Investigating the Roots of Authoritarianism Development in Persian Panegyrics: From the Samanids to the Seljuks Periods

The political system of traditional Iranian society prior to constitutional era often had an authoritarian structure. In such a society, the king and his agents relied on the throne of power and monarchy without any law or rule, and abuse people to satisfy their desires.  All of these governments, therefore, at the beginning of their formation have sought to consolidate their credibility and legitimacy. In this study, the authors utilized content analysis method to examine the roots of authoritarian growth and its effective backgrounds and factors in Persian panegyrics of five Persian-speaking poets,i.e., Rudaki, Onsori, Farrokhi, Moezzi, Anvari, in the three periods of Samanids, Ghaznavids and Seljuks . The findings showed how the center of power and government has been connected with all social, religious, jurisprudential, theological, interpretive, hadith, and literary mechanisms and institutions. In addition, the finding revealed that the center of power has also used all the ancient and Islamic elements and some social and superstitious beliefs of the society for political acceptance and legitimacy, and finally for covering governments’ despotism and authoritarianism. In this analysis, the role of ideological elements, such as believing in the selection of the Sultan by God and his position as the God’s shadow on earth, the Sultan's role as the actor of fate, his divine approval and victory, luck and his goodness are among other influential factors.