49 jp monferrer sala rab ī? ibn zayd cmr 2 34750 m

ongoing, increasingly desperate wars with the Christian kingdoms of the peninsula.
49 J.P. Monferrer Sala, ‘Rab īʿ ibn Zayd’, CMR 2, 347–50; M. Fierro, ʿ Abd al-Ra ḥ m ā n III. The first Cordoban caliph ,
Oxford, 2005.
50 J.P. Monferrer Sala and D. Thomas, ‘Ibn Ḥ azm’, CMR 3, 134–45; D. Thomas, ‘ Ṣāʿ id al-Andalus ī ’, CMR 3, 146–
9; L. Yarbrough, ‘A Christian Sh īʿī , and other curious confreres. Ibn ʿ Abd al-Barr of Cordoba on getting
along with unbelievers’, al-Mas ā q , 30 (2018), 284–303.
51 V. Lagardère, ‘Communautés mozarabes et pouvoir almoravide en 519H/1125 en el-Andalus’, Studia
Islamica 67 (1988), 99–120. See also, e.g., D. Serrano Ruano, ‘Ibn Sahl’, CMR 3, 210–3; M. Meouak, ‘Ibn
Bass ā m’, CMR 3, 318–22; M. Fierro, ‘al- Ṭ ur ṭū sh ī ’, CMR 3, 387–96; C. de la Puente, ‘Ibn ʿ Abd ū n al-Ishb ī l ī ’, CMR

24
The Almoravids have often been compared with their contemporaries in the
eastern Islamic lands, the Seljuq Turks, who were also recently Islamized, warlike
tribesmen who won control of important Islamic urban centers, paid formal allegiance to
the Abbasid caliph, and patronized Sunni ʿ ulam āʾ . The mildly Shi ʿ i B ū yid dynasty which
had preceded the Seljuqs in Baghdad had pursued relatively accommodating policies
toward Christians and Jews, notwithstanding occasional episodes of violent
suppression. 52 Seljuq rule, however, saw more extensive empowerment of Sunni ʿ ulam āʾ
as state administrators and ideologues. A key proponent of this change was the vizier
Ni ẓā m al-Mulk, a scholar-official from Khur ā s ā n who virtually ruled the Seljuq empire in
the late eleventh century. In his Persian mirror for princes, the Siy ā sat n ā mah , Ni ẓā m al-
Mulk counsels the ruler to delegate administrative authority to Sunnis from Khur ā s ā n,
while dissociating from both Iraqi Muslims, whom he accuses of pro-Ism āʿī l ī sympathies,
and Jews and Christians. The ethos of the new Turkic rulers and their Sunni supporters
marked a shift toward antipathy. 53 It contrasted with such earlier cases at that of the
renowned Sunni jurist Ab ū l- Ḥ asan al-M ā ward ī (d. 1058), whose patron was a weak
Abbasid caliph under Shi ʿ i B ū yid tutelage. In his famous book al-A ḥ k ā m al-sul ṭā niyya , al-
M ā ward ī had advanced a relatively accommodating vision of non-Muslim life within an
Islamic state. 54
Sunni jurists flocked to the madrasa s that the Seljuqs established on a wide scale
to teach Islamic law. Ni ẓā m al-Mulk patronized jurists like al-Juwayn ī (d. 1085), who
castigated al-M ā ward ī for his accommodating stance. 55 The great Sufi jurist al-Ghaz ā l ī (d.
3, 397–400; R. El Hour, ‘Ab ū Bakr Ibn al- ʿ Arab ī ’, CMR 3, 520–3; D. Serrano Ruano, ‘al-Q āḍī ʿ Iy āḍ ’, CMR 3, 542–8;
I. Ferrando, ‘Ibn Quzm ā n’, CMR 3, 620–24.
52 For this period as well as the history of Baghdad’s Christians more generally, see J.-M. Fiey, Chrétiens
syriaques sous les Abbassides surtout à Bagdad, 749-1258 , Louvain, 1980.