SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

The Idea of Iran: From Saljuq Collapse to Mongol Conquest

12th-century CE Harpy vessel contemporary with the Dhakhira-ye Khwarazmshahi (Courtesy of Bonham's London April 2012)

After the death of Sultan Sanjar in the mid sixth/twelfth century the Saljuq empire rapidly unravelled, its provinces fragmenting into a patchwork of mostly short-lived principalities and kingdoms. This was the era when the atabegs – originally guardians responsible for the upbringing of Saljuq princes – developed into a series of independent local dynasties, each holding a fig-leaf of legitimacy in the shape of a Saljuq puppet prince. After a time new powers emerged: the pagan Qara-Khitai, in Central Asia; the Khwarazmshahs in Khwarazm, Khorasan and much of central Iran; to the southeast the Ghurids, who contested Khorasan with the Khwarazmshahs while ruling much of Afghanistan, Sind and the Punjab. All of these were blown away by the Mongol conquest at the start of the thirteenth century, an event which contemporaries present as a veritable cataclysm. Neither the breakdown of imperial power and centralized government, nor even the Mongol catastrophe, prevented Persian literature from flourishing: Anvari, Khaqani, Nezami, Attar, Rumi and Sa’di all belong to this period, while other arts and sciences also continued to find patronage.

In this the tenth Idea of Iran symposium, we will explore the complex political dynamics of this age – up to the second Mongol invasion under Hulegu in the 1250s and the establishment of the Il-Khanid state – and will focus also on its extraordinary literary, scientific and cultural achievements.

The Centre for Iranian Studies, SOAS and the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford remain deeply grateful to the Soudavar Memorial Foundation for their continued support for this series.

Speakers:

• Professor James Allan, The Khalili Research Centre, University of Oxford
• Professor Michal Biran, The Louis Frieberg Center for East Asian Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Professor Edmund Bosworth, British Institute of Persian Studies (BIPS)
• Dr Hormoz Ebrahimnejad, University of Southampton
• Dr Homa Katouzian, The Middle East Centre, St Antony's College University of Oxford
• Professor David Morgan, University of Wisconsin–Madison
• Dr Alka Patel, University of California
• Dr Christine van Ruymbeke, University of Cambridge

Admission: £15; Conc. & LMEI Affiliates: £10; Students: Free.

Pre-registration required. To register online please visit the SOAS Online Store. Students wishing to attend should contact Valentina Zanardi at: vz1@soas.ac.uk