In the year A.H. 639 (1241) both Ogdāy and Chaghatāy,[385] the great Khāns of the Mongolian Empire, died, and the successors of Chingiz fell to disputing the succession.
We do not propose to enlarge on the struggles and disorders which existed almost without cessation in Turkestān during the whole period of the Chaghatāy Khān’s rule, and will confine ourselves to a consideration of the social conditions of that country under his successors.[386] The Mongols in contact with communities possessed of a comparatively high standard of civilisation lost none of their passion for their boundless steppe. In their eyes the town, the settled abode, were abominations, indicating deep-seated effeminacy and corruption: the only life worth living was that of the herdsman, roving free as air, with his tent of white felt.
Their subjects who preferred a sedentary existence, so long as they were obedient and orderly, were left in tranquil occupation of their homes, and were even encouraged by their nomad lords to repair the damage suffered by their cities in war. Ruin doubtless fell on many great centres of population, such as Herāt;[387] but in Persia and Transoxiana there was no systematic obliteration of organised society,[388] no reversion to the nomadic level. The case in Mongolia and Kāshgharia was different. Less than a century prior to the rise of the Mongols these countries had been occupied by the Uīghūrs, who were a race which had attained a certain degree of development, and evinced it by preferring a settled existence in towns. Their successors, the Kara-Khitāy, though less civilised, seem also to have affected urban life. In these countries, however, during the Chaghatāy period, no new towns sprang up, while those already in being fell into a state of ruin.
“Amidst the terrible ravages committed by the Mongolians,” writes Vambéry,[389] “the science of theology and its votaries alone continued to flourish. In the days of the earlier Chaghatāy Khāns the mullās of Turkestān had enjoyed a certain amount of protection, thanks partly to the principle of religious toleration, and partly to the superstitious awe in which every class of the priesthood was held; and in almost every town there was some one or other holy man to whom the Moslems had recourse in the day of peril. The spiritual teachers thus became at the same time secular protectors, and from this time forward we find the _Sadr-i-sharī`at_ (heads of the religious bodies) and chief magistrates, and in general all men of remarkable piety, attaining an influence in the towns of Transoxiana unknown in the rest of Islām; an influence which maintains itself to this day, though the land has been for centuries governed by Musulman princes. The seats of spiritual authority were filled by regular dynasties of learned men of certain families, as though they had been thrones.”