Notes on Some Early Seljuqid Viziers

Harold Bowen

doi:10.1017/S0041977X00061711

Notes on Some Early Seljuqid Viziers

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009

Harold Bowen

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Of the medieval Muslim historians writing in Arabic and Persian several supply us with lists of the viziers employed by Ṭughrul Beg, the first sultan of the Āl Seljuq.

The list supplied by Ibn al-Athir (died A.D. 1234) shows the following four persons as having acted in turn for him as vizier:

(1) Abū'l-Qāsim ‘All ibn ‘Abd Allah al-Juwaynī. (2) The Ra'īs al-Ru'asā Abū ‘Abd Allah al-Husayn ibn ‘Alī ibn Mīkā'īl. (3) The Niຓāam al-Mulk Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-Dihistānī. (4) The ‘Amīd al-Mulk al-Kundurī.

Type: Articles
Information: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , February 1957 , pp. 105 - 110

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X00061711 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1957

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^{page 105 note 1} Būlāq edition, IX, 196.

^{page 105 note 2} In his Jāmi' al-tawārīkh—TSM. oodex Add. 7628, f. 240b.

^{page 105 note 3} Al-Burḥānī in MS.

^{page 105 note 4} Gibb Memorial Trust edition, 98.

^{page 105 note 5}

^{page 105 note 6} By one Sayf al-Dīn al-Faḍlī—B.M. codex Or. 1920, f. 168b ff.

^{page 105 note 7} Burkhānī in MS.

^{page 105 note 8} Edited by Ja‘far Ḥusayn, Sayyid for University of London D.Litt thesis, 912.Google Scholar

^{page 105 note 9}

^{page 106 note 1} Or Ta'rīkh-i Āl-i Subek-Tegin or Ta'rīkh-i Mas‘ūdī.

^{page 106 note 2} See Tehran edition by Drs. Ghanī and Fayyāḍ, A.H. 1324 (referred to hereafter as TB), 552, 553, 554, 567.

^{page 106 note 3} pp. 28, 568, 821, 928.

^{page 106 note 4} Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, 356. The name was Arabicized as Bũzjān, and, as noted above, appears in the Rāḥat al-ṡudūr as Būzhgān. Morley's edition of Bayhaqī has Buzurgānfor Būzgān throughout.

^{page 106 note 5} f. 168b.

^{page 106 note 6} See below, p. 110.

^{page 107 note 1} TB, 552—4.

^{page 107 note 2} ibid., 550.

^{page 107 note 3} ibid., 554.

^{page 107 note 4} ibid., 567.

^{page 107 note 5} Edited by Houtsma, 10.

^{page 107 note 6} This is repeated by Ibn Khallikān (see De Slane's translation, III, 291).

^{page 107 note 7} Rawḍat al-ṡafā, Lucknow lithograph, 1874, 780 ff.

^{page 107 note 8} Dastṫr al-wuzarā, Tehran, 1938.Google Scholar

^{page 107 note 9} Ṣaḥā'if al-akhbār (Turkish translation), Istanbul, 1868, II,Google Scholar 560 ff.

^{page 107 note 10} Ta'rīkh-i-guzīda (Gibb Memorial Trust facsimile), 437.

^{page 107 note 11} He appears in this passage as ‘Sālār-i Tūrkān’ (by mere mispointing).

^{page 107 note 12} Rāḥat al-ṡudūr, 104; Jāmi‘ al-tawārīkh, f. 239b.

^{page 107 note 13} Dumyat al-qaṡr, 28, 568, 821.

^{page 107 note 14} It may be noted that al-Bākharzī never refers to him as Sālār. Instead he always uses his kunya, twice uses his name, twice gives him the nisba al-Juwaynī, and once gives him that of al-Būzgānī (misspelt in the text as al-Būrḥanī).

^{page 107 note 15} Dumya, 928.

^{page 108 note 1} TB, 40; cf. ibid., 287.

^{page 108 note 2} Dumya, 883. I am not sure whether the ‘Mīkāliyān’ of Ibn Funduq (Ta'Wikh-i Bayhaq, 117) are the same family.

^{page 108 note 3} TB, 289 ff.

^{page 108 note 4} ibid., 422.

^{page 108 note 5} ibid., 481 ff.; cf. Gardīzī, Zayn al-akhbār, edited by Muḥammad Nāຓim, 101–2.

^{page 108 note 6} Dumya, 363, 437, 447, 664, 870.

^{page 109 note 1} See Zambaur, Manuel, I, 14—under āl al-Raqīl. It is possible, in view of this relationship (which makes their sharing a laqab odder still), that words have been omitted from the (single) passage of the Dumyat al-qaṡr (p. 437) in which the Ṣāḥib is so designated and that al-Bākharzī's intention was rather to indicate this relationship than so to entitle the Ṣāḥib himself. But if so, we have also to assume that the Dumyat al-qaṡr, in a manuscript thus already defective, was Ibn al-Athir's authority for giving Ibn Mīkā'Il this title.

^{page 109 note 2} Dumyat al-qaṡr, 912.

^{page 109 note 3} Presumably ‘Irāq-i ‘Ajamī, the Jibāl, province. By the time that Ṭughrul entered the ‘Irāq proper al-Kundurī had become his vizier.

^{page 109 note 4} Rāḥāt al-ṡudūr, 98. Other names ending in ‘-ak’ were in use at this time: e.g. Amīrak and Ḥasanak (see TB, index).

^{page 110 note 1} Unless, indeed, the Sālār was both a native of Būzgān and its Sālār in the official sense. But he also had the nisba al-Juwaynī.

^{page 110 note 2} No certain date seems to be furnished by the various notices of al-Kundurī. He is said by al-Dhahabī Ta'rīkh al-Islām (B.M. codex Or. 50, f. 61a–b), to have been born in A.H. 415 (1024–5); to have been made Ṭughrul's vizier at the age of 31, i.e. in 446 (April 1054 to April 1055); and to have been in office eight years and eight months when he was disgraced in Ṣafar 457 (January 1065). The last indication would place his appointment in August 1056, but this is certainly too late, since he was already vizier when Ṭughrul arrived in Baghdād in December 1055.

^{page 110 note 3} Dumyat al-qaṡr, 641.

^{page 110 note 4} Safar-nāme, ed. Schefer, 3, (trs.) 7.

^{page 110 note 5} See above, p. 106.

^{page 110 note 6} Perhaps he was Ṭughrul's spiritual director—the word sometimes bore this sense.

^{page 110 note 7} Dumyat al-qaṡr, 552.

^{page 110 note 8} Notices in al-Subkī, Ṭahaqāt al-Shāfi'īya, III, 85, 169, and al-Dhahabī, Ta'rīkh al-Islām, f. 61 ff. See, too, my ‘The sar-gvdhasht-i sayyidnā’, JBAS, 1931, Pt. 4, 771–82.

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