Hülegü (Hulagu), acting under Great Khan Möngke’s mandate, began the western campaign that created a new Mongol polity in Iran; his position as khan in Iran (the nucleus of the Ilkhanate) is conventionally dated from 1256.
Mongol forces under Hülegü captured and destroyed the Nizari Ismaili fortress network centered on Alamut, removing a major regional power and opening Iran more fully to Ilkhanid administration.
Hülegü’s army took Baghdad, executed the Abbasid caliph al-Mustaʿṣim, and shattered the Abbasid caliphate’s political authority—an event that reshaped power and legitimacy across the Islamic world.
A Mamluk army defeated Ilkhanid Mongol forces (under Kitbuqa) at ʿAyn Jālūt, halting Mongol expansion into Egypt and establishing a long-running Mamluk–Ilkhanid frontier in the Levant.
War broke out between Berke of the Golden Horde and Hülegü of the Ilkhanate, reflecting both disputes over booty/authority and the widening fragmentation of the wider Mongol Empire.
After Hülegü’s death, Abaqa became Ilkhan, continuing the consolidation of Ilkhanid rule and ongoing conflict with both the Mamluks and rival Mongol houses.
Abaqa’s successor Ahmad Tekuder (a convert to Islam) ruled briefly, signaling growing Islamic influence at court even before the later, decisive state conversion under Ghazan.
Arghun seized power after Tekuder’s execution, restoring earlier Ilkhanid alignments and intensifying court factionalism that would continue into the 1290s succession crises.
To address fiscal strain, Gaykhatu attempted to introduce Chinese-style paper money (chao) in Tabriz; the policy triggered market disruption and was rapidly abandoned, illustrating the limits of transplanting Yuan financial tools to Iran.
Ghazan declared his conversion to Islam in 1295 and soon secured the throne; his conversion made the Ilkhanate’s ruling elite officially Muslim and marked a major turn in the state’s legitimacy and institutions.
Mamluk forces defeated an Ilkhanid army near Damascus at Marj al-Saffar (Shaqhab), effectively ending major Ilkhanid attempts to reconquer Syria after Ghazan’s earlier campaigns.
After Ghazan’s death, Öljeitü took the throne and presided over a comparatively stable reign, while still pursuing regional campaigns and ambitious state-building projects.
Öljeitü initiated construction of Soltaniyeh (Sultaniyya) as a planned imperial capital; the project culminated in monumental architecture, notably the domed mausoleum complex associated with his reign.
Influenced by Shiʿi scholars and political considerations, Öljeitü adopted Twelver Shiʿism and proclaimed it the state religion—an important precedent for later Iranian state confessional politics.
Öljeitü’s death brought Abu Saʿid Bahadur Khan to the throne, with powerful amirs exerting major influence; his reign was the last period of unified Ilkhanid rule before rapid disintegration.
Rashid al-Din (vizier and author of the Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh) was executed after being accused of poisoning Öljeitü, a sign of intensified factional politics under Abu Saʿid and a blow to a major administrative-intellectual patronage network.
The Ilkhanate made peace with the Mamluk Sultanate in 1323, ending decades of large-scale interstate warfare and stabilizing trade and diplomacy across the Syria–Iraq frontier.
Abu Saʿid’s death without a clear adult heir precipitated a succession crisis; competing claimants and regional powerbrokers fractured Ilkhanid authority, marking the effective end of the Ilkhanate as a unified state.
The Ilkhanate in Persia: Establishment, Rule and Conversion to Islam (1256–1335)
