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Turkic World DENISE AIGLE, The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality: Studies in Anthropological History (Leiden: : E.J. Brill 2015) Pp. 394. $ 149.00 cloth.
This book brings to an English-speaking audience the remarkable scholarship of Professor Denise Aigle on the Mongol Empire as well as perceptions of the empire in both East and West Eurasia. Articles which have previously appeared in French (and two also in English) are reworked here into a book with clear thematic threads and structural unity. With perceptive insight on topics ranging from religion and law to diplomacy and ideology, and focusing mostly on the western part of the empire, the author introduces us to the multi-faceted and quite complex Mongol world which, with its cultural and ethnic diversity and many (mis)understandings, in no small measure resembles the increasingly interconnected world of today.
The main thematic thread is that of cross-cultural contact or, more precisely, the "translation" of concepts from one culture to another. Indeed, research on this theme has come to the fore especially since the seminal 2001 book by Thomas Allsen, Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia, which described how the Mongols acted as 'filters' and active agents in mediating cross-cultural contact. Professor Aigle takes these themes even further, stretching our imagination as we see how the Mongols were perceived in completely opposite ways at different time periods and by different people. For example, although today we know about the Muslim convert Ghazan Khan's continuing attachment to shamanism, at the time his attempt to position himself as the leader of the Muslim umma was both serious and credible to some. In fact, a number of soldiers of the Mamluk sultanate thought that they should not fight against Ghazan, a fellow Muslim, and it was to dispel ideas such as these that Ibn Taimiyya wrote his anti-Mongol fatwas.
The first two chapters show how the Mongols were integrated into the Muslim worldview and the European worldview, respectively, by way of supposedly historical accounts, stories, epics, poetry, and "myth"-those "fabulous tales [often considered to be] devoid of historical value" (p. 36) which actually reveal to us how a society interprets the past in the light of present...