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The Lion, the Sun and the Eternal Blue Sky

The Mongols, the Persian Empire and the West

Andrew Greenfield Lockhart

Force is always beside the point when subtlety will serve. (Herodotus, quoting King Darius of Persia)

First published electronically 2012 by Magda Green Books Copyright 2012 Andrew Greenfield Lockhart All Rights Reserved www.magdagreen.co.uk

The Lion, the Sun and the Eternal Blue Sky

The Lion and the Sun were until 1980 the emblems of various dynasties of Iran. Tengri, the Eternal Blue Sky, was the chief deity of the tribes of Mongolia.

Table of Contents
Dramatis Personae The Mongol Great Khans The Il-khans of Persia The Khans of the Golden Horde The Chagataids and Ogodaids (Transoxiana & Central Asia) Introduction Timeline and Maps Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Appendix Bibliography

Dramatis Personae
The Family of Temuchin (Genghis Khan)

His Parents: Yesugai(m); Hoelun(f) His Siblings: Qasar(m); Qachiun(m); Temuge(m); Temulun(f) - Temuchin also had several half-siblings. His Chief Wife: Borte Their Children: Jochi(m)*; Chagatai(m); Ogodai(m); Tolui(m); Chechyegin(f); Alaqai(f); Al-Altun(f); Tumelun(f); Tolai(f)*; Qojin(f)*; Altani(f)* * Their exact parentage is uncertain. Temuchin had other wives, Yesui, Yesugen, Qulan and Ibaqa. He may not have fathered Jochi or Altani.

Women Behind The Throne Sorqoqtani Beki: wife of Tolui and mother of Mangke, Kublai, Hulegu and Ariq Toregene Khatun: wife of Ogodai and mother of Guyuk Doquz Khatun: wife of Hulegu Yesunjin Khatun: wife of Hulegu and mother of Abaqa Bulughan Khatun: wife of Abaqa and Arghun Padeshah Khatun: wife of Abaqa and Gaikatu

The Mongol Great Khans


Temuchin (Genghis Khan) until 1227 Tolui interregnum Ogodai Khan 1229-1241 Toregene interregnum Guyuk Khan 1246-1248 Ghaimish and Sorqoqtani interregnum Mangke Khan 1251-1259 Kublai Khan 1260-1294 Timur Oljeitu Khan 1294-1307 - Nine others each ruled briefly until 1370.

The Il-khans of Persia


Hulegu Khan 1256-1265 Abaqa Khan 1265-1282 Teguder Ahmed Khan 1282-1284 Arghun Khan 1284-1291 Gaikatu Khan 1291-1295 Baidu Khan 1295 Mahmoud Ghazan Khan 1295-1304 Oljeitu (Khodabanda) Khan 1304-1316 Abu Said Khan 1316-1335 - Seven or eight others each ruled briefly until 1350.

The Khans of the Golden Horde


Batu Khan until 1256 (Orda Khan, his brother, ruled the eastern part -the Blue Horde - until 1251) Sartak Khan 1256-1257 Berke Khan 1257-1266 Mangke Timur Khan 1267-1280 Tuda Mangke Khan 1280-1287 Tolebuka Khan 1287-1290 Tokta Khan 1291-1313 Mohammed Uzbeg Khan 1313-1342 - The Horde continued to dominate Russia for another sixty years, after which it declined in power and finally disintegrated at the end of the fifteenth century.

The Chagataids and Ogodaids (Transoxiana & Central Asia)


Chagatai Khan 1225-1242 (From 1242 until 1260 the Khanate was a dependency under direct control of the Great Khan.) Alghu Khan 1260-1266 Baraq Khan 1266-1271 Kaidu Khan 1271-1282 ( Kaidu was the grandson of Great Khan Ogodai) Duwa Khan 1282-1307 -In the fourteenth century the Chagatai Khanate became confined to Transoxiana and was eventually conquered by Timur the Lame. It continued to exist in one form or another until the seventeenth century.

Introduction
Axis of Evil or Divine Judgement?

... States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world (1) With these words, the President of the United States of America, George W Bush, addressed the people of his country in 2002. The states he was referring to Iran, Iraq and North Korea - were, he said, manufacturing, or trying to manufacture so-called weapons of mass destruction. Their agents were engaged in subversive activities against the West, which included sponsoring suicide missions in the Middle East and elsewhere. Many leaders throughout history have made similar speeches, for warfare, both open and clandestine, has been a feature of human society since the primitive ancestors of human beings walked the Earth. We do not always remember either the leaders or their speeches. Mr Bushs State of the Union message too might have gone unnoticed outside his own country, or at least forgotten within a few days, had it not been for the one phrase - Axis of Evil. In future decades, the expression may well become a clich. In 2002 it was a Bush original and caught the public imagination. The speech as a whole drew both support and criticism from around the world. These much-quoted three words provoked criticism from friend and foe alike, and from the latter at any rate, outrage. They antagonised moderates as well as extremists; they arguably influenced the result of an Iranian presidential election; they threatened world peace by the thoughtless way in which they were uttered. Three years later, Iran was still the great enemy, though Mr Bush added, perhaps as an afterthought, a few glib words addressed to the Iranian people: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you. (1) Glib certainly - politicians words are often so, but possibly also insincere? By the middle of 2007, the same president was as good as threatening the same people with bombing and invasion. Even today, with a new president, relations between the

USA and Iran are not of the best. Because of its determination to pursue its own nuclear course, Iran is seen by many in the West as the Great Enemy. It seems to take pleasure in that role by deliberately provoking Europe, including the United Kingdom, by antics that have a place more in gang warfare than in international politics. Its neighbour Iraq has been destabilised rather than rescued by one illadvised war. Israel already has a finger on a nuclear trigger. The political situation needs careful handling if the world is to avoid tottering over the brink into yet another disaster. Many people, especially in the USA, will argue that the invective of Mr Bush was understandable even if its utterance was ill-judged. America was still reeling from the atrocity of September 11th 2001 when Islamist terrorists flew two aeroplanes into New Yorks twin towers. Americans expected a strong response. If evil has a meaning at all, the massacre of three thousand men and women of many nationalities and of all colours and creeds, who are doing nothing more than going about their daily business, exemplifies evil with a capital E. People do evil things, in both war and peacetime, though the expression evil thing is a subjective one. Every religion, every human society defines it by reference to its own particular set of beliefs and values. But that is not the point. There are surely some unpleasant rulers in the world. There are even a few who go beyond the pale of civilised behaviour. One can think of many examples, which may be echoed or refuted depending, say, on ones religious or political point of view. But since when is a country or a state defined by its rulers? No country can truly be said to be evil. Countries are composed of individual people. They may be ruled wisely and justly, by monarchs or presidents, by democratic assemblies or by autocratic tyrants, but people are just people. Every society has its share of good and bad, of wise and foolish, of tolerant and bigoted, of cultured and ignorant. It has to be said that one target of American wrath, the Iranian government, is no exemplar of freedom, democracy and human rights, especially as regards the position of women. Yet it is easy to forget the extent to which we make judgements about others, especially those we do not like, or of whose way of life we do not

approve, based on their nationality, religion or culture. Words such as philistine, vandal, sodomite and tartar have crept into our language and none of these is complimentary. If we are honest, I think we will acknowledge that the savage resides in all of us. It needs only the right stimulus to surface, be it a speech, an ill-advised media report, an attack on our cherished beliefs, or a charismatic but misguided leader. But we all need friends in the world and slinging insults and threats is no way to make them. Even bad leaders can be seen as heroes when defending a nations right to be a nation.

Iran and its neighbour Iraq occupy a unique place in the world and its history. Both are usually defined as being part of Asia, or even of the Middle East. Yet Teheran is closer to London geographically than it is to Beijing. It is closer to London than London is to Washington. The once fertile lands that form a crescent from the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates to that of the Nile are often said to be the cradle of civilisation. Professor Bryan Sykes, exploring the genetic origins of us modern humans in his book The Seven Daughters of Eve, tells us that we came from Africa across the Sinai Peninsula. Thus there are scientific as well as cultural reasons for believing that the first spark of civilisation was struck in the Near East. There are religious reasons too. The area round Tabriz and Mount Sahand, to the south west of the Caspian Sea, has been claimed as a possible site for the mythical Garden of Eden. Be that as it may, it was these lands, throughout recorded history part of several Persian empires, which undoubtedly gave birth to monotheism and four of the worlds major religions. The city of Rayy, now a suburb of Teheran, is the supposed birthplace of the prophet Zoroaster, founder of Zoroastrianism. From another ancient city, Ur, near what was once the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates, the prophet Abraham travelled north and west to become founder of both the Jewish and the Arab nations. According to legend, through his sons Isaac and Ishmael, he was the father of both

the Jewish and Arab peoples and as such holds a special place in the teachings of three faiths - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Iraq and Iran happen also to be two countries that, through the centuries, have been plagued more than most by war, invasion and terrorism on a vast scale. From prehistoric times, when hunter-gatherers first vied with agricultural settlements, until the twentieth century, when oil became the new elixir of life, these lands have witnessed the rise and fall of empire after empire. Neighbours from both east and west have sought to exploit their riches and knowledge. Confronted already by natural enemies - desert, flood, erosion and earthquake - they have continually had to face enemies of a different kind, and to endure conquests that resulted in immense destruction of both life and property. The Lion, the Sun and the Eternal Blue Sky is the story of one of those conquests. It happened in the thirteenth century. To many people, both during and after the event, it was one of the greatest disasters ever to befall a culture or a country. This book will examine that claim to see if it is justified, but whether it is or not, the story is one whose lessons those of us living in the twenty-first century would be unwise to ignore. True, empires today tend to be of a different kind, commercial and industrial rather than militaristic, but lessons are still there to be learned. Then, the conquerors of much of Asia and more came from the East. Within the space of fifty years, they had created the largest land empire the world has ever known. They were the Mongols.

The full text of The Lion, the Sun and the Eternal Blue Sky may be purchased as an e-book from Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00873GNFS https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00873GNFS

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