Court Historiography of the Seljuq Empire in Iran and Iraq: Reflections on Content, Authorship and Language

Abstract

This paper reexamines the Arabic and Persian historical literature of the Seljuq period (1040–1194), concentrating on works produced in circles connected with the sultanic court. It considers the relationship between the Arabic and Persian works, the authors' motives for composition, and the reasons for choice of language. It also compares these works with their predecessors, especially the historiography of the Ghaznavid court, with a view to assessing the particular characteristics of Seljuq historical writing, which is often considered rather slight and unimpressive. One reason that is often adduced for this is the absence of dynastic history writing under the Seljuqs, and the alleged lack of interest of the Seljuq court in patronizing historiography, themes which we also investigate here.

Notes

¹ Claude Cahen, “The Historiography of the Seljuqid Period,” in Historians of the Middle East, ed. Bernard Lewis and P.M. Holt (London, 1962), 59.

² Ibid., 60; cf. Julie Scott Meisami, Persian Historiography to the End of the Twelfth Century (Edinburgh, 1999), 141–2.

³ Cahen, “Historiography,” 75.

⁴ Meisami, Persian Historiography, 142.

⁵ “They could claim neither putative links with the ancient Iranian kings and with Iranian traditions of kingship, as did the Buyids, nor the moral high ground as successors of a collapsed and incapable dynasty, as did the Ghaznavids” (ibid., 142).

⁶ Ibid., 143.

⁷ Ibid., 144.

⁸ Cahen included works in both languages in his “Historiography of the Seljuqid period,” as does Carole Hillenbrand, “Some Reflections on Seljuq Historiography,” in Eastern Approaches to Byzantium, ed. Antony Eastmond (Aldershot, 2001), 73–88, which however concentrates on comparing two specific episodes in these sources. Meisami and Daniel have written substantial surveys of Seljuq historiography, but neither considers works in Arabic: Meisami, Persian Historiography, 141–280; Julie Scott Meisami, “History as Literature,” in Persian Historiography, ed. Charles Melville (Vol. 10, A History of Persian Literature, ed. Ehsan Yashater) (London, 2012), 19–34; Elton Daniel, “The Rise and Development of Persian Historiography,” in Melville, Persian Historiography, 136–54.

⁹ The sultanate of Iraq was subordinate to Sanjar, the Great Seljuq sultan in the east; but the term Great Seljuq is not found in the historiography of the period, and when Sanjar died, the sultans of Iraq were generally reckoned to be his successors (unlike, say, the Seljuq rulers of Kirman or Anatolia).

¹⁰ As our focus is on the Great Seljuqs and the Seljuq Sultanate of Iraq, other Seljuq states like Anatolia and Kirman are omitted from consideration. The historiography of Kirman is of particular interest and would repay further study. For some preliminary comments see Meisami, Persian Historiography, 234–7.

¹¹ For these local histories see ibid., 162–229; Daniel, “Rise and Development,” 139–48. The Mujmal al-Tawarikh wa-l-Qisas, composed at the court of Sultan Mahmud b. Muhammad, is thus omitted from consideration here: with its concentration on the pre-Islamic past and its interest in the Jibal in particular, it has a much more local character than the other works under consideration.

¹² E.g. Daniel, “Rise and Development,” 150: “The real problem with Saljuq historiography is not so much its dearth, or its date, as the remarkably poor quality of most of the works that are left.”

¹³ The most important texts to come to light since Cahen wrote are the Tarikh al-Wuzara' of Qummi, and the Saljuqnama of Nishapuri, which until A.H. Morton's edition (Cambridge, 2004) was only known through later Ilkhanid versions. The Seljuq section of Ibn Zafir's Akhbar al-Duwal al-Munqati‘a (which probably derived from the extended version of Husayni's Akhbar now lost to us—see note 19 below) is preserved in Milan, Ambrosiana, MS G arabo 6, although it is not included in any of the published versions of Ibn Zafir (it contains no new historical information owing to the reliance on Husayni). Since the research of David Durand-Guédy, it has become clear that the full version of ‘Imad al-Din al-Isfahani's Nusrat al-Fatra (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, ms arabe 1245)—widely but wrongly thought to be lost—needs to be published. Cahen believed all the useful information was contained in the abridged version made in the early thirteenth century by Bundari known as the Zubdat al-Nusra (ed. M.T. Houtsma, Leiden, 1889) which has generally been used by scholars to date (and for ease of reference will be cited where possible here). See David Durand-Guédy, “Un fragment inédit de la chronique des Salgˇuqides de ‘Imād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī: le chapitre sur Tāˇgˇ al-Mulk,” Annales Islamologiques 39 (2005): 205–22. Fragments from one further Seljuq-period historical work preserved in the Mamluk author al-‘Ayni's chronicle have recently been published: Abu l-Hasan Muhammad b. Abi l-Fadl ‘Abd al-Malik Hamdhani, Qit‘a Ta'rikhiyya min Kitab ‘Unwan al-Siyar fi Mahasin Ahl al-Badw wa l-Hadar, aw al-Ma‘arif al-Muta'akhkhira, wa bi-Dhaylihi Shadharat min kitab Umara’ al-Hajj, ed. Shayi‘ ‘Abd al-Hadi al-Hajiri (Tunis, 2008). However, not enough survives of this work for us to gain any real impression of the agenda of the author.

¹⁴ A useful table summarizing the main lost and extant works by region and date may be found in Hillenbrand, “Some Reflections,” 87.

¹⁵ For the date see The Saljūqnama of Ẓahīr al-Dīn Nīshāpūrī: A Critical Text Making Use of the Unique Manuscript in the Library of the Royal Asiatic Society, ed. A.H. Morton (Cambridge, 2004), 45–8. Although no place of composition is specified, as the work was written for Tughril III whose court was in Hamadan, and the author was royal tutor, it is reasonable to assume it was written there.

¹⁶ Although this title has generally been used in western scholarship, it has been published in Iran as the Dhayl-i Nafthat al-masdur, in which guise it will appear in the notes.

¹⁷ The text had a complicated history, a version having been composed by Rawandi for Sultan Tughril III, who died before it was completed. Rawandi later took up his pen and dedicated a revised version to the Anatolian Seljuq sultan, Ghiyath al-Din Kaykhusraw, and appears to have traveled to Konya for the purpose of presenting it to the ruler. See Meisami, Persian Historiography, 237–9; Sara Nur Yıldız, “A nadīm for the Sultan: Rāwandī and the Anatolian Seljuks,” in The Seljuks of Anatolia: Court and Society in the Medieval Middle East, ed. A.C.S. Peacock and Sara Nur Yıldız (London, 2012) pp. 91–111.

¹⁸ Although this title is used for the published edition (ed. Muhammad Iqbal, Lahore, 1933, reprint Beirut, 1984), in fact the unique ms of the work refers to it as a Zubda. The extant work probably represents an abridgement of a longer worker by Husayni, now lost, known as the Akhbar al-Dawla al-Saljuqiyya. Nonetheless, in keeping with convention the title Akhbar is used in this article to refer to the extant work. For details on these textual problems see Qibla Ayaz, “An Unexploited Source for the History of the Great Seljuqs: A Translation of and Critical Commentary on the Akhbar al-Dawla al-Saljuqiyya” (PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1985), esp. 1–16.

¹⁹ Nishapuri's Saljuqnama formed the basis for the historical sections of Rawandi's work; Rawandi was subsequently used by Rashid al-Din and Shams al-Din Muhammad Yazdi, among others. For a full discussion see Nishapuri, Saljūqnāma, Introduction, 5–36. See also David Durand-Guédy's forthcoming article on Zahir al-Din Nishapuri in Encyclopaedia Iranica (henceforth, EIr) (online edition www.iranicaonline.org)

²⁰ There also seem to have been some interest in Seljuq history in the Ayyubid lands; Ibn Zafir is one example of this phenomenon, as is ‘Imad al-Din Isfahani himself. Indeed, the sole extant manuscript of Qummi is preserved in the Dar al-Kutub in Cairo.

²¹ It was used by Mirkhwand in Rawdat al-Safa (Tehran, 1338), IV: 235ff, which is its main extant textual witness, as well as Ibn al-Athir, Husayni and others. Both Arabic and Persian versions of the work are known to have existed. See Claude Cahen, “Le Malik-nameh et l'histoire des origins seldjukides,” Oriens 2, no. 1 (1949): 31–65; A.C.S. Peacock, Early Seljuq History: A New Interpretation (London, 2010), 8–9, 27–32.

²² The text was cited by Bar Hebraeus, Chronography, trans. Earnest A. Wallis Budge (London, 1932), I: 195–6. Bar Hebreaus knew Arabic, so may have had access to a version in that language.

²³ For Armenian see D.K. Kouymjian “Mxitar of Ani on the Rise of the Seljuqs,” Revue des Etudes Armeniennes NS 6 (1969), 331–51, and esp. 352–3.

²⁴ Ibn al-‘Adim, Bughyat al-Talab fi Ta'rikh Halab, ed. Ali Sevim (Ankara, 1976), 32: “The compiler (sahib) of the book of the Maliknama, which was written for Alp Arslan Muhammad b. Da'ud, related that he learned their lineages and their descent from the amir Inanj Beg, who was the eldest of the tribe (asann al-qawm) and the most knowledgeable of them with regard to genealogy.” The story of the Seljuqs’ Khazar origins is then related on Inanj Beg's authority. Inanj Beg is also mentioned by Bar Hebreaus, Chronography, I: 195.

²⁵ Cahen, “Le Malik-nameh.”

²⁶ See n. 21 above.

²⁷ A. Azzavi, “İbn Hassul'ün Türkler Hakkında Bir Eseri,” Belleten 4, no. 14–15 (1940): 1–50 (Arabic text).

²⁸ The western origin of the surviving works is also noted by Meisami, Persian Historiography, 144.

²⁹ For a summary of arguments regarding authorship of this work, see C.E. Bosworth, The History of the Seljuq State: A Translation with Commentary of the Akhbar al-Dawla al-Saljuqiyya (London, 2011), 4–5; in more detail see Ayaz, “An Unexploited Source,” 1–16.

³⁰ Ayaz, “An Unexploited Source,” 21.

³¹ Ibid., 21–2.

³² Shaykh ‘Abd al-Rahman Fami Harawi, Tarikh-i Harat (dast-navis-i naw-yafta); intro. Muhammad Mir Husayni and Muhammad Riza Abuyi Mihrizi, preface by Iraj Afshar (Tehran, 2008) (facsimile). An edition of the text by the same editors is apparently in preparation (David Durand-Guédy, personal communication).

³³ Ibn Funduq, Tarikh-i Bayhaq, ed. Ahmad Bahmanyar (Tehran, 1936).

³⁴ Richard Frye, ed., The Histories of Nishapur (London, 1965); ‘Umar b. Muhammad Al-Nasafi, al-Qand fi Dhikr ‘Ulama’ Samarqand (Tehran, 1999).

³⁵ For further comments on this rich eastern tradition see Parvaneh Pourshariati, “Local Historiography in Early Medieval Iran and the Tarikh-i Bayhaq,” Iranian Studies 33, no. 1–2 (2000): 133–64, esp. 133–4. A similar tradition also existed in the west from the eleventh century, being represented by works like Mafarrukhi's history of Isfahan, and the Farsnama of Ibn al-Balkhi.

³⁶ One exception might be the Sanjarnama referred to by Ibn Isfandiyar (Tarikh-i Tabaristan, ed. ‘Abbas Iqbal (Tehran, 1987), 2: 54, 72), but we know nothing of its contents. I am grateful to Charles Melville for drawing my attention to this reference.

³⁷ Meisami, Persian Historiography, 142.

³⁸ For the political history of this region see Kenneth Allin Luther, “The Political Transformation of the Seljuq Sultanate of Iraq and Western Iran, 1152–1187” (PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 1964).

³⁹ Daniel, “Rise and Development,” 149.

⁴⁰ On Bal‘ami's version of Tabari, see A.C.S. Peacock, Mediaeval Islamic Historiography and Political Legitimacy: Bal‘amī's Tārīkhnāma (London, 2007); for a different interpretation see Luke Treadwell, “The Samanids: The First Islamic Dynasty of Central Asia,” in Early Islamic Iran, ed. Edmund Herzig and Sarah Stewart (Vol. 5,The Idea of Iran) (London, 2011) 12–13.

⁴¹ On this see Wilferd Madelung, “Abu Isḥāq al-Sābi on the ‘Alids of Tabaristan and Gilan,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 26, no. 1 (1967): 17–57, esp. 17–18.

⁴² See Andrew Peacock, “‘Utbī's al-Yamīnī: Patronage, Composition and Reception,” Arabica 54, no. 4 (2007): 500–25; also Ali Anooshahr, “‘Utbi and the Ghaznavids at the Foot of the Mountain,” Iranian Studies 38, no. 2 (2005): 271–91.

⁴³ Meisami, Persian Historiography, 80; Khalil Khatib Rahbar, ed., Tarikh-i Bayhaqi, (Tehran, 1376), I: 149. Further on Bayhaqi see C.E. Bosworth, “An Oriental Samuel Pepys? Abu l-Fadl Bayhaqi's Memoirs of Court Life in Eastern Iran and Afghanistan 1030–1041,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3rd series, 14, no. 1 (2004): 17–34.

⁴⁴ Daniel, “Rise and Development,” 134.

⁴⁵ Gardizi, Zayn al-Akhbar, ed. Rahim Ridazada Malik (Tehran, 1384/2005), 252–3.

⁴⁶ Meisami, Persian Historiography, 77–9.

⁴⁷ ‘Imad al-Din Isfahani, Nusrat al-Fatra, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS arabe 2145, fol. 2a: ḥattā sāmanī man an‘āmuhu ṭawq ‘unqī wa-tāj mifraqī wa-quwwat mirfaqī wa-sirāj ufuqī an u‘arriba lahu al-kitāb.

⁴⁸ Ibid., fol. 1b–2a.

⁴⁹ Najm al-Din Abu l-Rija’ al-Qummi, Dhayl-i Nafthat al-Masdur, ed. Husayn Mudarrasi Tabataba'i (Tehran, 2010), 21, fol. 1b.

⁵⁰ Nishapuri, Saljuqnama, 3; cf. ibid., Introduction, 2.

⁵¹ Ibid., Introduction, 2; Persian text, 3–4

⁵² Ibid., Introduction, 45–9; Rawandi, Rahat al-Sudur, ed. Muhammad Iqbal (London, 1922), 64–5 (Ẓahīr al-Dīn Nīshāpūrī kih ustādh-i sulṭān Arslān wa Mas‘ūd būd wa khwīsh-i du‘āgū-yi dawlat … ). Some doubt has been cast on Rawandi's claim that Nishapuri had served as tutor to Mas‘ud, see Nishapuri, Saljuqnama, Introduction, 49; and David Durand-Guedy, “Where Did the Saljuqs Live? A Case Study Based on the Reign of Sultan Mas‘ūd b. Muḥammad (r. 1134–52),” Studia Iranica 42 (2011): 214, n. 9.

⁵³ See Yıldız, “A nadīm for the Sultan.”

⁵⁴ On him see Meisami, Persian Historiography, 256–69.

⁵⁵ Qummi, Dhayl-i Nafthat al-Masdur, 311–12; fol. 213a–b.

⁵⁶ E.g. Daniel, “Rise and Development,” 149.

⁵⁷ Abu Sharaf Nasir Jurbadhqani, Tarjama-i Tarikh-i Yamini, ed. Ja‘far Shi‘ar (Tehran, 1345), 417–42. A later editor, the early seventh/fourteenth century Sukkari of Isfahan, added a translation of the section on Baghawi.

⁵⁸ Ibid., 9.

⁵⁹ MS arabe 2145; fol. 2a. See in general on this work David Durand-Guédy, “Mémoires d'exilés: lecture de la chronique des Saljūqides de ‘Imād al-Dīn al-Isfahānī,” Studia Iranica 35 (2006): 181–202.

⁶⁰ It was probably not coincidental that Anushirwan was personal friends with the greatest exponent of the elaborate maqāma genre in Arabic, al-Hariri (see Isfahani/Bundari, Zubdat al-Nusra, 89). ‘Utbi too had perhaps been influenced by his acquaintance Badi‘ al-Zaman al-Hamadhani, the inventor of the maqāma genre (see Peacock, “‘Utbī's al-Yamīnī,” 522). Further research on the links between saj‘ historiography and the maqāma is a desideratum.

⁶¹ See C.E. Bosworth, “Anušervān Kāšāni” in EIr.

⁶² Isfahani/Bundari, Zubdat al-Nusra, 4; Qummi, Dhayl-i Nafthat al-Masdur, 22, fol. 2a.

⁶³ Isfahani/Bundari, Zubdat al-Nusra, 149–52; A.C.S. Peacock, “‘Imad al-Din al-Isfahani's Nusrat al-Fatra, Seljuq Politics and Ayyubid Origins,” in Ferdowsi, the Mongols and the History of Iran: Art, Literature and Culture from Early Islam to Qajar Persia, ed. Robert Hillenbrand, A.C.S. Peacock and Firuza Abdullaeva (London, 2013), 78–91.

⁶⁴ Qummi, Dhayl-i Nafthat al-Masdur, 77–120, fol. 42b–75b.

⁶⁵ Ibid., 80, fol. 45a.

⁶⁶ Ibid., 99, fol. 60a.

⁶⁷ Ibid., 117, fol. 73b.

⁶⁸ Ibid., 118, fol. 74a.

⁶⁹ Ibid., 78-9, fols. 53b–44b

⁷⁰ Ibid., 77, fols. 42b, 43a.

⁷¹ Isfahani/Bundari, Zubdat al-Nusra, 144–71. For more detail, see Peacock, “‘Imad al-Din al-Isfahani's Nusrat al-Fatra,” passim.

⁷² Qummi, Dhayl-i Nafthat al-Masdur, 41–53, fols. 16b–25a for praise of Darguzini.

⁷³ Ibid., 53, fol. 24b–25a: ba‘d az Qiwām al-Dīn [Darguzīnī] tā īn ghāyat hīch wazīr dar tamshiyyat-i kār wa nifādh-i awāmir wa nawāhī ‘adīl-i ū nabūd.

⁷⁴ Ibid., 22, fol. 2a.

⁷⁵ Ibid., 96; fol. 56b–57a.

⁷⁶ Ibid., 100, fol. 60b.

⁷⁷ For a useful preliminary attempt see Stephen Charles Fairbanks, “The Tārīkh al-Vuzarā: A History of the Seljuq Bureaucracy” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1977), 113–18.

⁷⁸ Ibid., 117.

⁷⁹ Isfahani/Bundari, Zubdat al-Nusra, 188; Qummi, Dhayl-i Nafthat al-Masdur, 205–6, fol. 137a.

⁸⁰ Fairbanks, “The Tarikh al-Vuzara,” 146–7.

⁸¹ Qummi, Dhayl-i Nafthat al-Masdur, 36, fol. 12b–13a.

⁸² C.E. Bosworth, “Dargazini” EIr.

⁸³ K.A Luther, “A New Source for the History of the Iraq Seljuqs: The Tārīkh al-Vuzarā’,” Der Islam 45 (1969): 117–28, esp. 120.

⁸⁴ Qummi, Dhayl-i Nafthat al-Masdur, 283, fol. 192a.

⁸⁵ Ibid., 284–5, fols. 192b–194b; Luther, “A New Source,” 119.

⁸⁶ As noted by Fairbanks, “The Tārīkh al-Vuzarā,” 13–14.

⁸⁷ See Peacock, “ ‘Imad al-Din al-Isfahani's Nusrat al-Fatra,” 85–8.

⁸⁸ Luther, “A New Source,” 119.

⁸⁹ Qummi, Dhayl-i Nafthat al-Masdur, 325–6, fol. 222b.

⁹⁰ Ibid., 21, fol. 1b.

⁹¹ Western sultans in the period: Muhammad Tapar, 498–511/1105–18 (Great Seljuq, but based in the west); Mahmud b. Muhammad 511–25/1118–31; Da'ud, 525/1131; Tughril b. Muhammad 525–29/1131–34; Mas‘ud b. Muhammad 1529–47/1134–52; Malikshah b. Mahmud 546/1152; Muhammad b. Mahmud 547–54/1153–59.

⁹² Isfahani/Bundari, Zubdat al-Nusra, 115. The best description of the bureaucratic politics of western Iran is in Fairbanks, “The Tarikh al-Vuzara,” see esp. 154–6.

⁹³ These figures are based on the tables of viziers in Carla L. Klausner, The Seljuk Vezirate: A Study of Civil Administration (Cambridge, MA, 1973), 106–9.

⁹⁴ Qummi, Dhayl-i Nafthat al-Masdur, 310–11; fol. 212b.

⁹⁵ See David Durand-Guédy, “The Political Agenda of an Iranian adīb at the Time of the Great Saljuqs: Mafarrukhi's K. Maḥāsin Iṣfahān put into Context,” Nouvelle revue des études iraniennes 1 (2008): 67–105.

⁹⁶ For example, the final pages of the translated text, dealing with the praises of the Ghaznavid amir Nasr, in fact remain entirely in Arabic: Jurbadhqani, Tarjama-i Tarikh-i Yamini, 410–16.

⁹⁷ See Peacock, “‘Utbī's al-Yamīnī,” 500.

⁹⁸ Cahen, “Historiography,” 75.

⁹⁹ I am grateful to David Durand-Guédy for this point.

¹⁰⁰ A point first made by Marilyn Waldman, Toward a Theory of Historical Narrative, a Case Study in Perso-Islamicate Historiography (Columbus, OH, 1980); more recently, on political agendas in Seljuq historiography, see Durand-Guédy, “Political Agenda of an Iranian adīb.”

¹⁰¹ Nonetheless, some works were much more widely read than their current manuscript tradition suggests, the Nusrat al-Fatra being a prime example, which evidently circulated in both Iran and Syria in the twelfth century even though it is only preserved in a single manuscript today. As noted above, the lost Maliknama is also widely cited, suggesting it had quite a broad distribution in the Middle Ages. At any rate, the consistently low number of manuscripts of Seljuq historical works suggests that they had a much more limited distribution than, say, literature.

¹⁰² On these see G.E. Tetley, The Ghaznavid and Seljuk Turks: Poetry as a Source for Iranian History (London, 2009).

¹⁰³ On Nizam al-Mulk and history, see Meisami, Persian Historiography, 144ff.

¹⁰⁴ For an overview see Charles Melville, “Historiography. IV. Mongol period,” EIr.