Professor Reuven Amitai holds the Eliyahu Elath Chair for the History of the Muslim Peoples, and is Director of The Nehemia Levtzion Center for Islamic Studies and a member of The Institute of Asian and African Studies at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

’Il volume di Amitai ripercorre con lucidità e acume i decenni di vita di questo organismo politico affrontandone gli aspetti meno noti e quelli già oggetto di dispute scientifiche. L'analisi della documentazione e una non comune padronanza linguistica permettono all'Autore di offrire alla comunità degli studiosi un volume miscellaneo, scritto in anni di lavoro, ma tutto sommato organico e assai attuale. D'altra parte i meriti di questo studioso sono ormai molti e l'oggetto della nostra recensione non fa che confermarli tutti.’ Archivio Storico Italiano

• Contents: Preface; Part 1 Institutions and Historiography: Evidence for the early use of the title ilkhan among the Mongols; Turco-Mongolian nomads and the iqta` system in the Islamic Middle East (ca.1000-1400 AD); New material from the Mamluk sources for the biography of Rashid al-Din; Al-Nuwayri as a historian of the Mongols. Part 2 The Conversion of the Mongols to Islam: The conversion of Tegüder Ilkhan to Islam; Ghazan, Islam and Mongol tradition: a view from the Mamluk Sultanate; Sufis and shamans: some remarks on the Islamization of the Mongols in the Ilkhanate. Part 3 The War Against the Mamluks: Mongol raids into Palestine (A.D. 1260 and 1300); `Ayn Jalut revisited; An exchange of letters in Arabic between Abaya Ilkhan and Sultan Baybars (A.H. 667 / A.D. 1268-9); Edward of England and Abagha Ilkhan: a reexamination of a failed attempt at Mongol-Frankish cooperation; Mongol imperial ideology and the Ilkhanid war against the Mamluks; Mamluk perceptions of the Mongol-Frankish rapprochement; Northern Syria between the Mongols and the Mamluks: political boundary, military frontier and ethnic affinities; Whither the Ilkhanid army? Ghazan's first campaign into Syria (1299-1300); The resolution of the Mongol-Mamluk war; Addenda and corrigenda; Index.