پژوهش نامه تاریخ اسلام
سال هشتم شماره 31 (پاییز 1397)

Al -e- Muhtaj were one of the local rulers of Chaghanian region in upper part of the Oxus (Amu Darya) that had autonomy concurrent with period of Amir Ismaʽil Samani (279-295 AH) in their dominated area, i.e. parts of  Khorasan and Rey. This local dynasty as puppet of Samanids, had effective role in political and military power of that state. Honesty and courage of emirs of this clan, including Abu-Ali Chaghani, in political, military, and economic affairs of Samanid state caused them to gain most prominent governmental and military positions of Samanids. The main issue of the current research is to investigate Abu-Ali Chaghani’s political and military measurements and services and their impact on power of Samanid state. This paper is going to respond the following questions with a descriptive-analytic approach: first, how this dynasty could reach such prominent place and obtain confidence of Samanid statesmen; and second, what role it had in organization of Samanids’ army and military evolutions. The findings suggest that emergence and fall of Chaghanian is a milestone in Iran history; since by removing Chaghanian (especially, Abu-Ali), who were generalissimos of all Khorasan, from political and military posts of Samanids, the Iranian powers of popular and low social people were waned and diminished and this is one of the important factors of the Samanids downfall.

Al-Birouni's abilities in natural sciences have also affected his historian character. Among his several works, Al-Athar Al-Bakiyah and Tahkik Ma Li-l-Hind are the two most important books written by new method of historiography. Since Birouni has been one of few scholars of experimental sciences who has seriously practiced historiography, analysis of various aspects of his historiography is necessary. So, the main aim of the present research is to survey Birouni's attitudes to historiography and to show characteristics of his method. In brief, analyzing and investigating Birouni's books, his social, critical-explanatory, and theological approaches to historiography have been studied. Birouni, away from politicizing, has represented the social and cultural aspects of history. In addition, he has introduced critique approach to historiography by his prominence attention to rationality and experience.

In the present study, employing David Saunders's standpoints on political instability and its indicators, political instability at the period of Muhammad KhwarazmShah has been surveyed, based on two basic concepts of changes and challenges. The characteristics of political instability at the period mentioned have been identified in four categories of norm change, change of chief executive officers, change of boundaries, and violent challenges. Given the authoritarian nature of the sultanate of Muhammad KhwarazmShah and the key role of sultan in the structure of the Kharazmid government, the structural breakdown of the Kharazmid dynasty has been examined by investigating the central role of Sultan Muhammad's policies in political instability. Considering the weakness and the early collapse of the rule of Sultan Mohammad caused by such political instability, investigating and understanding the factors creating and exacerbating that political instability at that historical juncture is of great importance. With this in mind, the article seeks to answer the question that what the relationship between the policies of Sultan Muhammad KhwarazmShah and the emergence of political instability in that period is. The result of the author's analysis is that there has been a positive correlation between the policies of Sultan Muhammad and the emergence of political instability of his period

Writers of the travel logs in the second period of Safavid rule have given narrative accounts of the status of ethnic-religious minorities, through which the identity issue of minorities and its role in diverging them from the body of government can be identified. In these narratives, both the minority groups that entered into Iran as a result of Shah Abbas's structural policies, and the ethnic-religious minorities inside Iran, which had been marginalized as a result of the domination of Shiite-ideological discourse of Safavids, were separated from the governing body and eventually played a major role in the collapse of the government. According to writers of travel logs, dominance of the religious-ideological attitudes of Safavids, disregard of the identity of ethnic-religious minorities, ineffectiveness of kings’ acts of power after Shah Abbas, and authority of parallel centers of power made the government unable to converge with minorities, and at the same time, provided space for minorities to act influentially in the process of the fall of Safavids. The results of this research, which has been done with a descriptive-analytical method, show that according to writers of travel logs, the methods of exercising power and ideological approaches of the Safavid kings after Shah Abbas brought about the divergence of ethnic-religious minorities from the body of the government and made it a very important challenge. Furthermore, ignoring the issue of minorities led to the revival of ethnic-religious identity among these minorities and eventually accelerated the fall of the Safavids.

The crown prince position was one of the most influential institutions in the Abbasid caliphate system. In the second period of the Abbasids (232-334 AH), unlike the first period (132-232 AH) when the heirs to the throne were largely independent, the magnitude of influence of this institution on increasing the power of caliphate was lost. Findings of the present research, which uses a descriptive-analytical method to investigate the role of crown princes in weakening the institution of caliphate in the second period of Abbasids, show that earlier significance of crown princes, who during the first period of Abbasids increased the grace and greatness of the caliphate system, was enormously declined due to the domination of the Turks over the crown princes of the second period. The Turks chose young timorous weak-kneed crown princes with the aim of domineering over them. In addition, some women of caliphs’ harem were rivals of Turks in controlling the crown princes. Especially, crown princes' mothers played a major role in installing their children as the caliphs and with their predominance over them were able to direct the sequence of events and thus, prevented the caliphs to deal with affairs. A typical example of these mothers is Sayyidah Shaghab, Al-Muqtadir’s mother, who competed with Turks in governing and ruling in Al-Muqtadir’s period. Total of the abovementioned factors led to weakening crown prince position in the second Abbasid period and consequently, the Abbasid caliphate rule.

The term Lur was used for the first time in the sources of the thirth and fourth centuries AH and pointed to a village in Khuzistan. Later, by development of meaning, it denoted people of the southern strip of Zagros, from Khuzistan to Fars and from Fars to where is now known as KhorramAbad. The term "Luristan" was first mentioned in the sources of the sixth century and linked to Lur. It seems that the term Lur, in the meaning of a certain people or population, has been taken from the name of the mountainous land of Lur, where this people inhabited. This has led to the fact that in the first Islamic centuries, the term Lur linked to the term Kurd (which also points to mountain inhabitants) and sometimes placed under or instead of it. In this research, the development of the two terms Lur and Luristan in Islamic sources and the process of their continuation or transformation in the history of Iran has been investigated. This research is based on the historical method and relies on data from various sources of historical, geographical, and religious documents and nonetheless, in some cases, for more accuracy, some data borrowed from field studies and oral history.