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The Seljuq conquest(s) of Nishapur: A reappraisal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Jürgen Paul
Jürgen Paul*
Affiliation:
Institut für Orientalistik, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany
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Iranian Studies , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , December 2005 , pp. 575 - 585
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Copyright © 2005 The International Society for Iranian Studies

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References

1 Bulliet proposes another date—428/1036—on the basis of a Seljuq dinar from the Nishapur mint with this date; Bulliet, Richard, The Patricians of Nishapur (Cambridge, Mass., 1972): 204Google Scholar, note 10.

2 al-Athīr, ‘Izz ad-Dīn b., al-Kāmil fī l-ta'rīkh, (Bairūt, 1979), 9:481Google Scholar; Richards, Donald S., The Annals of the Saljuq Turks: Selections from al-Kāmil fī l-Ta'rīkh of ‘Izz al-dīn b. al-Athīr. Translated and annotated by Richards, D.S. (London, 2002): 39Google Scholar.

3 l-Faḍl, Bū’, Tārīkh-i Baihaqī, ed. Rahbar, Khalil Khatib (Teheran, 1994): 976Google Scholar. The local commander reports that in order to prepare for the siege, he has called the ‘ayyārūn from the countryside.

4 Paul, Jürgen, “The Histories of Herat,” Iranian Studies 33 no. i-ii, (2000): 93–115CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Bosworth, Clifford E., The Ghaznavids. Their Empire in Afghanistan and Eastern Iran, 994–1040. (Edinburgh, 1963), 252–7Google Scholar, too long and too well known to be reproduced here. Bū ‘l-Faḍl, 881–5. Widely quoted, e.g., in Bulliet, Patricians, and in Durand-Guédy, David, Iṣfahān, de la conquête salğūqide à la conquête mongole. Les élites et le pouvoir dans la province iranienne du Ğibāl (milieu XIe – début XIIIe siècle). (PhD thesis, Aix-en-Provence 2004), 139Google Scholarf.

6 Bosworth, Ghaznavids, 257.

7 Bulliet, Patricians, 202–4.

8 Bulliet, Patricians, list of qadis at the end of the book.

9 Waldman, Marilyn, Toward a Theory of Historical Narrative: A Case Study in Perso-islamicate History Columbus (Ohio) 1980Google Scholar; Stephen Humphreys, R., Islamic History. A Famework for Iinquiry (London, 1995)Google Scholar; Meisami, Julie, Persian Historiography to the End of the Twelfth Century (Edinburgh 1999)Google Scholar, to name but a few. Bosworth himself has recently added to the debate: Bosworth, Clifford Edmund, “An Oriental Samuel Pepys? Abu’ l-Faḍl Bayhaqī's Memoirs of Court Life in Eastern Iran and Afghanistan, 1030–1041,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Third Series, 14:i (2004): 15–25Google Scholar.

10 Kochnev, Boris, “Svod nadpisei na karakhanidskikh monetakh: antroponimy i titulatura,” Vostochnoe istoricheskoe istochnikovedenie i spetsial'nye istoricheskie distsipliny vol. 4 (Moscow, 1995), 210Google Scholar.

11 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil; 9:188–9; ‘Utbī/Manīnī, Sharḥal-yamīnī al-musammā bi-fatḥal-wahbī ‘alā ta'rīkh Abī Naṣr al-‘Utbī, (al-Qāhira 1268/1869); ‘Utbi/Jurbādaqānī, Tarjuma-yi tārīkh-i yamīnī, (Teheran 1334/1955); ‘Abd al-Ḥayy Gardizi, Zain al-akhbār. ed. ‘Abd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī. (Teheran 1347/1969).

12 Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil 9:463; Richards, The Annals 28, wa-thāra ahl Naisābūr bi-man ‘indahum minhum fa-qatalū ba‘dan wa-inhazama l-bāqūn ilā aṣ ḥābihim bil-barriyya.

13 See her contribution in this volume.

14 Merçil, Erdoğan, “Simcuriler IV,” Belleten Sayı 195, 49 (149): 547–67Google Scholar.

15 Bū ’l-Faḍl, 252; wa ‘āmma-yi shahr pīsh-i Bū ‘Alī-yi Sīmjūrī raftand wa ba-āmadan-i way shādī kardand wa silāḥ bar dāshtand wa rūy ba-jang āwardand.

16 ‘Utbī/Manīnī, 116; ‘Utbi/Jurbadaqānī, 113. Arabic: fa-wāfaqa hadhā l-ra'y jumhūr al-‘askar li-hirsihim ‘alā l-waṭan wa-nizā‘ihim ilā l-ahl wa l-sakan fa-ttafaqū ‘alā hadhā l-ra'y; Persian: ‘āmma-yi lashkar-rā ān rāy muwāfaq uftād wa ḥubb-i waṭan wa mail-i ahl wa sakan ghālib āmad wa bar ān ittifāq khatam kardand.

17 Gardīzī, Zain al-akhbār, 165. See also Paul, Jürgen, Herrscher, Gemeinwesen, Vermittler: Ostiran und Transoxanien in vormongolischer Zeit (Beirut & Stuttgart, 1996),125Google Scholar, note 131 for further references.

18 Gardīzī, Zain al-akhbār, 168.

19 ‘Utbī/Jurbadaqānī 120, ‘Utbī 122. Year: 385/995. The troops are called al-rajjāla al-ṭūsiyya in Arabic and rajjāla-yi ṭūs in Persian. Their commander is a man called Amīrak-i ṭūsī.

20 Bulliet thinks that this part of Khurasan is the logical place for one big entrepot city on the Asian caravan trade routes. Tus, on the other hand, was a major pilgrimage center for Shi'i and partly also Sunni Muslims (‘Alī al-Ridā and Hārūn al-Rashīd are both buried at Tus. Tus was under the administration and jurisdiction of officials based at Nishapur, and they were also responsible for the upkeep of both mausolea. Bulliet, Richard, The Patricians of Nishapur (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), 201Google Scholar.

21 Bosworth, Ghaznavids, 168f with comments on the earlier literature (Spuler, Zakhoder); Bū' l-Faḍl, 652. The armed commoners are described as “mardum-i ‘āmma wa ghawghā […] ki afzūn az bīst hazār būd bā silāḥ wa chūb wa sang.” Bosworth follows the derisory tone in the source and does not put the passage into its context. He gives a number of sources describing Tus as a well-known center of ‘ayyār activity, which he disapproves of as much as his sources do. The incident is described also in al-Athīr, Ibn, al-Kāmil 9:434Google Scholar, without the undue aggrandizement of that general; it is stated: “Victory was on his side and on the side of the Nishapuris,” wa-kāna al-ẓafar lahu wa li-ahl Naisābūr. Not in Richards, The Annals.

23 b. al-Athīr, al-Kāmil 9, 483, Richards, The Annals, 40.

22 Maqdisī, , Ahsan al-taqāsīm fī ma‘rifat al-aqālīm, ed. de Goeje, Leiden 21906 (Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum, iii):316Google Scholar, ghalaba ‘alaihā [the city of Nishapur] al-‘iyāra min jihatain [probably the two factions, see below].

24 See the reports on Balkh where it is explicitly stated that the city military commander had had the ‘ayyārūn come to town from the countryside; see Paul, Herrscher, Gemeinwesen, Vermittler, 129. See above note 3.

25 For comparable analysis of the pro-Samanid bias in writing directed against Saffarid ‘ayyārs cf. Tor, D.G., “Historical Representations of Ya'qub b. al-Layth al-Saffar: A Reappraisal,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Series 3, 12 no. 3 (2002): 247–275CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Bosworth, Ghaznavids, 261f.

27 Melchert, Christopher, The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law, 9th–10th Centuries C.E. (Leiden, 1997): 98Google Scholar.

28 He was Toghril's khwāja; see Bulliet, Patricians, 119.

29 Bosworth, Ghaznavids, 262f.; Bū’ l-Faḍl, 884.

30 Durand-Guédy, 187. His kunya Abū l-Qāsim makes the identification certain.

31 Bū'l-Faḍl, 936; ‘alawiyān bā way yār and ammā a‘yān khāsta and wa fisād kunand. It is not stated what is intended by this “The notables have risen and are doing mischief,” but it is evident that for a brief moment, there was no external power in Nishapur.

32 Erdoğan Merçil, “Simcuriler IV,” 563, 566.

33 Erdoğan Merçil, “Simcuriler V. Ebû l-Kâsım b. Ebû l-Hasan Sîmcûrî,” Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi 13 (1983–87, published 1987): 123–38; 124f.

34 Bulliet, Patricians, 202f and 117f. This man was the father of Imam Muwaffaq, head of the Shafi'is in Nishapur during the Seljuq conquest and one of their most outstanding allies.

35 Bulliet, Patricians, 203.

36 ‘Utbī/Jurbadaqānī, 189; ‘Utbī, 185.

37 Ibn Ḥauqal, Kitāb al-masālik wal-mamālik, ed. de Goeje (Leiden 21938/9) Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum, iii, 310f; Maqdisī, Aḥsan at-taqāsīm, 314f. See also the description of Isfahan and its fortifications as quoted by D. Durand-Guédy in his contribution to this volume.

38 Such as, it is a fortified town, it is a strong fortress, and the like.

39 Bosworth, Ghaznavids, 252, Bū l-Faḍl, 881–2. ḥāl-i īn shahr bar tū [882] pūshīda nīst ki ḥiṣānatī nadārad wa chūn rīg ast dar dīda. The last phrase, which remained dark to Bosworth, is explained by the editors as: “It is like a grain of sand in the eye of the enemy which he will very quickly wipe out,” 1008, note 2 to page 882.

40 Bulliet, Patricians, 9: “There is no circuit wall that can be used to determine its physical extent.” Used as a side remark to his effort to calculate the population of Nishapur.

41 EI2, s.v. Nishapur (Honigmann/Bosworth).

42 Tārīkh-i Nīshāpūr, 198; wa ān Anbārdih ar sudda-yi banā būd tā qarīb-i zamān-i sultān Maḥmūd ‘Amr-i Laith ki wālī-yi Khurāsān būd kharāb kard. The ar in this phrase is no misprint. I have checked Frye's facsimile edition: The Histories of Nishapur, (London, 1965), fol. 57b. A possible emendation could be dar.

43 al-Athīr, Ibn, al-Kāmil 10:171Google Scholar; Bulliet, Patricians, 213; Funduq, Ibn, Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, (Teheran, 1317/1939):268Google Scholar. Ibn al-Athīr writes: “The sultan came to Nishapur with a large army of Khurasani amirs, fa-ḥaṣarahā fa-jtama‘a ahluhā wa-qātalūhu ashadda qitālin wa-lāzama hisārahum naḥwa arba‘īn yawman, he laid siege to the city. Its inhabitants came together/united and fought him most vigorously, and the sultan had to continue the siege during something like forty days;” after that, he went away and the fitna (internal fighting) broke out in the city. This is exactly the type of report—defense of the city or parts thereof—that is missing in the earlier reports. No urban leadership is mentioned.

44 al-Athīr, Ibn, al-Kāmil, 11:181Google Scholar, wa-jtama‘a aktharu ahlihā bil-jāmi‘ al-manī‘ī wa-taḥaṣ ṣanū bihi fa-ḥaṣarahum al-ghuzz: “Most inhabitants gathered in the Manī‘ī Friday mosque and held out there, and the Ghuzz besieged them.” The mosque, of course, is taken, probably shortly after. This mosque was located in the rabaḍ, named after its patron.

45 al-Athīr, Ibn, al-Kāmil, 11:182Google Scholar, wa-ḥaṣarū [al-ghuzz] shāristān wa-hiya manī‘a fa-aḥāṭū bihā wa-qātalahum ahluhā min fauq suwarihā, “The Ghuzz then laid siege to the Sharistan, which was fortified, and invested it, and its inhabitants fought them from the walls.”

46 Such a construction is assumed to have been in place at Hamadan, for instance, as Durand-Guédy has suggested.

47 Maqdisī, Aḥsan at-taqāsīm, 336. The urban moieties in Nishapur were defined as “the Westerners” and the Others (bain nisf Naisābūr al-gharbī wa-huwa mā ‘alā minhu yunsabu ilā Manīshak wa bain al-ākhir yunsabu ilā l-Ḥīra ‘aṣabiyāt waḥsha ‘alā ghair al-madhhab wa-qad ṣāra l-ān bain al-shī‘a wal-karrāmīya). The names are parts of the rabaḍ; the Shia and the Karramiya were important groups, but less so than the “two factions” (al-farīqain), the Hanafis and the Shafi‘is, whose controversies were ultimately to lead to the destruction of the city. Maqdisi‘s text represents a state of affairs before the advent of the Ghaznavids. “Urban moieties” is a term taken from social anthropology; it has been introduced into the study of Iranian history by Perry, John in “Toward a Theory of Iranian Urban Moieties: The Ḥaydariyyah and Ni‘matiyyah Revisited,” Iranian Studies 32 no.1 (1999): 51–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 Bulliet, Patricians, 204.