Mongke Khan

Mongke was the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire. He was the son of Tolui, the youngest son of Genghis Khan, and the eldest of the four sons of Tolui's chief wife Sorkoktani Beki; the others were Kubilay, Hulagu and Arigh-boke. ¹ The Encyclopaedia of Islam says that his main significance for the history of the Muslim world is that Hulagu mounted the expedition that led to the Ilkhanate at his command. ¹

Mongke's fortunes were bound up with those of Batu, under whom he served at least in the early stages of the great invasion of Russia and eastern Europe in 1237-42. ¹ When the Great Khan Ogedei died in 1241, a long interregnum followed. His son Guyuk was recognised only in 1246, and he and Batu had been enemies since the Russian campaign; open conflict was avoided only by Guyuk's sudden death in 1248. ¹

A further interregnum lasted until 1251, when it was ended by a coup on the part of Batu and Mongke. The article says that in this the senior line of the family, that of Jochi, and the junior line of Tolui prevailed over the Chaghatayids and the Ogedeids, many of whom were killed after Mongke's election and enthronement on 1 July 1251. ¹ Batu himself declined the throne and preferred to stay in his own lands, the Golden Horde, but the price of his support was autonomy there. The empire thus became, in the article's words, a Batu-Mongke dominium, although the article notes that T. A. Allsen takes a different view. ¹

After taking the throne, Mongke sent major forces in two directions. His brother Kubilay was sent to begin the conquest of the Sung empire in the south of China, while Hulagu was commissioned to march west against the Ismailis of Persia and the Abbasid caliphate. According to the Persian historian Juwayni, each expedition was allotted two out of every ten soldiers available in the empire. ¹

Both campaigns were still under way when Mongke died in China. His death set off a civil war over the Great Khanate between Kubilay and Arigh-boke, which Kubilay won in 1264. ¹ (The OCR of the article is damaged at the line giving the exact year of his death; the museum's record gives 1259 and marks it as not read directly from the article.)

The article suggests that it was possibly during Mongke's reign that the Islamic lands under Mongol control first had a new poll-tax of the kubchur kind imposed on them, though it may have begun earlier. ¹

Although he apparently remained personally attached to his ancestral Shamanism, Mongke was notable for his interest in and tolerance of a wide range of religions. The Franciscan William of Rubruck travelled to Mongolia in 1253-5 and visited Mongke's court at Karakorum, where he took part in a religious debate between Christians, Muslims and Buddhists. Rubruck also gives an account of the events of 1251 which, the article says, is strikingly similar to Juwayni's and, like his, probably reflects the version spread by the victorious side. ¹

The article does not give Mongke's personal religion beyond the statement above, and the museum records no Muslim faith for him. Judgements about his reign in the Persian chronicles come from officials of the dynasty that his own brother founded in Persia, so they should be read with that in mind; this caution is the museum's, not the article's.