Author Description

Informed by the question of how Mongol rule transformed thirteenth-century Seljuk political culture, the volume explores the constantly evolving structures of both the Mongol Ilkhanate based in Iran and its client state, the Seljuk sultanate of Anatolia. Writing outside the nationalist paradigms of the mainstream scholarly literature, the author not only takes issue with the assumption of the marginality of Mongol rule in Anatolia; she also offers an alternative political narrative constructed according to a critical reading of the sources, especially of the underutilized unabridged sole manuscript of the main source for the period, Ibn Bibi's Persian history. Her reconstruction of an alternative narrative employs, as an as an explanatory device, the dynamics of factional court politics.