An Afterlife for the Khan

Muslims, Buddhists, and Sacred Kingship in Mongol Iran and Eurasia

Dr. Jonathan Z. Brack (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

213 Seiten

2023
University of California Press (Verlag)
978-0-520-39290-8 (ISBN)

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In the Mongol Empire, the interfaith court provided a contested arena for a performance of the Mongol ruler’s sacred kingship, and the debate was fiercely ideological and religious. At the court of the newly established Ilkhanate, Muslim administrators, Buddhist monks, and Christian clergy all attempted to sway their imperial overlords, arguing fiercely over the proper role of the king and his government, with momentous and far-reaching consequences.

Focusing on the famous but understudied figure of the grand vizier Rashid al-Din, a Persian Jew who converted to Islam, Jonathan Z. Brack explores the myriad ways Rashid al-Din and his fellow courtiers investigated, reformulated, and transformed long-standing ideas of authority and power. Out of this intellectual ferment of accommodation, resistance, and experimentation, they developed a completely new understanding of sacred kingship. This new ideal, and the political theology it subtends, would go on to become a central justification in imperial projects across Eurasia in the centuries that followed. An Afterlife for the Khan offers a powerful cultural and intellectual history of this pivotal moment for Islam and empire in the Middle East and Asia.

Jonathan Z. Brack is Lecturer in the Department of Middle East Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He is coeditor of the book Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia: Generals, Merchants, and Intellectuals.

Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Note on Usage and Transliteration

Introduction

1. Indian Prophet or Father of Arabian Paganism? The Buddha and the Buddhists in the
History of India

2. Perfect Souls, Imperfect Bodies: Refuting Reincarnation at the Mongol Court

3. Converting Fortune: From Buddhist Cakravartins to Lords of Auspicious Conjunction

4. King of Kalam: Öljeitü’s Theological Domestication

5. From Ancestor Worship to Shrine-Centered Kingship: Ilkhanid Confessional Politics
and the Debate over Shrine Visitation

Epilogue: Kingship and the Court Debate after the Mongols

Notes
References
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	03.06.2023
Zusatzinfo	4 b-w figures, 2 maps, 1 table
Verlagsort	Berkerley
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	590 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Religionsgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Islam
ISBN-10	0-520-39290-6 / 0520392906
ISBN-13	978-0-520-39290-8 / 9780520392908
Zustand	Neuware