II. International Seljuk Historical Geography Symposium FULL TEXT BOOK-I
HADĪTH KNOWLEDGE OF NIZĀM AL-MULK WISE VIZIER OF THE GREAT SELJUK STATE
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Nizām al-Mulk (d. 485/1092) was a vizier of the Great Seljuk Empire for about 30 years during the reigns of Alparslan (1064-1072) and Malik-Shah (1072-1092). He was an influential politician and statesman who had a say in the administration after the sultan. Nizām al-Mulk was born in Tūs, in what is now Iran, spent most of his life in this geography and was killed by a bātinī fanatic in a village near Nihāwand. His tomb is now located in Isfahān, another city in Iran. Since studies have generally focused on Nizām al-Mulk’s viziership and statesmanship, his view of Islamic sciences and scholars has remained in the background. As a matter of fact, he founded the Nizāmiyah madrasahs, where various sciences, including hadīth, one of the main sources of Islam, were taught and hadīth recitation assemblies were organized. Again, during the reign of Tugrul Beg (1040-1063), he brought back the scholars who had left Khorasan due to the oppression of Ash‘arī and Shafi’ī scholars by his predecessor al-Kundurī (d. 456/1064) and protected them. He also received education in different fields of Islamic sciences such as hadīth and fiqh during his youth. The subject of this study is Nizām al-Mulk’s knowledge in the science of hadīth, which is among the Islamic sciences. After memorizing the Qur’an, he studied hadīth from some scholars and narrated hadīth from some muhaddiths. The wise vizier Nizām al-Mulk, who was engaged in the narration of hadīths, also organized meetings in various cities for the purpose of writing down hadīths. In this context, he dictated some hadīths in two different places in Baghdad, the Nizāmiya Madrasah and the Mahdī Mosque in 480/1087. In addition, in the introduction to his Siyāsatnāma, which he wrote for a book competition organized by Malik-Shah to write a book on state administration, he states that he cites hadīths related to each subject and includes narrations from the Prophet in the relevant places. Based on this information, the aim of this study is to determine the hadīth accumulation of Nizām alMulk, the famous vizier of the Great Seljuk State. Because the lack of any research in this respect reveals the importance of this study. In order to carry out this study, the historical and tabakat sources containing Nizām al-Mulk’s biography were scanned, the Amālīs published by ‘Abd al-Hādī Rizā, which contain the hadīths he had written, were examined, and the hadīths he mentioned in his famous work Siyāsatnāma were tried to be determined. The points that emerged as a result of the research are as follows: According to the information in the sources of Nizām al-Mulk’s life, he received and narrated many hadiths, and he also had hadīths written in many cities in regions such as Iraq and Khorasan. There are both sahih and weak/mawzū’ hadīths among the hadīths in Nizām alMulk’s two different Amālīs that have survived to the present day. In his Siyāsatnāma, on the other hand, he narrated a total of 19 hadīths in only eight of the 51 chapters of the work, not in every chapter, and he did not pay attention to whether these hadīths were sahih or not. It has been determined that Nizām al-Mulk, who attached importance to the Prophet’s hadīths and wanted to narrate them as a narrator, did not pay attention to the authenticity of the narrations he included in his works, and that he narrated many weak and mawzū’ hadīths in addition to authentic hadīths.