NM(ensiklopedia)

Abu Ali al-Hasan al-Tusi Nizam al-Mulk (خواجه نظام‌الملک طوسی in Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq and Bahrain, and has a status of official language in the first three countries under different names...

; 1018 – 14 October 1092) was a celebrated Persian scholar and vizier
Vizier
A vizier is a high-ranking political advisor or minister, often to a Persian Empire's monarchs such as Shah and Shahenshah. It sometimes refers to ministers and advisors of the Muslim's caliph, or sultan...

of the Seljuq Empire. He was also for a short time the sole ruler of the Seljuk Empire.
His life

Born in Tus in Persia (Iran)
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanid period and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia...

, and initially serving the Ghaznavid
Ghaznavid Empire
The Ghaznavids were a Persianate Muslim dynasty of Turkic mamluk origin which existed from 975 to 1187 and ruled much of Persia, Transoxania, and the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent. The Ghaznavid state was centered in Ghazni, a city in present Afghanistan...

sultans, Nizam ul-Mulk became chief administrator of the entire Khorasan
Greater Khorasan
Greater Khorasan is a modern term for a historical geographic region spanning north-eastern and east of Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, western and northern Afghanistan and the North Western Areas of Pakistan...

province by 1059 AD.

From 1063, he served the Seljuks as vizier and remained in that position throughout the reigns of Alp Arslan
Alp Arslan
Alp Arslan was the second sultan of the Seljuk dynasty and great-grandson of Seljuk, the eponym of the dynasty...

(1063-1072) and Malik Shah I
Malik Shah I
Jalāl al-Dawlah Malik-shāh or simply Malik Shāh was the Seljuk sultan from 1072 to 1092....

(1072-1092). He left a great impact on organization of the Seljuk governmental bodies and hence the title Nizam al-Mulk which translates as "the order of state". He was pivotal figure who bridged the political gap between both the Abbasids and the Seljuks against their various rivals such as the Fatamids and the Buyids.

Aside from his extraordinary influence as vizier with full authority, he is also well-known for systematically founding a number of schools of higher education
Higher education
Higher education refers to a level of education that is provided by universities, vocational universities, community colleges, liberal arts colleges, institutes of technology and other collegiate level institutions, such as vocational schools, trade schools and career colleges, that award academic...

in several cities, the famous Nizamiyyah
Nizamiyyah
A nizamiyya , is one of the medieval institutions of higher education established by Khwaja Nizam al-Mulk in the eleventh century in present-day Iran. The name nizamiyyah derives from his name...

schools, which were named after him. In many aspects, these schools turned out to be the predecessors and models of universities that were established in Europe.

Nizam ul-Mulk is also widely known for his voluminous treatise on kingship titled Siyasatnama
Siyasatnama
Siyāsatnāma , also known as Siyar al-muluk, is the most famous work by Nizam al-Mulk, the founder of Nizamiyyah schools in medieval Persia and vizier to the Seljuq sultans Alp Arslan and Malik Shah...

(The Book of Government
Government
A government is the body within a community, political entity or organization which has the authority to make and enforce rules, laws and regulations.....

). He also wrote a book titled Dastur al-Wuzarā, written for his son Abolfath Fakhr-ol-Malek, which is not dissimilar to the famous book of Qabus nama
Qabus nama
Qabus nama or Qabus nameh [variations: Qabusnamah, Qabousnameh, Ghabousnameh, or Ghaboosnameh, in Persian: قابوس‌نامه, book of Qabus] is a major work of Persian literature from the eleventh century ....

.

Nizam ul-Mulk was assassinated en route from Isfahan
Isfahan (city)
Isfahan or Esfahan , historically also rendered in English as Ispahan or Hispahan, is located about 340 km south of Tehran and is the capital of Isfahan Province and Iran's third largest city...

to Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is coterminous. Having a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq and the second largest in the Arab World....

on the 10th of Ramadhan of 1092 AD. The mainstream literature says he was stabbed by the dagger of a member of the Assassins (Hashshashin
Hashshashin
The Hashshashin from which the word assassin is thought to originate, was the Arabic designation of the Nizari branch of the Ismā'īlī Shia Muslims during the Middle Ages...

) sent by the notorious Hassan-i Sabah near Nahavand
Nahavand
Nahâvand, Nahaavand or Nahawand is a town in Hamadan Province in Iran. It is located south of Hamadan, east of Malayer and northwest of Borujerd...

, Persia
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanid period and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia...

, as he was being carried on his litter
Litter (vehicle)
The litter is a class of wheelless vehicles, a type of human-powered transport, for the transport of persons. Examples of litter vehicles include jiao , sedan chairs , palanquin , gama and tahtırevan...

. The killer approached him disguised as a dervish
Dervish
A Dervish or Darvesh is someone treading a Sufi Muslim ascetic path or "Tariqah", known for their extreme poverty and austerity, similar to mendicant friars in Christianity or Hindu/Buddhist/Jain sadhus....

.

This account is particularly interesting in light of a possibly apocryphal story recounted by Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , best known as Jorge Luis Borges, was an Argentine writer and poet born in Buenos Aires. In 1914, his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school and traveled to Spain. On his return to Argentina in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and...

. In this story a pact is formed between a young Nizam ul-Mulk (at that time known as Abdul Khassem) and his two friends, Omar Khayyam
Omar Khayyám
Omar Khayyám , , was a Persian polymath, mathematician, philosopher, astronomer and poet. He also wrote treatises on mechanics, geography, music and was a physicist....

and Hassan-i-Sabah
Hassan-i-Sabah
Hassan-i Sabbāh was a Persian Nizārī Ismā'īlī missionary who converted a community in the late 11th century in the heart of the Alborz Mountains of northern Iran. The place was called Alamut and was attributed to an ancient king of Daylam...

. Their agreement stated that if one should rise to prominence, that they would help the other two to do likewise. Nizam ul-Mulk was the first to do this when he was appointed vizier to the sultan Alp Arslan
Alp Arslan
Alp Arslan was the second sultan of the Seljuk dynasty and great-grandson of Seljuk, the eponym of the dynasty...

. To fulfil the pact he offered both friends positions of rank within the court. Omar refused the offer, asking instead to be given the means to continue his studies indefinitely. This Nizam did, as well as building him an observatory. Although Hassan, unlike Omar, decided to accept the appointment offered to him, he was forced to flee after plotting to dispose Nizam as vizier. Subsequently, Hassan came upon and conquered the fortress of Alamut
Alamut
Alamūt was once a mountain fortress located in the central Alborz Mountains south of the Caspian Sea close to Gazor Khan near Qazvin Province, about 100 km from present-day Tehran in Iran. Only ruins remain of this fortress today.-Origins:Alamut lies on the peak known as Alah Amut...

, from where he established the Assassins.

Another report says he was killed in secret by Malik Shah I
Malik Shah I
Jalāl al-Dawlah Malik-shāh or simply Malik Shāh was the Seljuk sultan from 1072 to 1092....

in an internal power struggle. Consequently, his murder was avenged by the vizier's loyal academics of the Nizamiyyah
Nizamiyyah
A nizamiyya , is one of the medieval institutions of higher education established by Khwaja Nizam al-Mulk in the eleventh century in present-day Iran. The name nizamiyyah derives from his name...

, by assassinating the Sultan
. The account is disputed and remains a controversy because of the long history of friendship between Malik Shah I
Malik Shah I
Jalāl al-Dawlah Malik-shāh or simply Malik Shāh was the Seljuk sultan from 1072 to 1092....

and Nizam.

Another report says that he was assassinated with Malik Shah I
Malik Shah I
Jalāl al-Dawlah Malik-shāh or simply Malik Shāh was the Seljuk sultan from 1072 to 1092....

in the same year, after a debate between Sunni and Shea scholars which was prepared by him by the orders of Malik Shah I
Malik Shah I
Jalāl al-Dawlah Malik-shāh or simply Malik Shāh was the Seljuk sultan from 1072 to 1092....

and which resulted in converting him and the king to the Shea ideology. The story is reported by the son-in-law of Nizam al-Mulk, Muqatil bin Atiyyah who attended the debate.

It is highly unlikely that 72-year-old Nizam al-Mulk a powerful Grand Vizier upholding orthodox Islam would adopt the Shea ideology.

Siyāsatnāma (Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq and Bahrain, and has a status of official language in the first three countries under different names...

: سياست نامه, "Book of Government"), also known as Siyar al-muluk, is the most famous work by Nizam al-Mulk
Nizam al-Mulk
Abu Ali al-Hasan al-Tusi Nizam al-Mulk was a celebrated Persian scholar and vizier of the Seljuq Empire...

, the founder of Nizamiyyah
Nizamiyyah
A nizamiyya , is one of the medieval institutions of higher education established by Khwaja Nizam al-Mulk in the eleventh century in present-day Iran. The name nizamiyyah derives from his name...

schools in medieval Persia and vizier
Vizier
A vizier is a high-ranking political advisor or minister, often to a Persian Empire's monarchs such as Shah and Shahenshah. It sometimes refers to ministers and advisors of the Muslim's caliph, or sultan...

to the Seljuq
Seljuq dynasty
The Seljuq were a Turco-Persian Sunni Muslim dynasty that ruled parts of Central Asia and the Middle East from the 11th to 14th centuries...

sultans Alp Arslan
Alp Arslan
Alp Arslan was the second sultan of the Seljuk dynasty and great-grandson of Seljuk, the eponym of the dynasty...

and Malik Shah
Malik Shah
Malik Shah may refer to:* Malik Shah I , sultan of Great Seljuk* Malik Shah II, grandson of Malik Shah I, sultan of Great Seljuk* Malik Shah III, sultan of Great Seljuk * Melikshah, sultan of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm...

. Al-Mulk possessed "immense power" as the head administration for the Seljuq empire
Great Seljuq Empire
The Great Seljuq Empire was a Persianate medieval Sunni Muslim empire, established by the Qynyq branch of Oghuz Turks that once controlled a vast area stretching from the Hindu Kush to eastern Anatolia and from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf...

over a period of 30 years and was responsible for establishing distinctly Persian forms of government and administration which would last for centuries . A great deal of his approach to governing is contained within the Siyasatnama which is in a tradition of Persian
Culture of Iran
To best understand Iran and their people, one must first attempt to acquire an understanding of its culture. It is in the study of this area where the Iranian identity optimally expresses itself. Hence the first sentence of prominent Iranologist Richard Nelson Frye's latest book on Iran...

-Islamic writing known as the "Mirrors for Princes".

Written in Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq and Bahrain, and has a status of official language in the first three countries under different names...

and composed in the eleventh century, the Siyasatnama was created following the request by Malik Shah
Malik Shah
Malik Shah may refer to:* Malik Shah I , sultan of Great Seljuk* Malik Shah II, grandson of Malik Shah I, sultan of Great Seljuk* Malik Shah III, sultan of Great Seljuk * Melikshah, sultan of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm...

that his ministers produce books on government, administration and the troubles facing the nation. However, the treatise compiled by al-Mulk was the only one to receive approval and was consequently accepted as forming "the law of the constitution of the nation". In all it consists of 50 chapters concerning religion, politics, and various other issues of the day with the final 11 chapters - written shortly prior to Nizam's assassination - dealing mostly with dangers facing the empire and particularly the ascendant threat of the Ismailis. The treatise is concerned with guiding the ruler with regard to the realities of government and how it should be run. It covers "the proper role of soldiers, police, spies, and finance officials" and provides ethical advice emphasising the need for justice and religious piety in the ruler. Al-Mulk defines in detail what he views as justice; that all classes be "given their due" and that the weak be protected. Where possible justice is defined by both custom and Muslim law and the ruler is held responsible to God.

Anecdotes rooted in Islamic, and occasionally pre-Islamic Persian, culture and history with popular heroes - for example, Mahmud of Ghazna and the pre-Islamic Shah Kushraw Anushirvan
Khosrau I
Khosrau I , also known as Anushiravan the Just Khosrau I (also called Khosnow I, Chusro I, Khusro I, Husraw I or Khosrow I, Chosroes I in classical sources, most commonly known in Persian as Anushirvan, Persian: انوشيروان meaning the immortal soul), also known as Anushiravan the Just (انوشیروان...

- who were considered as examplars of good and virture frequently appearing . The Siyasatnama is considered to provide insight into the attitude of the Persian elite of the 12th century towards the past of their civilization as well as evidence for methods of the bureacracy and the extent it was influenced by the pre-Islamic traditions. .

The earliest remaining copy is located in the National Library of Tabriz, in Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanid period and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia...

. It was first translated into French in 1891.

Hubert Dark “The Book of Government or Rules of King”
This competent translation of Persian Siyasat Name of Nizam al-Mulk, Prime minister of the seljuq sultan Malikshah, has few notes of explanation of technical terms or corruption in the text. Fortunately, the Persian text on which the translation is based has now been published by Darke in Tehran (1962).many question of the reader wiil be answered by the extensive notes to the edition, but this available only to those who read Persian.
The book is a fascinating example of the mirror for princes genre which was popular in the late mediaeval Islamic world. It is perhaps more important as a work literature than historical since a number of event recorded in the book are anachronistic or otherwise unreliable. Nonetheless, history is enriched by accounts of occurrences which elsewhere are only summarily told. For example, chapters forty-three through forty eight, telling of heresies are valuable as supplements to standard accounts of those religious revolts found in Arabic histories.
Obviously one might write much about the book, but we are here only concerned with the translation which establishes Dark as a master in knowledge of classical Persian. His vocalization of Turkish names, however is usually wrong: read Toghan ‘falcon, read changhri ‘merlin.
The Bighish on p.266 is probably the Bekec of Mahmud al-Kashghari, while Bik of 227 and passim is surely Turkic beg (I am using popular transcription in all cases). Since the translator is presumably not interested in the historical or technical (names, etymologies, etc) questions of the book one should not quibble about such points. As a straight translation the book can be well recommended to English reader

NM

Written by Steven Schwartz on July 8th, 2009

Five hundred years before Niccolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince, the Nizam Al-Mulk, a medieval Persian leader and Islamic philosopher, tried his hand at an advice book for rulers that he called Siyasatnama (The Book of Government).
In contrast to Machiavelli's realpolitik, the Nizam Al-Mulk focused on good character. Good leaders, he said, share the following qualities: “modesty, good temper, forgiveness, humility, generosity, patience, gratitude and honesty”.
I cannot help but wonder what he would think of our contemporary political leaders.
For example, what would he make of the British parliamentary expenses scandal, which has so degraded their political elite? Taxpayer funded pornography, phantom mortgages and the MP who got the taxpayer to pay for cleaning out the moat that surrounds his castle.
(Actually, he was probably the wisest of the lot as at least he has a method for defending himself when the angry taxpayers come to extract their revenge. He can just raise the drawbridge and dump them into his newly cleaned moat.)
And what would the Nizam Al-Mulk make of our own parliament devoting the last days of its deliberations to the affairs of a Queensland car dealer?
Other business was pushed aside including the passage of the much needed student amenities legislation. Helping universities to serve students better by repealing the previous government’s voluntary student unionism legislation, a promise made in the 2007 election campaign, will now have to wait until 2010. Meanwhile students must continue to make do with whatever cash strapped universities can afford.
They say a country gets the parliamentarians it deserves, but I think we deserve better.
I certainly don’t think that the Nizam Al-Mulk would have been impressed. He was a great believer in education. As an important official in his own right (he was a vizier), he founded a series of advanced academies, which were called Nizamiyyah schools (named after their founder). These schools were the medieval forerunners of what later became colleges and universities. They were his longest lasting legacy.
But the Nizam Al-Mulk was also a pithy philosopher. One of his sayings, perhaps applicable to some involved in delaying the student bill was: “He who finds himself on the losing side has no business in parliament”.

NM

Nizam al-Mulk

(Arabic: "Order of the Kingdom"), original name ABU 'ALI HASAN IBN 'ALI (b. 1018/19, Tus, Khorasan, Iran--d. Oct. 14, 1092, near Nehavand), Persian vizier of the Turkish Seljuq sultans (1063-92), best remembered for his large treatise on kingship, Seyasat-nameh (The Book of Government; or Rules for Kings).

Early life.

Nizam al-Mulk was the son of a revenue official for the Ghaznavid dynasty. Through his father's position, he was born into the literate, cultured milieu of the Persian administrative class, a background that molded his attitudes and determined his career. In the years of confusion following the initial Seljuq Turk expansion, his father fled, eventually to Ghazna (now in Afghanistan), where Nizam al-Mulk, too, in due course entered Ghaznavid service. He soon returned to Khorasan, however, and joined the service of Alp-Arslan, who was then the Seljuq governor of Khorasan. When Alp-Arslan's vizier died, Nizam al-Mulk was appointed to succeed him, and, when Alp-Arslan himself succeeded his father in 1059, Nizam al-Mulk had the entire administration of Khorasan in his hands. His abilities so pleased his master that, when Alp-Arslan became the supreme overlord of the Seljuq rulers in 1063, Nizam al-Mulk was made vizier.

Influence in Seljuq policy

For the next 30 years, under two remarkable rulers, he occupied this position in an empire that stretched from the Oxus River in the east to Khwarezm and the southern Caucasus and westward into central Anatolia. During these decades, the Seljuq empire was at its zenith; Nizam al-Mulk's influence guided the sultan's decisions, sometimes even military ones, and his firm control of the central and provincial administration, through his numerous dependents and relatives, implemented those decisions. His influence was especially felt in the rule of Sultan Malik-Shah, who succeeded to the Seljuq throne when he was only 18. Indeed, Nizam al-Mulk's boast shortly before his assassination (1092) was substantially true: "Tell the sultan, 'If you have not already realized that I am your coequal in the work of ruling, then know that you have only attained to this power through my statesmanship and judgment'." Such was his reputation among contemporaries that he was compared to the Barmakids, viziers to the 8th-century caliph Harun al-Rashid. His aim, like that of other great Persian viziers, was to impress on his less-sophisticated Turkmen rulers, brought up in the rude tradition of the steppe, the superiority of Persian civilization and its political wisdom. Nizam al-Mulk's conception of society was based partly on the ideals that he had inherited from his background, a Persian tradition of order and hierarchy in the state that reached back beyond the Arab conquest of Persia in the 7th century to the traditions of Sasanian society. The ruler, chosen by God, had as his main task the preservation of stability in the kingdom and the traditional forms of society. His power was absolute, requiring no authorization, and the administration was centralized in his person.

The Seyasat-nameh

Yet, despite his immense power and prestige, Nizam al-Mulk was only in some measure able to mold his sultans in this ideal of kingship. Shortly before his death and at Malik-Shah's request, he wrote down his views on government in the Seyasat-nameh. In this remarkable work, Nizam al-Mulk barely refers to the organization of the dewan (administration) because he had been able, with the help of his well-chosen servants, to control and model it on traditional lines. But he never had the same power in the dargah (court) and found much to criticize in the sultan's careless disregard for protocol, the lack of magnificence in his court, the decline in prestige of important officials, and the neglect of the intelligence service. The most severe criticisms in the Seyasat-nameh, however, are of those with heterodox religious views, the Shi'ites in general and the Isma'ilites in particular, to whom he devotes his last 11 chapters. His support of "right religion," Sunni Islam, was not only for reasons of state but also a matter of passionate conviction, providing the other major influence that shaped his view of society.
He expressed his religious devotion in other ways, however, that more effectively contributed to the Sunnite revival. He founded Nizamiyah madrasahs (colleges of higher learning) in many major towns throughout the empire to combat Shi'ite propaganda, as well as to provide reliable, competent administrators, schooled in his own branch of Islamic law. Less orthodox religious communities among the Sufi orders also benefited from his generosity; hospices, pensions for the poor, and extensive public works related to the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina were created or sustained by his patronage. Particularly in his last years, when the Isma'ilite threat grew stronger and its partisans found a refuge in Alamut, the castle of the Assassins, he set himself the task of combating their influence by every means possible.
On Alp-Arslan's death in 1073, Nizam al-Mulk was left with wider powers, since the late sultan's successor, Malik-Shah, was only a youth. By 1080, however, Malik-Shah had become less acquiescent. Nizam al-Mulk also antagonized the sultan's favourite courtier, Taj al-Mulk, and he made an enemy of the sultan's wife Terkhen-Khatun by preferring the son of another wife for the succession.
Nizam al-Mulk was assassinated in 1092, on the road from Esfahan to Baghdad, near Nehavand. The murder was probably committed by an Isma'ilite from Alamut, possibly with the complicity of Taj al-Mulk and Terkhen-Khatun, if not that of Malik-Shah himself. Within a month, however, the sultan, too, was dead, and the disintegration of the great Seljuq empire had begun.
As a great Iranian vizier, Nizam al-Mulk conspicuously exemplifies the chief minister's role of mediator between a despot, in this instance an alien Turk, and his Persian subjects. Nizam al-Mulk kept Turkmen immigrants, who had entered Iran with the Seljuqs, engaged in hostilities outside the country; he enhanced the dignity and prestige of the Seljuqs by inculcating canons of royal behaviour and etiquette; and he tempered military harshness with lessons in judicious clemency and conciliation. He built up Seljuq power with the sultan as the keystone of an integrated administration, and he encouraged the recognition of local rulers as honourable vassals. Nizam al-Mulk was, for contemporaries, as he has remained for successive generations who read his Seyasat-nameh, the quintessential vizier--wise, prudent, resourceful and successful, and a devout Muslim. By his life and work, he brought the Persian and the Islamic cultures toward a closer integration at a time when medieval Islam reached its zenith.
The only complete English translation of Nizam al-Mulk's Seyasat-nameh is by Hubert Darke, The Book of Government; or, Rules for Kings (1960).

artikel seminar

The Beginning of Guidance


By Sheikh Abdul-Hakim Murad

Presented at Bankstown Town Hall, Sydney, Thursday 8th April, 2004

Transcribed: Badar Zoud

Let us compose ourselves for a moment, in the presence of Allah. The ‘ulama state, "bithikrihim tunzil al-rahma" by merely mentioning them, the rahma, the compassion, the sweet loving kindness of Allah descends. It’s a rest for the soul as well as an illumination for the mind that comes when we consider the siar, the blessed lives of the great ones of our tradition. Particularly when we consider those who spent their lives healing the great divisions which religion sent to heal - the division between man and his lord and the division between the ‘ibaad themselves - between human beings, between believers in the same blessed tradition. Those who attempt that greatest of all tasks, those who therefore walk in the footsteps of the Prophets (a.s), those who are "warathatul-unbiyaa", heirs to the Prophets are those with whose mention the mercy particularly descends because they are the proofs. Islam is not ultimately about books, it’s not about great buildings, it’s not about the mighty civilizations that our culture has historically thrown up. Islam is about men and women, it’s about we shaping our poor flesh after an image of perfection, its about healing hearts that are sick with the drugs and the intoxication of this worldly life, its about bringing light into our lives and banishing the devil and death.

Allah (swt) has such special regard for this ummah, which is as we are told, ummatun marhumah, an ummah upon which there is mercy has many times and places chosen individuals who will indeed walk in the path of the anbiya. Those who do not limit the religion simply to outward conformity, that is a simple task, but those who insist that the religion demands of us not just some things, but absolutely everything. That everything we have we must give to Allah and all we hold back is burnt. The message of Islam in its fullness, in its totality, in its uncompromising demands from everything we are – that is the message that is presented by the great ones whom Allah (swt), in his great mercy and his great love for this ummah and to honour the founder of this great ummah, has appointed for each generation.

Let’s consider the hadith, "inna allah yub’athu fee haathihi al-ummah ‘ala ra’si kuli miati sanah man yujadidaha deenaha", hadith narrated by Imam Tabarrani and Imam Al-hakim – it’s a profound hadith. Allah shall raise up, this is a prophecy from him (s), Allah shall raise up for this ummah at the beginning of every 100 years, someone who will renew for it, its religion. As you can imagine a tremendous prediction like this coming from the one who, "laa yantiqu ‘an il-hawa", does not speak out of whim or personal opinion, generated intense interest and enthusiasm amongst the ‘ulama. Who were these individuals? They began to compile lists and as the centuries rolled by, of course the lists became longer and also the differences became greater. Most of the lists say the first mujadid of Islam seems to have been the righteous khalifah, Umar ibn Adbul-Aziz. That’s generally agreed upon with few exceptions. Some of them say, in the second Islamic century perhaps it was Muhammad ibn Idrees al-Shafi’ and so on and so on until we get to a century which really in many ways represents the climax to the evolution of our tradition and Imam Jalal al-din al-suyuti in the 16th Gregorian century who has a separate book on this hadith said regarding this century it is qutb al-islam, Muhammad ibn Muhammad, ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali and he adds, "laa a’lamu lahu khilafun", I don’t know any scholar who disagrees with it. The ‘ulama have disagreed over earlier centuries and disagree over later centuries but when it comes to the hujjatul islam as far as Imam as-Suyuti knows, and he was no mean reader, the ummah was agreed.

How did he get this magnificent title? Why is it that his book, after the Quran and hadith is more commented upon than any other book of Islam? Why is it that the great Shafi’ jurist and hadith commentator Sharf al-din Nawawi (rahmatullahi ‘alah) said: "law thuhubut qutub al-islam, wal-‘iathu billah, wa-lum yubqa illa al-ihya la – u’na ‘umma bu’d" – if all the books of islam were to be lost, may Allah preserve us, and only the ihya remained (Imam Al-Ghazali’s great work, The Revival) it would be enough, it would supply the orb that had been lost. Why this great esteem? Why was he hujjatul-islam, the proof of Islam? Precisely because he revealed Islam in it’s totality. Not a lob-sided preoccupation with the inward with the exclusion of the outward duties, nor a nit-picking pre-occupation with the outward and a neglect of the inward - but an Islam of balance, an Islam of precisely siraat al-mustaqeem, the straight path which is always the path between two erroneous extremes. This really is the secret of our ummah, "wa-kathaalika ja’alnaakum ummatan wasata", Allah said, thus have we made you a middle nation.

But this ummah is to be a revival of the Abrahamic faith. Our understanding of the way in which earlier ummah’s went astray reflects a lot of this balance, namely that Bani-Israel moved away from the original message of Sayidina Musa (as) in the direction of excessive externalism, Sayyidina Issa (as) was sent to correct this, but then his own followers took things too far in the opposite direction and threw out the law all together and said this is just the spirit you don’t need the latter. Then in the 7th century it became clear that this imbalance had become permanent and Allah (swt) restored the Abrahamic meezan, the perfect balance of Sayyidna Ibrahim (as) by appointing Sayyidina Muhammad (s).

So those who revive his way of being the golden mean. "khayr al-umuri awsatuhu wa-kilta tarafayil umuru tameem", the best of all affairs is the middle path and both extremes are reprehensible. Because it’s easy to be extreme, you can switch off your brain and follow the extreme, extremists tend to be the less intelligent members of any religious community anywhere in the world, because you can have almost no brain and still be growing angry and still be following rules in either direction. To know the middle path requires assurgency, and Allah (swt) wants this ummah to be potent and wise and lead by people who are intelligent and wise and certainly Imam Al-Ghazali (rahmatulahi ‘alah) fits those qualifications.

So, because mercy descends upon those who remember the great ones and who seek to be healed by the revival that they brought let’s remind ourselves briefly of his life story.

It was fairly short; he died at the age of 55. Born in 1058 of the western calendar in the town of Tabiran which is nowadays not very much, the Mongols saw to that around 100 years after the Imam’s death, and thought to have been the centre of the former great Islamic land of Khurasan (unlikely to find it on the map today) but for any Muslim in the middle ages Khurasan meant approximately central Asia. If you took a pair of compasses and drew a circle of radius 400 – 500 km around the points of the present day borders where Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Iran meet you would have what Muslims historically understood by Khurasan.

Khurasan was in many ways along with Iraq the intellectual power house of the entire Islamic ummah, and it was known particularly for its hadith scholars eg, Imam Al-Bukhari from Samarkand, Imam Al-Tirmithi and many others from that part of the world and also remembered for its doctrinal brilliance.

Imam Al-Ghazali who was orphaned at an early age and taken into the care of relatives was dedicated to learning from an early age in a time and place that was blessed with a presence, almost a super abundance, of truly great scholars. Too many particular things that affected his soul and mind, the Imam Abu Ali Al-tirmithi and the Shaykh Imam Al-Haramayn Al-juwayni.

Al-tirmithi is a hadith expert who is also a great exponent of the sciences of the soul; he has that irreplaceable gift of being able to look into the heart of people young and old and detecting the sickness and the ability to consult the scriptures and the wisdom of our tradition to prescribe a remedy. Here is a teacher of Imam Abu qasm Al-busayri (rahmatulallhi ‘alahi) himself a great hadith scholar and a great ‘alim of ‘aqeedah and a great Imam of Tasawuf (the inner science of conforming ones soul to the Prophetic realities).

And the other line of instruction that the Imam was receiving as a small boy this was Imam Al-Haramayn Al-Juwayni, who was a great model of the outward visual discipline of Islam. Juwayni comes from the great tradition of doctrine and hadith scholarship that are associated with the names Ibn-sura, Hakim Al-Nusaburi and many other great scholars of Khurasan. Imam al-haramayn, called the imam of the two sanctuaries because on his visit to Mecca and Medina so impressed the ‘ulama with his knowledge that even though he was a stranger they insisted that he lead all the prayers when he was in those towns in the two harams of Mecca and Medina - a great exponent of the evolving flourishing Islamic sciences defending and vindicating the religion against its enemies through the use of the intellect.

So we can in our minds eye conjure up an image of the Imam still a young boy attending the classes of this very rigorous, difficult and intellectually demanding tradition of theology in the morning in the great mosque in Nisabur sitting with hundreds of other students hanging on every word of the great Imam. After the thuhr prayer mounting his donkey and riding up through the suburbs of the great city to the gardens, the rose gardens where Imam Al-Tirmithi would speak and sometimes sing.

Throughout his life Imam Al-Ghazali is characterised by the resolution of this tension. Is Islam ultimately to be known and approved and ascertained with the brain or with the heart? What kind of religion developed, where is the proof? Is it a light that Allah casts into the heart or is it possible to prove anything just using the brain alone? Or is it the other way around or is it a subtle combination of the two? An argument that erupts constantly in all circles.

In 1084 Imam Al-Tirmithi dies and in the following year Imam Al-Haramayn follows him into the next world and so grief stricken are his pupils that when they hear the news they break their pens as a mark of respect and don’t return to their studies for a year. Imam Al-Ghazali reckons no-one else in Nisabur can help him; he has already reached a very high level in Shafi’ fiqh and in kalam, a formal argumentative proof based theology of Islam. He travels elsewhere, he’s only 28, he travels to the capital of the Islamic world, the great Abassid city of Baghdad and he fetches up in a rather strange place, the fort of the great selduke begir, Nizam Al-mulk, its strange because its not in a building its in a tent outside Baghdad, the wazir finds it easier to rule from that situation.

Immediately, a kind of symbiosis develops between the two men, they look each other in the eye and they can see that they are on the same wavelength. The wazir, Nizam Al-Mulk is a pragmatic military man; he’s just interested in finding ways of ruling and bringing about the peace and expansion of the Dar al-Islam. Imam al-Ghazali is a specialised theologian and legist. Nizam Al-Mulk seizes the opportunity and immediately appoints this very young man to the most prestigious professorial chair in the entire Islamic world today, the professorship of Shafi’ fiqh at the great madrasah created in Baghdad the Nidhamiyah. So here is this very young man with 300 – 400 students coming from all over the Islamic world to sit at his feet, he’s already made it (as a tenor professor) yet still not yet certain.

It is here that he produces the most vital works of law that the ummah has ever had and these are the standard text of Shafi’ fiqh that are used and prescribed in the great Islamic universities today. Four big texts on Shafi’ furu’ that is to say the do’s and the don’ts. Also the great text of Usul al-fiqh the roots of the law, how exactly do the jurists (the mujtahid scholar) figure out the exact legal meaning of the Quran and Sunnah, that is what the ‘ulama describe as the Taj al-‘ulum, the crown of the sciences, because its not only the most important but because of the lethal danger implied in the amateur reading of the scriptures and the division and error that can flow from there it has to be done by brilliant experts because of its extraordinary sophistication. Islam invested most of its mental brilliance in the golden ages of Islamic intellectuality not so much in theology but in fiqh and particularly in jurisprudence.

So the Imam is teaching and then apparently having made it under the climax of his career disaster strikes, he starts to experience that most dreadful of all complaints — he starts to worry about the basis of his faith. This is a calamity not just for himself but for his students and of course the entire Islamic world which by now is really dependant on his formulation of the truths of the religion. So his experiences are very frightening, and he notes this in his kind of autobiography "Al-Munqid Min Al-Dalaal", the deliverer from error, which he writes in order to tell other people in his frightful driven situation to rediscover certainty. He describes how first of all he was beset by doubts about his own sincerity – sitting on the mimbar with all of those adoring students at his feet, hanging on his every word — how can he be sure that he was doing this solely for the glory of Allah (swt) and not to gratify his own sense of importance. Also, doubts regarding the basis of religion itself - how do we know anything? How do we know the basis of scripture? How can we prove the existence of Allah? Is there really a foundation of this huge superstructure that has been erected in his day in the name of Islam? Where is the proof?

It’s noted that the double life he was leading eventually provoked mental catastrophe, a kind of breakdown when in the middle of a lecture he suddenly drops down, climbed down and walked away – he’s not seen again in his circle for eleven years. Where did he go? We are not quite sure. He didn’t really want to be followed; he made provision for his wife and children and announced he was going on the hajj and he left Baghdad.

Well, he did go on the hajj but he went to many other places as well. If you go to haram al-sharif in Jerusalem — may Allah soon restore it to its rightful owners — you will find pointed out the room where the Imam used to stay when he was in his retreat cell meditating, contemplating finding his repository space in that great symbol of spiritual school of our religion, the place of israa and mi’raj. He went to Damascus as well and possibly to other cities. Then his great achievement is that he returns, he returns to teaching, returns to his family and returns to the ummah with his faith reinforced and restored.

How does this come about? He says, philosophy, theology and all the other great logic propping disciplines are right and legitimate but not for establishing faith. The faith in that which is upperly transcendent beyond this world cannot be established by arguments and brain power that is limited by this world, its beyond - Allah is munazah, He is transcendent above what our brains can demonstrate.

There is a sort of knowledge within ourselves which he defines as the heart. It was the qulb, the heart, the illuminated unimaginable heart of the blessed Prophet that was the point upon which revelation descended "nuzuluhu ‘ala qulbik" we sent it down upon your heart. This is repository of something which actually is not of this world, the ruh, the spirit. "yasaloonaka ‘an al-ruh, qul al-ruh min amri rabi wa-ma ootitum min al-‘ilm illa qaleelaa" Allah says: "They ask you about the ruh, the spirit. Say: ‘The spirit is of the command of my Lord and of knowledge you have been given only a little.’" Why does it have to be said in this obscure, difficult, elliptical way? Because human language cannot really grapple with that which lies outside the four dimensions of space and time. Language is of this world and falls silent when asked to describe that which is outside the horizons of this world. Little knowledge have you been given. But the ruh is there and the ruh is of the command of Allah (swt), it is what Allah at the beginning of things breathed into the clay to make the first man, it is what differentiates us from the clay that is the rest of creation. It is what allows us to acquire in human form names that are names of Allah (swt). It is what differentiates us and it is in this sense that we can be Allah’s khulafa — His deputies, representatives, models on earth.

Imam Al-Ghazali made this discovery which is in fact plain Quranic teaching and he said this is the sort of knowledge if you want to know, if you want yaqeen, if you want certainty, don’t spend too much time talking logic with the Greeks, have a look within and pray and accompany those prayers and that effort with superhuman efforts in perfect conformity to the Prophetic sunnah "walitheena jaahadu feena lanahdiyannahum subulana" those who struggle for our sake, we shall certainly guide them to our path — and guidance is quintessentially iman – its where it comes from. Strive and you will see. This is the divine promise "lanahdiyannahum" we will certainly guide them. The secret of religion is a deep secret and of this Imam Al-Ghazali was convinced most of the ‘ulama of his day where unaware – i.e. knowledge lies within, and only to the extent that we purify what is within ourselves and strip away the filthy layers of vice and greed and lust and anarchy and self centeredness will we truly know, will we have any kind of real ma’rifah, that’s the only way. All else is speculation and wishful thinking. So this is a practical model and this is why the blessed Prophet (s) was at the heart of the Ghazalian teaching.

__________________
"We were not put on this earth to facilitate easier driving to a video store."

"Eating is to preserve life, not living to eat and yet eat more."

KS

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	THE SELJUK TURKS:     Although individual Turkish generals had already gained considerable, and at times decisive, power in Mesopotamia and Egypt during the tenth and eleventh centuries, the coming of the Seljuks signaled the first large-scale penetration of the Turkish elements into the Middle East. Descended from a tribal chief named Seljuk, whose homeland lay beyond the Oxus River near the Aral Sea, the Seljuks not only developed a highly effective fighting force but also, through their close contacts with Persian court life in Khorasan and Transoxania, attracted a body of able administrators. Extending from Central Asia to the Byzantine marches in Asia Minor, the Seljuk state under its first three sultans- Tughril Beg, Alp-Arslan, and Malikshah- established a highly cohesive, well-administered Sunni state under the nominal authority of the 'Abbasid caliphs at Baghdad. One of the administrators, the Persian Nizam-al-Mulk, became one of the greatest statesmen of medieval Islam. For twenty years, especially during the rule of Sultan Malikshah, he was the true custodian of the Seljuk state. In addition to having administrative abilities, he was an accomplished stylist whose book on statecraft, Siyasat-Namah, is a valuable source for the political thought of the time. In it he stresses the responsibilities of the ruler: for example, if a man is killed because a bridge is in disrepair, it is the fault of the ruler, for he should make it his business to apprise himself of the smallest negligences of his underlings. Nizam-al-Mulk, furthermore, was a devout and orthodox Muslim who established a system of madrasahs or theological seminaries (called nizamiyah after the first element of his name) to provide students with free education in the religious sciences of Islam, as well as in the most advanced scientific and philosophical thought of the time. The famous theologian al-Ghazali whose greatest work, the Revival of the Sciences of Religion, was a triumph of Sunni theology taught for a time at the nizamiyah schools at Baghdad and at Nishapur. Nizam-al-Mulk was the patron of the poet and astronomer 'Umar al-Khayyam (Omar Khayyam), whose verses, as translated by Edward FitzGerald in the nineteenth century, have become as familiar to English readers as the sonnets of Shakespeare. After the death of Malikshah in 1092, internal conflict among the young heirs led to the fragmentation of the Seljuks' central authority into smaller Seljuk states led by various members of the family, and still smaller units led by regional chieftains, no one of whom was able to unite the Muslim world as still another force appeared in the Middle East: the Crusaders. The most imposing of the many fortresses built by the Crusaders the elegant Krak des Chevaliers in Syria (top) held out against the Muslims for over a century and a half. The Crusader castle at Sidon in Lebanon (below) was abandoned after the final defeat of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Next :   THE CRUSADERS:		Table of Contents •  The Message: •  The Hijrah: •  The Rightly Guided Caliphs: •  The Umayyads: •  Islam In Spain: •  The 'abbasids: •  The Golden Age: •  The Fatimids: •  The Seljuk Turks: •  The Crusaders: •  The Mongols And The Mamluks: •  The Legacy: •  The Ottomans: •  The Coming Of The West: •  Revival In The Arab East: •  Related Topics: •  Acknowledgements:

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SN

The Seyāsat-nāmeh 

Shortly before his assassination and at Malik-Shāh’s request, Niẓām al-Mulk wrote down his views on government in the Seyāsat-nāmeh. In this remarkable work, he barely refers to the organization of the dewan (administration) because he had been able, with the help of his well-chosen servants, to control and model it on traditional lines. But he never had the same power in the dargāh (court) and found much to criticize in the sultan’s careless disregard for protocol, the lack of magnificence in his court, the decline in prestige of important officials, and the neglect of the intelligence service.

NM

Nizam al-Mulk's Rules for Kings

Nizam al-Mulk (1018-1092), whose name is a title meaning harmony of the kingdom, governed the Seljuq empire as vizier for thirty years. His father had been a tax collector for the Ghaznavids. The renowned Sufi Shaikh, Abu Sa'id ibn Abi'l-Khair, was Nizam al-Mulk's teacher, and later the vizier founded several hospices for the Sufis. Nizam al-Mulk became an advisor to Alp-Arslan when he was governor of Khurasan, and he may have been responsible for ordering the death of al-Kunduri after Alp-Arslan won the succession struggle in 1063. Nizam al-Mulk's influence as vizier became especially important in 1072 when Malik-Shah came to the throne at the age of 18.
In 1086 the king commanded Nizam al-Mulk to consider the condition of the country and make a digest of past and present principles and laws so that the duty of the king could be correctly discharged, and all the wrong practices could be discontinued. Within a few years Nizam al-Mulk had written the first 39 chapters of his Siyar al-Muluk (Rules for Kings), which is also known in Europe as the Siyasat-nama (The Book of Government). In 1090 Nizam al-Mulk quarreled with Sultan Malik-Shah and may even have been replaced by Taj al-Mulk, who was favored by Tarkan Khatun in her hopes to have her son Mahmud succeed to the throne instead of the elder son Berk-yaruq. Eleven additional chapters criticized current conditions more strongly and were probably never read by Malik-Shah, because the librarian recorded that he did not reveal the book until the troubles ended, probably in 1105 when Muhammad became the undisputed sultan.
In the prolog Nizam al-Mulk described the purpose of the book as requested by Sultan Malik-Shah. Nizam al-Mulk began by suggesting that in every age God chooses one person endowed with virtues to rule as king. Disobedience or disregard of the divine laws results in retribution for deeds, and in the resulting calamities innocent people may be killed until again one human being acquires power and employs subordinates according to merit. A good king has a pleasing appearance, is kind, has integrity, is manly, brave, and skilled in arms and arts, is merciful, keeps promises, has sound faith and worships God with devotion, prays, fasts, and respects religious authorities, honors the devout, patronizes the learned and wise, gives to charity regularly, does good to the poor, is kind to subordinates, and relieves the people of oppressors.
Justice is the most important virtue, and Nizam al-Mulk recommended the king hold court on two days of the week to hear complaints personally and redress wrongs so that oppressors would curb their activities from fear of punishment. Tax collectors should take only the amount due and with civility. Any peasant in need of oxen or seed should be given a loan to keep him viable. Even viziers should be investigated secretly to make sure they are fulfilling their function properly. If impropriety is found in the conduct of any officials, they should be removed from office and chastised according to the crime. A story is told of the just king Nushirvan (Khusrau I), who complained that his doors were open to oppressors but not to the peasants. The palace doors should be more open to the givers (peasants) than to the takers (soldiers).
Judges should also be monitored, and those that are covetous and dishonest should be replaced by the learned and pious. In addition to the tax collectors and judges, the conduct of the prefect of police and the censor should be investigated. The mystic Abu 'Ali Daqqaq asked the governor of Khurasan if he loved gold more than his enemy and then pointed out that he will leave gold behind him but will take his enemy into the next world. Then the story is told of how Sultan Mahmud, afraid that he was not handsome, was advised by Ahmad ibn Hasan to take gold as his enemy so that men will regard him as their friend. Mahmud then became generous and charitable, and the whole world adored him.
Nizam al-Mulk illustrated his points with numerous stories. In one an amir (commander) borrows 600 dinars from a man and promises to pay back 700 in one year; but the man is not able to get any money back for many months and finally goes to a poor tailor, who sends a servant to the amir. The tailor is successful and tells how a previous amir took a woman by force, and so he made the call to prayer during the night so that she could return, and her husband would not divorce her. Mu'tasim called in the tailor and asked why he made the call to prayer at the wrong time, and he told him of the amir's offense. The amir was severely punished, and the tailor was told to make the call to prayer at the wrong time whenever the sultan's attention was needed. Thus the new amir knew that he had better pay back the money.
Luqman the Wise noted that knowledge is better than wealth, because you have to take care of wealth, but knowledge takes care of you. Nizam al-Mulk believed that sound judgment is better for a king than having a powerful army. He quoted the Qur'an to show that God commanded even Muhammad to seek advice and counsel. Nizam recommended having different races among the troops so that they would compete with each other to excel. He described Alp-Tegin's rise to power from a slave and page of the Samanids to a commander. He punished a page for taking hay and a chicken from a peasant without paying for it as he ordered. This made other soldiers afraid, and the peasants were safe. His justice led the citizens of Ghaznain to take Alp-Tegin as their king. Because the Samanids tried to destroy the worthy Alp-Tegin, they declined and were overcome by Alp-Tegin and his successor Sebuk-Tegin, who founded the Ghaznavid empire.
Nizam al-Mulk believed it was the perfection of wisdom not to become angry at all; but if one does become angry, intelligence should prevail over wrath. The wise have said that patience is good, but it is even better during success. Knowledge is good, but it is even better with skill. Wealth is good, but it is even better with gratitude and enjoyment. Worship is good, but it is even better with understanding and reverence for God. Yet nothing is better than generosity, and kindness, and hospitality.
In the second part (chapters 40-50) Nizam al-Mulk seems to write from the bitterness of his retirement. He wrote that two appointments should not be given to one man nor should one position be given to more than one person. He complained that many worthy people remain unemployed when some persons are given several positions each. He lamented that it used to be that those hired followed the Hanafi or Shafi'i teachings and were from Khurasan or Transoxiana or a Sunni city, and Shi'ites were refused; but now someone (probably Taj al-Mulk) wants to economize by reducing 400,000 men on the pay-roll to 70,000 in order to fill the treasury with gold. Nizam argued that a larger empire required more employees and that even more men would enable them to govern India too.
Nizam told stories from history to show that a good era replaces a sick time when a just king does away with evil-doers, has right judgments, and a vizier and officers of virtue; every task has the proper worker; heretics are put down, and the orthodox are raised up; tyrants are repressed; soldiers as well as peasants fear the king; the uneducated and base are not given positions; the inexperienced are not promoted; advice is sought from the intelligent and mature; men are selected for their skill, not because of their money; religion is not sold for worldly things; everything is ordered according to merit; thus all people have work according to their capability; and all things are regulated by justice and government by the grace of God.
Those under the king should not be allowed to assume power. Nizam was particularly critical of women, and his prejudice even went so far as to assume that one should always do the opposite of what a woman recommends. Nizam has Buzurjmihr complain that Khusrau gave power to his queen Shirin. He believed the Sasanians fell from power because they entrusted important affairs to petty and ignorant officers and because they hated learning and learned people. Thus instead of having wise officers, Buzurjmihr said he had to deal with women and boys. Buzurjmihr Bakhtgan advised the king to banish the bad qualities from himself, which he listed as "hatred, envy, pride, anger, lust, greed, desire, spite, mendacity, avarice, ill temper, cruelty, selfishness, hastiness, ingratitude, and frivolity."2 The good qualities he should exercise are "modesty, good temper, clemency, forgiveness, humility, generosity, truthfulness, patience, gratitude, mercy, knowledge, intelligence, and justice."3
Nizam al-Mulk expressed his sharpest venom against the heretics by recounting his version of history, showing how they have arisen and have been destroyed. He goes back to the Mazdak revolution in the last century of the Sasanian empire. They offended him not only by their sharing their property but because they believed in sharing their wives also. Nizam would also accuse some Shi'i heretics of practicing the same evils, charging them with incest, for example. He described how the evil Qarmatis and Batinis arose and were put down in various regions. He noted that the Batinis were called by different names in different places.

In Aleppo and Egypt they call them Isma'ilis;
in Qum, Kashan, Tabaristan and Sabzvar they are called Seveners;
in Baghdad, Transoxiana and Ghaznain they are known as Qarmatis,
in Kufa as Mubarakis, in Basra as Ravandis and Burqa'is,
in Rayy as Khalafis, in Gurgan as The Wearers of Red,
in Syria as The Wearers of White, in the West as Sa'idis,
in Lahsa and Bahrain as Jannabis, and in Isfahan as Batinis;
whereas they call themselves The Didactics and other such names.
But their whole purpose is only to abolish Islam,
to mislead mankind and cast them into perdition.4

Nizam commended al-Mu'tasim for his three victories over the Byzantines, Babak's revolt in Azerbaijan, and the Zarathustrian Mazyar in Tabaristan. Nizam cited the early caliph 'Umar's response to the last Sasanian king Yazdijurd Shahryar to show that the latter's empire was declining, because his court was crowded with complainers; his treasury was full of ill-gotten wealth; and his army was disobedient. Nizam thus became a conservative voice for the Sunni tradition and ruled by an absolute monarch.

BUKU

Series:The New Cambridge Medieval History
Volume 4 Part 2c.1024–c.1198
Chapter TitleChapter 23: Zengids, Ayyubids and Seljuqs
Publication Date2004
AuthorStephen Humphreys
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)10.1017/CHOL9780521414111.027

Overview

For thirty years, from the moment he was made chief minister in 1063 by the sultan Alp Arslan (regn. 1063–72), Nizam al-Mulk devoted every effort to shaping the jerry-built Seljuqid political enterprise into a centralized absolutist monarchy. By the late 1080s, he could claim considerable success, for the sultan whom he now served (Malikshah, regn. 1072–92) enjoyed uncontested authority from the Oxus to the Mediterranean. After an initial succession struggle between Malikshah and his uncle Qavurd, there were no further disruptions which seriously threatened Malikshah's supremacy. Nizam al-Mulk had created an administrative machinery which allowed him to maintain a fairly effective control over the flow of revenues and information. It is clear that he wanted to penetrate the whole apparatus with a network of informers and security agents, though it is not clear that he was able to achieve this goal. In any case, he dispersed his relatives and protégés everywhere he could, and even the most powerful officials in the remotest places had good reason to think that they were being watched.

Nizam al-Mulk could only use the tools available to him in the world of eleventh-century Iran and Iraq, of course. For example, he would have preferred to build a tax system based on salaried officials, but fiscal reality compelled him to make wide use of the iqta'. Even so, he strove to maintain a close supervision over these iqta's and to limit the powers which their holders could exercise over the villages assigned to them. By this time, Seljuqid military power was based increasingly on a standing ‘professional’ army – an army whose members were registered by name, paid regular stipends and (in principle) subject to muster as needed.

BUKU

Series:The Cambridge History of Iran
Volume 5The Saljuq and Mongol Periods
Chapter Title Chapter 3: Religion in the Saljuq Period
Publication Date1968
Author A. Bausani
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)10.1017/CHOL9780521069366.004

Overview

In the religious history of Iran the Saljuq period is particularly interesting, for it is the period of the Ismā‘īlīs. As the Ismā‘īlīs movement is treated in another part of the book, this chapter will be chiefly devoted to the three main aspects of religious life in Iran during this period: the development of Sunnism, the ferment of Shī‘ī ideas, and Sūfism. Chronologically the Saljuq epoch in Iran extends roughly from the tenth to the twelfth centuries; obviously in this chapter we cannot always keep exactly within these limits.

If we realize that in the years from the death of Ash‘ari (935) to that of Ghazālī (1111) the entire theological system of Islam found its final systematization; that it was also the period of Nizām al-Mulk's Siyāsat-Nāma and of extremely interesting Shī‘ī–Sunnī polemics; and finally that in the twelfth century the oldest Shī‘ī–Sunnī(fraternities) were organized, some of the first great Muslim theological universities were founded, and the poet Nizāmī lived (1141–1209/13): realizing these facts, we can easily see the importance of the Saljuq era. Though not one of the most original, it is certainly one of the most formative epochs in the cultural history of Iran.

BUKU

Series:The Cambridge History of Iran
Volume 5The Saljuq and Mongol Periods
Chapter Title Chapter 2: The Internal Structure of the Saljuq Empire
Publication Date1968
Author A. K. S. Lambton
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)10.1017/CHOL9780521069366.003

Overview

The period of the Great Saljuqs can largely be regarded as representing or corresponding to the early Middle Ages. To make this division is not to underestimate the fundamental fact of the unbroken thread of Persian history in Islamic times. Stretching back behind the Saljuq period is a long continuity of administrative practice, but under the Saljuqs the old institutions gained a new meaning; developments that had begun in the preceding period crystallized, and new elements of worth were added to the Persian heritage. The Saljuqs did not formulate the details of the new system: this was mainly the work of the officials of the bureaucracy and of the religious institution, who were for the most part Persians and not Turks. But the Saljuqs were in some measure responsible for the spirit in which the new system worked.

Many Saljuq institutions lasted in their outward forms (though the terminology was in some cases changed) until the twentieth century; and without a knowledge of these, and an attempt to trace them back to earlier times, we cannot fully comprehend the questions that began to agitate Iran in the nineteenth century and the solutions sought to them. Politically and religiously Iran has travelled far from the theory of a theocracy in which the caliph exercised constituent authority and legitimized the sultan's assumption of power; and economically from the iqtā‘ in its various forms and the guilds and corporations of Saljuq society. But it was not until the twentieth century that the Constitutional Revolution separated modern Iran from medieval Persia.

YN(CU)

This is the story of the life of Nizam al-Mulk Abu al-Hasan b. 'Ali b. Ishaq al-Tusi (1018-92), vizier of two Saljuq Sultans, Alp Arslan (r. 1063-72), and Malikshah (r. 1072-85), as it was recorded by a selection of Muslim historians of the medieval period. More than a simple biography, this dissertation aims at reconstructing the "historical" person of Nizam al-Mulk, dealing with how he was remembered and why. In so doing, it is as much a study in historiography as it is in history. Part of the contention, in fact, is that history cannot be divorced, conceptually, from historiography, in that every reality is narrated, and in its narration, the telling of the story is as much a part of the historical process as the story itself.

The study analyzes the various historical accounts of the life of Nizam al-Mulk, and attempts an explanation of their myriad points of divergence. To that end, a brief history of the historiographical watersheds of the first five centuries of Islamic history is supplied, so that a model for distinction, signified by the historians themselves, becomes discernible. It is maintained that a certain Islamic "type" is sought for every epoch of Islamic history, and that Nizam al-Mulk epitomized that "type" for the fifth/eleventh century. Moreover, the dissertation argues that the frequent falsifications by the sources are not indicative of ahistoricality, but that the historical events are equal partners to the ahistorical ones in the historical process itself. The forgeries, in other words, are not arbitrary. This is attested to by the recurring patterns of the great Islamic "type", manifested as much in the imagined events as in the real ones.

Finally, the study takes issue with prevalent scholarship on the policies of Nizam al-Mulk with religious currents outside mainstream Islam, namely Shi'ism and Sufism, showing them to be marked with expediency and compromise rather than establishmentarian zealotry.

SN(viii)

These dihqans may have been more literate than persons carrying out similar duties in other countries at the time, but it hardly to be expected that they were more considerate to the humble folk under their screw.

SN (vii)

The author of present work, Nizam al-Mulk, was for over thirty years the chief minister of two successive rulers of the Seljuq tribes. They came of a race of wiry and relentless warriors inured to the hardships of life in the Kirghiz steppes, whence in the tenth century a.d. they descended upon the softer and more fertile lands of the Oxus. There they embraced Islam with all the fervour of their uncouth souls, as Stanley Lane-Poole puts it, and participated in the struggles between other tribes of recent conversion for supremacy and spoil.Eventually, one Seljuq chieftain, Chaghri Beg accumulated horses, men and equipment enough to venture on an invasion of the huge Persian province of Khurasan. His son and grandson, Alp Arsalan and Malikshah successive masters of Nizam al-Mulk swept onwards,while his brother Tughil beg expanded his conquests in neighbouring territories, until at last the sSljuq empire covered all the lands from the borders of Chinese Turkestan and India to the confines of Egypt, and rubbed against the frontier post of the byzantine empire.

The Seljuq Empire was presided over by warrior chiefs,whose slaves commanded the armies which kept it in subjection. these slaves were Mamluks, bought as children and reared in the chieftains own families, so that their fidelity could be relied upon, whereas that of free man might be tainted with personal ambition. it was to cope with such conditions as these that Nizam al-Mulk compiled his manual.he had been compelled at the outset of his career to construct a civil service capable of administering great tracts of territory,sparsely dotted with inhabited towns and villages.Like the Arabs before them in Persia, the Seljuqs employed the local Dihqans, small landowners familiar with the ancient systems of taxation, to perform the only governmental task that mattered to them,namely that of collecting revenue.