A Critical Study on Components of Political Thought in Amir Adel tale by Nizam al-Mulk

Seyed Aboulghasem Forouzani,Hadi Pirouzan

doi:10.7596/taksad.v6i4.1029

Abstract

Making historiography about Iran’s political thought in Seljuk era is futile without considering Nizam al-Mulk’s Siyasatnama. Applying historical approach to several tales in this book, Nizam al-Mulk endeavored to formulate his favorite and pleasant political-religious thought which defines political thought of Sunni Islam. The first and the most prominent and detailed tale is Amir Adel, which is investigated closely in this research by comparing to the other historical texts. This study sheds light on differences and peculiar aspects of Nizam al-Mulk’s Amir Adel narration and seeks reasons behind these significant differences in Nizam al-Mulk’s religious and political thought. Hence, there are two questions for this research: 1- What are the components of Nizam al-Mulk’s political thought; 2- How these components can form his Amir Adel narration.

Highlights

Nizam al-Mulk is known as one of the most prominent figures in formulation of theoretical and practical base for political thought in Seljuk era
By comparing some historical texts which belong to different eras, some differences have been identified and some of them are significant, such as Yaqub and caliph encountering, lack of referral to correspondence between Yaqub and Al-Muwaffaq, replacing Abassid caliphate by Ismaili caliphate
Amir Adel tale, which is at the beginning of the narrative, demonstrates Nizam al-Mulk’s concerns of enmity between Abbasid Caliphate and Seljuk dynasty

Summary

Introduction

Nizam al-Mulk is known as one of the most prominent figures in formulation of theoretical and practical base for political thought in Seljuk era. His silence about caliphate and their inferiority in comparison to ruler demonstrate Nizam al-Mulk’s idea about caliphate which lost its power, and cannot regain it specially in Iran (Tabatabai, 2011: 77) These claims which mentioned are not defensible and historical texts do not prove them and have different points about them, namely friendship between Nizam al-Mulk and caliph breach earlier claims, so that Khwandamir describes their first encountering: “MalikShah wanted to satisfy Al-Muqtadi so he commanded all great man whether Arab or Iranian to walk to Dar Al Khalifa; and when caliph realized, he sent a messenger to the place and wanted Nizam al-Mulk to ride a horse, so I mounted and all great man follow me afoot and when I reached Dar Al Khalifa, I sat on the seat which was great and full of ornament and other great men were around me and everybody including Sadat, scholars, and grand brought out robe from Dar Al Khalifa and my robe has the name of erudite and righteous vizier and from rise of Islam until now, nobody had this position” (Khwandamir, 1954: 2/496). That Sabki contends about Nizam al-Mulk’s death “since Malik-Shah saw Nizam al-Mulk as obstacle in dismissal of the caliph, he planned his assassination before arriving Baghdad” (Ibid: 4/324)

Animosity with Shia

Findings

Conclusion