NIẒĀM AL-MULK (AH 408–485/1018–1092 CE) was a celebrated Persian vizier. Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Isḥāq al-Ṭūsī was born in Nawqān, a village near Ṭus in Khurāsān. He served two Saljūq sultans, Ālp Arsalān (r. 1063–1073) and his son Malikshāh ibn Ālp Arsalān (r. 1073–1092), and held the honorifics Niẓām al-Mulk (administrator of the realm), Qawām al-Dīn (upholder of religion), and Ghiyâth al-Dawla (mainstay of government). Niẓām al-Mulk was a Shāfiʿī in law and an Ashʿarī in theology. He befriended Ṣūfīs and built numerous educational institutions, known as madrasahs. He was assassinated in 1092 in a small village outside of Iṣfahān. In his seventy-four years, Niẓām al-Mulk rose from being a member of the bureaucracy of the provincial...