The Discourse of Legitimacy Reign in Ilkhanid Period HistoriographyAccording to the Versions of Chengizid Shāhnāmeh, Shahanshāhnāmeh, and Jami al-Tawarikh

Historiography during the Ilkhanid period grew up with the support of the Ilkhanids. For this reason, the political intentions of the supporters purposefully infiltrated the custom dates of this period and formed a discourse for the legitimacy of the Ilkhanids. In this regard, the present study aimed to recognize the discourse of the legitimacy of the Ilkhanid Reign and examine three custom versions: Chengizid Shāhnāmeh, Shahanshāhnāmeh, and Jami al-Tawarikh. This paper seeks to examine such issues via the method of critical discourse analysis (Van Leeuwen, 2008) and citing library studies. The questions posed in this study were: 1) How can the legitimacy of the Ilkhanids be analyzed in the content and existence of the manuscripts?, and 2) what strategies did the authors of such manuscripts use to produce the discourse of the legitimacy of the Ilkhanids? Based on the findings of this study, along with immortalization, legitimation for the Ilkhanids has been one of the most important reasons for the production of such histories. As the authors rely on the arrangement of narratives, content creation, the use of Quranic verses, and imitation of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh as an influential element for identifying Iranians, they had sought to build legitimacy. The authors also used representations of Mongolian, Iranian, and Islamic discourses to redefine the legitimate Ilkhanids identity and legitimize their actions in political and social situations. In this way, the reduction in the use of Mongolian discourse themes in Shahanshāhnāmeh is consistent with the reduction of the role of the Mongolian element in the late Ilkhanid rule.

Although the Ilkhanids had initially come to power by sword, they gradually established social order. To fulfill the political goals, they had to implement policies that would guarantee their legitimacy against competitors and the people. Legitimacy had received more attention since the Ghāzān period by supporting historiography as one of the cultural strategies that paved the way for the writing of many historical books, which were written by the order of the court or independently. In this study, based on legitimation in the political thought of the Ilkhanids, historical books that were written with the theme of the historical description of the reign and commissioned by them were investigated.

Three custom books of Chengizid Shāhnāmeh, Shahanshāhnāmeh, and Jami al-Tawarikh are the materials studied in this research. Jami al-Tawarikh has been written in the general history of the world by the order of Ghāzān, by his minister Rashid al-Din Fazlullah Hamedani (Eqbal, 1969, p. 488). In the study of this book, the correction part of the Mongol stories was considered (Ibid, p. 31). Shahnameh of Shams-al-Dīn Kashani is one of the historical poems of the Ilkhanid era, which was composed by the order of Ghāzān that had the poem weight of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh (Mortazavi, 1991, p. 380). This book has been s studied based on its manuscript in the library of the Islamic Consultative Assembly of Iran. Shahnameh of Ahmad Tabrizi has been composed with the poetic weight of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh by the order of Abu Saeed Ilkhani, with the subject of the history of the Mongols, Genghis Khan, and his successors up to the time of Abu Saeed (Tabrizi, Manuscript, Or2780, version, 132). The only remaining version of its manuscript in the British Museum is the basis of this study.This study has focused on the role of linguistic propositions in legitimizing the identity and socio-political actions of the Ilkhanids. Hence, the history books in question by the method of critical discourse analysis (Van Leeuwen, 2008) which is based on the premise of Max Weber, with the theme of the efforts of all powers to build belief in its legitimacy and its expansion (Weber, 1978, p. 213) were analyzed.

In examining the discourse of reign legitimacy in the content and existence of these data, the three points of writing format, historical content, and historical order in telling stories were important. Poetic works were similar in weight and content to Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. On the other hand, in the content of these works, the mythological and historical patterns of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh and Iranshahri thought have been used to legitimate redefining the identity and actions of the Ilkhanids. In the same way, Jami al-Tawarikh also used the poems of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh to redefine the legitimate identity of the Ilkhanids.
In the historical context of the works, the Mongolian discourse in the Shahanshāhnāmeh has been used in contrast to the other two works with a more limited range. This point along with the gradual decline of the Mongol foundations of the Ilkhanids reign and the finding power of local families during its writing period have been remarkable. In the two custom works of Ghāzān, the use of Mongolian elements had a more prominent place in their legitimation. This was not irrelevant to disputes over succession, independence from the central Mongol court, and becoming an Ilkhan Muslim during Ghāzān reign. In the arrangement of the narrations of the Shahnameh Changizi version, the historical order has not been observed in such a way that the poems are related to the praise or mention of Ilkhan. The sponsor of the work appears with a time jump immediately after the poems related to the Mongol ancestors. Sometimes even the story of the Mongol ancestors is cut off suddenly and resumed after the story of Ilkhans. Hence, there is a kind of purposeful orientation in the arrangement and retelling of Ilkhan's narrations. Based on the findings of this study, the content and imitation of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh on the one hand, and the meaningful arrangement of historical narratives, on the other hand, justify the existence of these historical books to legitimize the Ilkhanids. Also, following the cultural-political context of the Ilkhanid society and the goals of the rulers in the field of international politics, the authors used three Mongol, Iranian, and Islamic discourse strategies to legitimate defining the identity, Ilkhanids actions, and decisions. Hence, with reducing the role and position of the Mongol element at the end of the Ilkhanids rule, a noticeable decrease in the use of Mongolian discourse concepts in the version of the Shahanshāhnāmeh compared to the other two works happened. In the same way, the authors with placing the personality and rule of Ilkhan in the form of the standard king of Iranshahri thought have used the Iranian discourse to legitimize it in the minds of Iranians. Also, the concepts of Islamic discourse have been considered throughout this period, considering the ambitious goals of the Ilkhanids in achieving superiority in the Islamic world and in competing with Muslim Mamlūks.