Qutulun, daughter of Qaidu Khan, was a Mongol princess famed for defeating every man who dared challenge her in wrestling. Beyond the legend, her story reveals a skilled warrior, political strategist, and loyal daughter who played a real role in the empire’s turbulent history.
By Jack R. Wilson
Now know in all truth that King Qaidu had a daughter called Ai-yaruq (Aigiaruc) in Tartar, which means “shining moon” in French. This maiden (dameselle) was so strong that in all the kingdom there was no young man or squire (damesaus, ne valet) who could defeat her, but I tell you that she defeated all of them. Her father the king wanted to marry her and give her to a baron, but she didn’t want that. She said that she would never take a baron until she found some nobleman who could defeat her by force. And her father the king gave her the privilege of marrying as she wished. ~ Marco Polo, Kinoshita translation
Marco Polo’s description of the Mongolian princess Qutulun is among the most famous parts of his work. In his account, Qutulun, daughter of Qaidu Khan (r.1271-1301) is an undefeated wrestler, who faces many challengers for her hand in marriage. She defeats them all, and collects a vast herd of horses as spoils. At the same time, Polo also presents her as a great warrior, accompanying her father on a multitude of campaigns, riding amongst enemy lines and returning with captives. While it is popular in some circles to dismiss Polo’s work as entirely fiction, making his “Ai-yaruq” (Turkic for “moonlight”) a highly exaggerated, if not totally fictional account, scholars like Igor de Rachewiltz, Hans Ulrich Vogel, Stephen Haw and many more have thoroughly demonstrated Polo’s authenticity and reliability of his reports. Regarding Qutulun, Polo is in fact the earliest writer to comment on her, and in broad strokes his account is confirmed by independent writers in the Mongol Ilkhanate like Rashid al-Din and al-Qashani. Here, we’ll have a brief look at what these sources say about her life beyond the wrestling legend.
Family tree of Qaidu Khan, as indicated by Rashid al-Din and al-Qashani. By Jack Wilson.
Qutulun was likely born in the 1260s, a daughter of Qaidu, the Mongol ruler who dominated a vast swath of Central Asia from 1270-1301, stretching from the borders of India to western Mongolia. Her mother’s name is unknown and she was not Qaidu’s only child: in some accounts Qaidu had up to 40 children, though only around a dozen are named. Qutulun’s early life is unrecorded, but likely mirrored that of other elite Mongol women. Girls and boys both learned to start riding horses and shoot bows at a young age, and took part in the raising of animals; while men looked after horses, the women focused on the cattle, and both shared labour on sheep and goats. Women were trained in the set up, maintenance and daily running of the home and the encampment, and its movement from site to site. If she was a wife of a humble herder, or khatun of the Great Khan, she was expected to lead the domestic operations, from the individual ger up to the entire base camp of the Khan’s army (a’uruq).
As a descendant of Chinggis Khan, Qutulun was an imperial princess. She learned the genealogies of herself and other members of the imperial family, learned stories, songs, instruments, and dances. She may have been taught to read and write in the Uyghur script, and like many Chinggisid princes may have been tutored by scholars in Mongol service. For Qutulun, this could have been the skilled administrator Mas’ud Beğ (d.1289), son of the famed Mahmud Yalavach. While Mas’ud Beğ and his sons oversaw a period of economic recovery and revitalization in Central Asia, they may have also taught Qaidu’s children history, governance and perhaps to read and write Persian and Turkic languages as well. When Qutulun grew older, she was assigned a minggan, a unit of thousand warriors and their families, as well as pastures to provide for them. This unit owed service and tax to her, and could be raised for battle.
The sources on her life agree in the depiction of Qutulun as both the most loved of all Qaidu’s children, and the most competent, courageous and intelligent. They also indicate how much Qaidu valued her advice. Rashid al-Din noted how she was involved in the administration of Qaidu’s ordu and of his realm, perhaps employing skills taught by Mas’ud Beğ and having a role in the recovery of the region, acting as an agent and adviser to her father. They also assert that she partook in military affairs, likely joining her father on campaigns against neighbouring Mongol states: the Yuan Dynasty, Ilkhanate and Ulus of Orda.
While it was not actually standard practice for Mongol women to be directly involved in combat (while they accompanied the army on campaign, they were most usually left in a support role managing the logistics of the base camp), there was more allowance for royal Mongol women on the battlefield. A daughter of Chinggis Khan partook in the sack of Nishapur in 1221; in the Ilkhanate, the princess Könchek (daughter of Ilkhan Tegüder Ahmad, r. 1282-1284) is expressly described by the contemporary historian Mustawfi as taking part in combat and being killed in battle against Abu Sa’id Ilkhan (r.1316-1335) in 1319. So ferociously did Könchek fight, that she was posthumously awarded a man’s name out of respect. According to Marco Polo, Qutulun fought in many battles, and was a great warrior, riding into enemy lines and returning with captives in the midst of combat. Independently, Rashid al-Din also reports Qutulun fighting alongside her father and performing valourous acts. However, no accounts mention specific battles or campaigns she fought in. All details of her military service are rather vague, beyond broad statements of her heroism and courage.
But Qutulun is most famous as a wrestler, even in her lifetime. Marco Polo reported extensively on her wrestling legend in the 1290s, how she faced down all potential marriage suitors in wrestling matches, betting horses and her hand if the suitor could defeat her. None succeeded, and she collected a vast herd of horses. Given how much his version differs and reports a Turkic name (Ay-yaruq) for her that is unattested in Persian accounts (which instead refer to her as Qutulun, Qutlugh Chaghan/Chaga (“white fortune”) and Temür Ohan (likely from Mongolian ohin, daughter, and hence “iron daughter”), it seems he learned the thirteenth-century equivalent of street rumours, rather than through official channels like Rashid al-Din did. Still, Polo’s version has elements of the accounts of Rashid al-Din and Qashani. Polo emphasizes her refusal to take a husband, and this aspect aligns with the Islamic accounts. Her refusal to marry carried on so long that, Rashid al-Din tells us, nasty rumours spread that Qaidu and his daughter had an incestuous relationship, though he also writes that for a time, Qutulun was sending letters to the Ilkhan Ghazan (r.1295-1304), indicating her interest in him. It is unknown if Ghazan ever replied.
In contrast to Polo’s version, the Islamic accounts indicate that Qutulun was in the end, persuaded to wed, though the details vary. Rashid al-Din has two different versions; that she chose her husband, or that Qaidu chose one for her. In the work of al-Qashani, Qutulun only marries after Qaidu’s death. The groom was perhaps less impressive than his wife. While Rashid al-Din says he was a handsome and tall fellow, the sources don’t agree on his name or identity. His name is variously rendered as Aitqun, Abtaqul, Itqul or Itqun, and was either a Mongol or a “Khitayan,” (which in Islamic sources of the time, can refer to a number of ethnic groups from Central Asia across North China: Khitans, people from Qara-Khitai, Jurchen and Han Chinese). Qashani wrote that the groom was part of Qaidu’s keshig, bodyguard, and held the title of ba’urchi, cook, a prestigious position close to the khan trusted with both his personal security and his meals. If he defeated Qutulun in a wrestling match is unmentioned, but they had two sons together.
Following Qaidu’s death in 1301, Qutulun appears again, this time as a prominent backer of her brother, Orus. Orus’ ascension faced stiff competition in the form of Du’a Khan (r.1282-1307), an ally of Qaidu and Khan of the Chagatai Khanate. Du’a had been raised to the throne with Qaidu’s backing, and had acted as his subordinate for two decades. Now free to rule in his own right without the interference of Qaidu, Du’a undermined Orus by backing Qaidu’s eldest son, Chapar, to the throne. Chapar was born to a concubine, and is described as a somewhat sickly, frail man, easily swayed by Du’a’s plotting.
Rashid al-Din and al-Qashani agree that Qutulun and her brothers fought fiercely for the succession of Orus, arguing that their father’s will must be honoured. Rashid wrote that Qutulun desired to lead the military and run affairs of state, and perhaps she felt Orus would be someone she could control. But Du’a had known that Qutulun would be the most troublesome of all Qaidu’s offspring, and he and Chapar had their defence prepared. Rather than listen and respect Qutulun’s advice, as Qaidu had done, they simply dismissed her as a woman. Both al-Qashani and Rashid report a similar dismissal from Du’a:
Women’s words and opinions are about spinning threads and the spinning wheel, not about the throne and crown of the nation. What is your business with the state and the ruler?
Qutulun was ousted from the role she had in government, her heart broken. In al-Qashani’s account, it is at this juncture where she married and settled down into her appanage in the Tian Shan mountains near today’s Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. There she divided her time between her young family and guarding her father’s tomb. In the meantime, Chapar was successfully appointed Khan in 1303.
This was only the start of Du’a’s scheming, though. Seeking support from the reigning Great Khan, Khubilai Khan’s grandson Temür Öljeitü (r.1294-1307), Du’a helped initiate a truce amongst the Mongol khanates, thus securing Du’a’s flanks against the Ilkhanate, Golden Horde and Yuan Dynasty. Afterwards, he encouraged skirmishing, and finally open war, between his armies and Chapar’s, and with assistance of the troops of the Great Khan, defeated Qaidu’s sons in combat. By 1306, Chapar surrendered to Du’a, and another one of his brothers was appointed as a powerless khan. Du’a then began to further divide and weaken the lands of Qaidu’s former state, while sending out raiding parties to hunt down, capture or kill Qaidu’s children and commanders. It was in one such raid, most likely in 1307, that we find our last mention of Qutulun.
The Last Stand of Qutulun. Art by Jack Wilson
According to al-Qashani, Du’a sent a troop under his niece Ulca Temür into Qutulun’s valley, ambushing their ordu and taking many prisoners. Qutulun’s husband and two sons were drowned; but Qutulun’s final fate is unmentioned. Presumably she fell defending her family, cursing the name of Du’a and the failure of her brothers.
Though Du’a died soon after, and a brief rebellion won a single victory over Chagatai troops, by 1310 the last of Qaidu’s children had surrendered to the Chagatais, Golden Horde, Ilkhanate or Yuan Dynasty. Their former khanate hardly survived the death of Qutulun; it was divided amongst the Chagatais and Yuan Dynasty.
Jack Wilson completed his MA thesis at Central European University, where he offered a reassessment of the life and career of Nogai and his role in the late thirteenth-century Golden Horde. He is currently a Doctoral Candidate at CEU, focusing on the Golden Horde in the late thirteenth century. You can visit the educational videos he creates about the Mongol Empire on Youtube at The Jackmeister: Mongol History.
Qutulun, daughter of Qaidu Khan, was a Mongol princess famed for defeating every man who dared challenge her in wrestling. Beyond the legend, her story reveals a skilled warrior, political strategist, and loyal daughter who played a real role in the empire’s turbulent history.
By Jack R. Wilson
Now know in all truth that King Qaidu had a daughter called Ai-yaruq (Aigiaruc) in Tartar, which means “shining moon” in French. This maiden (dameselle) was so strong that in all the kingdom there was no young man or squire (damesaus, ne valet) who could defeat her, but I tell you that she defeated all of them. Her father the king wanted to marry her and give her to a baron, but she didn’t want that. She said that she would never take a baron until she found some nobleman who could defeat her by force. And her father the king gave her the privilege of marrying as she wished. ~ Marco Polo, Kinoshita translation
Marco Polo’s description of the Mongolian princess Qutulun is among the most famous parts of his work. In his account, Qutulun, daughter of Qaidu Khan (r.1271-1301) is an undefeated wrestler, who faces many challengers for her hand in marriage. She defeats them all, and collects a vast herd of horses as spoils. At the same time, Polo also presents her as a great warrior, accompanying her father on a multitude of campaigns, riding amongst enemy lines and returning with captives. While it is popular in some circles to dismiss Polo’s work as entirely fiction, making his “Ai-yaruq” (Turkic for “moonlight”) a highly exaggerated, if not totally fictional account, scholars like Igor de Rachewiltz, Hans Ulrich Vogel, Stephen Haw and many more have thoroughly demonstrated Polo’s authenticity and reliability of his reports. Regarding Qutulun, Polo is in fact the earliest writer to comment on her, and in broad strokes his account is confirmed by independent writers in the Mongol Ilkhanate like Rashid al-Din and al-Qashani. Here, we’ll have a brief look at what these sources say about her life beyond the wrestling legend.
Qutulun was likely born in the 1260s, a daughter of Qaidu, the Mongol ruler who dominated a vast swath of Central Asia from 1270-1301, stretching from the borders of India to western Mongolia. Her mother’s name is unknown and she was not Qaidu’s only child: in some accounts Qaidu had up to 40 children, though only around a dozen are named. Qutulun’s early life is unrecorded, but likely mirrored that of other elite Mongol women. Girls and boys both learned to start riding horses and shoot bows at a young age, and took part in the raising of animals; while men looked after horses, the women focused on the cattle, and both shared labour on sheep and goats. Women were trained in the set up, maintenance and daily running of the home and the encampment, and its movement from site to site. If she was a wife of a humble herder, or khatun of the Great Khan, she was expected to lead the domestic operations, from the individual ger up to the entire base camp of the Khan’s army (a’uruq).
As a descendant of Chinggis Khan, Qutulun was an imperial princess. She learned the genealogies of herself and other members of the imperial family, learned stories, songs, instruments, and dances. She may have been taught to read and write in the Uyghur script, and like many Chinggisid princes may have been tutored by scholars in Mongol service. For Qutulun, this could have been the skilled administrator Mas’ud Beğ (d.1289), son of the famed Mahmud Yalavach. While Mas’ud Beğ and his sons oversaw a period of economic recovery and revitalization in Central Asia, they may have also taught Qaidu’s children history, governance and perhaps to read and write Persian and Turkic languages as well. When Qutulun grew older, she was assigned a minggan, a unit of thousand warriors and their families, as well as pastures to provide for them. This unit owed service and tax to her, and could be raised for battle.
The sources on her life agree in the depiction of Qutulun as both the most loved of all Qaidu’s children, and the most competent, courageous and intelligent. They also indicate how much Qaidu valued her advice. Rashid al-Din noted how she was involved in the administration of Qaidu’s ordu and of his realm, perhaps employing skills taught by Mas’ud Beğ and having a role in the recovery of the region, acting as an agent and adviser to her father. They also assert that she partook in military affairs, likely joining her father on campaigns against neighbouring Mongol states: the Yuan Dynasty, Ilkhanate and Ulus of Orda.
While it was not actually standard practice for Mongol women to be directly involved in combat (while they accompanied the army on campaign, they were most usually left in a support role managing the logistics of the base camp), there was more allowance for royal Mongol women on the battlefield. A daughter of Chinggis Khan partook in the sack of Nishapur in 1221; in the Ilkhanate, the princess Könchek (daughter of Ilkhan Tegüder Ahmad, r. 1282-1284) is expressly described by the contemporary historian Mustawfi as taking part in combat and being killed in battle against Abu Sa’id Ilkhan (r.1316-1335) in 1319. So ferociously did Könchek fight, that she was posthumously awarded a man’s name out of respect. According to Marco Polo, Qutulun fought in many battles, and was a great warrior, riding into enemy lines and returning with captives in the midst of combat. Independently, Rashid al-Din also reports Qutulun fighting alongside her father and performing valourous acts. However, no accounts mention specific battles or campaigns she fought in. All details of her military service are rather vague, beyond broad statements of her heroism and courage.
But Qutulun is most famous as a wrestler, even in her lifetime. Marco Polo reported extensively on her wrestling legend in the 1290s, how she faced down all potential marriage suitors in wrestling matches, betting horses and her hand if the suitor could defeat her. None succeeded, and she collected a vast herd of horses. Given how much his version differs and reports a Turkic name (Ay-yaruq) for her that is unattested in Persian accounts (which instead refer to her as Qutulun, Qutlugh Chaghan/Chaga (“white fortune”) and Temür Ohan (likely from Mongolian ohin, daughter, and hence “iron daughter”), it seems he learned the thirteenth-century equivalent of street rumours, rather than through official channels like Rashid al-Din did. Still, Polo’s version has elements of the accounts of Rashid al-Din and Qashani. Polo emphasizes her refusal to take a husband, and this aspect aligns with the Islamic accounts. Her refusal to marry carried on so long that, Rashid al-Din tells us, nasty rumours spread that Qaidu and his daughter had an incestuous relationship, though he also writes that for a time, Qutulun was sending letters to the Ilkhan Ghazan (r.1295-1304), indicating her interest in him. It is unknown if Ghazan ever replied.
In contrast to Polo’s version, the Islamic accounts indicate that Qutulun was in the end, persuaded to wed, though the details vary. Rashid al-Din has two different versions; that she chose her husband, or that Qaidu chose one for her. In the work of al-Qashani, Qutulun only marries after Qaidu’s death. The groom was perhaps less impressive than his wife. While Rashid al-Din says he was a handsome and tall fellow, the sources don’t agree on his name or identity. His name is variously rendered as Aitqun, Abtaqul, Itqul or Itqun, and was either a Mongol or a “Khitayan,” (which in Islamic sources of the time, can refer to a number of ethnic groups from Central Asia across North China: Khitans, people from Qara-Khitai, Jurchen and Han Chinese). Qashani wrote that the groom was part of Qaidu’s keshig, bodyguard, and held the title of ba’urchi, cook, a prestigious position close to the khan trusted with both his personal security and his meals. If he defeated Qutulun in a wrestling match is unmentioned, but they had two sons together.
Following Qaidu’s death in 1301, Qutulun appears again, this time as a prominent backer of her brother, Orus. Orus’ ascension faced stiff competition in the form of Du’a Khan (r.1282-1307), an ally of Qaidu and Khan of the Chagatai Khanate. Du’a had been raised to the throne with Qaidu’s backing, and had acted as his subordinate for two decades. Now free to rule in his own right without the interference of Qaidu, Du’a undermined Orus by backing Qaidu’s eldest son, Chapar, to the throne. Chapar was born to a concubine, and is described as a somewhat sickly, frail man, easily swayed by Du’a’s plotting.
Rashid al-Din and al-Qashani agree that Qutulun and her brothers fought fiercely for the succession of Orus, arguing that their father’s will must be honoured. Rashid wrote that Qutulun desired to lead the military and run affairs of state, and perhaps she felt Orus would be someone she could control. But Du’a had known that Qutulun would be the most troublesome of all Qaidu’s offspring, and he and Chapar had their defence prepared. Rather than listen and respect Qutulun’s advice, as Qaidu had done, they simply dismissed her as a woman. Both al-Qashani and Rashid report a similar dismissal from Du’a:
Women’s words and opinions are about spinning threads and the spinning wheel, not about the throne and crown of the nation. What is your business with the state and the ruler?
Qutulun was ousted from the role she had in government, her heart broken. In al-Qashani’s account, it is at this juncture where she married and settled down into her appanage in the Tian Shan mountains near today’s Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. There she divided her time between her young family and guarding her father’s tomb. In the meantime, Chapar was successfully appointed Khan in 1303.
This was only the start of Du’a’s scheming, though. Seeking support from the reigning Great Khan, Khubilai Khan’s grandson Temür Öljeitü (r.1294-1307), Du’a helped initiate a truce amongst the Mongol khanates, thus securing Du’a’s flanks against the Ilkhanate, Golden Horde and Yuan Dynasty. Afterwards, he encouraged skirmishing, and finally open war, between his armies and Chapar’s, and with assistance of the troops of the Great Khan, defeated Qaidu’s sons in combat. By 1306, Chapar surrendered to Du’a, and another one of his brothers was appointed as a powerless khan. Du’a then began to further divide and weaken the lands of Qaidu’s former state, while sending out raiding parties to hunt down, capture or kill Qaidu’s children and commanders. It was in one such raid, most likely in 1307, that we find our last mention of Qutulun.
According to al-Qashani, Du’a sent a troop under his niece Ulca Temür into Qutulun’s valley, ambushing their ordu and taking many prisoners. Qutulun’s husband and two sons were drowned; but Qutulun’s final fate is unmentioned. Presumably she fell defending her family, cursing the name of Du’a and the failure of her brothers.
Though Du’a died soon after, and a brief rebellion won a single victory over Chagatai troops, by 1310 the last of Qaidu’s children had surrendered to the Chagatais, Golden Horde, Ilkhanate or Yuan Dynasty. Their former khanate hardly survived the death of Qutulun; it was divided amongst the Chagatais and Yuan Dynasty.
Jack Wilson completed his MA thesis at Central European University, where he offered a reassessment of the life and career of Nogai and his role in the late thirteenth-century Golden Horde. He is currently a Doctoral Candidate at CEU, focusing on the Golden Horde in the late thirteenth century. You can visit the educational videos he creates about the Mongol Empire on Youtube at The Jackmeister: Mongol History.
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