Talk:Hulegu Khan

This article is not impartial

Comments about the Mongols being "blood thirsty", ie. "the smell being too much even for the blood thirsty Mongols," are misleading, overly colorful, and offensive. Please refer to the article regarding Genghis Khan. Medieval Mongols maintained a taboo regarding blood and death, and conversation, much less proximity, regarding it would have been abhorrant to a Mongol. This is why Mongols traditionally use bows in mounted warfare, ie. to avoid proximity to blood.

I agree, these terms are obviously offensive and are not impartial. The article is generally ok, but it is obviously not unbiased. Phrique 13:37, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

The name

It should be noted that on academic publications his name appears more often in this writing: Hülegü. Hulagu is more common in publications of scholars of middle eastern studies, who transliterate it from Arabic. David1776 16:03, 12 December 2006 (UTC) It should be stressed that the name is Hülegü or Hulegu, from Mongolian language, and should not be used in its Arabized version, especially since the so called Western scholarship uses simply Hulegu.

Death of Hulagu Khan, A Lesson to be Learnt: is it factual? Does not look like respecting NPOV standards

Whether the content this section is factual or not, I think the contributor(s) who added it should also mention some references. Moreover, the content sounds like a quotation. If this is the case, the quotation should be bracketed correctly and the source mentioned. In any case, I will try to remove the section by switching the article back to a previous version, since now it looks like violating the NPOV and factual-accuracy standards. Proposal to the writers of this section: Remove "A lesson to be learnt" from the title, put the quoted part under correct indentation and cite your sources.

Hulagu with the Caliph

I read in one of the Mongol history books (can't recall off the top of my head, i'll have to look up the reference again) but it stated that before actually killing the Caliph, Hulagu didn't kill him at first but kept him as a prisoner. When the Caliph requested food, Hulagu sent him plates filled with gold. When Caliph complained that he couldn't eat the gold, Hulagu stated something along the lines "Had you used your precious gold to finance your army better, you may actually be eating real food right now." And then did the blanket thing the next day. I'll add it to this page and reference it when I find this book again..

Translation from Arabic

Would anyone be able to give a translation Hulagu's coin legend?

File:Hulagu Khan -- Silver Dirham.jpg

Obv: Arabic inscription ﻢﻠﺳﻭﻪﻴﻠﻋ ﻪﻠﻟﺍﻰﻠﺻ ﻪﻠﻟﺍﻝﻮﺳﺭ ﺪﻤﺤﻣ ﻪﻠﻟﺍﻻﺍﻪﻟﺍﻻ/ La ilahe illallah Muhammed resulullah salallahü aleyhe vesellem, bordered by a Uyghur inscription.
Rev: Arabic inscription: ﻥﺎﺧ ﻮﻛﻻﻮﻫ ﻥﺁﺎﻗ ﺎﻜﻜﻧﻮﻣ ﻢﻈﻋﻻﺍ ﻥﺁﺎﻗ/ Kaan'ül azam Mengü kaan Hülagu han, bordered by a Uyghur inscription.

Also, is the language Arabic, Persian or something else?

Thank you! PHG (talk) 06:47, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I could be a bit mistaken, but IIRC Kaan'ül azam Mengü kaan Hülagu han means "Great Khan Mengu (Möngke), Khan Hulegu".

It looks like Persian, but like with the translation, I'm not 100% sure about that.

'Azam' is the Persian word for 'great', but it could be a loanword.

75-Rolf (talk) 00:22, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

It is Arabic in fact. The first line is the shahada, an Arabic sentence known and said by all muslims. It should be vocalised properly like "La ilaha illa l-lah Muhammad rasulu l-lahi, salla allah alayhi wa sallam", and of course the other is Arabic too, "qaan al-azam munkka [= Möngke] qaan Hulaku khan" - it's obvious from using the article "al" which the Persians do not have, only in Arabic loan constructions. Right now it looks like some kind of a Turkish text, though, because of those vowels... --80.98.102.136 (talk) 16:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Syriac Bible depiction

Hulagu and Queen Doquz Qatun as Christian rulers, from a Syriac Bible.

A depiction of Hulagu and Doquz Qatun as Christians rulers, in a Syriac Bible. Feel free to insert it in the article. Cheers PHG (talk) 16:55, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

"Hulagu died near Maragheh on February 8, 1265, followed shortly afterwards by his Queen Doquz-khatun. Their loss was felt by all Eastern Christians, who mourned in them "the two great stars of the Christian faith", and "another Constantine, another Helen" as Bar Hebraeus wrote feelingly in the name of the Jacobite Syriac Church and Kyrakos of Ganja in the name of the Armenian Church." in The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia by René Grousset, p.367 [1]

"News of the destruction of Baghdad made a deep impression throughout Asia. The Asiatic Christians everywhere rejoinced. They wrote in triumph of the fall of the Second Babylon and hailed Hulagu and Dokuz Khatun as the new Constantine and Helena, God's instruments for vengeance on the enemies of Christ" in A History of the Crusades: The Kingdom of Acre and the later Crusades by Steven Runciman p.304 [2]

"An Armenian writer hailed Hulagu and his Christian queen as "the new Constantine and Helena."" Reporting the death of the Mongol khan, Bar Hebraeus noted that nothing could compare to the "king of kings" in "wisdom, high-mindedness, and splendid deeds"." in Muslim-Christian Relations and Inter-Christian Rivalries in the Middle East by John Joseph p.16 [3]

Per Honor et Gloria ✍ 22:01, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Hulagu coin

Coin of Hulagu.

Here is a coin of Hulagu, with the symbol of a hare. Feel free to insert it in the article. Cheers PHG (talk) 21:00, 16 January 2009 (UTC) Replaced by a better version PHG (talk) 21:07, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Hulagu and Tibet

It would be nice to have a discussion of Hulagu's involvement in Tibet. Elliott sperling has an article in Acta Orientalia Hungaricae about it in the 1980s. This relationship became quite important in the ideology of the rise of the Phagmodru dynasty in Tibet. Tibetologist (talk) 14:15, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Vague Statements

ONE OF THE LARGEST ARMIES ... blah blah. Neglects to mention how many. No citation. "Historians started writing in Persian instead of Arabic." Which historians? Mongol historians? Western historians? Arabian historians? Persian historians? WHO? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.164.85.11 (talk) 12:11, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

There is also an obvious contradiction with regard to the language of historical books. The last section, Legacy, mentions, as stated here, that historians "started writing in Persian instead of Arabic". But the introduction says the opposite: "writing in Arabic rather than Persian". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.36.49.198 (talk) 10:32, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

IP 12.239.13.142's edit warring

A subsequent search of the inappropriately placed source;

• A Concise History of the Middle East, by Arthur Goldschmidt Jr
  

reveals no mention of Hulegu's conversion to Buddhism, no mention of syphilis or ruptured aorta. Since there is no page number, this source is unverifiable at the present, therefore the source and information added by the IP should be removed. --Kansas Bear (talk) 23:15, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Please post a note about this over at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring#User:12.239.13.142 reported by User:Loriendrew (Result: )--☾Loriendrew☽ ☏(ring-ring) 02:09, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

dubious statement-Conquest of Syria section

Magazine's "300,000 strong" Mongol army is, of course, a wild exaggeration - the strategic supply of such a force would have been impossible - even Hulagu's force crossing the Tigris was - at most - 150,000 or so (a large force in itself - equivalent to the late Roman Empire's entire calvary force/mobile field army). Magazine article is outdated in this aspect as it is directly accepting contemporary reports which always were overwhelmed at the destruction and viciousness of Mongol armies, and inflated their size; a more reliable source for the estimated size of the invading (combined) army is needed. Additionally, the 300K figure footnote is erroneously attributed to Runciman's book by some editor - I will correct it.104.169.17.116 (talk) 15:08, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Warlord vs ruler

ByzantineIsNotRoman, please provide reliable sources to support your contention that "warlord" is a better WP:FIRSTSENTENCE term for Hulagu than "ruler". As a quick starting point, I will cite:

• Jackson 2013, "The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion", pp. 138–142
• Weatherford 2004, "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World", p. 191
• Atwood 2004, "Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire", p. 225

Best wishes, ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:18, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 24 December 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Reading Beans (talk) 16:40, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

---

Hulagu Khan → Hulegu Khan – The majority of reliable sources, especially from academics and scholars, use this spelling. See examples below, from random books on my shelf. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:11, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

• Atwood, Christopher P. (2004). Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire. New York: Facts on File. ISBN 978-0-8160-4671-3. Retrieved 2 March 2022.
• Biran, Michal (2012). Genghis Khan. Makers of the Muslim World. London: Oneworld Publications. ISBN 978-1-7807-4204-5.
• Buell, Paul D. (2003). Historical Dictionary of the Mongol World Empire. Lanham: The Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-4571-8.
• Jackson, Peter (2017). The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-3001-2533-7.
• Lane, George (2003). Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran: A Persian Renaissance. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-4152-9750-9.
• Man, John (2004). Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection. London: Bantam Press. ISBN 978-0-3129-8965-1.
• May, Timothy (2018). The Mongol Empire. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-4237-3. JSTOR 10.3366/j.ctv1kz4g68.11.
• Morgan, David (1986). The Mongols. The Peoples of Europe. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-0-6311-7563-6.
• Ratchnevsky, Paul (1991). Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy. Translated by Thomas Haining. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-0-6311-6785-3.

etc. The only source I can find that spells the name "Hulagu" is Grousset's Empire of the Steppes, which is now approaching a century old. This may indicate that the spelling is an older mistransliteration which is now not scholarly consensus. Meanwhile, the Encyclopedia Iranica titles their article "Hulagu" but uses "Hülegü" in the body. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:11, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I tried checking a couple of the sources mentioned, and found Atwood writing "Hüle'ü" and Jackson writing "Hülegü". Are you sure Hulegu Khan is the best title? Should it be Hülegü? I am, to say the least, no expert in the subject matter, so I'll defer to your judgment. Adumbrativus (talk) 08:19, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment Adumbrativus; per WP:DIACRITICS, when there is no consensus in the sources on whether or not to use diacritics, it can be either. As such I did not mention "Hülegü", but I do not mind the spelling. Atwood's spelling is unusual—as he explains in the introduction to his book, "the apostrophe is used to mark the silent gh/g in words such as "Hüle’ü";" I do not think it should be used for that reason. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:55, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification! Adumbrativus (talk) 08:05, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'm convinced that the "Hulegu" spelling is the WP:COMMONNAME, personally. I took a look at Google Scholar results for each spelling, and based on those results it appears that "Hulagu" remains the most common spelling:

• Hulagu Khan, 2010–2024 – 2,690 results
• Hulegu Khan, 2010–2024 – 1,670 results

When broadening beyond scholarly sources, the gap seems to widen even more, with "Hulagu" appearing to outnumber "Hulegu" fivefold on the most recent Ngrams available. That said, I'm by no means an expert in this area either, so I'll hold off on submitting a !vote for now in case there's any consideration I'm missing. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 21:27, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

From those links, it appears "Hulagu" is still preferred in articles originating from non-English speaking countries and in non-specialist sources (where the subject often crops up due to his role in the Siege of Baghdad); however, the sources above are all books at the forefront of English-language Mongol history and should take priority, I believe. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:02, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Ahh, that's a fair point - I hadn't thought to check the languages of the Google Scholar results. I'm reluctant to discount non-specialist sources too heavily (many of our readers will be non-specialists, after all), but even so, I'm convinced enough to take up a position of weak support for this proposal. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 15:47, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Analysis

@HistoryofIranYeah I did. I still don’t understand the problem. I just said what the primary source said and added a secondary source which translated it. BulgarChanyu (talk) 21:21, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, this clearly shows that you didn't read. See also WP:PSTS. HistoryofIran (talk) 22:35, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

The trouble is that it's completely irrelevant. There are dozens of medieval chronicles with equally incoherent and confused reports as to the origin of the Mongols. Why should the article just describe what one of them says? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:34, 14 April 2024 (UTC)