MESA Banner
The contested history of the early Mazyadid amirate and its role in the fourth-fifth/tenth-eleventh century political arena
Abstract
This presentation provides some of the results from my ongoing mongraph project on the Mazyadids (~350-558/961-1163), an Arab Shīʿite amirate that had an influential role in the devlopment of the post-334/945 political arena. Modern scholars have largely ignored the Mazyadid presence in this arena and the ways in which the medieval chroniclers portrayed it. Barring the works of Karabecek (Leipzig, 1874), Makdisi (JAOS, 1954), and Najī (Baghdad, 1970), which provide the basic foundation for the history of this dynasty, no real work has been done to place the Mazyadids into the larger narrative of ʿAbbāsid “successor states.” Building off of Makdisi’s article, which highlighted the difficulties in establishing the origin dates of both the Mazyadid amirate and its establishment of Ḥilla as its “capital,” my research focuses on the ways in which the medieval Arab chroniclers (e.g., al-Rūdhrāwarī, Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Ḥillī, al-Bundārī, Ibn al-Athīr, and Sibṭ b. al-Jawzī) depicted ʿAlī b. Mayzyad (r. ~350-408/961-1017) and Dubays b. ʿAlī’s (r. 408-474/1017-1082) creation of a presence in central Iraq and what this tells us about the nature of the “post-ʿAbbāsid” socio-political arena. As I will show, once we work through the chroniclers’ omissions, internal inconsistencies, and editorializing, a clearer picture of the Mazyadid military and political relationships with their allies/adversaries (e.g., Buyids, ʿUqaylids, ʿAbbāsids, etc.) emerges. Whereas one can argue that the Mazyadids were more of a disruptive than stabilizing element in the poltical arena, causing numerous problems for the “established powers,” the chroniclers’ found that portraying this history was just as problematic for their larger narratives. It is only when we fully integrate the Mazyadids into the mix that we can have a more accurate, informed understanding of the decentralized nature of political culture following the disintegration of ʿAbbāsid power and how the medieval historians related it.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Iraq
Sub Area
7th-13th Centuries