Juvaini

Almost all information about the ancestors of Al Al-Din and about his life until 1256 was borrowed from Ta'rikh-i jahangushai . The Juwaini family came from the small town of Azadwar mentioned in the 10th century in the Juwain district, in the western part of Khorasan , one day's journey north from the city of Behmenabad. According to Kitab al-Fahri Ibn al-Tiktaka , Ala ad-Din later claimed to be derived from Fadla ibn Rabi, the vizier of Harun al-Rashid . Baha ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ali took the oath to Khorezmshah Tekesh in 1192 .

His grandson Baha ad-Din Muhammad ibn Muhammad, the father of Al Al-Din, appears in Dauletshah ’s story, allegedly borrowed from Ta'rikh-i jahangushai , as an approximate ( mukarrab ) of Khorezmshah Muhammad ibn Tekesh . However, this place, as well as some other quotes from Dauletschah, is apparently absent in the cited work. Ala ad-Din apparently mentions his father for the first time in a story about the latest battles between the Mongols and Sultan Jalal ad-Din of Mankburn . Baha ad-Din was at that time in Nishapur . The city was occupied by two commanders of the Sultan, Tugan-Sunkar and Karadzha, which, however, shortly afterwards were driven out by the Mongol commander Kul-Bulat. Baha ad-Din with several companions went to Tus and found refuge there in one fortress, but later the head of the fortress gave it to the Mongols at their request. Accepted by Kul-Bulat, he entered the Mongolian service and for the next decades held the post of sahib-divan (Minister of Finance) Khorasan with several governors. With the last of these governors, Argun-aka , he traveled several times to the Mongolian capital Karakorum . In the second half of 1253, at the age of 60, he wanted to retire, but at the request of the Mongols he had to abandon his intention and died in the same year in Isfahan .

According to the story of Al Al-Din himself, still in his youth, having not had time to acquire a thorough literary education, contrary to his father’s desire, he chose the career of an official and was taken to service on the couch . Twice, in 1249-1251 and 1251-1253, he, together with Argun-aka, traveled to and from Mongolia . When Tsarevich Khulagu, at the head of the army, invaded Persia , Ala ad-Din was left in Khorasan at the beginning of 1256 to manage this area with his son Argun-aka, Girey-Melik. In the same year, he distinguished himself by the restoration of the city of Khabushan (now Kuchan ), destroyed by the Mongols. Upon his prompting, Khulag ordered the capture of the Alamut to protect the famous library of Nizari imams from destruction. The books were handed over to Al al-Din, who ordered that everything related to Ismaili dogma be burned and the rest preserved. Later, most of the books went to the recently founded Merag Observatory .

In 661 g. / 1262-1263 years. Ala ad-Din was appointed governor ( malik ) of Baghdad , Lower Mesopotamia and Khuzistan . Probably, this appointment was due to the influence of his brother Shams ad-Din Mohammed , who was appointed a sahib-divan in the same year. Since then, Ala ad-Din ruled, as Hamdallah Qazvini says, “in the place of the caliph” ( bar ja-yi caliph ) the country of the Arabs . It is reported that he gained great merit in restoring Baghdad's well-being and tranquility in this province. He ordered the issuance of 100,000 dinars in gold in order to draw a canal from the Euphrates to Kufa and Nedzhef and thereby explore new areas for culture ( Wassaf ). The work was directed by Taj ad-Din Ali ibn Muhammad, the father of the author, Kitab al-Fahri . Later, under Abak , Taj ad-Din tried to secure the resignation of the governor, and therefore, at the instigation of the latter, he was killed at night, for which Ala ad-Din sentenced the killers to death, but also ordered the confiscation of the property of the murdered. At the tomb of Ali, the monastery of dervishes ( khanaka ) was built. However, the governor also tried to protect the Gentiles from the fanaticism of Muslims. In 1268, the Nestorian patriarch Denha took refuge in his house. In 1271, the assassins attempted to assassinate Al Al-Din and seriously wounded him. Christians were accused by the Muslim population of acting in harmony with the killers. Despite his tolerance, Ala ad-Din was forced to imprison several bishops, priests and monks.

The attacks that both brothers suffered under Ilkhan Abak ( 1265 - 1282 ), especially in the last years of his reign, had even more serious consequences for Al ad-Din than for his brother. Already in 669 g. / 1270-1271 years. Abaka ordered an audit of the balance of income and expenses of the province of Baghdad, and a shortage of 250 tomans was revealed (1 toman was 10,000 silver dinars with 6 dirhams ). Ala ad-Din managed to prove that the cause of this shortage is the difficult economic situation of the rural population and that from the recovery of money the residents would be completely ruined. Abaka acknowledged these arguments and freed the province from unpaid taxes; Ala ad-din received permission to return to Baghdad. With greater success, the same charges were again brought forward in 1281 . In addition, it was alleged that Ala ad-Din maintains ties with the Egyptian Mamelukes . To avoid torture, he accepted the obligation to pay the treasury 300 tomans, but, after selling all his property, he was able to collect only 170 tomans. By order of Abaki, he was released on December 17, shortly thereafter, again arrested due to another 130 missing tomans, tortured and carried naked in Baghdad. When the sahib-diva Shams ad-Din, thanks to the patronage of the new sovereign, Ahmed Tekuder (1282–1284), managed to destroy his enemies, Al ad-Din was also returned freedom and his property, and he was again appointed governor of Baghdad. However, back in the same year (681 g. / 1282-1283) Tsarevich Argun, by his own authority, ordered the investigation against him to be resumed and all his property confiscated. When Ala ad-Din in Arran received this news, a blow happened to him and he died on March 6, 1283 . According to Wassaf, he died in Mugan and was buried in Tabriz .

Juvaini wrote his historical work in his youth and, apparently, did not turn to this lesson anymore. In his own words, as early as 650 h./1252-1253 in Mongolia he was asked to write the history of the Mongol conquests. The preface to the work says that the author at the time of writing was 27 years old. In the story of the siege of Bukhara and Samarkand, 658 CE / 1260 is given as the time of compilation of this chapter; in the later manuscript, the month of Rabbi 'I (February 15 - March 15) is given as the end time of all labor.

The composition consists of three main parts:

1. The history of the Mongols and their conquests before the events after the death of Khan Guyuk , in the same place about the descendants of Jochi and Chagatai ;
2. The history of the Khorezmshah dynasty, partly based on written sources, such as Masharib at-tajarib Abu-al-Hassan Beihaki and Jawami al-'ulum Fakhr ad-Din Razi, here is the history of the Mongol governors of Khorasan until 656 CE / 1258;
3. Continuation of the history of the Mongols until the victory over the Assassins; here is the news of this sect, mainly from the writings found in the Alamut, such as Sarguzasht-i Sayyidna ( Serguzest-i seyidna - “The Tale of Our Lord”, dedicated to the deeds of Hassan ibn Sabbah ); in addition, other works that have since been lost are cited, for example, written for Buid Fahr al-Daul (d. 387 A.D. 997) Ta'rikh-i dzhang-i Dailam and Ta'rikh-i Sellami .

Some manuscripts of Tarih-i jahangushai also contain a chapter on the conquest of Baghdad, attributed to the authorship of Nasir al-Din at-Tusi .

What Juvaini says about his lack of literary education should probably be considered only as traditional modesty. His contemporaries, including the author Kitab al-Fahri Ibn at-Tiktak, the son of his enemy, extol him as a highly educated man and patron of poets and scholars. ' Aja'ib al-mahlukat of Zakaria Kazvini is dedicated to him. The historical work of Al ad-Din Juvaini, due to his style, was considered an unattainable model.

Labor, which had a significant impact on historical tradition in the East , remains a historical source of primary importance. The author is probably the only Persian historian who traveled to Mongolia and described East Asian countries from his own observations. Along with Rubruk's travel notes, we owe Juveini to everything we know about the buildings in the Mongolian capital Karakorum. The news of the conquests of Genghis Khan is nowhere else collected with the same detail. Some episodes, such as military operations on the Syr Darya below and above Otrar with the famous siege of Khojend , are generally known to us only from Ta'rikh-i jahangushai . Unfortunately, Juvaini here does not convey the immediate impressions of his contemporaries, but the ideas of the next generation, as a result of which the details of his story, especially the information on the number of soldiers and killed, should be taken with great care. For example, even d'Osson noted the fact that Bukhara’s citadel at Juvaini was protected by 30,000 people who were all killed when captured, while Ibn al-Asir , who refers to an eyewitness account here, had only 400 horsemen. The news of the events in Maverannahr before the Mongol conquest, especially the wars between Kara-China and the Khorezmshah Muhammad , are given in different chapters, and it happens that the author talks about the same events in later chapters of the book, obviously from different (written or oral) sources, completely different than in the previous ones. Only later compilers, such as Mirhond , processed these conflicting messages into a single story, of course, not in accordance with the principles of modern criticism. Because of such treatments, European science, to which these compilers were more accessible than the original work, was repeatedly misled.

During the persecution that he suffered under Abak, Juvaini wrote in Arabic a message of comfort for his brother ( Tasliyat al-ihwan ). According to Wassaf, one qasida from this composition was imitated by adding 70 poets with the same rhyme ( taush ).

• Ata Melik Juvaini. Genghis Khan. History of the World Conqueror = Genghis Khan: the history of the world conqueror / Translation from the text of Mirza Muhammad Kazvini into English by J.E. Boyle , with a preface and bibliography of D.O. Morgan . Translation of the text from English into Russian by E. E. Kharitonova. - M .: "MAGISTR-PRESS Publishing House", 2004. - 690 p. - 2000 copies. - ISBN 5-89317-201-9 .
• Bartold V.V. Juveini, Ala ad-Din // Bartold V.V. Works. - M .: Nauka, 1973. - T. VIII: Works on source studies . - S. 591-595 .
• Extracts from the “Tarih-i-Jehangush” by Ala-ad-din Ata-Melik Juvani // Materials on the History of Turkmens and Turkmenistan / Transl. under the editorship of A.A. Romaskevich. - M .: Institute of Oriental Studies, 1939. - T. 1 . - S. 442-449, 485-493 .
• From the “History of the Conqueror of the World” Juvaini // Collection of materials related to the history of the Golden Horde / Transl. V. G. Tiesenhausen . - M .: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1941. - T. 2: Extracts from Persian works . - S. 20-24 .
• The history of Iran from ancient times to the end of the XVIII century . - L .: Publishing house of the Leningrad University, 1958. - 390 p.
• ʻAlāʼ al-Dīn ʻAṭā Malik Juvaynī. Genghis Khan: the history of the world conqueror . - Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997 .-- 763 p. - (Manchester medieval sources series). - ISBN 0719051452 .

• Ala ad-din Ata Malik Juvaini // Kazakhstan. National Encyclopedia . - Almaty: Kazakh encyclopedias , 2004. - T. I. - ISBN 9965-9389-9-7 .
• Juvaini, Ala ad-Din Ata Melik (Neopr.) . - Eastern literature . Date of treatment October 1, 2010. Archived on August 25, 2011.
• Melville C. Jahāngošā-ye Jovayni, Tāriḵ-e (English) . Encyclopædia Iranica (December 15, 2008). Date of treatment November 14, 2010. Archived March 12, 2012.
• Lane G. Jovayni ʿAlāʾ-al-Din . Encyclopædia Iranica (June 15, 2009). Date of treatment October 1, 2010. Archived March 12, 2012.