Nizam al-Mulk was one of the most crucial characters of the Seljukite Empire. His career as a vizier, which lasted twenty-nine years, affected his time. He was orphaned when he was a little child. His father brought up him. He improved himself in the field of science by receiving an education in the up to date sciences of his time. After he worked beside Gaznavid and Seljukite statesmen, he had become the vizier of Alparslan and Malikshah.
Nizam al-Mulk compounded his education and his experiences as a statesman with his personal skills. He collected all the necessary skills to be a successful statesman in his personality. He noticed the importance of Sufis and men of religion for the continuum of state and the well structure of its institutions and he was closely interested in these groups. He founded madrassas, hangahs, ribats for the activities of the Ulama and Sufis. Madrassas of Nizamiyye, which he made built with the permission of Alparslan, were the most important achievement of his attempts on this issue. They strengthened the Sunni school of Islam in accordance with the policies of Seljukite state. Furthermore, they enabled the Seljuks with qualified human source. The scholars who were educated in those madrassas condemned the negative impacts of Shi’ite Fatimid on the Islamic World.
Nizam al-Mulk, as a result of his experiences in administration, followed a different path in political sciences than Maverdi, Juvayni and Gazali. He did not support Caliphate like Maverdi and Juvayni did. In addition, he did not follow a perception that accepted Chaliphate but not reject Sultanate. He supported a thought of Sultanate that relied on the cultural background of the sultans under whom he worked. Additionally, he glamourized that idea of sultanate with Islamic values. He wrote Siyasetname, which was an important opus in this sense. He both elaborated the governing and offered a wide range of historical sources in his work.
Primary Language | Turkish |
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Journal Section | Articles |
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Publication Date | October 9, 2018 |
Published in Issue | Year 2018 Issue: 8 |
Selçuk University Journal of Seljuk Studies is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY NC).