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The Deed For Endowment: Rab’ i-Rashidi (Rab i-Rashidi Endowment) 13th-century manuscript

Inscribed 2007

What is it

The deed of endowment of the Rab’ i-Rashidi in the city of Tabriz. The Rab’ i-Rashidi was a noted and multi-faceted academic complex which undertook many educational, charitable and industrial functions.

Why was it inscribed

The high value of the many endowed properties and the famous reputation of the Rab’ i-Rashidi gives the manuscript great importance. The institution of the waqf, or endowment, is a central pillar of Islamic society and this deed therefore provides an important record of political and economic administration in Central Asia at a time of great dynamism and change.

Where is it

Tabriz Central Library, Tabriz, Iran

Seven centuries ago, the city of Tabriz was the flourishing capital of the Mongol Ilkhanid dynasty (c. 1260–1353) and a regional intellectual and cultural hub, ruled by Il-Khan Mahmud Ghazan (1295–1304). Ghazan Khan’s wazir, or lord chancellor, was Khajeh Rashid al-Din Fazlollah Hamadani. A doctor, mathematician and author of a history of the Persian language, he founded an academic complex known as the Rab’ i-Rashidi, or Suburb of Rashid, on the outskirts of Tabriz.

The Rab’ i-Rashidi contained a paper mill, library, teaching hospital, orphanage, caravanserai, textile factory, teachers’ training college and seminary, and attracted students and thinkers from as far away as China. The purpose of this endowment, or waqf, was to ensure that as many of the scientific treatises written by the wazir Rashid al-Din, or which fell into his possession, could be copied.

The endowment details the justification for the complex, its management system and the administration and budget of the endowed properties which included land in present-day Afghanistan, Asia Minor, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iraq and Syria as well as in Iran. The endowment manuscript is 382 pages long, of which the first 290 pages were written by Rashid al-Din himself, with the city governor and two scribes completing the rest.

Historical records show that five copies of the original manuscript were made under the supervision of Rashid al-Din. Four were either destroyed or were used to improve the current manuscript, which is therefore the only extant copy of the deed.

Tabriz under the Mongol Ilkhanids became a centre of book production and manuscript illustration. The significance and high status of the deed of endowment was reflected in the costly materials, including Chinese paper and gold, used in its creation; its cover page is elaborately designed with gilded calligraphy.

Mongols storming and capturing Baghdad in 1258, from the ‘Jami al-Tawarikh’ by Rashid al-Din.