ʿABD-AL-RAZZĀQ b. AḤMAD b. ḤASAN MEYMANDI, vizier to the Ghaznavid sultans Mawdud b. Masʿud and ʿAbd-al-Rašid b. Maḥmud, remaining in official service under the latter’s successor Farroḵzād b. Masʿud.
He was the son of the celebrated vizier of Sultan Maḥmud of Ghazna (see Aḥmad b. Ḥasan Maymandi). His birth date is unknown but he may have been closely associated with his father in official duties, since he was imprisoned at Nandana or Nardin in the Panjaab with Aḥmad b. Ḥasan when the latter fell from power in 416/1025, and only released with him on the accession of sultan Masʿud b. Maḥmud in 421/1030 (Beyhaqi, ed. Fayyāż, p. 182; Bosworth, p. 35). He was apparently close to the new sultan, and was in his entourage at the disaster of Dandānqān in 431/1040 (Bayhaqi, ed. Fayyāż, pp. 835, 839). When Mawdud b. Masʿud acceded to the throne, he first appointed as his vizier the veteran of his father’s reign, Aḥmad b. ʿAbd-al-Ṣamad, but the latter fell from grace and in 434/1043 Mawdud appointed ʿAbd-al-Razzāq in his stead and served for the rest of the reign (Kermāni, p. 4; ʿAqili, pp. 193-94; Bosworth, pp. 34-35). Just before sultan Mawdud’s death, ʿAbd-al-Razzāq was sent to Sistan with an army to combat the Oghuz or Gozz invading there, and in the confused and ill-documented period that then ensued at Ghazna, ʿAbd-al-Razzāq acted promptly and saved the sultanate from sliding into anarchy by bringing out from the fortress of Mandiš in Gur ʿAbd-al-Rašid b. Maḥmud, whom Mawdud had incarcerated there as a potential rival to his power, and in ca. 441/1050 set him up as sultan (Ebn al-Aṯir (Beirut), IX, pp. 508-09; Bosworth, pp. 39-40, 141).
During ʿAbd-al-Rašid’s reign, ʿAbd-al-Razzāq served as vizier, but the new reign soon ended in violence with the usurpation of the slave commander Ṭoḡrïl Bozan (see Bosworth, pp. 41-47). When the situation became stabilized under sultan Farroḵzād, probably in 443/1052, ʿAbd-al-Razzāq seems to have continued in official service, though not necessarily as vizier (idem, p. 48). Bayhaqi records that a colleague of his, one Saʿid Ṣarrāf, was a boon-companion of ʿAbd-al-Razzāq and in the latter’s service at Multan in 450/1058 (Bayhaqi, ed. Fayyāż, p. 71). This seems to be the last recorded mention of ʿAbd-al-Razzāq himself, but the mention of a nephew of his, Manṣur b. Saʿid b. Aḥmad b. Ḥasan Meymandi, as ʿāreż or head of the Army Department during the reign of the next sultan, Ebrāhim b. Masʿud, shows that the family continued its traditions of service for the Ghaznavids (Bosworth, p. 73).
Bibliography:
Sources. Sayf-al-Din ʿAqili, Āṯār al-wozarāʾ, ed. Jalāl-al-Din Ormavi Moḥaddeṯ, Tehran, 1959.
Bayhaqi, ed. Fayyāż. Ebn al-Aṯir (Beirut), IX. Nāṣer-al-Din Kermāni, Nasāʾem al-asḥār, ed. Jalāl-al-Din Ormavi Moḥaddeṯ, Tehran, 1959.
Studies. Saʿid Nafisi’s ḥavāši in Bayhaqi, ed. Nafisi, II, pp. 1102ff.
C. E. Bosworth, The Later Ghaznavids: Splendour and Decay. The Dynasty in Afghanistan and Northern India 1040-1186, Edinburgh, 1977.
(C. E. Bosworth)
Originally Published: November 24, 2010
Last Updated: July 14, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. I, Fasc. 2, pp. 157-158
C. E. Bosworth, “Abd-Al-Razzaq b. Ahmad b. Hasan,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/2, pp. 157-158; an updated version is available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abd-al-razzaq-hasan-meymandi (accessed on 16 January 2014).
