COURTS AND COURTIERS
iii. In the Islamic period to the Mongol conquest
In Persia the organization of courts (Pers. bār, bādrgāh, dargāh, darbār; in Arabic, there exists no more precise designation than majles, lit. “session”), including the formation of a circle of courtiers in the early centuries after the Islamic conquest, was directly inspired by the court life of the ʿAbbasid caliphs at Baghdad and Sāmarrāʾ. The latter was itself, however, largely based on the elaborate ceremonial that had both protected the theocratic ruler and regulated his relations with his entourage in pre-Islamic Persia (see ii, above).
By the time of the caliph Hešām (105-25/724-43) the Omayyads (41-132/661-750) had already moved some distance from Bedouin simplicity and the tradition of general accessibility to the shaikh or ruler toward formation of a regular court circle (for Omayyad court ceremonial, see Sauvaget, pp. 129ff.). The caliphs displayed such insignia of authority as the Prophet Moḥammad’s sword, mantle (borda), staff (qażīb), and seal ring (ḵātam; by the 10th century a manuscript of the Koran that had been copied on the orders of the caliph ʿOṯmān [23-35/644-561 was also mentioned among the insignia of the ʿAbbasids (Helāl Ṣābeʾ, apud Sourdel, p. 135). One year after he came to power the ʿAbbasid ʿAbd-Allāh al-Saffāḥ (132-36/749-54) began to conceal himself from public view by means of a curtain (setr), a practice that Masʿūdī (Morūj V, pp. 121-22; ed. Pellat, sec. 2334) connected with the old Persian kings, specifically with the Sasanian Ardašīr I. In the mosque he sat apart in a special enclosure (maqṣūra), a practice introduced by the first Omayyad caliph, Moʿāwīa, after an attempt on his life by the Kharijites (Ebn Ḵaldūn, pp. 42-65, esp. 44; tr., II, pp. 48-73, esp. 50, noted that Persian and Byzantine clients had shown the early caliphs the way to court luxury and ostentation).