political fragmentation and cultural diversity 231The progress in intellectual development, or otherwise, seemed to
have been based on, and conditioned by, the cultural character and
background of the founder of the dynasty. We find for example that
the separate movements that did not have a particular ideology but
were based instead on merely the military powers of their founders
who lacked intellectual backgrounds were very poor in their intellec-
tual achievements. The most notable examples of these were the
Saffarìd dynasty whose founder was the head of a gang of outlaws
and who ruled all of Persia to the Indian frontiers from 867 to 908.
There was no intellectual progress during that dynasty. A similar
example could be taken from the Ikhshìds of Egypt who were, yet
again, a Turkish slave dynasty governing Egypt from 935 until 969.
That dynasty, short as it was, left no intellectual achievements either.
However, apart from the Saffarìds and Ikhshìds, we find the
dynasty normally surrounding itself with patronage of poets, scien-
tists, and Ulama". The example of the Samanìds whose founder was
a Zoroastrian aristocrat, taking away Khurasàn from the Saffarìds
in 900, was a worthy one. The Samanìds paid considerable atten-
tion to learning and surrounding themselves with patronage of Arab
and non-Arab intellectuals. The dynasty, as we saw earlier, took par-
ticular pride and interest in promoting education, building schools,
madrasah, and was keen on, or at least keen to be seen as being
interested in, protecting the religion of Islam. For the dynasties that
did not have the Holy Shrines of Makkah and al-Medìnah within
their geographical domain, protecting Islam would take the alternative
form of protecting and preserving the Sharì"ah. The protection and
perseverance of the Sharì"ah would be demonstrated, at least in the
eyes of the populace, by surrounding the court with a patronage of
Sharì"ah scholars, Ulama". The inclusion of the Ulama"in the dynasty’s
royal court aimed to provide the rulers with the most needed guid-
ance and direction on Sharì"ah matters and to help derive religious
opinions, fatwa, if the need had arisen. Moreover, keeping the Ulama"
in the royal court would be perceived by the public as the Ulama"
being in support of the ruling dynasty which would add to their reli-
gious legitimacy and reinforce public support. Establishing educa-
tional centres was a demonstrable example of the rulers’ support of
education and learning centres in the dynasty, and a demonstration
of their intention of improving the state of the people. The Fatimid
is another good example of a dynasty that paid considerable atten-
tion to the support of leaning and education. For example, Al-Azhar,