Nayan (Mongol Prince) 'Prince of Kwang-ning'. In addition, Nayan was also the foremost leader of the Eastern "ulus"es (tribal groupings and districts ruled by Mongol appanage princes) dominated by the descendants of the brothers of Genghis Khan. Whatever the precise extent of Nayan's appanage, he certainly held sufficient lands within and around Manchuria to give him a power-base from which to launch a rebellion against his kinsman Kublai Khan. Nayan is represented as embodying a traditional Mongol reaction against the increasing sinicisation shown by Kublai Khan and his administration. Nayan adhered to the ancestral nomadic values of the Mongols and was dismayed at
Religion in the Mongol Empire Holy Land. Ilkhan Abacha sent a tumen to support crusaders during the Ninth Crusade in 1271. The Nestorian Mongol Rabban Bar Sauma visited some European courts in 1287-1288. At the same time, however, Islam began to take firm root amongst the Mongols, as those who embraced Christianity such as Tekuder, became Muslim. After Ongud Mar Yahbh-Allaha, the monk of Kublai Khan, was elected a catholicos of the eastern Christian church in 1281, Catholic missionaries were begun to be sent to all Mongol capitals. The Ilkhanate, Golden Horde, and the Chagatai Khanate - three of the four principal khanates (except for