Written in the oblique third-person mode of address, Naṣīḥat al-mulūk is intended for ‘the kings of our religious community in this time of ours’. Pseudo-Māwardī urges these unidentified kings to prepare themselves, through study and the development of their rational faculties, to participate in and, when necessary, to intervene in the kingdom's religious sphere. In order to situate and interpret Pseudo-Māwardī's advice in this regard, it is instructive to survey the orientations and practices of the Samanid amirs, which provide a context for his attitude and response in Naṣīḥat al-mulūk.

Over the course of the Samanid era, the amirs’ involvement in religious life and in the kingdom's religious affairs reflects considerable change. In the later ninth and early tenth century, the sons of Aamad I cultivated religious scholars, engaged in the hearing and transmission of ḥadīth and participated in jihād. Their religious style, which evinces considerable continuity with Tahirid practices, appears to have linked them with a strong current in the prevailing culture, in which austerity (zuhd), often coupled with study and emulation of the example of the Prophet, constituted a prominent component. Later amirs acted in the context of a quite different political configuration. The Karakhanids, a large tribal confederation probably related to the Karluks, adopted Islam in the middle years of the tenth century, when their head Satuq Bughra Khān assumed the name ʿAbd al-Karīm; his grandson Hārūn, or Oasan Bughra Khān, would occupy Bukhara in 382/ 992 and initiate the formation of the Karakhanid dynasty (382–609/ 992–1212) in Transoxiana. Accordingly, in the latter half of the tenth century, the steppe lands to the north and east of the Samanid domains ceased to represent a religious frontier. At the same time, the Buyids, from their centres in Iraq and western Iran, mounted repeated challenges for control of contested territories in northern and central Iran. The later amirs directed much of their attention towards these challenges. The amirs of the later tenth century also presided over a more extensive administrative apparatus, and they appear to have maintained greater distance from most of their subjects, including the ʿulamāʾ.