The Mongols in Iran

Abstract

This chapter provides a chronology and a brief outline of the Ilkhanid dynasty in Persia. Shīrāzī was born in a world that had been profoundly transformed by the cataclysmic campaigns of the Mongol armies under Chingiz Khan in the second and third decades of the thirteenth century C.E. His professional career coincided with virtually the entire length of Chingiz Khan’s heirs in Persia, the Ilkhanid dynasty, starting with his tutelage under Ṭūsī during the reign of Hülegü (r. 1256–1265 C.E.). The chapter ends with a discussion of one of the most remarkable features of Ilkhanid rule: the patronage under Hülegü and his successors of the Marāgha observatory.