Ghaznavid vizier of the early 6th/12th century.
A version of this article is available in print
Volume I, Fascicle 3, pp. 287
ABU’L-FATḤ YŪSOF B. YAʿQŪB, ŠAMS-AL-WOZARĀʾ QOṬB-AL-DĪN NEẒĀM-AL-MOLK, Ghaznavid vizier of the early 6th/12th century. The dates of his birth and death are unknown; the biographical works on viziers by Nāṣer-al-dīn Kermānī, Sayf-al-dīn Fażlī, and others stop short at the viziers of the later Ghaznavids. It is possible that he was a brother of the Abu’l-ʿAlāʾ b. Yaʿqūb Nākūk (q.v.) who had served Sultan Ebrāhīm b. Masʿūd I in India. Abu’l-Fatḥ Yūsof acted as vizier to Sultan Malek Arslan or Arslan Shah (509-11/1116-17). Nothing is known of his administrative policy during this brief period, and he presumably shared in the downfall of his master; but for a time he was clearly a powerful figure in the state, since Malek Arslan’s panegyrist, ʿOṯmān Moḵtārī, addressed several odes to him (Dīvān, ed. J. Homāʾī, Tehran, 1341 Š./1962, pp. 85-90, 171-74, 282-84, 376-85, 475-76).
Bibliography
Bosworth, Later Ghaznavids, pp. 91-92.
