The Ilkhanate

~1256 – 1335

Mongol Persia — the Ilkhans descended from Genghis, their Nestorian Christian queens and generals, and the monk Rabban Bar Sauma whom they sent as ambassador to the kings of Europe.

When Hulagu's Mongols smashed into the Islamic world and founded Mongol Persia, they carried with them a startling sympathy for Christianity. His empress Doquz Khatun was a devout Nestorian who spared the Christians of Baghdad; his general Kitbuqa, a Christian too, carried Mongol arms to Damascus before falling at Ain Jalut. For a few decades the Ilkhans — Abaqa and his son Arghun — dreamed of a grand alliance with Christian Europe against the Mamluks of Egypt.

To pursue it, Arghun sent west the most improbable ambassador in history: Rabban Bar Sauma, a Nestorian monk born near Beijing, who met the Pope and the kings of England and France and left the only Eastern eyewitness account of medieval Europe — while his companion Mar Yahballaha III led the Church of the East through its last bright hour. Then Ghazan embraced Islam, the dream died, and the Christian moment of the Mongol world quietly passed.

6 figures · sorted by birth year

Abaqa

notable

#440 · 4-10-26

ENTJ

Hulagu's heir who held Mongol Persia together on three fronts — the ENTJ consolidator of the Ilkhanate.

Kitbuqa

notable

#439 · 4-10-26

ESTP

Hulagu's Christian general who took Damascus and fell at Ain Jalut — the ESTP whose aggression met its trap.

Doquz Khatun

notable

#438 · 4-10-26

ISFJ

Hulagu's Christian empress who spared the Christians of Baghdad — the ISFJ queen who shielded her church.

Arghun

renown

#437 · 4-10-26

ENTJ

The Ilkhan who sought a Christian alliance against the Mamluks — the ENTJ strategist whose elixirs poisoned him.

Mar Yahballaha III

notable

#436 · 4-10-26

ISFJ

The Mongol-born monk who became Patriarch and endured persecution for his flock — the steadfast ISFJ shepherd.

Rabban Bar Sauma

renown

#435 · 4-10-26

INFJ

The Mongol-born monk who crossed Asia to meet the kings of Europe — the INFJ 'reverse Marco Polo' of the Ilkhanate.

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