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Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology

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The office of the wazir (or vizier, plural wuzara') first emerged during the Abbasid Caliphate, modeled after earlier Sasanian/Persianate models. The wazir came to represent the height of the bureaucracy as it emerged as a distinct office from the kuttab. The wazir was often responsible for much of governance as official rulers became increasingly removed from, or distinct from, the populations they ruled (e.g. Nizam al-Mulk, the wazir to the Seljuk Malik Shah, was a native Persian), but were also still an easy target for court intrigue and scapegoating.

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Posted at Apr 12/2009 09:43AM:
ian: See Nizam al-Mulk as an example - but it would take place in both Sunni and Shii regimes. Usually the wazir was from a different ethnic group than the ruling party. What does that seem to tell us?