The Jalayirids: Dynastic State Formation in the Mongol Middle East

The Jalayirids: Dynastic State Formation in the Mongol Middle East
Patrick Wing (Edinburgh University Press, 2015)
ISBN: 9781474402255

The story of how one tribal family claimed the legacy of Chinggis Qan in Persia. The period of Middle Eastern history between the collapse of the Mongol Ilkhanate in 1335 and the rise of Timur (Tamerlane) at the end of the fourteenth century is commonly seen as a tumultuous time of political breakdown and disorder. This book helps to make sense of this confusing period by tracing the origins, history and memory of the Jalayirid dynasty, a family that succeeded the Mongol Ilkhans in Iran and Iraq in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries and claimed to be the rightful heirs of the Chinggisid Mongols. The story of how the Jalayirids came to power is illustrative of the political dynamics that shaped much of the Mongol and post-Mongol period in the Middle East.