Rashid al-Din Hamadani

Rashid al-Din Hamadani (1247 to 1318), also called Rashid al-Din Tabib, was a physician who became one of the most powerful statesmen of the Mongol Ilkhanate in Iran. Originally Jewish, he converted to Islam by the age of thirty, in 1277, and rose to serve as vizier to the Ilkhan Ghazan, a post he kept until 1316. Ghazan also commissioned him to write the Jami al-Tawarikh, a world history now regarded as the most important single source for the Ilkhanate period and the wider Mongol Empire. In his later years he was accused of poisoning the Ilkhan Oljaitu and was executed in 1318. The historian Morris Rossabi has called him arguably the most distinguished figure in Persia during Mongol rule. He was also a prolific author and founded the Rab-e Rashidi academic foundation in Tabriz.