Öljeitü

Öljeitü (born 1280—died December 16, 1316, Solṭānīyeh, near Kazvin, Iran) was the eighth Il-Khan ruler of Iran, during whose reign the Shīʿite branch of Islam was first proclaimed the state religion of Iran.

A great-grandson of Hülegü, founder of the Il-Khanid dynasty, Öljeitü was baptized a Christian and given the name Nicholas by his mother. As a youth he converted to Buddhism and later to the Sunni branch of Islam, taking the name Moḥammad Khudābanda. After the death (1304) of his brother Maḥmūd Ghāzān, the seventh Il-Khan, he disposed of his rivals easily and acceded to a relatively peaceful reign. In 1307 the Caspian province of Jilan was conquered, strengthening Il-Khanid rule, and a potentially dangerous rebellion was crushed in Herāt (now in Afghanistan). The traditional hostility between the Il-Khans and the Mamlūks of Syria and Egypt persisted, however, and a badly organized invasion of Mamlūk territory took place in 1312. The expedition had to be abandoned after expected help from European princes failed to materialize.

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Öljeitü changed his religious affiliations several times. His conversion to Sunni Islam is attributed to one of his wives. During the winter of 1307–08 there ensued a bitter religious feud between the adherents of the Ḥanafīyah and Shāfiʿīyah schools of Sunnite Islamic law, so disgusting Öljeitü that he considered converting back to Buddhism, a course that proved politically impossible. Greatly influenced by the Shīʿite theologian Ibn al-Muṭahhar al-Ḥillī, he came to embrace Shīʿism; and on his return from a visit to the tomb of ʿAlī in Iraq (1309–10), he proclaimed Shīʿite Islam to be the state religion of Iran.

An active patron of the arts, Öljeitü built a new capital at Solṭānīyeh that required the efforts of many artists, who made it a masterpiece of Il-Khanid architecture. He lent vital encouragement and support to Rashīd al-Dīn’s monumental world history and to the endeavours of Iranian poets.