The curious case of the iniquitous in-laws: Oirat disloyalty in Mongol Iran

Abstract

The Oirats were key supporters of the Mongol enterprise and helped to bring Chinggis Khan to power. Chinggis and his family intermarried with the royal lineage of the Oirats who were descended from Qutuqa Beki. As these marriages continued throughout Mongol history, descendants of Qutuqa Beki and Chinggis's daughter Checheyigen became key supporters of various successor khanates. In the Ilkhanate of Iran, one of their relatives, Tanggiz Küregen, and his family were intimately connected with the ruling house. The importance of Oirat military support for the Ilkhanid government was to such an extent that he and his descendants were regularly pardoned for treasonous acts. While other elite lineages such as the Juvainīs, the family of Arghun Aqa, and the Chupanids all had had great power and influence, they met violent ends at the hands of their Ilkhanid rulers. Tanggiz and his descendants however, were not only not overly punished for their acts of lèse-majesté, but in fact outlived the Ilkhanid Dynasty itself. This culminated in the government of ʿAlī Pādshāh, who ruled much of the former Ilkhanid realm through a puppet khan for a short period in 1336. This article investigates how Oirat power was both central to the Ilkhanid regime and helped cause its downfall.

Introduction

This article discusses an important lineage in the Mongol empire—the royal family of the Oirats. The Oirats were key supporters of Chinggis Khan in his rise to power and, for this, he made them marriage partners to his own family. Their ruler Qutuqa Beki and his descendants played a vital role in both the establishment of the early Mongol state and its further conquests, as well as marrying back into the Chinggisid house for generations. One branch of this lineage, beginning with a man named Tanggiz, joined the Chinggisid prince Hülegü as he established himself in Iran and regular intermarriages ensued. These descendants—part of the elite küregen (son-in-law) class—served the rulers of the Ilkhanate until its collapse in the 1330s. However, they regularly acted against the interests of their rulers and yet were never executed for their treasonous behaviour, unlike so many others, contributing to the downfall of the Ilkhanate. While interest in the küregen class has been growing in Mongol studies, the lineage of Tanggiz and their complex relationship to the Ilkhanid state has not yet been fully analysed.¹

Many people learned the hard way that the Mongols reacted very strongly to opposition, disobedience, and disloyalty. One could say that it was one of their trademarks. We have numerous examples of the Mongols executing disloyal subjects in myriad unpleasant ways. The principle was a sound one—and one that many rulers over the centuries have followed. The Mongols ensured that their subjects were well aware of what it meant to be in submission to them, refusing their professions of fealty if the conditions of submission had not been met.² However, there was a qualitative difference in how the subjects of the Mongols were treated and how the Chinggisid family—the altan urugh (golden lineage)—were dealt with. Chinggisid family members of course were executed at times when they rebelled or unsuccessfully challenged for the throne. The expectation in this regard was that a death sentence required the consensus of the Chinggisid family—the aqa-ini (older and younger brothers)—though, practically, this often did not take place.³ Nonetheless, there seems to have existed a general rule of thumb that members of the Chinggisid house would have their lives spared even if they rebelled, though they were often sent into dangerous combat zones as part of their punishment.⁴ The blood of the royal family was seen as sacred and, at least in the early period of Mongol rule, Chinggisid rulers often preserved this idea, as it also served as a deterrent against non-Chinggisids’ simply executing members of the family when it pleased them.

However, the Chinggisid family was made up of not only those men and women who were descended from the conqueror, but also those who became associated with it through marriage. The men who did so were the küregen, whose support was vital to Temüjin in his quest to become Chinggis Khan. These men and their families formed a group of elites in the Mongol empire and were regularly given high positions, while their descendants were established as marriage partners for Chinggisid princes and princesses. These marriages could be more or less prestigious, based on the patrilineal and matrilineal descent lines. The küregen were regularly used as generals on campaigns, with large forces under their control.⁵ In some cases, alongside their Chinggisid wives, they ruled over certain areas semi-autonomously for decades.⁶ They were therefore respected quasi-members of the family and could even be given priority over Chinggisids in rituals such as the quriltai.⁷

The most notable groups of quda (marriage partner houses) were the Oirat, Qonggirat, and Kereit royal families, though other loyal retainers could be favoured with a marriage into the Chinggisid house. As groups of these marriage families joined their in-laws on campaigns, they formed special relationships with particular Chinggisid houses, such as the Oirat with the descendants of Tolui, especially in the Ilkhanate of Iran.⁸ It is one Oirat lineage in particular that is analysed here. In doing so, we can come to a better understanding of the changing position of a küregen family over time. This case study allows a more nuanced vision of the küregen institution as a whole, showing how the political dynamics in the late Ilkhanate favoured the improved situation of Tanggiz's descendants.

Background and family dynamics

The relationship began shortly after Chinggis’ recognition as ruler of the steppe in 1206, with Chinggis contracting a marriage alliance between his daughter Checheyigen and either Törelchi or Inalchi (then given the title küregen), sons of the ruler of the Oirat, Qutuqa Beki, in 1207.⁹ This was a turning point, as the relationship had previously been a hostile one. Qutuqa Beki had supported Temüjin's great rival Jamuqa as gürkhan, alongside other implacable enemies of the young lord, the Tatars and the Tayichi'ut. This confederation faced Temüjin and his patron Toghril of the Kereit at the battle of Köyiten, where Qutuqa Beki was in the vanguard of Jamuqa's forces. Qutuqa was also famed for his magical abilities, being able to manipulate the jada or rain-stone, although, in this instance, it backfired on him.¹⁰ Jamuqa's army was defeated and his coalition quickly dissolved, with Qutuqa Beki fleeing with his Oirat troops.¹¹ Chinggis was never one to pass up the opportunity to get mystical powers behind him, and it may have been a reason that he was keen to win over Qutuqa peaceably, alongside the political and military value of such an ally. By this point, Qutuqa could clearly see the winning side and, when Jochi was sent on his expedition to the Peoples of the Forest (Hoyin Irgen) in 1207, Qutuqa rendered submission early. This submission was influential in bringing the rest of the Oirats, as well as other groups of the Hoyin Irgen such as the Tumat and the Kirghiz, under Chinggis's banner without bloodshed. For this action, Qutuqa's family became quda to that of Chinggis.¹²

Various other marriages were arranged among the two royal houses to tie them closer together. One of these was the betrothal of Tanggiz, an unspecified relation of Qutuqa Beki, to an unnamed daughter of Güyük Qa'an (r. 1246–1248). The Persian text of Rashīd al-Dīn on this point states: ‘az jumla umarā va kūragānān ki bā muqaddam-i qawm-i ūyrāt qūtūqa bīkī khvīshī dārand, yikī tanggīz kūragān būda, among the amirs and küregens who were related to the leader of the Oirat people, Qutuqa Beki, one was Tanggiz Küregen.’¹³ We receive no further information about Tanggiz's background. Given that we know (a) he was accused of supporting the Ögödeid coup in the early 1250s, (b) his grandson Ajai, a son of Hülegü and Tanggiz's daughter, a concubine Arighan Egechi, attended Hülegü on his western campaign beginning in 1253 where they were in charge of the camp of Hülegü's wife Qutui Khatun, and (c) Tanggiz was alive in 1284 when Arghun succeeded, we can hypothesise that Tanggiz was likely born in the 1220s. His marriage to Tödögech, a daughter of Hülegü by an unnamed concubine from the ordu of Doquz Khatun, may indicate Tanggiz's more junior status among the descendants of Qutuqa Beki, but also could be due to his previous support for Güyük.

Soon, however, Tanggiz and his family were to become intimately connected to the Ilkhanid house of Hülegü in what Anne Broadbridge has called the ‘junior’ line of Oirat–Ilkhanid relationships.¹⁴ Tanggiz himself remarried after his Ögödeid wife passed away, marrying Tödögech. Meanwhile, Tanggiz and his Ögödeid wife had had a daughter, Qutlugh Khatun, who became the first wife of Arghun, the fourth ruler of the Ilkhanate (r. 1284–1291).¹⁵ The relationship with Tanggiz's line continued through the practice of levirate marriage whereby sons or younger brothers of a deceased man inherited his wives. Therefore, first Tanggiz's son Sülemish and then his grandson Chechek subsequently married Tödögech. Sülemish and Tödögech had a daughter, Öljetei, who also married Arghun.¹⁶ These confusing intermarriages did not stop here either, with Chechek, the grandson of Tanggiz, and Tödögech, having several children themselves, one of whom was a daughter called Ḥājjī who married the penultimate Ilkhan Öljeitü (r. 1304–1316) and gave birth to Öljeitü's only son to reach maturity—the last widely recognised Ilkhan Abū Saʿīd (r. 1316–1335).¹⁷ Abū Saʿīd himself connected back into the line, marrying Malika Khatun, the daughter of one Tuqa s. Sülemish s. Tanggiz.¹⁸ Another son of Chechek and Tödögech, ʿAlī Pādshāh, in 1336 briefly raised his own puppet khan, Mūsa, in Baghdad, before being defeated and killed by Shaykh Ḥasan Buzurg of the Jalayirids.¹⁹ ʿAlī Pādshāh's brother Muḥammad Beg seems to have been the last küregen of the line, marrying a daughter of the Ilkhan Gaykhatu (r. 1291–1295) called Qutlugh Mulk (Figure 1).²⁰

Figure 1. Ilkhanid–Tanggizid family relations. Source: Tobias Jones.

The career of Tanggiz Küregen

While the family dynamics alone are fascinating and have been elaborated on elsewhere, this article seeks to track the careers of these in-laws and show how, despite their frequently poor political choices, they were kept close to the family.²¹ From the start, this line of the Oirat was not associated with the Toluids. It was rather the more ‘senior’ line of Törelchi Küregen and Checheyigen that was most intimately linked with them. Tanggiz, meanwhile, married a daughter of Güyük Qa'an, the son of Ögödei.²² Rashīd al-Dīn does not know, or does not choose to record, this daughter's name, which may indicate that perhaps it was not the most prestigious marriage or the historian wished to downplay it. We must remember that it was the Ögödeids who were the ruling house in the Mongol empire at the time, and thus Tanggiz could have been very close to the heart of power during Güyük's reign, depending on the status of his wife.²³

In a seemingly devastating blow to Tanggiz's career, the Ögödeids were overthrown by their Jochid and Toluid cousins, and Möngke, Tolui's eldest son, became qa'an in 1251. Rashīd al-Dīn specifies that, when Möngke investigated the subsequent ‘revolt’ of Güyük's family against his rule, many of the officers involved were put to death. Tanggiz, however, was beaten ‘until the flesh fell from his thighs’, but was spared his life upon the entreaties of his unnamed wife.²⁴ We can only speculate as to why an Ögödeid princess was so well regarded that she could save her husband after her family's fall from grace. Not only this, but her daughter Qutlugh became the chief wife of the Ilkhan Arghun. Other women associated with the Ögödeid house, Oghul Gaimish and Qadaqach Khatun, had been brutally executed, though they were not themselves Chinggisids.²⁵ Perhaps this daughter of Güyük was in fact more influential than Rashīd al-Dīn would have us believe.²⁶

One might think that would be that. Tanggiz's life had been spared, but his association with the cast-down house of Güyük would render him politically impotent. However, important princes of the Ögödeid and Chaghadaid houses were spared by the letter of the law and instead sent on dangerous campaigns, such as into Sòng territory with Möngke's brother Qubilai.²⁷ Tanggiz may have accompanied them, as in the next information we have about him, from a fifteenth-century Timurid source, he appears in Qubilai's retinue during the civil war with Ariq Böke.²⁸ The Qutuqa Bekid Oirats’ involvement with the Toluids was to such an extent that they were across both sides of this civil war. Törelchi and Checheyigen's daughter Elchiqmish was the chief wife of Ariq Böke, while their other daughter Orghina was the ruler of the Chaghadaid ulus and supported Ariq Böke. Their son Buqa Temür's son Chupan was married to Ariq Böke's daughter Nomoghan. Other sons and daughters were supporters of, or married into, the lines of Qubilai and Hülegü.²⁹ Tanggiz apparently redeemed himself on the battlefield, if Ḥāfiẓ Abrū is to be believed, by helping to defeat the supporters of Ariq Böke and apprehending the Chinggisid prince himself.³⁰ The internecine struggles of the Toluids were reflected in the Oirats also, as Buqa Temür was a key commander of the right wing of Hülegü's army in the west while, as we have seen above, his son Chupan was a küregen to Ariq Böke.³¹ At least in this regard, father and son were separated by thousands of miles and did not have to face each other in direct combat.³²

It is unclear when or why Tanggiz would have departed Qubilai's service for Iran, but the date must have been after 1264 if Ḥāfiẓ Abrū's information about Tanggiz's capture of Ariq Böke is correct. Ḥāfiẓ Abrū's reliability as a source on this period of Mongol history is up for debate, given that he wrote some 150 years after the events. Charles Melville has argued in support of Ḥāfiẓ Abrū's work being taken seriously, given that he made use of Ilkhanid sources such as Rashīd al-Dīn, Ḥamdallāh Mustawfī, and the Tārīkhnāma-yi Herāt.³³ However, his main source for thirteenth-century events, Rashīd al-Dīn, makes no mention of Tanggiz in Qubilai's service.³⁴ Chinese sources also do not seem to mention him—an oddity if he was personally responsible for taking Ariq Böke to hand.³⁵ Rashīd al-Dīn also reports that Ariq Böke had many Oirats on his side, though this does not preclude Tanggiz from supporting Qubilai, as shown above.³⁶

We must also consider the context in which Ḥāfiẓ Abrū mentions this incident. It emerges in the section in which the author describes the animosity of Tanggiz's descendant ʿAlī Pādshāh towards Arpa Khan (Ke'ün), descended from Ariq Böke, who was briefly ruler of the Ilkhanate in 1336. This animosity is portrayed as generations old due to Tanggiz's actions towards Ariq Böke. This may have been an attempt by Ḥāfiẓ Abrū to explain or enliven the conflict between the two for power. We might also question why, if Qubilai was so thrilled by Tanggiz's service to him, his reward was to send him away to Iran. The timing is also difficult to reconcile, given that Ariq Böke was apparently uncaptured in Almaliq in spring 1264, then had to go or be brought by Tanggiz to Qubilai's court to submit, then Tanggiz had to have turned back west to Iran before Hülegü's death in early 1265.³⁷ It seems much more likely that Tanggiz simply accompanied his relative Buqa Temür and his in-law Hülegü when they first were sent to Iran in the early 1250s.³⁸ Indeed, Ḥāfiẓ Abrū's source for this conflict, Ḥamdallāh Mustawfī's Z̠ayl-i Ẓafarnāma, does not mention anything about Tanggiz and Ariq Böke.³⁹ Therefore, this information is unique to Ḥāfiẓ Abrū, unattested to the Ilkhanid period itself.

If we choose to accept Ḥāfiẓ Abrū's information about Tanggiz's capturing Ariq Böke in 1264, nonetheless Tanggiz's relationship with Hülegü's family must have predated this. Hülegü's eighth son Ajai was born of a concubine named Arighan Egechi, a daughter of Tanggiz Küregen in the ordu of Qutui Khatun, the Qonggirat chief wife of Hülegü. Ajai came to Iran with Hülegü in the 1250s and was put in charge of Qutui's ordu there.⁴⁰ Tanggiz himself at some point married Tödögech, Hülegü's daughter by an unnamed concubine. This is perhaps where we can begin to perceive the ‘junior’ nature of Tanggiz's relationship with the Hülegüids, as Hülegü's daughter Menggügen, whose mother was a full wife, the Oirat Öljei Khatun, married Jaqir Küregen, the son of Buqa Temür.⁴¹

Tanggiz is rarely mentioned in the history of the Ilkhanate. He appears twelfth in the list of Hülegü's amirs in Rashīd al-Dīn's genealogical work Shuʿab-i Panjgāna, which states that he was a ‘respected commander of the Oirat and also became a küregen’ (az ūyrāt amīr-i muʿtabar būd va kūrakān nīz shuda).⁴² He must have been an intimate friend of the Ilkhan Abaqa (r. 1265–1282) as, according to Rashīd al-Dīn, when the amirs took counsel together to discuss the overthrow of the Ilkhan Aḥmad Tegüder (r. 1281–1284), they disagreed as to which Hülegüid prince to choose to replace him and they asked Tanggiz what Abaqa's will had been. Tanggiz reported that he and another amir, Shiktur Noyan, had heard Abaqa say that first the rule was to go to Möngke Temür, Hülegü's eleventh son born of Öljei Khatun, and then to Arghun, Abaqa's eldest son by a concubine, Qultaq Egechi.⁴³ This story is repeated in the Akhbār-i Mughulān, which indicates that Tanggiz's attestation of Abaqa's choosing Arghun was crucial, since the yasa was unclear about the status of a ruler's will.⁴⁴ Möngke Temür, the son of the Oirat Öljei Khatun, daughter of Törelchi (but not Checheyigen), was already dead and Arghun was married to Tanggiz's daughter Qutlugh, so it is unlikely that Tanggiz did not have some self-interest in promoting Arghun's cause.⁴⁵

This is the last we hear of Tanggiz himself. He had a remarkable career, being intimately connected with several Chinggisid rulers and princes, Güyük, Hülegü, Abaqa and Arghun, and perhaps even Qubilai. We have little information as to his comings and goings or the campaigns he took part in, while his overall influence in the Ilkhanate appears rather negligible. Nonetheless, he managed to bounce back from being associated with the hapless rule of Güyük to become a key cog in the family dynamic of the Toluid Ilkhanid state. Tanggiz was spared when many other Ögödeid officials were executed. His familial connections seem to have been key to both his survival and his restitution to some degree of political influence. It has been well noted elsewhere how other descendants of Qutuqa Beki and Checheyigen were key supports of the Toluid enterprise and brought a significant number of Oirat troops to bear in the western campaign.⁴⁶ Beyond the lineage of Qutuqa Beki and his daughter-in-law Checheyigen, the power and respect afforded to another Oirat, Arghun Aqa, were so prominent that, even though there were suspicions of his low birth, two of his sons, Nawrūz and Lagzi, married Chinggisid princesses.⁴⁷ While there is certainly no guarantee that Oirat family members or non-related Oirats would work together, a network did exist of Oirat küregens and their Chinggisid wives and mothers, and this can perhaps account for the protection that members of this network received despite some of their disloyal actions, as we shall see.

The career of Chechek Küregen

We have almost no information on Tanggiz's son Sülemish. The only concrete statements that we can make are that he was also married to Tödögech and had a daughter with her, Öljetei, who married the Ilkhan Arghun as a child, while Arghun never consummated the marriage due to her youth.⁴⁸ He also had a son, Chechek, who later married Tödögech and thus Sülemish must have had another wife or concubine, though she is not named.⁴⁹ Sülemish apparently had another son, Tuqa, whose daughter Malika Khatun married the last Ilkhan, Abū Saʿīd.⁵⁰ We have significantly more on Chechek Küregen, whose family were to have a major role to play in the last years of the Ilkhanate.

Chechek first appears in the sources during the somewhat calamitous final throes of Gaykhatu's reign. He is listed as one of Gaykhatu's amirs in the Shuʿab-i Panjgāna and in the fifteenth-century Timurid genealogy Muʿizz al-Ansāb, which states that he was a commander of 1,000.⁵¹ After Gaykhatu's drunken insult of and assault on another Chinggisid, Baidu, and Gaykhatu's general misrule, Baidu decided to claim the throne himself.⁵² Chechek was among a group of amirs that included Lagzi Küregen, a son of Arghun Aqa, who went to Baghdad and were won over by Baidu.⁵³ According to Vaṣṣāf, Chechek was made a deputy amir to Taghachar, Baidu's amīr al-amīrān, the chief amir of the realm. Other deputies included Lagzi, Qunchuqbal, and Tükel, all of whom were küregen, while Baidu had three further küregen supporters, namely Eljigidei Quschi, Doladai Idachi, and Taraqai Küregen, a relative of Chechek.⁵⁴ Chechek seems to have been an extremely faithful servant to Baidu, fighting in his advance guard against Ghazan, and, while Taghachar and others betrayed Baidu to join Ghazan, Chechek and a handful of others stayed by Baidu until the bitter end, fleeing towards Georgia before they were captured by Nawrūz's advance guard.⁵⁵

At this point, we come to a discrepancy between the stories of two of the Ilkhanid sources: Rashīd al-Dīn and Vaṣṣāf. According to Rashīd al-Dīn, once Ghazan had defeated Baidu, his amirs were dealt with. Certain amirs were made an example of, such as Eljigidei Quschi Küregen, who was executed without trial.⁵⁶ The others were given a trial that resulted in differing punishments. Qunchuqbal Küregen, who had been personally involved in the death of another küregen, Aq Buqa, who had loyally served Gaykhatu, was put to death on the insistence of Aq Buqa's son-in-law Ḥājjī, the brother of Nawrūz. Meanwhile, two of the other küregen, Doladai and Chechek, received beatings and were sent to the frontier province of Khurasan to absolve their crimes on the battlefield.⁵⁷ Vaṣṣāf, however, states that Chechek was executed with the group of amirs who had been complicit in the killing of Gaykhatu.⁵⁸ This is somewhat bizarre, as Rashīd al-Dīn, Vaṣṣāf, and Ḥamdallāh Mustawfī confirm that Chechek took part in Ghazan's 1299 campaign against the Mamluks. Vaṣṣāf lists him as one of the commanders of 10,000 and 1,000 who joined this campaign, later saying that Chechek was put in charge of attacking Damascus with a great army.⁵⁹

Rashīd al-Dīn provides us with one more interesting titbit about him. He reports that, in 1296, during the revolt of the Chinggisid Söge s. Yoshmut s. Hülegü, news arrived that Nawrūz had killed Söge and Nurin Aqa, the governor of Khurasan who had been put in charge of Chechek and Doladai, had seized them and that all was well.⁶⁰ There is no indication that Chechek actually took part in Söge's revolt and there seems to have been no further punishment for him in this instance, as he continued to serve in the Ilkhanid military in Syria some years later.⁶¹ Neither did a regime change greatly affect Chechek. He is listed as one of Öljeitü's amirs in the Muʿizz al-Ansāb and two of Öljeitü's wives, Ḥājjī Khatun and Öljetei Khatun, were relatives of Chechek.⁶² According to Ḥamdallāh Mustawfī Qazvīnī and, following him, Hāfiẓ Abrū, Chechek was one of the amirs of the left wing during Öljeitü's campaign in Gilan, where he is called ‘the bahādur of Iraq’, accompanying Irenjin. Meanwhile, Chechek's son ʿAlī Pādshāh joined the right wing with Amir Sevinch.⁶³

The use of the title bahādur, or rather ba'atur in Mongolian, instead of his normal küregen is interesting, however. While the word could mean ‘brave one, or hero’, it was also the term used specifically for the forces in the vanguard of Mongol troops who were sent to pay for their crimes.⁶⁴ Péng Dàyă, a Sòng envoy who visited the Mongols in 1233, says that ‘if the transgressor is not killed, then he is punished with service in the ba'atur army (similar to the suicide warriors of the Han people), and only after he has survived three or four times is he absolved’.⁶⁵ Chechek may well have still been serving his sentence during Öljeitü's reign.

At this stage, it is worth comparing Chechek Küregen's situation with that of other ‘rebellious’ küregen in the Mongol empire. Arguably the most famous instance of such a rebellion was the support of the Uyghur idiqut (ruler) Salindi for the Ögödeids during the Jochid–Toluid coup.⁶⁶ Salindi had married Chinggis's daughter Alajin Beki.⁶⁷ Unlike Tanggiz himself, Salindi was not spared and, after torture, was executed by his brother Ögrünch at Besh-Baligh.⁶⁸ Nonetheless, the Uyghur royal family was kept in power and continued to marry Chinggisid princesses. Qubilai renewed this alliance, marrying the idiqut Qochkar Tegin, the grandson of Barchuq Art-Tegin, to a daughter of Güyük, Babahaer. This was as a reward for Qochkar's stalwart defence of the city of Qara-Qocho against the Chaghadaids Dua and his brother Buzma. Apparently, Qochkar had only been able to convince Dua to give up the siege with his own marriage alliance, marrying his daughter Eliqmish Beki to Dua.⁶⁹ Later descendants of the line were given the title ‘Prince of Gāochāng’ and continued to marry Chinggisid princesses.⁷⁰

Another less well-known situation has been elaborated on by Christopher Atwood with the character of Dergei Küregen/Dergei Amal of the Qonggirat.⁷¹ Despite the historiographical complexities of this case, Atwood has shown that Chinggis sought a marriage between Dergei, the leader of the Qonggirat, and his daughter Tümelün—with attendant Qonggirat submission. Dergei, however, rejected and insulted Tümelün, for which Chinggis had him killed and replaced him with the leader of the Bosqur Qonggirats, Alchi Noyan.⁷² Dergei's son Chikü, however, was not killed and was regularly part of Mongol campaigns against the Jīn, being noted for his particular bravery, such as in the capture of Dexingfu. For his proof of loyalty and stellar service to the Mongol cause, he was granted the son-in-law position that his father had spurned, marrying Tümelün, and his descendants continued to intermarry with the Chinggisid line in the Yuán realm.⁷³

Thus, the Mongols had a history of rehabilitating küregen relationships, even if members of the lineage in question did not always live up to Mongol standards of their subjects. Military performance was used as both a carrot and a stick: success in dangerous circumstances proved one's worth. In the situations mentioned above, the küregen who failed in service was killed and relatives promoted. Interestingly, in Chechek's situation, he was not killed, but ordered to expiate his guilt on the fields of battle: in Khurasan, in Syria, and in Gilan. In a reverse of the above cases, it was rather his sons who suffered originally. After three generations of marriage to a Chinggisid princess, Tödögech, none of Chechek's sons were made küregens during the reigns of Ghazan and Öljeitü, though his daughter Ḥājjī and his sister/daughter Öljetei both married Öljeitü. Abū Saʿīd eventually did make his uncle Muḥammad Beg, the younger brother of ʿAlī Pādshāh, a küregen in 1319, after the rebellion and death of the amir Qurumshi Küregen.⁷⁴

The other likely reason for the maintenance of Chechek Küregen and his family was the departure of Taraqai Küregen and his tümen for Mamluk lands after the defeat of Baidu.⁷⁵ We can perhaps see this as a ‘promotion’ of the more junior Qutuqa Bekid küregen lineage. This promotion of junior lineage to senior position occurred among the wives of Chinggisids. Hülegü had married Güyük Khatun, the daughter of Chinggis's daughter Checheyigen and Törelchi Küregen; after her death and that of Qutui Khatun, Hülegü's Qonggirat wife, Güyük's half-sister (thus not born of Checheyigen) Öljei was raised in her place.⁷⁶ This promotion also took place among the küregen, as the above example of Dergei Amal's replacement by Alchi Noyan showed. Chechek and his sons, while not held in particularly high honour under Ghazan and Öljeitü as Chechek fought to absolve his crimes, benefitted from the departure of Taraqai and remained the Qutuqa Bekid figureheads for the remaining Oirat troops in the Ilkhanate.

We have a remarkable career here. Chechek was a firm adherent of Baidu after betraying Gaykhatu and yet survived to be a commander in Ghazan and Öljeitü's military. This is eerily reminiscent of his grandfather's career—supporting a failed khan, given a physical punishment, but then reintegrated into the family of the ruling house. One wonders whether it was Chechek's wife Tödögech who pleaded for his life, just as Güyük's daughter had done for Tanggiz. We hear from Vaṣṣāf that, some 20 years after these events, ʿAlī Pādshāh, Chechek's son, was sent along with Abū Saʿīd by Öljeitü to Khurasan, serving as a khizānachī (treasurer) to the prince.⁷⁷ Ḥājjī Khatun, Abū Saʿīd's mother and Chechek's daughter, also accompanied her son to Khurasan.⁷⁸ Clearly, Chechek's family seem not to have suffered greatly from either his support of Baidu or any suspicion on him of participating in Söge's revolt, given that they married back into the Hülegüid family. His status as a criminal expiating his crimes and also the grandfather of Abū Saʿīd leads to a confusing picture of this character in the Ilkhanid sources, in a similar manner to that of his grandfather Tanggiz.

Chechek underwent an interesting historiographical journey in his later career. The two main sources for Öljeitü's reign, Qāshānī and Mustawfī, deal with him quite differently. In Qāshānī's narrative, Chechek only appears once, listed as the father of Ḥājjī Khatun.⁷⁹ Mustawfī's Ẓafarnāma, however, mentions him regularly. He is shown as taking part in the ill-fated Gilan campaign of 1307 but does not appear in Qāshānī's version of the event.⁸⁰ In Timurid historiography, largely reliant on Mustawfī's version of events, Chechek appears as an amir of Öljeitü's, though Qāshānī does not state this, despite listing 25 of Öljeitü's amirs.⁸¹ Both Mustawfī and Qāshānī agree, however, that there was a jarghu (trial) investigating the Gilaki wars in which amirs were killed, suffered corporal punishment, or were dismissed from their roles.⁸² While Chechek is not listed in this group, this campaign is the last information that we have on him. If he was implicated, it may explain why Qāshānī, whose work was finished during Abū Saʿīd's reign, may have glossed over Chechek's involvement, given that he was the grandfather of the sitting ruler and father of the ‘queen-mother’ Ḥājjī. Such historiographical whitewashing would be nothing new among the küregen dynasties, as shown by Christopher Atwood in the cases of those such as the Öng'üt and the Qonggirat.⁸³

The zenith of Tanggizid power: ʿAlī Pādshāh, Muḥammad Beg, and Hājjī Khatun

It was in the last years of the Ilkhanate that the Tanggizid line truly became a decisive political force, again despite their potentially treasonous behaviour. The actions of ʿAlī Pādshāh and Muḥammad Beg, the sons of Chechek, have been considered by Charles Melville; however, they must be reconsidered in light of their family's actions that were contrary to the Ilkhanid rulers.⁸⁴ Neither brother seems to have held particularly high rank in Öljeitü's reign or in Abū Saʿīd's early rule.⁸⁵ They were supporters of Abū Saʿīd, along with the great Amir Chupan and his sons, during the revolt of the amirs in 1319.⁸⁶ This does not seem to have led to any significant political or military position given the power of the Chupanids, although one of them, Muḥammad Beg, achieved küregen status at this time. It was only after the fall of the Chupanids that they achieved notoriety. ʿAlī Pādshāh assisted Abū Saʿīd in doing away with Chupan's son Dimashq Khwāja in 1327, while Muḥammad Beg, originally a supporter of Chupan, deserted him along with some other amirs and 30,000 men, ending Chupan's rebellion.⁸⁷ While this late withdrawal originally led to Muḥammad Beg's being stripped of his status as amir, he was quickly forgiven and restored to rank.⁸⁸ Both brothers were eventually appointed to governorships—Muḥammad Beg in Anatolia and ʿAlī Pādshāh in Baghdad.⁸⁹ Given this status, and the fact that Abū Saʿīd's mother Ḥājjī Khatun was their sister, while one of his wives was their cousin Malika, the Tanggizids had finally established themselves as one of the most powerful families in the Ilkhanate.

However, this does not seem to have been enough for this ambitious family. Not long after Chupan's fall, the brothers were implicated in the revolt of Narin Taghai, the governor of Khurasan. They had been sent to Khurasan, refused to go, and turned back to the royal camp.⁹⁰ While they never in fact drew arms against their nephew, this certainly could have been, and was seen as, a threat to the Ilkhan himself. Yet again, this family was saved by their female relatives, as Ḥājjī Khatun intervened with her son and simply had ʿAlī Pādshāh sent to his own yurt near Baghdad, while Muḥammad Beg was sent to Khurasan.⁹¹ It does not seem that ʿAlī Pādshāh was even relieved of his position, though al-Aharī confirms that Muḥammad Beg was dismissed as governor of Rum.⁹²

What is incredible is the language used to excuse the brothers’ actions. Ḥāfiẓ Abrū claims that Abū Saʿīd let ʿAlī Pādshāh off the hook because he was ‘still a child, hanūz kūdak ast’, even shifting the blame onto his mother Ḥājjī, saying that, when he gave ʿAlī Pādshāh his tümen, he in fact expected Ḥājjī to run it.⁹³ Again, this seems to be a story-telling device of Ḥāfiẓ Abrū, as he himself reports on ʿAlī Pādshāh's campaigns in Gilan when Abū Saʿīd was only a one-year-old. Calling into question ʿAlī Pādshāh's suitability for command based on age would only negatively affect Abū Saʿīd, who was significantly younger than his uncle. Muḥammad Beg was similarly excused, saying that he was ‘simple-minded, sāda-nafs’.⁹⁴ Blame was laid on other amirs such as Tashtemür who were supposedly older and wiser, and they were tried in the jarghu. Both Tashtemür and Narin Taghai were executed in 1329.⁹⁵ These justifications are not mentioned in Mustawfī's account of the rebellion and perhaps stem from Ḥāfiẓ Abrū's seeking to understand why Abū Saʿīd did not inflict any serious punishment on his uncles.

The final word on Abū Saʿīd's reign from Mustawfī's Ẓafarnāma deals with the situation in Fars. Abū Saʿīd had replaced the governor of Shiraz, Muḥammadshāh s. Esen Qutlugh, with one of his personal companions (inaq), Musāfir. Muḥammadshāh appealed to the amirs, questioning Musāfir's lofty position and among them they agreed to bring down Abū Saʿīd's protégé. One of the amirs involved was again Muḥammad Beg. This group of amirs besieged Abū Saʿīd's ordu, demanding that Musāfir be sent out. They were dispersed by various amirs of the Ilkhan and fled, but were captured on the road. Again, Abū Saʿīd, under the advisement of his vizier Ghīyās̠ al-Dīn s. Rashīd al-Dīn, declined to kill them but had them imprisoned in separate fortresses.⁹⁶ Lenience, however, did nothing to improve relations between Abū Saʿīd and his uncle.

ʿAlī Pādshāh and Muḥammad Beg would continue to be key players after Abū Saʿīd's death, as is well documented. As leader of the Oirats based in the region of Diyarbakir, ʿAlī Pādshāh in 1336 did away with the short-lived reign of Arpa Ke'ün, the descendant of Ariq Böke, and executed the vizier Ghīyās̠ al-Dīn Muḥammad and installed his own puppet khan, Mūsa, a descendant of Baidu.⁹⁷ In the rapidly developing situation after Abū Saʿīd's death, ʿAlī Pādshāh was himself killed by Shaykh Ḥasan Jalayir, another member of a powerful küregen family, the son of Amir Ḥusayn Küregen and Öljetei Khatun, the sister of Öljeitü.⁹⁸ Shaykh Ḥasan had his own Chinggisid puppet, Muḥammad Khan. After Mūsa Khan was killed, Muḥammad Beg and his wife Qutlugh Mulk were killed by Kurds in 1337.⁹⁹

The brothers’ prestige had certainly grown by this point, as shown by Shaykh Ḥasan Jalayir's actions towards the two, rivals though they may have been. Shabānkāra'ī reports that, leading up to the battle between Shaykh Ḥasan and ʿAlī Pādshāh, Shaykh Ḥasan sent messages trying to organise a quriltai with all the aqa-ini and khatuns present at which they could choose a suitable descendant of Tolui and Hülegü to rule. In this letter, he states that ‘ʿAlī Pāshā is the aqa, ʿalī pāshā āqāst’.¹⁰⁰ This term, when applied as a title to an amir, such as Chupan or Arghun, was one of respect but, used in this definite manner, it conveys the meaning that ʿAlī Pādshāh was the eldest member of the ruling house and had the authority to call the quriltai.¹⁰¹ We are also informed by al-Aharī that Shaykh Ḥasan quickly sought to establish a familial connection with the Tanggizid line once the brothers were out of the way by marrying the daughter of Muḥammad Beg, whereupon Shaykh Ḥasan's ‘rank reached the highest degree and his fame spread throughout the world’.¹⁰² The prestige of marrying a descendant of a Chinggisid–küregen union was not lost on Shaykh Ḥasan and he was later able to gain the support of the Oirat troops who had served the Tanggizids, possibly because of this union.¹⁰³

Conclusion

This completes the remarkable family tale of the lineage of Tanggiz Küregen. While their line has been called ‘junior’ and their influence played down, their durability was incredible.¹⁰⁴ Despite their repeated mistaken political choices, they ended up as major players in the collapsing Ilkhanid world of the 1330s, with ʿAlī Pādshāh becoming ruler in all but name during the short reign of Mūsa Khan in 1336. One has to wonder why Hülegü and his descendants were so forgiving of this küregen lineage. While küregen status was some protection against royal retribution, Ghazan's treatment of Baidu's amirs in 1296 and Nawrūz and Lagzi later shows that this did not guarantee anything. We could perhaps argue that Tanggiz's line was simply too intertwined with the Ilkhanids to be uprooted without causing damage to the Chinggisids themselves, although this is exactly what was done with the Chupanids. We may also consider the protection afforded them by their wives and mothers, as Güyük's daughter spoke out for Tanggiz and Ḥājjī Khatun protected her brothers. Again, however, this does not seem to have saved Qunchuqbal Küregen or Chupan Küregen.

How can one explain this great clemency on behalf of the Ilkhanid rulers? Firstly, we must again consider Landa's analysis of the küregen as primarily a military class. Some küregen did not seem to have had troops attached to them by birth, like Qunchuqbal, so these could be more readily disposed of. It seems that the most logical explanation for the survival of Tanggiz's line was that they were simply too valuable to the state to be executed. They could be punished outwardly but the Oirat military were a vital cog in the Ilkhanid military apparatus and their loyalty to their chosen lineage was too strong to simply place someone else in charge. Mustawfī, followed by Ḥāfiẓ Abrū, claims that Shaykh Ḥasan Chupanī in the 1340s executed 32 Oirat amirs, as he was worried about their negative influence in the realm, indicating the significant number of Oirats who may have been present in the Ilkhanate by the mid-fourteenth century.¹⁰⁵ Taraqai's ability to simply move out with his 10,000 to 18,000 troops was as great a warning as any to the Ilkhanids of the risk of alienating these powerful Oirat lineages.

Another perhaps simplistic explanation, but one that cannot be ignored, is that the Mongols were simply following the edict of Chinggis Khan. According to Juvainī, after the speedy submission of the Oirats, ‘an edict (qaẓā-yi ḥuqūq) was issued concerning that tribe (qabīla) to the effect that the daughters of their emirs should be married to the descendants of Chinggiz-Khan’.¹⁰⁶ This echoes the YS passage concerning the Qonggirat: ‘If the Qonggirad lineage gives birth to a daughter … she shall be made an empress, and if they give birth to a son … he shall be granted imperial princesses. … it shall not be cut off from generation to generation.’¹⁰⁷ The Mongols had great respect for the jasaq and yosun of Chinggis Khan and, if this edict is not being invented by Juvainī, then they likely took these stipulations very seriously. We can see from other khanates that these Oirat intermarriages were commonplace.¹⁰⁸ In order to have daughters for their sons to marry, the Chinggisids had to protect the lives of the Oirat Qutuqa Bekid–Checheyigenid lineage at least. They did not hold the highest official positions in the realm for most of the Ilkhanid period; they were not being listed as governors or head amirs for example. However, they were always tied back into the family, no matter the status of the lineages themselves. Eventually, their protected status seems to have been solidified and none of them was ever put to death by the Ilkhans.

This protected status seems to have given the family ever-growing confidence to assert themselves with regard to the Ilkhans. This was seemingly tied to the rise of the qarachu begs (commoner lords) in this period and the increasing lack of control that the Ilkhans had over them.¹⁰⁹ While Ilkhans such as Arghun and Ghazan sought centralising measures to solidify their own power, such as executing Chinggisid princes who were seen as a threat, this in fact strengthened the position of the küregen class, whose prestige grew with the dwindling of the Hülegüid lineage. A notable instance of this occurs in Qāshānī's account of an embassy from the Özbeg Khan of the Jochids to Öljeitü in September 1315. The Jochid ambassador Aq Buqa was met at Tabriz not by Öljeitü himself, but by Amir Ḥusayn Küregen of the Jalayir. Amir Ḥusayn sought to offer a cup to Aq Buqa—a custom called kāsa-gīrī that was reserved for Chinggisid rulers themselves.¹¹⁰ Aq Buqa was incensed by this, pointing out that Amir Ḥusayn was still an ötegü boghol (member of the aristocratic elite) and that it was the custom of the küregen to remain two paces behind those of the urugh (Chinggisid lineage).¹¹¹ Aq Buqa accused Amir Ḥusayn of forgetting the jasaq and abandoning the yosun. Amir Ḥusayn answered contemptuously, saying that the envoy was here only as a messenger, not to enforce the jasaq on the line of Chinggis: ‘amīr ḥusayn bi pāsukh mī-gūyad ki, “amīr aknūn bar sabīl-i risālat āmada ast, na bi yāsāmīshī-yi ustukhvān-i urūgh-i chingīz khān”.’ ¹¹² This vitriolic attack and dismissive response speak to the high position that the küregen elites had achieved in the Ilkhanate—one that shocked the Jochid ambassador.

Powerful küregen amirs were involved in revolts against Gaykhatu, Ghazan, and Abū Saʿīd. With the incredibly influential position that Chupan and his sons were put in by successive Ilkhans, once Abū Saʿīd sought to challenge the Chupanids, he had little choice but to rely on ʿAlī Pādshāh and his significant Oirat military following. With the Chupanids temporarily down and out, the Tanggizids were able to act with impunity vis-à-vis Abū Saʿīd, who could not risk losing this Oirat support. Thus, the actions of ʿAlī Pādshāh and Muḥammad Beg in the final years of the Ilkhanate contributed to the turbulent downfall of the Ilkhanid house. Ironically, it was perhaps a split in the Tanggizid family itself that caused the khanate to finally split apart. Shabānkāra'ī reports that Ḥājjī Khatun supported Arpa Ke'ün, not her brothers.¹¹³ Had ʿAlī Pādshāh brought his Oirat forces in support of Arpa and not encouraged the departure of the amir Akranj with his Uyghur tümen from Arpa, it is likely the Ilkhanate could have survived as a political entity.¹¹⁴ However, at this stage, it seems that ʿAlī Pādshāh was no longer acting solely in an Ilkhanid milieu, as he seems to have had support from the Mamluk sultan al-Naṣir Muḥammad.¹¹⁵ In the end, it could be said that the Tanggizids, whom the Ilkhanid rulers tried so hard to keep onside, did as much as anyone to end the Ilkhanid state, paving the way for the domination of the former Ilkhanid lands by küregen families.