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THE GHAZNAVID AND SELJUK TURKS
This new view on aspects of the Ghaznavid and the Seljuq dynasties concentrates on the relationship of the panegyric poets Farrukhi Sistani (c. 995— 1032) and Mutizzi (c. 1045-1127) to the Ghaznavid and Seljuk rulers and dignitaries for whom they wrote. Dr Tetley investigates the reliability of the historical sources.
A solid and impressive work of learning, of interest to scholars in Oriental Studies, Medieval Literature, and History, The Ghaznavid and Seljuq Turks is the first extended English study of Mu‘zzi, it presents much new material concerning both this little-studied poet and also the better-known Farrukhi. Additionally, there is a valuable exploration of the relationship between Persians and Turks, a highly significant factor during the rule of the two dynasties.
G. E. Tetley, a graduate of the University of Oxford, worked as a linguist at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham, UK, before embarking on her doctorate.
PREFACE
The present work is a slightly revised version of my doctoral thesis submitted to the University of Oxford in 2002; the bibliography has not been up-dated. The transcription of Arabic and Persian words and names is as recommended by the Jnternational Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. Quotations from ‘Unsuri’s Divan are from the edition of Yahya Qarib unless otherwise stated. In all quotations from Mu‘izzi’s Divan the textual references are to both printed editions, first Iqbal, then Hayyeri, as Hayyeri’s edition, though unsatisfactory in several respects, was published in 1983 and is more likely to be available. In the case of the Se/jik-nama both printed editions have also been quoted, first Afshar’s, then the superior but less generally known version in Jami’ al-tawarikh (see Bibliography).
I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to the following: to Julie Meisami, my supervisor, who first introduced me to the delights of medieval Persian poetry and to the poetry of Farrukhi and Mu‘izzi in particular; to Christine Kennedy, who undertook the exacting and time-consuming task of producing a machine-readable version of my text, and gave valuable advice and support at all times; and to Luke Treadwell, Chase Robinson and Celia Kerslake for their sympathetic interest and occasional very useful suggestions. I have enjoyed much help and kindness from Vicky Sayward and the staff of the Oriental Reading Room of the Bodleian Library, from Eira Spinetti at the Oriental Institute, and from many others. To all of them, and to my family, my heartfelt thanks.
INTRODUCTION
The King’s Musicians are not only the most Skilful, either as to Singing and touching of Instruments, but are commonly the Ablest, and most ingenious Poets in the Kingdom; they sing their own Works, as it is related of Homer, and other Greek poets, who liv’d in his time; they are for the most Part in Praise of the King, and on several Actions of his Life, which they are ingenious enough in Flattery to extol, let them be never so worthy of Blame, and Oblivion.
(Chardin, p. 10)
This elegantly phrased but cynical view of panegyric poetry, the comment of a Persian-speaking European in Iran during the declining years of the Safavid empire (1084—-8/1673—7), though it contains an element of truth, is not how practitioners of the art of court poetry saw their own achievements. Two examples, separated by more than a thousand years but surprisingly similar in phraseology, will suffice. The Roman poet Horace, who addressed panegyrics to the Emperor Augustus and his minister Maecenas in the second half of the first century Bc, claimed that with his poetry he had built a monument more lasting than bronze and grander than the Pyramids; it would outlast the ravages of weather and time and preserve his fame throughout the known world (Odes II, 30). Firdausi, not strictly a court poet, made a comparable claim in a passage of panegyric to Mahmid of Ghazna (vol. V, p. 238, Il. 64-65):
Noble buildings are ruined by rain and by the heat of the sun. I have laid the foundations of a high palace of poetry which will not be damaged by wind and rain.
Bayhaqi, no admirer of the Shahnama, used the same metaphor. His purpose, he said, was to build ‘a foundation for history [tarikh-paya] on which to erect a great building which will last until the end of time’ (TB p. 96). These three very different writers, a court poet, an epic poet who regarded himself as a historian, and a secretary turned historian, all spoke of their work in material terms, as buildings which would last forever, and, in the words of Nizami ‘Aridi, would ‘give immortality to their patrons and the characters in their history’ (CM p. 29). Panegyric poetry as practised by Farrukhi and Mu‘izzi was not history in Firdausi’s sense, but it has a noteworthy historical component.
Close study of the poems of some medieval Persian panegyric poets can provide insights on details of military, political and social history, titulature, topics of current interest and contemporary attitudes thereto, and, more speculatively, indications of possible political undercurrents and intrigues. There is often much of interest on the biography and personality of the poet himself and of his patrons, and on the life of court poets in general. Such information has to be treated with caution. Considerations of etiquette and the established conventions of poetry make it unwise to accept as the literal truth everything the poet says about himself. The dependence of court poets for their livelihood on the continuing favour of princes and other members of the ruling classes, with the difficulties involved in trying to steer a course between rival factions, and the need for rapid adjustment to the sudden death or disgrace of a patron and his replacement by a successor who might well be his bitter enemy, was bound to colour their presentation of events, and could lead to the accusations of insincerity and ‘economy with the truth’ exemplified by Chardin’s words. Nevertheless, it is hoped to demonstrate that panegyric poetry can be a useful addition to and amplification of other sources, especially for a period like that of the Great Seljuqs for which there is little surviving contemporary witness.
The poets whose works can be most profitably studied for historical purposes are those who wrote in celebration of specific events in the patron’s public and private life, ranging from victorious campaigns and appointments to high office, to the birth of a son, recovery from illness, or the construction of a new palace. Public events were frequently commemorated in poems composed for major religious and secular festivals, especially ‘Id al-Fitr, Naurtiz and the autumn festival of Mihragan, while poetry of a less serious nature, often illuminating on the relations between poet and patron, would be recited or sung at private parties. Celebratory poems are of special interest when the patron was the protagonist in a campaign that could be presented as a battle between Islam and the infidel (good and evil); a gifted poet at the patron’s court could give weight, glamour, and, above all, publicity to such campaigns. The magnificent panegyrics of al-Mutanabbi on Sayf alDaula’s Byzantine wars and Farrukhi’s gasida on Mahmtd’s Somnath expedition in 417/1026 are examples of the poet’s role in ensuring his patron’s lasting fame.
Poems relating to less spectacular events may, however, be more significant from a historical point of view, because they may contain a sub-text not evident on a first reading. An instance of this is a gasida (see Chapter 2) addressed to Mahmitd by Farrukhi (p. 256) urging him not to accept overtures from two Chinese rulers. Wars against fellow-Muslims required explanation, and the arguments put forward by Farrukhi and Mu‘izzi, respectively, in favour of such operations as Mahmiid’s seizure of Rayy in 420/1029, and Sanjar’s campaigns against Ghazna in 510/1117 and his nephew Mahmid in 513/1119, are of interest as reflecting the official line on religious heterodoxy as justification for war. Unsuccessful or inglorious campaigns needed careful handling. Manichihri represents the near disaster that ended Mas‘iid’s ill-judged foray in pursuit of Buritigin in winter 430/1038 as an example of noble forbearance towards an enemy beneath contempt (Divan pp. 30-33; Meisami 1990).
Farrukhi and Mu‘izzi were primarily poets of great occasions, the panegyrists of two ethnically Turkish dynasties, the Ghaznavids and the Seljuqs, which successively ruled much of the Iranian world from the end of the tenth to the late twelfth century ce. The Ghaznavids were descended from a Turkish ghulam of the Samanids. They were brought up in the Perso—Islamic tradition of the Samanids, and despite their Turkish origin were culturally and de facto the natural successors of this Persian dynasty; they continued and extended its patronage of literature and scholarship until the death of the last effective Ghaznavid sultan, Bahramshah, in c.552/1157. Mahmid, the first sultan (389-421/998-1030), his eldest son Muhammad, and his much younger brother Yusuf, were Farrukhi’s chief patrons; Mas‘td, his second son and ultimate successor, was also a patron. Farrukhi died comparatively young, and most of his poetry seems to have been written within the space of some 16 or 17 years (c.407—24—5/1016-1032-33), when the Ghaznavid empire was at its zenith. Mu‘izzi, on the other hand, was longlived (c.440-41 to ¢.519/c.1048-49 to c.1125—27) and was poetically active for over 50 years, as the chief poet (amir al-shu’ara) of the third Seljuq sultan Malikshah (465-85/1072-92), and his sons Berkyariiq and Sanjar.
These rulers, while accepting the Perso—Islamic culture inherited from their predecessors, took pride, as the slave-descended Ghaznavids did not, and as Mu‘izzi’s poems make clear, in their Turkish identity and their descent from free nomadic tribesmen, whose leaders had exploited the underlying weaknesses of the Ghaznavids and gone on to build an empire which, by the end of Malikshah’s reign, extended from the Mediterranean to the Oxus. Malikshah and Sanjar were Mu‘izzi’s most important patrons, but he had many others, including members of the royal family, most of the viziers of the day and other senior officials, in particular Nizam al-Mulk and his sons Fakhr al-Mulk and Mu’ayyid al-Mulk. From a list of the events and topics mentioned in his gasidas, the men to whom they were written and the occasions for which they were composed, it would be possible to construct a potted, though in more than one sense partial, history of his age. Like his fellow-Khurdsani Nizam al-Mulk, whose Sivyasat-nama indirectly sheds a good deal of light on the politics and history of his time, Mu‘izzi is valuable as a contemporary recorder of events.
A major reason for concentrating on the historical rather than the literary aspect of the poetry of Farrukhi and Mu‘izzi is that both poets, like Farrukhi’s older contemporary ‘Unsuri, Mahmiid’s Amir al-shu‘ara’, did see themselves as historians to some extent, in that they were describing and celebrating real events, of major importance; they say emphatically and repeatedly that what they record is true, they have seen history in the making, and the stories of Persian kings and heroes presented as history in such works as the Shahnama are stale fairytales compared with the thrilling events of their own time. ‘The story of Alexander has become a legend and grown old; bring on a new discourse, for what is new is sweet’ (Farrukhi, p. 67). ‘Unsurl and Farrukhi both present themselves as eye-witnesses of some of Mahmiid’s campaigns; ‘Unsuri saw the defeat of the Ilig Nasr, the Qarakhanid ruler of Samarqand and Bukhara, at Katar in 398/1008 (Divan pp. 120, 122), and Farrukhi accompanied Mahmid on two Indian campaigns before the Somnath expedition (pp. 67-76). The Ghaznavids were ‘new men’, the first of several dynasties descended from ghulams, which from the early eleventh century onwards ruled parts of the eastern Islamic world. Like the Samanids whom they had displaced, they were devout Sunni Muslims and supporters of the ‘Abbasid caliphate; the Caliph’s name was regularly mentioned in the khutba and on coinage, they regarded his endorsement as essential, and, at any rate at first, set a high value on the titles he bestowed. Mahmid, as the first king of a new dynasty [his father Sebuktigin was technically an officer of the Samdnids; the title on his tomb is al-hajib alajall (Bosworth 1960)], had something to prove, and he had a just appreciation of the propaganda value of appearing as the Ghazi, the champion of Islam. Farrukhi’s gasidas on the Indian campaigns vividly describe the excitement and hardships of the journeys, the exotic and terrifying aspects of the lands traversed by the army, and the final triumph over the infidel. The courage, determination, faith in God and supreme generalship of the Sultan are given constant praise, while the reverses and losses are passed over or played down; it was not the court poet’s business to draw attention to the darker side of a glorious victory.
Whether Seljuq sultans took their poets with them on campaign is not known. Mu‘izzi wrote stirring and dramatic gasidas on the victories of Malikshah and Sanjar, but his poems lack the sense of personal experience that marks some of Farrukhi’s Indian panegyrics. As Malikshah’s chief poet, Mu‘izzi might have been expected to accompany the Sultan, but he never claims to have done so or to have witnessed the battles he describes; the rapidity with which Malikshah could move suggests that he may have preferred, like his ancestors, to travel light, without the retinue that accompanied Ghaznavid sultans. The Seljiik-nama records that in the space of one year (481/1090) he made his second visit to Syria, travelled to Antioch and Latakia and watered his horses in the Mediterranean, appointed governors for Aleppo, Antioch and Mosul, and returned to Iran; he then went to Samarqand, captured it and took the Khan prisoner, continued to Uzgend and left governors in every city as far as the borders of Khita and Khutan (approximately the farthest extent of the Qarakhanid dominions), made a visit to his governor in Khwarazm, and finally returned to Isfahan (ZD 31, 46-7). Even in modern terms this is a formidable amount of travelling.
Part of the standard hyperbole of court poetry was the claim that the monarch far outdid any king or hero of old in prowess in battle, greatness as a ruler, generosity and splendour. The heroes with whom Ghaznavid and Seljuq princes were routinely compared were the major figures of pre-Islamic Persian history and legend, the Kayanid and Sasanian kings, Alexander, and especially Rostam and his family, of whom Farrukhi has very little good to say, despite their Sistani origin and his own attachment to Sistan, his birthplace. Although it seems surprising that Persian poets should be so dismissive of what was part of their heritage, there may be reasons for this. They had grown up in the traditions of the Samanids, who, though promoting the use of the Persian language and patronising Persian poets, still saw Arabic, the language of religion and the chancery, as the primary language of scholarship and culture. While Persian lyric poetry followed Arabic models in its use of monorhyme and Arabic metres, and contained much Arabic vocabulary, Firdausi looked to the dihgan culture of the pre-Islamic period; the characters in his epic were the Iranian heroes of the dihqans. He used a Persian verse-form, the masnavi, and his language was almost entirely Persian, with very little Arabic vocabulary. His own words suggest that he did not seek Mahmid’s patronage until he was approaching seventy; this would fit with 401/1010, the date when tradition says he presented the Shahnama to Mahmid. The Sultan, interested only in his own achievements, may have found these stories of ancient heroes, written in archaic language, old-fashioned and irrelevant. Bayhaqi, however, records being present once in Bust when Mahmid ordered a captured wild ass to be branded with his name before release, because his gawwadls told him that this was the practice of Bahram Gir (TB 505).
Despite the panegyrics to Mahmitd, his brother Nasr and his vizier Isfara’Ini in the Shahnama, neither the poem nor its author were wellreceived at court, and its claims to be a work of history were generally rejected. Farrukhi, without naming Firdausi, says ‘the Shahnama is a lie from end to end’ (p. 346, 1. 9); Mu‘izzi does name him, and explicitly accuses him of lying in the Shahnama, especially about Rostam, who will call him to account at the Resurrection (p. 268, 1. 6452). These lies are the tales of Rostam’s seven labours, the haft-khwan, and the Simurgh’s feather, examples of the fantastic and supernatural elements that made it impossible for contemporary poets and historians to regard Firdausi’s epic as history. Birtini’s jibe in the Kitab al-saydéna (p. 12), written in his extreme old age, about Persian being only fit for tales of kings and night-time storytelling, is probably directed against the Shahnama; it follows a complaint about the appointment of officials not well-versed in Arabic.
Bayhaqji, similarly, in his khutba on history (TB 666) pours scorn on the preference of ordinary people (‘amma) for fairytales and fantasy. Like his contemporary Gardizi (p. 61), he emphasises the importance of truthful reporting and reliable sources, especially eye-witness:
The eyes and ears are the observers and spies of the heart [dil], which convey to the heart what they see and hear ... and the heart submits what it has received from them to the intellect [Ahirad], which is a just judge, to separate what is true from what is false and to uphold what is useful and reject what is not.
In other words, although ‘sense-data’ are the essential raw material of history, they must be sifted and their accuracy and intrinsic probability judged by a critical intelligence. Accordingly, Bayhaqi uses a number of well-placed informants, ranging from the vizier Ahmad b.‘Abd al-Samad and Abt: Nasr Mishkan, who was head of the Divan-i rasa@’il in the reigns of Mahmiid and Mas‘tid, Bayhaqi’s chief and the principal source of his information on highlevel meetings and diplomatic exchanges, to one of Muhammad’s court musicians and the woman who controlled Mas‘tid’s harem (TB 531-33, 70-75, 396). His own eye-witness accounts of Mas‘iid’s punitive expedition to Gurgan and Tabaristan in the spring of 426/1035 (TB 448-63), and the disastrous battle of Dandaénqan in Ramadan 431/May 1040 (TB 620-30) are among the liveliest passages in his book. Farrukhi, in his Somnath gasida, also comments on the human liking for stories of travel and adventure, the reasons for the popularity of the story of Alexander (the Alexander of romance), and contrasts his wanderings in search of the water of life with Mahmiid’s campaign against idolaters. The descriptions of the Thar desert and its poisonous snakes, the great cistern, the bloodshed and destruction in Somnath, the crossing of the tidal Indus and the arduous return journey are Farrukhi’s own observations; the place-names he mentions have been used by Nazim (pp. 115-22) to elucidate the details of Mahmiid’s route.
While panegyric poems may throw light on past events, knowledge of the historical background derived from other sources, contemporary or based on reliable contemporary evidence, can clear up obscurities and difficulties in the poems, and make it possible sometimes to suggest approximate dates of composition, on the assumption that this may be fairly close to the events mentioned. Patrons were, however, sometimes praised for great deeds that had occurred many years earlier, poems referring to certain subjects might be held back for political reasons, and marthiyas were not always produced immediately after a death. The ambiguity of Farrukhi’s references to the unnamed vali-‘ahd in his marthiya on Mahmid suggests, as do several other poems, that he was hedging his bets on the succession to Mahmid (see Chapter 3).
The period of Farrukhi’s lifetime is unusually rich in contemporary historians. ‘Utbi’s Tarikh al-Yamini, translated from Arabic into Persian by Jurbadhqani in 603/1206—7, takes the reign of Mahmiid up to 411/1020.
Three Persian historians who wrote, or began their writing career, in the 440s/1050s, Gardizi, the anonymous author of the Tarikh-i Sistan, and Bayhaqi, cover the period from Mahmiid’s accession to the death of Mas‘tid in 432/1041. Gardizi’s Zayn al-akhbar gives a straightforward, generally concise account of Mahmiid’s reign, valuable for the details of his campaigns, in some of which the author himself took part (pp. 61-62). The Tarikh-i Sistan is useful both for Mahmiid’s dealings with this province and for Farrukhi’s background. Bayhadi is essential reading for any study of Farrukhi, though the surviving part of his history, spanning the final months of Muhammad’s reign and nearly all of Mas‘tid’s, postdates the time when Farrukhi’s poetic output was at its peak. The frequent digressions of Bayhaqi’s chronicle, and its references to events that occurred many years previously, partially compensate for the loss of most of his coverage of Mahmiid’s reign. By relating the fate of several of Farrukhi’s major patrons — the deposition and imprisonment of Muhammad, the execution of Hasanak, the consequences of Amir Yisuf’s love for his treacherous ghulam Toghril, the death within weeks of the old enemies Maymandi and Hasiri — he fills in the picture, adding an extra dimension of irony and sometimes pathos to the idealised portraits required by the conventions of court poetry.
Bayhaqi was a civil servant rather than a courtier, the deputy and trusted confidant of his loved and respected ustad Abt Nasr Mishkan, himself the confidant of sultans and viziers. He provides valuable information on many of Farrukhi’s patrons, some of whom were his colleagues and friends, and as well as making it possible to identify characters who would otherwise be unknown, he sheds new light on some of the major figures. Mas‘iid, seen from the civil servant’s perspective, is capricious, lacking in judgment and forethought, indecisive but easily persuaded into taking actions afterwards regretted, too much devoted to hunting and wine-drinking, and increasingly unwilling to accept unpalatable advice. He comes across as a more interesting, complicated and in some respects tragic character than the larger than life warrior, hunter, elephant-rider and lion-slayer, lover of the essential kingly pursuits of razm u bazm, usually depicted by Farrukhi and Manichihri. The court poets present the public image of the prince; the secretary turned historian shows the man as he saw him. Both views are essential parts of the total picture.
Although the greater part of Bayhaqi’s Tarikh (there is some doubt about the exact title) is lost, substantial quotations from the ‘Magamat of Abt Nasr Mishkan’ survive in the Timurid historian ‘Uqayli’s Athar al-wuzara@’ (pp. 153-92). Told in the first person by Abt Nasr himself, they describe in detail the intrigues that led to the dismissal of Maymandi from the vizierate in 416/1025. ‘Uqayli states that the author (musarrif) of the Magamat was Abit al-Fadl Bayhaqi (p. 178), and it now seems to be generally accepted that the extracts quoted by ‘Uqayli are in fact from Bayhaqi’s Tarikh. Bayhaqi’s practice of including long first-person narratives by informants he considered reliable has already been indicated. He implies that he is using the actual words of his sources, presumably written down during extended conversations; ‘Abd al-Ghaffar, the authority for the story of Mas‘tid’s youth, provided Bayhaqi with a written text (TB 110). To what extent Bayhaqi remodelled his sources is not clear. He must have done so in the case of Birtni’s lost history of Khwarazm, which he acknowledges as his chief authority for the events leading to the fall of the Ma’mitnid dynasty in 408/1017 and the occupation of Khwarazm by Mahmid (TB 667 ff.). Although he quotes Birini at length as the first-person eye-witness of these events, it remains doubtful whether Birtini in fact wrote like this; Bayhaqi admits that it is many years since he saw the book, which was written in Arabic, and what he has produced is very much in his own style.
There is useful material on the Ghaznavids in the Majma’ al-ansab of the Ikhanid historian Shabank4ra’l (d.759/1358), the only source for Sebuktigin’s Pand-nama, or letter of advice to his son Mahmid, which, if genuine, is one of the earliest surviving Persian ‘Mirrors for Princes’ (pp. 70-73; Bosworth 1960). Shabankdra’i’s account of the reigns of Mahmtid, Muhammad and Mas‘iid is probably based, at least in part, on the lost books of Bayhaqji’s history. Shabankdra’i’s narrative of the deposition and imprisonment of Muhammad in September 421/1030, although considerably shorter than Bayhaqi’s version and different in tone, quotes a line from a favourite Arabic poem of Muhammad, which surely must have come from the eye-witness report of the musician ‘Abd al-Rahmdn cited by Bayhaqi (p. 75; TB 76). Where comparisons are possible, as in this case, Shabankara’l is revealed as selective, abbreviating and simplifying his source. His style is simple and lively, possibly aimed at an audience that was not fluent in Persian. His work should, perhaps, be treated with caution, but he is valuable as being the only writer to describe in detail the process by which Muhammad, apparently against his better judgment, was persuaded to claim the throne after his father’s death (pp. 70-75). The relevant part of Bayhaqi is missing, and neither Gardizi (pp. 92-93) nor Ibn al-Athir (IA IX p. 282) suggest that Muhammad was unwilling to accept the succession. Shabankdara’l is very perfunctory on the latter part of Mas‘tid’s reign, and the catastrophic battles with the Seljuqs that led to the Sultan’s downfall and subsequent murder, though he does include Bayhaqi’s story of the drug-induced sleep that lost Mas‘tid the opportunity of capturing Toghril Beg (whom he confuses with Alp Arslan) (p. 81; TB 604). He may not have had access to the whole of Bayhaqi’s history, and he gives the impression of having read it rather carelessly. According to Ibn Fundugq in the Tarikh-i Bayhaq, written c.555/1160, the work ran to over 30 volumes; he says he had seen some in the library of Sarakhs, others in the library of Mahd-i Iraq (in Nishapir), but nowhere a complete set (p. 303). Much of it may have been lost at a fairly early stage, and the destruction of libraries by Ghurids and Mongols would have contributed further to its disappearance.
The sources for Mu‘izzi’s lifetime are much less satisfactory. As Cahen (p.60) remarks, commenting on the meagreness of the information available, ‘the Great Seljugs produced no historian during their lifetime’. The only contemporary writings of any note that have survived, all in Persian, are a mixture; each has some historical value, but none of them could be described as a history of the period. Nizim al-Mulk’s Siyasat-nama (Siyar al-Mulik), probably completed in 484/1091, a year before his murder, contains anecdotes of his life, but its chief value lies in the light shed on his views on government, especially in connection with current events, and indirectly on his relationship with Sultan Malikshah. Ghazali’s Fada’il al-anam, a posthumous collection of letters addressed during the last ten years of his life to Sanjar, some of his ministers and officials, and other dignitaries, illustrates his relations with Sanjar and his concern for the welfare of his birthplace Tis. The anonymous Mujmal al-tawarikh, completed in 520/1126, has a short section on the Seljuqs. Finally, the Divan of Mu‘izzi himself, covering a period of more than 50 years from 465—6/1072—3, contains poems with some interesting historical components.
None of these writings can be considered as major sources for this period. The essential sources divide into two, reflecting the split that developed after Malikshah’s death between the western and eastern halves of the Seljuq empire: the one group mostly Arabic, by writers living in and chiefly interested in western Persia and Iraq, and the other Persian, whose principal representative was Zahir al-Din Nishapiri, who as a Khurasadni was as much interested in the east as the west. The ‘Arabic’ group is based on a Persian text, the lost memoirs of Antishirvan b.Khdalid, treasurer and ‘arid al-jaysh to Sultan Muhammad b.Malikshah, and subsequently vizier to his sons Mahmiid and Mas‘id. These memoirs were translated into Arabic, amplified and brought up to date by ‘Imad al-Din al-Isfahani in his Nusrat al-fatra (completed in 579/1183), which was used by Ibn al-Athir. An abbreviated, simplified version was made by Bundari in 623/1226. The only Persian work belonging to this group is the earliest, the Mujmal al-tawarikh, a general history of the Muslim world by an anonymous author whose interest in and references to Hamadan and Asadabad suggest that he came from that area; for example, he remarks on the date of the name change in the khutba in Hamadan after the Caliph al-Mustazhir’s death in 511/1118 (p. 413). There is no dedication nor indication of a possible patron. Among the writers he claims to have studied for the history of the early Persian kings, he includes Ibn al-Muqaffa’, Hamza al-Isfahani and Tabari, but also lists authors of epic poetry, which he evidently regarded as a serious historical source. Unlike Farrukhi and his own contemporary Mu‘izzi, he speaks of the Shahnama with great respect, appears to have known it well, and quotes ‘Hakim’ Firdausi four times (pp. 3, 8, 31, 41); he also mentions the Garshasp-nama of Asadi of Tis, the Faramurz-nama and other masnavis, and the prose Shahnama of Abt’l-Mu’ayyid Balkhi (pp. 2, 3).
The Mujmal is not a major source for the Seljuqs; only 10 of the 500 or so pages of the book are devoted to them, and the coverage of individual reigns is necessarily brief. The topic that most concerned the author was the Ismaili (Batini) threat. He mentions the murder of several notables by Batinis, and describes Sultan Muhammad’s campaigns against the Isma’ilis of Isfahan in more detail than is usual with him, making it clear that the capture of their stronghold Dizktth and the execution of their leader ‘Attash did not put an end to the problem. On the other hand, he is extremely perfunctory on the reign of Sanjar, and seems to have known little about eastern affairs. Cahen’s important article mentions the Mujmal only very briefly, but it deserves attention because of its early date, the fact that it was written in Persian by a scholar who, unlike Bayhaqi and the court, admired and respected the tales of the ancient kings, and, more importantly, because it illustrates the difference of outlook and interests between the western and eastern halves of the Seljuq empire. The conflict with the Isma’ilis, which, according to the Mujmal and the Seljiik-nama, was the major preoccupation of Muhammad’s reign, appears to have been of comparatively little interest to Sanjar, based in Marv and concerned primarily with his eastern frontiers, although he sent expeditions against the Isma’ili stronghold, Tabas, in 494/1101 and 497/1104, and lost more than one vizier to the knives of their assassins. This lack of interest is reflected in Mu‘izzi’s poetry: his royal panegyrics contain no explicit references to Batinis, in striking contrast to the gloating over the number of ‘Qarmatis’ (the usual Ghaznavid name for Isma‘ilis) killed by Mahmid, which is to be found in several of Farrukhi’s poems (e.g. pp. 216, 223-24, 266). To Sanjar, the Isma’ilis were an occasional irritant; to Mahmid their presence in Multan and Rayy was a justification for attacking fellow-Muslims, in the interests of upholding religious orthodoxy.
The second group of sources is entirely Persian, and appears to be quite separate from the first. The fundamental text is the Seljitk-nama of Zahir alDin Nishapiri, who was tutor to the Seljuq Sultan Arslan b.Toghril (556—71/ 1162-76), and may have acquired information in the royal court or in the archives. The text was preserved in Kashani’s Zubdat al-tawarikh and, in a rather better, and much better edited version, in Rashid al-Din’s Jami’ altawarikh (vol. 2, part 5). Its use was acknowledged by Ravandi (a relative of the author) as the basis of his Rahat al-sudur of 601/1204—5; in this, the narrative is interrupted and amplified by commentary on events, in the shape of Qur’anic verses, Arabic proverbs, anecdotes and many quotations, from Arabic and, much more frequently, Persian poetry. Firdausi is the author most quoted; this seems to point to a changed attitude to the Shahnama during the sixth/twelfth century, already noted in the Mujmal (Meisami 1994).
The Sel/jiik-nama, written after 571/1176, is a straightforward but selective account of the Seljuq sultans and their reigns, in which attention is chiefly focused on dramatic and paradigmatic events and their consequences. For The sources for Mu‘izzi’s lifetime are much less satisfactory. As Cahen (p.60) remarks, commenting on the meagreness of the information available, ‘the Great Seljugs produced no historian during their lifetime’. The only contemporary writings of any note that have survived, all in Persian, are a mixture; each has some historical value, but none of them could be described as a history of the period. Nizim al-Mulk’s Siyasat-nama (Siyar al-Mulik), probably completed in 484/1091, a year before his murder, contains anecdotes of his life, but its chief value lies in the light shed on his views on government, especially in connection with current events, and indirectly on his relationship with Sultan Malikshah. Ghazali’s Fada’il al-anam, a posthumous collection of letters addressed during the last ten years of his life to Sanjar, some of his ministers and officials, and other dignitaries, illustrates his relations with Sanjar and his concern for the welfare of his birthplace Tis. The anonymous Mujmal al-tawarikh, completed in 520/1126, has a short section on the Seljuqs. Finally, the Divan of Mu‘izzi himself, covering a period of more than 50 years from 465—6/1072—3, contains poems with some interesting historical components.
None of these writings can be considered as major sources for this period. The essential sources divide into two, reflecting the split that developed after Malikshah’s death between the western and eastern halves of the Seljuq empire: the one group mostly Arabic, by writers living in and chiefly interested in western Persia and Iraq, and the other Persian, whose principal representative was Zahir al-Din Nishapiri, who as a Khurasadni was as much interested in the east as the west. The ‘Arabic’ group is based on a Persian text, the lost memoirs of Antishirvan b.Khdalid, treasurer and ‘arid al-jaysh to Sultan Muhammad b.Malikshah, and subsequently vizier to his sons Mahmiid and Mas‘id. These memoirs were translated into Arabic, amplified and brought up to date by ‘Imad al-Din al-Isfahani in his Nusrat al-fatra (completed in 579/1183), which was used by Ibn al-Athir. An abbreviated, simplified version was made by Bundari in 623/1226. The only Persian work belonging to this group is the earliest, the Mujmal al-tawarikh, a general history of the Muslim world by an anonymous author whose interest in and references to Hamadan and Asadabad suggest that he came from that area; for example, he remarks on the date of the name change in the khutba in Hamadan after the Caliph al-Mustazhir’s death in 511/1118 (p. 413). There is no dedication nor indication of a possible patron. Among the writers he claims to have studied for the history of the early Persian kings, he includes Ibn al-Muqaffa’, Hamza al-Isfahani and Tabari, but also lists authors of epic poetry, which he evidently regarded as a serious historical source. Unlike Farrukhi and his own contemporary Mu‘izzi, he speaks of the Shahnama with great respect, appears to have known it well, and quotes ‘Hakim’ Firdausi four times (pp. 3, 8, 31, 41); he also mentions the Garshasp-nama of Asadi of Tis, the Faramurz-nama and other masnavis, and the prose Shahnama of Abt’l-Mu’ayyid Balkhi (pp. 2, 3).
The Mujmal is not a major source for the Seljuqs; only 10 of the 500 or so pages of the book are devoted to them, and the coverage of individual reigns is necessarily brief. The topic that most concerned the author was the Ismaili (Batini) threat. He mentions the murder of several notables by Batinis, and describes Sultan Muhammad’s campaigns against the Isma’ilis of Isfahan in more detail than is usual with him, making it clear that the capture of their stronghold Dizktth and the execution of their leader ‘Attash did not put an end to the problem. On the other hand, he is extremely perfunctory on the reign of Sanjar, and seems to have known little about eastern affairs. Cahen’s important article mentions the Mujmal only very briefly, but it deserves attention because of its early date, the fact that it was written in Persian by a scholar who, unlike Bayhaqi and the court, admired and respected the tales of the ancient kings, and, more importantly, because it illustrates the difference of outlook and interests between the western and eastern halves of the Seljuq empire. The conflict with the Isma’ilis, which, according to the Mujmal and the Seljiik-nama, was the major preoccupation of Muhammad’s reign, appears to have been of comparatively little interest to Sanjar, based in Marv and concerned primarily with his eastern frontiers, although he sent expeditions against the Isma’ili stronghold, Tabas, in 494/1101 and 497/1104, and lost more than one vizier to the knives of their assassins. This lack of interest is reflected in Mu‘izzi’s poetry: his royal panegyrics contain no explicit references to Batinis, in striking contrast to the gloating over the number of ‘Qarmatis’ (the usual Ghaznavid name for Isma‘ilis) killed by Mahmid, which is to be found in several of Farrukhi’s poems (e.g. pp. 216, 223-24, 266). To Sanjar, the Isma’ilis were an occasional irritant; to Mahmid their presence in Multan and Rayy was a justification for attacking fellow-Muslims, in the interests of upholding religious orthodoxy.
The second group of sources is entirely Persian, and appears to be quite separate from the first. The fundamental text is the Seljitk-nama of Zahir alDin Nishapiri, who was tutor to the Seljuq Sultan Arslan b.Toghril (556—71/ 1162-76), and may have acquired information in the royal court or in the archives. The text was preserved in Kashani’s Zubdat al-tawarikh and, in a rather better, and much better edited version, in Rashid al-Din’s Jami’ altawarikh (vol. 2, part 5). Its use was acknowledged by Ravandi (a relative of the author) as the basis of his Rahat al-sudur of 601/1204—5; in this, the narrative is interrupted and amplified by commentary on events, in the shape of Qur’anic verses, Arabic proverbs, anecdotes and many quotations, from Arabic and, much more frequently, Persian poetry. Firdausi is the author most quoted; this seems to point to a changed attitude to the Shahnama during the sixth/twelfth century, already noted in the Mujmal (Meisami 1994).
The Sel/jiik-nama, written after 571/1176, is a straightforward but selective account of the Seljuq sultans and their reigns, in which attention is chiefly focused on dramatic and paradigmatic events and their consequences. For example, in the reign of Alp Arslan (455-65/1063—72), only three events are described at length: the dismissal and execution of the vizier Kunduri at the instigation of Nizim al-Mulk, the battle of Manzikert in 463/1071 and its aftermath, and the murder of Alp Arslin while he was campaigning in Transoxania. Malikshah’s reign also receives somewhat arbitrary treatment. Nizam al-Mulk features almost as prominently in the story as the rather shadowy figure of his master, and the last part of Zahir al-Din’s narrative is taken up with the intrigues that led to the vizier’s fall from favour and his murder by Ismaili assassins, possibly with the complicity of his rival Taj alMulk Abwt’l-Ghana’im. This recalled Nizam al-Mulk’s own part in the death of Kunduri and was seen as an omen of things to come. The sudden death of Malikshah himself closes the narrative. To Zahir al-Din history was exemplary, not a mere chronicle; in this, he follows Bayhaqi and, though there is no direct evidence that he was familiar with Bayhaqi’s work, there is a resemblance between a passage in Bayhaqi (the comment of Hasanak’s mother on his execution) and a passage in the Seljik-nama (Kunduri’s comment on his own imminent death) that may be more than a coincidence (TB 189; ZD p. 3/31). The Seljik-nama, or its derivative Rahat al-sudir, appears to have been the only work on Seljuq history available to later Persian historians; Rashid al-Din incorporated it into Jami’ al-tawarikh, and Shabank4ara’l seems to have used it for his brief account of the Seljuqs.
The historical work that is of the greatest importance for the Seljuq era, the backbone of any study of the period, and which also contains valuable information on the Ghaznavids, is Ibn al-Athir’s al-Kamil fi al-tarikh (vols IX, X, XI). The coverage of events in the area of the Islamic world ranging from Syria to Transoxania is patchy but at times extensive, evidently depending on the availability of sources. Ibn al-Athir very seldom names his sources; it would, for example, be interesting to know the origin of the long digression on the Qarakhanids (IA IX pp. 209-13), which Nazim (p. 47, n.3) condemns as being confused, but which the present writer has found useful. The consensus of opinion seems to be that Ibn al-Athir did not know Persian, at any rate not well enough to be able to use Persian sources, but there is no positive evidence on this either way. His chief source for Ghaznavid history and the history of Khurdsan under the Seljuqs was Ibn Funduq’s lost Masharib al-tajarib, written in Arabic in the second half of the sixth/twelfth century (Cahen pp. 64-66). Some confirmation of this can perhaps be found in two items in the Kamil that appear to have come from Bayhaqi’s history, to which, as we have seen, Ibn Funduq had access. The first is the description of the flash flood that hit Ghazna in Rajab 422/July 1031, causing great damage, including the destruction of a bridge built by the Saffarid ‘Amr b.Layth (TB 260-62; IA IX p. 280). The second is an item in the obituary of Mas‘tid (IA IX p. 333); he is said to have given a poet 1000 dinars for one gasida, and 1000 dirhams to another poet for every bayt. This sounds like a garbled version of the gifts to ‘Unsuri and Zaynabi ‘Alavi at Mihragan 422/1031 recorded by Bayhaqi (TB 274). On the western half of the Seljuq empire, Ibn al-Athir had access to the writings of ‘Imad alDin al-Isfahani and Ibn al-Jauzi (Richards 1982, p. 87), and perhaps others now lost.
The historical aspect of the poetry of Farrukhi and Mu‘izzi evokes comparisons between the Ghaznavid and Seljuq courts. The wider question of linguistic and cultural differences between the two dynasties will be considered later. As far as it is possible to judge it appears that the Seljuqs, with no tradition of formal rulership, took over the forms and ceremonies of Perso— Islamic kingship as practised by their Ghaznavid predecessors, just as they took over the Persian bureaucracy that had run the Ghaznavid empire. They also adopted the title ‘Sultan’; the Ghaznavids had been the first major dynasty to make this the official title of the ruler, from the reign of Mahmid onwards. Although it does not appear on their coinage until the reign of Farrukhzad (445-51/1053-9) (Bosworth 1960), Bayhaqi uses it in the headings of official documents, while usually referring to Mahmid, Muhammad and Mas'‘td as ‘Amir’, as does Gardizi. Farrukhi, who showers all the princes, including Mahmiid’s brother Yusuf who was never in the line of succession, with such titles as malik, shahanshah, padshah, shahriyar, is very careful with ‘Sultan’, reserving it for Mahmid and Mas'‘tid. In the courts of both dynasties the sultan was the source of power and authority, the sun around whom other luminaries revolved. He had his group of intimates, the nadims, whose function was primarily social (Mahmiid’s nadim and close friend Hasiri, a major patron of Farrukhi, was an exception), and who were able to distance themselves from the constant intrigues and restless jockeying for position by officials trying to gain the sultan’s ear and win his favour; Bayhaqi’s history and Athar al-wuzara@ often feature such intrigues, and the plots against Nizam al-Mulk bear witness to a similar situation in the Seljuq court.
One difference between the two courts appears to have been the degree of control exercised by the sultans over the day-to-day running of affairs. It is clear from both Bayhaqi and Athar al-wuzara@ that the Ghaznavid sultans, Mahmid in particular, kept a close watch on the workings of their administration and the activities of its principal functionaries. They had an extensive network of informers, whom they used even against members of their own family (TB 121-25). Mahmitd was well-known to be extremely acute and suspicious (zirak a dirbin) (TB 137), and the description in Athar al-wuzara@’ (p. 153 ff.) of Maymandi’s downfall illustrates Mahmitd’s suspicious nature, his promotion of discord and jealousy among his courtiers and officials in order to prevent the formation of power blocs, and the atmosphere of intrigue and uncertainty thus created. Mas‘iid also made much use of informers (TB 217-18, 322), and Bayhaqi comments that he was an expert in such matters (TB 295-96); but after the manoeuvres of the first year of his reign, in which he disposed of most of the ‘Mahmidiyan’, stalwarts of his father’s reign who had put Muhammad on the throne, he took an increasingly spasmodic interest in affairs of state, devoting much of his time to hunting and drinking. The contrast between him and his father is reflected in the works of their principal poets. ‘Unsuri and Farrukhi celebrate great occasions and glorious victories, Mantchihri celebrates the delights of the vintage, the charms of spring and the beauty of nature, and although he praises Mas‘tid as a great warrior and king, references to specific achievements are rare.
The Seljuq sultans took less interest in intelligence and administrative detail. Alp Arslan, much to Nizam al-Mulk’s disapproval (SN p. 71), refused to employ informers and agents, on the grounds that they could be bribed to send in false reports and so make trouble. It seems that there was a division between the court and the Persian secretariat, the dargah and the divan, which had not existed in the time of Mahmitid and Mas‘td, when Abi Nasr Mishkan, the head of the Divan-i rasa@’il, was the trusted confidant of Mahmid (‘Uqayli pp. 160, 188-89), and, to a lesser extent, of Mas‘tid. This may have been, in part, a matter of language. The Seljuq sultans preserved their Turkish identity and speech, and while Malikshah, growing up under the aegis of Nizém al-Mulk, had Persian nadims who included ‘Umar Khayyam and one of Mu‘tizzi’s patrons, Sayyid al-Ru‘asé Abt’l-Mahasin, most of Sanjar’s intimates were Turks, one of whom was even briefly appointed to the vizierate (516/1122-3). The Seljuq leaders who invaded Khurdsan from 426/1035 onwards appear to have had at least a working knowledge of Persian. Bayhaqi’s account of the entry of Toghril Beg and his kinsman Ibrahim Indl into Nishaptr in 429/1038 quotes an eye-witness, the sahib-barid of Nishapir (TB 550 ff.), and gives no indication that there was any difficulty in communicating with the notables of Nishaptr; nothing is said about interpreters.
The Seljuqs seemed, however, very exotic at first to their Persian subjects. The description of Alp Arslan that introduces the account of his reign in the Seljitk-nama (ZD pp. 23/30) makes much of his terrifying appearance, great height and immensely long moustaches. At the same time, because of their ignorance of the practicalities of running an empire, the Seljuqs were much more dependent than the Ghaznavids on their Persian officials. Though Nizam al-Mulk speaks of Alp Arslan in the Sivasat-nama with great respect and fear, and went to considerable lengths to avoid being suspected of heresy by him (SN pp. 96-97), he was able to manipulate the Sultan into dismissing and ultimately executing his rival, Toghril Beg’s vizier Kunduri, and to establish an ascendancy over the Seljuq empire that lasted for nearly 30 years. Malikshah’s accession to the throne at the age of 18, his inexperience, and the immediate challenge from his uncle Qavurd created a dependence on Nizam al-Mulk, both as vizier and as father-figure, which Malikshah did not completely throw off until the final year of his reign. Nizam al-Mulk’s position was unique, bridging the cultural and functional divide between divan and dargah, between Persians and Turks; he was both the head of the Persian bureaucracy and Malikshah’s atabeg, acting as guardian to the young prince. There is some doubt whether he officially held this purely Turkish title (Lambton 1988, p. 230); Mu‘izzi, however, twice includes it in a list of his titles (pp. 235, 370), while the Seljuk-nama records an occasion when Malikshah addressed him as ‘father’ (pidar) (ZD pp. 31/46). No other vizier, Ghaznavid or Seljuq, ever held a position of such power.
Another notable difference between the Ghaznavid and Seljuq courts was the position of the ladies of the royal family. The wives, daughters and mothers of Ghaznavid sultans are nearly all anonymous, and are only mentioned briefly, usually on the occasion of a wedding or a death. The single exception is Mahmiid’s sister Hurra-i Khuttali, evidently a woman of strong personality, intelligent and literate, who had much influence with her brother. She had been married to the last Ma’mtnid Khwarazmshah, and later to the ruler of Khuttalan, but seems to have spent much of her time at Mahmiid’s court; according to Athar al-wuzara’ she was Maymandi’s enemy and involved in the intrigues against him (p. 153). She was an ardent partisan of Mas‘td in the succession struggle. Bayhaqi implies that she acted as an intelligencer on his behalf while he was governor of Herat, and she wrote to him in Isfahan informing him of his father’s death and urging an immediate return to Ghazna. In the last year of his reign, she, his mother and other female relatives sent him supplies to replace the baggage lost at Dandanqan, and later tried, unsuccessfully, to dissuade him from abandoning Ghazna for India (TB 13, 122, 639, 660).
The Seljuq royal ladies played a much more prominent role in public life, and seem to have enjoyed a considerable degree of political and financial independence. Most of those whose names have survived were Qarakhanid or Seljuq princesses; both dynasties were prolific, and there was much intermarriage between the various branches of the royal families. These princesses owned large estates and had their kadkhudas or viziers; some were wellknown for their charitable works (Lambton 1988, pp. 35, 259, 269). The most famous and influential royal wife of this period was Malikshah’s chief wife Terken Khattin, daughter of Tamghach Khan Abi Ishaq Ibrahim, the Qarakhanid ruler of Samarqand and Bukhara. Her determination to secure the succession for her son Mahmid brought her into conflict with Nizdm alMulk, who favoured Berkydrtiq, the eldest son of Malikshah by his first cousin Zubayda Khatin. Malikshah, in his late thirties increasingly resentful of Nizam al-Mulk’s domination, was urged by Terken Khattin to replace him with her own vizier Taj al-Mulk Abi’l-Ghana’Im; she failed, but the bitterness felt by Nizam al-Mulk is reflected in a tirade against ‘those who wear the veil’, denouncing the evils of female intervention in affairs of state (SN ch. 42). Zubayda Khatiin too involved herself in political intrigue, and thereby brought about her own death; she was a party to the dismissal of Nizém al-Mulk’s son Mu’ayyid al-Mulk from the vizierate in Berkydrtiq’s reign, and in revenge Mu’ayyid al-Mulk had her strangled (IA X p. 195). A third wife of Malikshah, Taj al-Din Khatin, the mother of Sultans Muhammad and Sanjar, was, unusually for a woman, the mamdih of a number of poems by Mu‘izzi; these, and what is known of her life, are discussed in Chapter 7.
Awareness of the historical context can enhance the appreciation of
Farrukhi’s and Mu‘izzi’s poems as art; and much panegyric poetry makes better sense if the events to which it refers can be identified and dated. To dismiss panegyric poetry as a possible historical source is to lose something potentially valuable, as several previous writers have demonstrated. Nazim’s use of Farrukhi’s Somnath gasida has already been mentioned, and he quotes Farrukhi as a source for details of other Indian campaigns. Gulam Mustafa Khan made notable additions to the existing information on Bahramshah (512—52/1118—57), by studying the panegyrics of contemporary poets (IC 1949). Iqbal (1959), the editor of the first, and most useful, printed text of Mu‘izzi’s Divan, quotes copiously from Mu‘izzi and other poets, both Persian and Arabic, when writing on the Seljuq vizierate. Meisami (1990) has pointed out the possible political implications of certain poems of ‘Unsuri, Farrukhi and Manitchihri; Imami (1994) claims Farrukhi as an important source, on a par with Birini and Gardizi, regarding India, Mahmiid’s relations with the Qarakhanid khans, and conditions in Sistan under Ghaznavid rule (pp. 39-40). Much more has been written about Farrukhi’s life and poetry than Mu‘izzi’s. Farrukhi is a poet of great charm, famous for his easy and graceful style and light touch; his chief patron was one of the most celebrated Islamic warrior kings; and much is known about the history of his time. Mu‘izzi, on the other hand, has been neglected by modern scholarship, both in Iran and the west, for reasons which are not entirely clear; Iqbal appears to be the only scholar to have made an extended survey of his life and poetry, and to have used his divan as a major historical source. His poetry is not as immediately attractive as Farrukhi’s, lacking something of its lyricism, freshness and delight in natural beauty, but Mu‘izzi is a very skilful and versatile craftsman, ingenious and inventive in his use of words and rhyme, and capable on occasion, especially in marthiyas, of expressing deep feeling in simple and dignified language. It is regrettable that he is not better known, both as a poet and as a source of historical information.
Panegyric poetry is not much to modern taste, either in Iran or among western scholars, and poets like ‘Unsuri and Mu‘izzi, greatly admired and regarded as models by contemporary and later writers, have less appeal for modern readers. The present writer, in Isfahan some years ago, was able to buy a copy of the latest edition of Mantchihri’s divan (1375/1996), but Farrukhi and Mu‘izzi seemed to be unknown and their divans long out of print, though Firdausi, Sa’di and Hafiz and some other medieval writers were well represented in the bookshops. There is also, perhaps, less interest currently in Mu‘izzi’s patrons, the Great Seljuqs, than in their predecessors the Sdmdanids and Ghaznavids, and their successors the Ilkhanids and Timurids. With this difference in mind, and because of the disparity in length between the two divans (Farrukhi’s contains some 9,000 bayts, Mu‘izzi’s over 18,000), the time-span of the two poets’ poetic careers, and the number of their respective patrons, more space has been devoted to Mu‘izzi than to Farrukhi. It is hoped that the present study may perhaps contribute to an increase of interest in Mu‘izzi’s work.
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