Shahriyār b. al-Ḥasan: A Persian Ismā‘īlī dā‘ī of the Fatimid Age

Summary

Ever since the rise and expansion of the Ismā‘īlī missionary movement throughout the Islamic world in the 3rd/9th century, Iran has been intimately connected with its religious and philosophical thought. The origins of the movement, though much obscured by legendary tale, are commonly sought in western Iran. Investigating its roots, the early critical historian al-Mas‘ūdī (d. 345/956) asserted that it was founded in the year 260/874 in Isfahan. Anti-Ismā‘īlī polemicists imagined a plot of Persian Shu‘ūbīs active in Khūzistān out to destroy Arab Islam. Whilst political success of the movement came in Bahrain, Yemen, and most spectacularly, with the rise of the Fatimid caliphate, in the Maghrib and Egypt, Iran continued to contribute many of the dā‘īs who profoundly shaped its spiritual identity. As numerous works of early Ismā‘īlī literature have become accessible to modern scholarship, the names of Abū Ya‘qūb al-Sijistānī, Ḥamīd al-Dīn al- Kirmānī, al-Mu’ayyad fī al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī and Nāṣir-i Khusrau stand out among the chief representatives of Ismā‘īlī religious thought.

There were others whose works, although much more modest and conventional, were significant enough to be preserved and treasured by the tradition of the Ismā‘īlī da‘wa. Shahriyār b. al-Ḥasan is known as a dā‘ī of Fārs and Kirmān, later active in Yemen, in the time of the Fatimid caliph al-Mustanṣir bi Allāh (427-487/1035-1094). Given the lack of concrete data, the story of his life can only vaguely be reconstructed. He was presumably somewhat younger than his illustrious fellow countryman al- Mu’ayyad fī al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, who was born before 390/1000 and succeeded his own father as head of the Fatimid Ismā‘īlī da‘wa in Fārs. Shahriyār and al-Mu’ayyad must certainly have been known to each other, but there is no evidence of a close relationship between them at that time. In his autobiography al-Mu’ayyad does not mention Shahriyār or any other dā‘ī in Fārs. It was, no doubt, al-Mu’ayyad fī al-Dīn's fall from grace of the Būyid ruler Abū Kālījār under ‘Abbasid pressure and the subsequent persecution of Ismā‘īlīs in Fārs which also compelled Shahriyār to leave his homeland after 435/1043. He found a secure refuge in Yemen, where the Ṣulayḥids had recently succeeded in founding a Fatimid vassal state. Al-Mukarram Aḥmad, the son and successor of the founder, in particular patronized him.