Nizām al-Mulk

Iranian government administrator

• Born: 1018 or 1019
• Birthplace: Tūs, Khorāsān (now in Iran)
• Died: October 14, 1092
• Place of death: Near Nahāvand, Persia (now in Iran)

The vizier, or principal minister, of the second and third Seljuk rulers of Iran, NizŃām was the virtual architect of the Seljuk Empire in the Middle East, which he administered for thirty years between 1063 and 1092. His The Book of Government became a classic text of medieval Muslim statecraft.

Early Life

NizŃām al-Mulk (nee-ZAH-mewl-MEWLK) was born in or near the city of Ṭūs, near modern Mashhad, in the northeastern Iranian province of Khorāsān. He is invariably referred to not by his full name but as NizŃām al-Mulk (regulator of the state), a title given to him by the Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan. His father belonged to the ancient class known as dihqans, landowning gentry of Iranian stock who, at least in Khorāsān, had survived the Arab conquest of the seventh century by demonstrating their usefulness to the invaders as local officials and tax collectors, roles that they continued to play for centuries. NizŃām al-Mulk’s father was a middle-ranking official in the service of the Ghaznavid sultans Maḥmūd of Ghazna (r. 997-1030) and Masՙud I (r. 1031-1041), and NizŃām al-Mulk’s mature views on what constituted an ideal system of administration must have been colored by what he knew firsthand of Ghaznavid rule, as well as by what he had heard of Sāmānid rule in tenth century Bukhara. He himself received an excellent formal education, probably in Nishapur, after which he too entered Ghaznavid service.

When the Ghaznavids were forced to abandon their territories in eastern Iran to the Seljuk Turks (c. 1040), NizŃām al-Mulk transferred to the service of the Seljuks and was employed in a secretarial capacity by the new governor of Balkh, in northern Afghanistan. The governor’s superior was the Seljuk sultan’s brother, Chaghrï Beg, who was quick to recognize the superior abilities of the young official. On his deathbed, Chaghrï Beg is said to have strongly recommended NizŃām al-Mulk to the attention of his son, Alp Arslan, who took him into his household and eventually appointed him to the post of vizier in effect, his man of business and general factotum.

Under the rule of their first sultan, Toghrïl Beg (r. 1040-1063), the Seljuks, originally Turkish nomads from the Central Asian steppes, became masters of a Middle Eastern empire extending from the Mediterranean eastward to the Pamirs, with its center of power on the Iranian plateau. It was to be the historic role of NizŃām al-Mulk to condition these steppe warriors to the norms of traditional Irano-Islamic statecraft and to erect an institutional framework by which to administer their far-flung conquests.

When Sultan Toghrïl Beg died in 1063, there was uncertainty over the succession, and the late sultan’s vizier, al-Kunduri, endeavored to prevent the accession of Toghrïl Beg’s eldest nephew, Alp Arslan, by advancing the claims of Alp Arslan’s younger brother, Sulaimān. In the intrigues that followed, NizŃām al-Mulk seems to have played a major role in bringing about Alp Arslan’s accession, as well as in effecting al-Kunduri’s removal, imprisonment, and eventual murder. Before his death, al-Kunduri is said to have sent the following warning to NizŃām al-Mulk:

You have introduced a reprehensible innovation and an ugly practice into the world by executing a minister and by your treachery and deceit, and you have not fully considered what the end of it all will be. I fear that this evil and blameworthy practice will rebound on the heads of your own children and descendants.

NizŃām al-Mulk and several of his sons and grandsons did suffer violent deaths.

Meanwhile, with Alp Arslan now sultan (r. 1063-1072 or 1073), NizŃām al-Mulk became vizier of the Seljuk Empire, head of the civil administration, the sultan’s chief counselor, and, for all practical purposes, his deputy. After Alp Arslan’s death, NizŃām continued to serve as the vizier of Alp Arslan’s son, Malik-Shāh (r. 1073-1092), and to such an extent was he perceived to be the presiding genius of the Seljuk Empire that the Arab historian Ibn al-Athīr (1160-1233) long afterward described the thirty years during which Alp Arslan and Malik-Shāh reigned (and which was, in fact, the golden age of Seljuk rule) as al-dawlah al-NizŃamiyah, the age of NizŃām al-Mulk.

Life’s Work

As vizier, NizŃām al-Mulk was responsible for the entire administration of the civil affairs of the empire, including the collection of revenue and its disbursement. He was the head of the bureaucracy, and all matters relating to the diwan (chancery) were in his charge. As the personal representative and closest adviser of the sovereign, he was also a member of the dargah (the sultan’s court).

The duties of viziers were rarely precisely defined. While many viziers were not involved in military matters, NizŃām al-Mulk is known to have campaigned with his master and also to have conducted independent military operations. His involvement in military affairs necessitated the maintenance of good working relations with the great Turkish emirs, or commanders. This involved diplomatic skills of a high order, since the emirs were generally disinclined to take orders from non-Turkish bureaucrats. As vizier, NizŃām al-Mulk also maintained close contacts with the leading ՙulama, the Muslim clerics. The highest judicial appointments for the Shariՙa (religious law) and mazalim (equity and arbitration) courts were awarded to members of the ՙulama, appointments that, no doubt, would have required NizŃām’s prior approval. He was also responsible for the distribution of government funds allocated for the support of pious scholars, religious endowments, and education, as well as for alms.

In addition to the day-to-day running of the administration, NizŃām al-Mulk seems to have exercised a general oversight with regard to relations with other states and also with regard to cultural policy and propaganda. He contributed markedly to the revival of Sunni Islam that characterized the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Before the arrival of the Seljuks in the Middle East, the political fortunes and spiritual vitality of Sunni Islam had been at a very low ebb. Its central institution, the ՙAbbāsid caliphate of Baghdad, had long been in decline. In fact, since 945, the caliphs had been virtual captives of a line of Buyid emirs who had made themselves masters of Baghdad. As Shīՙites, the Iranian Buyids displayed scant respect for the orthodox “commander of the faithful,” as the caliph was officially styled. This period of decline had come to a close in 1055, when Toghrïl Beg had occupied Baghdad and released the caliphs from ninety years of thralldom to the Buyids, although at the cost of making them clients of the all-powerful Seljuk sultan. Nevertheless, the Seljuks were seriously committed to restoring the spiritual authority of the caliphate, through which their own de facto rule could be conveniently legitimized. It was the achievement of NizŃām al-Mulk that he was able to harness the raw power of the Seljuks on behalf of both an orthodox religious revival and a restoration of hallowed Iranian traditions of statecraft and autocracy.

The institutional decline of the ՙAbbāsid caliphate reflected a deeper spiritual malaise prevailing throughout much of the Islamic world, of which deep sectarian fissures constituted both cause and effect. At the beginning of the eleventh century, Egypt, much of North Africa, Hejaz, Palestine, and Syria were under the rule of a rival, heterodox caliphate, that of the Shīՙite Fāimids. The Fāimids dispatched dās (missionaries) throughout the provinces still nominally loyal to the ՙAbbāsids to spread revolutionary millennial doctrines that threatened the very foundations of the orthodox Sunni political and social order. Linked with the Fāimids were the so-called Assassins, members of the Ismālī sect of the Nizaris, with their strongholds in the Alburz Mountains of northern Iran, as well as in the mountains of Syria and Lebanon. NizŃām al-Mulk regarded these latter as the most formidable adversaries of the renovated political order, of which he saw himself as the architect.

It was to counter such dangerous heterodoxy that he embarked on the policy of founding well-endowed madrasas, or theological colleges (known as Nizamiyas in honor of their founder), in such major urban centers as Baghdad, Isfahan, Neyshabur, and Herāt. The purpose of these colleges, with their scholarships for needy students, their learned faculties, and their excellent libraries, was to graduate well-educated orthodox ՙulama, jurists and bureaucrats who would provide a new administrative elite for the Seljuk Empire. The curriculum varied from college to college, but generally it included study of the Qur՚ān, the traditions of the Prophet (Hadith), Muslim jurisprudence ({I}fikh{/I}), Qur՚ānic exegesis ({I}tafsir{/I}), and theology ({I}kalam{/I}), as well as grammar and prosody, belles lettres, and, in some cases, mathematics and medicine. There has been keen scholarly debate regarding the origins of the madrasa as an educational institution, as well as the innovative role of NizŃām al-Mulk himself, but whatever his objectives in founding his Nizamiyas, it is unlikely that they made much direct impact on contemporary methods or modes of administration. What is beyond question is that, from the time of NizŃām al-Mulk, the madrasa became a ubiquitous feature of urban life throughout the Muslim world.

It may be supposed that throughout the reign of Alp Arslan, NizŃām al-Mulk acted as the sultan’s representative, well aware that he owed everything to his master’s confidence and favor. With Malik-Shāh, the relationship was rather different. NizŃām al-Mulk acted as the experienced, worldly wise mentor counseling a youthful, impetuous ward. It was a role that Malik-Shāh did not appreciate. With the passing of the years, the sultan grew increasingly suspicious and resentful of his vizier’s enormous authority. Moreover, like most viziers before and after him, NizŃām al-Mulk was unable to resist the temptation of gathering excessive wealth and power for both himself and his extended family. Probably, he believed that he could secure his position and be certain that his orders were being carried out only if he surrounded himself with relatives and protégés, appointing them to key positions in the central administration or those of the provinces. Such nepotism bred corruption and the abuse of power and multiplied the vizier’s enemies. As the years passed, Malik-Shāh came to wonder whether he was still master in his own house. When Jamāl al-Dīn, NizŃām al-Mulk’s eldest son, brutally murdered a member of the sultan’s household, Malik-Shāh gave orders for the criminal to be secretly poisoned, but he still did not move openly against his old servant.

In the end, it was the sultan’s favorite wife, Terkhen-Khatun, who would play a major part in NizŃām al-Mulk’s downfall. Terkhen-Khatun was determined to ensure the succession of her son, Maḥmūd, while the vizier supported the candidacy of Berk-Yaruq, the sultan’s older son by another wife. Thus, NizŃām al-Mulk and Terkhen-Khatun were set on a collision course. The eventual outcome was the vizier’s dismissal and his replacement by Terkhen-Khatun’s nominee, Tāj al-Mulk.

NizŃām al-Mulk, however, seems to have remained in the sultan’s entourage, despite his disgrace. While traveling with the sultan from Isfahan to Baghdad, not long afterward, he was stabbed to death by an assailant near Nahavand on October 14, 1092. The general assumption was that his murderer had acted on behalf of the Ismālīs, whom NizŃām al-Mulk had vigorously persecuted, but suspicion also pointed to the sultan, who may have found the presence of his old minister an embarrassment, and to his supplanter, Tāj al-Mulk, who was murdered by NizŃām al-Mulk’s servants a few months later. Malik-Shāh himself died of a fever less than a month after the death of his great minister. With the removal of NizŃām al-Mulk’s guiding hand, the Seljuk Empire entered a period of internal strife and struggles for the succession, presaging its eventual dismemberment.

Significance

NizŃām al-Mulk enjoys the posthumous reputation of a model statesman and of being the man who provided the administrative framework by means of which the Seljuks could exercise their Middle Eastern hegemony. Within the Persian literary tradition, he is the ideal of the sage minister, the counselor of kings. In reality, his position at the pinnacle of power can never have been wholly secure. His master could dismiss him at a moment’s notice. His executive actions must often have provoked resentment on the part of members of the ruling house and of the great emirs. Within the bureaucracy itself, aspiring subordinates and rivals awaited the opportunity to profit by his mistakes.

In the final analysis, NizŃām al-Mulk’s enduring legacy is not the imperial structure that crumbled so soon after his death, but his single surviving literary undertaking. This work is the Siyāsat-nāma (c. 1091; The Book of Government: Or, Rules for Kings, 1960), written not long before his death to instruct Malik-Shāh in the art of kingship. Written in a plain, unadorned style and divided into fifty sections, it addresses such matters as the duties and conduct of the ruler, the organization and management of the sultan’s household, the recruitment and training of slaves, the control of the army and the bureaucracy, and the evils of innovation, especially in religion. Predictably, it is strongly anti-Shīՙite, but above all, it is a work deeply imbued with nostalgic devotion for the traditions and glories of ancient Iran, as befits a writer who was the embodiment of the Irano-Islamic cultural heritage and of an enduring political philosophy rooted in realpolitik and autocracy. The British Iranologist Edward G. Browne described it as “one of the most remarkable and instructive prose works which Persian literature can boast.”

A standing monument to NizŃām al-Mulk’s fame is the fine prayer hall he had built in the congregational mosque of Isfahan, which is still standing. Memorials of a different kind were his numerous descendants. A number of sons and grandsons served as viziers to later Seljuk sultans, but most perished violently; not one displayed any great talent. NizŃām al-Mulk himself emerges from the contemporary sources as a harsh, pragmatic realist who does not seem to have inspired the flattering anecdotes attached to the reputations of some medieval Muslim statesmen. A twelfth century belletrist tersely noted that NizŃām had no regard for poets, he himself having no skill at the art, and cared little for mystics or men of religion. The record points to a man endowed with great practical abilities and possessing both an enormous appetite for power and all the skills and ruthlessness needed for wielding it.

Bibliography

Bosworth, C. E. “The Political and Dynastic History of the Iranian World (a.d. 1000-1217).” In The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 5, edited by J. A. Boyle. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1968. This chapter provides a masterly and very detailed review of the Seljuk period in which NizŃām al-Mulk played so conspicuous a part.

Bowen, H. C. “The Sar-gudhasht-i sayyidnā, the ’Tale of the Three Schoolfellows,’ and the Wasaya of the Nizām al-Mulk.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1931): 771-782. This interesting article examines some of the late and spurious legends that have collected around the name of NizŃām al-Mulk.

Browne, Edward G. A Literary History of Persia. 1926. 4 vols. Reprint. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1969. This is still the standard account of classical Persian literature, into which is woven a historical narrative that places authors’ lives and works in their contemporary settings. Vol. 2 contains rather extensive discussions of various aspects of the career and writing of NizŃām al-Mulk.

Klausner, Carla L. The Seljuk Vizierate: A Study of Civil Administration, 1055-1194. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973. This monograph provides important background material and discussion on NizŃām al-Mulk’s career as the most famous vizier of the Seljuk sultans. Bibliography, index.

Lambton, Ann K. S. “The Dilemma of Government in Islamic Persia: The Siyāsat-nāma of Nizām al-Mulk.” Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 22 (1984): 55-66. This article is essential for understanding NizŃām al-Mulk’s ideas concerning government and for a more general examination of medieval Islamic political thought.

Lambton, Ann K. S. “The Internal Structure of the Saljuq Empire.” In The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 5, edited by J. A. Boyle. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1968. This is still the best account of the political and administrative institutions of the Seljuk Empire, which were largely molded and then dominated for so long by NizŃām al-Mulk.

Makdisi, G. “Muslim Institutions of Learning in Eleventh-Century Baghdad.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 24 (1961): 1-56. A most interesting discussion of the rise of the madrasa, providing useful background information on NizŃām al-Mulk’s educational policy.

NizŃām al-Mulk. The Book of Government: Or, Rules for Kings. Translated by Hubert Darke. Richmond, Surrey, England: Curzon Press, 2002. This polished translation of the Siyāsat-nāma is essential reading for an understanding of both NizŃām al-Mulk and the workings of government during the Seljuk period. Bibliography, index.

Tibawi, A. L. “Origin and Character of al-Madrasah.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 25 (1962): 225-238. As a response to Makdisi’s article (listed above), this essay provides the student with useful insights into a significant area of scholarly debate.