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On the margins of minority life: Zoroastrians and the state in Safavid Iran1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2017

Kioumars Ghereghlou
Kioumars Ghereghlou*
Affiliation:
Columbia University, New York
*
kg2458@columbia.edu
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Abstract

This article looks at the treatment of the Zoroastrians by central and provincial authorities in early modern Yazd, Kirman and Isfahan, emphasizing the institutional weaknesses of the central or khāṣṣa protection they were supposed to benefit from under the Safavids (907–1135/1501–1722). It is argued that the maltreatment the Zoroastrians endured under the Safavids had little to do with religious bigotry. Rather, it arose from rivalries between the central and the provincial services of the Safavid bureaucracy, putting Zoroastrians in Yazd, Kirman, Sistan and Isfahan at risk of over-taxation, extortion, forced labour and religious persecution. The argument developed in this article pivots on the material interest of the central and the provincial agents of the Safavid bureaucracy in the revenue and labour potentials of the Zoroastrians, and the way in which the conflict of interest between these two sectors led to such acts of persecution as over-taxation, forced labour, extortion and violence.

Keywords

ZoroastriansSafavidsReligious minoritiesYazdKirmanIsfahanIran
Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 80 , Issue 1 , February 2017 , pp. 45 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS, University of London 2017 

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Footnotes

1

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments and useful suggestions. This article could not have attained its final form without their feedback. Special thanks are due to Mahnaz Moazami who kindly offered to read an earlier version of the manuscript and took the time and interest to offer insights on ravāyats. All remaining errors are mine.

References

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23 Jung, MS 17341, 211r. For a partial translation of this ravāyat, see Dhabhar, Bamanji N., The Persian Rivayats of Hormazyar Framarz and Others (Bombay: K.R. Cama Oriental Institute, 1932), 602–6Google Scholar; Boyce, Mary, Textual Sources for the Study of Zoroastrianism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 117–9Google Scholar.

24 The original date for this ravāyat is the day of day-bihdīn (23rd) of the month day of the Zoroastrian or Yazdigirdī year 855, which corresponds to 8 Muḥarram 892 ah. For converting the Yazdigirdī dates I have used: al-Bīrūnī, Abū Rayḥān Muḥammad b. Aḥmad, Kitāb al-tafhīm li'awāʾil ṣanāʿat al-tanjīm, ed. Humāʾī, Jalāl (Tehran: Anjuman-i āthār-i millī, 1351 sh/1972), 234 Google Scholar; cf. Hartner, Willy, “Old Iranian calendars”, in Gershevitch, I. (ed.), The Cambridge History of Iran, 2: The Median and Achaemenian Periods (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 729 Google Scholar. On Bahrām-Shāh's family background, see Boyce, Mary and Kotwal, Feroze, “Changa Asa”, Encyclopaedia Iranica 5, 2002, 362–3Google Scholar.

25 Dhabhar, Hormazyar Framarz, LII; Vitalone, Mario, The Persian Revāyats: A Bibliographic Reconnaissance (Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1987), 6 Google Scholar.

26 Jung, 208v.

27 Jung, 209v.

28 Vitalone, Persian Revāyats, 7.

29 Jung, 210v–211r.

30 Jung, 211v. More than a century later, Tavernier claimed rather exaggeratedly that the Zoroastrian population of Kirman “exceeds ten thousand” souls; see Tavernier, Voyages, 431. This figure is accepted uncritically in secondary literature; see Lambton, Ann K.S., “Kirmān”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., 5, 1986, 157 Google Scholar.

31 Sīstānī, Malik Shāh Ḥusayn, Iḥyāʾ al-mulūk, ed. Sutūda, Manūchihr (Tehran: Bungāh-i tarjuma u nashr-i kitāb, 1344 sh/1965), 80–1Google Scholar.

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33 See, for instance, Qumī, Aḥmad Ḥusaynī, Khulāṣat al-tavārīkh, ed. Ishrāqī, Iḥsān (Tehran: Dānishgāh-i Tihrān, 1383 sh/2004), 65 Google Scholar.

34 See ʿAlī Ṭūsī al-Sharīf, Risāla-yi mubashshara-yi shāhīya, folios 1r–64r of Majmūʿa (ms. Majlis Library 21519), 42v–44r; at the close of his treatise, Ṭūsī introduces himself as “an old servant” of the Safavids.

35 Jung, 125r. On the contrary, a late Safavid Shiʿi cleric claimed that the Hidden Imam's mother was a Byzantine princess descended from Jesus Christ; see Majlisī, Muḥammad Bāqir, Kitāb-i rajʿat, ed. Musavī, Ḥasan (Qum: Intishārāt-i dalīl-i mā, 1382 sh/2003), 77–86 Google Scholar.

36 On the Karra (also Jākī or Junakī) confederation of Shii tribes of Kūhgīlūya, see Naṣrābādī, Muḥammad Ṭāhir, Taẕkira-yi Naṣrābādī, ed. Naṣrābādī, Muḥsin Nājī (Tehran: Asāṭīr, 1378 sh/1999), 803 Google Scholar.

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38 For an analysis of power relations between the Niʿmatallāhīya ṭarīqa and the early Safavids, see Mancini-Lander, “Boundaries of empire”, 458–63.

39 Ḥayātī Tabrīzī, Tārīkh, 192v. Ḥayātī Tabrīzī is the only Safavid chronicler who refers to Karra's Nūrbakhshī leanings and his claim to Mahdiship. The following two studies of the Nūrbakhīya say nothing about the Mahdist clique in Yazd and Isfahan; see Alexandra W. Dunietz, “Qāḍī Ḥusayn Maybūdī of Yazd: representative of the Iranian provincial elite in the late fifteenth century”, PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 1990, 171–6; Bashir, Shahzad, Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions: The Nūrbakhshīya between Medieval and Modern Islam (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina, 2003), 186–93Google Scholar.

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53 See Āfūshtaʾī Naṭanzī, Nuqāvat, 326–7; cf. Munshī Turkmān, ʿĀlamārā, 418–9; tr. 595–7.

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56 Āfūshtaʾī Naṭanzī, Nuqāvat, 531.

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73 Bāfqī, Jāmiʿ, 191.

74 Khūzānī Iṣfahānī, Chronicle, 225.

75 Khvāndamīr, Ḥabīb al-siyar, 4: 585. Under Nādir Shah (r. 1148–60/1736–47) a group of Zoroastrians from Kirman held office as middle-ranking military commanders (yūzbāshī) in his army; see Ushīdarī, Jahāngīr, “Gabr maḥalla”, in Mazdāpūr, Katāyūn (ed.), Sirawsh-i Pīr-i Mughān: Yādnāma-yi Jamshīd Sirawshiān (Tehran: Intishārāt-i thurayyā, 1381 sh/2002), 100 Google Scholar.

76 For anecdotal evidence of Zaynab Begum's political clout at court under Shah ʿAbbās and Shah Ṣafī, see Khūzānī Iṣfahānī, Chronicle, 622–4; Iṣfahānī, Muḥammad Maʿṣūm b. Khvājagī, Khulāṣat al-sīyar, ed. Afshār, Īraj (Tehran: ʿIlmī, 1368 sh/1989), 43 Google Scholar; cf. my “Zaynab Begum”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, available online at: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/zaynab-begum (accessed 14 December 2016).

77 On its location, see Siroux, Maxime, Anciennes voies et monuments routiers de la région d'Ispahân (Cairo: Institut français d'archéologie orientale, 1971), 215 Google Scholar.

78 Khūzānī Iṣfahānī, Chronicle, 300.

79 Kirmanī, Aḥmad-ʿAlī Vazīrī, “Jughrāfīā-yi Kirmān (ed. Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Bāstānī Pārīzī)”, Farhang-i Īrān Zamīn 14, 1344 sh/1965, 64 Google Scholar; cf. Bāstānī Pārīzī, Ganj-ʿAlī Khān, 299.

80 Anonymous, “Kāravānsarāha-yi Iṣfahān dar dawra-yi Ṣafavī (ed. Īraj Afshār)”, Mīrāth-i Islāmī-i Īrān 5, 1376 sh/1997, 552 Google Scholar; Blake, Stephen, Half the World: The Social Architecture of Safavid Isfahan, 1590–1722 (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 1999), 121–2Google Scholar.

81 Röhrborn, Provinzen und Zentralgewalt, 122.

82 Vaḥīd Qazvīnī, Jahān-ārā, 277; cf. Bardsīrī, Muḥammad Saʿīd Mashīzī, Taẕkira-yi Ṣafavīya-yi Kirmān, ed. Pārīzī, Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Bāstānī (Tehran: Nashr-i ʿilm, 1369 sh/1990), 185–6Google Scholar.

83 For details of Ṭahmāsp-Qulī Khan's life and career as governor of Kirman, see Munshī Turkmān, ʿAlam-ārā, 1058; tr. 1281–82; Khūzānī Iṣfahānī, Chronicle, 801, 923.

84 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 188.

85 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 192.

86 Jung, 148v. Kirman was then considered the “Piraeus” or intellectual stronghold of Zoroastrianism in Iran; see Chardin, Voyages, 4: 260.

87 Sirawshīān, Zartushtīān, 27.

88 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 196.

89 Sirawshīān, Zartushtīān, 27.

90 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 217.

91 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 207–8.

92 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 278.

93 Bāfqī, Jāmiʿ, 502–3.

94 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 242–3. During this period, bureaucrats in charge of collecting poll tax were normally Zoroastrian; see Sirawshīān, Zartushtīān, 22.

95 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 244–5.

96 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 247–8.

97 Sirawshīān, Zartushtīān, 26.

98 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 251–2.

99 See Spicehandler, Ezra, “The persecution of the Jews of Isfahan under Shāh ʿAbbās II (1642–1666)”, Hebrew Union College Annual 46, 1975, 331–56Google Scholar; and Moreen, Vera B., “The downfall of Muḥammad [ʿAlī] Beg, grand vizier of Shah ʿAbbās II (reigned 1642–1666)”, Jewish Quarterly Review 72/2, 1981, 81–99 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

100 For a brief narrative in verse on the monetary crisis under ʿAbbās II, see Afshār, Īraj, “Inqilāb-i diram dar zamān-i Shāh ʿAbbās-i duvvum”, Tārīkh 1, 1355/1976, 267–74Google Scholar.

101 Bāfqī, Jāmiʿ, 673.

102 Bāfqī, Jāmiʿ, 206–15.

103 Bāfqī, Jāmiʿ, 226, 759.

104 Bāfqī, Jāmiʿ, 760.

105 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 452. It is reported that in the 1670s a group of Shiʿi religious dignitaries in Kirman banned Zoroastrians from living in the Muslim-populated neighbourhoods of the city, forcing them to take up residence in a new ghetto called Gabr-Maḥalla outside city walls; see Aḥmad-ʿAlī Vazīrī, Tārīkh-i Kirmān, ed. Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Bāstānī Parīzī (Tehran: ʿIlmī, 1370 sh/1991), 27; cf. Ushīdarī, “Gabr maḥalla”, 98.

106 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 490–91.

107 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 499–501.

108 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 510–12.

109 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 529.

110 Krusiński, Tadeusz Jan, The History of the Late Revolutions of Persia, 2 vols (London, 1733), 2: 197 Google Scholar.

111 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 547.

112 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 563, 565–7.

113 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 568–9.

114 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 575–7.

115 Mashīzī Bardsīrī, Taẕkira, 578–83.

116 Floor, Willem (ed.), The Afghan Occupation of Safavid Persia, 1721–1729 (Paris: Association pour l'avancement des études iraniennes, 1998), 43 Google Scholar.

117 Floor, Afghan Occupation, 46.

118 Krusiński, Revolutions, 2: 197.

119 Floor, Afghan Occupation, 50.

120 Floor, Afghan Occupation, 57, 93, 227.