The Chaghadaids and Islam: the conversion of Tarmashirin Khan (1331-34).

• Author: Biran, Michal

TARMASHIRIN, the CHAGHADAID KHAN whose conversion paved the way to the overall Islamization of the Chaghadaids, is an enigmatic figure. While Arabic, Persian, and Turkic sources stress the importance of his islamization to the establishment of Islam among the Mongols of the Chaghadaid Khanate, (1) some of these same sources simultaneously suggest that the rebellion against Tarmashirin that resulted in his depositon was caused by his Islamic policies. (2) Was Tarmashirin, then, both the one who brought Islam to the Chaghadaids and the victim of his own success?

Moreover, despite the stress on Tarmashirin's reign as the one in which Islam became firmly rooted in the Chaghadaid domain, and in sharp contrast to the situation of other Chingissids whose fame is similarly grounded, e.g., the Ilkhan Ghazan (r. 1295-1304), Ozbeg, Khan of the Golden Horde (r. 1313-41), or even the eastern Chaghadaid Khan Tughluq Temur (r. ca. 1347-62), Tarmashirin's conversion engendered no conversion stories in the narrative sources. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, was any later epic tradition developed around his name. (3) Was his conversion so meaningless to the Chaghadaids that they chose to ignore it? And if so, why do the sources stress Tarmashirin's leading position in bringing Islam to Transoxania?

Those questions, however, are by no means the only questions that Tarmashirin's reign raises. Apart from his being a Muslim, the sources hardly agree on anything regarding Tarmashirin and even the dates of his reign and the extent of his realm are far from being unequivocally established.

This study aims first to suggest a chronological framework for Tarmashirin's career, based on Muslim, Chinese, and numismatic sources. In the light of this framework, and utlilizing Tarmashirin's biography in the works of his contemporary, the Mamluk historian al-Safadi (d. 1363), (4) we shall reexamine Tarmashirin's Islam: how his islamization affected his foreign and domestic policies and what part it played in his deposition. Lastly, I attempt to locate Tarmashirin's conversion in the general framework of Chaghadaid islamization, and to explain why Tarmashirin never achieved a posthumous fame equivalent to that of Ghazan or Ozbeg in their respective realms.

THE CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK

Tarmashirin was the son of the famous Chaghadaid Khan, Du a (r. 1282-1307) and was the last of Du a's sons to rule successively over the Chaghadaid Khanate during the nearly three decades after Du'a's death. (5) From 726/1326 Tarmashirin had been stationed at Ghazna, in Afghanistan, apparently on behalf of the ruling Chaghadaid khan, his brother Kebek (r. 1318-26/27). Due to his alleged intention to invade Khurasan, Tarmashirin was attacked in 726/1326 by the forces of Hasan b. Chuban sent from the neighboring Ilkhanate, and was badly defeated. Although the Ilkhanid forces had evacuated Ghazna by the end of that year, leaving it in Chaghadaid hands, (6) this defeat did not improve Tarmashirin's chances of winning the Chaghadaid throne. (7) After Kebek's death, two of their brothers, Eljigidei and Dore Temur, came to the throne before Tarmashirin. Eljigidei, Dore Temur, or both, however, are often skipped by the Muslim sources that describe the Chaghadaid dynasty, or are said to have ruled for a very short time. (8) This brought Barthold (and everybody after him) to conclude that each of them ruled for a few months in 1326, after Kebek's death, and that by the end of this year Tarmashirin succeeded Dore Temur. The beginning of Tarmashirin's reign is therefore often misleadingly dated to 1326, when he was defeated in Ghazna. (9)

The contemporary official Chinese history, the Yuan shi, however, attests that Kebek was alive in early 1327, (10) and that Eljigidei, who succeeded him, reigned from 1327 to 1330. (11) This is supported by the Pope's letter to Eljigidei, which was given to the Dominican Thomas Mancasola, after the latter came back from Central Asia to Europe in 1329, (12) as well as by Eljigidei's mention as the ruling Chaghadaid khan in The Wonders of the East, the memoirs of Jordanus, the bishop of Columbum (India), a book that was apparently written in 1328-30. (13)

During Eljigidei's reign Tarmashirin remained in the western half of the khanate, and his base was probably at Tirmidh. (14) In 729/1328-29 he gathered enough troops to launch his famous expedition to Delhi, an event, which, however, did not have lasting results for the Chaghadaids. (15) It is also possible that by that time Tarmashirin enjoyed a certain amount of authority in the western part of the khanate, especially when Eljigidei was actively involved in the succession struggles at the Yuan court in 1328-29. (16) Nevertheless, Eljigidei was succeeded not by Tarmashirin but by yet another of their brothers, Dore Temur (r. 1330-31). In the Yuan map, drawn in 1330, all the traditional Chaghadaid realm, from Uighuria to the Oxus, is described as "the lands of Dore Temur." (17) In the eighth month of 1331 Tarmashirin's messengers arrived at the Yuan court to report that he had succeeded Dore Temur as the Chaghadaid Khan. (18) Some opposition from Dore Temur or his heirs might have continued even after this date, (19) yet Tarmashirin's new status at the "official" Chaghadaid Khan at this time is evident from numismatic materials as well: from 731/ 1330-31 onward he inscribed his name on his coins. (20) Tarmashirin sent two tribute missions to the Yuan court in the first and seventh months of 1332, (21) and in 1333 Ibn Battuta met him near Bukhara. (22) In 734/1333-34 Tarmashirin still struck coins, (23) but not for long. A manshur of the Delhi Sultan dated to this same year in which Muhammad b. Tughluq invited Transoxianan religious scholars, artisans, soldiers, and "victims of the oppressive behavior of the enemies of the Shari a" to immigrate to India, suggests that by the end of this year (summer 1334) the rebellion against Tarmasbirin had begun. (24) The rebellion was led by Tarmashirin's nephew, Buzan son of Dore Temur, and supported by commanders of the eastern part of the Chaghadaid khanate. Tarmashirin tried to escape to Ghazna but was caught and killed probably in early 735 (summer-fall 1334) (25) near kesh or in Nakshab. Tamarshirin was buried either at Nakhshab or in one of the villages of Samarqand. (26)

Tarmashirin therefore ruled over the Chaghadaids from mid 1331 to mid-late 1334, though he might have enjoyed a certain authority in the western part of the khanate beforehand, perhaps from 1329. (27)

TARMASHIRIN'S ISLAM

Judging by his name, Tarmashirin was born as a Buddhist. (28) After his conversion he adopted the name Ala al-Din Muhammad and the title Sultan al-a zam (the most exalted sultan). (29) Tarmashirin converted to Islam in the last decade of his life when he was thirty or more. (30) Yet it is hard to determine whether he converted in 725/1325, i.e., before he appears on the political scene, or in 729/1328-29, after his expedition to India. According to al-Umari, writing in the early 1340s, the Chaghadaid rulers had converted to Islam recently, after (fi ma ba d) 725/1325, and Tarmashirin was the first Chaghadaid ruler to adopt Islam. (31) Summarizing al-Umari's information, Ibn Khaldun simply stated that Tarmashirin converted in 725/1325, and this view is sometimes cited in modern scholarship. (32) This date is, however, brought into question by a letter, dated to 729/ 1328-29, from the Sultan of Delhi to the Ilkhan Abu Sa id. In this letter Muhammad b. Tughluq tried to persuade the Ilkhan to join forces in the name of Islam against the infidel Chaghadaid rulers in Khurasan. (33) The letter does not mention Tarmashirin by name, yet, as Siddiqi suggested, it is probably a reaction to Tarmashirin's incursion into India earlier in 729. On this basis Siddiqi concluded that Tarmashirin converted to Islam around 729/1328-29). If this is the case, then Tarmashirin had a good political reason to embrace Islam: his conversion enabled him to establish friendly relations, attested by Ibn Battuta, with the Delhi Sultan and to avoid the retaliation campaign the latter was planning against him. (34) It might be worth noticing that an anonymous Utrari coin from 729, which Fedorov ascribes to Tarmashirin, bore the Muslim formula "al-Sultan al-a zam, khallada Allah mulkahu" (35) (The most exalted Sultan, may God render his kingship everlasting), and this suggests that by that date Tarmashirin was already a Muslim. If indeed Tarmashirin converted in late 729, aside from improving his relations with Delhi, he might have also aimed to bolster his chances in the struggle for the Chaghadaid throne, but we have no proof of that. Certainly if there was a connection between his conversion and his accession to the throne, it is much less direct than we find in Ghazan's case. (36)

Thus we do not know when Tarmashirin was converted, nor do we know who converted Tarmashirin. But there is, in fact, a "perfect" candidate: Sheikh Yahya Abu al-Mafakhir Bakharzi (d. 1336), a notable Sufi of the Kubrawiyya order who spent his last fifteen years in Bukhara. As the head of his family's endowment in Bukhara, Bakharzi was extremely rich, and was greatly respected by the Chaghadaid "sultans and kings." (37) He was also the grandson of Sayf al-Din Bakharzi, the sheikh who in the mid-thirteenth century converted Berke, then the Khan of the Golden Horde (1257-67) and the first Mongol prince to adopt Islam. Yet neither Bakharzi himself in his writings nor any of the many sources that mention him ever give him the credit for converting Tarmashirin. (38)

Ibn Battuta, who also enjoyed Bakharzi's hospitality, (39) mentioned two (unidentified) religious figures who were closer to Tarmashirin: Sheikh Hasan, who was related to the khan in marriage, and the lawyer (faqih) and Sheikh HusAm al-Din Yaghi from Utrar. (40) The latter clearly had a certain influence on the khan--Ibn Battuta describes him...