Reading Machiavelli in Tehran: Beyond the Theological- Political
Ramin Jahanbegloo

Why bother reading Machiavelli today? Why reading The Prince or The Discourses in Iran? It is, after all, exactly 500 years day by day since The Prince was written by Machiavelli in 1505. One simple answer is that Machiavelli is the founder of modern political philosophy. Another answer is that he is the first political theorist of a disenchanted world in which the individual stands alone without God, with no motives and purposes except those supplied by his own subjectivity. This is perhaps closer to our concerns in Iran. What is most relevant in Machiavelli’s thought to us is not only his new science of statecraft, but what one can call an “un-Machiavellian Machiavelli”. It is precisely at this point that a non-Machiavellian reading of Machiavelli should start. Machiavelli was no Machiavellian, nor Machiavellians are acute and aware readers of Machiavelli. Of course, it is difficult to avoid seeing the man through the work of a long line of commentators, and imputing to him the theories which have been adduced at later times in order to explain his thought. It is essential to discover where lay the peculiar genius of the man, and to find out in which way his attitude is ours in regard to our political passions. Machiavelli is admittedly ours. He does not speak past us, from another time and another culture. He challenges us from within our world, and the challenge he poses is total.

In truth, what Machiavelli’s analysis throws into relief is the political condition itself. If human beings stop overlooking the place of fortune in their affairs and recognized their limited powers to establish political institutions and to ensure themselves against the caprice of time and chance, they could throw their weight on the side of political life animated by civic spiritedness. Politics orients itself towards action and for action to be possible, men must play their part. There is a possibility of a new beginning insofar as human s act together politically, which is Machiavelli’s deepest conviction. Politics so conceived is, of course, subject to all the ambiguities of political action. Today in a time when ideological politics is discredited and when globalization has thawed frozen political systems, many consider political action as an unpleasant burden. Others try through politics to inculcate a univocal and monolithic sense of the public good in citizens. Thus the “public thing” (the res publica ) is in constant danger of being overwhelmed by enemies of freedom, or by citizens’ forgetfulness of their responsibilities. The former possibility is the political fate of religious fundamentalisms in our world, as for the latter, it could be defined in terms of the Western experience of “thoughtless” politics developed in an increasingly private and materialistic terms of the pursuit of happiness.

What distinguishes Machiavelli from the politicians of our time is that he does not appear at the head of a party in the name of the universal class or race or on behalf of humanity. For him, there are no standards above politics. In other words, Machiavelli’s political thought is on principle hostile to partisan claims, which mislead any politician or simple citizen who take them seriously. This is to say that instead of believing in the efficacy of self-interest, as it is the case today with many politicians, Machiavelli believed in the power of virtu. But this virtu was in him before getting distributed to the princes he advised and the people he described. For Machiavelli, virtu does not consist in having a virtuous character, as for Aristotle. “Virtu” here is a quality of human art which enables its actual possessor to perform acts conducive to the good of the political organization of the society. Far from being an Aristotelian phronesis, the Machiavelli’s concept of virtu refers to the ability which enables a private person to become most public of all persons, the founder of a political entity. The main idea here is that the foundation and transformation of politics occurs through the human exercise of the powers of choice. And as for political choice, it is a way of fighting superfluity in politics, if it is true that we choose politically only from the inner world of public realm and only when we are in the company of other people. What does follow from this is that we make ourselves what we are through our political choices. On the other hand, in light of the unpredictability of politics, which underscores our uncertainty about the future, the renewable meaning of foundational and initiating action is the only thing that can offer human beings a way out of contingency and relativism.

As we can see the original character of Machiavelli’s political thought emerges by contrast to Aristotle’s conception of the best regime. Machiavelli opposes his idea of indirect government to the classical notion of direct regime (politeia) as presented in the third book of Aristotle’s Politics and known to him from Livy and Polybius. The best regime, which is the theme of classical political philosophy does not exist according to Machiavelli, neither does the natural right that would be required to elaborate the best regime. This is to say that Machiavelli’s concern is with actual regimes and not with the common good. Also, Machiavelli abandons the Greek classification of six regimes and adopts the roman tradition of the distinction between republics and principalities. But in making use of this distinction, he affirms that politics is too varied to be determined by human nature. The fundamental fact for Machiavelli does not reside in the question “Who rules?” but in the question “How one rules?”. When a founder makes a regime entirely anew so as to acquire glory for himself, he incidentally believes that “the true political way of life and the true quiet of a city” would prevail. It is Machiavelli’s argument that human things are in motion and therefore human affairs must rise or sink. Change cannot be avoided but the political skill of men must be devoted to make themselves safe within this change. However, adds Machiavelli, “Men cannot make themselves safe without power”. This is why he suggests an expansion of human power. Instead of using the model of six classical governments to signify the circular inevitability of good and bad in politics, Machiavelli calls for a “perpetual republic” as the condition of progress of all mankind. By “perpetual republic” he understands the expansion of the power of execution. Since nature gives men knowledge without the faculty of execution, men must execute on their own, they must not wait for help from God or nature. God or nature not helping men to execute power, therefore no natural law or natural right are behind the sphere of politics. In other words, the modern doctrine of sovereignty begins in Machiavelli’s appropriation of the power that men had been said to exercise in executing God’s will. By using his concept of “stato”, Machiavelli creates a fundamental challenge to the tradition of the theological-political. Even if stato is always the advantage of someone or a group of people over others, Machiavelli’s state is yet impersonal. The arte dello stato that Machiavelli says that he has been studying for 15 years in the letter of December 10, 1513 to Francesco Vettori, is the impersonal art of maintaining power. For Machiavelli, lo stato (the state) is the arena of stability which humans can construct as a defense against the natural changeability of circumstances. As Machiavelli presents it clearly in his Florentine Histories (II,I): “ unhealthy countries become healthy by means of a multitude of men that seizes them at a stroke; they cleanse the earth by cultivation and purge the airs with fires, things that nature could never provide”. In addition to this, in the best-known lines of The Prince ( chapter 7), Machiavelli assets “that the principal foundations all states have, new ones as well as old or mixed, are good laws and good arms”. In other words, according to Machiavelli, the true founders, deserving the highest praise, combine force and law. The control over unforeseen events thus requires both good laws and good arms. However, while law is not sufficient by itself, for the reason that “all unarmed prophets fail”, force also has only limited efficacy. The state, then, is ought to be the domain of stability in the chaotic realm of natural changes and human passions. So unlike the classics, Machiavelli believes that politics is an unnatural body created by human art. To understand this point , one has to bear in mind that Machiavelli’s political theory presents itself as “secular” and this-worldly, moreover, its practical application entails a new ontological dimension. This new political ontology opened by Machiavelli can thus be viewed as a moment of transition to modernity. Machiavelli foresees the basic principles of modernity without abandoning the wisdom of the ancients. When Machiavelli remarks in the dedication to The Prince that his knowledge is based on “long experience with modern things and a continuous reading of ancient ones”, he implies that knowledge of the antiquity is relevant to modern times. Machiavelli explains his focus on ancient things as an attempt to show that his contemporaries are wrong to believe that the pagan Romans are impossible to imitate. Yet, one must not forget that even if Machiavelli places the prudential rules of the ancients for the intelligent leader, unlike Hobbes he does not replace traditional Christian thinking as the foundation of political obedience. Without entering into details, it should suffice to contrast the way Hobbes and Machiavelli utilize the biblical texts. In The Prince, the account of Moses in Exodus is used to provide an exemplar of the entirely new prince as a human leader. In parts 3 and 4 of Leviathan, Hobbes tries to show that his political theory is consistent with the biblical texts if they are read as humanly written. This is to say, that Machiavelli’s secularism could be understood in his way of understanding religion as a practical instrument in the hand of the political leaders. Machiavelli understands religion not as a yearning for perfection in God but rather as an attempt to control chance. According to Machiavelli, religion is a weakness that can bring strength to the leaders. Since men fear God and ask for his mercy, this is also a way for asking the mercy of virtuous men without feeling the need to directly do so. Therefore,religion empowers those who claim to have a knowledge of the other world, for only those can guide a fearful man to perform the actions which will lead him to redemption of his human condition – and, therefore, to the end of fear. Thus Machiavelli sees religion as a weakness that can be manipulated by the virtuous leader. This appropriation of religion is operated by the instrumentalization of men’s religious belief. Therefore, Machiavelli goes beyond the logic of theological-political and appropriates religion as an instrument of state-building. He frees human morality and human political from under the shadow of God. Such a view clearly implies that for Machiavelli the foundations of political morality are secular. The Machiavellian world is an order which values only action; it is a vita activa and not a vita contemplativa. It is a sphere of action where men are forced to leave their old way of life and make a new life. It is a world of political beginnings. The sphere of beginning leads, then, to the question of the scope and use of human choice. The central question here is that of the self-constitution of the political as the moment of beginning of the state. For Machiavelli, the ends of political life are the foundation and the holding of the res publica , or in other words the stability of the state and the maintenance of order and general prosperity. The only possibility consistent with such situation would be the formation and education of a new elite, capable of understanding the complexities of modern politics. It should be recalled that for Machiavelli, there are three kinds of intelligence: “one that understands by itself, another that discerns what others understand, the third that understands neither by itself nor through others” (The Prince, chapter 22). Machiavelli seems to counsel the political elite that “discern what others understand”. One way of maintaining control of the political entity is to institute a secular form of government. This would allow the elite to govern without being morally bound to religious precepts. Machiavelli actively promoted a secular form of politics, because according to him a secular form of government is a more realistic type of political invention. Through Machiavelli, one comes to realize that what is essential about the political is actually contained in its republican form, in the republic as the "rule of law," and not in its princely form. The primary question here concerns that of the production of the political itself. The analysis of the relation between constituent power and constituted power. In thinking about the self-institution of the political from the horizon of the eventual Machiavelli seeks the way to overcome the two fundamental theoretical limits of the logic of the theological-political : its lack of a theory of the political ; and it does not rely on a history of events. Machiavelli returns to the pagans beyond the onto-theological in order to find a way to conceive of history in terms of a political theory of events, where these events are thought of as the encounter of the political with the real movement of the society.

It is not too much to say that with Machiavelli the European political thought reaches at certain points an extraordinary emancipation from religious authority and medieval conception of man. But in order to free his world from the tyranny of the past and from the dominion of the medieval writings, Machiavelli consults the ancient world. Further than this, for Machiavelli to consult the classics is not only a great intellectual adventure, but also a way of equalling perhaps the political achievements and the philosophical prowess of the ancient days. Thes ideas upon the classical world and the historical process are the philosophical background which gives a true originality to the work of Machiavelli. In the light of them and the conclusions arrived at by Machiavelli, it becomes the more remarkable that reading his writings in Tehran would help us to understand the Machiavellian idea of “beginning in politics” as a way of leaving behind our own Machiavellism. We cannot see the true character of Machiavelli’s thought unless we free ourselves from the influence of Machiavellism in our own history. To do justice to Machiavelli in Iran and to have a better understanding of his views we need to look back to the Iranian tradition of Machiavellism and to reflect on the political teachings of its representatives.

Perhaps the most towering figure in the Iranian tradition of Machiavelism is Nizam al-Mulk Tusi who was a well-known minister of the Saljuk king Sultan Malek Shah. Nizam-Al-Mulk drew up a set of protocols for the governance of the empire called the Siyasat Nameh, the two most influential institutions of which were the offices of atabeg, and the right of iqta. Atabegs were military advisers to young princes who frequently ended up usurping the power entrusted to them, while iqta was a grant of the income from land to an official who was entrusted with its running. In theory no ownership in the land passed but in practice large hereditary estates developed. Both these institutions led to a massive decentralization of power and this in turn facilitated and prolonged the factional fighting which characterized the Seljuk period of power. The Book of Government is a voluminous treatise on kingship in which Nizam Al- Mulk undermines the authority of the Abbasid Caliph and renews the ancient Persian claim of divine authority of the kings. It is said that in the year 1091 Sultan Malek Shah instructed some of his dignitaries to write down the principles of political conduct that were followed by kings in the past and were required to be observed by himself. The political treatise of Nizam Al- Mulk among the works presented to the Sultan was the only one which was approved and adopted as a guide. As in the case of Machiavelli, 400 years later, who relates his theory of political action with the cyclical thery of history, the political maxims which Nizam Al-Mulk lays down as the guiding principles for the successful administration of the State, are, in fact, induced from the study of history. For Nizam Al-Mulk, any event which ever happens to take place in the world has occurred already several times. Nizam Al-Mulks historical methodology goes from the present to the past and not the reverse. As a matter of fact, he first draws conclusions from the observations of the conditions around him and then turns them back to the past. Therefore, the treatment ofhistory squares well with the object of hois political theory which is to theorize the institution of kingship in Iran. This makes us to look upon Nizam Al-Mulk’s Siyasat Nameh as the first rational exposition of the Persian political theory. From the very first paragraph of his book Nizam Al-Mulk takes it for granted that the real source from which the king derives his authority, in theory and practice, is not the institution of the Caiphate. He puts it in clear words when he says: “ In every age and time God chooses one member of the human race and, having endowed him with goodly and kingly virues, entrusts him with the interests of the world and the well-being of His servants; He charges that person to close the doors of corruption, confusion and discord, and He imparts to him such dignity and majesty in the eyes and hearts of men, that under his just rule they may live in constant security and ever wish for his reign to continue” ( translation by Hubert Drake,Page 9). What Nizam Al-Mulk is implying here is that the kingly office is essentialy of divine origin as well as hereditary, and should pass, like the kingship in ancient Persia, from father to son. Nizam Al-Mulk goes on to say that the ultimate object to which the king should direct his efforts is to create and maintain social and political conditions so that people “may passs their time in the shadow of his justice”. What Nizam Al-Mulk is attemting to set out here is indeed to revive the Persian notion of absolute monarchy and he seks to shape it on the work of the ancients. It appears that his aim in stressing the absolute superiority of the king is to introduce a central authority in the political system of the Saljuks, the majority of whom were not fully accustomed to the priciples of state-building. All this results in another important question, namely, the place that religion must have, according to Nizam Al-Mulk, both in the conduct of a king and in the everyday political life of the people.Unlike Machiavelli’s prince , who is advised to handle eligion merely as a useful instrument for achieving political ends, and who is taught to appear rather than become religious, Nizam Al-Mulk’s prince is taught to believe sinceely in religious ruths, and to exercise political power as an essential mens of finding a reconciliation between the old Persian ideals of kingship and the Muslim political ideology. According to Nizam al-Mulk, the State and religion are dependent upon each other for their existence; therefore the king must treat must treat them alike as two brothers. “Whenever there is any disorder in the State”, says Nizam Al-Mulk, “there is confusion in the religion of its people also, and the heretics and mischief-makers make their appearance. And whenever religious affairs are disturbed, the State is thrown into disorder, the mischief-makers grow strong, and heresy makes itself manifest”. It is , then, a practical necessity that leads Nezam Al-Mulk to insist on the essentially religious character of the king’s authority. The moral obligations he sets on the absolute authority of the king prevent it from growing into an oppressive despotism. Viewed in this perspective, one can say that Nizam Al-Mulk’s importance as a political thinker must rest not on his practical suggestions to the king, but on his moral and political principles of kingship in Iran. This raises , of course, once again, the question of reading Machiavelli in Iran today. Machiavelli would , I think, be mostly interested and perplexed by the return of the theological-political on the scene of modern politics. After all, reading Machiavelli in the present situation, in a country like Iran , where the political is dominated by the theological, is a way of learning to distinguish between the realm of what ought to be and the realm of what is.Machiavelli, certainly, rejected the first for the second. Machiavelli’s political realism, like that of NizamAl-Mulk could be answer to the reign of the theological in politics, but it is surely not a democratic and humanistic solution to our problems. This is why we need to look for a third realm between the political realism and the radical idealism: that could be the realm of the possible. It is in that realm that what one might call a democratic and secular humanism can lie. After all. if politics is the art of possible, the measure of man is in his ability to extend this sphere within the scope of democratic values. As Isaiah Berlin used to say: “It is on earth that we live and it is here that we must believe and act”.

NM

Abu Ali al-Hasan al-Tusi Nizam al-Mulk (خواجه نظام‌الملک طوسی in Persian; 1018 – 14 October 1092) was a celebrated Persian scholar and vizier of the Seljuq Empire.

His life

Born in Tus in Persia (Iran) and initially serving the Ghaznavid sultans, Nizam ul-Mulk became chief administrator of the entire Khorasan province by 1059AD. From 1063, he served the Seljuks as vizier and remained in that position throughout the reigns of Alp Arslan (1063-1072) and Malik Shah I (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". 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 in several cities, the famous Nizamiyyah 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 (The Book of Government). 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. Nizam ul-Mulk was finally assassinated en route from Isfahan to Baghdad on the 10th of Ramadhan of 1092AD. The mainstream literature says he was stabbed by the dagger of a member of the Hashshashin sect near Nahavand, Persia, as he was being carried on his litter. The killer approached him disguised as a dervish. This account is particularly interesting in light of a possibly apocryphal story recounted by Jorge Luis Borges. 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 and Hassan-i-Sabah. 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. To fulfill 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 observatoryAlthough 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, from where he established the Assassins. Another report says he was killed in secret by Malik Shah I in an internal power struggle. Consequently, his murder was avenged by the vizier's loyal servants of the Nizamiyyah, by assassinating the Sultan. [1]

References

1. ^ (p17 of ISBN 964-303-008-3)

See also

* List of Iranian scientists
* Persian literature
* Malik Shah I
* Alp Arslan

NM

NIZAM al-MULK

NIZAM al-MULK, Abu 'Ali al-Hasan b. 'Ali b. Ishaq al-Tusi, the celebrated minister of
the Saldjuqid sultans Alp Arslan [q.v.] and Malikshah [q.v.]. According to most authorities, he
was born on Friday 21 Dhu 'l-qa'da 408/10 April 1018, though the 6th/12th century
Ta'ri¦h-i Bayhaq of Ibn Funduq al-Bayhaqi [q.v.], which alone supplies us with detailed
information about his family, places his birth in 410/1019-20. His birth-place was Radkan,
a village in the neighbourhood of Tus, of which his father was revenue agent on behalf of
the óhaznawid government. Little is recorded of his early life. The Wasaya-yi Khwadja-yi Nizam
al-Mulk, however (for a discussion of the credibility of which see JRAS [1931], The
Sar-gudhasht-i Saiyidna, etc.), contains several anecdotes of his childhood, and is also responsible
for the statement that he became a pupil in Nishapur of a well-known Shafi'i doctor Hibat
Allah al-Muwaffaq. On the defeat of Mas'ud of óhazna at Dandanqan [q.v. in Suppl.] in
431/1040, when most of Khurasan fell into the hands of the Saldjuqs, Nizam al-Mulk's father
'Ali fled from Tus to Khusrawdjird in his native Bayhaq, and thence made his way to óhazna.
Nizam al-Mulk accompanied him, and whilst in óhazna appears to have obtained a post in a
government office. Within three or four years, however, he left the óhaznawid for the Saldjuq
service, first attaching himself to 1aghrË-Beg's [q.v.] commandant in Bal¦h (which had fallen
to a Saldjuqid force in 432/1040-1), and later, probably about 445/1053-4, moving to
1aghrË's own headquarters at Marw. It seems to have been now, or soon after, that he first
entered the service of Alp Arslan (then acting as his father's lieutenant in eastern Khurasan)
under his wazir, Abu 'Ali Ahmad b. Shadhan. And he so far won Alp Arslan's regard as on Ibn
Shadhan's death to be appointed wazir in his stead (then, probably, receiving his best-known
laqab). During the period between the death of 1aghrË-Beg in 451/1059 and that of
TughrËl-Beg in 455/1063, therefore, Nizam al-Mulk had the administration of all Khurasan in
his hands.

The fame which he thereby acquired, and the fact that by now Alp Arslan was firmly
attached to him, played a considerable part in prompting TughrËl-Beg's wazir al-Kunduri [q.v.],
first, before his master's death, to scheme for the throne to pass to 1aghrË's youngest son
Sulayman, and then, after it,qto do his utmost to prevent Alp Arslan's accession. For he
calculated that Alp Arslan, on becoming sultan, would retain Nizam al-Mulk rather than
himself in office. In the event, al-Kunduri, who soon found himself too weak to oppose Alp
Arslan, and thereupon sought to retrieve his position by acknowledging his claim, was
retained in his post on the new sultan's first entry into Rayy. But a month later Alp Arslan
suddenly dismissed him and handed over affairs to Nizam al-Mulk. Al-Kunduri was shortly
afterwards banished to Marw al-Rudh, where ten months later he was beheaded. His
execution was undoubtedly due to Nizam al-Mulk, whose fears he had aroused by appealing
for help to Alp Arslan's wife.

During Alp Arslan's reign, Nizam al-Mulk accompanied him on all his campaigns and
journeys, which were almost uninterrupted. He was not present, however, at the famous
battle of Malazgird [q.v.], having been sent ahead with the heavy baggage to Persia. On the
other hand, he sometimes undertook military operations on his own, as in the case of the
reduction of Ista¦hr citadel in 459/1067. Whose, his or Alp Arslan's, was the directing mind
in matters of policy, it is hard to determine. Its main points, however, appear to have been
the following: first, the employment of the large numbers of Türkmens that had immigrated
into Persia as a result of the Saldjuq successes, in raids outside the Dar al-Islam and into
Fatimid territory: hence the apparently strange circumstance that Alp Arslan's first enterprise
after his accession, despite the precarious condition of the empire he had inherited, was a
campaign in Georgia and Armenia [see al-kurdj]; secondly, a demonstration that the
sultan's force was both irresistible and mobile, coupled with clemency and generally with
reinstatement for all rebels who submitted; thirdly, the maintenance of local rulers, Shi'i as
well as Sunni, in their positions as vassals of the sultan, together with the employment of
members of the Saldjuq family as provincial governors; fourthly, the obviation of a dispute
over the succession by the appointment and public acknowledgement of Malikshah [q.v.],
though he was not the sultan's eldest son, as his heir; and lastly the establishment of good
relations with the 'Abbasid caliph al-qa'im [q.v.], as the sultan's nominal overlord.

Nizam al-Mulk did not really come into his own until after the assassination of Alp Arslan in
465/1072. But thenceforward, for the next twenty years, he was the real ruler of the Saldjuq
empire. He succeeded from the outset in completely dominating the then eighteen-year-old
Malikshah, being assisted in this purpose by the defeat of qawurd's [q.v.] attempt to secure the
throne for himself (for which service Nizam al-Mulk received the title atabeg [q.v.], thus
bestowed for the first time). Indeed, in one aspect the history of the reign resolves itself into
repeated attempts by the young sultan to assert himself, always in vain.

Malikshah undertook fewer campaigns and tours than his father, the prestige of the Saldjuq
arms now being such that few would risk rebellion, and warlike operations being left largely
to the sultan's lieutenants, as they had not been under Alp Arslan. Nevertheless, from Isfahan,
which had by now become the sultan's normal place of residence, Malikshah visited the
greater part of his empire accompanied by Nizam al-Mulk.

Policy continued on the same lines under Malikshah as under his father. Nizam al-Mulk,
however, was notably less tender than Alp Arslan had been to insubordinate members of the
Saldjuq family,qinsisting at the outset on the execution of qawurd, and, later, on the blinding
and imprisonment of Malikshah's brother Tekesh.

He also reversed during the earlier part of Malikshah's reign the conciliatory policy originally
pursued under Alp Arslan towards the caliph. He had been rewarded for the friendly
attitude he first evinced-which formed a welcome contrast to that of al-Kunduri-by the
receipt from al-qa'im of two new laqabs, viz. qiwam al-Din and Radi Amir al-Mu'minin (the latter
believed to be the earliest of this type in the case of a wazir); and up to 460/1068, his
relations with the caliph's wazir Fa¦hr al-Dawla Ibn "ahir [see djahir, banu] became more
and more cordial; so much so, indeed, that al-qa'im in that year dismissed Ibn "ahir, chiefly
on account of his too-subservient attitude to the Saldjuq court. To secure this attitude in the
caliph's wazir was, however, the very aim of Nizam al-Mulk; and on Fa¦hr al-Dawla's
dismissal he sought to impose a nominee of his own in a certain al-Rudhrawari, and
subsequently in the latter's son Abu Shudja'. Al-qa'im, to avoid this, reappointed Fa¦hr
al-Dawla, though on condition that his relations with the Saldjuqids should in future be
more correct. In fact, they soon grew strained, till Nizam al-Mulk came to attribute any
unwelcome event in Baghdad to Fa¦hr al-Dawla's influence. For many years, matters were
prevented from coming to a head by the tact of Fa¦hr al-Dawla's son, 'Amid al-Dawla [see
djahir, banu], who won Nizam al-Mulk's favour so far as to marry in turn two of his
daughters, Nafsa and Zubayda; but in 471/1078 Nizam al-Mulk demanded Fa¦hr al-Dawla's
dismissal, which the caliph al-Muqtadi [q.v.] (who had succeeded in 467/1075), was obliged
to grant. Nizam al-Mulk now hoped to obtain the office for his own son Mu'ayyid al-Mulk;
but to this al-Muqtadi would not agree. Henceforward, accordingly, his dislike was deflected
to al-Muqtadi himself, and to Abu Shudja', his former protege, whom the caliph now created
deputy wazir in an effort to conciliate him, leaving the vizierate itself unoccupied till the next
year, when he appointed 'Amid al-Dawla. But in 474/1082 Nizam al-Mulk in turn
demanded the dismissal and banishment of Abu Shudja', and at the same time composed his
quarrel with Fa¦hr al-Dawla, when the latter was sent on a mission to Isfahan, concerting
with him a plan by which Fa¦hr al-Dawla should watch his interests at Baghdad. As a result,
al-Muqtadi, who gave in with a bad grace, lost all confidence in the Banu "ahir, and two
years later replaced 'Amid al-Dawla with the offensive Abu Shudja'; whereupon Fa¦hr
al-Dawla and 'Amid al-Dawla fled to the Saldjuqid headquarters. Nizam al-Mulk, on this,
vowed vengeance on al-Muqtadi, and at first seems even to have contemplated the abolition
of the caliphate (see Sibt Ibn al-"awzi, Mir'at al-zaman), as a prelude to which he
commissioned Fa¦hr al-Dawla to conquer Diyar Bakr from the Marwanids [q.v.], the sole
remaining Sunni tributaries of any consequence. The Marwanids were duly ousted by
478/1085, whilst al-Muqtadi, on his side, showed himself consistently hostile to Nizam
al-Mulk. But the latter's feelings towards the caliph were in the following year completely
transformed as a consequence of his first visit to Baghdad (for the wedding of al-Muqtadi to
Malikshah's daughter). The caliph received him very graciously; and thenceforward he
became a champion of the caliphate in face of the enmity which developed between
al-Muqtadi and Malikshah as a result of the marriage.

The celebrity of Nizam al-Mulk is really due to the fact that he was in all but name a
monarch, and ruledqhis empire with striking success. It was not his aim to innovate. On the
contrary, it was to model the new state as closely as possible on that of the óhaznawids, in
which he had been born and brought up. His position was similar to that of his forerunners,
the Barmakids [see baramika], and the notable Buyid wazir, the Sahib Isma'il b. 'Abbad [q.v.].
All three may be said to have represented the old Persian civilisation (progressively
Islamicised, of course) in the face of a rise to empire of barbarian conquerors, Arab, Daylami
and now Türkmen. The monarchs were in each case equalled, if not surpassed, by their
wazirs, and most of all in the case of Nizam al-Mulk. For with him the invaders aspired to an
emperor's position whilst still quite unacclimatised to their new habitat, so that his
superiority in culture was the more marked (cf. Barthold, Turkestan, 308). But in revenge, the
Saldjuqs' lack of acclimatisation stood in the way of a complete realisation by Nizam al-Mulk
of the now traditional Perso-Muslim state. Hence the lamentations that recur in the
Siyasat-nama.

The Siyasat-nama or Siyar al-muluk, written by Nizam al-Mulk in 484/1091 with the addition of
eleven chapters in the following year, is in a sense a survey of what he had failed to
accomplish. It scarcely touches upon the organisation of the diwan, for instance, partly, it is
true, because the book was intended as a monarch's primer, but also because Nizam
al-Mulk, having absolute control of the diwan, as opposed to the dargah (cf. again Barthold,
227), had succeeded with the assistance of his two principal coadjutors, the mustawfi Sharaf
al-Mulk and the munshi Kamal al-Dawla, in exactly modelling this, his special department, on
traditional lines. Of the dargah, on the other hand, Nizam al-Mulk complains that the sultans
failed to maintain a sufficient majesty. They were neither magnificent (though he approves
their daily free provision of food), formal, nor awe-inspiring enough. At their court,
accordingly, the formerly important offices of hadjib, wakil and amir-i haras had declined in
prestige. Nor, as had his model potentates, would they maintain a sound intelligence or barid
[q.v.] service, whereby corruption might be revealed and rebellion forestalled. The
Siyasat-nama consists in all of fifty chapters of advice illustrated by historical anecdotes. The
last eleven chapters, added shortly before the wazir's assassination, deal with dangers that
threatened the empire at the time of writing, in particular from the Isma'ilis (on the work, see
Bibl., 3).

Nizam al-Mulk's situation resembled that of the Buyid administrators in another respect. He
wwas faced, as they had been, with the problem of supporting a largely tribal army, and
solved it likewise by a partial abandonment of the traditional tax-farming system of revenue
collection for that of the iqta' or fief [q.v.], whereby military commanders supported
themselves and their troops on the yield of lands allotted to them. Since in the decay of the
'Abbasid power provincial amirs had tended to assume the originally distinct and profitable
office of 'amil, the way for this development had been paved. The Buyids had later attempted
to restore the older system; but the establishment of numerous local minor dynasties had
favoured the new. Nizam al-Mulk now systematised it in the larger field open to him. In the
Siyasat-nama he insists, however, on the necessity of limiting the rights of fief-holders to the
collection of fixed dues, and of setting a short time-limit to their tenures (see on this subject,
Becker, Steuerpacht und Lehnswesen, in Isl., v [1914], 81-92, and iqta').

In the absence of the intelligence service he desired,qNizam al-Mulk contrived to intimidate
potential rebels and suppress local tyranny by a judicious display of the might and mobility
of the Saldjuqid arms. He also insisted on the periodical appearance at court of local dynasts
such as the Mazyadids [q.v.] and 'Uqaylids [q.v.], and proclaimed the sultan's accessibility to
appeals for the redress of wrongs by means of notices circulated throughout the empire and
exposed in public places (see al-Mafarru¦hi, Mahasin-i Isfahan). He also gained the powerful
support of the 'ulama', especially those of the Shafi'i school, of which he was an ardent
champion, by the institution of innumerable pious foundations, in particular of madrasas,
the most celebrated being the Nizamiyya of Baghdad (opened 459/1067), the earliest west of
Khurasan (see below), by the general abolition of mukus (taxes unsanctioned by the shari'a) in
479/1086-7; and by undertaking extensive public works, particularly in connection with
the hadjdj. After the Hidjaz had returned from Fatimid to 'Abbasid allegiance in 468/1076, he
exerted himself to make the 'Iraq road safe from brigandage for pilgrims, as well as to
diminish their expenses; and from the next year until that of his death, the journey was
accomplished without mishap. It was not until the second half of Malikshah's reign that the
full effects of Nizam al-Mulk's achievement made themselves felt. By 476/1083-4, however,
such were the unwonted security of the roads and the low cost of living that reference is
made to them in the annals.

Nizam al-Mulk was naturally much sought after as a patron. The poet Mu'izzi [q.v.] accuses
him of having 'no great opinion of poetry because he had no skill in it', and of paying 'no
attention to anyone but religious leaders and mystics' (see Nizami 'Arudi Samarqandi, 1ahar
maqala, tr. Browne, 46). But though his charity, which was profuse (see for example, al-Subki,
Tabaqat al-Shafi'iyya, iii, 41), went in large measure to men of religion-among them the most
notable objects of his patronage being Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi [q.v.] and Abu Hamid al-óhazali
[q.v.]-, he was clearly a lavish patron also of poets, as is attested by the Dumyat al-qasr of
al-Ba¦harzi [q.v.], the greater part of which is devoted to his panegyrists. In another sphere,
the inauguration of the "alali calendar [q.v.] in 466/1074 was probably due to his
encouragement, since at this time his ascendancy over Malikshah was at its most complete.

Nizam al-Mulk's name is especially associated with the founding of a series of colleges whose
ethos and teachings were closely connected with the Ash'ari kalam and the Shafi'i legal school,
of which the vizier himself was an adherent. His reasons for the setting-up of a chain of
madrasas in the main cities of 'Iraq, al-"azira and Persia (and especially in his home province
of Khurasan) [see madrasa. I. 4] are not entirely clear. But in the context of the age, with its
reaction against Mu'tazilism in philosophy and dialectics and against political Shi'ism as
manifested in the preceding Buyid and north Syrian amirates and the still-powerful Fatimid
caliphate in Egypt and southern Syria, it seems possible that he aimed at training a body of
reliable, Sunni-oriented secretaries and officials who would run the Great Saldjuq empire
when Nizam al-Mulk had moulded it along the right lines and thus further the progress of
the Sunni political and intellectual revival. In his patronage of such institutions as these
colleges, he was by no means an innovator, for the Sunni madrasa-building movement had
been under way since the later part of the 4th/10th century, and other leading figures in the
Saldjuq state were equally active in founding andqendowing madrasas and associated
institutions like hostels for students, such as the Hanafi official of Alp Arslan's, the mustawfi
Abu Sa'd, who built a madrasa attached to the shrine of Abu Hanifa in Baghdad, and Nizam
al-Mulk's enemy at the court of Malikshah, the mustawfi Tadj al-Mulk Abu 'l-óhana'im (d.
485/1093), founder of the Tadjiyya college there (see G. Makdisi, Muslim institutions of learning
in eleventh-century Baghdad, in BSOAS, xxiv [1961], 1-56; C.E. Bosworth, in Camb. hist. of Iran, v,
70-4). Nizam al-Mulk may have intended to give an impetus to the spread of his own Ash'ari
and Shafi'i views (although, in fact, the Baghdad Nizamiyya, where the great Abu Hamid
al-óhazali had taught, declined in the 6th/12th century, when the Hanbali institutions of
learning there showed greater vitality), but it seems reasonable to impute to him a wider
vision of a Sunni political, cultural and intellectual revival in the central and eastern lands of
Islam, in which his own colleges would play a contributory role.

For the first seven years of Malikshah's reign, Nizam al-Mulk's authority went altogether
unchallenged. In 472/1079-80, however, two Turkish officers of the court instigated
Malikshah into killing a protege of the wazir; and in 473/1080-1, again, the sultan insisted on
disbanding a contingent of Armenian mercenaries against Nizam al-Mulk's advice. Malikshah
now began to hope, indeed, for the overthrow of his mentor, showing extraordinary favour
to officials such as Ibn Bahmanyar and, later, Sayyid al-Ru'asa' Ibn Kamal al-Mulk, who were
bold enough to criticise him. Ibn Bahmanyar went so far as to attempt the wazir's
assassination (also in 473), whereas Sayyid al-Ru'asa' contented himself with words. But in
each case, Nizam al-Mulk was warned; and the culprits were blinded. In the case of Ibn
Bahmanyar, in whose guilt a court jester named "a'farak was also implicated, Malikshah
retaliated by contriving the murder of Nizam al-Mulk's eldest son "amal al-Mulk, who had
taken "a'farak's execution into his own hands (475/1082). After the fall of Sayyid al-Ru'asa'
in 476/1083-4, however, the sultan left plotting till, some years later, a new favourite, Tadj
al-Mulk, caught his fancy.

All went well with Nizam al-Mulk till 483/1090-1. In that year, however, occurred the first
serious challenge to the Saldjuqid power, when Basra was sacked by a force of qarmatians [see
qarmati]; and almost simultaneously their co-sectary the Assassin leader al-Hasan b.
al-Sabbah [q.v.] obtained possession of the fortress of Alamut [q.v.], from which repeated
attacks failed to dislodge him. Meanwhile, moreover, an awkward problem had arisen over
the succession to the sultanate, on account of the death in turn of Malikshah's two eldest
sons, Dawud (474/1082) and Ahmad (481/1088). These sons had both been children of the
qara¦hanid princess Terken Khatun (see Rashid al-Din, "ami' al-tawari¦h), who had borne the
sultan a third son, Mahmud, in 480/1087. She was eager for Mahmud to be formally
declared heir. Nizam al-Mulk, however, was in favour of Barkiyaruq [q.v.], Malikshah's eldest
surviving son by a Saldjuq princess. Hence Terken Khatun became his bitter enemy, and
joined with Tadj al-Mulk, who was in her service, in instigating Malikshah against the wazir.

Tadj al-Mulk accused Nizam al-Mulk to the sultan, who by this time was in any case
incensed with the wazir's championship of al-Muqtadi, of extravagant expenditure on the
army and of nepotism; and Malikshah's wrath was finally inflamed beyond bearing by an
unguarded reply made by Nizam al-Mulkqto a formal accusation of these practices. But
even so, he did not dare to dismiss him. (The earliest historian to assert that he was
dismissed is Rashid al-Din Fadl Allah, who appears to have misunderstood the purport of
some verses by al-Nahhas quoted in the Rahat al-sudur of Rawandi, and really composed after
the wazir's death.)

Nizam al-Mulk was assassinated on 10 Ramadan 485/14 October 1092 near Sihna, between
Kanguwar and Bisutun, as the court was on its way from Isfahan to Baghdad. His murderer,
who was disguised as a Sufi, was immediately killed, but is generally thought to have been
an emissary of al-Hasan b. al-Sabbah. Contemporaries, however, seem to have put the
murder down to Malikshah, who died suddenly less than a month later, and to Tadj al-Mulk,
whom Nizam al-Mulk's retainers duly tracked down and killed within a year. Rashid al-Din
combines the two theories, stating that the wazir's enemies at court concerted it with the
Assassins. The truth is therefore uncertain; but as Rashid al-Din is one of the earliest
historians to whom the Assassin records were available, his account would seem to deserve
attention.

The extraordinary influence of Nizam al-Mulk is attested by the part played in affairs after
his death by his relatives, despite the fact that only two appeared to have displayed much
ability. For the next sixty years, except for a gap between 517/1123 and 528/1134,
members of his family held office under princes of the Saldjuqid house.

Of Nizam al-Mulk's family, 4iya' al-Mulk is remarkable as being his son by a Georgian
princess, either the daughter or the niece of Bagrat I, formerly married, or at least betrothed,
to Alp Arslan, after the campaign of 456/1064.

See further, on the sons and descendants of Nizam al-Mulk in the 6th/12th century,
nizamiyya.
(H. Bowen
[C.E. Bosworth])


Bibliography:

1. For the Arabic and Persian
primary sources, see the Bibl. of the EI1 article of H. Bowen.
2.
Studies: E.G. Browne, LHP, ii, 167, 174-91, 212-17

M.T. Houtsma, The death of Nizam al-Mulk and its consequences, in Jnal. of Indian History, iii
(1924), 147-60

Barthold, Turkestan down to the Mongol invasion, London 1928, 25-6, 306-10

H. Bowen, The sar-gudhasht-i sayyidna, the 'Tale of the Three Schoolfellows' and the wasaya of
the Nizam al-Mulk, in JRAS (1931), 771-82

Asad Talas, La Madrasa Nizamiyya et son histoire, Paris 1939

K.E. Schabinger-Schowingen, Zur Geschichte des Saldschuqen-Reichskanzlers Nisamu 'l-mulk, in
Historische Jahrbücher, lxii-lxix (1942-9), 250-83

idem, Nisamulmulk und das Abbasidische Chalifat, in ibid., lxxi (1952), 91-136

K. Rippe, Über den Sturz Nizam-ul-Mulks, in Fuad KKprülü armaÅanÌ, Istanbul 1953, 423-35

`. KafesoÅlu, Sultan Melikâah devrinde Büyük Sel±uklu imparatorluÅu, Istanbul 1953

'Abbas Iqbal, Wizarat dar 'ahd-i salatin-i buzurg-i Saldjuki, Tehran 1338/1959, 46-63

C.E. Bosworth, in Camb. hist. of Iran, v, Cambridge 1968, 66 ff., 99-102

A.K.S. Lambton, in ibid., 211-17

Carla L. Klausner, The Seljuk vezirate, a study of civil administration 1055-1194, Cambridge,
Mass. 1973, index

G. Makdisi, Les rapports entre Calife et Sultan a l'epoque Saljuqide, in IJMES, vi (1975), 228-36

idem, The rise of colleges. Institutions of learning in Islam and the West, Edinburgh 1981, 23-4, 41,
54, 301-4, 306-7, 311

S.A.A. Rizvi, Nizam al-Mulk Tusi, his contribution to statecraft, political theory and the art of
government, Lahore 1978

Lambton, The dilemma of government in Islamic Persia: the Siyasat-nama of Nizam al-Mulk,
inqIran, JBIPS, xxii (1984), 55-66

eadem, Concepts of authority in Persia: eleventh to nineteenth centuries A.D., in ibid., xxvi (1988), 98

eadem, Continuity and change in medieval Persia, London 1988, 40-4 and index

KafesoÅlu, `A, art. Nizam-ül-Mülk.
3.
On the Siyasat-nama: see the studies given in 2. above, especially the works of Lambton.
Numerous translations exist: (French) C. Schefer, Paris 1893, accompanying critical
edition of text, Paris 1891

(Russian) B.N. Za¦hoder, Moscow-Leningrad 1949

(Turkish) M. ”erif 0avdaroÅlu, Istanbul 1954 (see on this, KafesoÅlu, Büyük Sel±uklu veziri
Nizamü 'l-Mülk'ün eseri Siyasetname ve türk±e tercümesi, in Türkiyat MecmuasÌ, xii, 231-56)

(German) Schabinger-Schowingen, Freiburg-Munich 1960

(English) H. Darke, London 1960, second, revised version London 1978, accompanying
critical edition of text, Tehran 1340/1962.

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