Political Involvement and Women’s Rule in the Ilkhanate ruling women did not entirely disappear from the Ilkhanate. The regions south of the Iranian plateau, Anatolia and the Caucasus were governed by local dynasties of Turkic origin (the Qutlughkhanids, the Salghurids and the Saljuqs of Rum) that were subject to the Mongols. In these areas, the political status of women followed different paths from the centre of power located in north-western Iran. In certain provinces, women ruled as legitimate heads of state in similar ways to women during the united Mongol Empire and Central Asia in the 1250s, but in all of them they maintained their active participation in the political scene. This section focuses on specific regions under Ilkhanid rule and the province of Fars and the rule of Abesh‌Khatun, a woman of the Salghurid dynasty connected to the Mongols that ruled south-western Iran in the thirteenth century.
The south-western province of Fars, continually linked to developments in Kerman, seems to have been influenced by the view that women might be openly recognised as rulers with the power to direct affairs of state in the region. Female rule emerged in the area in 1261, during the reign of Hülegü, when the Salghurid ruler S’aad II had died on his way to Shiraz to assume control after the death of his father Abu Bakr. These were the circumstances in which Turkan Khatu a wife of Sa’ad originally from Yazd, received a yarligh from Hulegu to rule in Fars as regent on behalf of her twelve-year-old son Muhammad. Consequently, at this point in the history of the Ilkhanate the Mongol rulers had granted permission for the south of Iran to be ruled by both Terken Qutlugh Khatun in Kerman and Turkan Khatun in Fars. But, compared with her Kermani counterpart, Turkan was not as successful in, nor as capable of, maintaining her position as the supreme authority in the region. It seems that these women only played a role at a symbolic level, when there was no agreement over whom the male ruler should be, with female rule being completely dependent on male patronage. It was under these circumstances that the reign of the only official queen of the Ilkhanate lasted a mere nine months, at the end of which, ‘towards the end of 739 [July 1339] it occurred to the end of this term, they reached the sexist conclusion that Iran is unable to be ruled by a woman bringing to an end the rule of the line of Hulegu, who had arrived in Iran over eighty years earlier. Mongol rule in Iran is marked by the absence of any woman being recognized as ruler in the way that women had been in the times of the unifiedempire or in Central Asia. Abesh Khatun gradually transformed these beliefs through the implementation of her father’s policies.
There is insufficient information regarding the governance of Abesh-Khatun, the only female ruler of Fars in the 7th century AH, and what exists are limited references in a few historical sources. The human geography and the reflection of geography (Shiraz) on humans and vice versa, indicate that the cultural, literary, and artistic flourishing during the era of Abesh-Khatun should be viewed in the context of the political and social conditions of Shiraz in the 7th century AH. One must imagine the prominent presence of the young Atabeg’s governance in that political situation, even though this figure mostly played an intermediary role in maintaining the existing conditions. The aim of this article is to analyze the political discourse and governance of Abesh-Khatun and its reflection on culture. It seeks to answer the question of how, amidst the political turmoil of the time, a female ruler managed to nurture culture, literature, and art by relying on political power. She was able to, through a political strategy (political marriage) following her father Atabeg Abubakr’s policies, transform Shiraz into a suitable hub for scholars, intellectuals, and artists, nurturing those who were meant to flourish under her patronage. This article attempts to analyze the limited available information, relying on the hypothesis of political governance’s significant role in the cultural sphere, to demonstrate that Abesh-Khatun (the first official representative of the Ilkhans in Fars), like her predecessors (the Atabegs of Fars and the Buyid dynasty), played an effective role in transforming Shiraz into a center for scholars and artists. Additionally, one cannot overlook Abesh-Khatun’s critical role in economic prosperity, which is essential for supporting the arts. The continuation of traditions, the construction of buildings such as schools and caravanserais, and the preparation of grounds for other arts confirm Abesh-Khatun’s role in supporting the artistic community. Furthermore, Abesh-Khatun played a vital role in both the arts and economic prosperity necessary for supporting the arts, ensuring that with the continuity of the art-nurturing traditions of the Buyid dynasty and the Atabegs, the pre-Mongol artistic heritage, combined with new cultural elements, provided a suitable ground for the flourishing of art in subsequent periods. From this perspective, the art patrons of Herat can be seen as beneficiaries of these 7th-century policies in Shiraz. This article employs an interdisciplinary approach, including human geography, political philosophy, and ethnography. It is fundamental-theoretical in aim and descriptive-analytical in method. The information has been gathered from various library sources and websites and analyzed qualitatively. Based on implicit inferences, the relationship between politics and social conditions is examined, and the grounds for the formation of various arts are discussed in the contexts mentioned.