ABSTRACT
Mongol domination did not change the condition of the non-Muslims in Asia Minor as much as might be thought, partly because this was, as has been seen, fairly good, and furthermore because the protectorate did not fundamentally modify the autonomy of the Seljukid regime in this respect. In Western Asia the most favoured group were the Armenians, who from the start had deliberately made themselves the Mongols' agents. The Greeks, however, to the lesser extent that there were dealings with them, were also well regarded since policy had drawn Michael Palaeologus and the ilkhans together, and Trebizond, like the Armenians of Cilicia, had become their vasals. The conversion of the Mongols to Islam brought about such dramatic episodes as the massacre of Christians in 708/1310 at Irbil in Mesopotamia, or financial difficulties when someone tried to enforce the payment of forty years' arrears of thejizya.
