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The Ghaznavids of Eastern Iran, a Postcolonial Muslim Empire

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Abstract

The Ghaznavids were the last rulers in a series of postcolonial dynasties drawing on structures already beneficial to their Ṭāhirid (821–873 CE) and Sāmānid (819–1005 CE) predecessors. However, they failed to successfully create a network of personal bonds with the already existing military and landholding elites. Thus, they were not strong enough to keep in balance with their temporarily large territorial extension and to withstand military defeats.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Hodgson 1974: 3; Paul 2015: 2.

  2. 2.

    Paul 1998: 217.

  3. 3.

    Cahen 1953.

  4. 4.

    Paul 2015: 6.

  5. 5.

    Cf. Gehler and Rollinger 2014.

  6. 6.

    Paul 2015: 6.

  7. 7.

    In this way Paul 2015: 4–5. It would be of utmost benefit to compare the Ghaznavid policy of taxation to the situation in pre-Islamic Iran during the fourth through early seventh centuries CE; cf. 2016: 12–13 on the basis of the extant Bactrian documentation of the subject matter. I am grateful to Robert Rollinger for making me aware of this aspect, the elaboration of which cannot be done here but will be the subject of another study.

  8. 8.

    Spuler 1960; Fragner 2001.

  9. 9.

    Hodgson 1974: 41; Bosworth 1995.

  10. 10.

    Bosworth 1963: 235. For the concept of the ‘power state’ cf. Erwin I.J. Rosenthal, Political Thought in Medieval Islam: An Introduction, Cambridge 1958.

  11. 11.

    Bosworth 1963: 79–91; 141.

  12. 12.

    Bosworth 1963: 70–73; 93–97.

  13. 13.

    Hodgson 1974: 41.

  14. 14.

    Abu l-Faḍl Bayhaqī’s (d. 470/1077) important chronicle Tārīkh-i Masʿūdī has been translated by Bosworth 2009. Abū Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Ḥayy ibn al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Maḥmūd Gardīzī’s (d. ca. 453/1061) similarly important Zayn al-akhbār has been edited and translated by Bosworth 2011. For another work from the Ghaznavid period, Abū Naṣr Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-ʿUtbī’s (d. ca. 431/1040) chronicle al-Taʾrīkh al-yamīnī, cf. Peacock 2007; there is no translation from the original Arabic version available so far but only the translation from a later Persian version by Reynolds 1858.

  15. 15.

    Flury 1925.

  16. 16.

    Hodgson 1974: 39.

  17. 17.

    Scott Meisami 1999.

  18. 18.

    Spuler 1952: 83; Bosworth 1962a.

  19. 19.

    Hodgson 1974: 41.

  20. 20.

    Spuler 1968: 105.

  21. 21.

    Spuler 1952: 84.

  22. 22.

    Cf. Bosworth 1965: 16–21.

  23. 23.

    Paul 2015: 3.

  24. 24.

    Paul 2015: 4–5.

  25. 25.

    Paul 1998: 239; 243.

  26. 26.

    Paul 1998: 242.

  27. 27.

    Cf. Sato 1997: 152–161; Hodgson 1974: 49.

  28. 28.

    Bosworth 1963: 41–42; 124–125.

  29. 29.

    Paul 2015: 5.

  30. 30.

    Bosworth 1963: 65–67.

  31. 31.

    Paul 2015: 18.

  32. 32.

    Bosworth 1962b: 74–75.

  33. 33.

    Paul 1996: 66–67.

  34. 34.

    Paul 2015: 2.

  35. 35.

    There are important studies available for the preceding Būyid and Sāmānid dynasties (Mottahedeh 1980, Paul 1994, Marlow 2015) as well as for the subsequent Seljūqid dynasty (Paul 2015). For the Ghanznavid case no similar research has been done so far.

  36. 36.

    Bosworth 1963: 79–91.

  37. 37.

    Bosworth 1963: 51.

  38. 38.

    Hodgson 1974: 49.

  39. 39.

    Paul 1998: 243.

  40. 40.

    Hodgson 1974: 41.

  41. 41.

    Rahman 1958: 63 and Crone 2006: 18; Hodgson 1974; Mez 1922: 264 and title, but cf. Reckendorf’s qualificatory remarks in his preface ibid. iii.嵀.

  42. 42.

    Crone 2006: 12; 20–24.

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  1. Austrian National Library, Department of Papyri, Vienna, Austria

    Lucian Reinfandt

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  1. Lucian Reinfandt
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  1. University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

    Robert Rollinger

  2. University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

    Julian Degen

  3. Universität Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Germany

    Michael Gehler

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Reinfandt, L. (2020). The Ghaznavids of Eastern Iran, a Postcolonial Muslim Empire. In: Rollinger, R., Degen, J., Gehler, M. (eds) Short-term Empires in World History. Universal- und kulturhistorische Studien. Studies in Universal and Cultural History. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-29435-9_7

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