Nizam al-Mulk

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Nizām al-Mulk Abū ʿAlī al-Hasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Ishāq at-Tūsī ( Persian نظام‌الملک ابوعلی حسن بن علی بن اسحاق طوسی, DMG Niẓām al-Mulk Abū ʿAlī Ḥasan bin ʿAlī ibn Isḥāq Ṭūsī ; * April 10, 1018 ; † October 14, 1092 ) was the grand vizier of the Seljuq sultans Alp Arslan and Malik Schāh . Its fame is mainly based on the fact that since the murder of Alp Arslan (1072) he was the real ruler of the Seljuk Empire in every respect and ruled it with overwhelming success. In recognition of his great services, contemporary authors such as Ibn al-Aṯīr even speak of the "kingdom of Niẓām al-Mulk" (الدولة النظامية, ad-daula an-niẓāmīya ).

The assassination of Niẓām al-Mulk, miniature, 14th century

Life

Nizam al-Mulk was in the small town Radkan at Tus in Khorasan born. His family belonged to the resident Persian landed gentry, the Dehqānān . Little is known about his youth, including the fact that his father served the Ghaznavids as a tax officer. When the Seljuks conquered Khorasan in 1040, Niām al-Mulk's father fled to Ghazna , where Niẓām al-Mulk probably got work within the government apparatus. Around 1043 he entered the service of the Seljuks, whereupon Alp Arslan appointed him vizier in 1063 with the honorary title "Niẓām al-Mulk" ("order of the empire" or "administrator / vizier of the empire") .

As a result of Niẓām al-Mulk's wise policies, the Seljuk Empire experienced an economic, cultural and scientific heyday. Of particular importance is that Nizam al-Mulk in cities such as Baghdad , Amul , Isfahan , Nishapur , Mosul , Basra and Herat madrasas founded, which he called the greatest scholars of his time. Of these schools, named after him as Niẓāmīya , that of Baghdad was the most important. In addition, Niẓām al-Mulk wrote an important work called Siyāsat-nāma (the "book of statecraft" ), in which he uses exemplary stories and anecdotes to explain his view of how to rule and administer an empire properly. The book, along with the Qābūs-nāma, is considered to be the prototype of the literary genre of the Prince's Mirror and is even said to have influenced later European publications such as Machiavelli's Il Principe .

The political goals of Alp Arslan and Niẓām al-Mulk included:

  • the creation of employment opportunities for the numerous Turkmens who immigrated to Persia in the course of the Seljuk war successes and whose nomadic way of life in some cases represented a considerable threat to the country's political and economic stability,
  • the demonstration of the sultan's power (i.e. the strength and mobility of his armed forces, but also his mercy towards docile rebels)
  • the maintenance of local Sunni and Shiite rulers as vassals of the sultan and the increased use of relatives of the sultan as provincial governors,
  • preventing a dispute over Malik Shah's succession as Sultan and
  • maintaining good relations with the Abbasid Caliphate .

As once the Barmakid Wesire, Niẓām al-Mulk - who was considered a great organizer and ideal soldier and scholar by contemporary poets and historians - represented the historical, but now heavily Islamized, Persian civilization in the course of the “barbaric” conquest of Iran. It was only thanks to him that the Turkic Seljuks were able to establish themselves as true monarchs in their new homeland. He was not only the leader of the Persian-dominated bureaucratic state apparatus ( Dīwān ), but - in his role as Atabeg Malik Shāh s - also that of the royal court ( dargāh ) and thus acted as a mediator between the two politically and culturally very different camps of the Iranians and Turks. His mysterious assassination (it is said to have been the first known political murder of the Assassins ) in 1092, which shocked the noble and court establishments of the empire, thus marked the beginning of the end of the Great Seljuks.

Works

  • Nizāmulmulk: Siyāsatnāma: Thoughts and Stories. For the first time from Persian into German. transfer u. a. by Karl Emil Schabinger von Schowingen . Alber, Freiburg / Munich 1960; New edition by Manesse-Verlag, Zurich 1987.

literature

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c H. Bowen, CE Bosworth : Niẓām al-Mulk. In: Encyclopaedia of Islam . (on-line)
  2. ^ P. Holt, A. Lambton, B. Lewis : The Cambridge History of Islam. Volume 1. Cambridge University Press, 1977.
  3. ↑ A. TAFAŻŻOLĪ: DEHQĀN. In: Encyclopædia Iranica . online ed., 2010: "... In the early Islamic centuries many important political figures of eastern Persia were dehqāns (eg, the Samanid amir Aḥmad b. Sahl b. Hāšem, qv) or descendants of dehqān families (eg, the Saljuq grand vizier Neẓām-al-Molk, qv; Gardīzī, p. 151; Ebn Fondoq, pp. 73, 78) [...] The profound attachment of the dehqāns to the culture of ancient Iran also lent to the word dehqān the sense of "Persian," especially "Persian of noble blood," in contrast to Arabs, Turks, and Romans in particular ... "
  4. ↑ NIZAM AL-MULK , Encyclopaedia Britannica
  5. ^ The Turks and Islam to the Thirteenth Century. In: René Grousset: The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia. Rutgers University Press, 1970, pp. 153 ff.
  6. ↑ Fossier, Airlie, Marsack: The Cambridge illustrated history of the Middle Ages. Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 159.
  7. ↑ Michael Axworthy : Iran. World empire of the spirit. From Zoroaster to today. , Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, supplemented updated and revised edition 2011, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-8031-3636-7 , p. 109 f.
  8. ^ H. Bowen, CE Bosworth: Niẓām al-Mulk. In: Encyclopaedia of Islam. P. 70.
  9. ^ GE Tetley: The Ghaznavid and Seljuk Turks: Poetry as a Source for Iranian History. 1st ed. Routledge, 2008, pp. 125ff.
  10. ^ VV Barthold: Turkestan down to the Mongol Invasion. engl. Translation: T. Minorsky & CE Bosworth .; Luzac & Co., London 1928, p. 308.
  11. ↑ https://www.welt.de/geschichte/article136957923/Selbstmordattentaeter-im-Namen-des-Islam.html
personal data
SURNAME Nizam al-Mulk
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Abū-ʿAlī al-Ḥasan Ibn-ʿAlī aṭ-Ṭūsī Niẓām-al-Mulk; Abu-Ali Ḩasan Ibn-Ali Tusij Nizomulmulk; Äbu Äli H̱äsän Ibn Äli Haǵä Nizamülmülk; Ḥasan Ibn-ʿAlī Ṭusī Niẓām-al-Mulk; Hasan Ibn-Alī Nizām-ul-Mulk; Nizam Al-Mulk; Niẓām-al-Mulk; Nizāmulmulk; Nizamülmülk; Nizomulmulk (Šarʿk); Niẓām-al-Mulk; Abū-ʿAlī al-Ḥasan Ibn-ʿAlī aṭ-Ṭūsī; Nizomulmulk; Abu-Ali Ḩasan Ibn-Ali Tusij; Äbu Äli H̱äsän Ibn Äli Haǵä Nizamülmülk; Nizamal-Mul'k; Abu Ali Gasan Ibn Ali Chadža; Niẓam̄-al-Mulk; Ḥasan Ibn-ʿAlī Ṭusī; Nizām-ul-Mulk; Hasan Ibn-Alī; Nizamülmülk; Nizamülmülk; Äbu Äli H̱äsan Ibn Äli Haǵä
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Vizier among the Seljuq sultans Alp Arslan and Malik Schah
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1018
DATE OF DEATH October 14, 1092