Ilkhanid Religious Foundations, Learning and Practical Knowledge, 1256–1335

From Hülegü’s conquests after 1256 to the breakup of the Ilkhanate after 1335, rulers and ministers in Iran, Iraq and adjoining territories supported institutions for worship, education, medicine and research. Their resources helped maintain mosques and Sufi lodges, pay teachers and physicians, feed residents and visitors, and equip workshops and libraries. Tabriz’s Rab’-e Rashidi and the observatory at Maragheh show how this patronage worked: each depended on organized funding and skilled labor, but served different purposes and had its own history.

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Endowments turned patronage into ongoing support

A waqf was an endowment assigning property or income to specified purposes. Rather than a single gift for construction, it could fund continuing salaries, food, medicines, books and maintenance. A deed set out administrators’ responsibilities and the services to be supported. Keeping accounts and collecting income were therefore part of sustaining learning and care.

At Rab’-e Rashidi, endowed property and other income supported a large range of activities. The foundation’s regulations assigned administrative and financial responsibilities to different officers, and receipts were kept in a protected treasury. A bathhouse also generated rental income for the complex. At Maragheh, Hülegü assigned endowment revenues to support an astronomical observatory, with Nasir al-Din al-Tusi overseeing its fund as well as its scholarly work. These examples show how religious endowments could support institutions whose work extended beyond worship.

Religious institutions under changing Ilkhanid rule

Religious patronage took place in a realm where Muslims lived alongside Christian, Buddhist, Jewish and Zoroastrian communities and people following Mongol religious traditions. The court’s policies changed over time. Ghazan’s conversion to Islam in 1295 made Islam the state religion, but it did not make the population religiously uniform. Christian and Jewish subjects were required to pay the jizya, a tax imposed on non-Muslims. Ghazan also ordered Buddhist temples destroyed and put pressure on Buddhists to convert or leave, though he later moderated these measures. Öljeitü’s subsequent adoption of Shi’i Islam further illustrates changes in the religious alignment of the ruling court.

A madrasa supported advanced study, especially religious disciplines and law. A khanqah provided a setting for Sufi residence and worship. At Rab’-e Rashidi, paid Qur’an reciters, teachers, students and service workers received specified support. Religious observance and instruction were organised alongside food, accommodation and medical care.

Rab’-e Rashidi: an endowed complex in Tabriz

Rashid al-Din Hamadani, a leading minister under Ghazan, established Rab’-e Rashidi in the early 14th century in northeastern Tabriz. Its surviving foundation deed, with later additions, sets out an unusually detailed plan for operating the institution. The complex brought together a school, library, hospital, mosques, tomb, Sufi lodge, residences, kitchens, gardens and workshops. A wall and formal entrance enclosed its central buildings, which included a courtyard with four iwans, or vaulted halls open on one side.

The surviving endowment deed is dated 9 August 1309, with appendices added later. It assigned income and posts to sustain the foundation, making the organisation of its services unusually visible. The text joined instructions for religious duties with details of employment, supplies and the management of property.

Teaching, books and skilled work

The Rab’-e Rashidi deed distinguished a teacher of Qur’anic commentary and hadith, reports about Muhammad, from a professor of the Shafi’i school of Sunni law teaching legal principles and jurisprudence. The latter received an annual salary of 500 dinars, assisted by a répétiteur who helped students revisit lessons. Ten students received 30 dinars annually and were replaced after five years. Financial support linked study with residence and food.

Book production connected learning with skilled craft. Scribes copied text on prepared paper, and supervisors compared the result with an authoritative original before binding and registration. The foundation prescribed copies of the Qur’an and hadith as well as Rashid al-Din’s works. His Jami’ al-tawarikh, or Compendium of Chronicles, combined histories of many peoples. Surviving copies show the care invested in script and illustrations.

Medical care, food and labor

The dar al-shifa, or hospital, combined treatment with instruction. Its senior physician both practised and taught; an ophthalmologist-surgeon supplied specialist care; two trainee physicians learned within the institution. The trainees received annual salaries and were replaced after five years. Medical provision required medicines, stores and service staff as well as the physician’s knowledge.

Food provision was another part of the institution’s operation. Kitchens and a bakery supplied staff and residents, while the foundation’s provisions included daily meals for 100 poor people. Its workforce included more than 100 employees in a range of skilled and service roles. The deed also assigned 220 enslaved people to the foundation, including about 150 gardeners; others were designated for demanding duties such as security and rent collection. Gardening and water management helped sustain the complex’s cultivated land. This mix of paid work and coerced labor was integral to the institution’s planned operation.

Rab’-e Rashidi’s fortunes were tied to its patrons. Rashid al-Din was executed in 1318, after which the foundation declined. His son Ghiyas al-Din attempted to renew it in the 1330s, but his own death in 1336 brought that phase of patronage to an end.

Maragheh observatory: research, teaching and instruments

Hülegü sponsored the observatory at Maragheh, with al-Tusi as its first director. Construction began in 1259 and continued for several years on a flat-topped hill outside the city. The site extended about 400 metres in length and 150 metres in width. Its buildings included a central tower, five circular platforms, living quarters, a library and a workshop for metalworking. The layout joined the work of observation to the making and upkeep of instruments and to the needs of resident scholars.

Al-Tusi organised staff, instruments and the library as well as the observatory’s endowment. Al-Urdi designed observational equipment, including a mural quadrant, whose graduated arc measured angles, and ring instruments representing celestial circles. Observers recorded positions and mathematicians used such measurements in calculations and astronomical tables.

The observatory was also a place of instruction. Student texts on mathematical astronomy and astronomical tables point to teaching alongside observation and calculation. After roughly twelve years of work, al-Tusi and his collaborators compiled the Zij-i Ilkhani, a set of astronomical tables issued under Hülegü’s son Abaqa. Bar-Hebraeus, a Christian scholar, later lived near the observatory and used its library for his studies. The example shows that a court-sponsored institution could draw on expertise and readers from different religious and intellectual backgrounds.

Maragheh continued beyond al-Tusi’s lifetime, with work depending on patrons, trained staff and the maintenance of instruments and books. Rab’-e Rashidi similarly tied its services to an income-producing endowment and the fortunes of its founder’s family. Each institution required continuing administration to turn a patron’s resources into daily teaching, treatment or research.

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