Sarbadars - Government

Government

The Sarbadars are unique among the major contenders in post-Ilkhanid Persia in that none of their leaders ruled as legitimate sovereigns. None of them had a legitimate claim to the Ilkhanid throne, or were related to a Mongol or any other royal house, and none of them had previously held a high post within the Ilkhanate. While they on occasion recognized claimants to the Ilkhanid throne as their overlord, they did so purely as a matter of convenience, and in all other aspects they had no ties to the Ilkhanate. This fact had a strong influence regarding the nature of the Sarbadar political state.

The Sarbadars had a form of government which would, in modern times, probably be identified as an oligarchy or a republic. Unlike their neighbors, the Sarbadars had no dynastic lines; power usually went to the most ambitious. This view is not universally held, however. Some point to the fact that one of the Sarbadar rulers, Vajih al-Din 'Mas'ud, produced a son who also eventually reigned, named Lutf Allah. While seven other rulers separated the reign of Mas'ud and that of his son, those seven rulers are sometimes considered regents for Lutf Allah, until he was old enough to grab power for himself. Nevertheless, the seven are generally considered the heads of state in their own right.

A ruler would hold power for as long as he could; the fact that several of them met violent deaths was a sign of the instability that plagued the state for most of its existence. The founder of the Sabadar state, 'Abd al-Razzaq, used the title of amir during his reign. While many of the Sarbadar leaders were secular, the dervishes also had their turns in power, and on occasion they ruled the state in condominium with each other; such partnerships, however, tended to fall apart quickly. Because the two sides held radically different views on how the Sarbadar government should be run, there were often drastic changes in policy as one side would supplant the other as the most powerful.