The Techniques Used by Nasavi in Sanctifying Sultan Jalal al-Din in Nafthat al-Masdūr Through the Sacred Concepts of Divine Revelation

The Khwarazmian dynasty was a continuation of the Islamic period following the Ghaznavids and Seljuks. Of Turkic origin, they sought to erase the stigma of their foreignness through a sincere embrace of Islam, relying on Muhammadan Sharia to gain acceptance among Iranians.
Following the Muslim invasion of Iran and the dissemination of the language of revelation across the land, Iranian rulers sought to obtain symbols of legitimacy from the caliphs of Baghdad. They employed secretaries fluent in Arabic who could use religious expressions and Quranic verses to convince the public of the rulers' devotion to Islam, thereby seeking greater submission to the caliphate and strengthening their alignment with the court of Baghdad.
Nasavi was the last secretary of the Islamic court working under Arabic influence who consistently sought to showcase his knowledge of the Quran and Hadith, alongside his Islamic devotion, in Nafthat al-Masdūr. He aimed to demonstrate divine favor toward "the pupil of Islam's eye," Sultan Jalal, attempting to elevate the Sultan's prestige by constructing a holy image of him. This research endeavors to analyze the sacred concepts derived from the Quran that have contributed to the divine sanctification of the pious image of Sultan Jalal. It aims to address the question of how significantly these concepts have influenced the portrayal of the Sultan's sacred persona.
Introduction
After the Muslim invasion of Iran, court writers and secretaries began to use Quranic narratives and sacred Islamic concepts in their writings, which led to the development of Persian transcendental prose. This prose enjoyed the support of the religious government and, in order to legitimize the ruling system, resorted to sanctifying the court by writing verses and mentioning religious hadiths and narratives. It took on the task of giving prominence to the political-religious system of the Caliphate. It was a prose writing style in which Arabic vocabulary, due to the proximity and connection of the Turkic governments with the Caliphate of Baghdad, entered Persian through the efforts of Arabist writers such as Bu Nasr Moshkan, Beyhaqi, Balkhi, Baghdadi, Nasavi, Juweyni, etc., with a religious approach. Nafthat al-Masdūr is a manifestation of Persian artistic prose in the 13th century. One of the important characteristics of artistic prose is the intertwining of the Arabic and Persian languages, which is the reason for the sacredness of Persian prose.
Like many court scribes, Nasavi made divine verses and religious concepts the foundation of his writing. Throughout the text, he linked the existence of Sultan Jalal al-Din to Islam and being a Muslim, associating the Sultan's bravery and military actions with divine will. He also considered his enemies to be infidels, polytheists, and atheists. By using expressions of holiness deeply rooted in the Iranian historical and cultural context, he implicitly portrayed a sacred image of Sultan Jalal al-Din.
This research aims to use an analytical-descriptive method to demonstrate the importance and sanctification of the ruler and the court, which is an inseparable aspect of the sacredness of Persian prose, and to show how Nasavi tried to sanctify his blessed and praised guardian by utilizing Quranic expressions and concepts.
Method
The present study, using a descriptive-analytical method and library research, examines the sanctification of Sultan Jalal al-Din in Nafthat al-Masdūr, a valuable text rich in Arabic verses and hadiths. The period examined in this study is the 13th century, at the height of the Mongol invasion of Iran during the Khwarazmian period, within the Persian-Arabic linguistic domain.
Results
Many researchers who have studied Nafthat al-Masdūr have considered it to be a work of insult and anger towards the Mongols and their descendants. They view it as a complaint about the fate of the Mongols, their wanderings, and a description of various calamities in the midst of the Mongol tribulation. However, the authors believe that Nafthat al-Masdūr is a valuable text full of Arabic terms and verse writing which focuses on the last sultan of the Islamic government in Iran, namely Sultan Jalal al-Din Mankaberni of Khwarazmshahi. Nasavi, who was a religious Ash'ari cleric, poet, Quran reciter, and a graduate of the religious schools of Khorasan, has tried to use the concepts of the sanctity of the Holy Quran to present the holy face of Sultan Jalali, and believes "Al-Nusra min Allah Wahdahu" (Help comes from Allah alone).
Conclusion
Based on the data, it can be said that Nasavi considered Sultan Jalal al-Din a religious and Islamic superhuman, largely because of his intense interest in Islam and its rituals and his great love for the Sultan. Consequently, by labelling the Sultan as "the pupil of Islam's eye", "the mockery of Muslim slander", "the substance of divine victory", "the founder of Islam", "the promoter of Islamic laws", and "the defender of religious customs and rituals", he attempts to restore his sacred and Islamic face. Nasavi sanctifies the Sultan in several ways: through divine attributes, human attributes, and identification with the Prophet, Imam, kings, religious role models, and divine saints Through this, he gives him a prophet-like sanctity. In this regard, he has drawn upon Quranic vocabulary with a frequency of nearly 3,750 examples. He has tried to convince the reader that if it were not for the Mongol infidel campaign and the subsequent weakness and carelessness of the Sultan's army, Sultan Jalal could have expanded the Dar al-Islam and preserved the essence of Islam and Muslims. The textualization of Nasavi’s narratives in Nafthat al-Masdūr serves the sanctification of the text, whose most central issue and the totality of its author's intellectual system reflect the sacred images of the Sultan. Nasavi’s narratives are formed on a bedrock of abstract words carrying sacred and religious significance. His mentality, involved in religious aristocracy, has conquered and enslaved the territory of the text with domineering concepts derived from the Quran. Nasavi has based the foundations of his religious ideas on Quranic verses and Prophetic hadiths. The text is a "sacred tribute" to a Muslim sultan who fought the infidel army until his last breath and achieved the great grace of martyrdom, which is the dream of every Muslim, and with his martyrdom, immortalized his name in the Islamic world. Nasavi's other book, Sirat al-Sultan Jalal al-Din Minkaberni, which is in Arabic and was written a few years after Nafthat al-Masdūr, can also be reminiscent of the books Sirat al-Nabi and Sirat al-Ahl al-Bayt and al-A'immah al-Ithhar, which present the manners, style, and behavior of the great figures of Islam as models and good examples for Muslims.