Ilkhanid Capital Cities

Hatef Naiemi offers a much-needed, detailed study of the urban interventions and foundations of the Ilkhanids in Iran within the cross-cultural and multi-religious context of the time. Her insightful analysis contextualises these cities within the broader context of the Mongol Empire, from East Asia to Anatolia, and thus is an invaluable contribution to our trans-regional understanding of this period and its architecture. -- Patricia Blessing, Stanford University
This welcome study situates Mongol urbanisation in the political, religious and social history of Iran and surrounding regions. Hatef Naiemi shows how cities developed under the Mongols were sites of acculturation, serving the needs of both the foreign military elite who founded them and the indigenous population that inhabited them. -- Stefan Kamola, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Throughout the book and by means of selected methodological approaches to the subject, Hatef Naiemi performs a tour de force in reinterpreting the subject through a discussion of an extensive number of primary written sources in Western Asian languages and an analysis of aerial photographs of archaeological sites, unpublished archaeological finds, and reports provided by Iranian colleagues. Rather than being heavily evidence-driven, Hatef Naiemi’s methodology comprises Islamicate material culture studies and cultural theory, as well as hypotheses and informed speculations on the subject. In doing so, she debates an important and neglected aspect of Islamic Persianate architecture. -- Ana Marija Grbanovic, University of Bamberg * Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society *