Dar al-Siyadah; the Historical Background of Its Establishment; Its Status and Function in the Time of Mongol Ilkhanate

Undoubtedly, the respect shown to the prophet’s descendants traces its history back to the first days of the advent of Islam. The establishment of "Diwan al-Nagabah" in the middle of the third century in the second Abbasid era with the aim of attending to Sadats’ affairs, shows the social role of this influential social stratum in social and political developments, which was forgotten for some decades in the period following the mongol invasion in the second decade of the seventh century. After the second wave of mongol invasions of Iran and Islamic world, and, then, the establishment of the Mongol Ilkhanid government in Iran, as a result of which some Mongol rulers like Ghazankhan, embraced Islam, the social status of Sadats improved. As illegal aliens, these rulers established a cultural foundation called "Dar al-Siyadah" in an attempt to make their government legitimate.Undoubtedly, the close relations which Shiite and Sunnis scholars had with the Ilkhanid had a strong effect in this regard. In spite of the importance of this issue, no in-depth and relatively comprehensive study has been made about it. This paper seeks to extract some reports from the existing sources and classify them in order to, answer the following questions: What are the factors behind establishing Dar al-Siyadah? How was the geographic distribution of Dar al-Siyadah? And what function did it have? The paper concludes that the Mongols established Dar al-Siyadah in order to give support to and legitimize their government. The present study focuses on the period between 694 and 736 (H).