Nizam al-Mulk
Persia: Empire and AfterwardsThe Man Who Ran the Empire
The Seljuks were Turkic nomads from the steppe who took Iran in the eleventh century and then ruled from Anatolia to Central Asia. The man who actually administered that empire for thirty years was a Persian from Tus called Abu Ali Hasan, known by his title Nizam al-Mulk — the Order of the Realm. He served two sultans, Alp Arslan and Malik Shah, and under him the Seljuk state reached its height.
In Persian
He ran a Turkic empire using Persian administrative practice, Persian secretaries and the Persian language. This was not sentiment; it was the only working machinery available, inherited through the Sassanids and the caliphate. Sultans commanded armies. Viziers ran states, and the states they ran were Persian in method.
The Nizamiyya
He founded a network of state-funded colleges, the Nizamiyya madrasas, in Baghdad, Nishapur, Isfahan and elsewhere — endowed, salaried, with a set curriculum. They are among the earliest systematically organised institutions of higher learning anywhere, and al-Ghazali, one of the most influential thinkers in Islamic history, taught at the Baghdad one.
The Book of Government
Late in life he wrote the Siyasatnama, the Book of Government: a manual on how to actually run a state — taxation, spies, the treatment of subjects, the danger of corrupt officials, and the duty of a ruler to be reachable by ordinary people with grievances. It is written in Persian, addressed to a Turkic sultan, and it remains one of the great works of political advice in any language.
1092
He was assassinated in 1092, traditionally by a follower of the Assassins, the Nizari Ismaili order. Malik Shah died within weeks and the empire began to fragment. The pattern is worth noticing: the Turkic dynasty supplied the sultan and the soldiers; the Persian vizier supplied the state. When the vizier went, the state went with him.
Key Dates to Remember
- 1018 — Born near Tus
- 1063 — Becomes vizier to Alp Arslan
- 1065– — The Nizamiyya colleges are founded
- c. 1091 — Writes the Siyasatnama
- 1092 — Assassinated; Malik Shah dies weeks later