Boyle J.A. The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 5: The Saljuq and Mongol Periods

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THE

IRANIAN

WORLD

(A.D.

IOOO-I217)

200

First,

the institution of the atabegate developed and flourished in

this century, especially

after

the death of Muhammad b. Malik-Shah.

Beginning

as genuine tutors attached to the households of young

Saljuq

princes, Turkish slave commanders often secured an ascendancy

over

their charges and then set them aside, ruling themselves as

provincial

governors or in the end as independent potentates. By

the

second

half of the century, Turkish provincial governors were

founding dynasties and calling themselves atabegs even when they had

never

had a Saljuq prince in their charge (e.g. the Salghurids of

Fars:

see above, p. 172).

In the

succession

disputes which now racked the Saljuq empire in

the west, the atabegs

espoused

various Saljuq candidates and gave

them military support, hoping thereby to place a weak and pliant

ruler

on the throne. For their

part,

the sultans could not easily control these

centrifugal

tendencies. The rise of

such

atabeg dynasties as the Zangids

in Mosul, the

Eldigiizids

and Ahmadilis in Azarbaijan and

Arran,

the Salghurids in

Fars,

and so on, meant that the

territory

in the west

directly

administered by the sultans was shrinking. Yet they still had

to maintain armies against

rivals

to the

succession,

against overbearing

atabegs, and against the increasingly activist policy of the 'Abbasid

caliphs. The

territory

which they controlled was inadequate for grant-

ing iqta's to their troops, and the troubled social and political conditions

of the period cannot have favoured the regular collection of taxation

from

the population: The sultans were forced willy-nilly into alliances

and coalitions with the atabegs and other Turkish military

com-

manders in order to draw upon their troops. Thus the sultans had little

space in which to manoeuvre, and by the time of Arslan b. Toghril, the

creature

of the Eldigiizids, it had shrunk to narrow proportions.

Second, the century

sees

a rise in the material power and prestige of

the 'Abbasid caliph of Baghdad. The end of the "Dailami interlude"

in Iranian history meant the failure of the Shfi bid for supreme auth-

ority

Iran.

The Fatimids were repulsed from Iraq and northern

Syria

the

incoming

Saljuqs, and

after

the death in

487/1094

al-Mustansir,

they were no longer a vigorous and expansionist power. Although

Isma'Ilism increased in strength

after

the Nizari split from the main

Fatimid line of al-Musta'li, it was notable more for its terrorism than

for

its political and

territorial

achievements; only in Kuhistan, parts of

Dailam, and in parts of Fars did the Isma'ilis control substantial

stretches of

territory.

THE

PERIOD

RETROSPECT

201

The 'Abbasids, having survived a period of degradation in the 4th/

10th century, now had the secular support of the strongly Sunni

Saljuqs.

The early Saljuqs allowed the caliphs little more practical

political power than had the Buyids. However, they had to defer to the

caliphs, who were the moral and spiritual leaders of the Sunni world,

for

it was by no means obvious even in Malik-Shah's time that the

Fatimids' ability to harm the Saljuqs had passed its peak. Only at the

very

of his reign, when the steadying influence of

Nizam

al-Mulk

had just

been

removed, did Malik-Shah

seem

to harbour thoughts of

displacing the 'Abbasids from Baghdad (see p. 101 above); but the

sultan's own death ended this project.

After

the nonentities and

weaklings of the early Buyid period, the 'Abbasid family was now

yielding

some

capable and effective caliphs: e.g. al-Mustazhir, al-

Mustarshid,

al-Muqtaf

1, and al-Nasir. They in turn were aided by

such

outstanding vizierial families as the Banu

Jahir

in the

5th/nth

century

and the Banu Hubaira in the next one. When disputes arose over the

succession

to the sultanate, the caliphs

seized

the opportunity first to

consolidate their hold over Baghdad and central Iraq (after

547/1152

no Saljuq shahna was allowed in the capital), and then to intervene

directly

in the

warfare

in Iraq and western Persia;

such

caliphs as al-

Mustarshid, al-Rashid, and al-Muqtafi personally took the field at the

head of their forces. The rise in the caliphate's power and prestige

reached its peak under al-Nasir, who, by his patronage of the Futuwwa,

together with a diplomacy that embraced

such

distant dynasties as the

Ghurids,

the Ayyubids, and the Rum Saljuqs, made the caliphate for

the first time in centuries an international power in the Islamic world.

Thirdly,

a final blow to Saljuq power came from the Khwarazm-Shahs,

new and aggressive power that arose in the north-east of the Iranian

world

during the 6th/12th century. Their origin was not dissimilar to

that

of several other provincial lines which sprang from atabegs or

local slave governors, but the peripheral position of

Khwarazm and

its old traditions of independence favoured a

long

and uninterrupted

tenure

of power by Anugh-Tegin Gharcha'i and his descendants. The

shahs became virtually independent after

Sanjar's

death, subject only

to the suzerainty of the Qara-Khitai. Their imperialist ambitions,

blocked in the east by the Qara-Khitai, accordingly turned southwards

and westwards into Iran. A struggle with the Ghurids for power in

Khurasan

long

prevented the shahs from taking advantage of the

fragmented condition of western and central Iran, and it was only in the

THE

IRANIAN

WORLD

(A.D.

IOOO-I217)

202

last years of the

6th/i2th

century that

Tekish

vanquished the last

Saljuq

Sultan Toghri'l b. Arslan and moved Khwârazmian troops to

the borders of Iraq (see above, pp.

182-3). Al-Nâsir deployed all his

diplomatic weapons against the

Khwârazm-Shâh, encouraging the

Ghurids

and Qara-Khitai against him and organizing in Iran coalitions

of atabegs and local governors threatened by the Khwârazmian advance.

(It

does

not

seem,

however, that the caliph encouraged the

Mongols

attack the Khwârazmians from the

rear.)

Also, the caliph threw his

moral

and spiritual weight against the shahs for their impiety in

threatening the caliphate and their pro-Shfi activities. Certainly the

Khwârazmians made themselves intensely unpopular in Iran, but

whether the caliph's could have stayed the

Khwârazmian march on

Iraq

is an unsolved

question

of history. The distant pressure of the

Mongols

was already

being

felt on the borders of Transoxiana and

Khwârazm,

and within the next fifty years both thé caliphs of Baghdad

and their opponents the Khwârazm-Shahs were to go down for ever

before the hordes of

Chingiz-Khân and

Hulegu.

This accusation appears only in late

sources

;

see Barthold,

Turkestan

down

the

Mongol

Invasion,

pp.

399-400.

CHAPTER

THE

INTERNAL

STRUCTURE OF

THE SALJUQ EMPIRE

The period of the

Great

Saljuqs can largely be regarded as representing

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 formu-

late

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 iqtd* in its various forms and the guilds and corporations of Saljuq

society. But it was not until the twentieth century that the Constitu-

tional Revolution separated modern Iran from medieval Persia.

In many ways the Saljuq period did not differ from the preceding or

succeeding

periods. It was a time of chronic

wars;

and hardship, famine,

pestilence, violence, ignorance, and superstition were all common. But,

on the other hand, it was a time during which Iranian civilization

reached heights of religious and secular achievements that have not

been

easily surpassed. Men

such

as Ghazali, Shahristani, Nasafi,

Nizam

al-

Mulk,

'Umar Khayyam, Abu Sa'id b. Abi'l

Khair,

Anvari,

and

Mu'izzi all lived in these years. Important technical innovations were

made in pottery and metal-work. A

high

degree of technical skill was

203

INTERNAL

STRUCTURE

OF THE

SALJUQ

EMPIRE

204

achieved by weavers; and new elements of scale and spatial composition

were

introduced into architecture. The Saljuq state was the organizing

force

that brought about conditions in which the

arts

flourished, and

the talents of these men and many others burgeoned and thrived. It

must not be supposed, however, that uniformity was established

throughout the empire at any one time or throughout the period in

any

one place. There was a great diversity of climatic and physical

conditions within the empire; and in spite of the unifying factor of

Islam and the general levelling tendency of Turkish military govern-

ment, there was much local particularism and variety in the social

ethics of different groups and communities. There was, for example, a

standing opposition between the settled and the semi-settled popu-

lation;

between Turk and non-Turk; and between the military and the

rest

of the population. There was also a dichotomy between the men of

the cities, with their highly developed crafts and industries and

tradi-

tions of civilization, and the population living on the land, whose main

function was to provision the

cities

and above all to provide for the

needs

of the army.

The sources, unfortunately, do not tell us much about the daily life

of the people, or how this was affected by the influx of large numbers of

Turkmen nomads. Presumably the produce from the nomads' flocks

made an important contribution to the supplies of the towns; and there

was a constant infiltration of nomads into the towns and villages. The

sources are also silent on the details of the sultan's administration. It is

also difficult to interpret

such

information as they give,

owing

to a

frequent

lack of precision in the use of technical terms. Nor is it

possible to obtain a clear picture of the characters of the sultans and

their

officials. The achievements of the period have

been

attributed by

many writers to the viziers, in particular to

Nizam

al-Mulk (d. 485/

1192),

the vizier

first

of Alp-Arslan and then of Malik-Shah. A

examination of the sources would

suggest

that this view is too general.

There can be little doubt of the competence of Toghril Beg and Alp-

Arslan

as leaders of men; Malik-Shah was not a mere figure-head; and

Muhammad b. Malik-

Shah

seems

also to have had a more than ordinary

degree of competence. The sources attribute justice and

good

govern-

ment to Malik-Shah and

San

jar,

as they do to

Nizam

al-Mulk; while

many of the later sultans are charged with dissipation and

negligence

state

affairs.

In general the sultans were men of action and men of

affairs.

Their lives were largely spent travelling about their empire on

INTERNAL

STRUCTURE OF THE SALJUQ EMPIRE

205

expeditions of one sort or another. Their main recreation was probably

the chase; the breeding of horses and falcons was widely maintained.

Their personal attainments in the

arts

may not have

been

high, but

under

their rule and patronage great development took place. The

relatively

stable and effective administration established under their

leadership enabled the various

classes

carry

on their lives and

occupations in comparative security. Men of learning and of religion,

including the Sufis, were held in

high

respect; and the local people were

left

to practice their local customs. This is not to say that injustice and

oppression did not occur, but on the whole it did not reach lengths

which the population felt to be intolerable. There was unusually little

internal

rebellion (as distinct from struggles for power among

rival

amirs),

though the spread of the Isma'ili movement

suggests

that a

strong undercurrent of social discontent existed.

In spite of the fragmentation of the

ddr al-Isldm,

the function of the

state was still to defend the Muslim community and Muslim lands; and

its purpose was to create conditions in which the Muslim could live the

good

life. The traditional view that stability was assured by the mainten-

ance of right religion and justice was broadly accepted. Ibn al-Balkhi,

who wrote during the reign of Muhammad b. Malik-Shah, is expressing

this view when he states, "

Those

possessed

of learning have said,

'When

a king is adorned by religion and his rule is stable because of

justice, kingship will not disappear from his house unless, God forbid,

some

disorder appears in religion or he commits tyranny'."

There was

no separation between church and state; men were not

conscious

belonging to two communities. Rather,

din

(religion) and

daulat

(state)

were

two

sides

of one coin. Non-conformity and political opposition

were

thus inseparable. Patriotism was an unknown virtue. All the sultan

expected of his subjects was that they should pay their taxes and pray

for

his welfare, while they expected from him security and justice. The

state did not demand, or receive, the loyalty of the common man.

Loyalty,

so far as it transcended the bounds of the tribe, guild, quarter,

city, was accorded not to the state but to Islam or the

sharfa.

long

as the sultan represented the sharfa he commanded, in

some

measure,

the loyalty of the people, but as

soon

as he

ceased

to represent the

sharfa

they too

ceased

to feel any loyalty towards him.

By the time of the rise of the Saljuqs, the classical theory of the

Fdrs-Ndma, ed. G. Le Strange and R. A.

Nicholson

(Gibb Memorial

Series,

London,

1921),

new

series,

vol. 1, p. 34.

INTERNAL

STRUCTURE

OF THE SALJUQ EMPIRE

206

caliphate no longer corresponded—if it ever had—with practice. The

caliphate had

become

merely a symbolic office maintaining links with

the past; and the conception of the sultanate as a simple delegation of

authority

by the caliph to the temporal

ruler

could hardly be main-

tained in the political circumstances which prevailed. For

some

governors

had

seized

their provinces by force, while others, though

they were not rebels, were not subject to the appointment of the

caliph: an

irregular

situation, which threatened the life of the com-

munity. The latter was supposed to exist in order to

carry

out the

precepts of the shari'a; and unless the sharfa was its basis, there was no

reason for its existence. It was thus imperative that the situation should

be regularized; and Mawardi (d.

450/1058),

writing during the Buyid

domination, made an attempt to legalize what was in effect a usurpa-

tion of power. He asserted that even if the caliph was placed under

restraint

(" control over him having

been

seized

by one of his auxiliaries,

who arrogates to himself the executive authority"), he could still

hold the office of caliph, and

such

an anomalous situation could stand

provided

the usurper conformed to the ordinances of the faith and the

requirements

of justice.

Having in mind perhaps

such

independent

rulers

as Mahmud of Ghazna, Mawardi also put

forward

the view that

certain

concessions

might be made to the governors of outlying

regions, without prejudice to the rights of the caliph as effective

ruler

of the central provinces ", provided,

first,

that the governor agreed to

preserve

the dignity of the caliphate and show

such

respect for it as would

preclude

any idea of insubordination; and secondly, that he undertook to

govern according to the shari'a. The caliph for his

part

should validate all

religious appointments and

decisions

hitherto made by the governor, and

the two parties would make a pact of friendship and mutual assistance.

By thus keeping those who had usurped power within the framework

of the community Mawardi enabled it to survive and prepared the way

for

the new relationship between the caliphate and sultanate which was

to be worked out under the Saljuqs. The early Saljuq sultans insisted

on receiving diplomas from the caliphs,

partly

to place themselves on a

level with the Ghaznavids and to legalize their

rule,

and

partly

acquire

prestige by adopting the role of the defenders of orthodox

Islam. The sultans

after

Malik-Shah also endeavoured to obtain the

See H. A. R. Gibb,

al-Mawardi's Theory of the Caliphate in

Studies

the

Civilisation

Islam,

ed.

Stanford

J. Shaw and William R. Polk

(London,

1962), pp.

159-60.

Ibid. p. 163.

INTERNAL

STRUCTURE

OF THE

SALJUQ

EMPIRE

207

caliph's recognition, largely

order

strengthen themselves against

rivals.

The

early period

saw not

merely

the

reimposition

Sunnism

after

time

Shi'I supremacy,

but a

reaffirmation

of the

caliph's

position

head

the Islamic community, together with the incorpora-

tion

of the

sultanate

as a

necessary element into

the

ideal

Islamic

government. From this stemmed

a new

system

administration com-

posed

of a

series

interconnected jurisdictions whose stability

de-

pended,

not on a

separation

of the

civil arm from

the

military,

but on

orthodoxy

"right religion"

and the

personal loyalty

sultan

caliph

and of

subordinate officials

to the

sultan.

The man who

formu-

lated this

new

relationship between

the

caliphate

and the

sultanate

was

Ghazali

(d.

505/1111).

envisaged

a new

association between

the

caliph

and the

sultan

and

assumed co-operation between them.

On the

one hand

the

caliph

was to be

designated

by the

sultan, who, through

his exercise

constituent authority, recognized

the

institutional

authority

the caliph; and

the other hand the validity

the sultan's

government was established

by his

oath

allegiance

that caliph who

authorized

his

rule.

this

way the

sultan recognized that

the

shari'a

was

the

organizing principle

the Sunni community, while

the

caliph

acknowledged that

the

sultanate,

establishing order and maintaining

discipline, provided conditions

which Islamic institutions could con-

tinue

and the

Muslim fulfil

his

true destiny.

Because

the

power

of the

Saljuqs rested upon

the

shari'a,

differed

from

the

power

of the

Buyids, which

had

been

usurped.

This

was of

than theoretical importance.

The

Saljuqs made possible

the

pre-

servation

of the

religious life

of the

community,

and

religion

for the

Muslim embraced

virtually

all

aspects

of the

life

of the

community.

This

is not to say

that Ghazali regarded

the

Saljuqs' government

as a

truly

Islamic government.

His

works contain several allusions

to the

injustice

of the

Turks.

In an

undated letter

Abu'l Fath

'AH b.

Husain

Mujir

al-Din (Sanjar's

first

vizier,

who was

succeeded

488/

1095 by

Fakhr al-Mulk

Nizam

al-Mulk), Ghazali stated that

he had

left

Tus so

that

need

not

witness

the

actions

merciless

tyrants.

For a

discussion

of Ghazali's theory see L. Binder,

Al-Ghazali's

Theory of Islamic

Government",

The

Muslim

World(1955),

pp. 229-41.

The new relationship between the caliph and the sultan is reflected in the

laqabs

given

to the Saljuq sultans, which contained the word

din

(religion) in contradistinction to

those

of the Buyids, which contained the word

daula

(state). Toghril Beg was given the

laqab

Rukn

al-Din and Jalal al-Daula.

Alp-Arslan

was an exception to the general rule: his

laqab

was

'Adud

al-Daula.

Fadd'il

al-anam,

ed.

'Abbas

Iqbal

(Tehran, 1333/1964), p. 54.

INTERNAL

STRUCTURE

OF THE

SALJUQ

EMPIRE

208

In Dhu'l Qa'da in

488/1095

he abandoned all the occupations in which

he had been engaged, including the office of

mudarris

(head) of the

Nizamiyya in Baghdad, and a year later he vowed never to take money

from

a sultan, to attend the audience of a sultan, or to engage in legal

disputations

(nmnd^ard)

in public.

In 499/1106, however, he resumed

teaching in the Nizamiyya in Nishapur on the orders of

San

jar.

In the

Nasihat

al-muliik,

addressed to

Sanjar,

Ghazali puts

forward

his conception of the sultanate as distinct from the caliphate. Describing

the sultan as the Shadow of God upon Earth, he maintains that the

divine light has been given to him. This, at

first

sight,

seems

incom-

patible with his theory of the caliphate. In the

Nasihat

al-muluk

however,

Ghazali was not concerned with the relationship between the

caliphate and the sultanate.

What

he had in mind here was not the

preservation

of the religious life of the community, which he had

discussed elsewhere, but the maintenance of the power of the sultanate,

which, if that life was to be preserved, was necessary for the establish-

ment of

order.

Nor was he concerned to argue the shar'i basis of the

sultanate (this he had already established elsewhere), but

rather

to ensure

that

the power of the sultanate should be used with justice. "Know",

he writes, " that God has singled out two groups of men and given

them preference over others:

first

prophets, upon them be peace, and

secondly kings. Prophets He sent to His servants to lead them to Him

and kings to restrain them from [aggression against] each other; and

in His wisdom He handed over to them (kings) the well-being of the

lives of His servants and He gave them (kings) a high status."

Obedience to and love for kings was therefore incumbent upon men,

and,

conversely, opposition and enmity towards them were unseemly;

but

only he who acted with justice was the true sultan.

The advice which Ghazali gives to

Sanjar

in the

Nasihat

al-mtduk

concerned mainly with ordinary political moral duties based on grounds

of political expediency.

Ghazalf

s exposition of government here is

permeated by the Islamic ethic, but it also contains a theory of govern-

ment that derives from, or is strongly influenced by, the old Persian

theory

of state. In that theory there was a strong connexion between

the Zoroastrian religion and the Sassanian state. This state in turn was

Ibid. p. 45.

Ed. Jalal Huma'I (Tehran,

A.H.

1315-17),

p. 39.

See further my articles,

"Justice

in the Medieval Persian Theory of Kingship", Studia

Islamica(fasc.

xvni), pp.

91-119;

and "The Theory of Kingship in the Nasihat

al-Muluk

Ghazali",

The

Islamic

Quarterly

(1954), pp. 47-55.

INTERNAL

STRUCTURE OF THE SALJUQ EMPIRE

identified with the social order; and the king, whose power was

absolute, ruled by divine right and was the centre of the universe.

Ghazali's theory of the caliphate was in due course to be forgotten, but

the theory of government put forward in the

Nasihat al-muluk

was to

have

considerable influence on later thinkers.

A similar theory is clearly

seen

in the documents for the investiture

of governors, and in other writings of the Saljuq period.

In this theory

the sultan was regarded as the Shadow of God, by whom he was

directly

appointed and endowed with justice and wisdom. The historic

imamate was completely ignored, and no authorization or validity was

sought for the sultan's government. Thus a diploma

{taqltd),

issued

Sanjar's

divan for a certain 'Imad al-Dln Muhammad b. Ahmad for the

office of

qddi

of Nishapur, begins: "Since God.. .has placed the reins

of kingship in our grasp and caused the shadow of His great favour and

compassion to be spread over our affairs and raised us to the

rank

and

status of [having] the name of

The Shadow of God upon Earth'.. ."

Similarly,

a diploma

{manshur)

for the

паЧЬ

of Ray opens, " Since God,

glory

and exaltation be to Him, by His perfect action has bestowed upon

us the lordship of the world and placed in our control the affairs of the

kingdoms of the world

{hall

'aqd-i masdlik-i mamdlik-ijahdn)

and the

ordering

of the affairs of the people of the world, and has caused the

standards

of our rule to be

signs

of His power and might, may He be

honoured and glorified.. ."

The basic importance of justice is recognized. A taqlid for the office of

vdli

of Gurgan, also

issued

Sanjar's

divan, states: "The foundation

of kingship and the basis of rulership

(Jahdnddri)

consist in making [the

world]

prosperous; and the world

becomes

prosperous only through

See

further

R. C. Zaehner, The Dawn and Twilight of

Zoroastrianism

(London,

1961).

Sassanian

traditions

had already

begun

influence

Islamic

thought

in Umayyad and

early

'Abbasid

times.

See

further

H. A. R. Gibb,

The

Evolution

of Government in Early

Islam",

in Studies

the

Civilisation

Islam,

pp.

34-45.

number

documents

belonging

to the Saljuq

period

have

been

preserved

various

collections:

notably

the 'Atabat al-kataba of Muntajab

al-Din

Bad? Atabeg Juvaini, who

was

head

of Sanjar's

divdn-i

inshd\ This

collection

contains

number

diplomas

appoint-

ment

various

officials.

The Munsha'dt-i

ahd-i Saljuqi va

Khwarazmsbdbl

va avd'il-i

ahd-i

Mughulwhich to

some

extent

duplicates

the 'Atabat al-kataba, and the

Munsha'dt

of Evoghll

Haidar, a

later

collection,

also

contain

some

Saljuq

documents.

These

are

supplemented

various

collections

model

diplomas

and

letters,

mainly

of the

second

half

of the

sixth/

twelfth

century, notably

al-Tawassul ИаЧ-tarassul

of Baha

al-Din

Baghdad! and the Dastur-i

Dabiri

of Muhammad b. 'Abdi'l-Khaliq al-Maihani. For a

brief

discussion

these

and

other

collections

see H.

Horst,

Die

Staatsverwaltung

der

Grosselguqen

und Hora^mlahs (10$8-

1231)

(Wiesbaden,

1964).

''Atabat

al-kataba,

ed. 'Abbas Iqbal (Tehran, 1329/1950), p. 9.

Ibid. pp.

69-70.

14 209 вен