Ghazan was a great-grandson of Hülegü and was raised studying Buddhism. In the course of taking the throne in 1295 he accepted Islam, and soon made it the religion of the state. Mongol conquerors adopting the faith of the conquered marked the decisive turn in the Ilkhanate's absorption into Persian society.
The realm he inherited was financially wrecked. Officials extracted taxes at will and coin weights differed from place to place. Ghazan fixed the categories and amounts of taxation and published them in writing, issued silver coins of uniform weight and purity across the realm, and repaired ruined irrigation works and roads. His reign counts as the Ilkhanate's most stable period.
He also invested in scholarship, commissioning his vizier Rashid al-Din to compile a history gathering many peoples into one work. Outside Tabriz he built a great complex around his own tomb, with a hospital, library and observatory. But he died of illness at thirty-three, and the order he had built did not long survive him.