arghun aqa: mongol bureaucrat

International Society for Iranian Studies

Arghun Aqa: Mongol BureaucratAuthor(s): George LaneSource: Iranian Studies, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Autumn, 1999), pp. 459-482Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of International Society for Iranian StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4311297 .Accessed: 17/06/2014 09:34

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Iranian Studies, volume 32, number 4, Fall 1999

George Lane

Arghun Aqa: Mongol Bureaucrat

THE QUESTION OF WHO RAN THE MONGOL EMPIRE HAS LONG CHALLENGED historians, and various theories have emerged and retreated in answer to this proW lem.' As far as the question of who ran the Persian part of the empire the answer has been made more elusive by the nature of the sources. Though excellent primary source material for this period abounds, for the most part it is written by the bureaucrats of the Il-Khanate themselves, most of whom were Persian. Very little Mongol material survives. It is this lack of Mongolian material that has prompted historians to speculate that perhaps none ever existed and thus that "the Mongols were happy to leave the tedious minutiae of government to those best qualified to cope with them."2 In the case of Persia "those best qualified to cope" meant the traditional bureaucratic classes, and such individual luminaries as CAta Malik Juvaini and Rashid al-Din and families such as the Qazvinis and Simnanis spring to mind.

However, as David Morgan has pointedly noted, Mongolian material does exist for the period up to around 1240, including the reign of Ogedei. The anonymous Secret History of the Mongols is a uniquely important document which accurately reflects the nature of Mongol preoccupations and concerns during the earlier half of the thirteenth century. The text reveals a great interest in the machinations and "domestic' controversies of the Mongols but most signifi- cantly it dwells at great length on the minutiae of administration. Morgan cites as an example the detail given to the quriltai of 1206. In Onon's English trans- lation3 twenty-two pages are devoted to the, at times tedious, particulars of such items as the successive shifts of the night-guards, and lists of military com- manders. If a demand for such information existed and the Mongols possessed administrators so early in their rise to power capable of such careful itemisation, it is surely reasonable to assume that this tradition continued as their empire expanded.

Such a tradition is not obvious from the available Persian sources. The Per- sian bureaucrats who left records would perhaps have been eager to overstate their own role in the unfolding history while minimizing that of their Mongol col- leagues. But despite the apparent under-emphasis of Mongol bureaucratic skills

George Lane is currently teaching at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

1. See David Morgan, 'Mongol or Persian: The Government of I1-Khanid Iran," Harvard Middle-Eastern and Islamic Review 3 (1996): 1-2, 62-76; see also Jean Aubin, "Emirs, Mongols et Viziers Persans dans les Remous de l'Acculturation", Stu- dia Iranica. 15 (1995).

2. Morgan, "Mongol or Persian", 64. 3. Urgunge Onon, The History and Life of Chinggis Khan (Leiden: E.J. Brill,

1 990).


http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

460 Lane

in the Persian sources, the administrative role of the Mongols in running the state cannot be ignored. In Bertold Spuler's list of senior administrators in the I1- Khanid state Mongols appear alongside the better-known Persian administrators.4 One name which does not appear in this list however is that of Arghun Aqa who, nonetheless, it could be argued is a prime example of a Mongol administrator. Though he also appears in military roles, Arghun Aqa is chiefly remembered for his work as a bureaucrat establishing a Mongol fiscal administration in pre-II-Khanid Iran.

The purpose here is to examine the administrative career of Arghun Aqa and attempt to account in some fashion for its extraordinary longevity.

Arghun's Career: From Slave to Il-Khanid Commander

The story of Arghun Aqa's origins has two striking and apparently incompatible variants. According to one of his factotums, the chronicler Ata Malik Juvaini, himself a member of the scribal class, Arghun Aqa was the son of a commander of 1,000 and thus fairly high-born.5 Rashid al-Din, on the other hand, writing a quarter century or so after Arghun Aqa's death says that Argun Aqa was sold into slavery by his parents in a time of famine for a "leg of beef."6 From the family of Qadan of the Jalayir tribe (to whom he was reportedly sold) he entered into the Qa'an Ogodei's service with his master's son, Iluge. There he learned the Uyghur script and was enrolled in the royal secretariat. His first assignment was to Khurasan where he was sent to investigate charges against its governor, Korguz.7 He resolved the matter with the charges against Korguz dismissed as groundless and he was then retained as Korguz's nbker or colleague with the position of basqaq8 or overseer. But Korguz pointedly ignored him.9 However aboutl242 due to accusations against Korguz arising from his conduct before a tribunal, 'the wives and sons of Chaghatai"? sent Arghun Aqa with the governor of Khurasan to the Ulugh-Ef (the "Great House" of the Chaghatai ordu) where he was condemned to death.

4. Bertold Spuler, Die Mongolen in Iran (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985), 238-40.

5. 'Ata-Malik Juvaini, Genghis Khan: The History of the World-Conqueror trans. J. A. Boyle (Manchester, 1997) (henceforth Juvaini/Boyle), 505.

6. Rashid al-Din Fazl Allah Hamadani, Jdmic al-tavartkh, ed. Muhammad Rawshan and Mustafa Musavi, eds. (Tehran, 1373/1994) (henceforth Rashid al-Din), 103, 607.

7. On Korguz's career see Juvaini/Boyle, 489-505 and CAta Malik Juvaini, Thrtkh- i jahian-gushd, ed. M. Qazvini, 2 vols. (London, 1916) (henceforth Juvaini/Qazvini), 2, 225-242.

8. For a discussion of the differences in meaning of basqaq, shahna, etc. see Donald Ostrowski, "The tamma and the dual-administrative structure of the Mongol Empire," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 61/2 (1998): 262-77.

9. See Jean Aubin, "Emirs Mongols ", 14-15 and Sayf ibn Muhammad ibn Ya'qub al-Harawi,) Tdrtkh-nuimah-i Hardt, ed. Muhammd Zubayr al-Siddiqi (Calcutta, 1944), 128.

10. Juvaini/Boyle, 502-3; Rashid al-Din, 682, claims that Chaghatai's widow complained to Ogedei, who he states was still alive, who then ordered Korkuz's execu- tion: "The Qa'an ordered that they should arrest him and fill his mouth with dirt until he should die."



Arghun Aqa 461

The rise of Arghun Aqa

After Korguz's death, Toregene Khatun placed all the territories previously held by him from the Oxus to Fars, as well as Georgia, Rum and Mosul," under the command of Arghun Aqa with the title 'ulugh manqul ulus bek' or "Governor of the Empire of the Great Mongols."'2 She also named the despised Sharaf al-Din Khwarazmi ("this vile wretch" 13) as his ulugh-bitikchi (chief secretary). Arghun Aqa appears to have initially held Sharaf al-Din, who Juvaini caustically explains should more correctly be referred to by his "true" name Sharr fi-Din (Evil in the Faith),'4 in some favor. He not only extricated him from some financial and political intrigues'5 but allowed him free rein over tax collection in the area. Aubin refers to Sharaf al-Din as Batu's "eye" in Khurasan.'6 Juvaini makes it abundantly clear that responsibility for the gross abuses in collecting taxes in the 1240s was to be laid at the door of "devil in human form," and "swine in the garb of mankind" whose "arrival amongst the people of Khurasan resembled the preliminaries to the arrival of Dajjal."'7

After Sharaf al-Din "had departed in haste unto the fire of God and His hell" the amir Arghun was quick to abolish all the taxes he had imposed, to free all those wrongly imprisoned, and to cancel the many illegal confiscation orders issued by this "viper-face." However, it is significant that Juvaini did observe that there was no attempt to return any of the illegally seized levies and that "such taxes as were already collected [Arghun I dispatched [to the treasury]."'8

At this same time, which coincided with the election of Guyuk Khan in 1246, Arghun Aqa made a collection of all the paizas'9 and yarlighs20 issued following the death of the Qa'an in 1241 by the Mongol princes of the region. In order to ingratiate himself with Guyuk, Arghun laid these paizas and yarlighs before the new Great Khan when he arrived at his court. It was primarily for this service that Guyuk looked with favor upon the amir and as well as confirming

11. Juvaini/Boyle, 507. 12. See T. T. Allsen, Mongol Imperialism: The Policies of the Great Qan Mongke

in China, Russia, and the Islamic Lands (Berkeley, 1987), 176-77. This conclusion is based on silver coins struck c1244-5 in Transcaucasia with the quoted Turkic inscription, without reference to a qa'an written in Arabic script and stamped on the reverse side from the Muslim formula.

13. Ibid., 545, 280. 14. Juvaini/Boyle, 526. 15. See Peter Jackson, "The Dissolution of the Mongol Empire," Central Asiatic

Journal 32 (1978): 216 16. Aubin, "Emirs Mongol", 15. 17. Juvaini/Boyle, 529, 530.

18. Ibid., 508. Boyle in Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 4, 337 assumes that Ju- vaini exaggerates Sharaf al-Din's evil nature.

19. paiza, p'ai-tse = tablet of authority in wood, silver or gold sometimes bearing a tiger or gerfalcon depending on rank. See David Morgan, The Mongols (Oxford, 1986), 105-7.

20. Yarligh = royal order or licence.



462 Lane

him in his administrative position in the territories he already held, he bestowed a tiger-headed paiza on him and transferred authority over the affairs of all the maliks and governors of the west to him.

To replace Sharaf al-Din as ulugh bitikchT, Guyuk appointed another Khwarazmian, Khwaja Fakhr al-Din Bihishti whom Juvaini described as "a good and kind-hearted man."2' Even though Juvaini, who worked as Arghun Aqa's private secretary from 1243-56, would appear to absolve his master Arghun for the sins of his departed underling, Sharaf al-Din, it is interesting to note that in Juvaini's summation of the career of Sharaf al-Din his attitude is strangely ambiguous. After having made it clear that Arghun Aqa had been fully responsible for Sharaf al-Din's continued employment as a tax enforcer in the west and that "that hyena" had been able to enjoy more freedom to indulge "his doltish ambition and unclean purpose"22 under Arghun Aqa than he had under Korguz, he cites the hand of God at work in the affairs of men and divine will in the alloca- tion of their positions. To counter the embodiment of evil such as was manifest in the person of Sharaf al-Din, the model of God's blessing was not, as might have been expected, Juvaini's master Arghun Aqa but instead the long-serving functionary, Mahmud Yalavach of Transoxiana:23

On the one hand He brings into existence a person such as this [Sharaf al-Din] and makes him the target of men's curses, and on the other hand He makes a man like the Minister Yalavach Mahmud the centre point of men's hopes and ambitions; and some He afflicts with the former calamity whilst to others He grants the latter blessings.24

If this is a disguised rebuke of Arghun Aqa, Juvaini subsequently makes it clear that other irregularities after Sharaf al-Din's demise were certainly beyond the control of his master. He cites the alleged conspiracy hatched in Tabriz by Mengu-Bolad, the basqaq over the artisans of the region. The basqaq had sought the protection of the powerful fellow-Naiman and former atabeg of Guyuk Qa'an, Qadaq Noyen, and was now (c. 1247) seeking to advance his interests at the expense of Arghun Aqa.25

Hoping to preempt this particular intrigue Arghun Aqa left for the qa'an's court accompanied by Juvaini, his father, Baha al-Din Juvaini, and Fakhr al-Din Bihishti, but the news of Guyuk's death and the arrival of Eljigitei and his

21. Juvaini/Boyle, 509.

22. Ibid., 539.

23. See "In the Service of the Khan," ed. Igor de Rachewiltz et al. (Wiesbaden, 1993), 122-7. Mahmud Yalavach and his descendants were among the most prominent of the non-Mongol functionaries governing the sedentary sections of the Mongol Empire. He was a Turkish-speaking Khwarazmian and was a merchant employed by Chingiz Khan as an intermediate with the Khwarazmshah. He is held to have been the architect of the qobchur tax system which eventually became the model for Arghun Aqa's regime in the west.


25. Ibid., 511.



Arghun Aqa 463

army26 forestalled his plans. He was prevented from presenting his petition and refuting any accusations in person. At Eljigitai's command Arghun Aqa began to organise the provisioning of the main army while Eljigitai took control of the western provinces. Juvaini refers to this chaotic period as particularly damaging for the economic and administrative health of the westerly regions:

. . .pnnces everywhere dispatched messengers and sent drafts in every direction so that the revenue for several years ahead was exhausted by these assignments, the great number of which together with the constant relay of Mongol tax-collectors and the levies and demands of Eljigitai reduced the people to indigence and the amirs, maliks and sec- retaries to impotence.27

During the period 1243-56 Arghun Aqa made four or five journeys from the lands in the west to Qaraqorum where he was required either to provide details of his service and activities or to defend himself against various charges and accusations. This journeying from west to east coupled with the need for continuous travel within Iran in order to administer the vast area placed under his jurisdiction makes the references in the Yuan Shih to Arghun Aqa's "mobile secretariat" particularly apt.21

Juvaini's depiction of Arghun Aqa

The picture painted of the Mongol amir in the Ttartkh-i JahMn-gush/u dates from this period. The young cAta Malik accompanied him on most of these long anid gruelling journeys29 which, Juvaini complained, allowed him to snatch only "an hour or so when the caravan halts [to write] down these histories."30 Because the historian began his Tirikh-i Jahan Gushci with two long eulogistic chapters devoted to Arghun Aqa while still in the amir's service, one modem scholar has described Juvaini's account as nearly an autobiography of the Mongol amir.3' This might explain why in Juvaini's account of his origins Arghun's father is portrayed as a commander of a thousand rather than as an impoverished Oirat tribesman forced into selling his son.

It is clear that Arghun Aqa held his faithful servant in high esteem. In Feb- ruary 1256 on the plains of Shafurqan near Balkh on his way again to Qaraqorum he appointed his own son Kiray Malik, the amir Ahmad Bitikchi, and the young

26. Eljigitei had been dispatched by Guyuk to subdue the west. See Jackson, Disso- lution, 200, 215.

27. Juvaini/Boyle 512.

28. Cited in Allsen, Mongol Imperialism, 107. Yuan Shih, the official history of the Yuan dynasty, was compiled in 1369 on the orders of newly founded Ming dynasty. See Allsen, 11-12.

29. Juvaini/Boyle, 9- 1i. 30. Ibid., 152. 3 1. James J. Reid, "The Je'un-i Qurban Oirat Clan in the Fourteenth Century,"

Journal of Asian History (1984): 191.



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Juvaini, still only thirty, to serve Hulegu32 and to administer Irq, Mazandaran and Khurasan. Juvaini's father Baha' al-Din had already served the amir and in 1246 had acted on his behalf. Juvaini must then have felt that any criticism of his master would surely also reflect on himself and his family. Yet Juvaini was not, it can be argued, uncritical of Arghun Aqa. But Where he assigns blame or offers criticism he is circumspect, though sometimes sarcastic.

The amir himself, however, was ready to admit his own short-comings ancl the chaotic state of the lands under his control when he appeared at Mongke Qa'an's election in 1251 and it was probably his honesty and sincerity as well as the implied censure of the lieutenants of the previous regime which found favor with the new qa'an:

The Amir Arghun Aqa made an oral report on the chaotic condition of finances and the deficit in tax-payment occasioned by the constant succession of unlawful assignments and a stream of harsh elchis and tax- gatherers ; and acknowledged and admitted the shortcomings arising from the disordered state of affairs, which in turn was produced by the conditions of the time. Since his admission of negligence in the administration of affairs and his excuses therefore were reinforced with plain and evident proofs, the World-Emperor expressed his approval, being not unmindful of the services the Amir Arghun had rendered in the past.33

As a result of a written report on the economic state of the lands and administration under Arghun Aqa's control which concluded "that the various levies and miscellaneous exactments from the people were [too] numerous,"34 it was decided at the quriltai of 1252 that the system of taxation employed by Mahmud Yalavach in Transoxiana by which a graduated levy was imposed on the basis of wealth, should be applied in the west as well. The so-called qobchu-35 deter- mined a person's annual contribution according to his wealth and ability to pay and stipulated that during the same year that this qobchur was assessed no other levies or demands could be made on the person. Mongke Qa'an ordered that a wealthy man should be liable to a payment of ten dinars and that others should be graded according to their wealth down to a poor man who would be expected to contribute one dinar. The monies collected from this levy would be expected to cover the costs of the yam (the postal relay system), ambassadors, paiza-hold- ers, and tax assessors. "Beyond this the people were not to be interfered with and nothing was to be taken from them by unlawful requisitions, nor were bribes to be taken."36 Mongke Qa'an issued far-reaching yasas aimed at curbing the widespread abuses of the yam system, exempting clerics and scholars from taxes,

32. Rashid al-Din, 980; Juvaini/lBoyle 522, 614-5.


34. Ibid., 517.

35. See David Morgan, "Kubdiir", Encyclopedia of Islam 5, 299-300 and Ann Lambton, Continuity and Change in Medieval Persia (London: I. B. Tauris, 1988), 199-202.

36. Juvaini/lBoyle, 517.



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outlawing bribes, and tightening central control over the bureaucracy."7 He abol- ished the inheritance tax of which Chingiz Khan had so disapproved, and which the Mongols perceived as inauspicious. Apparently, Juvaini did too for his relish is obvious as he recounts his own part as governor in "(sweeping) away that system [in Baghdad]."38

To serve under Arghun Aqa, Mongke Qa'an appointed amirs representing each of his brothers, local maliks, and other notables each to administer the various regions of Arghun Aqa's western domains. The idea was that Arghun Aqa should represent the Chingizids rather than solely the qa'an and that his administration should be collegiate in nature, a feature borne out in Rashid al-Din's Shu'ab-i panjgianah which lists Arghun Aqa as answerable to both Mongke Qa'an and his brother Hulegu.39 Arghun Aqa's diwan was staffed by native officials, especially at lower levels, because of their specialist knowledge of local conditions. Many of them were of course Muslims. Most notable were the Juvainis, both father and son. The Khwarazmian Fakr al-Din Bihishti, a long- serving chief scribe, remained chief secretary (ulugh bitikchi), a position which was inherited by his son Husam al-Din who was literate in Uighur. Batu had an official to oversee his interests, the bitikchi, Najm al-Din, as did Sorqaghtani,4 the royal mother, represented by Siraj al-Din, and the qa'an himself who retained two close associates, Turumtai and Naimadai, at the Khurasani diwan. In addition to these officials, centrally appointed functionaries such as Amir Bulghai, later to be installed as one of the "Pillars of the State," were assigned to audit all the records of the regional administration.41 When an actual census was undertaken the makeup of the staff was equally diverse. In the census taken in the Caucasus in 1254, Kirakos claims that not only was Arghun Aqa there to represent Mongke, but the Jochids' representative, Najm al-Din cAli of Jilabad,42 was present, later to be joined by T'ora-agha, both officials were accompanied by "many others under their sway."43 In addition, Muslim Iranian scribes," there to collect the personal details to be "inscribed on books,"45 were numerous and

37. Ibid., 598-602; Rashid al-Din, 842-4; J. A. Boyle, trans., The Successors of Genghis Khan (New York & London, 1971), 218-20.

38. Juvaini/Boyle, 34; See also Vladimir Minorsky, "Nasir al-Din Tusi on Finance" in idem, Iranica: Twenty Articles (Tehran: University of Tehran, 1964), 72-3, where Chingiz Khan's dislike for certain kinds of taxes is cited. (The text of Tusi's treatise was published by M. Radawi, ed., Majmiucah-yi rasiVil-i Khwaijah Nasfr al-Dtn Tuisi [Tehran: University of Tehran], 1957).

39. Cited in Allsen, 104, n. 91. 40. Juvaini/Boyle, 108, n. 31. 41. Ibid., 515-16, 605. 42. Ibid., 514, 521. 43. Kirakos, Kirakos Ganjakets'i's History of Armenia, trans. Robert Bedrosian

(New York, 1986) (henceforth Kirakos), 299. 44. See Sayfi, 175. 45. Grigor of Akanc, History of the Nations of Archers, trans. Robert P. Blake and

Richard N. Frye (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954) (henceforth Grigor), 325.



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"furthermore the princes, lords of the districts, became their co-workers in harassing and demanding taxes for their own profit."'

Elsewhere, other appointees along with representatives of the "Blood," that is agents from the houses of the royal princes, assisted by their staffs of Turks, Mongols, Iranians, and Caucasians were enumerating the rest of Arghun Aqa's territory section by section. Thomas Allsen has pointed out that this apparently bloated, probably inefficient and potentially adversarial, administrative system which encouraged rivalry, intrigue, and disputes over areas of jurisdiction, was quite likely deliberately implemented. Such a system in fact allowed the central authority a greater degree of overall control of operations, in that the duplication of responsibilities and the multiple chains of command discouraged circumven- tion of the qa'an's commands. This consequently increased the number of discrete avenues for news and reports to reach the central Mongol court.47

It was from the data painstakingly collected over two years48 that registers (qanun) were drawn up and the various taxes estimated and assessed. Each province would retain these registers recording details of land ownership, boundaries, and value of real property in the district. The cadastre was designed to reflect local conditions and according to Nasir al-Din Tusi, in his treatise on the finances of the new state, composed on Hulegu's orders, "these taxes (mil) are considered (as destined) for the welfare of the kingdom (jihat-i masalih-i padshahr."49

Such was the ideal toward which some were working but the reality of the administrative practices under the amir's directives developed along different lines. As Arghun Aqa's train made its way across Khurasan after having departed the quriltai, the Amir extolled the virtues of the new decrees and explained to his new appointees and revenue officials the need for implementing Mongke Qa'an's new yasais. At the same time he received written pledges from these administrators binding them to decrees recently issued in the capital. "Whoever acted con- trary thereto and committed an act of oppression against the people would thereby incriminate himself and lay himself open to punishment."50

He himself may not have been so constrained, however. Juvaini records that after Arghun Aqa had consulted with various concemed officials a fixed rather than variable amount of tax was agreed upon, "70 ruknr dinars per ten persons to be paid annually"5' which would appear to be in contradiction to the qa'an's edicts. Whether this is what Juvaini was referring to when he later states that Arghun Aqa dealt with matters "in accordance with Mongke Qa'an's edict and his own improvisation"52 is not clear but the consequences of these "improvisations" is made obvious some time later when Arghun Aqa was forced to review

46. Kirakos, 299.

47. Allsen, Mongol Imperialism, 112-3.

48. For an explanation of the apparent discrepancies in dating the censuses between the various sources see Allsen, 132-3.

49. Minorsky, "Nasir al-Din Tusi on Finance" 70, 77-8.

50. Juvaini/Boyle, 519. 51. Ibid.

52. Ibid., 521.



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these initial financial dictates. It is also no doubt these "improvisations" which caused the Armenian and Georgian chroniclers so much anguish.

Censuses, cadastral surveys and taxes

In addition to the survey of the civilian population mentioned above, Rashid al- Din claims that Arghun Aqa was entrusted with the task of carrying out a census of the army, though he does not elaborate what exactly this entailed. Allsen opines that this check on the military "refers to some kind of muster to deter- mine if units on active duty were at their authorised strengths, that is, to see if military households were providing the recruits demanded of them.""3

The efficiency and scale of Arghun Aqa's census caused much early resentment, in particular in the Caucasus. "They have established a census after their accustomed fashion and classified everyone into tens, hundreds, and thousands."54 It was hardly surprising that many attempted to evade the count since once on the books the individual became liable for taxes and for military duties and for other obligations. Penalties for evasion were, according to the Nation of Arch- ers, cruelly harsh. Though his stories are often highly exaggerated, even fanci- ful,55 and often unsubstantiated by other sources, the monk Grigor gives an explicit account of the hardships endured by his community when Arghun Aqa's regime was first instituted:

From this time on [from Arghun Aqa's appointment] they were wont to tax according to the number of heads of the people, as many as were inscribed on the books, but still more they plundered the country of the east. In one small village they counted from thirty to fifty men all from fifteen to sixty years of age. They took sixty aspers from each person who was counted. When they captured one who had fled or hid, they cruelly tied his hands to his feet behind and beat him with green rods until his body was all cut and caked with blood. Then they pitilessly let loose their ferocious dogs, which they had trained to eat human flesh, and they let them devour the miserable and impoverished Christians.56

That the initially imposed system would have been both crude and open to widespread abuse, as well as being mercilessly effected, can hardly be deemed surprising given that no structured administration was in place at the time. Fur- ther, the fact that Arghun Aqa later saw fit to reform and improve his tax-gather- ing operations strongly suggests that he recognised the need for change after having witnessed the shortcomings and failings of his initial system.

53. Allsen, Mongol Imperialism, 123. 54. Juvaini/Boyle, 33-4. 55. Grigor, 75.

56. Ibid, 57.



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Taxes and coinage

After the strategically important battle of Kose Dagh in eastern Anatolia in 1243, the nature of the Tatar presence in the west change radically. Georgian copper coins minted at Dmanisi, a trading centre 100 kilometers southwest of Tulips, appeared at this time under Arghun Aqa's authority. The obverse had the hijra date and the inscription in Persian and Arabic, "the city of Dmanisi, may God make it prosperous" while the reverse had the Persian inscription, "the servant of the Lord of the World" along with the Georgian date and the new King David's royal monogram. However, the main coinage in use between 1244 and 1248 was the "silver horseman" type with a single denomination and a weight of two-thirds of a mithqal.S7 Details of the earlier equally resented tax system imposed by the incoming Mongols in the early 1240s-for which Arghun Aqa must also hold at least some responsibility despite the pleadings of his some- time apologist, Juvaini-have been recorded in the Caucasian chronicles. It is noteworthy that after the secure establishment of the ll-Khanate their tone changes, often dramatically. Kirakos typifies earlier Mongol administrative-fiscal practices and Armenian attitudes when he describes the battle for some eastern Armenian fortresses:

The army of foreigners battled with the fortresses. Those inside them unwillingly provided the Mongols with horses, livestock, and whatever else they demanded. The Mongols placed taxes over them and left them in their name.... From outside the enemy shouted "Why do you want to die? Come out to us, we shall give you overseers and leave you in your places." They repeated this a second and third time, with pledges.58

Once pacified, the towns and villages were generally left alone with overseers to ensure that a tribute was paid. But with the accession of Guyuk Khan in 1246 much more severe taxes were imposed. Soldiers under Mongol command as well as the local inhabitants became liable for tax assessment. Levies of between 1/30th and 1/10th ad valorem on any vaguely taxable item, in addition to a hefty 60-silver-dram poll-tax were payable. It was Arghun Aqa who was identi- fied along with Buqa59 as being the chief tax collectors:

As soon as Khan Guyuk took control of the great kingdom of the Tatar army in their own land, he forthwith sent out tax collectors to his troops in various lands and regions which they had subdued, to take 1/10th of all the property of the troops as well as taxes from the districts and kingdoms conquered by them: from the Iranians, Tajiks, Turks, Armenians, Georgians, Aghbanians, and from all peoples under

57. Judith Kolbas, Mongol Money: The role of Tabriz from Chingiz Khan to Uljaytu (PhD diss., New York University, 1992), 194-95.

58. Kirakos, 205. 59. According to Juvaini, Buqa was appointed basq&q along with Juvaini's father

as sdhib-diwan by Arghun Aqa over the lands of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Rum etc. Juvaini/Boyle, 508, Qazvini, ii, 245.



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them. The chiefs of the tax collectors were severe and rapacious men. One was named Arghun and was leader of all the rest, while the other [chief] was Bugha who was yet more wicked than that [other] Bugha . . . [Their targets included the Mongol nobility in the region] . . . no one dared say anything to [the tax collector], for he had assembled brigands from among the Persians and Tajiks who mercilessly performed deeds of cruelty and were especially inimical toward the Christians.!0

These two Mongol tax collectors even "inspired" poets and the words of one thirteenth century Armenian poet, V. Frik, have survived the centuries. In his poem "On Arghun and Bugha" Frik describes the aftertaste of the Tatar visita- tions:

There is no longer spring nor river unfilled by our tears. No longer mountain nor field untrampled by the Tatars. We barely breathe but within us our senses and feelings are dead.6'

So harsh was this tax regime that it triggered an abortive revolt by some of the Caucasian nobility and landowners in 1248/9. Kirakos blames the ill-con- ceived revolt on the arrogance of the Georgians, who he claims were also adding to the misery of the poor with their own excesses:

While the land was recovering a little from the raids and plundering stirred up by the earth-consuming fire [i.e. the Tatars] . . . The [Geor- gian] princes deprived and robbed the poor, and from this extortion they bought expensive clothing and they dressed, ate, drank, and boasted greatly as is the arrogant custom of the Georgians. God made them fall from their lofty elevation and recognise the measure of their weakness, those who were not taught by their past. Satan aroused them, Satan in whom they had placed their hopes. . . . And while they were drinking wine, their spirits rose and an immature man among them said, "Hav- ing such a multitude of troops, why do we serve [the Mongols]? Come, let us fall upon them suddenly, destroy and exterminate them, and we shall have our lands.62

Like the other Armenian and Georgian chroniclers, Kirakos is a very parti- san observer63 and this must always be borne in mind when evaluating his mate-

60. Kirakos, 260-1. 61. V. Frik, V, Collection of Verses, (Yerevan, 1937), 165, cited in A.G.

Gaistyan, "The Conquest of Armenia by the Mongol Armies," The Armenian Review, 23/4 (1975): 108; cf. Srbouhi Hairapetian, A History of Armenian Literature (New York: Caravan Books, 1995) 373-383.

62. Kirakos, 267. 63. See the Syrian historian and cleric Bar Hebraeus, The Chronography of Greg-

ory AbuI'l-Faraj, ed. and trans., E.A.W. Budge (London, 1932); also George Lane, "An account of Bar Hebraeus Abu al-Faraj and his relations with the Mongols of Persia," Hugoye: Jounal of Syriac Studies, 2/2 available on the World Wide Web at .



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rial. According to Kirakos, the prince, Amir-Spasalari Awag Mkhargrdzeli,4 dissuaded his own nobles from participating in the rebellion and informed a senior Mongol commander, Chaghatai Noyan, head of the entire army and a frend of Awag65 about it, thus ensuring that the massacre that followed did not include those faithful taxpayers whom Awag represented. "We have no order from the Khan to kill those who are obedient to us, stand in service to us, and pay taxes to the Khan."' The bloody reprisals of the doomed revolt are attested to in both Vardan's and Grigor's accounts:

This same woe67 was repeated in 698 [1249]. For Bac'u and the other nobles suspected the rebellious arrogance of the king and princes of Georgia. Subduing King Dawit and the other magnates, they imprisoned them and sentenced them to death. But by supernal providence they delivered them from death. However, they slaughtered a countless number, took captive villages and estates, and maltreated women in Arme- nia, and even more so in Georgia.68

Grigor's account is more detailed but it is likely that he used Kirakos himself as a source. However, he does not refer to Awag by name but rather makes mention of "a certain one of those present [at the drunken feast where rebellion was jestfully mentioned], like the traitor Judas, [who] went and informed the Tatars."69 Grigor cites the reason for the idle talk and "vain and boastful words" as being resentment at the Tatars' habit at that time of "exacting from them [gold cloth, falcons, well-bred dogs and horses] in such wise, over and above the mal (land tax), t'ayar (levy for soldiers on frontier service), and xalan (corvee)."70

Though Arghun Aqa would have been aware of the state of affairs at this time and his name was known and associated with the military government by the subject people, he was not directly responsible for any of these activities and much of his time was taken up with court intrigues and travelling back and forth to Qaraqorum. Juvaini's overly rosy picture of Arghun Aqa's earlier arrival in Tabriz before the Georgian revolt and his efforts to restrain and put to right the activities of the Mongol generals and amirs in Azerbaijan is not supported by the

64. See Allen, History of the Georgian People (London, 1932), 104, 115. Awag was of the family of Sargis Mkhargrdzeli, an aznauri (honoured and decorated merce- nary) of Kurdish origin, who was raised by the Georgian King Giorgi. The three princes of this house had been the first to make accommodation with the Mongols to safeguard their vast landholdings which stretched from Ani to Somkheti. The family of Mkhargrdzelis were Armenian by religion; Allen, History, 115.

65. Kirakos, 268.

66. Ibid.

67. The same destruction as had occurred in 1243.

68. The Historical Compilation of Vardan Arewelc'i, (henceforth Vardan) trans. Robert Thomson, (Washington, D.C., 1989), Dumbarton Oaks Papers no. 43.

69. Grigor, 321. 70. Ibid.



Arghun Aqa 471

Armenian sources, though that fact does not invalidate Juvaini's view of those events:

Upon arriving in Tabriz [c. 12441 he restored to order the affairs of that region which had been disturbed by the proximity of the great amirs such as Chormaghun, Baichu and others, who regarded that territory as their own property. He protected the revenue and caused these people to withdraw their hands therefrom: he recovered from the grasp of their control all the inhabitants, noble and base, both such as had resorted to the protection of these men and such as had fled from their tyranny and oppression.7'

Policies on Mongol settlement

The principal encampment area at this time prior to Hulegu's arrival in the region was the area southeast of the inaccessible and rugged Caucasian heights, in the plain of Mughan on the southern side of the Araxes River. The experiences of Mongol occupation of the peoples of the lower plains of Azerbaijan, Khurasan, Transoxiana, and even of the strategically more important Kurdish highland areas, would have been quite different from that experienced by the lords of Arrmenia and Georgia and their hard-pressed peasants. In these lands the Mongols had established concrete evidence of their intention to stay and settle and had established a closer working relationship with the region's population. Juvaini cites one example of Arghun Aqa's restorative work which he undertook in the environs of Merv around 1247:72

For several days they feasted in the royal palace, and he caused the palace to be rebuilt and the park restored, and each of the ministers at his instructions began to lay out a park and erect a mansion in Arzanqa- bad. From thence he set out for Tus, where he gave orders for the rebuilding of the Mansuriya and the palaces, which had fallen into such complete ruin that all trace of any building had long since disappeared from the site.73

Shortly after this, Arghun Aqa is recorded as having graciously entertained Shams al-Din on his official appointment as malik of Herat and its environs, and to have awarded him at least fifty thousand dinars in addition to the grant of sixty thousand that Shams al-Din had already received from Mongke Qa'an.74 Arghun Aqa expressed his goodwill with the prompt payment of another75 50,000 dinars cash to one of Shams al-Din's lieutenants when the malik's party halted briefly in Tus after the Qa'an's investiture. Sayfi claims that Arghun Aqa entertained his

71. Juvaini/Boyle, 507-8. 72. See Boyle's note concerning this date, ibid., 510, n. 10. 73. Ibid., 510. 74. Sayfi, 172 75. Ibid., 170. It is not clear if this first 50,000 dinars is the same gift as the one

given during the visit to Tus or another.



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guest for seven days and it was on the eighth day that he made the donation and dressed Shams al-Din in a robe of honour.76 In Allsen's assessment of this unusually generous treatment, it was a case of the Mongols planting "seed money" in order to assist their own creation, the Kart dynasty, in establishing firm roots.77

The qobchur tax and the census of 1254

Arghun Aqa's name is most closely associated with the census of 1254 and the subsequent imposition of the qobchur, originally a pasture tax levied on nomads but later to become an all-purpose poll tax, which so upset the monk Grigor, as cited above. Kirakos also complained bitterly against the new tax and made a harsh personal attack on Arghun Aqa, accusing him of blatant profiteering. Arghun Aqa, like the census-takers with their Muslim Persian attendants, "'profited greatly from the merchants and heaped up vast quantities of gold, silver, and precious stones."78 Kirakos' account of the new regime was particularly harsh and he did not fail to implicate his neighbours, the Muslims, for the suf- ferings of the Armenians:

[Census-takers] also reached the lands of Armenia, Georgia, Albania, and the districts around them, and began recording all those from 11 years and up, excepting the women. And they demanded the most severe taxes, more than a man could bear. And people became impoverished. They harassed the people with unbelievable beatings, torments, and tor- tures. Those who hid were seized and killed. Those who were unable to pay the rate had their children taken to pay their debt, for [the census- takers] circulated around with Iranian Muslim attendants ... all the artisans, whether in the cities or in the villages were taxed. Furthermore, fishermen of the seas and lakes, miners and blacksmiths and paint- ers/plasterers [were taxed] ... Thus everything became expensive and the lands became filled with lamentation and complaints.79

Not all the Caucasian sources were equally condemnatory. The Georgian History of Kart'li contains a strangely sympathetic picture of the amir's tax assessment of the Caucasian people. Arghun Aqa is portrayed as a just and hon- est tax adviser "a friend of impartiality, very truthful in his words, a profound thinker and clever advisor."80 Before coming to the Caucasus Arghun Aqa had

76. Ibid., 172; Mu'in al-Din Muhammad Zamchi Isfazari, Rawzat aljanndt ft awsaf madrnat-i Haruzt (Tehran, 1338/1959), vol. 1, 411; Shihab al-Din CAbd Allah Sharaf Shirazi "Wassaf," Tajziyat al-amsar wa tazjiyat al-acsiar (Thrikh-i Wassaf), ed. M.M. Isfahani (henceforth Wassaf) (Tehran, 1338/1959), 81; for an abridged version see CA. M. Ayati, ed., Tahrfr-i tirrkh-i Wassaf (Tehran, 1346/1967) (henceforth Ayati), 48.

77. Allsen, 71.

78. Kirakos, 300.

79. Ibid, 299-300, g 362-3

80. Histoire de la Georgie, 550.



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traveled to Batu's domains, "to survey and record those soldiers and warriors who had gone with the senior and junior noyans campaigning, and to stipulate according to their worth the ulaf, which is a gift for those who have taken to the road and a recompense for horse and saddle."'81

Arghun Aqa's main purpose in traveling north to Batu's ordu was in fact to continue to integrate the Jochid lands with the rest of the empire through ration- alizing their tax systems. One coinage was in operation north and south of the Caucasus and between one-fifth to one-third of tax revenue was payable to Batu.82

Later however, when Arghun Aqa descends on Georgia, his new assessments could not be evaded:

When Arghun Aqa reached Georgia, all the inhabitants of David's kingdom were greatly menaced. They started surveying people and beasts, fields and plants, vineyards and vegetable gardens. From [each] nine land-owning peasants it was ordered that one soldier should be provided. Thus David's kingdom provided by census to the Tatars nine dumans, which is 9 x 10,000. [From each] village they stipulated gifts: to the Thousander one lamb and one drahkan [gold coin] (?); to the Ten Thousander, one sheep and two drahkan; for the horseman three tetris [silver coins] daily. He so stipulated and then went to Rum, Baghdad, and everywhere.83

Kirakos adds that after Arghun Aqa had himself gone he left in his stead "a wicked governor (ostikan) who demanded the same amount every year by list, and in writing."84 Such attention to detail was a clear indication of the long-term policies of Mongke Qa'an for these western provinces. His tax-collectors and administrators were there to stay.

One reason for the acrimony that the clerics of the Caucasus so readily express towards the Mongol tax gatherers and the amir Arghun is that the churches, clerics, and religious establishments themselves were being heavily taxed, unlike other religious institutions in other parts of the Empire. Smbat Orbelean, a noble of a great and influential Armenian land-owning family, complained bitterly on his visit to Mongke Qa'an in 1252-3 about the taxing and harassment of his church and as a result he received a "decree freeing all the churches of Armenia and the priests,"85 an edict which was repeated twice. After

81. Ibid; see also Robert Bedrosian, trans., The Turco-Mongol Invasion and the Lords of Armenia in the 13th-14th Centuries (New York, 1985), 123.

82. See Judith Kolbas, Mongol Money, 266; Jackson, "Dissolution", 212, 220; Minhaj al-Din Juzjani, Tabaqit-i Naisirt, ed. CAbd al-Hayy Habibi (Tehran, 1363/1984), 176; Tabaqdt-i Ndsiri, ed. and trans., H.G. Raverty (London, 1881), 1172.

83. Histoire de la Georgie, 551-2 (Bedrosian trans., 124, n. 196). 84. Kirakos, 300.

85. Bedrosian, The Turco-Mongol Invasion, 285-6, citing Step'annos Orbelean,; Step'annos Orbelean, Histoire de la Siounie, trans. M. Brosset (St. Petersbourg, 1864), 230-31.



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this and similar reforms initiated by Arghun Aqa following another census in 1255 the attacks on the amir suddenly cease and again the anonymous section of the History of Kart'li finds it possible to describe the Mongol tax collector in gentler terms:

This [amir] Arghun designated what was proper [for tax collection] in all four khanates, for he was a just man. But as for monks, friars, and Church foundations, he did not place them under taxation, nor the qalan either. The same went for sheikhs and dervishes. He fired [from taxation] all those Believers called the Servants of God.86

The Huleguid era

With the arrival of Hulegu, the confirmation of Arghun Aqa's sole responsibility for cadastre and census-taking, and the imposition of a taxation system, many of the abuses of the system, an inevitable product of the lack of centralised power and the anarchy existing during most of the pre-Huleguid period, appeared to have eased. The Armenian sources cease to concentrate so much on the negative aspects of Mongol rule. But abuses still continued; Kirakos reports the case of the highly regarded cleric, Nerses, whose discomfort was such that the prince, Hasan Jalal, in 1257 took his complaint to Batu Khan's ordu. The Arnenian prince "received a document guaranteeing freedom for Lord Nerses, kat'oghikos of the Aghbanians, for all his properties and goods, that he be free and untaxed and allowed to travel freely everywhere in the dioceses under his authority, and that no one disobey what he said."87 However, Kirakos later adds that not only was Nerses further harassed but Hasan Jalal himself had to travel to Qaraqorum in order to put a stop to "being harassed by tax-collectors and by [Amir] Arghun."88

Meanwhile the intrigues against the amir continued. He was again forced to leave the lands that had been committed to his authority and to travel back to Qaraqorum to clear his name once more. It would be September 1258 before he was able to return to the west, his name cleared, after having undergone intense interrogation. The Armenian historian, Step'annos Orbelean, whose family served Hulegu Khan, claimed that Arghun Aqa had been kept in chains while in Qaraqorum and it was only the intercession of Smpad Orbelean that secured his release, a story not corroborated elsewhere.89 Smpad Orbelean was highly regarded in Qaraqorum and by the 1l-Khans. He was given inju (land granted as appanages to relatives of the Great Khan) by Mongke Qa'an in 1252,9? and later appointed as Hulegu's overseer of construction for the new Il-Khanid summer residence in Ala-Tagh. He was reputedly held in great affection and esteem by Hulegu.91 The Orbelean historian further claims that such was his relative's

86. Bedrosian, The Turco-Mongol Invasion, 286; Histoire de la Georgie, 552.

87. Kirakos, 296.

88. Ibid.

89. Step'annos Orbelean, Histoire de la Sioune, 232.

90. Ibid., 230.

91. Ibid., 233.



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status that "Hulegu so heeded his words that [Smpadl could have killed whomever he chose, or granted life to whomever he wanted. Consequently, everyone quaked with fear because of him, and everyone's eyes were upon him."92

Once back in the lands under his administrative purview, though now under the overall jurisdiction of Hulegu Khan, Arghun Aqa was confronted with the detrimental effects of his earlier tax policies. Juvaini seems to suggest that Arghun Aqa had learned something in Qaraqorum and this led him to conduct a full audit of the tax accounts:

Having been witness of important affairs of Court, and experienced the subtlety thereof, and learnt the method of inquiry and investigation there practised, he carried out a minute examination of the accounts.93

He soon came to realise that the fixed qobehur of 70 dinar per ten men that he had previously imposed was quite inadequate for supplying the needs of the post (yam), the ulagh (relay horses), and the levies of men, let alone the costs of supplying the army. Moreover, the fixed qobchur rate often proved an insup- portable financial burden to much of the peasantry and a drain on Church funds, whereas to many rich landholders the tax was a trifling sum. The new qobchur which Arghun Aqa introduced was designed to address this imbalance and also to increase the government's revenue:

The order was given (by Hulegu) for the re-assessment of the qobchur at 500 dinars for the wealthy descending proportionately to one dinar for the poor, in order that expenses might be met.94

If these new measures eased the heavy financial burden on the peasants and freed the churches from taxation, and the presence of Arghun Aqa halted some of the more excessive abuses, not all were happy in the states of Armenia and Georgia. These new taxes began to impact heavily on the aristocracy, and pre- sumably the aristocracy would soon enough begin to pass the burden on to their peasantry.

In the Caucasus the Mongols had long been practising a policy of divide and rule while favoring "the maintenance of coherent authority."95 They had success- fully co-opted such great families as the Orbeleans and the Mkhargrdzeli. Kirakos mentions Awag, Shahnshah, son of Zak'are; Prince Vahram and his son, Albula; Sargis Jaqeli, the reputed saviour of Hulegu's life; and Hasan Jalal, among others, all making the pilgrimage to Qaraqorum to be confirmed in their positions. "[The Mongols] gave to each one control over his lands and, for the time being, a pardon."96 Honor, confirmation of their positions, protection and support, and a share in the booty were all offered as inducements to serve their new masters loyally. These not infrequent trips to the east and the extended sojourns

92 Ibid., 236.


94. Ibid., 524. 95. Allen, History of the Georgian People, 115. 96. Kirakos 225-6.



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they were expected to spend there were another ploy used by the Mongols to weaken any potentially threatening power bases in their conquered territory. Before settling a particular region the Mongols would always divide the area up between the various noyans, and henceforth those nobles within a particular area would become clients of their assigned general.

The Georgian Rebellion of 1256

Prior to 1256, the Caucasus had been divided into five vilayats. Typical was the viliiyat of Gurjistan (Georgia) which was subdivided into eight tumaIns each of which was liable for a levy of 10,000 men.97 The notables heading these tumians had direct access to the Great Khan at Qaraqorum. After the establishment of the Il-Khanate, they became answerable to Hulegu through Arghun Aqa.

The rebellion which occurred in Georgia between 1259 and 1261 was blamed on heavy taxation and the increasingly onerous burden of military service and it was Arghun Aqa, who according to Armenian sources, mercilessly and vindic- tively crushed it. The Georgians had greatly resented the number of men they had had to provide for the wars against the Isma'ilis:

The Georgians were menaced because [the Mongols] were fighting a protracted and uninterrupted war against the Assassins, while the Geor- gians were fighting along with them, divided into two sections. Each [Georgian] ruler was apportioned [to the service of] one noyen98

The honor they earned on the battlefield for their valor was poor compensa- tion for the fact that they had no choice but to show great courage in the face of death. Invariably assigned to the forward positions, their options were certain death in defeat or retreat, or alternatively honor and booty in victory. Caucasian troops were placed in the forward positions not because of their great daring and military skill but simply because they were expendable.

David Narin [the Clever], the younger of the two David cousins brought back from Qaraqorum to succeed Queen Rusudan who died about 1247, declared his independence from his Tatar overlords in the western province of Imereti, a thickly forested region. David Ulu [the Big] did not initially join this rebellion. Instead like the princes of the other great houses, the Mkhargrdzeli, the Orbe- leans, and the Bakurtzikheli, he continued to find accommodation with the Mon- gols. However by 1260 the demands on him for ever more troops for the nI- Khanid's Egyptian campaign finally drove the elder David to rise up. He had led his troops against Baghdad and in the disaster at cAyn Jalut. But it was a particularly avid Persian tax-farmer, Hajji Aziz, who was the last straw.9 Unfortunately the Caucasian nobility did not flock to David Ulu's banner and the Georgian king was forced to take refuge in the mountains of Samtzkhe (rising from the southeastern coast of the Black Sea behind the modern day port of Rize). There only Sargis Jaqeli with 8000 troops rallied to his support. Though the rebels

97. See Bedrosian, The Turco-Mongol Invasions, 197.

98. Ibid. 196; Histoire de la Georgie, 529-30.

99. Allen, 116-7. On Haji Aziz see Histoire de la Georgie, 561-65.



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achieved an initial victory over a Mongol advance guard, possibly led by Arghun, they were later routed by a Georgian contingent of the Mongol army. Arghun Aqa's part in this second rebellion by the lords of the Caucasus is recorded with bitterness by Kirakos:

Now the King of the Georgians, Dawit' son of Lasha, who was subject to the Tat'ars . .. had mortgaged cities and districts but was still unable to satiate the evil leech-like appetite [of the Mongols]. So fraught, Dawit' fled, but he was unable to take with him his wife Queen Gonc'a and his new-born son Demetre. He took only his first-born son Giorgi . . . [Arghun Aqa pursued him, but was unable to catch up. He destroyed and enslaved many Georgian districts, destroying the mausolea, until suddenly 400 Georgian cavalry appeared] and Arghun became frightened and dared not so brazenly enter and search places. He returned to Hulegu planning wickedness in his heart. He seized the queen Gonc'a, her daughter Xoshak, the great prince Shahnshah, Hasan Jalal the Lord of Xachen and many others because of debts and taxes [owed]. These people gave much treasure and barely saved their lives . . . Now it happened that Zak'are [Shahnshah's son] was with Arghun and his many troops in Georgia. And Zak'are went unbeknownst to Arghun and the other soldiers to see his wife who was with her father Sargis, prince of Uxteac, one of the rebels with the Georgian King Dawit. When Arghun learned about this, he notified Hulegu who himself ordered that Zak'are be taken shackled. He heaped other false accusations upon him, ordered him killed, dismembered, and thrown to the dogs.'??

Vardan mentions that Zak'are "was murdered at the court of the Il-Khan Hulawu [after] they falsely accused him of holding back the due tax,"'O' that his father died from grief, and that "the prince of princes, the noble ruler Jalal, with cruel torments shared in the death of Christ and his martyrs at the hands of the calumniating Tajiks, who falsely accused him and delivered him to Arghun."'02 But there is no mention of the rebellion by the Davids in Vardan's account and it is interesting to note that he deflects the blame for the executions from Arghun Aqa and the Mongols to the Persians. "[The Tajiks] took [Jalal] to Qazvin in Tajkastan, where one night they tore him limb from limb and killed him, having merely his Christianity as cause."'03 Hasan JaJal's cruel death was likewise blamed on the Muslims, but Kirakos also implicates Arghun Aqa, whose behav- iour is explained by his supposed conversion to Islam:

The pious and virtuous prince Jalal was molested by impossible tor- tures, as [Muslim tax enforcers] demanded more taxes from him than he could pay. They put wood on his neck and irons on his feet. They dealt with him in this manner because of his strong Christianity, for all the

100. Kirakos, 325-30. 101. Vardan, 218. 102. Ibid. 103. Ibid.



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Muslims were inimical to him and urged Arghun Aqa to kill him, say- ing: "He more [than others] is hostile to our religion and laws." For Arghun Aqa also was Muslim. . . . When the impious ostikan [the govemor, Arghun] learnt this [of attempts to contact Dokuz Khatun, favourite wife of Hulegu, for clemency], he immediately sent execu- tioners and had the blessed and just man killed during the night.'0"

The two Davids were eventually rehabilitated, their support needed now that tensions were rising with the northern Tatar neighbours; David Narin was recognised as sole king in Imereti and David Ulu received the territories east of the Likhi Mountains and the rest of Kart'li. The tax assessor Hajji Aziz whose harsh tax enforcement had been blamed for David Ulu's revolt, was decapitated to pla- cate the Georgian King's outraged dignity.'05

Arghun Aqa as yarghu amir and military commander.

Arghun Aqa was eventually confirmed in his office as tax-farmer general (muqaUtic-i mamalik), a position he held into Abaqa's reign.'" As governor of a very loosely defined Khurasan he was also responsible for hearing the disputes and receiving the petitions of the people of the extended province. Though his primary task as the one "who superintends the tribute"'07 was tax collection, as regional secretary he was also responsible for settling disputes between local officials and rulers and the convening of the yarghu tribunal.

An incident that took place about 1263 and is reported in the Thrikh-i Shiahr, illustrates the combination of caution and self-interest that govemed many of his actions. A petition presented to Arghun Aqa had been drawn up by some notables of Kirman and was full of their previously secret invective against Terkan Khatun. The governor concluded that the complaints were the work of envious and spiteful men whose lies could not be credited. He decided to refer the matter back to Terkan Khatun herself and enclosed the petition of complaint along with his own letter declaring that Terkan's deputies (na'ibs) and the basqiaqs (Mongol overseers) of the province should summon the accusers, and that those complainants should be interrogated before a yarghu (court of inquiry).'08 Even though Terkan favored mercy the petitioners were taken to an open space of sandy gravel where in accordance with Mongol custom they spent a few days bound and naked. During this time they were interrogated until they con- fessed and signed confessions. Some of Terkan's accusers were executed immedi-

104. Kirakos, 327.

105. Histoire de la Georgie, 563.

106. Rashid al-Din, 1061.

107. William of Rubruck's description of Arghun Aqa in idem, The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck,. eds., Peter Jackson and David Morgan (London, 1990), 263.

108. anon., Tarrkh-i Shahi-i Qari Khita't, ed. M. Ibrahim Bastani Parizi (Tehran, 2535/1976-77), 156.



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ately, while others were told that as a warning to the people they would be taken to the Il-Khan's ordu where the yasa would be carried out."

In his role as chief arbitrator of the yarghu courts Arghun Aqa was not afraid of passing down harsh judgements in compliance with Mongke's strictures even on other Mongols of high status. Rashid al-Din records the case of Hindu Jaq, a long serving Sonid Mongol who was accused of murdering an Iranian noble. He was found guilty and executed before the gates of Tus. Though his brother was appointed to replace him, Hindu Jaq's houses and property were con- fiscated and awarded to the "four great Princes of the Age.""0

Arghun Aqa also took part in major military campaigns, notably with Prince Abaqa in Khurasan, where the two lent their support to the Chaghatayid prince Algu (son of Baidar and Baraq's uncle) in his conflict with the Golden Horde."' After Abaqa's succession he also fought in a campaign to repel Baraq, the ruler of the Chagatai Khanate. The conflict arose when Baraq laid claim to Abaqa's territory with the tacit support of his eastern neighbor, Qaidu."2 Assert- ing that the territories of Badghis and south to the banks of the Indus belonged to his ulus, Baraq demanded the evacuation from all these lands of Abaqa's younger brother and commander of the armies of Khurasan and Mazanderan, Tubshin. '"3 Tubshin, who was deputised by Arghun Aqa, replied that these lands belonged to his agha, Abaqa Khan, who was the king of the lands of Iran and that Bara should look after his own lands. He immediately sent messengers to Abaqa to inform him of these developments. Both sides prepared for war, and by the time Baraq had sent his forces across the Oxus and on toward Maruchaq, Tubshin and Arghun Aqa were waiting for them. However, on the Chaghatais' approach the Khurasani forces decided to withdraw to Mazandaran to await Abaqa and the main army."4

Leaving Azerbaijan on 27 April 1270, Abaqa Khan's progress across Iran is painted in glowing terms with the new second Il-Khan of Persia "commanding from his perfect justice and the righteousness of the Yasa that no one should molest [even] an ear of corn.""5 Tubshin and Arghun Aqa met the king in Qumis and together they traveled on to the meadows of Radkan. 6

Through emissaries Abaqa made generous peace offerings to his foe but these were rejected by Baraq and so the Il-Khan's army continued on into

109. Ibid., 156. I 10. Rashid al-Din, 74. 111. Peter Jackson, "ArgOn Aqa," Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2, 402 citing Kirakos;

see also Rashid al-Din, 879-80, 881-885 on the relationship between Hulegu, Algu, and Ariq Boke.

112. For a new interpretation of the role of Qaidu see Michal Biran, Qaidu and the Rise of the Independent Mongol State (London: Curzon, 1997).

1 1 3. Rashid al-Din, 1071-72. 114. Sayfi, 310; Rashid al-Din, 1072; Ghiyas al-Din Khwandamir, Habib al-siyar

ft akhbar afrad al-bashar, ed. M. Dabir Siyaqi (Tehran, 1353/1974), vol. 3, 85; idem, Habibu's-Siyar trans., W. M. Thackston, Tome 3, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni- versity, 1994), 49; Wassaf, 71; Ayati, 41.

1 15. Rashid al-Din, 1078. 116. Ibid., 1079, 1101.



480 Lane

Badghis. The decisive battle was won after Abaqa first confused the enemy with disinformation and then lured it into battle with the classic Mongol feigned retreat."' When Barq rushed after Abaqa, whom he believed to have abandoned camp and headed west to defend Il-Khanid lands from an attack from the Golden Horde, and first spied the hastily deserted plain, he is reported to have declared, "Oh Great God, this which I see [before me], is it a dream or is it real ?I1 8 When Abaqa's ruse eventually became clear, it took the ll-Khanid force some time to actually win the day. The left wing of the 1l-Khanid army under Arghun Aqa, Shiktur Noyen, Yusef Atai and Abdullah Aqa was at first tumed back with heavy casualties. The remnants of this force were pursued to Pushang (Ghurian) within fourfarsang of Herat by General Jala'irtai."9 But the pursuers soon fell into disarray and salvation came for Arghun Aqa's routed soldiery when Abaqa's main forces struck giving the Il-Khanids the final victory.

Jala'irtai rallied the remains of the Chaghatai army and fled into the Amu desert. Baraq, whose own steed had been killed, traded some arrows for another horse from one of his servants and fled across the Oxus, "his eyes streaming tears, overwhelmed with grief."'20 Meanwhile Abaqa "galloped from left to right [of the field of battle] and killed everyone that he found."'2 The "Battle of Herat" was fought on 22 July 1270. The poet Kamal Fushanji recorded Baraq Khan's defeat in these words:

One without sword and one without shield, One without hat and one without belt, One without bridle and one without saddle. It was such as these that trailed from the army of Baraq.'22

Arghun Aqa, after the campaign was over, remained in Khurasan. Annenian sources, however, claim that his last official act was to conduct another census in Georgia in 1273 two years before his death in the pasture lands of Radkan.'23

Political Maneuverer

As wily a political operative as any seasoned Persian wazir, the amir Arghun Aqa managed to ride the great political upheavals of the Mongol courts and cen- ters of power which raged throughout his life and emerge comparatively unscathed. It is commonly agreed, indeed corroborated by the amir's own words

117. Ibid., 1083. Khwandamir, 3, 85-86.

I 18. Rashid al-Din, 1084.

119. Ibid., 1086-87; Wassaf, 74; Ayati, 42-43.

120. Wassaf, 75.

121. Rashid al-Din, 1088.

122. Cited in Sayfi, 330. Baraq is reported as having returned to Bukhara, where he converted to Islam and took the name Sultan Ghiyath al-Din before suffering a para- lysing stroke. In the Year of the Goat, 1270, he went to Qaidu Khan where he was given a poisoned drink that killed him. See Khwandamir, 3: 83, 87; Thackston trans- lation, 47, 49; Ayati, 44; Wassaf, 76.

123. Histoire de la Georgie, 591; Peter Jackson "Arghun Aqa" citing A.G. Galstyn.



Arghun Aqa 481

before Mongke Qa'an, that the various tax regimes implemented before the later 1 250s were a disaster and an oppressive burden on the people. Arghun Aqa must bear responsibility for this as well as for the corrupt officials who executed his policies in his absence. It could be claimed that the calamitous state of the I1- Khanate's finances at the time of Rashid al-Din's assumption of power was the result of policies and practices that evolved after the amir's death and that he cannot be held responsible for any deterioration in the imperial finances after 1275. The period between the close of the 1250s and the mid-70s, though short, does not seem to have been characterised by the abuses which certainly predated but also postdated it. If Arghun Aqa had been genuinely contrite when he testified before Mongke it might be assumed that he would have made an effort to put in place an effective, efficient, and "just" system of taxation which would bear comparison with that of the celebrated Minister, Yalavach Mahmud. Arghun Aqa's supporters might justly claim that the amir had presided over the affairs of state at a time when the prestige of the diwan of the Il-Khans was ascendant and when the "nation of archers" in Persia, i.e. the Mongols, was powerful and glo- rious, despite the troubles caused by the Mamluks in the west.

There is a voice other than Rashid al-Din's that was raised against Arghun Aqa's policies, however, and this was a poet's. Pur-i Baha of Jam was a contem- porary of Abaqa Khan. His chief patrons were the Sahib Khwajah Izz al-Din Tahir Faryumadi, appointed wazir of Khurasan by Abaqa, the two Juvaini brothers, Nasir al-Din Tusi, and various other high court officials. While Pur-i Baha is suitably respectful of his superiors in his writing, he is not afraid to indulge in a tirade against the tax policies of the time and to address his words to the highest officials. In an address to cAta Malik Juvaini, then governor of Baghdad, he makes a satirical attack on the excessive taxes paid to the Il-Khanate state.124 He complains that:

The census in thirty years was taken once, Now (the government) imposes qobchur twice at a time. "125 Such is the zeal of the tax collectors that A chick has not yet put its head out of the shell, When qobchur has been fixed both on the cock and the hen."'26 So great is the distress and lamentations of the victims of Arghun Aqa's tax regime that the qobchur itself feels the affliction of the people. Because of the buming prayer of the oppressed, Qobchur itself is raising its sighs and cries to the (throne) of the Almighty."'27

Arghun Aqa's Legacy.

Arghun Aqa left four sons of whom the most famous was Nawruz, the man who reportedly converted Ghazan to Islam,'28 and their prominence may account for

124. See Vladimir Minorsky, Iranica, Tehran, 1964, 299-305. 125. Ibid., 299, 303.

126. Ibid., 301, 304. 127. Ibid., 301, 305.



482 Lane

the reverence in which Arghun Aqa continued to be held. Recording the amir's death after the last prayers of the day on Sunday, 16 June 1275, Wassaf observed that Arghun Aqa was indeed a fortunate man, a man who had "snatched fortune's hat from the [very] head of Khusraw the Just."'29 Juvaini was the only historian of note who dwelt at any length on this persistent Mongol amir although he reserves his greatest accolades for Mahmud Yalavach.

The name of Arghun Aqa echoed in the pages of the histories of lands as dis- tant as China, Mamluk Egypt, and Europe, and today no modem analysis of the Mongol Empire is complete without mention of one of Mongol Iran's most widely known administrators. Whether from the venomous pen of an Arnenian cleric or from the fulsome words of a Persian eulogist the name of this man has been indelibly imprinted on history.

Arghun Aqa was not a notably able administrator. Indeed his policies often failed. Whatever the success or lack thereof of his policies, he nonetheless managed to survive in a notably dangerous job. His muted military career was simi- larly marked by lack of significant achievement if not by actual failure, though he was never brought to account for this. What Arghun Aqa did excel at was surviving. He would appear to have been a master at putting the right word in the right ear at the right time. He was able to present himself in a favorable light to a succession of ruthless and powerful rulers and to retain their approval. Per- haps the reason behind the longevity of his career was simply a thinning of the ranks of Mongol men of the pen with the passage of time.

128. See Jean Aubin, "Emirs, Mongol," 59.

129. Wassaf, 313; Ayati, 190.



Article Contentsp. [459]p. 460p. 461p. 462p. 463p. 464p. 465p. 466p. 467p. 468p. 469p. 470p. 471p. 472p. 473p. 474p. 475p. 476p. 477p. 478p. 479p. 480p. 481p. 482

Issue Table of ContentsIranian Studies, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Autumn, 1999), pp. 459-638Front MatterArghun Aqa: Mongol Bureaucrat [pp. 459-482]The Indian Merchant Diaspora in Early Modern Central Asia and Iran [pp. 483-512]The Man Who Would Not Be King: Abu'l-Fath Sultan Muhammad Mirza Safavi in India [pp. 513-535]Qizilbash Afterwards: The Afshars in Urmiya from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century [pp. 537-556]The Structure and Function of the Household of a Qajar Merchant [pp. 557-571]ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 573-575]Review: untitled [pp. 575-578]Review: untitled [pp. 578-579]Review: untitled [pp. 580-583]Review: untitled [pp. 583-585]Review: untitled [pp. 585-588]Review: untitled [pp. 588-590]Review: untitled [pp. 590-592]Review: untitled [pp. 592-593]Review: untitled [pp. 593-595]Review: untitled [pp. 595-600]Review: untitled [pp. 600-602]Review: untitled [pp. 602-606]Review: untitled [pp. 606-608]Review: untitled [pp. 609-610]Review: untitled [pp. 610-613]Review: untitled [pp. 613-614]Review: untitled [pp. 614-616]Review: untitled [pp. 617-620]Review: untitled [pp. 620-624]Review: untitled [pp. 624-625]Review: untitled [pp. 625-626]

ResourcesA Report on the Library of the Ministry of Culture, As-Sulaymaniyyah, Iraq [pp. 627-630]A Report on the National Archive of Afghanistan [pp. 631-632]

ObituariesI. M. Diakonoff (1915-1999) [p. 633]Ahmad Shamlu (1925-2000) [pp. 633-637]

Back Matter

arghun aqa: mongol bureaucrat

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