How Ghazan Won Persia by Adopting Its Faith and Fixing Its Taxes

The Challenge

By the 1290s the Ilkhanate, the Mongol state in Persia, was in trouble. Its Mongol rulers governed a Muslim population as outsiders, heavy and arbitrary taxation had impoverished the peasantry, and revenue was falling. Rival princes fought over the throne.

The Approach

• Converted to Islam in 1295, taking the name Mahmud, and expected his Mongol commanders to follow
• Took the throne the same year as a Muslim ruler of a Muslim land
• With his vizier, the historian Rashid al-Din, replaced arbitrary levies with fixed tax assessments, reformed the coinage, weights and measures, and reorganized the relay network
• Gave soldiers land grants to support themselves, reducing the burden of the army on the peasantry

The Impact

The reforms stabilized the Ilkhanate's finances and its relationship with its subjects. Every Ilkhan after Ghazan was Muslim.

His reign also produced one of the great works of world history, Rashid al-Din's Compendium of Chronicles, and the Ilkhanate's only victory over the Mamluks in Syria, at Wadi al-Khazandar in 1299.

The Lesson for Leaders

Lasting authority comes from sharing the values of those you govern and treating them fairly. Ghazan closed the gap between rulers and ruled on two fronts at once: identity and economics. Either alone would have been weaker.