The Sixth Century AH Was a Distinctive and Highly Important Century in the History of the Iranian Lands

The sixth century AH was a distinctive and highly important century in the history of the Iranian lands, one that also bears many similarities to our own time.

It was the century in which three major dynasties—the Ghaznavids, Seljuks, and Khwarazmshahs—ruled the Iranian lands.

The sixth century stands between two decisive periods in Iranian history. On one side lies the golden age of Iranian cultural flourishing in the fourth and fifth centuries, alongside the rule of the Samanids and Buyids, when major figures such as Ibn Sina, al-Biruni, al-Razi, Rudaki, Ferdowsi, Bayazid Bastami, and Mansur al-Hallaj made history in science, art, and mysticism. On the other side lies the catastrophe of the devastating Mongol invasion, one of the most destructive blows ever inflicted upon the Iranian lands. The sixth century can therefore be understood as the century connecting a cultural golden age to an age of catastrophe.

The sixth century is also a century in which jurists and theologians rise to prominence. Imam Muhammad al-Ghazali dies at the beginning of this century, leaving behind, in this account, the emaciated and scourged body of philosophy, and a Sufism that, after the breath of Iranian mysticism has been cut short, presents itself as mysticism’s inheritor.

Art is humiliated in this century. Although, as philosophy and mysticism lose their strength, culture takes refuge in poetry and the age witnesses the emergence of great poets such as Attar of Nishapur, Sana’i, Nizami, Anvari, and Khaqani, what we hear in their poetry is a painful complaint about their time. In Anvari’s words as rendered here, robes sat upon the shoulders of the base while halters hung around the necks of the free; and Sana’i describes the age as one in which buffoons and the lowly rise to fame. It is a time in which the ignoble and base gain power and buffoons gain status and recognition—a complaint that we too can read in our own age with the same historical note of sorrow and let it turn our eyes into seas.

It is in this same dark age that a hero such as Suhrawardi is born. During his brief thirty-six years of life, he seeks almost single-handedly to restore to life what is declining in Iranian philosophy and mysticism. His contemporary Imam Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, a classmate and friend from youth according to this account, makes it his task to consolidate the legacy of Imam Muhammad al-Ghazali. One gives his life for his great dream; the other becomes an ally of Sultan Muhammad Khwarazmshah, while two Turkish soldiers with drawn swords are said to stand beside his pulpit.

Aydin Areta