ʿABD-AL-RAZZĀQ MAYMANDĪ

 

ʿABD-AL-RAZZĀQ ABU’L-FATḤ B. AḤMAD B. ḤASAN MAYMANDĪ, Ghaznavid vizier of the middle years of the 5th/11th century. He was the son of the famous minister of sultans Maḥmūd and Masʿūd I, Šams-al-kofāt Aḥmad b. Ḥasan Maymandī (d. 424/1032). The Maymandī family served the Ghaznavids for at least three generations, since a nephew of ʿAbd-al-Razzāq, Abū Naṣr (or Abu’l-Moʾayyed) Manṣūr b. Saʿīd b. Aḥmad b. Ḥasan, was ʿāreż or war minister under sultan Ebrāhīm b. Masʿūd I. The dates of his birth and death are unknown.

ʿAbd-al-Razzāq must have started his career, perhaps at his father’s side, in the later years of Maḥmūd’s sultanate (i.e., before 421/1030). He seems to have fallen into disgrace as his father had done, for when the new ruler Masʿūd I came to the throne, Aḥmad b. Ḥasan was freed from imprisonment and ʿAbd-al-Razzāq likewise was released from jail at Nandana in the Panjab (422/1031). He then served in the administration, since Bayhaqī mentions him at various times, and was present with the sultan in Khorasan at the disastrous battle of Dandānqān. He rose to the top in the ensuing reign of Mawdūd b. Masʿūd I (after 432/1041). The sultan soon appointed him as his third and final vizier, and ʿAbd-al-Razzāq was to serve him for seven years until Mawdūd’s death. His decisive action proved invaluable for the safety of the state in the confused months of the two ephemeral reigns of Masʿūd II b. Mawdūd and ʿAlī b. Masʿūd I, for he swiftly released from jail at Mandēš in Ḡōr ʿAbd-al-Rašīd b. Maḥmūd, the senior surviving member of the dynasty, and raised him to the throne (late 440/1049 or early 441/1050). He probably served ʿAbd-al-Rašīd as vizier, since we have no mention of any other person in this office; and he also held an official position, though not the vizierate, under the subsequent sultan Farroḵzād b. Masʿūd I (443-51/1052-59). Toward the end of this reign he was acting as an informant on the events of his father’s times for Bayhaqī when the latter started to put together his Moǰalladāt (i.e., after 450/1058). The death of ʿAbd-al-Razzāq must have fallen within the first half of Ebrāhīm b. Masʿūd I’s reign.

Bibliography:

There are brief entries in the biographical works on viziers: Nāṣer-al-dīn Monšī Kermānī, Nasāʾem al-asḥār, ed. Jalāl-al-dīn Ḥosaynī Ormavī Moḥaddeṯ, Tehran, 1338 Š./1959, pp. 45-6.

Sayf-al-dīn Fażlī, Āṯār al-wozarāʾ, ed. Ormavī, Tehran, 1337 Š./1958, p. 192 (confused, misplaced ref.).

Ḵᵛāndamīr, Dastūr al-wozarāʾ, ed. Saʿīd Nafīsī, Tehran, 1317 Š./1938, p. 145.

There are isolated references in Bayhaqī and Ebn al-Aṯīr; all these sources are utilized in Bosworth, Later Ghaznavids, pp. 34-36, 39-40, 48, 73, 141 (he also uses the unpublished Ketāb raʾs māl al-nadīm of Ebn Bābā al-Qāšānī).

(C. E. Bosworth)

Originally Published: December 15, 1982

Last Updated: July 14, 2011

This article is available in print.
Vol. I, Fasc. 2, pp. 157-158

Cite this entry:

C. E. Bosworth, “'Abd-Al-Razzaq Maymandi,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/2, pp. 157-158; an updated version is available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abd-al-razzaq-maymandi-mid-11th-century-ghaznavid-vizier (accessed on 16 January 2014).