The Īlkhān Aḥmad's Embassies to Qalāwūn

With the accession of Tegüder, alias Aḥmad, on the death of his brother Abaqa in 681/1282, the Īlkhānate was for the first time ruled by a Muslim. Consequently the possibility appeared of the establishment of peaceful relations with the rival Mamlūk sultanate under al-Manṣūr Qalāwūn (regn. 678–89/1279–90). Two successive embassies were in fact sent to the sultan during Aḥmad’s short reign, and accounts of these as seen in Mamlūk court circles are extant in the writings of two contemporaries. The first appears in the largely unpublished biography of Qalāwūn, al-Faḍl al-ma’thūr min sīrat al-Malik al-Manṣūr by Shāfī ‘b. ‘Alī (649–730/1252–1330), ¹ and the second in the published but incomplete biography, Tashrīf al-ayyām wa’l-‘uṣūr fī sīrat al-Malik al-Manṣūr by the maternal uncle of Shāfi ‘b. ‘Alī, Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ‘Abd al-Ẓāhir (620–92/1223–92). ² Both writers served in the chancery of the sultan in Cairo.