The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

Nizamiyya

The Nizamiyya (Niẓāmiyya) Madrasas (Muslim schools) were a network of colleges of Islamic law founded by the famous statesman Nizam al-Mulk (d. 1092) in the mid-to-late 11th century in the major cities of Iran, Iraq, and Syria, including Nishapur, Marv, Herat, Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, and Aleppo. The best known and most important of these was the Nizamiyya of Baghdad, which remained a premier institution of learning for several centuries and served as a model for numerous law colleges throughout the Islamic world. Nizam al-Mulk, vizier of the great Seljuq sultans Alp Arslan (r. 1063–72) and Malikshah I (r. 1072–92) and de facto ruler of the Seljuq Empire after the assassination of Alp Arslan and accession of Malikshah in 1072, planned, constructed, and endowed the various Nizamiyya colleges in an attempt to restore the traditional balance between the Hanafi and Shafi‘i madhhabs (schools of law) that had existed in Iran for over a century but had been disturbed by the rise of the Seljuqs and their patronage of the Hanafi jurists, whom they favored at the expense of the Shafi‘is. Tughril’s vizier, Kunduri, had gone so far as to exile Shafi‘i scholars from Khurasan; appoint Hanafi chief judges in Rayy; and appoint a Hanafi, ‘Ali b. ‘Ubaydallah al-Khatibi, as the chief judge in Isfahan, which had traditionally been Shafi‘i. Nizam al-Mulk’s own position was that there were two acceptable legal madhhabs, the Hanafi and the Shafi‘i, but he was determined to support scholars who belonged to the Shafi‘i legal madhhab and were Ash‘ari theologians, in counterweight to the Seljuqs’ Hanafi protégés, in order to restore a proper balance to religious, intellectual, and political life of the community. He brought back to Khurasan exiled Shafi‘i-Ash‘ari scholars, including Ghazali’s (d. 1111) famous teacher Juwayni, known as Imam al-Haramayn, whom he appointed to teach at the Nizamiyya in Nishapur, and Abu Bakr Muhammad b. ‘Ali b. Hamid al-Shashi (d. 1093), whom he appointed to a teach at the Nizamiyya at Herat.

Construction of the Nizamiyya in Baghdad, the earliest of the Nizamiyya colleges west of Khurasan, began in 1065, and the college was completed and opened in 1067. While the endowment deed has not been preserved, some of its provisions are known from historical sources: the personnel of the college, including its professor of law, repetitor, preacher, librarian, stipendiary law students, and probably also its grammar teacher (shaykh al-naḥw), were required to adhere to the Shafi‘i legal school in both fiqh (law) and uṣūl al-fiqh (legal theory or jurisprudence). The Nizamiyya of Baghdad became a significant model for other madrasas not only in Baghdad but also further west in Syria, Anatolia, and Egypt. It was rivaled by the Hanafi law college at the Shrine of Abu Hanifa, built by Alp Arslan’s mustawfī (financial agent) Abu Sa‘d also in 1057, and the Tajiyya law college, also Hanafi, completed in 1089 by Taj al-Mulk (d. 1093), the mustawfī of Malikshah. The Nizamiyya of Baghdad was probably a principal source of inspiration behind the construction of major Shafi‘i madrasas under the Zengids and Ayyubids in Syria and Egypt. It remained the most impressive institution of learning in Baghdad throughout the 12th century and was admired by the traveler Ibn Jubayr (d. 1217), who visited Baghdad in 1185. It was superseded only by the sumptuous Mustansiriyya College, founded in 1234 by the Abbasid caliph Mustansir (r. 1226–42). The Mustansiriyya College was extremely well funded and based on a different model, including provisions for professors and students of all four Sunni legal madhhabs. The Nizamiyya declined after the founding of the Mustansiriyya and the Mongol conquest in 1258 and was probably defunct by the 15th century.

The Nizamiyya in its heyday attracted the most talented scholars available. The professor of law who taught there, the repetitor or assistant professor, the master of Arabic grammar, and the librarian were all outstanding scholars. Nizam al-Mulk first appointed Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi (d. 1083), the leading Shafi‘i jurist of his day and author of al-Tanbih (The call to attention) and al-Muhadhdhab (The neatly arranged compendium), which continued to be used as textbooks of Shafi‘i law for centuries after his death. The famous jurist and theologian Ghazali taught as professor of law at the Nizamiyya but gave up the position after four years as the result of a personal spiritual crisis, traveling to the Hijaz, Syria, and eventually returning to his native Khurasan. Other leading jurists who held the positions include Abu Nasr b. al-Sabbagh (d. 1084), author of the major textbook al-Shamil (The comprehensive work); Abu Bakr al-Shashi (d. 1114); ‘Ali al-Tabari al-Kiya al-Harrasi (d. 1110); As‘ad al-Mihani (d. 1129); Abu al-Mansur al-Razzaz (d. 1144–45); and Abu al-Najib al-Suhrawardi (d. 1168). Nizam al-Mulk retained the right to supervise the endowment and to make appointments and dismiss personnel as he saw fit, and this power passed to his descendants at his death but later became the right of the Abbasid caliph or the sultan. Frequent dismissals appear to have been contrary to common practice at the time, for appointments to professorships were often for life, and the large number of incumbents and their relatively short tenures is striking when compared with those of the Shrine College at Abu Hanifa. The law professors were usually Persians, and this condition may even have been stipulated in the endowment deed.

Similarly, the grammarians at the Nizamiyya were highly influential in the history of Arabic linguistic sciences and literary criticism. Abu Zakariyya al-Tibrizi (d. 1109), one of the first scholars to hold the position, is renowned for his commentaries on the classics of Arabic literature such as the Hamasa (Poems on bravery) of Abu Tammam, the poems of Mutanabbi, the Mufaddaliyat (Poems collected by al-Mufaddal), and also his recension of the ten Mu‘allaqat, (The suspended odes). Al-Hasan al-Fasihi al-Astarabadi (d. 1110) held the position for a short time after Tabrizi’s death but was dismissed when it was discovered that he was Shi‘i and replaced with the outstanding linguist and lexicographer Abu Mansur al-Jawaliqi (d. 1144), who wrote, in addition to his famous dictionary al-Mu‘arrab (Lexicon of Arabicized words), a commentary on Ibn Qutayba’s Adab al-Katib (Instruction for the secretary). Another incumbent was Hibat Allah b. ‘Ali b. al-Shajari (d. 1148), whose dictations, al-Amali al-Shajariyya (al-Shajari’s dictations), remain widely read. Abu al-Barakat b. al-Anbari (d. 1181) was widely reputed to be the greatest grammarian of his day and wrote Asrar al-‘Arabiyya (The secrets of Arabic), a book on grammar, as well as a biographical work devoted to literary figures, Tabaqat al-Udaba’ (The classes of literary men). Another well-known incumbent, Abu Bakr Mubarak b. al-Dahhan al-Wasiti (d. 1219), is reported to have changed his affiliation from the Hanafi to the Shafi‘i legal madhhab in order to take the position.

Nizam al-Mulk established the Nizamiyya, kept it under his personal control, and maintained it generously as an instrument of political policy. In his time and later, it successfully bolstered the position of Shafi‘i law and Ash‘ari theology in the societies of Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, and it played an important role in the Sunni revival, countering in some ways but corroborating in others the influence of the Hanafis and their patrons in the Turkish ruling class. It was an elite institution, and the sons of many prominent officials studied there and went on to distinguished careers in the chanceries and judiciaries of various dynasties. Among the prominent graduates of the institution were Ibn ‘Asakir (d. 1175), the famous historian and hadith expert; ‘Imad al-Din al-Katib al-Isfahani (d. 1201), who went on to a spectacular career as a secretary for Nur al-Din and then Salah al-Din in Syria and Egypt; and Muhyi al-Din al-Shahrazuri (d. 1190), who had been a classmate of ‘Imad al-Din at the Nizamiyya under the professor Ibn al-Razzaz and who led an equally spectacular career under the Zengids. He was appointed chief judge of Aleppo under Nur al-Din, but after Nur al-Din’s death, he became the de facto ruler of northern Syria under the young Malik al-Salih Isma‘il (1174–81).