International Society for Iranian Studies

The Fall of Amir Chupan and the Decline of the Ilkhanate 1327-37: A Decade of Discord inMongol Iran by Charles MelvilleReview by: Michal BiranIranian Studies, Vol. 33, No. 1/2 (Winter - Spring, 2000), pp. 245-246Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of International Society for Iranian StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4311360 .

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Reviews 245

earlier historical periods), when tribal power was reduced and rulers identified with conservative orthodoxy and with the ulama.

Nikki R. Keddie University of California, Los Angeles

The Fall of Amir Chupan and the Decline of the Ilkhanate 1327-37: A Decade of Discord in Mongol Iran, Charles Melville, Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University, Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 1999, Papers on Inner Asia no. 30. ISSN 0893-1860 90 pages including bibliography, index, and 5 tables, $4.50 within the U.S., $5.50 or $7.55 for overseas.

Melville's short book is a new addition to his several important articles on later Ilkhanid history. The book covers the period from the fall of Amir Chupan, the regent of the last Ilkhan Abu Sacid (1317-1335), through the death of Abu Sacid, and up to the the eve of the bid to power by Chupan's grandson, Shaikh Hasan-i Kuchik in 1337. Melville uses a prosopographical approach to the events, con- centrating on the careers of the amirs and viziers who competed for power dur- ing this troublesome decade. After reconstructing the main power struggles, the last part of the study focuses on the vizier Ghiyath al-Din, son of the famous Rashid al-Din, and the real power behind the Ilkhanid throne after Chupan's death, and examines his relations with the different amirs.

Although Melville declares that his aim is not "to tackle the larger problems of the decline and fall of Mongol rule in Persia" (3), the book is written at least partially in response to the claim, put forward mainly by David Morgan and Peter Jackson, that the Ilkhanate fell with Abu Sacid's death without going through a detectable period of decline and that the last years of Abu Sacid "have an air of greater stability than the era of nominal rule" (Jackson, "Abiu Sacid,'' Encyclopaedia Iranica 1: 376). Melville claims that the favorable treatment of Abu Sacid's reign derives from its anachronistic presentation by the later Persian chronicles. Those portray Abu Sacid's days as a golden age because of the rela- tive centralization of his reign compared with the turmoil that followed his death, and due to the leading (perhaps exaggerated) role of Ghiyath al-Din, the representative of the Persian-Muslim bureaucratic elite in the Mongol court. Drawing upon an impressive range of sources in both Persian and Arabic, many of them contemporary with the events, Melville tries to portray the decline of the Ilkhanate, as represented in the amirs' struggles for power. His detailed descrip- tion proves that the power struggles in Mongol Iran were more complex than the simplified division between "barbarians" or "nomadizers" and "civilized" or adherents of the Muslim-Persian political culture would suggest. A dichotomy between military and civil leaders (amirs and viziers) is also inadequate to explain them, as is evident from the portrait of Ghiyath al-Din, allegedly the prototype of a Persian bureaucrat, but who, like many other non-Mongol administrators serving the Mongols, was also a renowned "man of the sword." Melville's description of "Persian political life bending to Mongol norms" also demonstrates the limited acculturation of the Mongol elite even after ruling Iran

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246 Reviews

for a considerable time and a few decades after they had adopted Islam. Yet Melville is not entirely convincing in his description of Abu Sacid's days as a period of decline. This is not only because he consciously chooses to ignore aspects other than the factional struggles that are relevant for the question (such as the improved political and economic relations with Yuan China, Mamluk Egypt, and the Delhi Sultanate or the patronage activity of Ghiyath al-Din). After all, factional struggles and rebellions of either amirs or viziers were not absent in former decades of the Ilkhanate (see, e.g., the rebellions of Buqa in the early 1280s, Nawruz in the 1290s, or the amirs' rebellion of 1319, previously analysed by Melville). Furthermore, Melville belittles the fact that Abu Sacid proved quite capable in getting rid of Chupan's shadow and in coping with the threats to his authority. Melville blames Abu Sacid for "leading a life of pleasure and association with men of culture and religion" (40), but such conduct did not prevent other Mongol rulers (e.g., Qubilai Khan) from pursuing a distinguished political career. Melville is willing to acknowledge the khan's authority vis-a-vis his vizier while describing the relationship between Ghiyath al-Din and Arpa Khan, the non-Huleguid ruler whom Ghiyath al-Din set on the Ilkhanid throne after Abu Sacid's death: "In the end, no matter how influential the vizier, it was the ruler who made the decisions" (65). Yet he refuses to give the same credit to Abu Sacid himself. In short, after reading the book, and despite the detailed picture of the factional struggles in Abu Sacid's court, one remains convinced that the main factor leading to the fall of the Ilkhanate was the absence of a tal- ented Huleguid leader after Abu Sacid death, more than any real or imagined process of decline.

As the author himself warns (5), the book makes demanding reading, even to those fairly familiar with Ilkhanid history. This is not only due to the enor- mous number of names and details, but also because of its extreme conciseness (probably dictated by the series' limitations). The five genealogical tables that are scattered throughout the work could have been more useful had they been collected together at the end of the book and accompanied by a detailed table of the Ilkhanid family and its marital relations with the leading amirs and viziers. Indeed, the complex marital relations and their implications call for a thorough investigation of women's role in Ilkhanid politics, a subject that certainly deserves an independent study.

The book could have benefited from a comparative approach that takes into account the not-so-different developments in others parts of the Mongol empire, mainly in the last decades of Yuan China and in the Chaghadaid realm on the eve of Temiir's rise to power. Yet even in its present format, this study will be of value not only to historians of Iran but also to those interested in nomadic states and in nomad-sedentary relations in general. One can only hope that on the basis of such detailed works either Melville or others will soon offer us a new general evaluation of Ilkhanid history and of the subsequent Mongol presence in Iran.

Michal Biran The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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