History
Alireza Ashtari Tafreshi
Abstract
Qawanin al-Wizarah is one of the most significant works of Abul Hasan al-Mawirdi, a policy theoretical scholar of the 5th century AH, in which he presented a constructed image of the government; however, this image is not purely theoretical, but also that is to a great amount image of government with ...
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Qawanin al-Wizarah is one of the most significant works of Abul Hasan al-Mawirdi, a policy theoretical scholar of the 5th century AH, in which he presented a constructed image of the government; however, this image is not purely theoretical, but also that is to a great amount image of government with its essential working parts and process.
Understanding the relationship between the variables active in the writer's thoughts and society with the content of this work is the main problematic issue of the current research. Despite the importance of Qawanin al-Wizara in the heritage of Islamic political thought and Islamic statesmanship, this work has been less studied by contemporary researchers when it has been more in the shadow of al-Mawirdi's more well-known other work, Ahkam al-Sultaniyyah, so usually scholars have not paid enough attention to Qawanin al-Wizarah`s significance.
For this reason, the current research aims to identify the main characteristics of an efficient government in this important work of statesmanship. This research by applying the thematic analysis method has tried to explain the main factors of an efficient government in Qawanin al-Wizarah. This study has been done through a library method when its main concentration has been on the Arabic text of Qawanin al-Wizarah.
A Part of the achievement of this research is the understanding of more than 300 themes of Qawanin al-Wizarah the work has been mainly constructed; The result of their analysis shows the division of themes into the categories of crisis themes, crisis causes, crisis solutions, and efficient government or crisis-free (ideal) government by them the work has been presented.
Our final step is the attempt to understand the achievement of thematic analysis of the text through the conceptual approach of Thomas Spragens in his book Understanding Political Theory (New York, 1976). By this last step, it becomes clear that al-Mawirdi considered the political crisis of the 5th century AH as the lack of structural, behavioral, and program procedures for government administration, as the main issue of Spragens is finding political-social crisis behind motivations of writing every original book in political theory.
In this step, it became clear that al-Mawirdi employed all his themes in his book to solve the crisis, when he carefully drew dozens of structural models, organizational behavior, and government programs for the ruler, Wazir, and some other main figures of government to use them to be well guided throughout the way of governing. Spragens believes that the model of "disorganization - trying to return to order" causes the emergence of political thought in the mind of political thinkers to transition from crisis to ideal.
It seems that al-Mawirdi considered disorder to be the cause of the inefficiency of the government, and he made it possible to achieve an efficient government through a theoretical production of organizational order. From the early Islamic period, the experience of the government system in Sassanid Iran was transferred to the Islamic Caliphate and caused its prosperity. But during al-Mawardi`s lifetime, the government system had suffered from internal problems and degeneration;
The historical books of this period are full of all kinds of narrations about very ridiculous conflicts between government officials, such that due to a little annoyance and greed, the leaders of the government used to draw swords at each other, and the government treasures were easily looted. The Turkish generals, who were considered the special and main troops of the caliph, were also the main threat against the government structure.
In this period, the dominance of the Turkish generals over the usual routines of the Abbasid caliphate, which was previously based on the regulations of Iranian Sassanid manner, had caused the deterioration of the government's performance. Thus, the hierarchy and structure, professional ethics, and organizational behavior were also destroyed in court. In such circumstances, the Qawanin al-Wizarah, focusing on the themes of regulations, had been a theoretical support to overcome this internal degeneration of the government and a response to the needs of the author`s era. The final result of this research has analyzed the relationship between the era and the text which was the solution to the crisis that had been the reproduction of the concept of efficient government.
History
Mehdi Mirkiaee
Abstract
Water issue" has been one of the main issues of Iranian human life throughout history, and the research about it can shed light on various aspects of the political, economic and social life of Iranians. Artificial irrigation has long been one of the necessities of people's lives in this semi-arid climate. ...
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Water issue" has been one of the main issues of Iranian human life throughout history, and the research about it can shed light on various aspects of the political, economic and social life of Iranians. Artificial irrigation has long been one of the necessities of people's lives in this semi-arid climate. The dispersion of water resources, which was subject to dispersion of the population, required the country to have an innumerable number of dams, aqueducts, reservoirs, wells and streams. Building a dam to store water and control floods and building aqueducts, which sometimes reached tens of kilometers in length, required spending a lot of money and a lot of labor. At first glance, the government was expected to be responsible for the creation and repair of water facilities as institution that has the most resources of the country. The question is, considering that pre-modern governments played a minimal role in solving people's problems and providing their necessities of life, to what extent did the Qajar government accept responsibility for the creation and repair of these facilities in the territory of Iran? What evidence confirms the minimal involvement of Qajar government in the water issue? What were the reasons for the non-interference of the government in water supply and how could the people be responsible for solving this problem? Our assumption is that the Qajar government did not consider itself obligated to provide water to villages, farms and even cities with minimal interference in civil affairs, and the countless number of dilapidated dams and aqueducts is a sign that the government has a duty in this field for He did not imagine and only in a few cases where he was sure that the profit would quickly reach the treasury, he accepted a small investment. In the meantime, the further some areas were from the center, the less government intervention in their irrigation systems. Also, the Qajar government looked at the water issue as an opportunity for earning money by selling running water and collecting taxes from other water sources. Governors of the provinces were also interested in creating irrigation system for their fields only if they were the owners of land in that province. In the meantime, the main burden of creating and maintaining water facilities was the responsibility of the people, who mainly provided the expenses to the landlords and the labor to the subjects. The tradition of endowment was another factor that weakened the role of the government in this field. People's participation in the construction and repair of dams, aqueducts, reservoirs and streams, as well as group oppressions and settlements, as well as collective conflicts, along with the management of water distribution and the selection of Mirabs, led to the emergence of self-organized groups and circles and their greater cohesion in society. Previously, the views of people like Karl Marx and Karl August Wittfogel about the active involvement of Asian governments in solving the water problem in semi-arid climates had gained supporters. Marx believed that in these areas, governments took control of limited water resources and established water supply security, and by managing water resources, they made the producers highly dependent on themselves, and made the government subjects critical. Influenced by him, Wittfogel also realized the need of these communities for huge water supply facilities that only the government could cover. He knew the first and fundamental factor of the formation of the absolute power of the government in these regions. In our research, we have tried to show by relying on a lot of data from the history of Qajar era Iran that not only the government was not involved in many waters supply matters, but also the realities and limitations of the pre-modern world, the Qajar government in planning to intervene in the water issue, especially in remote areas. From the center, he was disabled. This research was done with descriptive-explanatory method and using the documents, especially the petitions of the Majlese Tahqiqe Mazalem. The theoretical framework of the research is derived from Patricia Crone's point of view about the minimal government in the pre-modern world. Previously, no independent research has been conducted on the minimal role of the Qajar government in the water issue.
