Ali ibn Ishak

Ali ibn Ishak, also known as Abu'l Hasan, was a Persian dehqan^[1] who served as the financial minister of the Ghaznavids.^[2] He was a native of small village named Radkan, near Tus, in Iran. When the Seljuq Turks conquered Khorasan in 1040, Ali fled to Ghazni, where his son Nizam al-Mulk was working within the government. Nizam would later serve the Seljuqs, where he became the vizier of the Empire and almost held near absolute power over 20 years.^[3] Nothing more is known about the life of Ali.

References

1. A. TAFAŻŻOLĪ: DEHQĀN. In: Encyclopædia Iranica. online ed., 2010: "... In the early Islamic centuries many important political figures of eastern Persia were dehqāns (e.g., the Samanid amir Aḥmad b. Sahl b. Hāšem, q.v.) or descendants of dehqān families (e.g., the Saljuq grand vizier Neẓām-al-Molk, q.v.; Gardīzī, p. 151; Ebn Fondoq, pp. 73, 78) [...] The profound attachment of the dehqāns to the culture of ancient Iran also lent to the word dehqān the sense of “Persian,” especially “Persian of noble blood,” in contrast to Arabs, Turks, and Romans in particular ..."
2. H. Bowen, C.E. Bosworth: Niẓām al-Mulk. In: Encyclopaedia of Islam.
3. Gibb, H. A. R. (1960–1985). The Encyclopedia of Islam, vol. 8. Leiden: Brill. p. 70.

Sources

• C.E., Bosworth (2012). "Niẓām al-Mulk". Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.). Leiden and New York: BRILL. ISBN 9789004161214.