Nizam al-Mulk
The renowned Iranian vizier of the Seljuks (1018–1092), author of the Siyasatnama and founder of the Nizamiyya colleges.
Read in context →At a glance
- Field
- Statecraft, administration, political writing
- Era
- Seljuk era (Alp Arslan and Malik-Shah)
- Key work
- Siyasatnama; the Nizamiyya colleges
- Birthplace
- Tus, Khorasan
Biography
Abu Ali Hasan ibn Ali al-Tusi, titled Nizam al-Mulk (1018–1092 CE), was a powerful Iranian vizier who for nearly three decades ran the administration of the Seljuk Empire under Alp Arslan and Malik-Shah, effectively holding the reins of government. He organized the Perso-Islamic administrative system, expanded the military land-grant (iqta'), and founded the network of state-funded Nizamiyya colleges in Baghdad, Nishapur, and other cities — institutions that trained the bureaucracy and promoted Ash'ari theology and Shafi'i law, and where al-Ghazali was a famous teacher. His most important work is the Siyasatnama (Siyar al-Muluk), one of the foremost Persian 'mirrors for princes,' blending practical wisdom of governance, historical exempla, and his vision of order and justice. He was killed in 1092 on the road to Baghdad by an assassin — by the famous account, one of the Nizari Ismailis. A contested point is that the 'legend of the three friends' — a schoolboy friendship with Omar Khayyam and the Ismaili leader Hasan-i Sabbah — is held to be historically false and anachronistic; the full attribution of the present text of the Siyasatnama to him and the extent of later additions are also debated by scholars.
Quotes & narrations
«Kingship may endure with unbelief, but it will not endure with injustice.»
Related entities
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Iranica, "Neẓām-al-Molk"
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Nizam al-Mulk"
- Hubert Darke (trans.), The Book of Government or Rules for Kings (Siyasat-nama)