The economic history of the Imami Shiites in Seljuk Iran

Economic history as a subset of social history is one of the issues raised by scholars of history in the present era. The role of economics in the survival of Shiite Imamieh in Iran during the Seljuk era (429-590 AH) is among the issues of this kind, which has been underestimated.The Shi’a of the Imamieh in Iran was a powerful and influential minority Seljuk period. At the beginning of this historical period under the auspices of the Shiite emirates of Al-buyah the Iranian Shiites were in economic prosperity, but they challenges economic and social strain with the disappearance of the Al-buyah and the establishment of the Seljuk regime. Accordingly, in an interdisciplinary research, we consider the historical and analytical method and historical documents to consider various economic dimensions in the survival of Shiite Imamieh in Iran during the Seljuk period. The economic dimensions include production (agriculture and industry), trade and social security with a devotion approach. The findings of this research, which have been carried out using descriptive-analytic method and using valid library sources, show that economic dimensions in the fifth and six Hijri centuries have been consistent with indices of an endogenous and outside-oriented economy; in the way that the Imamieh’s agriculture and industry had a productive function in the Seljuk era, and this was important for economic self-sufficiency, Creating employment and complementing other productive and economic sectors. Also, the Imamieh’s trade was contained by relative stability and security, development of roads, market dynamics, and so on. Therefore, the Imamieh during the Seljuk era was not only in economic isolation, but in trading with others. Due to the proper economic conditions of the Imamieh during this period, the religious emām olders devoted the educational, health and construction facilities, which resulted in the establishment of general welfare in the Shiite community.