Inadequacy of the Institutionalization Process of Iranian Society's Communication System in the Mongol Era

Hosseininejad Qasr Al-Dashti, Seyedah Sara; Khairandish, Abdul Rasool; Fazlinejad,, Ahmad

doi:10.30465/shc.2025.49850.2576

Inadequacy of the Institutionalization Process of Iranian Society's Communication System in the Mongol Era

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

Seyedah Sara Hosseininejad Qasr al-Dashti ¹

Abdul Rasool Khairandish ²

Ahmad Fazlinejad, ³

¹ Ph.D. Candidate of History of Iran after Islam, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran,

² Professor, Department of History, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

³ Associate Professor , Department of History, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

https://doi.org/10.30465/shc.2025.49850.2576

Abstract

After the Mongols gained control over the land of Iran, the necessity of continuity between societies in various regions of this territory was placed on the government's agenda. The transmission of government decrees, collection of taxes, and the movement of foreign ambassadors were among the requirements that forced the Ilkhanate to adopt policies to facilitate the communication system in their territory. The most important communication route of this territory was from Khorasan to Azerbaijan, which during the initial Mongol invasions destroyed many of these settlements and killed a large number of residents of these areas. Thus, with the sharp decrease in population, it became impossible to provide supplies for many social institutions on this route, and the yam system relied on the military territory. The old tradition of yam in Mongolia and Central Asia led the Ilkhanate to implement their own yam in Iran along that communication system. However, this system could not last, and despite the Ghazan reforms that included organizing the yams, this communication system quickly fell apart with the collapse of the Ilkhanate government. The present study, using a historical method and a functional perspective, and a descriptive-analytical approach, examines how the Mongol yam system was used and its collapse in Iran after the Mongol domination and the Ilkhanate rule over this land.

Keywords

Ulagh

Yamchi

Tuman

Ghazan Khan

Four Elus

Subjects

Social history

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