Agriculture, Crafts, Currency and Trade in the Ilkhanate

From Hulegu’s conquest in the mid-thirteenth century to the Ilkhanate’s breakup after 1335, rulers and communities in Iran, Iraq and connected territories drew on agriculture, skilled production, taxation and trade. These activities did not operate under one uniform system. Regions differed in their political administration and sources of revenue, while policies changed over time. Ghazan’s reign, from 1295 to 1304, brought a concerted effort to regularize taxation, currency and purchasing. The endowed complex called Rab’-e Rashidi in Tabriz offers a more local view of how land, labor, food and money could support a large institution.

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Farming, water and rural production

Agriculture supported rural households, cities and the authorities claiming part of the harvest. Channels and underground conduits carried water to cultivated land in areas where rainfall alone was insufficient. Restoring damaged irrigation and abandoned fields required labour and security as well as royal orders. Ghazan’s programme connected agricultural recovery with more predictable revenue demands.

At Rab’-e Rashidi, Rashid al-Din’s endowed complex in Tabriz, the deed allocated 150 enslaved people to gardening and 30 to cleaning underground water conduits, called qanats. A qanat conveyed groundwater along a gently sloping tunnel to an outlet. Keeping its channel open was essential to the water supply. These assigned duties show the labour behind an institution’s gardens and revenue.

Taxation, administration and endowed foundations

Ilkhanid governments relied on taxes and other revenues, but collection and political authority varied by region. Ghazan’s census was intended to give the government a clearer basis for fiscal policy. His reforms also standardized weights and measures and sought to regularize the currency and the procedures for purchasing supplies.

Military revenue assignments called iqtas were proposed in an edict of 1303–1304. They would support commanders and soldiers from specified districts, with land cultivated by peasants and enslaved workers. The measure sought to connect military support with local output, though its full implementation near the end of Ghazan’s life is uncertain.

Endowments provided another way to direct property and income toward specified purposes. A waqf was a religious endowment whose resources were set aside to maintain designated services. The foundation deed for Rab’-e Rashidi, dated 1309, laid out funding and staffing for a school, hospital, book-copying workshop, religious spaces, kitchens and other facilities. It prescribed salaries, food and bread for workers, students and others. It also provided for enslaved people to perform work, including gardening.

The complex’s economic functions were intertwined with its religious and charitable ones. Its provisions included paid Quran reciters and Sufi staff, as well as food for a hundred poor people each day. A hospital, teachers and students also received support from the foundation. These details show religious and welfare services as part of a working institution with ongoing expenses, supplies and labor.

Craft production and court purchasing

Court purchasing connected skilled producers with the demands of government and army. State officers could commission goods or acquire them through markets, while artisans supplied materials and labour at several stages. Textile weaving, ceramics and decorated metalwork produced objects for patrons and customers with different resources.

Surviving objects and manuscripts show the range of skilled production in Ilkhanid settings. Metalworkers made brass objects decorated with copper inlay, and more costly pieces could use gold inlay. Ceramic production included painted vessels, while Kashan remained a center of lustreware until the late thirteenth century and later continued making tiles. High-quality silk textiles were also produced. One surviving textile fragment bears the name and titles of Abu Sa’id, who ruled from 1316 to 1335; it has been attributed to an Ilkhanid state workshop, probably in Tabriz.

Book production brought several kinds of skilled labor together. At Rab’-e Rashidi, the foundation supported a workshop for making books, and early copies of Rashid al-Din’s historical work, the Jami’ al-tawarikh, were produced there. The foundation’s deed also set out arrangements for staff, supplies and copying. Its later history belongs to a distinct phase: Rashid al-Din’s son Ghiyas al-Din revived the institution in the 1330s, and the Great Mongol Shahnameh may have been produced there during this successor period. The evidence for that manuscript’s connection to the complex is not certain.

Currency and monetary policy

Ghazan ordered gold and silver coins to be struck to a common model and sought greater uniformity in weights and measures. Differences in the weight and value of circulating coins complicated exchange, so a more predictable standard could help merchants compare payments. His name on coins also asserted the ruler’s authority. Regional variation continued despite the programme.

The Ilkhanid paper-money experiment of 1294 was separate from the Yuan dynasty’s system in China. Yuan rulers had issued paper currency from 1260, but their policy and circulation belonged to a different state and setting. Gaykhatu, Ghazan’s predecessor, attempted to introduce an imitation in the Ilkhanate, even including Chinese characters on the notes. The experiment failed quickly and the notes were withdrawn. It did not establish paper money as a durable means of payment in Iran. The contrast underlines that currency systems were not simply shared across Mongol-ruled territories.

Merchants, exchange and regional connections

Mongol rule connected territories across Asia and eased trade and communication over long distances, while the Ilkhanate maintained political and economic relations with the Yuan court in China. Tabriz became an important center of commerce. Merchants also operated within political systems that could expose them to official demands: ortogh merchants, Muslim traders contracted by Mongol elites, were the subject of complaints about abuses of relay stations and civilians. Earlier Mongol orders had sought to prevent such abuses.

The yam was a relay-post system for official communications. Relays supplied mounts and other support to authorised messengers. Restricting access mattered because an envoy’s demands could become a burden on local people. Ghazan’s regulations sought to separate legitimate public business from private errands charged to the same system.

For the wider setting, see The Ilkhanate: Mongol Rule, Government and Society in Iran.