Chapter

Yasa AND Sharīʿa.

Islamic Attitudes towards
the Mongol Law in the Turco-­
Mongolian World (FROM THE GOLDEN
HORDE TO TIMUR’S TIME)

István Vásáry*

PRELUDE

A. ‘Within Muslim discourse, sharīʿa designates the rules and regulations gov-
erning the lives of Muslims, derived in principle from the Ḳurʾān and ḥadīth’
(N. Calder and M. B. Hooker, ‘Sharīʿa‘, in EI2).
B. ‘[T]he Yasa as a ­whole . . . ­was Mongol imperial law as formulated by
Chinggis-­Khan; the Mongols themselves considered it in this light. For them
it was the collected wisdom of the founder of their empire’ (G. Vernadsky,
The Mongols and Russia, p. 100).

SHARĪʿA

The above-­quoted commonplace wisdoms have dominated the scholarly field

for long, with the added wisdom that, from the 1300s onward, the majority
of the Tatar (Turco-­Mongol) population in the Golden Horde as well as in Īl-­
Khānid Iran embraced Islam, and subsequently lived under the obligations of
Islamic law, sharīʿa and Turco-­Mongolian imperial (and/or customary) law,
yasa / yasaq.1
Up to now, most pieces of research have been characterised by the antithesis

  * Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest.

  1. In what follows, as well as in the title of this chapter, I uniformly adopt the form yasa,
since this became firmly rooted in the European scholarship in the nineteenth to twentieth
centuries; this is despite the fact that the form yasaq is equally, if not in ­fact – ­as I will
demonstrate ­later – ­actually the more correct rendering.

58
­ Islamic Attitudes towards the Mongol Law59
or rather contrastive juxtaposition of these two notions, without giving any
specification of the common and converse traits in these two law codes. In this
chapter, I attempt to analyse how these two ideologies were able to co-­exist in
the Mongol states of the Golden Horde and Īl-­Khānid Iran, despite their occa-
sional antagonisms. In doing so, special emphasis will be laid on one aspect of
these systems: their attitude towards violence.
The encounter of two world views, religions and political ideologies is a
well-­known and common phenomenon in human history. Yet the encounter of
the rising Mongol world power with the Islamic world in the thirteenth and four-
teenth centuries provides a unique example, if for nothing else than the extension
and dimensions of the conflict. For the Islamic civilisation it was the first exis-
tential shock that changed its course for good: the Mongol period marks a real
watershed in Islamic history. In retrospect, we may rightly apply the modern,
Huntingtonian term ‘clash of civilisations’ to the events of thirteenth-­century
Eurasian history.
Let us recapitulate in brief what made this encounter unique for the Islamic
world. Prior to this point it had not been uncommon for societies of nomadic,
mainly Turkic, warriors to conquer sedentary, Islamic populations, but the
invaders usually came to adopt Islam and the dominant Islamic culture of the
conquered land, or otherwise were already Muslims at the moment of conquest,
so their acculturation proceeded smoothly. Suffice it to mention here the obvious
examples of the Karakhānids, the Saljūqs or the Turks of Khwārazm. Even the
eighty-­year rule of the Buddhist and shamanistic Qarakhitays of Mongol descent
(1141–1211) did not essentially change the life of Muslim Central Asia, given
the lack of any real imperial ideology of the Qarakhitays. So Islamic civilisation,
in spite of temporary nomadic incursions, had always preserved its dominance
and always gained the upper hand in the long run. The turning point was 1258,
the fall of Baghdad at the hands of the Mongols. After more than 500 years of
existence the Islamic Caliphate collapsed and was subjugated by a non-­Muslim
force. This was not just an eventual happening, say, a lost battle after which the
Islamic order could have been soon restored. Islam, as a victorious world view
pretentious to rule the whole world, was not prepared for such an experience.
The basic attitude, inherent in Islam from the moment of its inception in its
founder’s mind, was exclusivity and an aspiration to world rule: Islam is des-
tined to triumph in this world. Nothing was further from Islam than the Christian
concept of the spiritual Kingdom of Heaven. Islam was deemed to rule and be in
power, and had no explanation and consolation for a situation in which Muslims
were subjects and had to obey their infidel lords. The unexpectedly speedy
Mongol conquest baffled the Muslims and filled them with deep frustration.
How, they wondered, was it possible that Allāh should allow the disbelievers to
­60 Violence in Islamic Thought
triumph over Muslims when the Qurʾān says: wa-lan yajʿala Allāhu li l-kāfirīna
ʿalā al-muʾminīna sabīlan (‘and never will Allah give the disbelievers over the
believers a way [to overcome them]’) (Q 4: 141).2 According to the Qurʾān,
the only possible position of non-­Muslims in relation to Muslims can be sub-
jection: qātilū alladhīna lā yuʾminūna bil-lāhi wa-lā bil-yawmi l-ākhiri wa-lā
yuḥarrimūna mā ḥarrama ʾllāhu wa-rasūluhu wa lā yadīnūna dīna l-ḥaqqi min
alladhīna ūtū l-kitāba ḥattā yuʿṭū al-jizyata ʿan yadin wa-hum ṣāghirūna (‘Fight
those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider
unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not
adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture – [fight] until
they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled’) (Q 9: 29). Muslim disil-
lusionment was exacerbated by the fact that the new conquerors did not even
belong to the ‘People of the Book’ (ahl al-kitāb) but were pagan disbelievers
(kāfirs) of the worst sort.
At this juncture, before turning our attention to yasa/yasaq, the law code
of the conquering Mongols, we may review shortly the Islamic conception of
violence in the sharīʿa. First, we must emphasise that sharīʿa, as a concept of
Islamic law in the broadest sense, is not a formal, written law code or a precisely
formulated set of regulations as the term ‘law code’ would suggest.3 A whole
branch of learning, namely Islamic jurisprudence (fiqḥ), works on the interpre-
tation of the two unalterable, basic sources of Islamic law, the Qurʾān and the
Sunna. Although the latter two are unalterable and infallible, fiqḥ is regarded
as changing and fallible. This dialectic distinction of these terms enabled Islam
to preserve the semblance of an unalterable divine truth and, simultaneously,
to be very flexible and adaptable to everyday life. But the modern researcher
must always bear in mind that the unalterable divine revelation often makes
several interpretations possible (that is true, mutatis mutandis, of all holy texts
of religions), even if the interpreters tend to make us believe that theirs is the
only acceptable solution. Consequently, Islam, like all world religions, must
be viewed in the context of its diversity, and one must abstain from stereotypes
and haphazard conclusions. One such stereotype is the idea that Islam is an
inherently violent religion: an idea that is just as misleading as the tendency of
Islamic apologists to present it instead as a religion purely of peace and love.

  2. In this chapter, all translations from the Qurʾān are from The Qur’ān: With Sūrah
Introductions and Appendices: Saheeh International Translation. Available at Saheeh
International Translation English (accessed 31 December 2015).
  3. Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, Mohammedanism – An Historical Survey
(Oxford, 1970), p. 68; Ianin Hunt and Andre Kahlmeyer, Islamic Law: The Sharia from
Muhammad’s Time to the Present (Jefferson, NC and London, 2007), p. 3.
­ Islamic Attitudes towards the Mongol Law61
Hasty generalisations lead n­ owhere . . . ­A recent study expresses the best course
to follow if someone wants to avoid the pitfalls of radical and biased thinking in
either sides: ‘Although it would be a mistake to think that Islam is inherently a
violent religion, it would be equally inappropriate to fail to understand the condi-
tions under which believers might feel justified in acting violently against those
whom their tradition feels should be opposed.’4 In addition, one must stress that
the treatment and analysis of the ideas and principles of a religion must be kept
apart from that of its historical realisation throughout the centuries at different
times and places. A Muslim author is right in asserting that ‘the history of Islam
has certainly not been witness to any more violence than one finds in other civili-
zations, particularly that of the ­West . . . ­it is the Islamic religion in its principles
and ideals with which we are especially concerned and not particular events or
facts relating to the domain of historical contingency belonging to the unfolding
of Islam in the plane of human history.’5
If we look closer at the religious doctrines of the three great monotheistic
religions from this angle, the following general picture can be gained. As is
well known, the notion of legitimate violence was not alien to Judaism. In the
Old Testament, it served the survival of God’s chosen people, the Jews. Since
ancient Judaism was an ethnic religion without missionary activities, territorially
confined to the Middle East, its prescriptions were valid only for Jewry, and its
motifs and potentials were limited to fighting the outside world of the Gentiles.
Christianity, which grew out of Judaism, made some radical changes. Following
its founder’s clear instructions, the first Christians never wanted to occupy the
state and found an earthly kingdom instead of the Kingdom of Heaven. Of the
monotheistic religions, the principles of Christianity are the most peaceful; one
cannot put forward any statement of Christ in which he would encourage the use
of any sort of violence. The most ‘violent’ statement attributed to Christ is in
Matthew 10: 34–9:

34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace,
but a sword. 35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and
the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in
law. 36 And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. 37 He that loveth
father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or
daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And he that taketh not his cross,

  4. Ralph W. Hood, Peter C. Hill and Bernard Spilka, The Psychology of Religion: An
Empirical Approach (New York and London, 2009), p. 257.
  5. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, ‘Islam and the Question of Violence’. Available at: http://www.
al-­islam.org/al-­serat/islamandviolence.htm (accessed 30 December 2015).
­62 Violence in Islamic Thought
and ­followeth after me, is not worthy of me. 39 He that findeth his life shall lose
it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. 6

He is rather quoted as dissuading everyone from using even legitimate vio-

lence.7 Jesus was the first ‘secularist’ who secluded religion from state (one
thinks of his injunction to yield what is Caesar’s unto Caesar), and his teachings
cannot be blamed for historical Christianity’s departure so many times in history
from the pacifism of its founder. So, on the potential level, Christianity has been
less liable to justify any sort of violence. Finally, Muḥammad, the founder of
Islam, heavily drew on both Judaism and Christianity, but placed all those motifs
in a different setting without transplanting the original teachings and spirituality
of either Judaism or Christianity. The formal legal concept of Muslim jurispru-
dence owes much to the spirit of Judaism while the universal claim for Islam as a
world religion was taken over from Christianity. So the Muslim demand for uni-
versal acceptance coupled with its innate inclination for violence inherited from
Judaism, have made Islam a world religion that, not only in practice, like many
other religions and ideologies, but also on the theoretical level, was more liable
to violence than the others. This is a very important aspect that we must stress,
since this inclination towards violence derives from the holiest texts of Islam,
above all from the Qurʾān itself, which is the infallible and unchangeable basic
document of Islam. So any contemporary, albeit most sincere, Muslim attempt to
present Islam not as a bellicose but as a profoundly peaceful religion comes up
against the barriers of the Holy Scripture of Islam itself.
Before investigating the Islamic concept of violence let us elucidate exactly
what we mean by violence. According to the Oxford dictionary definition, vio-
lence is a ‘behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill
someone or something’.8 The word violence has a negative undertone in English
and in many other languages, so I think to speak of legitimate violence, as we
do, is a bit contradictio in adiecto, since a violent act, once used and practised
legally, say by state power, immediately loses its violent character since its main

  6. In this chapter, all biblical quotes are from the King James Bible. Available at: http://
www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/ (accessed 31 December 2015).
  7. Cf., for instance, Matthew 5: 39: ‘But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but who-
soever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.’; or (Matthew 26:
51–2) quoting Jesus’ words when he was betrayed by Judas: ‘And, behold, one of them
which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of
the high priest’s, and smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword
into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.’
  8. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/violence.
­ Islamic Attitudes towards the Mongol Law63
aim is coercion or punishment, and, consequently, it becomes force or strength
realised by means of violence. So, instead of ‘legitimate violence’, it would be
preferable to speak of ‘legitimate coercion or compulsion’. I do hope that no one
will deem the above argumentation a conspicuous sign of my scholastic pedantry
but will, rather, understand it as an introduction to the semantics of ẓulm, which
is the Arabic term for ‘violence’.
The term ẓulm (derivative of the verb ẓalama) denotes ‘violence, oppression,
tyranny, exploitation, cruelty, wrongdoing’ and hence ‘injustice, injury’ as well,
while ẓālim is a person who commits any kind of ẓulm, that is, a ‘wrong-­doer’.
To some extent it seems strange that both ẓulm and ẓālim are used in the text
of the Qurʾān nearly exclusively for the worst sort of wrong-­doing and wrong-­
doers, that is, for polytheism and polytheists. While the word ẓulm occurs twice
altogether in the Qurʾān, ẓālim (generally in the plural form as ẓālimūna) appears
122 times.

1. Alladhīna āmanū wa-lam yalbisū īmānahum bi-ẓulmin ūlāʾika la-humu

l-amnu wa-hum muhtadūna (‘They who believe and do not mix their belief
with injustice [specifically, the association of others in divinity with God] –
those will have security, and they are [rightly] guided’) (Q 6: 82).
2. Wa-idh qāla Luqmānu li-ibnihi wa-huwa yaʿiẓuhu yā bunayya lā tushrik
billāhi inna l-shirka la-ẓulmun ʿaẓīmun (‘And [mention, O Muhammad],
when Luqman said to his son while he was instructing him, “O my son, do
not associate [anything] with Allah. Indeed, association [with him] is great
injustice”’) (Q 31: 13).
3. The closing sentence of a verse speaking of the regulations of divorce
is: wa-man yataʿadda ḥudūda Allāhi fa-ūlāʾika humu al-ẓālimūna (‘And
whoever transgresses the limits of A ­ llah – ­it is those who are the wrongdo-
ers’) (Q 2: 229).
4. Yā ayyuhā alladhīna āmanū lā tattakhidhū al-yahūda wa-al-naṣārā awliyāʾa
baʿḍuhum awliyāʾu baʿḍin wa wa-man yatawallahum minkum fa-innahu
minhum inna Allāha lā yahdī al-qawma al-ẓālimūna (‘O you who have
believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact]
allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among y­ ou – ­then
indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people’)
(Q 5: 51).

After an overview of the 122 occurrences of the word ẓālim(ūna) in the

Qurʾān, one can summarise its usage as follows: (1) ẓālimūna are all the non-­
Muslim disbelievers (polytheists), Christians included (cf. Q 5: 51, above), and,
in this sense, it tends to be a synonym of kāfirūna; and (2) ẓālimūna are those
­64 Violence in Islamic Thought
who transgress the laws and prescriptions of Islam, faithful Muslims included.
Consequently, all non-­Muslims and the bad Muslims are ẓālimūna, that is,
wrong-­doers and Allāh’s enemies who will be subjected to punishment. Judging
by the frequency of the occurrence of the word and the predilection with which
it is used in the Qurʾān, it must be an important keyword in understanding Islam.
Sometimes one has the impression that ẓālimūna has become sort of a swear
word in Islam if a person had to be condemned, part of the Islamic hate speech,
that is, verbal violence that could so often and easily lead to actual violence.9
Finally, when treating the concept of violence in Islam we must not pass by
in silence the question of jihād, which is closely connected with the problem
of legitimate violence. Although its undisputed primary meaning is ‘struggle,
striving in the way of God’, it soon came to mean ‘a religious war with those
who are unbelievers in the mission of ­Muhammad . . . ­enjoined especially for the
purpose of advancing Islam and repelling evil from Muslims’.10 According to
Bernard Lewis, in the ḥadīth and the classical manuals of Islamic jurisprudence,
jihād was used in a military meaning in the preponderant majority of cases.11
Although several examples can be put forward to demonstrate that there are
passages in important Islamic texts in which jihād refers to a believer’s spiritual
effort to live up to the expectations of Islamic prescriptions and to comply with
the requirements of Muslim piety, these texts are far less than those having a
military connotation and, what is more, the military interpretation is more in line
with the general belligerent character of Islamic thinking. Despite the efforts
of numerous Islamic scholars to prove the contrary, jihād, even if only for
practical reasons, denotes principally ‘holy war against the infidels (that is, non-­
Muslims)’. Moreover, my understanding is that jihād as a holy war is the most
apposite example for ‘legitimate violence’ (or rather ‘legitimate force’) in Islam.

YASA

The investigation of yasa, the Mongol law of the thirteenth and fourteenth cen-
turies, goes back to very early times in European scholarship. François Petit de

  9. Cf. Jesus’ strict admonition in the Sermon on the Mount in which he condemns not only
actual violence but mental violence such as anger as well: ‘Ye have heard that it was said
of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the
judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause
shall be in danger of the judgment’ (Matthew 5: 21–2).
10. Diane Morgan, Essential Islam: a Comprehensive Guide to Belief and Practice (Santa
Barbara, 2010), p. 87.
11. B. Lewis, The Political Language of Islam (Chicago, 1988), p. 72.
­ Islamic Attitudes towards the Mongol Law65
la Croix (1653–1713), the famous French orientalist, was the first to treat the
Mongol law in his History of Chinggis Khan.12 Since then an extended literature
has come about on Mongol yasa. I would especially underline the importance
of the contributions of V. A. Riasanovsky, G. Vernadsky, I. de Rachewiltz,
D. Ayalon, D. Morgan and, recently, D. Aigle.13
Up to the 1970s, common wisdom, shared by most scholars of the field,
stated that in the assembly (quriltai) of 1206 in which the foundations of the
recently united Mongol state were laid, Chinggis promulgated a new law code
based on Mongol customary law and complemented by his new decrees and
regulations. This law code was called yasa(q), and the written copies of which
were preserved in the treasuries of the Mongol princes for consulting in case
of necessity. No complete copy of this Mongol law code has come down to us
in its entirety, but it can reliably be restored on the basis of its fragments to be
found in different sources. Since the word yasa(q) could equally refer to one
imperial ordinance, the original Chinggissian law code then was often labelled
as the Great Yasa by later research. Our presumed knowledge of the yasa is thus
premised on the following three assumptions: Chinggis made a written law code
compiled in the quriltai of 1206, the entirety of which has been lost but it can
reliably be reconstructed drawing on the extant fragments preserved in various
non-­Mongol (mainly Arabic and Armenian) sources. It was first Ayalon who
subjected the old wisdom to a new and painstaking analysis, and in his wake
David Morgan wrote a splendid article coined ‘iconoclastic’ by Denise Aigle.14
First, Morgan crushes the belief that there are compelling data at our disposal to
assume that the yasa was compiled in the quriltai of 1206. The two sources used

12. François Petit de la Croix, Histoire du grand Genghizcan (Paris, 1710); English transla-
tion: idem, The History of Genghizcan the Great (London, 1722), pp. 78–9. (I used the
English edition.)
13. V. A. Riasanovsky, Fundamental Principles of Mongol Law (Bloomington and The
Hague, 1965); G. Vernadsky, ‘The Scope and Contents of Chingis Khan’s yasa’, Harvard
Journal of Asiatic Studies 3 (1938), 337–60; Igor de Rachewiltz, ‘Some Reflections on
Činggis Qan’s ǰasaγ’, East Asian History 6 (December 1993), 91–103; de Rachewiltz,
The Secret History of the Mongols; D. Ayalon, ‘The Great Yāsa of Chingiz Khān: A Re-­
examination’, Studia Islamica (in four parts) 33 (1971), 97–140 [A]; 34 (1971), 151–80
[B]; 36 (1972), 113–58 [C1]; 38 (1973), 107–56 [C2]; D. Morgan, ‘The “Great Yāsā of
Chingiz Khān” and Mongol Law in the Īlkhānate’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and
African Studies 49 (1986), 163–76; idem, ‘The Great Yasa of Chinggis Khan revisited’;
idem, The Mongols; D. Aigle, ‘Le grand jasaq de Gengis-­Khan, l’empire, la culture
mongole et la sharīʿa’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 47.1
(2004), 31–79.
14. Morgan, ‘The “Great Yāsā of Chingiz Khān”’; Aigle, ‘Le grand jasaq de Gengis-­Khan,’
45 (‘un article iconoclaste’).
­66 Violence in Islamic Thought
to that end state much less. The Secret History of the Mongols asserts that in this
first quriltai, Šigi Qutuqu was appointed the chief judge (ǰarγuči) of the nascent
Mongol Empire, and that he was commissioned to compile the Blue Book
(kökö debter) to register the judicial decisions as a collection of precedents
and make a census of the conquered peoples and lands in order to apportion
them to the members of the royal house.15 Likewise, Rashīd al-­Dīn’s meagre
and laconic data cannot be used to demonstrate that the creation of the Mongol
law code took place in the quriltai of 1206.16 Ayalon successfully proved that
out of the numerous sources comprising fragments and titbits of the Mongol
law (Maqrīzī, ʿUmarī, Bar Hebraeus and Juwaynī) only Juwaynī can be used
as a primary source, since ʿUmarī and Bar Hebraeus heavily drew on him, and
Maqrīzī derived his information mainly from ʿUmarī.17 So the earliest and basic
source for studying the genesis of yasa is Juwaynī’s Taʾrīkh-i Jahāngushā. The
second chapter of its first book is entitled ‘Of the Laws Which Chingiz-­Khan
Framed and the Yasas (yāsā-hā) Which He Promulgated After His Rise to
Power’. In this chapter the following description is given of the genesis of the
Mongol law:

In accordance and agreement with his own mind he established a rule18 for every
occasion and a regulation19 for every circumstance; while for every crime he
fixed a penalty. And since the Tartar peoples had no script of their own, he gave
orders that Mongol children should learn writing from the Uighur; and that these
yasas and ordinances20 should be written down on rolls. These rolls are called the
Great Book of Yasas21 and are kept in the treasury of the chief princes. Wherever
a khan ascends the throne, or a great army is mobilized, or the princes assemble

15. ‘Divide up all the subject people and apportion them to Our mother, to Us, to Our
younger brothers and sons according to the name of the people, . . . Further, he entrusted
Šigi Qutuqu with the power of judgement over ­all . . . ­Furthermore, writing in a blue-
script register all decisions about the distribution and about the judicial matters of the
entire population, make it into a book.’ For §203 of The Secret History of the Mongols,
see L. Ligeti (ed.), Histoire secrète des Mongols (Budapest, 1971), pp. 173–4; for its
translation and the commentaries thereof, see de Rachewiltz, The Secret History of the
Mongols, vol. I, pp. 135–6; vol. II, pp. 767–75. – For Šigi Qutuqu in more detail, see
P. Ratchnevsky, ‘Šigi-­qutuqu, ein mongolischer Gefolgsmann im 12.–13. Jahrhundert’,
Central Asiatic Journal 19 (1965), 88–120.
16. Morgan, ‘The “Great Yāsā of Chingiz Khān”’, pp. 164–6.
17. Ayalon, ‘The Great Yāsa of Chingiz Khān’ [A], 139.
18. Qānūn.
19. Dastūr.
20. Aḥkām.
21. Yāsā-nāma-i buzurg.
­ Islamic Attitudes towards the Mongol Law67
and begin [to consult together] concerning affairs of state and the administration
thereof, they produce these rolls and model their actions thereon; and proceed
with the disposition of armies or the destruction of provinces and cities in the
manner therein prescribed.
At the time of the first beginnings of his dominion, when the Mongol tribes
were united to him, he abolished reprehensible customs22 which had been prac-
tised by those peoples and had enjoyed recognition amongst them; and estab-
lished such usages as were praiseworthy from the point of view of reason. There
are many of these ordinances that are in conformity with the Shariʿat.23

So the Mongolian yasa as such can be regarded as a loose set of laws and regula-
tions based on Chinggis Khan’s ordinances and the Turco-­Mongolian custom-
ary law. Seemingly, the description of yasa as a distinct law code written on
scrolls and bound in volumes, is an abstraction of the contemporary Muslim
authors who imagined it as a direct Mongolian equivalent of sharīʿa. In certain
respects they can be juxtaposed since both of them are made up of regulations
and rules, but their character and genesis differ a great deal.24 But what we
said of the Muslim perception of yasa is true the other way round: namely the
Mongols, in the period when the conversion of the Mongol elite began,25 also
regarded the Muslim sharīʿa as a counterpart of their yasa. In this regard, a very
poignant example can be cited from Qāshānī’s Taʾrīkh-i Uljāytū Sulṭān. After
Toqta Khan’s death (1312) his nephew Özbek was a candidate for the khan’s
throne and his inclination towards Islam was well-­known to all. The chief of
the amīrs warned him: ‘O pādshāh, you demand Islam (musalmānī) from us,
but how can we obey and comply with this demand? What complaint have we
with the yāsā and yosūn of Chingiz Khan that you summon us to the old sharīʿa
of the Arabs?’26 Then Özbek killed his rebellious amīr on the spot. The same
story is reflected in Ḥāfiẓ-­i Abrū’s work in which the amīr reproaches Özbek in
the following manner: ‘You are hoping for our submission and obedience; what

22. Rusūm.
23. Juwaynī, trans. Boyle, vol. 1, p. 25.
24. Denise Aigle (‘Le grand jasaq de Gengis-­Khan’, pp. 31–79) nicely demonstrates how
the Muslim authors interpreted the yasa from the conceptual framework of sharīʿa, and
consequently they often misinterpreted and did not understand the real meaning of it.
25. Concerning the conversion of the Turco-­Mongol elite of the Īl-­Khānid Iran and the
Golden Horde, a great deal of valuable contributions have come out during the past few
decades, cf. notes 70–5, further below.
26. . . . chi mā-rā az yāsā wa yīsūn-i Chingiz khān chi shikāyat ki bi-sharīʿat-i kuhna-yi aʿrāb
daʿwat mī-kunī? (Qāshānī, ed. Hambly, p. 145).
­68 Violence in Islamic Thought
business of yours is our religion and faith? And why would we abandon the tūra
and yāsāq of Chingīz Khān to enter the Arab religion?’27
A few words must be pronounced on the term yasa, which in this form seems
to be used only by the Muslim authors. The Mongol word ǰasaγ was formed of
the verb ǰasa- ‘to construct, arrange, set in order’. Both words, ǰasaγ and ǰasa-,
did not appear in Turkic before the thirteenth century, and they are evident bor-
rowings from Mongol. In the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries, the majority of
the Turks were conquered by and subjected to the Mongols who, being nomads
very much of the same breed as the Mongols, readily took over the Mongol
administrative system and terminology, among others ǰasa- and ǰasaγ, in the
forms yasa- and yasaq. But, later, first in the Golden Horde and subsequently in
Īl-­Khānid Iran, a process began whereby the Mongol elite became Turkicised,
and the outside Muslim world got to know the Mongol terms in a Turkic garb.
This happened also to ǰasaγ, which was used in the Muslim sources exclusively
in its Turkic form yasaq. Moreover, a special abbreviated form yasa came about
in Persian that was alternatively used with yasaq. For example, in Rashīd al-­Dīn
the ratio of occurrence of yasaq and yasa is approximately fifty–fifty. Turkic
sources never use the term in the form yasa but, later, the word yasa had a
strange career in modern Turkish.28
As was seen above, yasa was the name of each single law in the con-
crete sense29 well as the whole law code in an abstract and virtual sense. Later

27. V. G. Tizengauzen, Sbornik materialov, otnosĭashchikhsĭa k istorii Zolotoĭ Ordy. Tom

II: Izvlecheniĭ iz persidskikh sochineniĭ. (Moscow and Leningrad, 1941), vol 2, p. 141
[trans.], p. 244 [text] cf. also Devin DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion in the
Golden Horde: Baba Tükles and Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition.
(University Park, 1993), p. 108 and n. 92.
28. For yasaq, see ED, 974. – In modern Turkish, an interesting phenomenon occurred since
both yasa and yasaq were renewed during the Turkish language reform movement in the
twentieth century. Yasa was introduced and spread as a substitute for Arabic qānūn used
throughout the Ottoman period for ‘law’, whereas yasaq was renewed in the sense ‘for-
bidden’ to substitute Arabic mamnūʿ (hence Ottoman memnu).
29. I provide a few more examples from Juwaynī and Rashīd al-­Dīn, to show that some-
times yāsāq means simply ‘order, ordinance, decree’ without any direct reference to the
Chinggisian Law as a whole: 1. ‘Another yasa is that no man may depart to another unit
than the hundred, thousand or ten to which he has been assigned, nor may he seek refuge
elsewhere’ (Juwaynī, trans. Boyle, vol. 1, p. 32); 2. ‘There are many yasas to record each
of which would delay us too long; we have therefore limited ourselves to the mention
of the above’ (Juwaynī, trans. Boyle, vol. 1, p. 34); 3. On speaking of the origins of the
Qarluq, Rashīd al-­Dīn recounts that on account of the snow a few households lagged
behind when the Oghuz tribes returned home from Ghor: ‘Since it had been ordered that
no one should lag behind, Oghuz was displeased’ (Rashīd al-­Dīn, ed. Tehran, vol. 1,
­ Islamic Attitudes towards the Mongol Law69
European scholarship tried to draw a distinction between the two by using for
the law code as a whole the term ‘Great Yasa’. While it may have some practical
justification, one must stress that no sharp distinction was made in contemporary
Mongol and Turkic usage. There are altogether two examples in our sources that
may show that the imperial Mongol law constituted by Chinggis Khan was called
‘great’. Juvaynī Juwaynī once calls the law code in its entirety as ‘the Great Book
of Yasas’ (yāsā-nāma-i buzurg),30 while the phrase yāsāq-i buzurg, which lay
foundation of the widespread term ‘great yasa’ in the later scholarly literature,
occurs just once in Rashīd al-­Dīn’s text. In 1303, upon the return from the Syrian
campaign in Ujan, a trial (yārghū) was held and two military leaders ‘were
executed31, and all that was required by the great Yasa was put into practice’.32
Presumably the synonyms of yāsāq-i buzurg ‘the Great Yasa’ were the phrase
yāsā-yi qadīm – ‘the ancient yasa’33 – and yāsāq-i pīshīne in ‘the ancient Yasa
required’.34 At this juncture it is worth noting that the attribute ‘great’ may refer
not only to the ‘imperial, majestic’ but also the ‘ancient, pristine’ character of
these laws. By way of analogy, see, for example, the medieval Western terms
magnus/magna – ‘great’ – and maior – ‘greater’ that designated also ‘ancient,
original’ (cf. Magna/Maior Bulgaria, Magna/Maior Hungaria and so forth).
The Arabs and Persians understood the term yasa(q) both in the concrete
and abstract senses of the word, and generally did not translate it since it
was a technical term of the Mongol Empire. Once it is translated or rather
explained in these languages it is interpreted as the Mongol law embodied
in the imperial decrees and ordinances. One of the most clear-­cut definitions
of yasa(q) we find in the work of Jūzjānī, who writes as follows: ‘To these
aḥkām35 they have given the name yasa, which means ḥukm va farmān in
the Mongol language.’36 The yasa, constituted and created, and later at least

p. 5323 = trans. Thackston, vol. 1, p. 30); 4. Or, Qubilai appointed Sämäkä Bahadur the
leader of the army against Nankiyas ‘bacause his ordinance was severe . . . [che yāsāq-i ū
sākht būd]’ (trans. Thackston, vol. 2, p. 439 = ed. Tehran, vol 2, p. 89813).
30. Juvaynī, trans. Boyle 1: 25.
31. bi-yāsā rasānīdand.
32. va ānche mūjib-i yāsāq-i buzurg būd dar har bāb taqdīm peyvast. Rashīd al-­Dīn, ed.
Tehran, vol. 2, p. 1,31516 = trans. Thackston vol 3, p. 657.
33. Rashīd al-­Dīn, ed. Tehran 1: 6917 = trans. Thackston, vol. 1, p. 39; ed. Tehran, vol. 2,
p. 105919 = trans. Thackston, vol. 3, p. 517.
34. Yāsāq-i pīshīne ān būd ki. Rashīd al-­Dīn, ed. Tehran, vol 2, p. 14536 = trans. Thackston,
vol. 3, p. 718.
35. He is referring to Chinggis Khan’s prohibition of telling lies, committing adultery,
washing in running water and so forth.
36. Īn aḥkām-rā yasa nām nihāde and, yaʿnī bi-zabān-i mughulī ḥukm wa farmān (Jūzjānī,
­70 Violence in Islamic Thought
unanimously attributed to Chinggis Khan by the Mongols and Turks, was
unalterable according to the intentions of the founder of the Mongol Empire.
Having made his will apparent to his sons, Chinggis said, ‘After me, you must
not change my Yasaq.’37 Accordingly, to change the yāsā or act contrary to it38
was considered a crime.39
The concrete implementation of the yāsā, the Chinggisian Law, that is, the
lawsuits, were also designated by that name. The Persian phrase yāsā dādan
means ‘to dispense justice, to administer the law, to judge cases, to give an
order/verdict’. Thus, for example, having been sent by his father Chinggis Khan
to Khorezm to reconcile his three quarrelling brothers (Cha’adai, Ögödei and
Jöchi), Tolui fulfilled his task and he ‘also worthily undertook to direct mili-
tary affairs and administered the law’.40 Since the yasa was a less sophisticated
set of laws and prescriptions than the Islamic sharīʿa, its main item of penalty
being death (there were no provisions for imprisonment or mutilation), it is only
natural that the Persian phrase bi-yāsā rasānīdan came to mean ‘to execute’.
Thus, Rashīd al-­Dīn, discussing a certain Iqbāl from the Jalāyir tribe, remarks:
‘The Padishah of Islam [Ghazan] had him executed41 after establishing his
guilt.’42
In all successor states of the Mongol Empire the term yasaq survived to
designate the Chinggissian law code. Suffice it here to cite two examples from a
sixteen-­century native Turkic source, the Taʾrīkh-i Dost Sulṭān of Ötemish Ḥājjī
(1551):

1. After a quarrel between Orda and Batu, sons of Chinggis over the succes-
sion to the throne in the westernmost Mongol ulus, Chinggis Khan holds an

ed. Ḥabībī, vol. 2, p. 152; trans. H. G. Raverty, vol. 2, p. 1,108. (Cf. also Morgan, ‘The
“Great Yāsā of Chingiz Khān”’, p. 171).
37. Yāsāq-i ma-rā digargūn nakonīd. Rashīd al-­Dīn, ed. Tehran, vol. 2, p. 5397 = trans.
Thackston, vol. 2, p. 262.
38. Yāsā digargūn kardan.
39. Rashīd al-­Dīn, ed. Tehran, vol. 1, p. 6917 = trans. Thackston, vol. 1, p. 39.
40. Rashīd al-­Dīn, ed. Tehran, vol. 1, p. 51416 = trans. Thackston, vol. 2, p. 254; here Th.
translates yāsā dād, I think erroneously, as ‘[he] put the Yasa on a firm footing’. At
another place (Rashīd al-­Dīn, ed. Tehran, vol. 1, p.13 = trans. Thackston, vol. 2, p. 257)
Thackston’s translation as ‘gave an order’ is correct.
41. bi-yāsā rasānīd.
42. Rashīd al-­Dīn, ed. Tehran, vol. 1, p. 6813 = trans. Thackston, vol. 1, p. 39. – For further
examples of bi-yāsā rasānīdan ‘to execute’ in Rashīd al-­Dīn, see trans. Thackston, vol. 1,
p. 148 = ed. Tehran, vol. 1, p. 3034; trans. Thackston, vol. 2, p. 354 = ed. Tehran, vol. 1,
p. 72810; trans. Thackston, vol. 2, p. 438 = ed. Tehran, vol. 2, p. 89723; trans. Thackston,
vol. 3, p. 634 = ed. Tehran, vol. 2, p. 12705.
­ Islamic Attitudes towards the Mongol Law71
audience in which ‘[Chinggis] khan said: “Sayin [Batu] says words that are in
accordance with the yasaq.”’43
2. Among Tokhtamish Khan’s donations to Arab-­oghlan we find: ‘and all slaves
wherever they fled from their lords, and all people wherever they fled from
the yasaq’.44

The Chinggissian law code comprising the traditional customary law (yosun)
of the Mongols45 as well, is often referred to in the Persian sources with the bino-
mial yāsā yōsūn or yōsūn yāsā (sometimes connected with the Arabic-­Persian
conjunction wa). For example, when Abaqa, upon his father Hülegü’s death in
1265, wavers to accept the offer to become the khan, he is encouraged by his
supporters as follows: ‘You are here, you are the eldest of all the sons, you know
well the customs and ancient yosun and yasa,46 and Hülegü Khan made you heir
designate during his lifetime.’47
In the following I put forward a few more examples for the usage of the bino-
mial term yasaq yosun culled from Rashīd al-­Dīn’s Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh.
Before the campaign against the Khwārazmshāh in 1219–20, Chinggiss Khan
assembled a quriltai and ‘he laid down new regulations’.48
After ‘subjugating many of the realms of the world in a short time, he had

43. Ḫan aydı: «Ṣayın yosaqlı söz ayta turur. Ötemish Ḥājjī, ed. Tokyo, pp. 11, 70; Ötemish
Ḥājjī, ed. Alma-­Ata, p. 122. Ĭudin’s Russian translation is: ‘[Чингиз] хан сказал: «Саин
говорит слова, соответствующие йаясаку.»’ = Ötemish Ḥājjī, ed. Alma-­Ata, p. 93). –
The strange Turkic form yosaq, unattested elsewhere, is either a scribal error, or, what is
more plausible, a contamination from yasaq and yosun. For the latter term, see further
below.
44. wa har qayda ḫoǰasıdın qačğan qul wa yasağdın qačğan el bolsa (Ötemish Ḥājjī, ed.
Tokyo, pp. 46, 100; Ötemish Ḥājjī, ed. Alma-­Ata, p. 145). – Ĭudin’s Russian translation
is: ‘и где бы ни находился раб, бежавший от своего хозяина, и эль бежавший от
йасака’ (Ötemish Ḥājjī, ed. Alma-­Ata, p. 118).
45. For yosun ‘2 p.l.am mellett van sorszam . . .
mellett van sorszam . . .
rt teszek at mindent inkabb labjegyzetbe, hogy egyertelmu legyen.custom’, see TMEN I,
pp. 555–7 (No. 408); ĖSTĬa. IV (1989), pp. 31–2 (s.v. җошун, somewhat confused and
mingled with yasaq). The form ǰosun is an original Mongolian word that found its way
into Turkic only in the Mongol period in the form yosun. The first occurrences are from
the Uighur judicial documents of the fourteenth century (cf. ED, p. 975). As was the case
with yasaq, here, too, the Turkic form yosun is reflected in the contemporary Arabic and
Persian sources.
46. rusūm va yōsūn yāsā-yi qadīm va ḥadīth-i nīkū mī-dānī.
47. Rashīd al-­Dīn, ed. Tehran, vol. 2, p. 1,05919 = trans. Thackston, vol. 3, p. 517.
48. az naw āyīn va yōsūn yāsāq bunyād nihād. Rashīd al-­Dīn, ed. Tehran, vol. 1, p. 4884 =
trans. Thackston vol. 2, p. 241.
­72 Violence in Islamic Thought
the customs and laws of the imperial yasaq [ordinance] and yosun [custom]49
arranged and codified, and he put into practice customs of spreading justice / and
nurturing subjects’.50
Udachi of the Hoyin Uriangkat tribe was also the head of the hazara of that
tribe. They ‘guard the yasaq and yosun of the great ghoruq [sanctuary]51 in
Burqan Qaldun, and they do not go out on campaign’. 52
In the story on Ananda, Qubilai’s grandson, who was the ruler of the Tangut
country, Rashīd al-­Dīn, relates that the Tanguts resemble the Chinese in many
respects, among others: ‘Their manners, customs, ordinances, and habits are
similar to each other’s.’53
In enumerating the merits of Ghazan Khan and praising him with flattering
words, Rashīd al-­Dīn, in his Preface, says: ‘He propagates the Yosun and Yasaq54
and patronizes the arts.’55
After his ascension to the throne in 1304, Ölǰeitü (the Īl-­Khānid Muḥammad
Khudābanda) ‘had an investigation made of his brother Sulṭān Saʿīd Ghāzān
Khan’s yasaq and yosun, of his customs and habits,56 and a review of his issu-
ance of orders was made’.57
The latter citation clearly demonstrates that despite Chinggis Khan’s grim
determination, the yasa, a collection of his ordinances and decrees, were not
so immobile and eternal, ‘carved into stone’ as intended by the founder of the
empire, but functioned rather as a modern constitution does: yasa was a flex-
ible set of basic laws applied continually to the new situation in each period.
Finally, may I put forward a conjecture in the mirror of the data cited so far:
for the Muslim authors, the two footings of Mongol law, the imperial ordi-
nances and the customary law, may have dimly resembled the twofold sources
of sharīʿa, the Holy Qurʾān and the Sunna, and that is why they adopted the term
yasa yosun with such ease.
In addition to, and sometimes in lieu of, the term yasa yosun, in some of the
sources another binomial term was used, namely yasa(q) töre (written yāsāq
wa tūra). The word töre is the Old Turkic term for the ‘traditional, customary,

49. rusūm va qavānīn-i yāsāq va yōsūn-i pādshāhī.

50. Rashīd al-­Dīn, ed. Tehran, vol. 1, p. 28821 = trans. Thackston, vol. 1, pp. 141–2.
51. yāsā va yōsūn-i ghorūq-i buzurg.
52. Rashīd al-­Dīn, ed. Tehran, vol. 1, p. 6031 = trans. Thackston, vol. 2, p. 278.
53. Āyīn va rusūm va yāsāq va yōsūn-i īshān bi-ham mānanda. Rashīd al-­Dīn, ed. Tehran,
vol. 2, p. 9515 = trans. Thackston, vol. 2, p. 465.
54. yōsūn yāsāq.
55. Rashīd al-­Dīn, ed. Tehran, vol. 1, p. 2914 = trans. Thackston vol. 1, p. 16.
56. yāsāq va yōsūn va ʿādāt va rusūm.
57. Rashīd al-­Dīn, ed. Tehran, vol. 1, p. 714 = trans. Thackston, vol. 1, p. 6.
­ Islamic Attitudes towards the Mongol Law73
unwritten law’, and is attested in the form törü from the time of the Orkhon
Turkic inscriptions (eighth century).58 This Turkic term must have been bor-
rowed into Mongolian and, in the form törö/töre, was used to denote the same as
yosun, especially in the Timurid period. We have seen above (note 26) a passage
from Ḥāfiẓ-­i Abrū’s work in which he speaks of ‘the tūra and yāsāq of Chingīz
Khān’. Another author, Muʿīn al-­Dīn Naṭanzī (1409–14), one of the minor histo-
rians of the early Timurid period, used the term in abundance, which can partly
be ascribed to the fact that he heavily drew on native Turkic, oral historiogra-
phy.59 Two examples taken from Naṭanzī are presented here:

1. After Toqtaqiya’s death, Temür-­bek became the khan, but because of his
addiction to alcohol, state affairs were neglected and the country fell into total
disarray ‘and the rules of the mighty tūra were put aside and abandoned’.60
2. During Shādibeg Khan’s reign (r. 1399–1407), ‘since Edigü set up fine regu-
lations (tūra) and great laws (yāsāq) and the ­people . . . ­Shādibeg wanted to
liquidate him secretly’.61

Finally, in treating yasaq we must not omit the Turco-­Mongol terminology and
attitude towards violence, be it legitimate or not. First, unlike in Arabic (quwwa
and ẓulm), in Turkic and Mongol terminology there was no distinction between
‘strength’ and ‘violence’. Both notions were expressed by the same term: küč in
Turkic, and küčü(n) (an early Turkic loanword) in Mongol, both meaning 1. ‘strength
in the physical or abstract sense, force, power, might’ and 2. ‘violence, oppression’.62
The strength and power of the Eternal Heaven as well as the illegitimate violence

58. For the Turkic data, see ED, pp. 531–32. – Basically, it was the customary law (e.g.,
Kāshgharī translates it with Arabic al-rasm ‘customs’), but from the Mongol period
onward sometimes the meaning of yasaq ‘state law’ also radiated into it; e.g., Chag. töre
‘ʿādat wa qānūn [custom and law]’ or Mam. Kipchak (14th c.) ‘al-­sharīʿa wa-­l-uslūb [a
code of law and conduct]’ (Idrāk).
59. The term töre (tūra) occurs in his work more than a dozen times (Naṭanzī, ed. Aubin,
pp. 29, 47, 93, 99, 103, 103, 106, 111, 125, 131, 145, 206, 291, 318, 332, 402, 403), while
he uses Mongolian yosun altogether twice (pp. 71, 222).
60. qawāʿid-i tūrā-i qāhira bi-l-kulliya masdūd wa matrūk shud (Naṭanzī, ed. Aubin, p. 93);
‘правила могущественного закона (тура) были совершенно оставлены а заброшены’
(V. G. Tizengauzen, Sbornik materialov, vol. 2, p. 131).
61. Chūn Īdikū tūrāhā-yi bārīk wa yāsāqhā-yi buzurg bunyād nihāda būd (Naṭanzī, ed. Aubin,
p. 99); ‘Так как Идигу установил тонкие обычаи (тура) и великие законы (ясак) и
люди из привольности попали в стеснение, то Шадибек тайно хотел уничтожить
его’ (V. G. Tizengauzen, Sbornik materialov, vol. 2, p. 131).
62. ED p. 693; G. Clauson, ‘The Concept of “Strength” in Turkish’, in Németh Armağanı
(Ankara, 1962), pp. 93–101.
­74 Violence in Islamic Thought
committed against the privileged people (tarkhans) were equally signified by küč
(in Turkic) and küčü(n) (in Mongol). The famous introductory formula of the
Mongol diplomas, which can be found also on numerous ĪI-­khanid coins, ‘by the
strength of Eternal Heaven’, sounds almost the same both in Mongol (möngke
tenggeri-yin küčün-dür) and in Turkic (mängü tängrining küčündä).
Having made a short survey of the major characteristics of Islamic law –
sharīʿa – and Turco-­Mongolian law – yasa – the question may be raised as to
whether these two systems were compatible or totally antagonistic. Neither of
these statements can be fully corroborated or rejected. At the level of everyday
life the customs of the Islamic peoples and the Mongols differed widely: but
Islam has always been very flexible in digesting and incorporating foreign
customs in an Islamised form into its own system. In practical terms, there
were only two aspects of the Mongol dietary customs which were incompat-
ible with Islamic rules, at least on the theoretical level: the Mongolian way of
slaughtering animals and the consummation of alcoholic drinks. But moderate
Islam has always been adroit in tacitly taking cognisance of and winking at
undesirable phenomena. Take the question of alcohol drinking that is strictly
forbidden (mamnūʿ) in the Islamic law, yet is practised in numerous countries
of the Islamic world. To my mind, there was only one point in which the two
systems were really incompatible and antagonistic, and that is the question of
religious tolerance and supremacy. Actually the tragically bloody first decades of
Islamic and Mongol encounters and clashes derived from their different attitudes
towards religius tolerance and dominance. Juwaynī in his Taʾrīkh-i Jahāngushā
gave a classical description of Chinggis Khan’s religious world view that makes
us better understand the Mongol attitude towards religion. ‘Being the adherent of
no religion and the follower of no creed, he eschewed bigotry, and the preference
of one faith to another, and the placing of some above others; rather he honoured
and respected the learned and pious of every sect, recognising such conduct as
the way to the Court of God. And as he viewed the Moslems with the eye of
respect, so also did he hold the Christians and idolaters in high esteem. As for
his children and grandchildren, several of them have chosen a religion according
to their inclination, some adopting Islam, others embracing Christianity, others
selecting idolatry and others again cleaving to the ancient canon of their fathers
and forefathers and inclining in no direction; but these are now a minority. But
though they have adopted some religion they still for the most part avoid all
show of fanaticism and do not swerve from the yasa of Chingiz-­Khan, namely,
to consider all sects as one and not to distinguish them from one another.’63

63. Juwaynī, trans. Boyle, vol. 1, p. 26.

­ Islamic Attitudes towards the Mongol Law75
From Mongol tolerance towards all religions and confessions arose their clement
policy towards religions: no taxes or duties were levied on church people and
religious dignitaries and personnel.
But one must not be deceived by this rosy picture of Mongol tolerance since
it was limited in scope: that is to say, such tolerance applied only to those who
acknowledged the rule and supremacy of Chinggis, his dynasty and the Mongols.
Chinggis and his house had a heavenly mandate to rule the world: this was the
will of the ‘eternal heaven’ (möngke tenggeri). For the rest of the world there
were only two choices, either to accept Chinggis’ rule and live peacefully as
subjects of his realm or face destruction and extermination. Both choices were
tried by the peoples and countries that were to encounter the Mongol forces. For
submission and accepting Mongol rule, the Uighurs of Turkestan are the most
apposite example. Chinggis was benignant to them ­and – a­ s J. R. Hamilton put ­it
– ­they became the educators of the Mongols. In contrast, the Islamic world could
not but resist. Islam confessed its own exclusivity based on strict monotheism.
In questions of faith there could be no compromise. As was seen, Muslims were
confident that Islam was deemed to be dominant in all societies and their belief
is the only right one superior to all other in the world, and, consequently, they
must not bow their heads to the disbelievers (kāfirs). This inherent implacability
and inflexibility caused Islam to undergo the terrible shock of Mongol storm,
first in Central Asia, and then in the Middle East. Once the Eastern, major part of
the Islamic world were destructed and humiliated by the Mongols, the Muslims
came to understand that they had to find a modus vivendi with the horrible disbe-
lievers if they wanted to survive.
Finally, we may ask: What was the Islamic reaction to the Mongol violence?
The answers vary according to the position of the Muslim population. I think
it became obvious from what has been said so far that Islamic thinking made
any compromise with the violent Mongol conquerors impossible. Consequently,
Muslims living outside the scope of Mongol conquest, thus unaffected by it,
were fervent opponents of the Mongols and their law as incompatible with Islam.
So the violence of the Mongols was categorically rejected and condemned by the
Muslims of India and of the Mamlūk territories. For the former the best example
is Minhāj-­i Sirāj Jūzjānī (c. 1193–1259) who fled to India with his migrant
family from the Ghūrid territory in Afghanistan and always viewed the Mongols
with a glowing hatred.64 For the latter, the best-­known example is the Damascene
Taqī al-­Dīn ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328), representative of a later generation,

64. For Jūzjānī, see A. S. Bazmee Ansari, ‘al-­Ḏjūzḏānī’, in EI2, and Timothy May in this
volume.
­76 Violence in Islamic Thought
who in his famous fatwās against the Mongols, passionately argues that even the
conversion of the Mongols to Islam cannot be accepted and taken seriously. In
December 1299 he himself was member of the delegation that was sent to meet
Ghāzān Khan, who was attacking Syria at that time. The audience took place at
a village called Nabk, and this time the Īl-­Khānid reprieved the inhabitants of
Damascus. Ibn Taymiyya, a notorious radical of his age and fervent propaga-
tor of all sorts of jihāds, was similarly unforgiving towards Ṣūfism, the Shīʿite
doctrines and Christianity. Similarly, his anti-­Mongol fatwās were heated with
the same hatred and fanaticism. To wage war (jihād) against the Mongols is the
holy duty of all Muslims since the Mongols, although many of them embraced
Sunnite Islam by that time, cannot be regarded as true Muslims. His main argu-
ment against their Islam is that the Mongols are primarily subject to human-­
made laws (that is, the yasa), instead of observing the divine law of the sharīʿa.
In other words, they live in jāhiliyya, the pre-­Islamic ignorance of the pagans.65
But the majority of Muslims had to resign to and accept the Mongol rule
together with its yasa, if they wanted to survive. The best example is again
the brilliant Persian politician and historian of the Mongol period, Atāʾ Malik
Juwaynī (1226–1283), who was born one year before the death of the world-­
conqueror Chinggis Khan and died one year after the death of Chinggis Khan’s
great-­grandson, Īl-­Khānid Abaqa. He belonged to the generation that had to
find a modus vivendi with Mongols in order to survive. He faithfully served
the Mongols (sometimes with flattering enthusiasm) and he wrote the first,
most authentic and best history of the world-­conqueror Chinggis Khan. In his
Taʾrīkh-i Jahāngushā he made the first steps towards a reconciliation of Islam
with the new pagan conquerors. Whether his praise of the Mongols and com-
promising effort was sincere or not, only Allāh or the Eternal Heaven can tell.
He is the first to make steps to reconcile sharīʿa with the yasa. When speaking
of Chinggis Khan who abolished some old customs and created some new ones,
Juwaynī adds: ‘There are many of these ordinances that are in conformity with
the Shariʿat.’66 The last sentence speaks for itself. At another juncture he praises
Chinggis Khan’s resoluteness, faith and trust in God, corroborating his statement
with a Qurʾān citation, and, moreover, tries to justifies his conquest as totally
legal and in conformity with the Qurʾān: ‘In the messages which he sent in all
directions calling on the peoples to yield him allegiance, he never had recourse

65. For the latest, good analysis of Ibn Taymiyya’s Mongol fatwās, see D. Aigle, ‘The
Mongol Invasions of Bilād al-­Shām by Gāzān Khān and Ibn Taymīyah’s Three “Anti-­
Mongol” Fatwas’, Mamluk Studies Review 11.2 (2007), 89–120. Available at: http://
mamluk.uchicago.edu/MSR XI-­2 2007-­Aigle.pdf (accessed 2 January 2016).
66. Juwaynī, trans. Boyle, vol. 1, p. 25.
­ Islamic Attitudes towards the Mongol Law77
to intimidation or violent threats, as was the custom with the tyrant kings of
old, who used to menace their enemies with the size of their territory and the
magnitude of their equipment and supplies; the Mongols, on the contrary, as
their uttermost warning, would write thus: “If ye submit not, nor surrender, what
know we // thereof? The Ancient God, He knoweth.” If one reflects upon their
signification, [one sees that] these are the words of them that put their trust in
­God – ­God Almighty hath said “And for him that putteth his trust in Him God
will be all-sufficient”67 so that of necessity such a one obtains whatever he has
borne in his heart and yearned after, and attains his every wish.‘68
After the Mongol generations of Chinggis Khan’s sons had passed away,
the first conversion to Islam began within Chinggis’ family and Mongol elite.
But these first conversions were sporadic and incidental, decisions of personal
will, and in accordance with the general principal of religious tolerance they
left the basis of Mongol life, the Chinggissian yasa, unaltered. To this category
belong the conversions of Berke Khan (d. 1266),69 Töde Mengü Khan (d. 1283)
and Amir Noghay (d. 1299) in the Golden Horde, and the conversions of the Īl-­
Khānids Aḥmad Teküder (d. 1284)70 and Baydu (d. 1295) in Mongol Iran. But
the real breakthrough happened later, both in the Golden Horde and Iran. It was
in the third and fourth generation of the Chinggisids that the Islamic conversion
of the rulers launched the process of total, large-­scale Islamisation of Mongols
both in the Golden Horde and Iran. In Iran it was Ghāzān Khan (d. 1304) who
embraced Islam in 1295,71 Ölǰeitü accepted the Shīʿite branch of Islam72 and in

67. Q 65: 3.
68. Juwaynī, trans. Boyle, vol. 1, pp. 25–6.
69. I. Vásáry, ‘ “History and Legend” in Berke Khan’s Conversion to Islam’, in Aspects
of Altaic Civilization III, ed. Denis Sinor (Bloomington, 1990), pp. 230–52; A. N.
Ivanov, ‘K voprosu o prichinakh prinĭatiĭa islama zolotoordynskim khanom Berke’, in
Zolotoordynskaĭa tsivilizatsiĭa, ed. I. M. Mirgaleev, vol. 2 (Kazan, 2009), pp. 103–7;
G. M. Davletshin, ‘Musul’manskoe bogoslovie v Zolotoĭ Orde (istoricheskiĭ aspect)’, in
Zolotoordynskaĭa tsivilizatsiĭa, ed. I. M. Mirgaleev, Vypusk 2 (Kazan, 2009), pp. 27–38.
70. Reuven Amitai-­Preiss, ‘The Conversion of Ahmad Tegüdar’, Jerusalem Studies of Arabic
and Islam 25 (2001), 15–43.
71. Charles Melville, ‘Padshah-­i Islam: The Conversion of Ghazan Khan to Islam’, Pembroke
Papers 1 (1990), 159–77; Reuven Amitai-­Preiss, ‘Ghazan, Islam and Mongol Tradition:
A View from the Mamlūk Sultanate’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African
Studies 59 (1996), 1–10; idem, ‘Sufis and Shamans: Some Remarks on the Islamization of
the Mongols in the Ilkhanate’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
42.1 (1999), 27–46.
72. J. Pfeiffer, ‘Conversion Versions: Sultan Öljeytü’s Conversion to Shi‘ism (709/1309) in
Muslim Narrative Sources’, Mongolian Studies 22 (1999), 35–67.
­78 Violence in Islamic Thought
the Golden Horde Özbek Khan was the initiator of Islamisation (1310s).73 In the
Chagatay ulus the conversion to Islam took place even later, during Tarmashīrīn
Khan’s time (d. 1334).74 So it took a hundred years after the great conqueror
Chinggis Khan’s death (1227) for Islam to become firmly rooted also among the
conquering Turco-­Mongol tribes. But Mongol yasa did not disappear at once but
has long survived in all three Mongol successor states.
By way of bringing my chapter to a conclusion let me quote the first four
introductory lines of a diploma (yarlïq) issued by the Chinggisid Ḥāǰǰi Giräy
Khan, first ruler of the independent Crimean Khanate in 1453.75 These lines dem-
onstrate, perhaps in a more eloquent manner than we find expressed in any other
source, the way in which Islam and the Mongol tradition of yasa co-­existed for
long in the Islamised Mongol states:

1. Bi-ʾsmi ’llāhi ’l-raḥmāni l-raḥīm.

In the name of Allāh, the merciful and compassionate.
2. Bi-l-quwwati l-aḥadiyya wa-l-muʿjizāti l-Muḥammadiyya.
By the strength of the One (God) and the miraculous deeds of Muḥammad.
3. Mängü tängri küčündä, Muḥammad rasūlullāh vilāyätindä.
By the strength of the Eternal Heaven (God) and the authority of
Muḥammad, envoy of God.
4. Ḥāǰǰi Giräy sözim.
Ḥāǰǰi Giräy, my word.

In sum, even after the embrace of Islam by the Turco-­Mongolian elite of the
Golden Horde, Īl-­Khānid Iran and the Chagatay ulus in the fourteenth century,
the Muslim native populations had to acquiesce that Mongolian yasa and
Muslim sharīʿa continued to exist side by side, both mentally and institutionally.
Moreover, in the age of Timur and the Timurids (1350s–1500), who were indis-
putably Muslims, a new revival of the Turco-­Mongol traditions, among others
the yasa, began. But this is already another story.

73. DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion.

74. M. Biran, ‘The Chagadaids and Islam: The Conversion of Tarmashirin Khan (1331–34)’,
Journal of the American Oriental Society 122.4 (2002), 742–52.
75. A. N. Kurat, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Arşivindeki Altın Ordu, Kırım ve Türkistan hanlarına
ait yarlık ve bitikler (Istanbul, 1940), p. 64.