Jami' al-tawarikh

The *Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh*, or "Compendium of Chronicles," is a literary and historical work from the Mongol Ilkhanate. Composed by Rashid al-Din Hamadani early in the 14th century, its wide-ranging scope has earned it the label "the first world history." The work existed in three volumes, with both Arabic and Persian editions. The surviving manuscripts are considered a major surviving example of Ilkhanid art and contain the largest collection of early Persian miniatures.

The text covers major cultures and events from China to Europe, with a particular focus on Mongol history intended to preserve the empire's cultural legacy. Its production involved hundreds of scribes and artists, as the plan was to produce two new copies each year—one in Persian and one in Arabic—for distribution to schools and cities across the Ilkhanate, including regions in the Middle East, Central Asia, Anatolia, and the Indian subcontinent.

Around twenty illustrated copies were made during Rashid al-Din's lifetime, but only fragments survive, totaling roughly 400 pages. The oldest known copy is an Arabic version, half of which is lost. One set of 59 folios from its second volume is held in London's Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, while another set of 151 folios from the same volume is at Edinburgh University Library. Two Persian copies from the first generation of manuscripts are preserved in Istanbul's Topkapı Palace Library.

The *Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh* has four main sections. The largest, the *Taʾrīkh-ī Ghazānī*, covers Mongol and Turkish tribes, their histories and legends, and the Mongols from Genghis Khan to the death of Mahmud Ghazan in 1304. The second part includes the reign of Öljaitü up to 1310 (no known copy survives) and a universal history of non-Mongol peoples from Creation, following the structure of al-Tabari's *History of the Prophets and Kings* and Qazi Beiza'i's *Neẓām al-Tawārīkh*. This section covers Adam and the patriarchs, pre-Islamic Iranian kings, Muhammad and the caliphates (Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid), Persian Islamic dynasties (Ghaznavids, Khwarezm shahs, the Isma'ili state of Alamut), Turkic peoples, Chinese history, Jewish history, Europe (primarily the Papal States and Holy Roman Empire), and India. The third section, the *Shu'ab-i panjganah*, contains five genealogies of Arabs, Jews, Mongols, Franks, and Chinese; it exists in two Topkapı Palace manuscripts but only on microfilm. The fourth, *Suwar al-aqalim*, a geographical compendium, has not survived.

Rashid al-Din Hamadani was born in 1247 in Hamadan, Iran, to a Jewish family. The son of an apothecary, he studied medicine and joined the court of Ilkhan emperor Abaqa Khan as a physician. He converted to Islam around age thirty and quickly gained political influence, becoming vizier to Ghazan in 1304. He served through three reigns until 1316, but was executed on July 13, 1318, after being convicted of poisoning the second of those khans, Öljaitü. He established a stable social and economic system in post-invasion Iran and was a notable patron of art and architecture. He expanded the university at Rab'-e Rashidi, which attracted scholars from Egypt and Syria to China and published his many works. Though a prolific author, few of his writings survive beyond some theological texts, a possibly apocryphal correspondence, and the *Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh*. His great wealth led to him being called the best-paid author in Iran.

The *Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh* was one of the Ilkhanate's grandest projects, intended not just as a lavish book but as a means to justify Mongol rule over Iran. Ghazan initially commissioned the text, wanting the Mongols to remember their nomadic roots after they had settled and adopted Persian customs. The work began as a history of the Mongols and steppe predecessors, called the *Taʾrīkh-ī Ghazānī*. To compile it, Rashid al-Din established a precinct at the Rab'-e Rashidi university in Tabriz, with a mosque, hospital, library, and classrooms, employing over 300 workers. After Ghazan's death in 1304, Öljaitü ordered the work expanded to cover the entire known world, and it was completed between 1306 and 1311. Following Rashid al-Din's execution in 1318, the Rab-i-Rashidi precinct was looted, but the copy being made at the time survived, likely in Tabriz, possibly in the library of his son Ghiyath al-Din. That son later became vizier and restored the university precinct. Several compositions from the *Jāmiʿ* later served as models for the Demotte *Shahnameh*. In the 15th century, the Arabic copy was in Herat, possibly claimed after a Timurid victory, and later passed to the court of...