Sorghaghtani Beki was the wife of Tolui, the fourth son of Genghis Khan, and one of the most important women in the history of the Mongol Empire. She was a Nestorian Christian of the Onggirat clan, and she was the mother of the great khans Möngke and Kublai, as well as of Hulagu (the conqueror of Baghdad) and Ariq Böke (the rival of Kublai in the Toluid Civil War). Rashid al-Din, writing c. 1300, calls her the wisest of the Mongol women of her time; modern historians (Weatherford, Man, Broadbridge) treat her as one of the most consequential political operators of the 13th century.
Sorghaghtani was a member of the Onggirat clan, and she was married to Tolui around 1224. The marriage was a major political alliance, and the marriage produced four sons — Möngke, Kublai, Hulagu, and Ariq Böke — who would play major roles in the history of the Mongol world. Sorghaghtani was reportedly a strong, intelligent, and determined woman, and she was an important adviser of her husband and her sons.
The Early Life of Sorghaghtani
Sorghaghtani was born around 1190, the daughter of a prominent Onggirat chief. The Onggirat were a Mongol clan that lived in the eastern steppe, and they were allied with the Borjigin clan of Genghis Khan. Sorghaghtani was raised in the Onggirat tradition, and she received a traditional education that included training in horseback riding, archery, and the management of a household.
Sorghaghtani was reportedly a beautiful and intelligent woman, and she was considered to be one of the most eligible brides in the Mongol world. She was married to Tolui around 1224, and the marriage was a major political alliance, since the Onggirat were a powerful clan and the marriage cemented the alliance between the two clans.
The Role of Sorghaghtani in the Mongol World
Sorghaghtani played an important role in the political life of the Mongol Empire. She was an important adviser of her husband Tolui, and she was an important figure in the imperial court. She was also a major patron of religion, and she was a follower of Nestorian Christianity, which was the religion of the Onggirat clan and of a number of other Mongol peoples.
Sorghaghtani was particularly important in the upbringing of her four sons. She was a major influence on the religious, political, and cultural development of Möngke, Kublai, Hulagu, and Ariq Böke, and she played a major role in their education. She was reportedly a strong, intelligent, and determined woman, and she was a major influence on the development of the Mongol ruling class.
The Role of Sorghaghtani in the Toluid Civil War
Sorghaghtani did not live to see the Toluid Civil War of 1260–1264; she died in 1252. But the political groundwork of the Toluid victory was hers. It was Sorghaghtani who kept the four Toluid princes (Möngke, Kublai, Hulagu, Ariq Böke) united as a single faction, who refused to be bought by the Ögedeid court at Karakorum, and who ensured that the Borjigin network in Mongolia was quietly sympathetic to her sons. Möngke’s election in 1251 — the first Toluid Great Khan — was, in a real sense, the political capital she had spent the previous decade building. The civil war of 1260–1264 was fought over the consequences of that election.
The Death of Sorghaghtani
Sorghaghtani died in 1252, before the Toluid Civil War began, and she was buried with great honor in the imperial cemetery in Mongolia. Her death was a personal loss for the Toluid princes and a political one for the empire: the Toluid line had no comparable figure after her, and the political unity she had built in the 1240s and early 1250s began to fray almost immediately. Within ten years of her death, the empire was at civil war.
The Legacy of Sorghaghtani
Sorghaghtani is remembered as the most important woman of the Mongol Empire and as one of the great political operators of the 13th century. The standard academic treatment (Anne F. Broadbridge, Women and the Making of Modern Mongol State; Jack Weatherford, The Secret History of the Mongol Queens) makes two claims for her: that her political coalition made the Toluid dynasty possible, and that the religious pluralism she practiced — Christian, Buddhist, Muslim advisers equally welcome in her household — was a model for the religious tolerance of the empire as a whole. Both claims are arguable, but both are widely repeated in modern scholarship.
The legacy is also visible in the modern world. The most obvious is in the political traditions of the Mongol world: Töregene Khatun (Ögedei’s widow) governed the empire as regent 1241–1246, and a string of powerful khatuns — Qutui, Ebuskun, Bulughan, in the 13th and 14th centuries — followed. The Sorghaghtani lineage, in particular, ruled the Yuan as the “imperial mothers”: Kublai’s wife Chabi, and after Chabi’s death in 1281, the khatun Bulughan, were the de facto political heads of the Yuan court at Khanbaliq during the reign of Kublai’s son and grandson.
Sources
- Jack Weatherford, The Secret History of the Mongol Queens (New York, 2010).
- Anatoly M. Khazanov, Nomads and the Outside World (2nd ed., Madison, 1994).
- David Morgan, The Mongols (2nd ed., Oxford, 2007).