The Aqquyunlu: Clan, Confederation, Empire (Revised and Expanded Edition)

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fief· «~i1liph,~~,M!l~~!l'S!!U, at the hands of the pagan Mongols in 1258/656:According to M. Mole, th~ fall of the 'Abbasids of Baghdad favor~d the rise in the fortu~e~~~mamism andpopular_rrlh_gion by ~tr!ppi!lg.ihi.Si.iilill:~!Ua'i governing establishment of the last vestiges of its authority.6 Specifically, th~- d~atli-Of al-Musta'sim brought an end to the legal mechanism whereby the caliphs and the Muslim warlords of the preMongol era extended and received political recognition through a process described in the well-known formulation of the jurist Ghazali (t nn/505): ... we consider that the function of the caliphate is contractually assumed by that person of the 'Abbasid house who is charged with it, and that the function of government in the various lands is carried out by means of sultans, who owe allegiance to the caliphate. Government in these days is a consequence solely of military power, and whosoever he may be to whom the possessor of military power gives his allegiance, that person is the caliph.?

As a result, after 1258/656, most Sunni-Jama'is lived under military dictators whose authority could

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Themes and Structures

The Aqquyunlu

recognized by a pro forma caliphal conferral of

i legitimacy and whose support of the Sacred Law could not be confirmed by , 'pledge-ofallegiance to the caliph, the personification of the preeminence of that Law. Consequently, various forms of sacral sovereignry and legitimacy were the only means available to post':MongoIMuslim" ;'arlords to ~~dow their regimes with the trappings oflegality. Structurally, these changes are represented by the three models of sovereignty and legitimacy shown in figure 1. The classical theory of the caliphate is represented by the first twO diagrams, the prophetic and the caliphal. In the Islamic prophetic model, the prophet is an individual selected by God to remind his fellows of the relationship that binds God and His creatures as embodied in the primeval covenant between God and humanity (Qur'an 6:172): "Your

PROPHETIC MODEL

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CALIPHAL MODEL

SACRAL MODEL

GOD

Prophet

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ChaOma. Ta'yid-i IIahi, _ Farr, Qut, Ughur,

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King

WORLD

Figure I. Prophetic, Caliphal, and Sacral Models of Sovereignty and Legitimacy

Lord brought forth descendants from the loins of Adam's children, and made them testify against themselves. He said: 'Am I not your Lord?' They replied: 'We bear witness that You are.'" The Prophet Muhammad therefore called his followers to realize on earth the divine sociopolitical order implicit in this covenant in accordance with the Sacred Law expressed in the Revealed Book and the norms established by his own words, deed, and comportment. The Prophet then vested the legitimacy and responsibility for the perpetuation of this worldly Community-the Umma or Jamaa-in the Community itself: "My Community shall never unite upon an error, so if you should see a disagreement, you must stay with the majority."8 rl~~rul.ed with !,h.e death-.2f Muhammad and his successors, or caliphs, ~p~i~:d for him as l~;:a~ of ilie Umma in the worldly sphere. They were "those in authority" (ulu al-amr) in the" Sovereignty Verse" of the Qur' an (4:59): ."Believers, obey God and obey the Prophet and those in authority among you." In theory, moreover, the Umma ratified the accession of the caliph-whether"e1ected or appointed by his predecessor-by offering a symbolic promise of allegiance to him. The caliphs were charged solely with de~ fending and implementing the Sacred Law and exercised only those functions relating to the Umma as a worldly community-administrative, financial, military, and judicial. As the Islamic polity developed, the caliphs delegated

6 ~ The Aqquyunlu

some of these functions to ministers, generals, and magistrates, but the Community theoretically remained the reservoir of earthly legitimacy from which the caliph drew his power, though the ultimate source of sovereignty was God, malik al-mulk (owner of sovereignty). When the "possessors of military , I power"-amirs and sultans-ultimately seized the rule outright, they never· theless sought caliphal recognition to sanction their usurpations and thus maintained the legal fiction of caliphal delegation. In contrast to the prophetic-caliphal notion, the sacral model of rule holds that the king or worldly ruler (sultan, padshah) is chosen directly by God, who makes him the repository of sovereignty on earth, raising him above the rest of humanity and endowing him with the charisma of universal rule (ta'yid-i ilahi, "divine support," fan; qut, ughur). God and the king conduct parallel activities: God orders the world through the king and the king orders society though the royal qualities of intellect, wisdom, and, above all, justice embodied in equitable laws and appropriate administrative practices:"fhe}ust king thus stands as the bulwark against chaos and the dissolution of the's~ci:lf~rder and acts as the agent of civilization, responsible for irrigation, agriculture, urbanization, commerce, and education. Some even held that it was the king who imparted fertility to crops and animals. 9 To retain his sovereign mandate · (dawlat, "luck, fortune"), the king must not only rule in accordance with these · principles and combat tyranny (zulm), but must also show obedience to God's Laws. Ifhe does not do so, God will raise up a scourge to overthrow him and so begin the cycle again. Although this theory was particularly associated with notions of political authority, the be1iefin divinely granted special attributes is also characteristic of Sufism and Shi'ism in the concepts of grace (lutJ) and authoritative knowledge (,ilm), respectively, both of which can therefore be considered in the context of this model. This consonance is important for understanding the confluence ofideas discussed earlier in this chapter. Io ,~ In certain areas, however, adherence to the caliphal model and allegiance " to the ~bbasid house of Baghdad persisted long after the house's demise. In India, for example, the sultan of Delhi, Jalal al-Din Firuz Shah Khalji (t 1296/695), continued to mint coins citing al-Musta'sim throughout his reign, nearly forty years after the Mongol conquest of Baghdad. Elsewhere it appears that many members of the Sunni-Jama'i religious establishment in the occupied territories were rather rapidly coopted by the Mongol military elite, thereby losing much of their influence with those segments of society who continued to resist infidel domination in their hearts. II Ibn al-Tiqtaqa (fl. 13001700) relates the following anecdote on this tendency in his Kitab al-

fakhri: When the sultan Hulagu conquered Baghdad in 656 [1258], he ordered that the 'ulama' be asked to give a legal ruling as to whether a just infidel

Themes and Structures

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sultan or an unjust Moslem sultan was more excellent. So the 'ulama' assembled for that purpose in the Mustansiriyah. But when they had considered the ruling, they hesitated to reply. Radi aI-Din 'Ali ibn Ta'us was present at this session, and he was a leader and respected. When he saw their reluctance, he took the ruling preferring the just infidel to the unjust Moslem and signed it. The others signed it after him. 12 ,. The Sunni-Jama'i cause seems to have benefited very little, moreover, from · tneremoval ora supposed descendant of the last caliph to Cairo for the purpose of presiding over the accession of the Mamluk sultans, and the authority of these "shadow caliphs" of Cairo received only sporadic recognition from .' rulers in outlying areas of the Islamic world and none at all from the Islamic juristS. As Sunni-Jama'i legists struggled to elaboratel!~_!he9ries,ofpoliticalle­ gitimag, the Islamic Community,as a whole again came urgently face to face with'~ne of the problems central to Shi'ism: the ruler and the nature of his sovereignty-the Imam and the Imamate.' Sitriultaneously, in some of the states that arose in the wake of the Mongol . . ,'invasions, political aiithoritY and state organization were frankly derived from traditions and customs referred to as .the Great Yasa of Changiz KMrt. With the definitive conversion of the Mongols in Iran tg.rlslai11::,at the . . tegir;ning'~f ili~'f~~n:e~~thjei'ghth ,century, however, a curious ~~~~,f!1, (1f!e,.gitlmlZing principlesevolvecl, in which the Sacred Law of a decapitated SunniJ~tt\.aTislamic uniVersal state beCame inextricably bound up with the concepts arid ideals, of the devolving nomadicChangizkbanid world empire. 13 This con"'f6unding of p~litical traditions may be seen clearly in the introduction · iofMuhammad Nakhjavani's Dastur al-katib fi ta'yinal-maratib, dedicated to · "the Mongol-but non-Changizkhanid-autocrat of Azarbayjan and Iraq, . Shaykh-Uvays Jalayir (t 13741776), who is referred to as "resurrector of the traditions of the Changizkhanid state ... unfurler of the banners of the Sacred Law of the Prophet, kindler of the flame of the Muhammadan faith ... distinguished by the support of God, Lord of the worlds. "14 Nakhjavani thus appeals . to'both Mongol and Islamic rdigio-political systems-not seen to be in contradiction-to legitimate a powerful non-Changizkhanid Mongol commoner Of qarachu,15 whose very existence is considered to imply consecration by God.

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