Khajeh Nezam Almolk Politics on Paper, Politics in Practice

The Second Century up to the early fifth century A.H is the golden era of the Iraninan culture and civilization under Islam. The flourishing owes a lot to a number of factors.One of them is the support of Iranian local kings and governors for cultural developments. The other factors may be recounted as the avoidance of prejucice and ignorance in social affairs, borrowing from other cultures through translation, and the advent of progressive schools of thought and education.After the fifth century A.H, however, the cultural and scientific enterprises started to decline. This was due to the formation of Turkish governments in the Middle Asia, Corruption and pnejudice in Muslim caliphs’ governments, and the fall of Iranian rulers. The most important factor which brought about such a sad cultural decline was the establishment of Nezamieh schools and their propagation of mysticism; what they taught was against philosophy and rationalism and in faver of sectarianism and self centeredness.Picking up the above mentioned factors, this article aims at the rise and fall of Iranian – Islamic culture. The discussions are supported by extracts from those poets who had consciously adopted anti-rationalistic and philosophy – fighting positions in their works.