DĪNĀR, MALEK

 

DĪNĀR, MALEK b. Moḥammad (d. 591/1195), a leader of the Oghuz Turkmen in Khorasan and, in the latter years of the 12th century, ruler of Kermān.

He is first mentioned as one of the Oghuz tribal chiefs who in 548/1153 brought about the downfall of the Saljuq sultan Sanjar (511-52/1118-57) in Khorasan (Ebn al-Aṯīr, XI, p. 176). Duri ng the subsequent Oghuz domination there Malek Dīnār was himself forced by pressure from the Khwa-razmian Solṭānšāh b. Il-Arslan to move south from Nīšāpūr after the death of its Oghuz amir Ṭōḡanšāh b. Ay Aba (Ebn al-Aṯīr, XI, pp. 377-79). Oghuz tribesmen had already begun infiltrating peaceably into Kermān during the internecine strife of the last years of Saljuq rule there. In 581/1185 Dīnār appeared in Kermān and, at Jīroft, included his own name in the ḵoṭba (Friday sermon) and started minting his own coins. In Rajab 583/September 1187 he entered the capital, Bardasīr, from which the last Saljuq amir, Moḥammadšāh, had fled the previous year.

During his eight-year rule in Kermān Malek Dīnār showed a certain degree of statesmanship, in that he allowed his vizier, Jamāl-al-Dīn, to take measures for the restoration of agriculture and commerce, which had been devastated during the preceding disorders. Malek Dīnār conciliated the ʿolamāʾ and sought to legitimize his rule by marrying a daughter of the Saljuq amir Ṭōḡrelšāh b. Moḥammad (r. 551-65/1156-70), Ḵātūn-e Kermānī. He also extended his suzerainty over the rulers of the Persian Gulf coast; he received presents from the ruler of Hormoz and in 589/1193 negotiated with the ruler of the island of Qays/Kīš concerning the latter’s designs on Hormoz.

After his death Malek Dīnār was briefly succeeded by his incompetent son Farroḵšāh, who himself died in 592/1196; two years later Oghuz domination in Kermān ended with the invasion of the troops of the Ḵᵛārazmšāh.

 

Bibliography:

Afżal-al-Dīn Aḥmad Kermānī, ʿEqd al-ʿolā le’l-mawqef al-aʿlā, ed. ʿA.-M. ʿĀmerī Nāʾīnī, Tehran 1326 Š/1947.

Aḥmad ʿAlī Khan Wazīrī, Tārīḵ-e Kermān, ed. M.-E. Bāstānī Pārīzī, Tehran, 1340 Š./1961, pp. 116-17, 124-32.

C. E. Bosworth, “The Early Ghaznavids,” in Camb. Hist. Iran V, pp. 162-97, esp. pp. 173-75.

M. T. Houtsma, “Zur Geschichte der Selǵ´´´uqen von Kermân,” ZDMG, 39, 1885, pp. 388-401.

Moḥammad b. Ebrāhīm, Tārīḵ-e Saljūqīān-e Kermān, in Houtsma, Recueil I, pp. 138-201.

(C. Edmund Bosworth)

Originally Published: December 15, 1995

Last Updated: November 28, 2011

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