stretched from Jām, Bākharz, and Khwāf in the west, to the Oxus, Sīstān, Balūchistān, Indus (shaṭṭ-i Sind), and border with India (ḥadd-i Hind). Why Herat? Why not Balkh? Why care about Mongol rejuvenation endeavors at Herat? Why study the history of a medieval Tajik dynasty? Firstly, it was the Mongols and their Persian advisors that selected Herat for rejuvenation instead of Khurasan’s other major cities: Balkh, Marw, or Nishapur.
The Kartids were funded and installed by the Mongols to advance imperial agendas. Herat and the Kartids were, in effect, pre-selected for historians. Secondly, as Charles Tilly observed, “the wielders of coercion find themselves obliged to administer the lands, goods, and people they acquire; they become involved in extraction of resources, distribution of goods, services, and income, and adjudication of disputes.”4 The Mongol Empire’s administration of conquered lands and extraction of resources have been analyzed from the perspectives of the Empire, most notably, by the late Thomas Allsen, in Mongol Imperialism. An objective here is to analyze the roles of the city of Herat, its agricultural environs, and eastern Khurasan within the Mongol Empire. This is principally a local history of a significant Muslim-majority Persian metropolis. Historical Approaches Richard Bulliet expressed “deep dissatisfaction” with the manner of relating Islamic history. The “history of Islam as commonly narrated,” he insists, “leads in the wrong direction.”
This is because “[t]he story of Islam has always privileged the view from the center.”5 This center being the imperial capital (Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, Istanbul); the empires of the Umayyads, ʿAbbasids, Mamluks, or Ottomans. Local history should supplement imperial history. Bulliet’s rationale: Where the view from the center starts with a political institution, watches it expand mightily, and then observes its dissolution, the view from the edge does the opposite. It starts with individuals and small communities scattered over a vast and poorly integrated realm, speaking over a dozen different languages, and steeped in religious and cultural traditions of great diversity. From this unpromising start, an impressive measure of social, institutional, and doctrinal cohesion slowly emerges.
Charles Melville’s viewpoint complements Bulliet’s rationale: The history of Iran is still told very much in terms of events on center-stage. A common enough lament: the intrigues at court, the deeds—edifying or otherwise—of the ruler and his entourage, the marching of armies and squashing of revolts, the rise and fall of dynasties, these seem to be the main stuff of history. When recognized for what it is, the tossing of waves, we blame the sources for the fact that we can’t see below the stormy surface […]. The regions of Iran tend to come into focus only when they are, in fact, briefly transformed into centers. 7 The city of Herat is the “pearl”; however, the pearl cannot be truly esteemed without appreciating the “oyster,” Khurasan, within which it was nurtured. This is a local history with respect to Herat and its districts (sgl. bulūk); and a regional history with respect to the provinces (sgl. wilāyat) of Herat’s Khurasanian cradle. This approach is in accord with Jean Aubin’s advice that town and country be studied together. This tendency in Persian to not distinguish between the territory, limited or vast, and its dominant locality, prompts us to situate the study of the urban aspect within the framework of the historic territorial divisions. The spatial unit to be observed is not that delineated by the city walls or their surrounding belt of suburbs: the agglomeration [= city of Herat] cannot be dissociated from its territory [= Khurasan].
Structure and Themes of the Book
The book is in two distinct parts: military-political history in Part One; social and economic history in Part Two. Part One provides the context for Part Two. I have endeavored to cross-reference events and dates from Part One in Part Two, but must avoid repetition. Part One is divided into three periods (615–76/1218–78, 677–729/ 1278–1329, 729–83/1329–81). Each period has a prolegomenon. Key themes are highlighted below.
Part One: Military and Political Affairs Chapters One and Two (years 615/1218 to 676/1278). How eastern Persia—lands congruent with eastern Iran and most of Afghanistan—came to suffer the wrath of the Mongols. Included is Table 1.1, “A Chronological Guide to the Mongol Invasions of Khurasan and Transoxiana, 615/1218 to 619/1222.” Chapter Two. Shams al-Dīn Kart’s stewardship was undermined by the political machinations of Chinggisid factions; and his absences from Herat campaigning against the Ilkhanate’s enemies, including the Golden Horde. His legacy is a rudimentary state, bound together by a mosaic of loyalists (sgl. banda; pl. bandagān). Chapters Three and Four (years 677/1278 to 729/1329). Unfolded is the Roving Bandit9 v. Stationary Bandit thesis.10 Economists, principally, Professor Mancur Olson,11 developed St Augustine’s observation on how bands of brigands occupied lands and adopted “the name of a kingdom.” The Mongols, who had hitherto thrived on portable wealth (gold, livestock, slaves) acquired by violent theft (rob and run), realized they stood to profit from the rejuvenation of Herat. The Mongol Empire switched to gentle theft (also called taxation).
The Mongols became stationary bandits. The Empire needed conscripts for further expansion. Kartids supplied the Mongols with thousands of conscripts. Chapter Four. Fakhr al-Dīn Kart was a willful man who precipitated sieges of Herat, and earned the enmity of Öljeitü, who as Il-Khan, “devoted much time to fighting with the Kart dynasty of Herat” (Michael Hope’s words). But rebuilding of Herat commenced during this turbulent period. Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kart replaced his brother as Herat’s ruler. He had to contend for years with Öljeitü’s distrust of Kartids; machinations by Ilkhanid amirs against the Kartids and Öljeitü; and migrations from Transoxiana and Chaghataid raids in Khurasan. Included is Table 4.1, “Chaghataid-Ilkhanid Struggles for Supremacy in Khurasan: Key Events, 706/1306 to 720/1320.” But with this behind him, and Öljeitü dead and a friendly Il-Khan (Abū Saʿīd) and his regent (Amir Chupan) in Tabriz, Ghiyāth al-Dīn’s last decade in office was one of the best for Heratis. Chapters Five and Six (years 729/1329 to 783/1381). The Kartid state transitioned from Ilkhanid client to independent Persian kingdom. The death of Abū Saʿīd accelerated the unraveling of the Ilkhanate. Muʿizz al-Dīn Kart declared a sultanate and reached for the mantle of Pādishāh-i Islām—the idealized Tajik Padishah. The Sarbadar polity emerged in Nishapur Quarter from the chaos that followed Abū Saʿīd’s death.
They aligned with a “Sufi” shaykh with Shiʿi tendencies. Sarbadars and their Shiʿi allies marched on Herat in 743/1342 but were defeated by the Kartids. Muʿizz al-Dīn and ʿAlī Muʾayyad, the terminal Sarbadar leader, instituted détente and demarcated boundaries between their adjoining kingdoms. Muʿizz al-Dīn’s favored son and heir, Ghiyāth al-Dīn (Pīr ʿAlī), terminated the Sarbadarid-Kartid détente; secured a fatwa from ulama and brought sectarian conflict to Nishapur Quarter. Table 6.1, “Kartid-Sarbadarid Campaigns in the Nishapur Quarter, 773/1371–72 to 783/1381,” summarizes the campaigns and social/political impacts. Temür/Tamerlane, who had consolidated his kingdom and was planning fresh conquests, perceived this abysmal state of affairs. Notables (ashrāf wa aʿyān) of Khurasan became fearful of Temür’s wrath should Pīr ʿAlī resist his armies as planned. Led by the Kartid vizier, Muʿīn al-Dīn Jāmī, they secretly communicated with Temür to negotiate a soft landing for Herat, its peoples, and themselves. Thus expired the Kartid dynasty in 783/1381.
Part Two: Social and Economic Affairs Chapters Seven and Eight address efforts to revitalize hydrological systems and galvanize agricultural production. Grand Qaʾan Ögödei (r. 1229–41) took steps, c. 634/1236f., to rejuvenate Herat. Canals supplying the inner city with potable water were refurbished and re-opened. Revivification endeavors were impacted by struggles between agents of Chinggisid shareholders. But cooperation was also recorded. The 638/1240–41 census enumerated c. 6,900 persons in Herat, and with the re-opening of canals, people “from Khurasan and Turkistan” started migrating to Herat. Determined revitalization efforts by the Ilkhanate had to await the accession of Maḥmūd Ghāzān (r. 1295–1304). The Il-Khan and vizier, Rashīd al-Dīn, recognized that “there has never been a realm more devastated than this one [Persia]”; and amended, inter alia, land-tenure laws, rates, and modes of taxation. Ilkhanid fiscal-legal reforms inverted the paradigm that had persisted in post-Mongol Khurasan: fear of opaque and fluid fiscal-legal policies. Haphazard policies, and fraught political circumstances, had hindered investments in irrigation systems and fallow lands. Reforms transformed the investment climate: from one where fear of unknowable phenomena (i.e., immeasurable uncertainties) dominated, to one where measurable uncertainties persisted.
A measurable uncertainty is a manageable risk (i.e., potential for profit/loss can be evaluated).12 Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kart and son, Muʿizz al-Dīn, engaged in revitalization endeavors. Muʿizz al-Dīn devised a system for water distribution: watermanagers, water-control devices, dams, and barrages diverted water from primary to secondary and tertiary channels, thence to farms. Kartids delegated to Islamic institutions (mosques, shrines, hospices) of Herat and vicinities responsibilities for revitalization and administration of hydrological and agricultural holdings. These agro- and hydro-managers consequently became affluent and powerful. In 906/1511, when the Timurid era expired, Sufi or ʿAlid institutions in Jām, Balkh, Herat, and Mashhad were prominent landlords, waterlords, and agricultural producers. Appendix Two, “Land and Water Use,” summarizes the water resources and agricultural products of Herat Quarter. The rebuilding of Herat is the focus of Chapters Nine and Ten. Development inside Herat began in earnest under Fakhr al-Dīn, who defied Mongol proscriptions on construction in Herat. His brother, Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kart, flush with tax-exemptions, cash, and plunder following victories over Chaghataids and their allies, invested in construction projects. Charitable and commercial construction projects are itemized in Appendix Three, “Urban Development in the Kartid Period.”
Fakhr al-Dīn Kart constructed and/or re-constructed the fortifications of Herat, including walls, bastions, gates, and citadel. Chapter Ten is on (a) Herat’s fortifications; and (b) defensive postures. The Kartid’s kingdom’s network of known strongholds is in Table 10.1, “The fortified landscape of the Kartid realm.” Islamic activities thrived. Benefactors sponsored Sufi hospices (khānaqāh) and seminaries (madrasa). Promotion of Sufism and Islamic scholarship; the establishment or re-introduction of ranks and offices like Shaykh al-Islam, qāḍī al-quḍāt, Ṣadr/Ṣadr al-Sharīʿa, and muḥtasib, contributed to Herat’s rejuvenation. The thesis propounded is that Herat enjoyed socio-economic recovery. It has been argued that post-Mongol Persia had suffered socio-economic decline, which may be true for regions of Persia, but not for Herat. Arguments in Appendix Four, “Settlements and Population,” are that decline with respect to Herat is an assumption—a bridge built on shaky pillars. Herat under the Timurids witnessed a grand epoch for artistic, literary, intellectual, and Sufi expressions. The splendor of Timurid Herat would not have been possible without the Kartids.
Note on Sources
An indispensable source for the study of post-Mongol Herat is Sayf al-Harawī’s History of Herat, 13 which suffers from the “defects” that Melville mentioned: the palace-oriented nature of historical writing. Sayf al-Harawī was commissioned by Kartids and focuses on them, but his history is partly a contemporaneous narrative on Mongol and Kartid Herat. Sayfī’s prolixity is irksome; but jewels of socio-economic information are interspersed in Tarīkhnāmah. Regrettably, Sayfī expired at an inopportune moment (for this writer): just when Herat began flowering under Kartid rule. All was not lost. Ḥāfiẓ-i Abrū, a boon-companion (nidām) to Temür and informed insider who chronicled the Timurids, picks up Sayfī’s baton in History of the Kart Kings. 14 Ḥāfiẓ-i Abrū is perceptive but taciturn; the socialeconomic data that historians crave is sparse. His writings do not compensate for the lack of contemporaneous reports, from Sayfī’s death (c. 1322) to late Kartid Herat. A miscellany of historical sources allow for a reasonable reconstruction of the circumstances and characteristics of the rejuvenation of Herat and its environs.
Note on Terminology: People and Places The toponyms,15 hydronyms (bodies of water), hodonyms (streets and such), ethnonyms (or exonyms), and cognomina used by Sayfī are specific.16 He categorizes, for instance, the composition of the Kartid troops involved in specific campaigns: Harawī (demonym for denizens of Herat), Balūchī, Ghūrī, Sijzī (from Sīstān), Mongol, Nikudari, Afghan,17 Khalaj, etc.18 Sayfī and Ḥāfiẓ-i Abrū follow the custom of identifying a person’s balad (town, district) or waṭan (homeland) at micro-level.19 To illustrate, instead of a macro-nisba (e.g. “Khurāsānī”), the nisba may be given as “Mābīzhan-Ābādī Khwāfī”: so-and-so from Mābīzhan-Ābād village (Ar. qarya; Per. dīh), Khwāf province (wilāyat), the kingdom of Khurasan (mamlakat-i Khurāsān). This practice persists in Afghanistan and Iran; hence nisbas signifying birthplace or domicile (e.g. Aḥmadābādī, Jāmī, Panjshīrī). A person’s waṭan could be their manteqa (minṭaqah), a social and geographical zone to which their social identities are fused.20 Manteqas are ubiquitous across Afghanistan and eastern Iran. Boundaries of manteqas are known to residents,21 but are usually not delineated on political and/or administrative maps.22 A toponym utilized by Sayfī or Ḥāfiẓ-i Abrū is integral to one or more nation-states: Jām, Bākharz and Khwāf are in Iran; Sīstān is divided between Afghanistan and Iran; Balūchistān is shared by Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Toponyms change. Afghanistan, “land of the Afghans,” is a creation of British imperialism. It meant something different in Sayfī’s time. Afghānistān as used by Sayfī refers,23 approximately, to a tract from Ghazni to Qandahar, which encompassed fertile lands along the Tarnak and Arghandab rivers; and east/southeast to the Sulayman Mountains (see Map 1).24 It is incorrect to say that Sayfī “uses the designation of Afghānistān in contradistinction to Khurāsān,”25 which implies equality in territory and significance that did not exist.26 Möngke’s patent itemized territories awarded to the Kartids. Afghānistān is one of the twentyone named provinces (wilāyāt) subject to Herat’s authority (Chapter Two). Sayfī limits his use of macro-toponyms like Khurasan and Turkistan.27 Instead, he utilizes micro-toponyms: villages, towns, districts.28 Most of the micro-toponyms that he supplies are integral constituents of the “land of Iran” or “Greater Iran” (Īrān-zamīn or Īrānshahr),29 like Balkh, Bust, Farāh, Herat, Kabul, Marw, and Zābul;30 or micro-toponyms that abutted historical Īrānshahr, like Ghazni31 and Afghānistān. Afghan is an ethnonym in medieval texts;32 but Afghānistān does not materialize until the post-Mongol era.33 Sayfī is possibly the first to mention Afghānistān. Afghānistān was a micro-toponym that became a macro-toponym because of imperialistic interventions.34 We turn to how Herat met ruin: an act of avarice perpetrated in Central Asia by an underling of the Khwārazm-Shāh, the Turkic potentate of Central Asia and Khurasan, which mobilized Chingiz Khan’s vengeful armies.
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