Rashid al-Din compiles the Jami’ al-tawarikh

Ghazan (r. 1295–1304) wanted a history of the Mongols that would preserve the memory of their origins now that the dynasty had settled in Iran and adopted Persian ways; his successor Öljeitü (r. 1304–1316) asked for a history of the whole known world as well. The work, written in Persian and issued in Arabic too, has two parts: the History of Ghazan — the Turkic and Mongol tribes, Genghis Khan and his successors down to Ghazan — and a universal history from Adam through the caliphs and the Muslim dynasties, with sections on the Turks, China, the Jews, the Franks (popes and emperors) and India; a geographical volume, which Rashid al-Din describes as finished, has not been found. The vizier did not work alone. He drew on Bolad, the envoy of the Yuan court and an authority on Mongol tradition, on the Mongols’ own records, on Juvayni and Ibn al-Athir, and on Chinese, Uyghur and other scholars at court — the Kashmiri monk Kamalashri supplied the life and teachings of the Buddha. The historian Abu’l-Qasim Kashani later claimed that Rashid al-Din had stolen his work; modern scholars accept the vizier’s overall authorship but see the book as a collective effort.

The dates are approximate. According to Charles Melville (Encyclopaedia Iranica), the work was composed in 1300–1310. Other accounts date Ghazan’s commission to 1300/1301, the presentation of the History of Ghazan to Öljeitü to 1307 and the completion of the whole to 1310/1311; some put the completion as late as 1316. In the Rab’-e Rashidi, the quarter of scholarship he founded in Tabriz, Rashid al-Din set aside funds for a Persian and an Arabic copy of his works to be made every year. The illustrated copies of the Jami’ al-tawarikh are among the largest surviving groups of early Persian miniatures; part of the oldest, an Arabic copy made in his lifetime, is preserved in Edinburgh University Library and the Khalili Collection in London. After his execution in 1318 the Rab’-e Rashidi was plundered.