Ilkhanate

The Ilkhanate or Il-khanate, also known as the Ilkhanids (Persian: ایلخانان, romanized: Īlkhānān), and known to the Mongols as Hülegü Ulus (lit. 'people or state of Hülegü'), was a Mongol khanate established from the southwestern sector of the Mongol Empire. The Ilkhanid realm was officially known as the land of Iran or simply Iran. It was established after Hülegü, the son of Tolui and grandson of Genghis Khan, inherited the West Asian part of the Mongol Empire after his brother Möngke Khan died in 1259.

The Ilkhanate's core territory lies in what is now part of the countries of Iran, Azerbaijan, and Turkey. At its greatest extent, the Ilkhanate also included parts of modern Iraq, Syria, Armenia, Georgia, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, part of modern Dagestan, and part of modern Tajikistan. Later Ilkhanate rulers, beginning with Ghazan in 1295, converted to Islam. In the 1330s, the Ilkhanate was ravaged by the Black Death. The last ilkhan, Abu Sa'id Bahadur Khan, died in 1335, after which the Ilkhanate disintegrated.

The Ilkhanid rulers, although of non-Iranian origin, tried to advertise their authority by tying themselves to the Iranian past, and they recruited historians to present the Mongols as heirs to the Sasanian Empire (224–651).