Buyid dynasty
- Buyid also called:
- Buwayhid
Buyid dynasty, (945–1055), Islamic dynasty of pronounced Iranian and Shiʿi character that provided native rule in western Iran and in Iraq in the period between the Abbasid and Seljuq eras. Of Daylamite (northern Iranian) origin, the line was founded by the three sons of Būyeh (or Buwayh): ʿAlī, Ḥasan, and Aḥmad.
ʿAlī, appointed governor of Karaj about 930 by the Daylamite leader Mardāvīz ebn Zeyār, seized Eṣfahān and Fārs, while Ḥasan and Aḥmad took Jibāl, Khūzestān, and Kermān (935–936). In December 945 Aḥmad occupied the Abbasid capital of Baghdad as amīr al-umarāʾ (commander in chief) and, reducing the Sunni caliphs to puppet status, established Buyid rule (January 946). Thereafter the brothers were known by their honorific titles of ʿImād al-Dawlah (ʿAlī), Rukn al-Dawlah (Ḥasan), and Muʿizz al-Dawlah (Aḥmad).
The dynasty’s power, subsequently fragmented among family members and provinces, was consolidated briefly during the reign of ʿAḍud al-Dawlah (949–983), who established himself as sole ruler (by 977), adding Oman, Ṭabaristān, and Jorjān to the original domains.
The Buyid state was then at its peak. It engaged in public works, building hospitals and the Band-e amīr (Emir’s Dam) across the Kūr River near Shīrāz; it had relations with the Samanids, Ḥamdānids, Byzantines, and Fatimids; and it patronized artists, notably the poets al-Mutanabbī and Ferdowsī. The Shiʿi nature of the state was manifest in the inauguration of popular and passionate observance of Shiʿi festivals and the encouragement of pilgrimages to the holy places of Najaf and Karbala in Iraq.
The major cultural centres of the Buyids were the cities of Rayy and Nayin, in Iran, and Baghdad, in Iraq. The Persian character of Buyid art was deep enough to flavour the art of that part of the world through the reign of the Seljuqs until the Mongol invasions of the 13th century.
Buyids were quite fond of metalwork, particularly fine silverwork. They often employed Sasanian (pre-Islamic Persian) techniques and motifs: a typical decoration consists of a seated figure surrounded with wild animals, birds, and musicians—all depicted in the highly stylized Sasanian tradition.
Buyid pottery, usually called Gabrī ware, is a red-bodied earthenware covered with a white slip (liquified clay washed over the body before firing). Designs were executed by scratching through the slip to reveal the red body beneath. Yellowish or green lead glazes were used. Some pieces were decorated with linear patterns, others with elaborate representational designs, which often include mythological figures, such as birds and quadrupeds with human faces. Some of the earliest extant of these pieces illustrate stories from the Shāh-nāmeh (“Book of Kings”), the Persian national epic by the poet Ferdowsī (died 1020).
After the death of ʿAḍud al-Dawlah, a slackening economy, dissension in the army, and general Buyid disunity hastened the dynasty’s decline. In 1055 the last Buyid ruler, Abū Naṣr al-Mālik al-Raḥīm, was deposed by the Seljuq Toghrïl Beg.