Holy War and Rapprochement

The relations between the Mamluk Sultanate of Syria and Egypt and the Ilkhanate, the Mongol state in Iran and the surrounding countries, were of a military, political-diplomatic, social or cultural nature, and they had a profound impact not only on these states themselves, their ruling elites and the general population, but also on neighboring countries and beyond. One can scarcely understand the history of the eastern Mediterranean, Anatolia, Arabia, the Caucasus and elsewhere without taking into consideration these complicated relations, and their impact was felt in the other Mongol states to the east, and in the more westerly and northern parts of Europe. One can perhaps even speak of a thirteenth century "world war": on one side were arrayed the Mamluks and the Mongol Golden Horde of southern Russia, at times Genoa and the Byzantine empire, and even for a short while the kingdom of Sicily under the Hohenstaufen, while on the other side we find the Ilkhanate, the Venetians (albeit still trading with the Mamluks), the states of western Europe, the Papacy, the Armenians of both the Caucasus and Cilicia, and Georgia. To this we could add minor, but still important players, such as the Bedouin of Syria, the Seljuqs of Rum (Anatolia), the Turcoman of that country, and other local elements. Far away, the Mongols of Central Asia and the Great Khan also had an impact on affairs along the Mediterranean coast and southwest Asia. But this was not only a matter of war, which between the Mamluks and Ilkhanid Mongols continued from 1260-1320. There were intricate diplomatic relations; polemics and ideological sparring; defections, immigrations and transfers of populations; cultural influences; and, the impact on social life, economics and demography. The present volume is based on four lectures given at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris in February 2007, and first provides an overview of the military struggle between these two regional powers, continues with a detailed discussion of the ideological posturing and sparring between them - both before and after the conversion of the Mongols to Islam in the 1290s, and finally reviews and compares how the Mamluks and Mongols presented themselves to the local, mainly Muslim, populations that they ruled. The book provides an introduction and analysis to an important chapter in Middle Eastern, Asian and world history.