The failure of the ‘Abbasid caliphate to recruit and pay a reliable army during the first half of the fourth/tenth century meant that there was a political vacuum. This vacuum was filled by the warlike peoples of the mountainous areas, mostly newly converted to Islam, notably the Kurds of the Zagros Mountains and the people of the northern Iranian provinces of Gīlān and Daylam, usually grouped together under the name of Daylamites. The latter group produced the most famous ruling family of the period, the Buyids (also sometimes known as the Buwayhids). Gīlān was the name given to the area on the southwestern shores of the Caspian Sea; Daylam was the mountainous hinterland. The hills and valleys of this district were inhabited by warlike peasant people, cut off by mountains from the Iranian plateau and even from their immediate neighbours. In pre-Islamic times, they had served as mercenaries for the Iranian kings but had probably maintained their independence from the Sasanian monarchy. The area had been little affected by the coming of Islam and, like the mountain peoples of nearby Āzarbayjān and the remoter parts of Khurāsān, its inhabitants had never been effectively conquered by the Arabs, and there was no Arab settlement there. They remained isolated, ruled by kings who took pride in the preservation of old Iranian styles and beliefs. Indeed, the coming of the Arabs may have increased Persian influence in the area by causing an influx of refugees from the plains, like the rulers of the mountain provinces of northern Spain adopting Visigothic styles only after the fall of the Visigothic kingdom of Toledo to the Arabs.
Two characteristics in particular seem to have distinguished the Daylamites and determined the role they were later to play in the Islamic world. The first was their ability as foot soldiers, as hardy and formidable as the mounted Turks but with quite a different fighting technique. This meant that they were a strong military force but that a purely Daylamite army was not really effective, since they had to find allies, usually Turks, sometimes Kurds, who could provide the cavalry to make a balanced fighting unit. The second feature was the importance of family ties. Unlike the contemporary Turks, with their strange ghulām system, the Daylamites showed strong family loyalties; true, there were often disputes among the kin, but their leaders tended to think in terms of family rather than in terms of more abstract ideas of state or the Muslim community. Like the feudal families of western Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, they divided their lands among their sons and sought to conquer new lands to provide inheritances for their kinsmen. Marriage links were an important way of consolidating alliances, and links through the female line were more important than in much of Islamic society. This was especially true in the Buyid kingdom of Rayy, where traditional Daylamite customs seem to have been less affected by Islamic norms than in Fārs or Iraq.
Throughout the mountainous regions to the south of the Caspian Sea, power was in the hands of kings of minor dynasties of native Iranian origin, some of which traced their origins back to pre-Islamic times. Until their conversion to Islam, however, these rulers could play little part in politics outside their own localities. As early as the reign of Hārūn al-Rashīd, members of the ‘Alid family had sought sanctuary among these independent people, and in the second half of the third/ninth century, ‘Alid missionaries mostly from the Zaydī branch of the family converted many of the people to Islam. In Daylam and Gīlān, this process was hastened by the work of al-Ḥasan b. ‘Alī al-Utrūsh, an ‘Alid who worked in the area from 289/902 until his death in 304/917. Al-Ḥasan, allied with local rulers, attempted to conquer the whole southern Caspian area, with intermittent success – but despite their military activities, the ‘Alids were never able to establish independent states, and their efforts were increasingly undermined by family rivalries. The local chiefs, notably the Ziyarid kings of Gīlān and the Justanids of Daylam based in the Alamūt area in the mountains, held the real power, and it was they, not the ‘Alids, who were able to take advantage of ‘Abbasid weakness.
The immediate cause of the Daylamite expansion was the withdrawal of Ibn Abi’l-Sāj, the formidable governor of Āzarbayjān, to Iraq with his army in 314/926 to fight the Qarāmiṭa. Among the first to take advantage of the opportunities offered was Mardāvīj b. Ziyār, a scion of the ruling house of Gīlān, who had established himself by 315/927 in the area of Rayy and Iṣfahān, the no man’s land which lay between the Samanid zone of influence in Khurāsān and the ‘Abbasids in Iraq and Fārs. Among those he recruited was the son of a fisherman from the Caspian coast, ‘Alī b. Būya, who, in turn, invited his two younger brothers, al-Ḥasan and Aḥmad, to join him. ‘Alī was soon rewarded with an appointment to Karaj, near Iṣfahān, a position which enabled him to recruit followers and become a military leader in his own right. His independent nature soon brought him into conflict with his authoritarian and overbearing master Mardāvīj and in 320/932 he set off south to Fārs with 400 Daylamite followers. This fertile province in the mountains of southwestern Iran had been the centre of the two greatest Persian empires of pre-Islamic times, the Achaemenids and the Sasanians, and the magnificent ruins of Persepolis still testify to its ancient greatness. The Arab armies had had to fight hard to conquer the area, and there was sporadic resistance to Muslim rule well into the Umayyad period. Under the early ‘Abbasids, the province had played little part in the political life of the caliphate and its history is obscure. At the beginning of the fourth/tenth century, however, this position began to change. One reason for this was that Fārs seems to have maintained its prosperity at a time when the economy of Iraq was in prolonged crisis, making it relatively more wealthy and important. A second factor was the progress of conversion, which resulted in the emergence of a powerful class of Muslim landowner-bureaucrats who were to play a vital role in the success of the Buyids. The memory of Sasanian greatness seems to have lingered on, for we find Fārsīs with such evocative names as Sābūr (Shāpūr) b. Ardashīr (the names of Sasanian kings), but the province produced no great military or political leaders of its own, the leading families being more concerned with administrative skills and cultural patronage.
Until 315/927, this prosperous and peaceful area had been an important source of revenue for the struggling regime of the Caliph al-Muqtadir, but in this year it was taken over by a Turkish general from Baghdad called Yāqūt, who used, or rather misused, his position to deny the ‘Abbasids any share of the revenue and build up a substantial private army. Despite his large forces, he seems to have been an uncertain and vacillating leader, unclear whether he should remain in Fārs or support the schemes of his more dynamic son in Baghdad politics. Meanwhile, the maintenance of this large and ill-disciplined force resulted in oppressive taxation and the alienation of most of the prominent figures in the area.
It was in these circumstances that ‘Alī b. Būya, anxious to establish his independence from Mardāvīj, was contacted by an important landowner, of ‘Alid descent, from the Arrajān region of Fārs, Zayd b. ‘Alī al-Nawbandajānī. Nawbandajān and its area are praised by writers of the fourth and fifth centuries for their prosperity and it seems that much of this was due to Zayd himself, who withheld the revenues of the ḍiyā‘, the caliph’s estates, in the area and used the money to develop the district, constructing a magnificent bridge across the local river as well as a castle for himself. Zayd, anxious to protect his prosperity against the depredations of Yāqūt’s undisciplined soldiery, agreed to finance and supply ‘Alī b. Būya and his men at a cost of 200,000 dīnārs so that they could acquire a foothold in the area before taking on Yāqūt. Thus began the alliance of Buyid princes and Fārsī landowners which was to be the foundation of the Buyid state. ‘Alī arrived with about 900 Daylamite supporters in 321/933 and soon began to establish himself, sending his brother al-Ḥasan to collect dues from nearby Kāzirūn and other areas of Fārs. Despite this promising start, it seems that ‘Alī lost his nerve when faced with Yāqūt’s army and tried to escape east to Kirmān but found his enemy blocking the road with an army said to have numbered 17,000, a large force by the standards of the time. Battle was joined in Jumādā II 322/June 934 and despite the great disparity in numbers, the discipline of the Daylamites and ‘Alī’s bold leadership won the day. Yāqūt’s men fled in disorder and the road to the capital, Shīrāz, lay open.
Once in possession, ‘Alī set about consolidating his power. Like all the military leaders of his time, the most intractable problem he faced was raising sufficient money to pay his men. In this, he is said to have been aided by the chance discovery of hidden treasure – but he also received more lasting support from the local magnates who farmed the taxes for him and supplied him with ready cash. Among these were his first sponsor, Zayd b. ‘Alī al-Nawbandajānī, and al-‘Abbās b. Fasānjas, the first known member of a family which was to provide wazīrs and advisers for the ruling family for the next century. ‘Alī also began to recruit more troops for his army, many of them, inevitably, Turkish cavalry to complement the Daylamite infantry, a move which soon led to tensions between the two groups.
After establishing his power within Fārs, ‘Alī could turn to regulating his position in the wider Islamic world. The first priority was to secure the consent of the ‘Abbasid caliph for his actions, and he succeeded in doing this by promising the ‘Abbasid envoy tribute, which was never in fact paid. Another area of concern was the vast, sparsely populated province of Kirmān, on the eastern frontiers of Fārs, which was the scene of a confused conflict between the Samanids of Khurāsān and a locally based adventurer, Muḥammad b. Ilyās. ‘Alī decided that his brother Aḥmad should try to establish himself there and sent him with a small force of Daylamites and Turks. The problems proved more difficult than had been anticipated and Aḥmad had serious difficulties with the Qufṣ and Balūch hill peoples in the southeast of the province. In the end, Aḥmad’s elder brother had to send men to extricate him from his difficulties. Ibn Ilyās returned to take over the province, and it was to be another fourteen years before the Buyids were able to hold the area.
A more pressing problem faced ‘Alī in central Iran, where Mardāvīj was still the leading power and the most prominent of the Daylamite leaders. He was one of the most remarkable personalities of his age. Brutal and aggressive as he was, he nonetheless had a vision of a restored Iranian monarchy, ordering that the old Sasanian palaces at Ctesiphon (al-Madā’in, near Baghdad) should be restored to await his arrival. He rejected the authority of the ‘Abbasid caliphate entirely and sought to displace Islam as the dominant religion and restore the old Zoroastrian faith, ostentatiously reviving the old ceremonies of fire worship. It is therefore with some satisfaction that Muslim writers record his death at the hands of some disillusioned Turkish troops in 323/935, the year after ‘Alī b. Būya took over in Fārs. He is significant as being the last man to try to stem the tide of Islam in Iran. But despite his personal power, his efforts to revive the old faith seem to have met with little popular support and were, at least indirectly, responsible for his death. All subsequent rulers of Iran, including the Buyids, were careful to show their attachment to Islam, even when they tried to revive ancient political glories.
Mardāvīj’s death could not have come at a better time for ‘Alī. It removed the only serious outside threat to his position in Fārs and left him as the most powerful and successful Daylamite chief. He was also able to recruit a considerable number of Mardāvīj’s soldiers into his own army. Mardāvīj was succeeded by his brother, Vushmgīr, who seems to have lacked Mardāvīj’s personal authority and was unable to sustain his position in central Iran against attacks from the Samanids from the east and the Buyids from the south. In the end, he was obliged to withdraw to the mountains at the southeastern corner of the Caspian, where his successors, known as the Ziyarid dynasty, survived until the time of the Seljuks, hereditary foes of their more successful fellow-countrymen, the Buyids. The vacuum caused by the death of Mardāvīj was filled by ‘Alī b. Būya’s brother, al-Ḥasan, who, after some setbacks, was able to establish himself as the ruler of central Iran, from Rayy to Iṣfahān, in 335/947. Aḥmad, the third brother, turned to Iraq after his failure in Kirmān. The political collapse of the ‘Abbasids and the rivalries between military adventurers for the title of amīr al-umarā’ meant that there was no united opposition, and Aḥmad’s attempts were supported and encouraged by the Barīdīs, powerful and grasping tax farmers in southern Iraq, who were trying to secure independence from the caliphate. In 332/944, Aḥmad attempted to take Baghdad for the first time but was beaten off by the Turkish amīr al-umarā’, Tūzūn. A year and a half later, however, Tūzūn was dead and his secretary Ibn Shīrzād was struggling to enforce his authority as wazīr. Aḥmad easily occupied the city with his forces and was accepted by the Caliph al-Mustakfī as amīr al-umarā’ in 334/945.
By 335/946, the three sons of Būya had established themselves in effective control of Fārs, Iraq and Rayy, and their descendants were able to maintain themselves in most of those areas until the coming of the Seljuks, a century later. The history of the Buyid period is very confused and full of marches, battles and succession disputes which seem both ephemeral and pointless. The historian’s task is complicated by the fact that there were at least three (and sometimes more) centres of activity which were at the same time closely interconnected. This means that the narrative thread is thoroughly tangled and the position is made more difficult by the fact that the sources are very uneven. It is clear that Fārs was the most important province of the Buyid confederation but the narratives on which we depend are largely based on Baghdad material and show almost no concern for events in Fārs at all, while, however, we are very well informed about Iraqi affairs, which were in some ways marginal to Buyid history. Nonetheless, events in Baghdad are of great interest for social and cultural reasons, since it was in Baghdad at this time that the doctrinal positions of imāmī Shi‘ism and Sunnī Islam were worked out. Baghdad, then, attracts more attention than its purely political importance would warrant.
Buyid history can be chronologically divided, roughly, into two divisions. The first half-century, up to the death of ‘Aḍud al-Dawla, greatest of the Buyid rulers, in 372/983, is one of growth and consolidation, when the political initiative was firmly in the hands of the princes of the ruling dynasty. From that point, however, the Buyids were on the defensive, especially in Iraq and central Iran, and political initiative passed to the hands of groups of soldiers and administrators who strove to manipulate their nominal rulers in their own interests.
The initial success of the Buyids was due partly to the absence of any important rivals in the area after the death of Mardāvīj, and partly to their own power, firmly rooted in the support of their Daylamite troops. Although they were not themselves kings of Daylam, their success and ability to give attractive rewards meant that they became the natural focus for the loyalty of ambitious Daylamites, and a stream of recruits seems to have left the mountains to take service with them. Their success was first and foremost a military one; as Mottahedeh says of ‘Alī b. Būya, “He understood the soldiers’ game of the mid-tenth century as few other leaders did and ended as its most successful player”.1 They also worked in cooperation with local landowning and bureaucratic aristocracies, who provided political advisers and administrators. This is especially noticeable in the cases of the Buyid kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, where this alliance with the local civilian élite was a major source of strength for the dynasty. Only in Baghdad, with its powerful Turkish soldiers and its growing religious tensions, was there serious local resistance to their rule.
In theory, the Buyid brothers exercised authority as governors for the ‘Abbasid caliphs. Given their modest social origins and their position as outsiders in the Islamic world, it was vital for them to secure the approval and authority of the caliphs for their actions. When Aḥmad entered Baghdad, there was already a role awaiting him, the position of amīr al-umarā’, created for Ibn Rā’iq ten years previously, and he was offered this by the caliph. Similarly, his brothers were “appointed” to provincial governorates, and the forms of both the ‘Abbasid government and the old provincial boundaries remained unchanged. The Buyids are said to have been Shī‘īs, and it may seem curious that they did not replace the ‘Abbasid caliph with a member of the ‘Alid family. However, the religious allegiances of the first generation of Buyid rulers are far from clear and there were problems faced by any ruler at this time who wished to establish an ‘Alid caliphate. If they belonged to the Twelver group among the supporters of the house of ‘Alī, then they acknowledged that the last imām had gone into occultation seventy years before; while if they were Zaydīs, the only imām they could accept was a descendant of Alī who had secured power for himself by his own efforts. It is clear that the appointment of an ‘Alid caliph would have been a major revolution in the state and aroused massive opposition which the Buyids were not strong enough to suppress. They were not out to overthrow the established order but to find a place in it, and like many of the Germanic leaders who assumed power in the Roman Empire in the fifth century, they were more concerned to maintain the status quo and derive legitimacy from it than to destroy it.
While the caliphate was respected, the individual caliph was not. Al-Mustakfī was deposed soon after the Buyid takeover in Baghdad and replaced by the more pliable al-Muṭī‘, but not before he had granted the Buyids honorific titles which expressed their devotion to the ‘Abbasid dawla (state); ‘Alī was to become ‘Imād al-Dawla (Support of the State); al-Ḥasan, Rukn al-Dawla (Pillar of the State); and Aḥmad, Mu‘izz al-Dawla (Glorifier of the State). This form of title was not new; al-Ḥasan the Hamdanid was titled Nāṣir al-Dawla when he had become amīr al-umarā’ a few years previously, but it became general among the Buyids, and the princes of the dynasty are usually known by these honorifics rather than by their personal names.
At the same time as they acquired this status among their Muslim subjects, the Buyids also revived some of the traditions of Persian monarchy. They did not, unlike their compatriot Mardāvīj, think of undoing the Muslim conquest, but leading members of the family revived the old Sasanian title of shāhanshāh (king of kings). By this, they intended to establish their legitimacy with their Iranian subjects and, above all, with their fellow Daylamites. They came from an area where the ancient traditions of Iranian monarchy had never died and where rulers like the Ispahbādhs of Ṭabaristān had preserved the forms and titles of royal rule long after they had disappeared from the rest of Iran. None of these petty kings, however, had claimed the title of shāhanshāh, and it was only the Buyids, with their extensive domains and control over the Sasanian homeland of Fārs, who were able to do so. It also enabled them to claim superiority over the kings of Daylam without the latter losing their royal status. The Buyids themselves never ruled the Daylamite homelands. They needed to remain on good terms with the local dynasties to allow the recruitment of more troops, and they made marriage alliances with such old-established lineages as the Justanids of Alamūt. Some of the most serious challenges the Buyids faced in establishing their power, like the rebellion of Rūzbahān and his brothers in 345/956–957, came from their fellow Daylamites, and it was by the adoption of this grandiose title, redolent with memories of imperial greatness, that the sons of the fisherman Būya sought to establish their legitimacy and prestige in a world which might well despise them as adventurers and upstarts.
The Buyid lands formed a federation, rather than an empire. The major political units were the principalities centred in Fārs, with its capital at Shīrāz; al-Jibāl, based in Rayy; and Iraq, including Baghdad, Baṣra and, very briefly, Mosul. After the death of the last of the original Buyid brothers, Rukn al-Dawla al-Ḥasan, in 366/977, the western half of the principality of al-Jibāl was detached to form a new unit based on Hamadhān and Iṣfahān, while from time to time Kirmān in the east enjoyed independence from Fārs, an independence which became permanent after the death of Bahā’ al-Dawla in 403/1012. There were in addition Buyid princes of other towns like Baṣra from time to time, but their existence was always ephemeral. Of these principalities, Fārs was by far the most important, maintaining its power and prosperity well into the fifth/eleventh century. Baghdad enjoyed prestige as the centre of the caliphate and it remained a cultural and intellectual centre of great importance. Politically and economically, however, it was very weak, and after the death of its first Buyid ruler, Mu‘izz al-Dawla, in 356/967, it became apparent that the only Buyid rulers who could exercise power effectively in Baghdad were those like ‘Aḍud al-Dawla and Bahā’ al-Dawla, who also ruled Fārs. The fortunes of the rulers of Shīrāz and Baghdad were therefore closely linked. The principality of Rayy, however, remained somewhat separate, never being ruled by the same prince as Fārs and facing different problems, notably the danger of attack from the east, by the Samanids or Ghaznavids.
One of the main sources of the intermittent conflicts which mark the history of the period was the question of succession to the various principalities. The possessions of the family were always considered the property of the whole group, rather than of individual branches, and relatives felt that they had the right, even the duty, to interfere in times of trouble, as when ‘Izz al-Dawla Bakhtiyār seemed unable to administer Iraq effectively in 367/978 and his cousin ‘Aḍud al-Dawla stepped in to restore family rule in the area. Despite this family solidarity, the Buyids never developed an ordered system of inheritance; as in eleventh- and twelfth-century Europe, each powerful ruler sought to provide a suitable inheritance for all his sons, even if it had to be done at the expense of his cousins. Correspondingly, all Buyid princes could feel entitled to a share of the patrimony, and this right was even claimed by some, like Ibn Kākūya, who secured the independence of Iṣfahān in the early fifth/eleventh century, who were only related to the Buyid family by marriage.
The complex nature of family ties and obligations provided enough scope for conflict within the dynasty but there were other points of friction as well. One such was the question of succession to the title of shāhanshāh, effectively the presidency of the confederation. The powers this title conferred were not extensive; it was more a recognition of seniority within the family than an office with authority, rather like the title of grand prince of Kiev in twelfth-century Russia. From the beginning, there was no idea that the title was hereditary, or that it was attached to any particular principality. Thus, ‘Alī b. Būya, the founder of the family fortune, was the undisputed leader in his lifetime but on his death in 338/949 the title passed, not to his successor in Fārs, ‘Aḍud al-Dawla, but to his brother Rukn al-Dawla in Rayy. After Rukn’s death in 366/977, the leadership of the family passed back to Shīrāz, to his son ‘Aḍud al-Dawla. ‘Aḍud al-Dawla was a member of a new generation of Buyids and his political education had been in Fārs, heartland of the old Sasanian Empire of which he had become the ruler when only thirteen. He seems to have broken away to some extent from the ideal of the family confederation and attempted to create something more akin to an absolute monarchy over the Buyid realms. He used the excuse of Bakhtiyār’s incompetence to take over Baghdad in 367/978, and worked in alliance with his brother Mu’ayyid al-Dawla to drive the third brother Fakhr al-Dawla into exile. By his death in 372/983, ‘Aḍud al-Dawla was the effective ruler of the entire confederation with his brother Mu’ayyid al-Dawla as a junior partner, but when he died, the title passed not to any of his sons but to his exiled brother, Fakhr al-Dawla, the only surviving son of Rukn al-Dawla, who then returned to take over Rayy. Daylamite traditions of seniority within the family reasserted themselves over ideas of centralized monarchy. When Fakhr al-Dawla, in turn, died, the primacy went to the most powerful of ‘Aḍud al-Dawla’s sons, Bahā’ al-Dawla, who, until his death in 403/1012, was the last ruler of the family to call himself shāhanshāh with any conviction.
The tensions between the traditional Daylamite clannishness and the needs of settled government were not the only causes of conflict. In many cases, especially in the second half of the Buyid century, princes were persuaded or obliged to take the offensive by different groups of their followers. After ‘Aḍud al-Dawla’s death, a group of wealthy Iraqis, whom ‘Aḍud had sent into exile in Fārs, persuaded his son Sharaf al-Dawla, against the advice of his Fārsī counsellors and his own better judgement, to attack Iraq so that they could be restored to their possessions. It was his wazīr, the Ṣāḥib Ibn ‘Abbād, who induced Fakhr al-Dawla to attack Iraq in 379/989. The most serious and lasting source of such quarrels was the rich lands of southern Iraq and Khūzistān, whose lush iqṭā‘s were the envy of troops from less favoured areas. With the ravished lands around Baghdad almost useless as a source of revenue, the lands of Khūzistān and Wāsiṭ were vital for the support of the largely Turkish garrison of Baghdad, while they were also converted by the Daylamite troops from Fārs. No Buyid prince could afford to ignore demands from his soldiers that he seize these areas, and they were a continuing source of conflict between the princes of Baghdad and Shīrāz until Bahā’ al-Dawla’s administrators worked out a careful division of the territories around the turn of the fifth/eleventh century.
There were also prolonged conflicts in and around the Buyid principality of Iraq, in contrast to Fārs, which remained largely peaceful under ‘Imād and ‘Aḍud al-Dawla. The first problem which faced Mu‘izz al-Dawla after he took over Baghdad in 334/945 was that of relations with the Hamdanids, who were now firmly in control of Mosul and northern Iraq. Nāṣir al-Dawla had been amīr al-umarā before and sought to regain his position by launching an attack on Baghdad which was beaten off only with difficulty. From then on, the relations of Mu‘izz al-Dawla with the Hamdanids were based on an uneasy balance of forces, tested from time to time when the Buyids tried to take the Hamdanid base at Mosul. Nāṣir al-Dawla was able to maintain his independence by withdrawing to his mountain fortresses when attacked but was obliged to promise tribute, only intermittently paid. The failure to subdue al-Jazīra had important consequences in Baghdad, since the area had been a major source of grain for the city, and its loss was one of the reasons for the repeated famines which caused so much misery in Buyid times.
‘Imād al-Dawla had taken Fārs by destroying and driving out the army of Yāqūt, from which point he was able to build up a new army of his own. Mu‘izz al-Dawla, however, had taken Baghdad by peaceful agreement and had had to reach an accommodation with existing forces in the city. He brought with him his own Daylamite followers but was obliged to employ the troops, most of them Turks, who were already settled in the city. He also brought with him a number of Fārsī bureaucrats, notably members of the Fasānjas family. These arrangements meant that he had a military establishment which was much larger and more expensive than the country could support and he was faced with a major economic crisis as soon as he arrived, resulting in famine and appalling hardship for the civilian population. It also became clear that the revenues were totally inadequate to pay regular salaries to the inflated numbers of soldiers and he was forced to grant out much of Iraq as iqṭā‘s to his Daylamite and Turkish soldiers. This merely postponed the problem, however, since the troops soon complained that their revenues were inadequate, while it was very difficult for the government to recover its financial and political power in the future because the tax base was now so small. The collapse of the old fiscal system which had been so marked under the caliphate of al-Muqtadir, now reached its logical conclusion, and the traditional financial administration based on the collection of kharāj and the payment of salaries which had originated with the dīwān of ‘Umar effectively disappeared.
The granting of iqṭā‘s did not solve the problems of military discontent. This was in part because the iqṭā‘ holders were often robbed or deceived by the agents they employed to collect their revenues, or because the lands they relied on had been ruined by war. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that different groups of soldiers were treated differently. It has been estimated that in the early fourth/tenth century, foot soldiers were being paid about six dīnārs a month, while the cavalry received forty. This meant that the cavalry became a privileged class, anxious to preserve their position, and the conflict was made worse by the fact that the cavalry were Turks, while the infantry were almost entirely Daylamites. In times of need, Mu‘izz al-Dawla tended to favour the Turks at the expense of his compatriots, and the historian Miskawayh describes the Turks being goaded by greed, while the Daylamites were driven by want and poverty. Whatever the underlying causes, it is clear that the feud between these two groups of soldiers was the most important cause of the problems which beset the Buyid rulers of Baghdad.
Discontent in the army of Iraq came to a head in 345/956–957, when there was a major rebellion of the Daylamite troops led by Rūzbahān b. Vindādh-Khūrshīd. This expressed the frustration of the Daylamites at being neglected by Mu‘izz al-Dawla and being sent, for the third time, on a difficult and unrewarding campaign against rebels in the marshes of southern Iraq. Rūzbahān was himself a Daylamite, probably of aristocratic stock, who felt that he had as good a right as the Buyids to lead his people. The rebellion was only defeated because of Mu‘izz al-Dawla’s personal bravery and the loyalty of the Turks, and the result was to depress the status of the Daylamites still further, since they were dispersed on small iqṭā‘s throughout southern Iraq, becoming small-scale landholders and merchants, oppressing the local people but providing no useful support for the dynasty.
Mu‘izz al-Dawla died in 356/967. He had not been an entirely unsuccessful ruler. He had secured Buyid control over most of southern Iraq and Khūzistān and received homage and on occasion tribute from both Mosul and Aleppo. He himself was a simple and uncouth soldier, much given to drink. He spoke little Arabic and left the civil administration to his highly competent wazīr, al- Ḥasan b. Muḥammad al-Muhallabī, descendant of the famous Muhallabī family of early Islamic times. He was the first of the great Buyid wazīrs, a group which includes celebrated names such as the two Ibn al-‘Amīds, father and son, and the Ṣāḥib Ibn ‘Abbād, and he fulfilled a role rather similar to the first British prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, acting as an intermediary between a foreign ruler (George I) and his subjects.
Despite Miskawayh’s laments about the decline of administrative skills as a result of the prevalence of iqṭā‘s, the wazīrs of the Daylamite rulers were men of great importance in the state. Their background and role had changed since the days of the great ‘Abbasid wazīrs like the Banu’l-Furāt and the Banu’l-Jarrāḥ. These earlier wazīrs had been above all experts in the financial administration of the Sawād of Iraq, and they had largely been recruited from local landowning families, descendants of the dihqāns of late Sasanian times. The decline of agricultural prosperity and of direct taxation meant that this expertise was no longer required, and we find members of these families emigrating to Egypt, where their skills would be appreciated. The wazīrs of the Buyids owed their importance to their position as intermediaries between the unsophisticated Daylamī soldier-princes and their subjects. The first generation of Buyid rulers seem to have known little Arabic, which was still the standard administrative language throughout the area. A knowledge of Persian language and customs was also important, and the wazīrs of the Buyids were drawn mostly from the Iranian families of Fārs or Rayy. When Mu‘izz al-Dawla established himself in Baghdad, he recruited his administrators from Shīrāz, not from the local bureaucratic families of Baghdad. The Buyid wazīrs did not confine themselves to purely administrative functions. They advised on, and sometimes decided, policy and in some cases commanded armies in their own right. The distinction between the civil and military administrations which was apparent in the later phases of ‘Abbasid government had largely disappeared.
Neither the abilities of the wazīrs nor the intermittent enthusiasm of the Buyid amīrs were enough to remedy the long-term structural problems of the economy and administration of Iraq. Mu‘izz al-Dawla himself made some effort to repair the agricultural economy, setting a personal example by carrying loads of earth to repair irrigation ditches, but he was unable or unwilling to tackle the fundamental problems of the area by reducing the military establishment or making the army more efficient. There was no serious attempt to pay the army out of revenue or to revive the old system of direct taxation, and the use of iqtā‘s remained chaotic and corrupt.
Mu‘izz al-Dawla was succeeded by his son Bakhtiyār, who was given the title of ‘Izz al-Dawla and who attempted to rule Buyid Iraq for eleven years, between 356 and 367 (967–978). Our main source, Miskawayh, gives a partisan and highly critical view of his character but even allowing for this bias, it is clear that he lacked the military grasp of his father or the political and administrative acumen of his cousin, ‘Aḍud al-Dawla. It is also clear, however, that many of the problems which plagued his reign were not of his making but were inherited from his father, and subsequent experience was to suggest that Buyid Iraq, on its own, was virtually ungovernable.
The main reasons for this situation are clear: i.e. the demands of the military, strong enough to force their will on the government but too inefficient to conquer areas like Mosul, which might have yielded increased revenue, and the steady decline of the resources of central Iraq. None of these features were new but they were made worse by the ruler’s ineptitude and the failure to organize the existing resources effectively. Bakhtiyār allowed a vicious rivalry to develop between various groups in the bureaucracy and no commanding figure emerged to replace al-Muhallabī in overall charge of the administration. From 362/973, his chief adviser was a man called Ibn Baqiyya, who had risen to power not through the financial offices of the state but through the kitchens. The failure to produce a competent wazīr was symptomatic of the general crisis of the administration.
Bakhtiyār also failed to secure the loyalty of the military, alienating both Turks and Daylamites. He was unfortunate in that the Turks in Baghdad were led by Sabuktakīn (not to be confused with his contemporary Sabuktakīn of Ghazna in Afghanistan, founder of the Ghaznavid dynasty), a general of considerable political ability whose authority they accepted. By 361/972, relations between Bakhtiyār and his military commander were so bad that he tried to replace him with a fellow Turk, but Sabuktakīn proved too powerful and was allowed to retain his position.
The crisis took a new turn the next year (362/973) when news arrived of Byzantine incursions deep into Muslim territory. In the previous decade, the important cities of Tarsus and Antioch had fallen to the ancient enemy and the Byzantine expansion gave no signs of coming to an end. The small frontier principality of Aleppo lacked the resources to deal with this threat. Popular opinion in the Muslim world, especially in Baghdad and Khurāsān, was stirred up by the arrival of refugees from the conquered areas, and the people demanded that their rulers take action to defend their fellow Muslims. Bakhtiyār gave orders that Sabuktakīn should prepare an army for the jihād, but this, rather than drawing the rival factions together in a common cause, simply made things worse. Sabuktakīn recruited and armed a large number of volunteers but these were mobilized not against the Byzantines, but in support of the Turks in Baghdad and they remained in the city, strengthening the anti-Buyid party. In the meantime, Bakhtiyār’s new adviser Ibn Baqiyya persuaded his master that the best chance of raising money was a new expedition to Mosul, where the Hamdanid ruler, Abū Taghlib, who was being hard pressed by the Byzantines, might be easy to subdue. Accordingly in 363/974, Sabuktakīn and Bakhtiyār, though hardly on speaking terms, set off north. The attempt was a fiasco; Abū Taghlib, taking advantage of his superior mobility, caused a diversion in Baghdad and forced Sabuktakīn to return there. Bakhtiyār, still in Mosul but now isolated from the main body of his army, was forced to make terms. Like so many of his schemes, his own incompetence and the rivalry with the Turks had brought the expedition to nothing.
After this failure, Ibn Baqiyya and his master felt that an all-out breach with Sabuktakīn was inevitable. They left Baghdad, where the Turkish leader had mobilized popular support, for Wāsit. and Ahwāz, which they intended to make their base. Here, they cultivated the cause of the Daylamites, whose interests they wanted to make their own, and took over the iqṭā‘s of the Turks in the area, including those held by Sabuktakīn himself. Open warfare between the two parties began in Dhū’l-Qa‘da in 363/July 974 and Sabuktakīn was able to take over Baghdad entirely. The Buyid palaces were captured and members of the family expelled, while the victorious Turkish general replaced the ailing Caliph al-Muṭī‘ with his son al-Ṭā’i‘. The remaining Daylamites were expelled from the city and their houses were taken over by the Turks. By the end of 363/autumn 974, there was virtually a Turkish amirate in the capital and the Turks were attacking Bakhtiyār in Wāsiṭ itself.
There can be little doubt that Buyid rule in Baghdad would have come to an end at this point if Bakhtiyār had not appealed to the rest of his family for support. Rukn al-Dawla of Rayy, the senior member of the clan, entrusted the task to his son ‘Aḍud al-Dawla, ruler of Fārs, who began to mobilize his resources. The arrival of ‘Aḍud al-Dawla changed the balance of power, and the Buyid cause was further aided by the death of Sabuktakīn, from natural causes. He was succeeded as the leader of the Turks by his deputy Alptakīn, who seems to have lacked something of his predecessor’s sureness of touch. Bakhtiyāār and his cousin began to advance on Baghdad from Wāsiṭ, and Bakhtiyār called in other allies as well, notably Abū Taghlib the Hamdanid from Mosul, who came south to pillage the city. The Buyids were also joined by two bedouin tribes, the Asad from the west and the Shaybān from the east of the city. In Jumādā I 364/ January 975, Alptakīn and the Turks were decisively defeated on the Diyālā river and the Buyid cousins entered the city in state. Alptakīn with many of his men fled west to Damascus and many of them were later to enter Fatimid service.
In the short term, Buyid authority was restored. But the crisis of 361–364 (972–975) had important long-term effects and represents something of a turning point in the history of the area. The first effect was the physical devastation of the city. It is true that Baghdad had been besieged and sacked before, but this time, despite the efforts of ‘Aḍud al-Dawla, it does not seem to have recovered its vitality. The Buyid period was one of continuous urban crises in Baghdad. This showed itself in frequent popular disturbances and brigandage, as well as the struggles among different bands of unpaid soldiers. In late Buyid times, even the rulers of the city were reduced to abject poverty, Jalāl al-Dawla being forced to dismiss his servants and set loose his horses because he could no longer afford to feed them. Part of the explanation for this seems to lie in the decline in trade. In Buyid times, the richest people in the city were not merchants but government servants. Tax collecting, military service and iqṭā‘s rather than commerce were the main sources of wealth. Those who did make money invested it in land rather than trade. There also seems to have been a continuous emigration of wealthy families – the Banu’l-Furāt, for example, to Egypt, where prospects were much brighter.
Government action or inaction was partly responsible for this. The sacking and pillaging of markets had become too frequent to make commercial investment viable, and even in times of “peace” the markets were subject to extortion by bankrupt wazīrs or unpaid soldiers. The absence of basic security effectively prevented economic recovery.
Another major contributory factor was the emergence of Shī‘ī and Sunnī as armed political groupings and the division of the city into strictly Sunnī and Shī quarters. The memory of ‘Alī and his family had always been venerated in Iraq. In the previous century, Mu‘tazilism had been the issue which divided the Muslims, and while veneration for the memory of ‘Alī was part of the Mu‘tazilī position, it was around the issue of the createdness of the Qur’ān that the debate had crystallized. Al-Mutawakkil had caused great offence by destroying the tombs of the ‘Alids when he broke with the Mu‘tazilī position, but this had not led to popular uprisings in Baghdad. After the anarchy at Sāmarrā, Mu‘tazilism largely ceased to be a political issue, although there were still Mu‘tazilī thinkers and teachers. In the early fourth/tenth century, the status of ‘Alī was becoming a major source of controversy among the Muslims of Baghdad. It is important to recognize that veneration of the name of ‘Alī by itself does not imply commitment to Shi‘ism; most, but not all, Sunnīs respected his memory as an early Muslim and one of the closest companions of the Prophet.
It was in Buyid Baghdad that “Twelver” Shi‘ism (so-called from the fact that its adherents acknowledge twelve imāms, the first of whom was ‘Alī) developed both as a system of belief and as a religious community. On the theoretical level, the most important development was the idea of the hidden imām. At least from the time of Ja‘far al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765), many supporters of the house of ‘Alī had accepted that the leadership of the family was vested in al-Ḥusayn b. ‘Alī and his direct descendants. In 260/874, the last of these publicly acknowledged imāms, al-Ḥasan al-‘Askarī, died in Sāmarrā, where he had lived quietly among supporters of the Family, and al-Nawbakhtī, an ‘Alid sympathizer writing at the end of the third/ninth century, lists no less than fourteen different opinions as to the rightful successor to al-‘Askarī. During the course of the fourth/tenth century, however, it became widely accepted among the Shī‘a that the last imām had left a son who had remained hidden and never died but would come again to establish the rule of true Islam. Meanwhile, he had left representatives in the world who would guide the Faithful in his absence. Acceptance of the imām was, however, fundamental to true belief, since he was the ḥujja, the proof of God without whom there could be no Islam. This theory of the imamate was developed in Baghdad by scholars such as al-Kulaynī (d. 329/940–941) and above all al-Shaykh al-Mufīd (d. 413/1022), who produced the view of the imamate generally held by Twelvers down to the present day. Despite the violence and the economic problems of the city, this intellectual activity was centred in Baghdad, especially in the old commercial quarter of al-Karkh, which became the main stronghold of the Shī‘a, and scholars from all over the Muslim world, like the famous Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067) from Khurāsān, were attracted to the city. These scholars were not patronized directly by the Buyid rulers but were helped by figures closely connected with the court, like Bahā’ al-Dawla’s wazīr, Sābūr b. Ardashīr, a bureaucrat of Fārsī origin, who established a major Shī‘ī library in al-Karkh in 381/991–992. The scholars were also patronized by rich local families of ‘Alid descent who were in many cases, like the Sharīfs al-Rāḍī (d. 406/1015) and al-Murtaḍā (d. 436/1044), close to the Buyid court. While some Buyid rulers, notably ‘Aḍud al-Dawla, seem to have discouraged speculation which might divide the Muslim community, others at least tolerated it and allowed their courtiers to provide patronage for the needy intellectuals involved.
While the development of Shi‘ism had an intellectual aspect, it also had a more practical and, in the end, political one; for it was in Buyid Baghdad that Twelver Shi‘ism became a distinct and separate sect. The new elements which distinguished this Shi‘ite party were the public denigration of the first two caliphs (Abū Bakr and ‘Umar, who were held to have usurped the rights of ‘Alī); the development of certain exclusively Shī’ī public festivals, notably the mourning for al-Ḥusayn on the 10 Muḥarram and the celebration of the Ghadīr Khumm on 18 Dhū’l-Ḥijja (when the Prophet was said to have acknowledged ‘Alī as his successor during the Farewell pilgrimage in 10/632); and the development of the tombs of members of the ‘Alid family as centres of pilgrimage. These three elements mark off the development of the true Shi‘ism of the fourth/tenth century from the reverence for ‘Alī or support of ‘Alid pretenders to the caliphate which had been common in previous centuries. It was no part of the programme of this new mature Shī‘a to use force to install an ‘Alid caliph immediately.
The three distinguishing features of the new Shi‘ism described above were all essentially public acts and at least two were exclusive; while any Muslim could accept the veneration of the tomb of ‘Alī, if not those of all his descendants, no one could accept the celebration of the Ghadīr Khumm or the cursing of the first two caliphs without cutting himself off from a large number of other Muslims. Thus, the mature Shi‘ism of the Buyid period defined itself as a distinct group or party. One either followed it or rejected it – no compromises were possible. In this way, the Muslims of Iraq in the fourth/tenth century divided into two, increasingly hostile, camps.
We can follow the chronology of these developments in some detail. During the reign of al-Muqtadir, there is no evidence of Sunnī–Shī‘ī strife in Baghdad. In 313/925, the mosque at Barāthā in the Karkh quarter of Baghdad was demolished on the orders of the caliph. It was held that ‘Alī himself had prayed at Barāthā and the mosque had become a centre of pro-‘Alid elements, but there is no mention of the cursing of the first caliphs or the other distinguishing feature of the Shī‘ī party. It is striking that in the confused violence of al-Muqtadir’s reign, no one attempted to raise the Sunnīs against the Shī‘īs or vice versa, a clear indication that the two parties were not a serious force in politics. Soon after this, we begin to get signs of communal tension and its origins lay with the Ḥanbalīs (it is still too early to talk of the Sunnīs), who had rejected the Mu‘tazila and continued to insist on the importance of Tradition and respect for the Companions as the basis of true Islam. In 323/935, the caliph was obliged to issue a decree to prevent the Ḥanbalīs from attacking the Shī‘a, the first sign of popular violence.
Communal tension had been increasing in Baghdad before the coming of the Buyids, but the policies of Mu‘izz al-Dawla and Bakhtiyār were to prove a decisive factor. From the time of their arrival in Baghdad, the Daylamites had become associated with the Shī‘a point of view, and allowed and encouraged the development of a Shī‘ī party in the capital, partly to secure the support of at least one element among the Baghdad populace. As early as 341/952, Mu‘izz al-Dawla is said to have ordered the release of preachers who expounded the doctrine of transmigration of souls, a belief common to the more extreme pro-‘Alid elements. In 351/962, Mu‘izz al-Dawla took the more blatant step of having curses on the first two caliphs painted on walls in Baghdad. In the end, his wazīr, the astute al-Muhallabī, persuaded him that only Mu‘āwiya should be mentioned, a course safe enough in Iraq (but not in Syria, where at about this time a man was trampled to death in the mosque for giving ‘Alī precedence over Mu‘āwiya). In 353/964, Mu‘izz al-Dawla encouraged the public celebration of the important Shī‘ī festivals of the 10 Muḥarram and the Ghadīr Khumm, to the intense annoyance of many others in Baghdad. At the same period, we see signs of increased reverence for the Shī‘ī shrines of Iraq and Iran, which came to replace the more perilous Mecca and Medina as the goal of pilgrimage for many Shī‘īs. In 342/953, we hear for the first time of an officer from Baṣra requesting to be buried by al-Ḥusayn at Karbalā’, and the practice soon grew in popularity. On his death in 399/1009, Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm al-ḍabbī, the Buyid wazīr at Rayy, instructed that his body be taken to Karbalā’ for burial, as did al-Ḥusayn b. al-Maghribī (d. 418/1027), wazīr of the Marwanid ruler of Mayyāfāriqīn. This is in marked contrast to the early Islamic practice of burying great men where they died and shows the increasing importance attached to Shī‘ī shrines. Under Buyid patronage, most of the famous Shī‘ī shrines were embellished, not only the tombs of ‘Alī and al-Ḥusayn, but that of Fāṭima in Qumm and of ‘Alī al-Riḍa near Ṭūs (now known as Mashhad). The patterns of Shī‘ī devotion which emerged at this time have remained characteristic of the sect ever since.
The most important stage in the separation of the Sunnī and Shī‘ī parties came in the crisis of Bakhtiyār’s reign from 361/972 onwards. The Turkish leader Sabuktakīn diverted the enthusiasm of the Baghdadis for the jihād against the Byzantines into attacking the Buyids and their Daylamite and Baghdadi supporters as heretics. The Shi‘ites were fewer in number, and their centre, the Karkh area, was burned down twice during this period. Miskawayh, a contemporary observer, is quite specific about the nature of the change that resulted: “the dispute between the two factions (Sunnī and Shī‘ī), which had formerly been on religious questions, now became political as well, as the Shī‘a adopted the watchword of Bakhtiyār and the Daylamites while the Sunna adopted that of Sabuktakīn and the Turks”.2 The fighting resulted in the arming of both factions and the increasing division of the city into fortified quarters, each with its own sectarian character. These divisions persisted after the immediate political quarrel had finished and in the end became permanent, and it is to the events of these years that we can ascribe the definitive break between Sunnism and Twelver Shi‘ism. It was also at this time that the Turks became identified with the anti-Shī‘a party. There is no evidence that the Turks of Sāmarrā in the third/ninth century had shown any hostility at all to the house of ‘Alī, and many of them had supported the Mu‘tazilī movement. From Bakhtiyār’s reign, however, they became associated with the Sunnī cause, a development which became firmly established in the next century when Turkish rulers like Maḥmūd of Ghazna and the Seljuks emphasized their role as champions of Sunnism.
Throughout the second half of the Buyid period, processions on sectarian feast days and the writing of inflammatory slogans, particularly the cursing of the Companions of the Prophet and the first three caliphs, were to provide flash-points for continuing violence. Despite the efforts of determined rulers of Baghdad like ‘Aḍud al-Dawla and Ibn Ustādh-hurmuz to put an end to the growth of sectarian tension, the divide between the Shī‘a and their opponents continued to harden. In the years after the death of ‘Aḍud al-Dawla in 372/983, those who can now confidently be described as Sunnīs who opposed the claims of the Shī‘ā were developing their own festivals, notably the feast of the Cave, just eight days after the Ghadīr Khumm, when the Sunnīs remembered how the Prophet and Abū Bakr had taken refuge together in a cave during the Hijra from Mecca to Medina, emphasizing the unique closeness of the first caliph to Muḥammad. Again, the processions and public festivities were an occasion for violence. This movement was given added impetus by the Caliph al-Qādir (381–422/991–1031), who made moves to codify a Sunnī doctrinal and ritual position to counter that of the Shī‘a and to strengthen his position against the absent Buyid ruler Bahā’ al-Dawla. The ‘Abbasid caliphs became firmly attached to the Sunnī cause, and they were encouraged in this by the rising power of Maḥmūd of Ghazna, who linked himself firmly to the Sunnī, anti-Buyid position.
By this time, the damage had been done. Baghdad was firmly divided between the adherents of the two rival sects, each armed and defending its own areas. The divisions soon spread to other Iraqi towns like Wāsit. and to other parts of the Islamic world. It is probable that the divisions between Sunnī and Shī‘ī would have hardened in this period in any case, partly because of the establishment of the Fatimid caliphate, but there can be no doubt that the political rivalries in Baghdad accelerated and defined the process, not just because sectarian differences were encouraged for local political reasons but because Baghdad remained such an important intellectual centre for Sunnī and Shī‘ī alike.
Another change which becomes noticeable during the crisis of Bakhtiyār’s reign is the decline of the countryside around the capital. In its heyday, Baghdad had been the centre of a flourishing agricultural area, but it had also needed to import grain by river from the Jazīra area. By the fifth/eleventh century, this had changed. The Jazīra was controlled by the Hamdanids and their ‘Uqaylid successors, usually hostile to Buyid rule. The agricultural land was despoiled and much of it had become nomad pasture. The bedouin Asad, Khafāja and ‘Uqayl tribes approached the city from the north and west, while the Kurdish ‘Annazids took over fertile lands in the Diyālā basin to the east. Against this background, the economic problems of the city and intermittent famine and social unrest were inevitable.
The death of Sabuktakīn and the reconquest of Baghdad by Bakhtiyār and ‘Aḍud al-Dawla in 364/975 had restored Buyid rule to the city, but it had not solved the problem of the unfortunate Bakhtiyār. ‘Aḍud al-Dawla made no secret of the fact that he thought that Bakhtiyār ought to abdicate, and in the circumstances there was little he could do. Respite came from an unexpected quarter. ‘Aḍud al-Dawla’s father, Rukn al-Dawla, was furious that his son should dispossess his cousin and ordered him to withdraw from Iraq. Reluctantly, ‘Aḍud al-Dawla obeyed the old man’s wishes. The withdrawal encouraged Bakhtiyār to make another attempt to restore his position and he cast around wildly for allies, looking not just to other Buyids like ‘Aḍud al-Dawla’s brother Fakhr al-Dawla of Rayy but also to the Kurdish leader Ḥasanūya (or Ḥasanwayh), his old enemy Abū Taghlib the Hamdanid and bedouin tribal chiefs, who used this opportunity to inflict further damage on the settled countryside around Baghdad. His position was too weak to be able to make use of this support, and when Rukn al-Dawla died in 366/977, ‘Aḍud al-Dawla lost no time in mounting a new invasion, which culminated in a battle near Sāmarrā in Shawwāl 367/May 978 in which Bakhtiyār was defeated, captured and finally beheaded on the orders of his cousin.
Iraq thus passed into the hands of the most famous of the Buyid rulers, Fanā-khusrau, titled ‘Aḍud al-Dawla. He had been the ruler of Fārs for almost thirty years and it is to this province we must look if we want to understand the sources of his power. At the same time, the history of Fārs is shrouded in mystery and we know much more about his five-year rule in Baghdad than the much longer period which preceded it. He had succeeded to the position of his uncle ‘Imād al-Dawla, the founder of Buyid power in Fārs, in 338/949. He was only thirteen at the time and his political education was left in the hands of experienced bureaucrats like the elder Ibn al-‘Amīd, his father’s wazīr. He thus acquired a very different view of government from the soldier adventurers who formed the first generation of Buyid rulers. Of all the members of his family, he was the one most admired by posterity, and even the Seljuk wazīr, Niẓām al-Mulk, servant of the dynasty which overthrew the Buyids, used his methods as an example for his own sovereign.
His rule in Fārs was something of a golden age for the province as ‘Aḍud al-Dawla made it the basis for his imperial schemes and, realizing that the prosperity of the area was fundamental to his plans, took active steps to encourage both agriculture and trade. In the agricultural sector, he invested heavily in irrigation projects, one of which, a great dam known as the Band-i Amīr, remains to this day as a testimony to his activities. He continued the close relations his predecessor ‘Imād al-Dawla had built up with the local landowning bureaucratic class and they implemented the policy from which they too benefited. The long years of peace saw agriculture booming. It is true that he distributed iqṭā‘s to the military, but in Fārs this process was kept under strict control and it does not seem to have led to the abuses prevalent in parts of Iraq. Unlike other members of his family, he did not employ an all-powerful wazīr, probably because he supervised so much of the administration in person, but the Fārsīs found new opportunities after the conquest of Iraq, where ‘Aḍud al-Dawla used many of them as administrators in preference to the local people.
Agricultural prosperity was matched by commercial and urban development. The fullest evidence for this comes from the port of Sīrāf on the south coast, where both literary sources and archaeological evidence suggest great trading activity and wealth. The disturbances in southern Iraq, the sacking of Baṣra by the Qarāmiṭa and the growing impoverishment of the whole country meant that centres for Indian trade shifted farther down the Gulf coast. Sīrāf was not a naturally inviting site, being very hot and barren, but under the Buyids it had safe and secure access to Shīrāz and thence to other areas of Iran. Great fortunes were made by Sīrāfī merchants, and for the century of Buyid rule, this out-of-the-way harbour became one of the great maritime centres of the Islamic world. There could be no clearer sign of the benefits of Buyid government. The capital, Shīrāz, itself expanded. ‘Aḍud al-Dawla built a new suburb to house the Daylamites, with its own markets, and derived a substantial income from this urban development. The city itself remained unwalled until the disturbances at the end of the Buyid period in the mid-fifth/eleventh century, another indication of the prosperity and security of the area. He also developed markets at Rāmhurmuz and Kāzirūn on the routes from southern Iraq to Fārs.
The success of the local economy is commented on by travellers (notably al-Muqaddasī at the time and Ibn al-Balkhī during the Seljuk period) but is also demonstrated by the wealth that ‘Aḍud al-Dawla could invest in projects such as the invasion of Iraq. He was consistently better equipped than his opponents and could dispose of large amounts of cash to satisfy his troops’ demands. The changed relationship between Fārs and Iraq could be symbolized by Miskawayh’s story of how ‘Aḍud al-Dawla caused plants to be taken from Fārs to restock the ruined gardens of Baghdad. His successes rested on sound administration and economic policy, not on military skill or brilliant generalship.
On the domestic front, Fārs enjoyed almost uninterrupted peace, except in 345/956–957 when the rebellion of the Daylamite chief Rūzbahān in Iraq led to a similar rising by his brother in Fārs, but the movement was soon crushed by ‘Aḍud al-Dawla’s old mentor, the wazīr Ibn al-‘Amīd, and does not seem to have caused prolonged disturbances. This peace allowed ‘Aḍud al-Dawla to develop an expansionist foreign policy. In 357/968, he was able to take over Kirmān because of disputes among the sons of Ibn Ilyās. He took firm measures against the Qufṣ and Balūch hill people and appointed his son Shīrdil as the governor. Henceforward, Kirmān was attached to the Buyid domains until the coming of the Seljuks eighty years later. A second area of concern to ‘Aḍud al-Dawla was ‘Umān. This was of strategic importance because of its position at the entrance to the Gulf and the effect this could have on the trade of Baṣra and Sīrāf. In 354/965, the governor, who seems to have maintained friendly relations with the Buyids, was driven out by the local people, who invited in the Qarāmiṭa of eastern Arabia. Both Mu‘izz al-Dawla in Iraq and his nephew ‘Aḍud al-Dawla considered this a threat to the prosperity of their dominions, and a major maritime expedition was launched under the command of a leading Fārsī bureaucrat, now working in Baghdad, Muḥammad b. al-‘Abbās b. Fasānjas. The army sailed from Baṣra, picked up reinforcements in Sīrāf and conquered the province. Thereafter, it seems to have been a dependency of Fārs, at least until the end of the century.
The third and most important area of ‘Aḍud al-Dawla’s foreign policy was in the invasion of Iraq. As long as his uncle Mu‘izz al-Dawla was alive, Iraq remained outside his sphere of influence. But almost as soon as Bakhtiyār succeeded in 356/967, ‘Aḍud al-Dawla began to take advantage of his weakness, though it was not until the death of his father in 366/977 that he finally had a free hand, and he marched on Baghdad. He was partly concerned to expand his power and establish a direct link with the caliph but he may have felt that all the Buyid lands were threatened by the misfortunes of Bakhtiyār’s rule and he could not afford to tolerate an area of instability on his frontiers where disaffected Turks and Daylamites could work against him. He could count on the resources of Fārs and the loyalty of its administrators and soldiers and this was to prove decisive. After the fall of Baghdad and later Mosul, Fārsīs were given important offices, including that of chief qāḍī in Baghdad and military commander in Mosul, while dissident Iraqis were despatched to exile in Fārs. Although he was to spend the rest of his reign attempting to solve the problems of Iraq, he still regarded the province he had ruled for so long as his base, and his household remained there until his death.
After his victory over Bakhtiyār, ‘Aḍud al-Dawla’s immediate concern was to consolidate the frontiers of his new realm. To the north of Buyid Iraq lay the Hamdanid kingdom of Mosul, still independent despite the repeated attempts of both Mu‘izz al-Dawla and Bakhtiyār to subdue it. Abū Taghlib, the Hamdanid ruler, had aided Bakhtiyār in his last fight, fearing above all a strong ruler in Baghdad. In the past, the Hamdanids had always been able to abandon their capital and the plains of al-Jazīra and retire to their mountain strongholds, taking with them the administrators who collected the taxes. Although the Buyids were able to take Mosul, they never had sufficient resources to besiege the mountain fortresses or the experienced personnel to tax al-Jazīra. Sooner or later, they were forced to come to terms. It was typical of ‘Aḍud al-Dawla’s determined and systematic approach that he was prepared for this. With ample resources, he recruited exiled Mosulis in Baghdad to run the administration of their hometown. Within a month of his victory over Bakhtiyār, he had taken Mosul and went on to reduce the mountain castles. Abū Taghlib fled across the desert to Syria, and Hamdanid power in the area was destroyed forever. ‘Aḍud al-Dawla had achieved the triumph which had so often eluded his predecessors.
He also turned his attention against the pastoral people who had come to Bakhtiyār’s aid. The Shaybānī and Asadī bedouin who had threatened the countryside around Baghdad were ruthlessly controlled, and even the unruly ‘Uqaylīs of al-Jazīra were disciplined by holding the chiefs responsible for any misdemeanours their followers might commit. He also took action against the powerful Barzikānī Kurds who dominated the route from Baghdad to Hamadhān and the Iranian plateau, a vital link with the Buyid kingdom of Rayy. Here, he was aided by the death of the veteran Ḥasanūya, which allowed ‘Aḍud al-Dawla to lend support to one of his sons, Badr, and secure his protégé’s triumph. Only in the marshes of southern Iraq was he unable, by either force or diplomacy, to assert his authority.
In 370/980–981, he moved on to organize the affairs of the other Buyid kingdom, in al-Jibāl and central Iran. The death of his father, Rukn al-Dawla, four years before left two of his sons in contention. One, Fakhr al-Dawla, whose power was based in Rayy, was determined to maintain his independence, even if it meant allying with the hereditary enemy of his family, Qābūs b. Vushmgīr of Ṭabaristān, whose uncle Mardāvīj had opposed the early independence of the Buyids. The other brother, Mu’ayyid al-Dawla, was prepared to work with ‘Aḍud al-Dawla, and they combined to oppose Fakhr and his eastern allies; Fakhr al-Dawla was driven into exile and Mu’ayyid al-Dawla ruled as his brother’s junior partner.
The last two years of his reign ‘Aḍud al-Dawla spent in Baghdad, embarking on a programme of restoration and rebuilding. He spent large sums on palaces and on fundamental works like the restoration of the canal network which had been so vital for the city’s prosperity. He was determined, far-sighted and ruthless with corrupt and inefficient subordinates, but his stay in Baghdad was very short and many of his cherished projects must have been unfinished at his death. He also succeeded in calming the endemic dissension between the Turks and Daylamites in the army. This was largely due to successful financial administration, and ‘Aḍud al-Dawla could call on the revenues of Khūzistān, Wāsiṭ, Mosul and Fārs, none of which had been available to his predecessor. He also ensured that the troops were paid regularly. The army had waged successful foreign wars under his leadership and these may have brought in booty. He was equally methodical in his treatment of sectarian disturbances. He made a great show of his good relations with the ‘Abbasid caliph but beyond that took care to show favour neither to Sunnī nor to Shī‘ī. In particular, he forbade inflammatory preaching, including attacks on the Companions of the Prophet and the celebration of provocative, sectarian festivals. Muslims, he held, should spend their time reading the Qur’ān rather than arguing over contentious points of doctrine. Sunnī–Shī‘ī tensions do not seem to have been a problem in Fārs, and ‘Aḍud al-Dawla was powerful enough not to need the support of either group in Baghdad.
To some extent, his reputation has been exaggerated by chroniclers, always eager to seize on examples of strong and just rule to make moral points. Nonetheless, the record presents a convincing picture of a conscientious, self-educated man, solving problems by careful organization, planning and attention to detail. The dynasty was not to produce another figure of his stature.
‘Aḍud al-Dawla’s death in 372/983 was the occasion for further divisions among the Buyids. In this case, it is quite apparent that different princes were adopted by different pressure groups, military or civilian, in different areas to advance their own interests. ‘Aḍud al-Dawla had used his ample resources to keep the balance between these groups, but none of his successors was in a strong enough position to follow his example. Two sons appeared as rivals for power. The first of these was Ṣamṣām al-Dawla, who was established by his supporters in Baghdad even before his father’s death had been made public. A mild and easygoing man, he seems to have lacked his father’s brutal determination, and his political life was to be full of misfortunes brought upon him by others. From the very beginning, he was plagued by military rebellion in Baghdad and the loss of the valuable provinces of Ahwāz and Baṣra in the south, and he was soon forced to abandon Mosul and al-Jazīra to the Kurds and ‘Uqaylī Arabs.
The other son was Shīrdil (‘Lionheart’ in Persian), who had been in control in Kirmān at the time of his father’s death but soon established himself in Shīrāz, the capital of Fārs, with the title of Sharaf al-Dawla. ‘Aḍud al-Dawla had used Fārs as a place of exile for obstreperous Baghdadi notables, among whom were the ex-qāḍī Ibn Ma‘rūf and a vastly rich descendant of ‘Alī, Muḥammad b. ‘Umar. These were now released, along with other political prisoners, and began to urge Sharaf al-Dawla to take over Iraq so that they could regain their positions. Another group, led by the wazīr al-‘Alā’ b. al-Ḥasan and ‘Aḍud al-Dawla’s former agent in Mosul, Abū Naṣr Khwāshāda, opposed this. Like Sharaf al-Dawla himself, they were natives of Fārs and felt, with some justification, that involvement in Iraq would only lead to problems. At first, Sharaf al-Dawla followed the advice of his Fārsī counsellors, making a treaty with Ṣamṣām al-Dawla in 376/986–987, but his mind was changed by Muḥammad b. ‘Umar. Sharaf al-Dawla advanced from Ahwāz towards Baghdad and was soon joined by leaders of all groups, Turks and Daylamites alike. Once again, the wealth of the ruler of Fārs provided a striking contrast to the poverty of the Baghdad government. The Daylamī troops in the city mutinied and went over to Sharaf al-Dawla, hoping, no doubt, that he would prove to be a more reliable paymaster. Sharaf al-Dawla’s change of policy seemed to have been vindicated, his Iraqi supporters were restored to their estates and honours and the unfortunate Ṣamṣām al-Dawla deported to Fārs, where, in a remote prison near Sīrāf, he was blinded. But Sharaf al-Dawla’s success in reuniting his father’s domains was short-lived; after just two years and eight months in Baghdad, he died in 380/990 aged only twenty-eight, and the whole question of the leadership became open again.
Before his death, Sharaf al-Dawla had sent his young son Abū ‘Alī to Fārs as the governor, but the latter was rejected by the notables of the province, led by the wazīr al-‘Alā b. al-Ḥasan, who were determined to have a prince who was responsive to their own local concerns. They turned, perhaps surprisingly, to the blind prisoner of Sīrāf, Ṣamṣām al-Dawla, who was released and restored as prince, only in Fārs this time, not Baghdad. Meanwhile in Baghdad, a third son of ‘Aḍud al-Dawla, Fīrūz, was proclaimed as Bahā’ al-Dawla. Inevitably, the supporters of the two princes began the struggle for control of the rich border areas of Ahwāz and Khūzistān. The fighting was made more bitter by increasing polarization between Turks and Daylamites. Al-‘Alā b. al-Ḥasan had secured the accession of Ṣamṣām al-Dawla in Fārs by relying almost exclusively on Daylamite support, obliging many Turks to go into exile in Baghdad. At first, a settlement was patched up which allowed Ṣamṣām al-Dawla to keep Fārs and Arrajān, while Ahwāz was to pass to Bahā’ al-Dawla, but Ṣamṣām al-Dawla’s Daylamite followers could not allow so rich a prize to slip from their grasp, and three years later, in 383/993, the army of Fārs took possession of the province. The Turks of Baghdad counterattacked and the Daylamites were driven out with great slaughter. This produced a further reaction in Fārs, where the remaining Turks were driven out or massacred. Thus by 385/995, the army in Fārs was almost entirely composed of Daylamites, commanded by their new and forceful leader, Abū ‘Alī b. Ustādh-hurmuz, while in Iraq and Baghdad the Daylamites had lost all influence, and Bahā’ al-Dawla was totally dependent on the Turks. The struggle continued with Ibn Ustādh-hurmuz taking Ahwāz for the Daylamites in 387/997, but the next year, 388/998, the whole situation was changed again when Ṣamṣām al-Dawla died, aged only thirty-five, leaving Bahā’ al-Dawla as the only survivor of ‘Aḍud al-Dawla’s sons.
In Fārs, there was confusion, but in Ahwāz, Ibn Ustādh-hurmuz took the decisive step of bringing his Daylamites over to the cause of Bahā’ al-Dawla, despite their anxieties about the intentions of Bahā’ al-Dawla’s Turkish followers. A detailed settlement was worked out by Bahā’ al-Dawla’s wazīr, Abū ‘Alī b. Ismā‘īl, called al-Muwaffaq, between the leaders of the Turks and Daylamites to divide and distribute the valuable iqṭā‘s of the disputed area, and the major cause of conflict was thus resolved. The adherence of Ibn Ustādh-hurmuz to Bahā’ al-Dawla had changed the military balance decisively, and al-Muwaffaq was able to enter Shīrāz without any real opposition. Here, he undertook a radical review of the iqṭā‘s in the province, redistributing them among the Daylamites. The next year, he went on to Kirmān, where again he reformed the iqṭā‘ system, cancelling all existing grants and replacing them with salaries. So Bahā’ al-Dawla succeeded to the inheritance of his father in Shīrāz as well as Baghdad. As a result of the work of al-Muwaffaq and Ibn Ustādh-hurmuz, rather than his own efforts, he could now count on a reformed army, a reformed system of payment which put more emphasis on salaries and at least comparative harmony between Turks and Daylamites. Bahā’ al-Dawla was able to settle in Fārs in 388/998; he never left the province again and died in 403/1012, but thanks to the work of his ministers, he was able to exercise almost unchallenged control over Fārs, Kirmān and parts, at least, of Iraq.
In the northern and central areas of Iraq, the Buyid government came under increasing pressure from the bedouin. Since its conquest by ‘Aḍud al-Dawla in 369/979, Mosul had always been on the fringes of the Buyid domains, and in the confusion which followed his death, the position deteriorated rapidly. Control over the Mosul countryside was effectively lost by 379/990 when the governor was forced to grant extensive iqṭā‘s to the ‘Uqaylī tribe, while the city itself was finally abandoned in 386/996 when it was taken over by the ambitious ‘Uqaylī chief al-Muqallad b. al-Musayyib. Thereafter, ‘Uqaylī power spread well to the south, and the towns of the Baghdad countryside like Kūfa and Anbār were often under their control. Al-Muqallad, shortly before his death in 391/1001, even attempted to take Baghdad itself. The only effective opposition to the ‘Uqaylī advance came not from the Buyid authorities in Baghdad, but from the rival Asadī tribe of the Ḥilla area under the leadership of the Mazyadid family. Things were no better to the east of Baghdad, where the country and the road to the Iranian plateau were now dominated by the Shādhinjānī Kurds under the leadership of the ‘Annazid family.
This meant that from about 386/996 onwards, Baghdad was very much an island of Buyid control in a countryside dominated by powerful bedouin tribes. If only for reasons of prestige, however, Bahā’ al-Dawla was anxious to hold on to it, and in this aim he was aided by two remarkable and efficient governors, both brought up in the administrative traditions of ‘Aḍud al-Dawla, who made a real effort to restore peace and sound government to the troubled city. The first of these was Abū ‘Alī b. Ustādh-hurmuz, the Daylamite leader who had come over to Bahā’ al-Dawla after Ṣamṣām al-Dawla’s death. In 392/1002, he entered Baghdad and immediately set about restoring order to the city. He laid special stress on the abolition of provocative religious activities and the crushing of bandits and robbers, who had been the scourge of the town. His prestige and experience as the leader of the Daylamites ensured that he had the military support to do this. His attitude was summed up in the drowning of leading brigands of the ‘Abbasid and ‘Alid factions, tied together in death. After his death in 401/1010, he was succeeded by his wazīr, Fakhr al-Mulk, who continued in his tradition. A notable patron of culture, he secured a measure of peace in the city until after the death of Bahā’ al-Dawla in 403/1012.
The death of Bahā’ al-Dawla in Shīrāz undermined the position of Fakhr al-Mulk in Baghdad, and in 407/1016 his son and successor Sulṭān al-Dawla was prevailed on to have him executed. This marked the end of the comparative peace which the city had enjoyed since the arrival of Ibn Ustādh-hurmuz fifteen years before and the beginning of a long and destructive period of civil strife. Once again, the root causes of the trouble were the tensions between the Turks and the Daylamites and the financial problems of Baghdad. Sulṭān al-Dawla in Fārs was dependent on Daylamite support, and he sent, as the governor of Baghdad, a Daylamite commander, Ibn Ṣāliḥān, with a large number of troops. The Turks in the city resented this and appealed to Sulṭān al-Dawla to come from Shīrāz in person, which he did, but the experiment was not a success, as he was too closely tied to the Daylamite interest. In 412/1021, it was agreed that Baghdad should be ruled by his younger brother, Musharrif al-Dawla, while he returned to Shīrāz. There followed a period of sporadic warfare until Sulṭān al-Dawla died in 412/1021 of drink at the age of thirty-two, to be followed six months later by his brother Musharrif al-Dawla.
The war between Sulṭān al-Dawla and Musharrif al-Dawla marked another stage in the decline of the Baghdad amirate as the city was now deprived of any financial aid from Fārs and Ahwāz, and Musharrif al-Dawla was dependent on the half-ruined cities of Baghdad and Wāsit. and the ravaged countryside immediately surrounding them. After his death, the Turks of Baghdad were faced with a choice. They could accept the sovereignty of Abū Kālījār Marzbān, the new Buyid ruler in Shīrāz; this would have the advantage that he would probably be able to pay their salaries but the disadvantage that he would exercise his authority through the Daylamite troops who served him in Fārs; and he made it clear, on the advice of his Fārsī wazīr, that he would not repeat his predecessor’s mistake and come and settle in Baghdad. The other possibility open to the Turks was that they should appoint a Buyid amīr of their own. Such an amīr would be obliged to look after their interests as far as possible, but his financial resources would be extremely limited. Morale among the Turks seems to have been very low and discipline virtually nonexistent. They produced no leader of the calibre of Sabuktakīn and even when they wanted to, they seem to have been unable to maintain order. From 421/1030 to 425/1034, the city was terrorized by a bandit known as al-Burjumī and neither the Turks nor their chosen amīr, Jalāl al-Dawla, was able to put an end to his depredations. In the end, it was the ‘Uqaylī bedouin leader, Qirwāsh, who captured and drowned him; there could hardly be a clearer indication of the shift in the centre of power from the city to the nomad camp.
After Musharrif al-Dawla’s death, the Turks had begun by accepting the authority of Abū Kālījār of Fārs, but when he refused to come to Baghdad, they turned instead to his uncle, Jalāl al-Dawla, who arrived in the city in 416/1025 and remained amīr, with interruptions, until his death in 435/1044. It was not a happy time, either for the city or for the amīr. The continued economic decline of the city led to the further growth of organized crime, often conducted by groups of ‘ayyārūn claiming to represent the Sunnī or Shī‘ī party, while government policing effectively ceased to exist. Physically, the city was divided into different quarters, each fortified and separated from the others by stretches of uninhabited ruins. The poverty of the city was reflected in the penury of its unhappy amīr, unable to pay even his personal servants and forced in 422/1031 to dismiss his attendants and set his horses loose, since he could no longer afford salaries for the former or fodder for the latter. He was treated by the Turks with open contempt, but they made no effort to produce an amīr from their own ranks.
The last decades of Buyid rule in Baghdad, despite the political chaos, witnessed a religious development which was to affect the whole subsequent history of Islam: the so-called Sunnī revival. This was not, in fact, so much of a revival as the formulation and definition of Sunnism in response to the contemporary emergence of imāmī (Twelver) Shi‘ism. While Shi‘ism was intermittently patronized by the Buyids and their representatives in Baghdad, the lead in the elaboration of Sunnism was taken by the ‘Abbasid caliph.
Since Mu‘izz al-Dawla had deposed al-Mustakfī in 334/946, the ‘Abbasid caliphs had had a negligible effect on public life. Pampered but powerless, al-Muṣī‘ (334–363/946–974) and al-Ṭā’i‘ (363–381/974–991) had been almost entirely confined to their vast palace complex on the east bank of the Tigris in Baghdad, providing legitimacy for the regime by rubber-stamping its appointments. In 381/991, Bahā’ al-Dawla, then resident in Baghdad, deposed al-Ṭā’i‘, who he felt was becoming obstreperous, and appointed instead his cousin, who took the title of al-Qādir. At first, he was content to do Bahā’ al-Dawla’s bidding, but when the Buyid amīr moved to Shīrāz, al-Qādir was able to take a more positive part in public affairs. As has already been explained, popular feelings between Shī‘īs and their opponents had been growing in Baghdad, despite the efforts of Ibn Ustādh-hurmuz and others to suppress them. In 394/1003, Bahā’ al-Dawla was rash enough to propose a leading ‘Alid, Abū Aḥmad al-Mūsawī, as chief qāḍī in Baghdad. For the first time, the ‘Abbasid caliph put himself at the head of the popular protest and, successfully, refused to accept the nomination. Thereafter, he began to defend the cause of the Traditionists against the claims of Twelver Shi‘ism. He did, however, find common ground with the Buyids in his opposition to the claims of the Fatimids, and when Qirwāsh b. al-Muqallad, the ‘Uqaylī chief, proclaimed his allegiance to the Fatimids in 401/1010, he responded by putting pressure on Bahā’ al-Dawla, who obliged the bedouin chief to accept the ‘Abbasids once again. Interestingly for the future, al-Qādir took the opportunity to issue a decree, attacking both Fatimid ideology and the genealogy by which the Fatimids claimed descent from ‘Alī. In this way, he established himself as a spokesman for both Sunnīs and Twelver Shī‘īs.
The death of Bahā’ al-Dawla allowed him more scope. In 409/1018, he took a major step, issuing a decree which condemned Mu‘tazilism and Shi‘ism and asserted that the Companions of the Prophet and all of the first four caliphs should be venerated by true Muslims. These doctrines were repeated and elaborated in 420/1029 when the doctrine of the createdness of the Qur’ān was explicitly condemned. This creed, the so-called Risālā al-Qāādiriyya, marks a fundamental development for two reasons, first because Sunnism was defined explicitly and positively. Hitherto, the supporters of the Sunna had largely been defined by their opposition to the claims of the Twelver Shī‘īs; now there was a body of positive belief which had to be accepted by anyone claiming to be a Sunnī. Like the Twelver doctrines developed during the previous century, it was exclusive; the acceptance of the veneration of the first four caliphs meant rejecting the claims of the Twelvers that ‘Alī had been unjustly deprived of the caliphate. It was no longer possible to be simply a Muslim; one was either a Sunnī or a Shīī.
The second important development was that the ‘Abbasid caliph had emerged as a spokesman for the Sunnīs. It is fair to say that the early ‘Abbasid caliphs were not, in the modern sense, Sunnīs; indeed, the whole ‘Abbasid claim to the caliphate was dependent on a recognition that the Family of the Prophet had a unique claim to leadership. They usually opposed the claims of the ‘Alids to political power, but that did not make them Sunnīs. From the time of al-Ma’mūn, with the notable exception of al-Mutawakkil, they had espoused or sympathized with the Mu‘tazilī doctrines which al-Qādir explicitly condemned. By his action, al-Qādir had become the champion of the Sunnīs and Traditionists against the claims of Twelver Shī‘īs and Fatimids alike. He had also created a new and lasting role for the ‘Abbasid caliphate. As Ja‘far al-Ṣādiq had shown in the second/eighth century that it was possible to be an imām from the house of ‘Alī without taking an active role in politics or making claims to the caliphate, al-Qādir showed that there was a religious role for the ‘Abbasid caliphs, a role which they could fulfil even if their temporal power was nonexistent.
Al-Qādir was able to take this position because he had more political independence. To begin with, the Buyid amirate of Baghdad had become so weak that it could not afford to take action against the caliph. He could also count on a large body of support in Baghdad itself. The people might not fight to restore the political power of the ‘Abbasid caliph but many of them would support the Sunnī cause against the pretensions of the Shī‘a. In addition, he received powerful moral support from the eastern Islamic world. From 388/998 until his death in 421/1030, the leading power in Iran was Maḥmūd of Ghazna. He was a fierce opponent of the Buyids on a political level, but he also gave a religious dimension to the conflict by accusing them of being heretics and claiming that he was the champion of Sunnī Islam. He established himself as the protector of the ḥajj, a role traditionally played by the leaders of the Muslim community. This moral support from the east enabled al-Qādir to distance himself from the Buyids. But this did not lead to direct political power. By the time of his death, al-Qādir had established his moral and religious authority, but the ‘Abbasid caliph had no troops to command and no land to call his own beyond the gates of his palace. His final act, however, was to appoint his own successor without reference to the Buyids – perhaps the first time since the death of al-Muktafī in 289/902 that the ‘Abbasid caliph had been able to do this.
Al-Qādir’s son, who took the title of al-Qā’im, survived the last, melancholy days of the Buyid amirate of Baghdad and remained in office until his death in 467/1075, long after the Seljuk conquest. He seems to have continued the lines of policy laid down by his father, reiterating his religious decrees. It is noticeable, however, that he was the first ‘Abbasid since before the Buyid period to have a wazīr of his own, another sign that the caliph’s influence was slowly expanding.
Jalāl al-Dawla continued as amīr until his death in 435/1044 at the age of fifty-one, comparatively old for a Buyid prince, many of whom died in their twenties and thirties. After this, control was briefly assumed by Abū Kālījār of Shīrāz and for the last time the resources of Fārs sustained Buyid government in Baghdad. But when he died in 440/1048, the last vestiges of effective rule disappeared and the last traces of the Buyids were soon to be swept away by the Seljuk onslaught.
The last decades of Buyid rule in Fārs are shrouded in obscurity and it is very difficult to gauge the state of the country. However, lack of evidence may not necessarily be a sign of decline. Buyid rule in Fārs survived after Buyid rule in al-Jibāl had vanished, and Buyid government in Baghdad had been reduced to a shambles. In 403/1012, Bahā’ al-Dawla died in Arrajān at the age of forty-two. He had appointed as his successor his son, who took the title of Sulṭān al-Dawla and established himself in Shīrāz. Of his reign in Fārs (403–412/1012–1021), little is known and it seems to have passed peacefully. Kirmān was the only part of the Buyid possessions in southern Iran not under his direct control, and it was entrusted to his uncle Abu’l-Fawāris Qiwām al-Dawla. This separation led to the only serious disturbance of the reign when in 407/1016–1017 Abu’l-Fawāris was supported by the rising power of Maḥmūd of Ghazna in the east. Maḥmūd was now strong enough to intervene in Buyid succession disputes, a warning of things to come, for it was Maḥmūd who put an end to the Buyid kingdom of Rayy in 420/1029. This time, however, he was unsuccessful and Sulṭān al-Dawla was able to reestablish his position in Shīrāz without great difficulty.
Sulṭān al-Dawla’s death produced another of the family conflicts which dominated Buyid political life. The Daylamite soldiery of Shīrāz expressed their preference for Abu’l-Fawāris over Sulṭān al-Dawla’s son, Abū Kālījār, then ruling in Baṣra. At first, Abu’l-Fawāris was successful, but Abū Kālījār counterattacked and drove his uncle out. The most significant feature of the episode is the way in which the Buyid contenders were cynically manipulated by the Daylamites, anxious to squeeze as much money as possible out of them; when the Daylamites decided that there should be peace, the rival princes were obliged to agree and Abū Kālījār was left in possession of Fārs while his uncle retired to Kirmān. In a final effort to restore his position, Abu’l-Fawāris turned to the Kurds and recruited an army of 10,000 of them. Up to this point, the Kurdish population of Fārs, in contrast to those farther north in the Zagros, had played little part in politics, but from this time onwards, they became more active, and it was they who, in the end, were responsible for ending Buyid control of the area.
Despite this inauspicious beginning, Abū Kālījār’s long reign in Fārs (415–440/1024–1048) was on the whole a period of peace. Like his predecessors, he ruled in partnership with the local bureaucratic élite, notably al-‘Adil Bahrām b. al-Māfinnā from Kāzirūn. Bahrām was the last of the great Buyid wazīrs. Like some of his predecessors, he was not just a skilled administrator but also a patron of culture. He founded a large library at Fīrūzābād and was the patron of the historian Hilāl b. al-Muḥassin al-Ṣābī, to whose work, now mostly lost, we owe much of our knowledge of the later Buyid period. On his death in 433/1041–1042, he was replaced by a member of the Fasānjas family who had supported the Buyids since ‘Alī b. Būya had arrived in Fārs more than a century before.
In external affairs, the power of Buyid Fārs remained impressive. In 419/1028, Abu’l-Fawāris died and Abū Kālījār was able to take over that province. In 422/1031, Kirmān was attacked by the formidable Maḥmūd of Ghazna but the Daylamite garrison, aided by the wazīr Bahrām, were able to drive him off. ‘Umān, too, remained a Fārsī protectorate under the control of a Fārsī bureaucratic family. In Iraq, Abū Kālījār extended his authority over Baṣra and Wāsit. and even, in the end, Baghdad from 435/1044 onwards, although he made little attempt to solve the almost impossible problems of governing the city.
The last years of the reign were marked by growing threats, both internal and external. The power of Maḥmūd of Ghazna was replaced by the more insidious and continuous pressure of Ghuzz Turks, and this migration was more difficult to resist than the more conventional forces of the Ghaznavids. These pressures led to a resurgence of Kurdish activity. Kurdish tribes displaced from the Iṣfahān area by the advancing Turks were driven down to Fārs, and the authorities were unable to prevent them settling. The local Kurds, too, began to take over towns and villages, and one of them, Faḍlūya b. ‘Alī of the Shabānkāra, became a virtual ruler of the province after the death of Abū Kālījār. These changes, and the apparent inability of the Daylamī troops of the Buyids to counter them, were probably the reason why Abū Kālījār found it necessary to fortify Shīrāz from 436/1044 onwards. When he died in 440/1048 on an expedition to subdue a rebel Daylamī commander in Kirmān, he was succeeded in theory by his young son, but in reality the forces which he had succeeded in keeping at bay swept over Fārs and destroyed not only his heirs but the whole Daylamī–Fārsī establishment and much of the prosperity of the country. When Ibn al-Balkhī came to describe Fārs in the next century, his account was full of cities which had existed under the Buyids but were now laid waste, relics of a golden age when Fārs had been the wealthy centre of an empire.
The Buyid kingdom of Rayy and al-Jibāl was in many ways separate from the kingdoms of Fārs and Iraq. While the affairs of the latter provinces were closely intertwined, the political history of Rayy was determined by other considerations. ‘Aḍud al-Dawla, Bahā’ al-Dawla and Abū Kālījār all ruled both Fārs and Iraq but none of them ruled Rayy, Hamadhān and Iṣfahān, which always had their own sovereigns. The political history of the third kingdom is dominated by external threats to its existence. Until the accession of Fakhr al-Dawla in 366/977, the most serious threat had come from the Samanids of Khurāsān to the east, who considered, with some historical justification, that Rayy was a rightful part of their domains. On at least three occasions, the last one being in 357/967, Samanid armies attempted to take Rayy, but each time they were defeated. The Samanid threat was especially dangerous since they allied with the hereditary enemies of the Buyid family, the Ziyarid rulers of Ṭabaristān and Jurjān. The Ziyarids were the family of Mardāvīj b. Ziyār, the Daylamite ruler of central Iran who had been murdered in 323/935, opening the way for the Buyid takeover. His family were driven to take refuge in the mountainous areas to the southeast of the Caspian Sea but they never gave up their claim to authority in Rayy. Mardāvīj’s brother Vushmgīr (d. 356/967) and his successors Bīsutūn (d. 367/978) and Qābūs (d. 402/1012) pursued their ambitions with the aid of the Samanids and other enemies of the Buyids. While never strong enough by themselves to challenge Buyid control, allied with others they were a major threat, especially dangerous because they represented a rival focus for the loyalty of the Daylamites. The decline of the Samanids in the later fourth/tenth century did not free the Buyids from threats from the east. The rising power of the Ghaznavids and the immigration of the Ghuzz Turkmen were to undermine the power of the Daylamites and in 420/1029 Rayy itself fell to Maḥmūd.
In the face of these external threats, the Buyids of Rayy and al-Jibāl looked for sources of strength nearer home. Their army, of which we know very little, seems to have been composed almost entirely of Daylamites, and there is no indication that they recruited large numbers of Turks, as did Buyid rulers in other areas. To supply these troops, they were dependent on the cooperation of the traditional Daylamite ruling families, with whom they made marriage alliances, and the allies they acquired in this way were to be crucial in the success of their government. The first of these was ‘Alī b. Kāma (the son of Rukn al-Dawla’s sister), who was the right-hand military man of both Rukn al-Dawla and Mu’ayyid al-Dawla and seems to have enjoyed great prestige among the Daylamites. He was put to death by Fakhr al-Dawla on his accession in 366/977, but Fakhr made his own network of Daylamī alliances. His mother came from a family of Daylamī princes and he married the daughter of the Ispahbad (prince) Sharvīn of Ṭabaristān. After his death, she became a virtual ruler of Rayy in the name of their young son, Majd al-Dawla. Her brother, Dushmanziyār, held office for the Buyids, while his son Muḥammad, known as Ibn Kākūya (or son of the maternal uncle) took over Iṣfahān in 398/1008 and became the independent ruler of the Iṣfahān–Hamadhān part of the kingdom. He was the founder of a dynasty which survived under Seljuk patronage until the sixth/twelfth century. These close relations with the Daylamite princes and the role played by marriage alliances were important factors in the resilience of the Buyids of Rayy in the face of threats from the east.
The Buyids were also on good terms with the Hasanuyid Kurds. Rukn al-Dawla scandalized his wazīr Ibn al-‘Amīd the Elder by the lenient view he took of their depredations. Badr b. Ḥasanūya provided and led Kurdish troops in the armies of both Mu’ayyid al-Dawla and Fakhr al-Dawla, amounting in the latter case to 4,000 men, probably cavalry to complement the Daylamī infantry. After the death of Fakhr al-Dawla in 387/997, Badr came to Rayy to try to organize the affairs of the infant Majd al-Dawla, but his advice was rejected and he increasingly distanced himself from the affairs at Rayy. When the last Buyid ruler was threatened by Maḥmūd of Ghazna, he could no longer count on the Kurdish alliance which had sustained his father, uncle and grandfather.
Rukn al-Dawla relied from the beginning of his reign on the services of Ibn al-‘Amīd, an administrator whose father had served Mardāvīj and Vushmgīr in Rayy. He served Rukn al-Dawla loyally until his death in 360/970, when he was succeeded by his son, also known as Ibn al-‘Amīd. According to the hostile testimony of Miskawayh, the son lacked his father’s circumspection and loyalty, made the mistake of trying to double-cross both Rukn al-Dawla and ‘Aḍud al-Dawla to acquire a position with the ill-fated Bakhtiyār in Baghdad and was disgraced in 366/976–977. The most famous of all Buyid wazīrs was Ismā‘īl b. ‘Abbād, known as al-Ṣāḥīb (the master or boss) who served the Buyids of Rayy for a quarter of a century, from 360/970–971 to 385/995.
The wazīrs of this period were general administrators rather than financial experts. They certainly arranged, or tried to arrange, the payment of armies but they also organized and participated in campaigns. They acted, too, as intermediaries between members of the Buyid family. In 365/976, Ibn al-‘Amīd the Younger was responsible for arranging a reconciliation between his master Rukn al-Dawla and his son ‘Aḍud al-Dawla in Fārs. When Mu’ayyid al-Dawla of Rayy died in 373/983, it was Ibn ‘Abbād who arranged that his brother Fakhr al-Dawla be invited from his refuge in Jurjān to take power. In more normal times, the wazīrs arranged government appointments and gave advice on the making of alliances and all sorts of administrative decisions, but it is as patrons of Arabic culture that they are chiefly remembered. The elder Ibn al-‘Amīd was renowned for his knowledge of classical Arabic poetry, while Ibn ‘Abbād was the patron of Abū’l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī – whose Kitāb al-aghānī (Book of Songs) is the most important record we have of early Arabic poetry and poets – besides being an accomplished Arabic stylist himself. The most important Muslim intellectual of his generation, Abū ‘Alī b. Sīnā (d. 428/1037), known in the West as Avicenna, served for the last nine years of his life as a wazīr to a member of the Buyid clan, the Kakuyid ruler of Iṣfahān and Hamadhān. Apart from ‘Aḍud al-Dawla, the Buyid sovereigns were not themselves known as patrons of culture – it was their wazīrs who encouraged the great efflorescence of Arabic writing at this time.
For the purposes of political history, it is conventional to think of the Buyid amīrs, their wazīrs and their armies as the government, but this is in some ways a distorted picture. In many areas, the amīrs, with their very limited military forces, worked in partnership with local élites who owed their power to local circumstances rather than to appointment by the amīr. The local administration of one important provincial town in the Buyid kingdom of al-Jibāl, Qazvīn, has been studied in some detail.3 Situated west of Rayy and at the southern edge of the Daylamī mountains, it was in early Islamic times an important fortress protecting the plains against the depredations of the still unconverted Daylamites. It may have been this role as a garrison city which accounts for the comparatively large number of people of Arab origin to be found there. After the Daylamite expansion, the city continued to be a centre of some importance without ever becoming an independent amirate. The Buyids, and the other dynasties who took over the town for short intervals, ruled in close cooperation with the local oligarchy. In the early Buyid period, the undisputed leaders of this oligarchy were from the ‘Ijlīs, an Arab tribe which had colonized the Jibāl area extensively since the first century after the conquest. Under the ‘Abbasids, they had frequently been local governors, but under the Buyids they had the honorific unofficial title of ra’īs. Their supremacy was not unchallenged, and during the fifth/eleventh century, they were effectively supplanted by the leaders of a family connected with the ‘Alids, the Ja‘farīs, whose power may have been built up by the Buyids. Along with the ra’īs, the other major local figure was the qāḍī, always chosen from one of the leading local families, and while his appointment was endorsed by the administration in Rayy, the real power of selection must have lain with the local community leaders.
It appears that sometimes there was a Daylamī military officer posted in the town. We have the diploma of appointment written for one of these by al-Ṣāḥib Ibn ‘Abbād, the wazīr of Mu’ayyid al-Dawla in Rayy. He was given widespread powers over the civil administration and the maintenance of law and order, but it is not clear that these extensive powers were normally invested in the amīr. Indeed, it is significant that he is the only amīr of Qazvīn in the period whose name has come down to us. Neither this patent, nor the various measures taken to suppress riots and civil disturbance in the city suggests that there was a regular Daylamī garrison of any importance, and the maintenance of law and order seems to have been the responsibility of a militia (aḥdāth) probably recruited locally. There does not seem to be any mention of a government-appointed tax collector, and we must assume that the collection of the sums demanded by Rayy was the responsibility of local leaders. This suggests decentralized government, heavily dependent on the cooperation of local élites. For the man in Qazvīn bazaar, the real and effective government must have been vested in local officials, the ra’īs and the qāḍī, while the comings and goings of amīrs and their retinues were probably marginal to the day-to-day administration. The government required taxes and a basic minimum of law and order. As long as these were maintained, it had little further interest in the area.
The Buyid period is often considered a confusing and largely negative period in Islamic history. This is not really fair. It is true that the dynasty did not supply the strong centralized government historians tend to admire, but the way local urban élites and tribes worked out a measure of autonomy within the general framework of Buyid rule may actually have benefited most people much more than strong government and the fierce taxation which inevitably went with it. It is true that there were many wars, but it must be remembered that armies were small, much smaller than those of the early ‘Abbasid period or of the Seljuk Turks, and the wars do not seem to have been very destructive. There are few mentions of sieges – rather, encounters between princes and their bands of followers in open country, and the warfare was probably more similar to the baronial wars of eleventh- and twelfth-century France than to the great campaigns of previous centuries. The great failure of the dynasty was the failure to secure the prosperity and stability of Iraq, but this was a problem whose origins went back before Buyid times and whose solution was probably beyond the powers of any contemporary government. In central Iran, and above all in Fārs, Buyid rule seems to have been an era of prosperity and development, an era brought to a premature close by the influx of the Ghuzz Turkmen in the middle of the fifth/eleventh century.