Food, Dress, Worship and Travel in the Ilkhanate: Everyday Practices and Institutions

Food, clothing, worship and travel depended on resources and organised work in the Ilkhanate. Courtly camps moved with households and herds, while cities maintained markets and institutions. At Rab’-e Rashidi in Tabriz, the 1309 endowment deed gives detailed instructions for meals, lodging and care. These records can be read alongside dated garments, textiles and accounts of religious participation.

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Clothing, textiles and personal appearance in Ilkhanid society

The terlig, a Mongol riding robe, was fashionable at the Ilkhanid court. Its characteristic cut combined a relatively fitted upper body with a skirt gathered into folds at the waist, long sleeves and a broad waist fastening. The folds and close upper fit suited movement on horseback. In West Asian Ilkhanid dress, however, the garment was adapted rather than simply copied from Yuan examples: it could be worn as an inner layer beneath a short-sleeved outer coat, and waist decoration appears to have been less common than in Yuan versions.

Ilkhanid terligs could combine Mongol and local visual conventions. Some used Central or East Asian motifs, including cloud collars, dragons, phoenixes and flowers. Others featured roundels and tirāz , decorative bands that could carry inscriptions. A form of lettering described as pseudo-Kufic imitated the angular appearance of Arabic script. Bands along the shoulders and arms, different collar shapes, and the combination of inner and outer garments also marked regional adaptations.

The tall boqta was a formal headdress of Mongol noblewomen, supported by a light framework and covered with cloth and ornament. Other dress combined a long coat with an inner shirt, trousers and footwear. A belt or sash held the garment close at the waist, while its skirt and sleeves shaped how the wearer moved.

Food, hospitality and access to care in Ilkhanid communities

Rab’-e Rashidi shows how food could be organized through an endowed institution rather than left solely to household resources. Rashid al-Din’s foundation in Tabriz included a school, a hospital, mosques, a Sufi lodge, residences, workshops and kitchens. A surviving endowment document dated August 1309 set out provisions for its staff and activities. It provided for more than a hundred employees and 220 enslaved people, including workers assigned to gardening and other physical tasks. The scale of this establishment depended on both professional staff and coerced labour.

Kitchens and bakeries supplied staff, residents and visitors. The deed specified wheat loaves and prepared pottages of grain, pulses and meat. Poor recipients received bread and pottage in bowls that were counted afterwards. Visitors could remain for three days, with breakfast and a later meal provided as part of their stay.

The hospital joined treatment with instruction. A physician taught trainees while attending patients, and specialist staff supplied eye care and surgery. Medicines were kept securely and issued against prescriptions through a screened opening on designated days. The physician’s calls to sick residents, visitors and workers connected treatment with the wider residential community.

After Rashid al-Din was executed in 1318, the foundation declined. His son Ghiyas al-Din revived it in the 1330s, a later phase of patronage within the final years of Ilkhanid rule. Ghiyas al-Din was killed in 1336, after the core period covered here, and the institution was again plundered.

Worship and religious communities

The Ilkhanate contained Muslim, Christian and Zoroastrian communities, alongside Buddhist practice within the Mongol ruling world. The official religious position changed over time. Ghazan converted to Islam in 1295 and made Islam the state religion, but a change in court policy did not mean that all inhabitants shared one faith or worshipped in the same way. Ghazan’s policies also had consequences for religious minorities: Christian and Jewish subjects were made liable for the jizya, a tax imposed on non-Muslims, and he ordered Buddhist temples destroyed before later moderating this policy.

Muslim worship at Rab’-e Rashidi involved prayer leaders, muezzins who called people to prayer, teachers and reciters. At the tomb, readers took turns reciting the Qur’an. Special services required cleaning, lamps filled with sesame oil and candles. The organisation of worship drew on service workers as well as religious specialists.

Travel, the court and hospitality

Mobility was part of Ilkhanid political life. Mongol rulers retained a nomadic way of life, and their routes crossed central Iraq, northwestern Iran, Azerbaijan and Armenia. At the same time, the centres of government changed over the dynasty, from Maragheh to Tabriz and later Soltaniyeh.

Journeys also served religious and political purposes. Under Abu Sa’id, the court sent costly pilgrimage caravans from Iraq to Mecca. A caravan in 1330 included an elephant, underscoring the resources available for a ruler-sponsored expedition. Such journeys connected pilgrimage with the Ilkhan’s public standing as a Muslim ruler, but they were not a measure of what an ordinary traveller could afford.

Endowed hospitality offered travellers a place to stop and obtain food while journeys continued between cities and courts. Court movement required far greater resources, including animals, baggage and attendants. Both forms depended on supplies at successive destinations, and political conflict or damaged routes could interrupt them.

For the wider setting, see Daily Life in Ilkhanid Communities: Households, Work, and Worship.