Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran

For a long period both before and after the Arab conquests of the seventh-century, the people of the Iranian plateau and surrounding countries had been living in political and cultural turmoil interspersed with temporal islands of stability and development. A sense of historical identity and continuity had, however, tenuously prevailed, and it was the so-called catastrophic thirteenth century that finally saw the rebirth of Persia as a central cultural, spiritual and political player on the regional, if not the world, stage. After the traumatic years of anarchy following the collapse of the Great Saljuqs in the latter part of the twelfth century, the 1250s saw the arrival of Hulega Khan. This study demonstrated that Hulega Khan was welcomed as a king and a saviour from the depredations of his predecessors, rather than a conqueror, and that the initial decades of his rule were characterised by a renaissance in the cultural life of the Iranian plateau. Freed from the spiritual and political oppression from Baghdad and fed by a rich influx of cultural, commercial and mercantile influences from Asia, Persia, its languages , the 'state' and culture prospered. The voice of this unique era of renaissance echoes still in the modern state or Iran and beyond.