The Juwayn¥s

As one of the major sources for the history of Central Asia and the Mongol conquests of Persia during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, AlÇ al-D¥n A†Ç Malik Juwayn¥ has come under intense scrutiny from critics not always sympathetic to his apparently accommodating attitude to the ‘scourge from the East’ and suspicious of his less than reprehensive posture towards the Mongols. The greatly respected historian, David Ayalon’s dismissal of Juwayn¥ as a ‘partisan panegyrist’883 of the Tuluid Chinggisites and his nauseous reaction to the formalised politeness of medieval Persian are vastly overstated and imbue literary filigree with undeserved gravitas. Ayalon rightly recognised Juwayn¥’s pivotal position as the source of much of the knowledge of the Yasa of the Mongols for the Mamluks and later commentators yet he retained the reservations that other modern informed observers of the Mongols in Iran, such as both Boyle and Morgan,884 still hold. That A†Ç Malik Juwayn¥ was not an embittered exile such as JzjÇn¥ nor a normally shrewd and reliable historian such as Ibn al-Ath¥r, dependent on the often second-hand accounts of fugitives for his harrowing conclusions, nor a ‘mystic’ such as Najm al-D¥n RÇz¥ who watched his home town, Ray, fall to the Mongol hordes and later sanctimoniously abandoned his own family and children to the invaders,885 should not detract from his illuminating histories and first-hand accounts of the Tatar courts and conquests gleaned from his years as a powerful Mongol functionary. Unlike these three figures, Juwayn¥ lived and worked under Mongol rule rather than under Tatar invasion and his experience did not produce clichéd knowledge. Though A†Ç Malik now possesses the more well-known name it was his elder brother, Shams al-D¥n886 who, over seven centuries ago, wielded greater authority at the Il-Khanid court in his capacity as ÍǪib D¥wÇn, and his brother’s son, BahÇ al-D¥n, who exercised considerable power in the administration of Isfahan. The Juwayn¥ family had served the kings and princes of Persia over centuries and whatever the legacy of their masters, this faithful family of talented administrative officials, on their demise, invariably attracted a wealth of apparently sincere eulogies and

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to the people and active in promoting the prosperity of the country. Alaud-Din was made superintendent of Iraq in the year [six hundred and] sixty and odd [of the hijra], after Imadud-Din alQazwini, and thereupon betook himself to promoting the welfare of the villages, and freed the peasantry from many taxes, until the revenues of Iraq were doubled . . . Some say without exaggeration that the ÍǪib D¥wÇn restored Baghdad so that it became even more prosperous than it was in the days of the Caliphate, and through him the people of Baghdad attained comfort.887