niẓām al-mulk’s siyar al-mulūk in early persian prose literature

The ‘mirror for princes’ siyar al-mulūk of niẓām al-mulk (d. 485/1092) has enjoyed a continuous and widely dispersed readership since the time of its composition. this paper explores this complex work in its contemporaneous historical-literary contexts, with particular attention to the florescence of early persian prose literature in the eastern regions of khurasan and transoxiana. although niẓām al-mulk composed his mirror under and for the seljuks (431-590/1040-1194), who had established the base of their power in western iran, this paper seeks to show that siyar al-mulūk reflects its author’s extensive and formative experience in the east, where persian prose literature had initially appeared and prospered. early persian prose literature had developed in the tenth century under the samanids, and it flourished under their successors, the ghaznavids. niẓām al-mulk, who hailed from tus, spent his early life in his native khurasan and began his career, like his father, in the ghaznavid administration. the paper also relates niẓām al-mulk’s siyar al-mulūk to the andarznāmeh (475/1082-3) of the ziyarid amir ʿunṣur al-maʿālī kaykāʾūs (b. c. 412/1021-2, r. 441-c. 480/1049-c. 1087), who, though his dynastic family ruled in the caspian regions of tabaristan and mazandaran, had also spent eight years at the ghaznavid court of mawdūd b. maḥmūd (r. 432-40/1041-50), and had married a ghaznavid princess; and to the celebrated naṣīḥat al-mulūk of abū ḥāmid ghazālī (450-505/1058-1111), who, like niẓām al-mulk a native of tus, composed his ‘mirror for princes’ after his return to khurasan in the later years of his life. the paper seeks to demonstrate the multiple ways in which the region’s persian literary culture shaped these three highly distinctive works of advice, and the significance of these three texts in the development of persian prose.