An Afterlife for the Khan - by Jonathan Z Brack (Hardcover)

About the Book

"In the Mongol Empire, the interfaith court debate was an arena for an ideologically and religiously charged performance of the Mongol ruler's sacred kingship. At the court of the newly established Ilkhanate, Muslim administrators, Buddhist monks, and Christian clergy all attempted to sway their imperial overlords, arguing fiercely over the proper role of the king and his government, with momentous and far-reaching consequences. Focusing on the famous but understudied figure of the grand vizier Rashid al-Din, a Persian Jew who converted to Islam, Jonathan Z. Brack explores the myriad ways Rashid al-Din and his fellow courtiers investigated, reformulated, and transformed long-standing ideas of authority and power. Out of this intellectual ferment of accommodation, resistance, and experimentation, they developed a completely new understanding of sacred kingship. This new ideal, and the political theology it subtends, would go on to become a central justification in imperial projects across Eurasia in the centuries that followed. An Afterlife for the Khan offers a powerful cultural and intellectual history of this pivotal moment for Islam and empire in the Middle East and Asia"--

Book Synopsis

In the Mongol Empire, the interfaith court provided a contested arena for a performance of the Mongol ruler's sacred kingship, and the debate was fiercely ideological and religious. At the court of the newly established Ilkhanate, Muslim administrators, Buddhist monks, and Christian clergy all attempted to sway their imperial overlords, arguing fiercely over the proper role of the king and his government, with momentous and far-reaching consequences.

Focusing on the famous but understudied figure of the grand vizier Rashid al-Din, a Persian Jew who converted to Islam, Jonathan Z. Brack explores the myriad ways Rashid al-Din and his fellow courtiers investigated, reformulated, and transformed long-standing ideas of authority and power. Out of this intellectual ferment of accommodation, resistance, and experimentation, they developed a completely new understanding of sacred kingship. This new ideal, and the political theology it subtends, would go on to become a central justification in imperial projects across Eurasia in the centuries that followed. An Afterlife for the Khan offers a powerful cultural and intellectual history of this pivotal moment for Islam and empire in the Middle East and Asia.

From the Back Cover

"This is undoubtedly a work of major importance. Sure to form the indispensable basis for future research, whether on the conversion of the Mongols or even on conversion more generally, Brack's persuasive work lies at the cutting edge of current scholarship on the accommodation of the Mongols of the faiths of those they ruled."--Peter Jackson, author of The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion

"Afterlife for the Khan is a scholarly work of the first importance that makes a major contribution to our understanding of Islam and Muslim kingship in the post-caliphal era. It is especially commendable for its interdisciplinarity. Brack reads deeply across Islamic and Inner Asian history, philosophy, art history, Sufism, and Buddhism."--A. Azfar Moin, author of The Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship and Sainthood in Islam

About the Author

Jonathan Z. Brack is Assistant Professor of History at Northwestern University. He is coeditor of the book Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia: Generals, Merchants, and Intellectuals.