Dr Alexey Khismatulin - To Appoint Subalterns to the Saljūq State Positions
Channel: Recovering 'Lost Voices'
Date: 2016-03-01

Dr Alexey Khismatulin - Senior Research Staff member, The Institute of Oriental Manuscripts (St Petersburg), The Russian Academy of Sciences

To Appoint Subalterns to the Saljūq State Positions, To Take al-Ghazali’s Letters of Recommendation and To Submit a Job Statement to the Saljūq Sultan
Abstract: The presentation is divided into three sections announced in the heading. As a foreword, it begins with the more or less known Ghaznavīd procedure of appointment, briefly described by Abū’l-Fazl Bayhaqī in his Tārīkh. The principal document necessary for this procedure was a standard work agreement—muvāza‘at—that is, an official document prepared by an employee himself and similar to the modern contract of employment, consisting of a list of official duties.

The first section then turns to the Saljūq manuals and textbooks, compiled for the Saljūq state secretaries and published by modern scholars. To cover the whole Saljūq period, from the Great Saljūqs to the Saljūqs of Anatolia, this section relies upon the two main sources—the ‘Atabat al-kataba by Muntajab al-Dīn al-Juwaynī (the head of the State Chancery under Sanjar) prepared for publication and published by the late Muhammad Qazvīnī and ‘Abbās Iqbāl in 1329/1950 (Tehran) and the Taqārīr al-manāsib by Kamāl al-Dīn Quniyavī published by the late Osman Turan in 1958 (Ankara). These manuals and textbooks show how an employee was appointed to the state position in that period. In fact, there were three types of the official documents necessary for such appointment. The first and basic document was mashrūh.

Mashrūh—‘description’—means a list of job responsibilities, or a detailed task list. The purpose of mashrūh was to define the work that needs to be done by an employee with indication of his salary. Mashrūh was compiled for each position by a secretary of the involved department, then registered and finally approved by the Ministry of finance (dīwān-i istifā). Although mashrūh was the key document while appointment, there is neither complete nor incomplete mashrūh among the official documents included in the Saljūq manuals and textbooks. There were some reasons why they have only references to mashrūhs with no mention of muvāza‘at at all.

Manshūr—‘the announced edict’—was the second official document compiled on the base of mashrūh by a secretary of the Chancery of the Highest Ministry (dīwān-i a‘lā) and issued on behalf of the employer that is the Saljūq sultan or minister. The purpose of manshūr was to let the involved authorities know that a certain person was appointed to such and such state position.

Mithāl —‘rescript’—the third official document also issued on behalf of the employer by a secretary of the Chancery of the Highest Ministry (dīwān-i a‘lā). This document seems to have been compiled in support of manshūr confirming its validity after some time.

The second section touches upon the Persian letters written by al-Ghazālī (d. 1111 AD) mostly within the last years of his lifetime and addressed to state and religious figures. The letters were collected by a medieval compiler—evidently a descendant of the imām—into a volume published by ‘Abbās Iqbāl in the mid 50-s. Some of these letters represent the letters of recommendation written by al-Ghazālī on a background of the negative social phenomena and having a foreground to introduce a subaltern to the high administration.

The last section concerns two job statements—the Siyar al-mulūk (or Siyāsat-nāma) and the Rāhat al-sudūr wa āyat al-surūr. The first book was demonstrated by me elsewhere to have been fabricated by Muhammad Mu‘izzī Nīshābūrī (d. 1124–28 AD), Amīr-i Mu‘izzī—the most famous court poet of the Saljūq dynasty—and attributed by him to Nizām al-Mulk. The second book was compiled by Muhammad b. ‘Alī al-Rāwandī in the beginning of the 13th century AD. With these compilations, both authors had the same purpose and sole selfish reason—to prove their qualifications for appointment to the court positions and thus to ensure themselves a job.

Presented at The Subalterns Project, The First Workshop – on the pre-Safavid period, held at the University of Edinburgh, 7-8 November 2015.

For more detailed information about the project & the various workshops, please head to: http://www.shii-news.imes.ed.ac.uk/the-subalterns-project/