Everyday Worship and Religious Communities in the Ilkhanate, 1256–1335

Muslim, Christian and Buddhist communities lived under Ilkhanid rule in Iran, Iraq and neighbouring regions between the 1250s and 1335. Worship took place in mosques, churches, temples, lodges and courtly camps. Patrons supplied buildings, furnishings and staff, while rulers’ changing policies affected a community’s security and public standing.

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Religious policy and local communities

Ilkhanid religious life changed as rulers and their political circumstances changed. In the early decades, members of the ruling family and court were associated with Christianity, particularly the Church of the East. Doquz Khatun, Hulegu’s principal wife, was a prominent Christian at court. The Church of the East had its own hierarchy and traditions, distinct from the Latin Church of western Europe. Its presence in Ilkhanid lands was not simply a matter of foreign missions: it included local clergy and communities.

Ghazan’s adoption of Sunni Islam in 1295 strengthened Islam’s position at court, but it did not instantly make the population religiously uniform. His lieutenant Nawruz issued orders against other religions, and Christians and Buddhists faced persecution, including the looting of the Church of the East cathedral at Maragha and damage to churches in Tabriz and Hamadan. Ghazan later restored the patriarch Mar Yaballaha III to his position, exempted Christians from the jizya, a tax imposed on non-Muslims, and reportedly punished people who attacked churches and synagogues in Tabriz in 1298. These reversals show how the safety and public standing of a community could depend on the ruler’s response to officials and local violence.

Mongol religious specialists remained active around the court after rulers adopted Islam. Their roles overlapped with debates among Buddhist, Muslim and Christian advisers about protection and royal favour. Religious change therefore involved competition over practices, institutions and access to the ruler as well as personal conversion.

Endowments made worship and care possible

In Tabriz, Rashid al-Din founded Rab’-e Rashidi with income assigned through a waqf, or endowment. Its 1309 deed specified staff, salaries, supplies and duties. Property management sustained services that required books, lamps, food and repeated work, turning patronage into an organised sequence of religious and charitable activities.

The complex joined mosques and teaching spaces to a tomb, a Sufi lodge, a hospital, a pharmacy, accommodation and kitchens. Its operation depended on paid religious specialists as well as people who prepared food, maintained buildings, supplied water and tended gardens. The endowment also counted enslaved people among its permanent workforce, including gardeners. In this way, religious observance rested on continuing supplies of income, food, fuel, books and labour, not only on the presence of worshippers.

Muslim prayer, study and remembrance in Tabriz

Rabʿ-e Rashidi’s charter provided for two mosques, one used in summer and one in winter. It assigned an imam, who led prayer, and muezzins, who called worshippers to prayer. The provisions also made room for Friday congregational prayer and sermons at festival prayers. The mosques served as places of worship and teaching: lessons in subjects including Qur’anic interpretation and hadith, reports about the Prophet Muhammad, were held there.

At the tomb, Qur’an reciters worked in shifts and assembled for special evening services. The preparations included unlocking and cleaning the space, filling hanging lamps with sesame oil and lighting large candles. After prayer and recitation, participants received warm sweets and thin bread. These provisions explain both the observance and the work that made it possible.

A khanqah was a lodge for Sufi residence and devotion. Rab’-e Rashidi’s had a shaykh, a spiritual guide, and resident Sufis supported by the endowment. Their accommodation and food placed religious life within a continuing community. It stood alongside mosque prayer, instruction and tomb remembrance rather than replacing those activities.

Rabʿ-e Rashidi also connected religious provision with medical care. Its hospital had a physician, a surgeon and eye specialist, trainees, a pharmacy, and rooms for treatment and instruction. The rules included the distribution of medicines to residents and nearby sick people on specified days. Kitchens supplied residents and guests, and the foundation provided daily food for poor people. Worship, study, care for the sick and assistance to the poor therefore operated within a shared system of endowed resources.

Christian worship and church institutions

Christian communities included the Church of the East and Armenian churches, as well as Latin institutions. The Church of the East had a patriarch, bishops and clergy whose liturgy used Syriac. Its monk Rabban Sauma served as an envoy, and the account of his life also describes churches and services in Ilkhanid territory.

The account describes a feast of Mary in 1291 at the royal camp in Alataq, where the patriarch celebrated the Eucharist in a church associated with Doquz Khatun. The Eucharist is the Christian service of thanksgiving and communion using consecrated bread and wine. Royal gifts supported its furnishings and clergy, bringing worship into a mobile courtly setting.

Rabban Sauma later received permission to establish a church at Maragha, dedicated to Mar Mari and Saint George. He brought service vessels and vestments from the camp and provided endowments for continuing use. The account describes regular prayers and Eucharistic services there. The move connected portable worship equipment with a permanent urban church.

Latin Christian missionaries also established institutions in Ilkhanid territory. By around 1300, Dominican and Franciscan convents operated in a number of cities, including Maragha, Tabriz and Erzurum. In 1318 the papacy established an archbishopric at Sultaniye, the Ilkhanid capital. These institutions brought clergy and organised worship into local settings, but the Latin Church remained distinct from the Church of the East.

Buddhist advisers, discipline and changing patronage

Buddhist specialists called bakhshis advised early Ilkhans and received patronage for temples and religious communities. Accounts associate Arghun with periods of dietary restriction and fasting under their guidance. Such discipline affected what the ruler ate and did for a set period, connecting religious instruction with bodily practice.

Ghazan’s conversion in 1295 changed Buddhist institutions’ position sharply. Temples were destroyed and Buddhists faced pressure to convert or leave. These measures disrupted places where specialists taught and practised. The court’s later accommodation of some non-Muslim communities did not restore the earlier balance of patronage.

Patronage, loss and renewed provision

Religious institutions depended on both their endowments and the political security of their patrons. After Rashid al-Din was executed in 1318, Rabʿ-e Rashidi declined, although his son Ghiyas al-Din Muhammad renewed its patronage in the 1330s. His murder in 1336, just beyond the main period of Ilkhanid rule, was followed by further disruption. The complex’s history shows how worship, education, charity and remembrance could be sustained through organised provision, yet remain vulnerable to political violence and the loss of those who managed or protected it.

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