The Mongol Compendium of Chronicles ( Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh )

Abstract

The Compendium of Chronicles (Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh) that Rashīd al-Dīn Ṭabīb (d. 1318) presented to Khudabanda Öljeitü (1304–16) is the most famous piece of historical writing from the period of Mongol rule in southwest Asia, both for the light it sheds on the history of the Mongol Empire and for its unprecedented collection of historical texts from across Eurasia. Made at a time of heightened transcontinental contact and exchange, it seems to signal a watershed in the composition of world histories, integrating diverse and often contradictory ideas into a snapshot of medieval Eurasian historical thought. However, in the context of its creation, the Compendium was universalizing in a different way than it is often treated, signalling its patron’s claim to universal sovereignty, rather than an intellectual shift towards cultural ecumenism. The dual nature of the Compendium as both a marker of the diversity of the Mongol world and a statement of a specific political ideology has followed the work through seven centuries of its existence.