<研究ノート>Niẓām al-mulk 著 『統治の書』とティムール朝 : イラン・イスラーム的政治文化の継承をめぐって

Abstract

The Japanese translation of Nizām al-mulk's Siyar al-mulūk (or the Book of Government) by Prof. K. Itani and Prof. M. Inaba was published last year. I had participated in their reading club in the past and for the first time recognized the importance of the book in the history of the Irano-Islamic political culture. On this occasion, I focus on the inheritance of the Irano-Islamic political culture in the Timurids conveyed through this book. In Timurid Iran and Central Asia, Nizām al-mulk was a well-known historical figure or legendary vazir, and historians have provided an adequate biography of him based on early literature in their literary works. The famous literary man Husayn Kāšifī knew about the Siyar al-mulūk at least from Ġazālī's Nasīḥat al-mulūk, and the title and the author's name are found at the beginning of the quotation from it in Isfizārī's Rawżāt al-jannāt. Moreover, several stories from the Siyar al-mulūk are found in memoirs by Kāšifī's pupil, Maḥmūd Vāsifī. The attitude of the Timurid rulers toward the religious leaders seems to have been based on Nizām al-mulk's advice. The custom of consensual decision-making with these leaders and other intellectuals, according to Kāšifī, derived from ancient Iran. The more evident form of the Irano-Islamic political culture is the mazālim court; here Nizām al-mulk places emphasis on the rule that the rulers themselves must hold this court. The Mongol rulers and Timūr held the Mongol court, the yarġu court, in the name of (or at the same time) as the mazālim court. Although Timūr's son Šāh-ruḥ is said to have abolished the yarġu system, it survived until the last moment of the Timurid dynasty. During the reign of Timūr's successors, the yarġu court of the rulers was held in the same place as the mazālim court. Initially, this place was called the dīvān-i buzurg and later, simply the dīvān (rarely the dīvān-i a'lā). There the questions of state and finance were discussed and decided, and the official ceremonies were held by the ruler, his eminent liegemen, and the religious leaders.