Chinggis Khan

"Michal Biran is a fabulous Israeli scholar. She does incredible work on the Mongol Empire and, academically speaking, you could say she’s carving out her own little empire because she has numerous students coming out of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. This particular book is interesting because it’s part of the Makers of the Muslim World series by One World, which is a British publisher. They commission books on various figures in Islamic history and you look at all those and say, ‘okay, that one makes sense, that one makes sense…’ and then you see Chinggis Khan. And that catches your eye because this is not someone most people normally think about in connection with the Islamic world. There are many biographies of Chinggis Khan but, as is generally the case with historical figures who have multiple biographies, there are just a few really solid academic ones that don’t lean one way or another, towards the hype, or get too involved in just one aspect or other of the story. This is one of the very best biographies of Chinggis Khan, academic but yet also accessible. That it fits into the Muslim world—or one side of the Muslim world —is what separates it from some of the other ones. “This is one of the very best biographies of Chinggis Khan, academic but yet also accessible” It has a standard narrative of Chinggis Khan’s history, good analysis and good discussions of various aspects of his life, but it also looks at his legacy and the legacy of the Mongol Empire in the Islamic world. When the Mongols come into the Islamic world—particularly Chinggis Khan—they’re seen as the punishment of God. Indeed, one source we have relates how he comes to Bukhara, enters the mosque during Friday prayers, goes up to the pulpit and announces that he is the punishment of God. And if not for the sins of their rulers, God would not have sent a punishment like him. It is unlikely he actually said that, but it does make a good story. The quote is from Juvayni and, at least in my opinion, is basically Juvayni trying to wrap his head around the questions, ‘what has happened to us as Muslims?’ and ‘who is this guy? Where has he come from and why is he here?’—basically trying to rationalise the Mongol invasions. Khan’s great-great grandchildren eventually all converted to Islam in the Middle East , so they eventually helped to spread Islam but, at the beginning, they’re seen as the end of the world. We have chroniclers such as Ibn Al-Athir writing in Mosul in the late 1220s and early 1230s, who announces that he was very hesitant to even write about the Mongol invasion because who would want to write about the end of Islam? That’s how bleak and how dire things felt at the time of Chinggis Khan, when the Mongols first arrived in the Islamic world. No, he did not. He never converted to any religion. His grandson, maybe a couple of them, did and his great-grandsons did. It was a slow process and an individual process of converting to Islam, or, in the eastern part of the Empire, to Buddhism . There were also some who converted to Christianity , but Chinggis Khan, to the best of our knowledge, remained attached to his traditional beliefs in the ‘Mongke Köke Tengri’—the ‘Eternal Blue Sky’, who is the chief god of the Mongol world. If you ever go to Mongolia and out into the steppes, you can see why the blue sky would be a god-figure. But he had respect for religious figures. He was always open to the idea of other heavenly powers and he was always looking for what you might call ‘celestial insurance’. He interacted with Buddhists, Daoists, Muslims—all sorts of people. He was very interested in what wisdom they might have to provide. That was the beginning of what is often known as ‘the Mongol Toleration’ for religions. You might argue it’s more of an indifference. They didn’t initially see a whole lot of purpose in converting to another religion, especially when they were conquering its adherents. The Mongols felt that, if they were conquering other people, it wasn’t obvious what their gods could offer the Mongols that they didn’t already have. But, at the same time, they were willing to play the game. They would talk the talk and work with the officials of conquered people to put the Mongol view, not just into the verbal and written language of the subject people, but expressed in terms, and with religious connotations, that they would understand. The thesis is very much that Chinggis Khan is a maker of the Muslim world. The Islamic world changed drastically because of the arrival of the Mongols. We not only get the Mongols as destroyers—eventually his grandson, Hulagu, ended the Abbasid caliphate and the Chinggisid lineage, rather than descent from Muhammad, became the key to leadership in much of the Muslim world; but also the creation of the Mongol Empire leads to a much wider world for Islam. Because the Mongols did gradually convert to Islam, there is a geographical expansion of Islam and Chinggis Khan initiated all of that. Many Muslims entered the Mongol government in various capacities. And he had contacts among Muslim merchants early on, during his rise to power. Of course, the image of Chinggis Khan changes over time. In the Muslim world he’s still mainly viewed negatively, just because of the destruction, but I think there’s an increasing understanding of the profound impact he had—both good and bad—across the Muslim world and in the rest of the world. And what Michal does very well is to discuss how Chinggis Khan’s image is used, not only in the past, but today in Mongolia, China and Russia , and also in the West and the Middle East. She lays it out very clearly. This book is excellent for classroom use and also for someone who wants to know more about Chinggis Khan and doesn’t want just a standard narrative history about every facet of his life, but who wants to really understand the impact of Chinggis Khan."