Working alongside sultans were great numbers of men who were highly skilled in administrative and military matters who aided the ruler in the imperial project. Running an empire demanded trustworthy individuals who could implement the king’s political agenda. This was made possible by the administrative system with all its various offices and distribution of responsibilities. The highest office belonged to the vizier or chief minister whose portfolio included a vast array of duties. But the vizier was not simply one of the “men of the pen” or an intellectual mouthpiece. The office of vizier existed since Abbasid times and saw various changes over the course of Islamic history. This chapter demonstrates how those individuals had a major impact on the history of Islamicate South Asia.

This chapter discusses the last eleven years of the life of Ya?ya b. ‘Abd Allah (d. 187/803). The Sunni sources express an interest in Ya?ya only insofar as he helps explain other developments in the ‘Abbasid world. In other words, Sunni historians are vested in an interpretive framework shaped by the larger tapestry of ‘Abbasid caliphal history in which Ya?ya plays a marginal role. The Zaydi sources exist within a different conceptual world where the ‘Abbasid caliphs play the role of tyrants in a broad ‘Alid led struggle for the establishment of a just state. In Ya?ya b. ‘Abd Allah, they rehabilitate a figure generally accepted as a Zaydi Imam but saddled with a history of accommodating ‘Abbasid power through interpretive frameworks that place him in the mold of an ideal Imam. The chapter demonstrates that Sunni and Shi‘i works adhere to the same rhetoricized model of historical writing despite the modern tendency to deem the latter as either hopelessly polemical (in the case of Twelver sources) or to ignore them altogether (in the case of Zaydi sources).