ABSTRACT
In the wake of the Ghazan’s seizure of power from the Ilkhan Baidu on 1 Dhū’l-Ḥijja 694/19 October 1295, the Persian historian and vizier Rashīd al-Dīn reported that, ‘by imperial command … the destruction of temples, Christian churches, and Jewish Synagogues was begun, and temples in which idols were housed, clappers, and crosses were entirely eliminated from the region of Azerbaijan’. 1 Similarly, the anonymous Syriac biographer of the Nestorian catholicos Yahballāhā III informs us that the order came from Nawrūz (Ghazan’s chief ally) that, ‘churches shall be uprooted and the altars overturned, and the celebrations of the Eucharist shall cease, and the hymns of praise, and the sounds of the calls to prayer shall be abolished.’ 2 Opportunistic attacks against non-Muslims in these turbulent times – which culminated in the official adoption of Islam by the Mongol Ilkhanate after decades of mainly non-Muslim rule – would cease once Ghazan (r. 695–703/1295–1304) had consolidated his rule, at least for the realm’s Christian and Jewish population. 3 Nevertheless, the portrayals of these attacks occupy a special significance in both accounts of Ghazan’s rise to power. As court historian and panegyrist to the Ilkhans, Rashīd al-Dīn is keen to highlight the sincerity of Ghazan’s conversion to Islam and the restoration of Islamic sovereignty to Iran, of which attacks on non-Muslims were by-products. 4 The biographer of Yahballāhā III on the other hand maintains that the hardships endured by non-Muslims were not a consequence of Ghazan’s conversion to Islam but rather of the cruelty and rapacity of Nawrūz and others advising the Ilkhan. 5 Yet, in both accounts, the difficulties faced by non-Muslims during these uncertain times are memorialised by the targeting of visible and auditory aspects of their presence within Islamicate society – principally, religious buildings and the sounds emanating therefrom.
