ʿEMĀD-AL-DĪN MARZBĀN, ABŪ KĀLĪJĀR

 

ʿEMĀD-AL-DĪNMARZBĀN, ABŪ KĀLĪJĀR b. Solṭān-al-Dawla Abū Šojāʿ (399-440/1009-48), amir of the Buyid dynasty in the period of that family’s decadence and incipient disintegration, being the last effective ruler of the line. He ruled over Fārs and Ḵūzestān 415-40/1024-48, in Kermān from 419/1028 and in Baghdad nominally 416-18/1025-27 and in actuality from 435/1044 until his death in Jomādā I 440/October 1048.

Abū Kālījār succeeded in Fārs and Ḵūzestān at his father’s death in 415/1024 at the age of sixteen, but was challenged by his uncle Qewām-al-Dawla Abu’l-Fawāres, ruler in Kermān. Peace was made three years later at the price of paying tribute to Qewām-al-Dawla, and Abū Kālījār was now able to pursue his ambition of wresting control of Iraq from the shaky grip of another uncle, Jalāl-al-Dawla Šīrzīl. He extended his authority over parts of southern Iraq and was acknowledged in the Baghdad ḵoṭba for a short period. At Qewām-al-Dawla’s death in 419/1028, he added Kermān to his territories. But, despite various campaigns in Iraq, he could not dislodge Jalāl-al-Dawla, and was only able to occupy Baghdad after the latter’s death in 435/1044. Abū Kālījār was now the supreme ruler in all the Buyid lands, receiving from the caliph a further honorific title (laqab) of Moḥyī-al-Dīn. He had already intervened militarily as far as Oman when its governor of the Mukramid family had rebelled in 433/1041-42. He now found, however, that his dominions were threatened by the relentless westward expansion of the Saljuqs under Ṭoḡrel (Ṭoḡrïl) Beg. By means of skillful diplomacy, including a dynastic marriage, he kept Ṭoḡrel Beg at bay, but he died in 440/1048 when about to repel a Saljuq invasion of Kermān, which henceforth passed under Saljuq control. Abū Kālījār’s sons were to form the last generation of independent Buyid rulers, enjoying only a few years’ power before the complete triumph of the Saljuqs in western Persia and Iraq.

See also BUYIDS.

 

Bibliography:

H. Bowen, “The Last Buwayhids,” JRAS, 1929, pp. 228-34.

Idem, “Abū Kālīḏjār” EI2 I, pp. 131-32.

H. Busse, Chalif und Grosskönig: Die Buyiden im Iraq (945-1055), Beirut and Wiesbaden, 1969, pp. 98-113.

Idem, “Iran under the Būyids” in Camb. Hist. Iran IV, pp. 298-301.

Ebn al-Aṯīr, IX, pp. 516-17, 519-20, 522.

Ebn al-Jawzī, Montaẓam VII, pp. 17, 21, 30, 37, 56, 72-73, 119, 128, 136.

ʿA.-A. Faqīhī, Āl-e Būya wa awżāʿ-e zamān-e īšān, Tehran, 1357 Š./1978, pp. 234, 302-5, 307-8.

M. Kabir, The Buwayhid Dynasty of Baghdad(334/946-447/1055), Calcutta, 1964, pp. 109-12.

S. M. Stern and A. D. H. Bivar, “The Coinage of Oman under Abū Kālījār the Buwayhid,” NC, 6th Series 18, 1958, pp. 147-56.

(C. Edmund Bosworth)

Originally Published: December 15, 1998

Last Updated: December 13, 2011

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