siyar al-muluk

While it may seem that ancient thinkers didn't explicitly discuss the concept of security in isolation, the constant concern for security among humankind ensured it was addressed in their works, albeit using different terminology. For example, the authors of "Andarznameh" (political Books of Advice) were focused on preserving governance and kingship. This paper, through a case study of Siyar al-Muluk (also known as Siyasatnameh/Book of Politics) by Khwaja Nizam al-Mulk, aims to reconstruct the "logic of politics" as understood by these thinkers. By exploring their "intellectual world," we seek to show what meanings the themes associated with the contemporary concept of "security" could have held within their framework and worldview.

Analyzing the ideas in Siyar al-Muluk, it's clear that Khwaja Nizam al-Mulk identified three main pillars of security: the king (malik), the kingdom (mulk), and the realm (mamlakat). These three elements form an interconnected whole. The concept of justice (adl) for Khwaja wasn't just about modern-day fairness; it included this tripartite framework. Under this notion of justice, values like moderation, adherence to traditions, avoiding religious innovation, oversight of officials' performance, defending against enemy threats, and avoiding extravagance were crucial. Khwaja's idea of "good kingship" was a well-ordered system where everything had its place. In this system, all officials were chosen based on merit and capability, and the king would intervene if any deviation or misconduct was detected. This "ideal" state or "good times" was synonymous with a "just kingship," ensuring the well-being of the subjects and the prosperity of the world. Any departure from this justice was seen as a path to decline and downfall.

From Khwaja Nizam al-Mulk's perspective, all forms of policymaking are intrinsically tied to security policymaking, as the ultimate goal is to preserve power, governance, and kingship. Security policymaking focused on preventing threats from emerging, neutralizing them in their early stages, and eliminating any actual and critical threats. It seems that Khwaja Nizam al-Mulk identified three main types of threats: 1) threats from foreign enemies and rival kings; 2) "hard" threats from internal enemies, which he often referred to as "Khawarij"; and 3) threats arising from "deviation from justice," or in modern terms, system malfunctions or dysfunctions.It seems that Khwaja Nizam al-Mulk devised strategies to counter each type of threat. For external threats, he emphasized the need for a ready army and the expenses for maintaining it, a well-stocked treasury, the king paying soldiers' salaries, keepingsubjects content, and showcasing the Sultan's majesty and greatness. According to Khwaja, internal "hard" threats, like uprisings and rebellions, stemmed from the gradual growth of latent or invisible "soft" threats. These were often caused by the spread of false religions and bad beliefs, which laid the groundwork for rebellion and sedition against the government. To counter these threats, Khwaja recommended continuous examination of religious affairs, strengthening true religion, purging the government and bureaucracy of heretical influence, and combating the Khawarij and heretics.When it comes to the third aspect of security, maintaining "justice," he highlighted several necessities: fulfilling royal duties and establishing good governance, preserving and expanding desirable royal qualities, continuously overseeing officials' work and punishing misconduct, preventing multiple job holdings, avoiding delegation of authority without supervision, creating and maintaining a network of informants, ensuring subjects’ access to the Sultan, monitoring and supervising the army, and basing jobs and titles on merit.

While the modern concept of security isn't explicitly outlined in Siyar al-Muluk, it serves as the cornerstone and unifying thread connecting the various aspects of Khwaja Nizam al-Mulk's intellectual framework. This perspective sheds new light on his intellectual world.

The “Mirror of Prince’s genre” is one of the long-standing Iranian traditions, and unquestionably one that extended into the Islamic era. In this article, we examine the continuation of the structures of the Iranshahri concept, with the method of intertextuality, within the ancient Iranian text of “The Era of Ardeshir’’ and ‘‘Siyar-al-muluk’’ of Nizam al-Mulk. Intertextuality claims that no text is separate from the past and no text can be viewed as a closed and self-contained system. In other words, each text gains meaning by concepts of the past and influences the understanding of the reader. According to this fact, all fundamental meanings and their logic is dependent on what has already been said. The texts reflect the political realities of society in their own way as reflected in dialogues or monologues. After explaining the theory of intertextuality, the authors show how structures such as the quality of governance and the emphasis on the Farah of Shah, the coherence of religion and politics, the importance of the ministry's institution, and the establishment of spies, and structures such as the methaphysical politics, despotism and patriarchal government stress on the relation of intertextuality between these two texts and make justifiable the possibility of countinuing The Mirror of Princes.

This research seeks to review the expression of (Ra’yat) from the early conception until its extensive use during Iranian medieval history. This notion, which had originally been interpreted to convey being “responsible citizen” based on the Prophetic narrations, in the latter periods, was gradually reformed to “full obedience” and “absolute following” and then to “major ownership” and finally to “absolute ownership”. This research claims that the Advisory text’ system of the Islamic historical period, particularly in the period of Seljuqid Dynasty had a great influence on the evolutionary interpretation of the rights and laws of personal responsibility of the (Ra’yat) and the place of (Ra’ee(and the (Ra’yat) in their political hierarchy as explained above. The findings of this study confirm that the writing of the authors of a series of books called “Andarz-Nameh” were very effective in the distorted interpretation of “the question of responsibilities in Islamic Government/constitution”. Instead, they were essential in the establishment of the system of “shepherd and his herds”. This process means that the view of “being a responsible Muslim” in the Period of Prophet has been altered to the “ownership of people by the rulers” and finally to “absolutely owned” and thus having “obligation of absolute obedience” by ordinary people as opposed to their Government.