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Religion, Political Action and Legitimate Domination in Shiʿite Iran: fourteenth to eighteenth centuries a.d.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Said Amir Arjomand
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Extract

The power and prestige of the Persian religious élite, the ‘ulamā’, during the Qājār period (1795–1926), and their political importance, in contrast to the relative political feebleness of the ‘ulamā’ of Sunni Islam in modern times, has attracted the attention of students of Persian history and politics.

Type
Hidden God, visible cleric
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , May 1979 , pp. 58 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1979

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References

(1) See especially Lambton, A.K.S., The Persian ‘ulamā’ and Constitutional Reform, in Le shi‘isme imâmite [Colloque de Strasbourg] (Paris 1970)Google Scholar; Keddie, N.R., The Roots of the Ulama's Power in Modern Iran, in Scholars, Saints and Sufis, Muslim Religions Institutions since 1500 (Berkeley 1972)Google Scholar; and Algar, H., Religion and the State in Iran: 1785–1906 (Berkeley 1969)Google Scholar and The Oppositional Role of the Ulama in 20th Century Iran, in Scholars, Saints and Sufis.

(2) Keddie, , op. cit. p. 212Google Scholar.

(3) Ibid. p. 216. On the same issue, in Religion and Irreligion in Early Iranian Nationalism, CSSH, IV (1962)Google Scholar, Keddie had written: ‘There has always been potential opposition from the shi’a ‘ulamā’ to the Shah. The latter is, theoretically, regarded as a usurper, legitimate succession having passed down through the house of ‘Alī until the last, or hidden Imām, who will reappear to establish legitimate rule’ (p. 290).

(4) Algar, H., op. cit. p. 5Google Scholar.

(5) Algar, H., Oppositional Role, loc. cit. p. 232Google Scholar.

(6) Ibid.Keddie, , op. cit. p. 220Google Scholar. In Quis Custodiet Custodes. Some Reflections on the Persian Theory of Government, SI, V–VI (1956)Google Scholar, A.K.S. Lambton states that the Shi’ite ‘ulamā’ withdrew from active participation in political affairs, ‘awaiting the coming of the Mahdi’ (p. 133). Similarly, in explaining the fact that the Shi’ite jurists did not feel the need to justify the state as did the Sunni jurists since al-Māwardī, she points out that ‘they awaited the coming of the Kingdom of God upon earth’ (A Reconsideration of the Position of the Marja’ al-Taqlīid and the Religious Institution, SI, XX (1964), p. 115)Google Scholar. These and some other statements—such as those made in The Persian ‘ulamā’, loc. cit. p. 247, and the one referred to below on p. 96—seem to suggest that Lambton sympathizes with the views formulated above. However, it is very clear from her substantive analyses, especially Quis Custodiet Custodes, that (a) she considers the theories of Imāmate and of Occultation of limited relevance to Persian political theory, and (b) she sees the mujtahids as vested with the authority of the Hidden Imām in matters of religion.

(7) G.E. von Grunebaum, for instance, opens his chapter on the body politic as follows: 'Islam is the community of Allāh. He is the living truth to which it owes its life. He is the center and the goal of its spiritual experience. But he is also the mundane head of his community which he not only rules but governs’ (von Grunebaum, G.E., Medieval Islam (Chicago 1954), p. 12Google Scholar; underlining mine). The underlined assertion is in our view untenable.

(8) As an example, Sura LXIV, verse i can be cited:

All that is in the heavens and the earth [magnifies God.

His is the Kingdom, and His is the praise,

And he is powerful over everything [A.J. Arberry, tr.]

One of th e most recurrent phrases of the Qur‘ān is: ‘and for God is the kingdom of the heavens and of the earth’ (III, 189; v, 19–20; VII, 157, XXIV, 42; XLII, 49; XLV, 26; XLVIII, 14).

(9) See Weber, M., Ancient Judaism (Glencoe, Free Press, 1952)Google Scholar, ch. V, Social Significance of the War God of the Confederacy, esp. section 2: ‘The Nature of the War God’, pp. 124–30.

(10) See the Qur‘ān, Sūra XXV: al-Furqān (‘Salvation’), esp. verse 56:

‘We have sent thee not, except good tidings to bear a n d warning’.

[A.J. Arberry, tr.].

Tor An d describes the typical the typical rhetorical scheme of the Sūras of the Qur’ān as follows:

1. A description of the blessings of God.

2. The duty of man in obedience to God.

3. Judgment and retribution which shall come upon those who do not fulfill this duty (and rewards for those who do)—Andrae, Tor, Muhammad: the Man and His Faith (1936), p. 126Google Scholar.

(11) Lapidus, Ira M., The Separation of State and Religion in the Development of Early Islamic Society, IJMES, VI (1975), pp. 367, 382–3Google Scholar.

(12) This was especially so when Shi‘ism became the state religion in the Ṣafavid period. Book Eight of Muhammad Bāqir Majlisī’s Biḥār al-Anwār (The Oceans of Light), dealing with the Early Caliphate, is entitled Kitāb al-Fitan (The Book of Sedition), and the first three Caliphs are presented as the usurpers of 'Alī›s legitimate caliphate.

(13) Hodgson, M.G.S., How Did the Early Shi'a Become Sectarian? Journal of the American Oriental Society, LXXV (1955)Google Scholar. Hodgson's otherwise excellent account does not pay enough attention to the historical importanc e of Muhammad al-Bāqir as the founder of Imāmi jurisprudence.

(14) Iqbāl, 'A., Khāndān-i Nawbakhti (Tehran 1311/1932), pp. 70–71Google Scholar.

(15) Ibid. pp. 65–66 and p. 75; Hodgson, , loc. cit. p. 12Google Scholar.

(16) Ibid. p. 10; emphasis added.

(17) Ibid. p. 11; emphasis added.

(18) Madelung, W., article ‘Imama’ El2, III, p. 116Google Scholar; emphasis added.

(19) See section 5 below.

(20) De jure, of course, the Imām remained the supreme authority, in all matters pertaining to this and the other world. Centuries after the disappearance of the last Imam, the 'Allāma, Ibn al-Muṭahhar al-Ḥilli, would still state categorically: ‘The Imāmate is a universal authority (rīyāsat) in the things of religion and of the world belonging to some person and derived from (rīyāsat) the Prophet’ (Al-Bābu›l-Ḥādī 'Ashar, translaed. Miller, W.M. (London 1928), p. 62)Google Scholar. But the unbridged gap between dogma and reality made idealistic theological abstractness rather than legal positivism the distinctive mark of the Shi'ite doctrine of Imāmate.

(21) See Cahen, C., The Body Politic, in von Grunebaum, G.E. (ed.), Unity and Diversity in Muslim Civilization (Chicago 1955), esp. pp. 137–39 and p. 149Google Scholar.

(22) Schimmel, A.M., Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill 1975), pp. 41, 83, 191Google Scholar.

(23) Hodgson, , op. cit. pp. 1–8Google Scholar; Mashkur, M.J., Nigāhī bi Madhāhib-i Shī'a va dīgar Firqa-hā-yi Islām tā Pāyān-i Qarn-i Siwum-i Hijrī (introduction to his Tarjuma-yi Firaq al-Shī'a-yi Nawbakhti) (Tehran 1353/1974), pp. 193–6Google Scholar.

(24) Hodgson, , op. cit. p. 13Google Scholar.

(25) Madelung, W., Lectures on the History of Shi'ism (University of Chicago 1976)Google Scholar; al-Riḍaīyyāt wa-l-Kharājīyyat (Tehran, 1313 Q./1895 or 6), pp. 35–6.

(26) Muḥammad b. Ya'qūb al-kulaynī al-Rāzī, Uṣul al-Kāfī (with Persian tr. and comm. by J. Mustafavi, Tehran, n.d.). Kulaynī was called the ‘renovator’ of the fourth/tenth century. His al-Kāfī is first of the four ‘canonical’ books of Twelver Shi'ism.

(27) Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-Tūsī, al Nihāya fī Mujarrad al-Fiqh wa-l-Fatāwā (Tehran 1342/1963), I, 302–303Google Scholar.

(28) Lambton, A.K.S., A Nineteenth Century View of Jihād, SI, XXII (1970), 181–83Google Scholar; Kohlberg, E., The Development of the Imāmi Shi‶;i Doctrine of jihād, ZDMG, 126, I (1976), 64–86Google Scholar.

(29) See Busse, H., The Revival of Persian Kingship Under the Būyids, in Richards, D.S. (ed.), Islamic Civilization 950–1130 (London 1973)Google Scholar.

(30) Of these famous brothers, descendants of the 7th Imām, Mūsā al-Kāzim, the first, Sharīf al-Radī is the collector of the Nahj al-Bilāgha (sayings attributed to 'Alī), while the second, Sharif al-Murtadā, also known as the 'Alam al-Hudā (d. 1044), is one of the principal Shi'ite theologians.

(31) Madelung, Lectures.

(32) See R. Brunschvig, Les usūl at-fiqh imāmites Ǡ leur stade ancien (xe et xie siǨcles), in Le shi'isme imǢmite.

(33) Shahristāni, , al-Millal wa-l-Nihal (Persian tr. edited by Nā›īnī, M.R. Jalālī) (Tehran 1350/1971), p. 122Google Scholar.

(34) An examination of the contents of al-Istibsār fīma-khtulifa min al-Akhbār and Tahdhīb al-Ahkām, the two ‘canonical’ books of Shi›ism written by al-Tūsī (d. 458 or 460/1065 or 1068) makes this clear.

(35) See al-Hillī's al-Bābu'l-Hādī 'Ashar.

(36) Madelunc, W., art. ‘Imama’, EI2, III, 1168Google Scholar.

(37) Scarcia, G., A proposito del problema della sovranita presso gli Imamiti, AION, VII (1957), pp. 118–19Google Scholar.

(38) See Iqbal, op. cit.; Massignon, L., La Passion de Husayn Ibn Mansūr Hallāj [new ed.] (Paris 1975), I, pp. 351 sqqGoogle Scholar.

(39) Calmard, J., Le chiisme imamite en Iran Ǡ l'ǩpoque seldjoukide d'aprǨs le Kitāb al-Naqd, in Le monde iranien et l'islam, III (1971)Google Scholar.

(40) Rāḥat al-Ṣudūr, ed. Iqbāl, Muḥammad (London 1921), pp. 31–33Google Scholar.

(41) Madelung, Lectures.

(42) Bausani, A., Religion under the Mongols, The Cambridge History of Iran (Cambridge 1968), V, p. 539Google Scholar.

(43) Zaehner, R.C., The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism (New York 1961), p. 299Google Scholar.

(44) Ibid. p. 297.

(45) Cited ibid. pp. 296–97.

(46) Cited ibid. pp. 296–97.

(47) Ibid. p. 299.

(48) Gibb, H.A.R., Studies on the Civilization of Islam (ed. Shaw, G.J. and Polk, W.R.) (Boston 1962), p. 45Google Scholar.

(49) Busse, H., loc. cit. p. 55Google Scholar.

(50) Madelung, W., The Assumption of the Title of Shāhanshāh by the Būyids and the Reign of the Daylam (Dawlat al-Daylam), Journal of Near Eastern Studies, XXVIII (1969)Google Scholar; Busse, H., loc. cit. p. 65Google Scholar.

(51) See Lambton, A.K.S., Justice in the Medieval Persian Theory of Kingship. SI, XVII (1962)Google Scholar.

(52) Ibid. pp. 101–2.

(53) See Lambton, A.K.S., The Theory of Kingship in the Naṣīḥat al-Mulūk of Ghazālū, Islamic Quarterly, I (1954)Google Scholar.

(54) Lambton, A.K.S., Justice…, p. 119Google Scholar.

(55) Gibb, H.A.R., op. cit. p. 143Google Scholar.

(56) Lambton, A.K.S., loc. cit. p. 93Google Scholar.

(57) Qur'ān, IV, 59.

(58) Sīyar al-Mulūk, ed. Darke, H. (Tehran 1976), p. 43Google Scholar.

(59) Tārīkh-i 'Ãlam-ārā-yi 'Abbāsī (Tehran 1350/1971), II, p. 377Google Scholar.

(60) Cited by Lambton, , A Nineteenth Century View of Jihād, SI, XXXII (1970), p. 184Google Scholar, n. 1.

(61) Lambton, , Quis Custodiet Custodes, SI, VI (1956), p. 125Google Scholar.

(62) See Lambton, A.K.S., Some New Trends in Islamic Political Thought in Late Eighteenth-Early Nineteenth Century Persia, SI, XXXIX (1974)Google Scholar.

(63) Madelung, W., loc. cit. p. 84Google Scholar.

(64) Cited by Goitein, S.D., Studies in Islamic History and Institutions (Leiden 1966), p. 206Google Scholar.

(65) Ibid. pp. 206–7; Iḥyā' ›Ulūm al-Dīn (Cairo 1967 [1387A.H.], II, pp. 181–194Google Scholar.

(66) Iḥyā' II, p. 438:

In another variant of this tradition, also cited by al-Ghazālī, the same page reads as follows

(67) For the explication of this analytical distinction, see Weber, M., Economy and Society (ed. by Roth, G. and Wittich, C.) (New York 1968), p. 33Google Scholar.

(68) See Strothmann, R., art. ‘Shī'a’, SEI, esp. pp. 537–39Google Scholar.

(69) Abd al-Jalīl al-Qazvīnī al-Rāzī, Kitāb al-Naqḍ (Ormavī, S.J. Ḥusaynī, ed.) (Tehran 1331/1952)Google Scholar.

(70) Bausani, A., Religion in the Saljūq Period, in The Cambridge History of Iran, V, pp. 291–9Google Scholar.

(71) The īl-Khāns were the autonomous Mongol dynasty who ruled in Iran after the division of the Mongol Empire, 1250–1335 A.D.

(72) Bausani, A., loc. cit. p. 544Google Scholar.

(73) Murtaḍavī, M., Dīn va Madhhab dar 'Ahd-i Īl-Khānān, in Taลqīq dar bara-yi Dawra-yi Īl-Khānān-i Irān (Tehran 1341/1963), pp. 1–88Google Scholar.

(74) Murtaḍavī, M., Taṣawwuf dar Dawra-yi Il-Khānān, op. cit. pp. 89–130Google Scholar.

(75) Bausani, A., loc. cit. p. 547Google Scholar. See also Molé;, M., Les Kubrawiya entre sunnisme et chiisme aux huitième et neuvième siècles de l'hégire, REI, XXIX (1961)Google Scholar. Unfortunately the limitation of space does not allow us to anlayze the fascinating case of the mystical Mahdism of Sayyid Muḥammad Nūrbakhsh (d. 1463) treated by Molé.

(76) Bausani, A., loc. cit. p. 547Google Scholar; emphasis added.

(77) Zarrīnkoob, A.H., Persian Sufism in Historical Perspective, IS, III (1970), 177Google Scholar.

(78) Murtaḍavī, M., op. cit. pp. 98–102Google Scholar.

(79) In this essay, the term Ghuluww will be used to denote extreme religiosity, and Ghulāt to designate groups of religious extremists. We do not intend to imply any historical or ideological connection between the various religio-political movements of the post-Mongol period we are about to consider, and the early Shi'ite Ghulāt such as the Khaṭṭābiyya. In fact, there is no evidence whatsoever for assuming any historical continuity between the two sets of religious movements. What accounts for the similarity of their extremist outlook and currency of similar beliefs is the absence or abrogation of dogmatically disciplined religiosity in both cases.

(80) Cahen, C., Le problème du shî'isme dans l'Asie Mineure turque préottomane, in Le shî'isme imâmite [Colloque de Strasbourg] (Paris 1970), p. 126Google Scholar.

(81) Petrushevsky, I.P., Kishāvarzī va Munāsibāt-i Arḍi dar Irān-i 'Ahd-i Mughūl [Persian tr. of Zemledelie i agrarnie otnosheniya v Irane XIII–XIV vekov by Kishāvarz, K.] (Tehran 1355/1977), II, pp. 828–30Google Scholar.

(82) Smith, J.M. Jr, The History of the Sarbadar Dynasty, 1338–1381 A.D., and Its Sources (The Hague/Paris 1970), pp. 55–56Google Scholar.

(83) See Browne, E.G., Some Notes on the Literature and Doctrines of the Hurufi Sect, JRAS (1898)Google Scholar; Ritter, H., Die Anfange der Hurufisekte, Oriens, VII (1954)Google Scholar; and A. Bausani, art. ‘Ḥurūfiyya’, EI2.

(84) See Kasravī, A., Tārīkh-i Pānṣad Sāla-yi Khūzistān3 (Tehran 1330/1951), pp. 1–52Google Scholar; and Minorsky, V., art. ‘Musha'sha’;, EI Supplement (1937)Google Scholar.

(85) Mazzaoui, M., The Origins of the Safavids: Shi'ism, Sufism and the Ghulat (Wiesbaden 1972)Google Scholar.

(86) Minorsky, V., Persia in A.D. 1478–1490: An abridged translation of Faḍlullāh B. Rūzbihān khunjī's Tārikh-i 'Alamārā-yi Aīnī (London 1957), pp. 65–66Google Scholar.

(87) British Library, MS Or 3248 (Ross Anonymous), f 75 (a).

(88) Ibid. ff 19 (a), 65 (a).

(89) Ibid. ff 71 (b), 87 (b), 129 (a), 141 (a), 232 (b). See also Glassen, E., Schah Isma'il, ein Mahdi der Anatolischen Turkmenen? ZDMG (1971)Google Scholar.

(90) Minorsky, V., The Poetry of Shah Ismā'īl I, BSOAS (1942)Google Scholar.

(91) The Occultation of the twelfth Imām, which distinguishes Twelver Shi'ism from the other two Shi'ite sects, the Zaydīs and the Ismā'līs, has momentous consequences. The presence of an Imām in Zaydīsm and in Ismā'Ilism makes the de jure unity of the supreme political and religious authority a fact. By contrast, the occultation of the twelfth Imām of the Imāmīs until the end of time condemns the de jure assertion of the unity of supreme political and religious authority to sterile utopianism.

(92) Three sects, according to Nawbakhti (Firaq al-Shī'a). Sa'd b. 'Abdullah al-Ash'arī mentions a fourth sect (in the Sawād al-Kūfa) holding this belief, adding that their number was small, Kitāb al-Maqālāt wa-l-Firaq, Mashkūr, M.J., ed. (Tehran 1963), p. 114Google Scholar. Shahristānī (al-Milal wa-l-Niḥal) also mentions three such sects. Among the twenty sects listed by Iqbāl on the basis also of slightly later sources (not counting the sect reported by al-Ash'arī, but counting separately a sect reported by Shahristānī only), we find six sects adhering to this belief, which probably indicates some growth of messianic yearning in the interim period (Iqbāl, op. cit. pp. 161–5).

(93) Massignon, , op. cit. I, p. 355Google Scholar.

(94) Ibid. pp. 376–7; Iqbāl, op. cit. pp. 100–101, 112–4.

(95) Massignon, , op. cit., I, p. 373Google Scholar.

(96) Ibid. p. 362.

(97) Ibid. esp. p. 377.

(98) Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan al-Ṭusi, Kitāb al-Ghayba, ed. al-Tihrāni, Aqā Buzury (Najaf, 1385/1965), pp. 223–6Google Scholar.

(99) Ibid. pp. 237–8.

(100) Massignon, , op. cit., I, pp. 366Google Scholar.

(101) Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan al-Ṭusī, op. cit., p. 243Google Scholar.

(102) Scarcia, G., loc. cit. p. 99Google Scholar (emphasis i n the original).

(103) Sadr, S., Kitāb al-Mahdī (Tar-juma-yi) (Persian tr, Najafi, M.J.) (Tehran 1344/1965), p. 14Google Scholar.

(104) Book VI of Haqq al-Yaqīn on Resurrection (Ma'ād) follows immediately upon the section on the return of the Mahdi, beginning with ‘physical resurrection’ ‘the suffering of the people of cruelty and mischief (ahl-i shaqāvat) by ‘physical Fire’, and the entry of ‘the people of faith’ into ‘physical Paradise’ (pp. 368–383). Later, the return of the Mahdi was to be termed ‘the Lesser Resurrection’ as distinct from the ‘Greater Resurrection’ in the other world.

(105) Ṣadr, , op. cit., pp. 270–274Google Scholar; Nasr, S.H., Ithnā 'Asharī Shi'ism and Iranian Islam, in Arberry, A.J. (ed.), Religion in the Middle East: Three religions in concord and conflict (Cambridge 1969), II, p. 104Google Scholar.

(106) Ḥaqq al-Yaqīn, pp. 331 sqq.

(107) Ibid. pp. 301 sqq.

(108) Majlisī, Muḥammad Bāir, Ḥayāt al-Qulūb, III: dar Imāmat (Tehran 1374/1955), pp. 5–6Google Scholar.

(109) Ḥaqq al-Yaqīn, pp. 301–2.

(110) With gnostic Shi'ism (of which we shall say a little more below), consonantly with the emphasis on the initiatory functions of the Imāms (Valāyat), the Occultation of the Imām facilitated an inner-worldly transposition of the otherworldly eschatology into an eschatology of the soul through spiritual ascent and perfection. According to Corbin, ‘l'idée de l'occultation de l'Imām interdit toute socialisation du spirituel, toute matéialisation des formes et des hiérarchies spirituelles qui identifierait celles-ci avec les “corps constitués” de l'histoire extérieure visible; cette idée n'est compatible qu'avec la structure d'une sodalité spirituelle, une pure Ecclesia spiritualis’ (Pour une morphologie de la spiritualité shi'ite, Eranos Jahrbuch, XXIX (1960), p. 82)Google Scholar. Potential Ghuluww is thus sublimated; esoteric Shi'ism obviates the need for chiliasm.

(111) See Muzaffar, Shaykh M.R., 'Aqā›id va Ta'ālīm-i Shī'a (Persian tr. Shabistarī, M. Mujtahidī) (Tehran 1347/1958), pp. 61–62Google Scholar. This may possibly explain why it is misunderstood by those Western scholars who consider the 'ulamā› the representatives of the Hidden Imām as the political head of the community.

(112) al-Nawāqiḍ li-Bunyān al-Rawāfiḍ, British Library MS, Or 7991, ff. 119 (b) 120 (a).

(113) Ibid. f. 94 (a).

(114) Ibid. f. 11 (b).

(115) Maṣā›ib al-Nawāṣib, Library of Majlis (Tehran), MS 2036, Section (Jund) IV, subsections (tā'ib) 19 & 20.

(116) Nawṣqiḍ, f. 92 (a).

(117) Chardin, J., Voyages du chevalier Chardin en Perse, ed. Langlès, L. (Paris 1811), IV, pp. 194–5Google Scholar.

(118) Nawṣqiḍ, f. 94 (a).

(119) British Library, MS Or 3248 (Ross Anonymous), ff. 74 (b)-76 (a).

(120) Aubin, J., Šah Ismā'il et les notables de l'Iraq persan, JESHO, II (1959), pp. 37–81Google Scholar.

(121) Aubin, J., La politique religieuse des Ṣafavides, in Le shî'isme imâmite (Paris 1970), p. 240Google Scholar.

(122) Ibid. p. 239.

(123) Falsafī, , Zindigānī-yi Shāh 'Abbās-i Avval, III (Tehran 1339/1960), pp. 44–53Google Scholar.

(124) See Browne, , Literary History of Persia (Cambridge 1924), IV, pp. 52–53Google Scholar.

(125) British Library, MS Or 3248 f. 183 (b). See also f. 272 (a). Emphasis added. Khwānd Mīr, Ḥabīb al-Sīyar (Tehran 1333/1954), IV, p. 508Google Scholar.

(126) Takmilat al-Akhbār, f. 250 (b): Ḥabīb al-Sīyar, IV, pp. 549–50.

(127) See Glassen, E., Schah Ismā'īl I und die Theologen seiner Zeit, der Islam, 1971–1972, pp. 254–268Google Scholar.

(128) Dickson, M.B., Shah Tahmasp and the Uzbeks [Ph.D. Dissertation] (Princeton 1958), pp. 192–3Google Scholar.

(129) Among the sources, the best account—and one may add a highly analyṭical one—of Ismā'īl II's religious policy is to be found in Tārīkḥ-i 'Ãlam-ārā-yi 'Abbāsi, I, pp. 212–7.

(130) Kasravi, A., Shaykh Ṣafī va Tabārash (Tehran 1323/1944–1945)Google Scholar.

(131) In Ḥaqq al-Yaqīn, Prophecy also receives little attention. Even then we are told not so much about the function and necessity of Prophecy (as in al-Ḥlillī's Bāb) as about the miracles of Muḥammad: that he was shadowless, that no bird flew over his head and no fly or mosquito sat upon him, that he could see ahead and behind, that ‘the seal of prophecy was placed upon his august back, and the light radiating from it was greater than the light of the sun’ (pp. 26–27), etc.

(132) Ḥaqq al-Yaqīn, pp. 154–278 on the Vilification of the Caliphs, and pp. 368–534 on Resurrection.

(133) Muḥammad Bāqir Majlisī, Ḥayāt al-Qulūb, III; Dar Imāmat, p. 38.

(134) Ibid.

(135) The editions used for the above tables are as follows: Kulaynī, , al-Kāfī, Furū', IV (Tehran 1377/1957), pp. 184–380Google Scholar on Ḥajj, pp. 548–89 on Zīyārat; Bābawayh, Ibn, Man la yaḥḍuruhu-l-faqīih, II (Tehran 1390/1970). PP. 196–344Google Scholar on Ḥajj, pp. 345–83 on Zīyārat; al-Ṭūsī, al-Istibṣār, II (Najaf 1375/1956), pp. 139–336Google Scholar on Ḥajj; al-Ṭūsī, Tahdhib al-Aḥkam, V and VI (Najaf 1380/1960), VGoogle Scholar entire on Ḥajj; VI, 2–119 on Zīyārat; al-Ṭūsī, al-Nihāya (Beirut 1390/1970), pp. 202–68Google Scholar on Ḥajj; Majlisī, , Biḥār al-Anwār, IC, C, CI, CII (Tehran 1388/1968)Google Scholar, IC entire on Ḥajj, C, pp. 101–455 and CI and CII entire on Zīyārat; al-Ḥurr al-'Amilī, Wasā'il al-Shī'a, VIII, IX, X (Beirut 1391/1971)Google Scholar, VIII, IX, entire on Ḥajj, X, pp. 1–234 on Ḥajj, pp. 235–470; ‘Abwāb al-Mazār’ on Ziyārat.

(136) In the transmission of the sacred lore, very little is actually discarded but the relative salience of propositions is constantly altered through accretions and commentaries. In the (unfinished) volume III of Ḥayāt al-Qulūb on Imāmate, Majlisī does reiterate al-Ḥillī's statement quoted above in a brief section (p. 22), but the tenor of the book as a whole in no way suggests a political conception of Imāmate. It is significant that in the section devoted to interpretation of the āyd's of the Qur›ān: ‘entrusting knowledge, charity and the meting out of justice (Qisṭ va Mīzān) to the rule (valāyat) of the Imāms’—which could clearly have political implications—the other-worldly connotations are unmistakable; the Imams administer justice in the other world (pp. 184–86).

(137) Falsafī, , op. cit. pp. 17–20Google Scholar.

(138) Tonikābonī, , op. cit. p. 270Google Scholar.

(139) Nineteenth Century View of Jihād, SI, XXXII (1970), p. 185Google Scholar.

(140) Algar, , op. cit. p. 22Google Scholar.

(141) Browne, , op. cit. IV, p. 369Google Scholar.

(142) Tonikābonī cites the Zahr al-Rabī', a collection of anecdotes by Ni'matullāh Jazā'irī as his source. I have not been able to find the story in the Persian translation of Zahr al-Rabī' which has been available to me.

(143) Tonikābonī, Mīrzā Muḥammad, Qiṣaṣ al-'Ulamā›, 'Ilmīyya Islāmīyya (Tehran n.d.), p. 235Google Scholar. Tonikābonī is not noted for his carefulness. On p. 343, he attributes this story, using virtually identical phrases, to Shāh Ṭahmasp, which is more plausible, and suggests that the first letter, referring to the ‘borrowed kingdom’ may also have been addressed to Ṭahmasp. In this conjunction, Tonikābonī's carelessness is matched, if not surpassed, by Browne's who takes the Muḥaqqiq (title of Mullā Aḥhmad) to be ‘another mujtahid of Ardabḫl’, when mentioning his letter to Ṭahmasp (op. cit. IV, p. 370)!

(144) Corbin, H., in Le shi'isme imâmite (Paris 1970), p. 165Google Scholar. Emphasis added.

(145) Ibid. p. 167.

(146) Tonikābonī, , op. cit. pp. 349–50Google Scholar; al-Karaki, et al. , al-Riḍaīyyāt wa-l-Kha-rājīyyīt (Tehran 1313/1895–1896)Google Scholar.

(147) Falsafī, , op. cit. p. 27Google Scholar. Many other pious 'ulamā› regarded involvement in politics, and association with the ruler, with deep suspicion and moral disapproval. Shaykh Zayn al-Dīn, the Second Martyr (d. 975 or 976/1567), attributed the decline in the authority of the men of religion (ahl-i dīn) to their involvement with men of the world (ahl-i dunya), and in worldly affairs (Tonikāboni, , op. cit. p. 260)Google Scholar. Two other famous Syrian mujtahids, Sayyid 'Alī, Nūr al-Dīn (d. 1068/1657) and his brother Sayyid Muḥammad, Shams al-Dīn, fearing to be summoned by 'Abbās I and forced to associate with him, dared not undertake the pilgrimage to the shrine of the eighth Imām in Mashbad (ibid. p. 281).

(148) Woods, J.E., The Aqqūyūnlū: clan, confederation, empire (Minneapolis 1976), p. 151Google Scholar.

(149) Mīhmān-nāma-yi Bukhārā (Sotoudeh, M., ed.) (Tehran 1341/1962)Google Scholar. See esp. the conclusion, pp. 354–6.

(150) Röhrborn, K., Provinzen und Zentralgewalt Persiens im 16. and IJ. Jahrhundert (Berlin 1966), p. 24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(151) Quoted in Minorsky, Introduction, Tadhkirat al-Mulūk (London 1943), p. 13Google Scholar. It should be pointed out, however, that the claims to legitimacy put forward to the sedentary majority were much more moderate even during Ismā'īl I's reign. In a firman issued by Isma'il in 917/1521, two Qur›ānic verses (II, 118 and XXXVIII, 25) are adduced to prove the legitimacy of bis reign, and his descent from ‘the house of valāya (Godordained sovereignty [of'Alī], and Imāmate’ is emphasized. A firman issued on the following year bears the seal Sūfī-yi Kāmil (the Perfect Sufi). A third firman issued, in 928/1522 again emphasizes verse XXXVIII, 23: ‘We have appointed thee a viceroy (khalīfa) in the Earth’. (Shāh Ismā'il Ṣafavi: Asnād va Mukātibāt-i Tārīkhī hamrāh bā Yāddāshthā-yi Tafḍīlī (Navā›ī, A., ed.) (Tehran 1969/1347), pp. 101–2Google Scholar, 106 and 239).

(152) Memoirs of Shah Tahmasp (Calcutta 1912)Google Scholar.

(153) Qādi Aḥmad Qumī, Khulāṣat al-Tawārīkh, Preussiche (now Deutsche) Staatsbibliothek, Berlin, MS Orient, fol. 2202: ff. 103–4; Qiṣaṣ al-'Ulamā›, p. 347.

(154) Nawāqiḍ, ff. 99–100; Maṣā'ib al-Nawāṣib, Section IV, Subsection 15.

(155) See Savory, R.M., The Safavid State and Polity, IS, VII (1974)Google Scholar.

(156) The epithet Mūsavī (i.e., descendant of Mīsā al-Kāẓim) was deployed after Safavi throughout the Safavid period.

(157) Sanson, , The Present State of Persia (London 1695), p. 11Google Scholar.

(158) Chardin, J., edited in Lambton, , Quis Custodiet Custodes, SI, VI (1956), p. 132Google Scholar.

(159) Ibid. p. 133.

(160) Du Mans (1660), quoted by Lambton, , A Nineteenth Century View of Jihād, p. 185Google Scholar.

(161) It is very clear from Chardin's account that it was not so in the case of Mulla Qasim. See note 166 below.

(162) See Perry, R.J., The Last Safavids, 1722–1773, IR, IX (1971)Google Scholar.

(163) Lambton, , Quis Custodiet Custodes, p. 143Google Scholar.

(164) The word ‘congruent’ is used advisedly as a term appropriate to the description of ‘meaningful relations’ (Sinnzusammenhang); as there can be no question of the determination of the normative order by the structure of domination, or vice versa.

(165) Weber, Max, Economy and Society, p. 1161Google Scholar, Emphasis added.

(166) Cf. Lambton, , loc. cit. p. 132Google Scholar (source: Chardin). Note that Safavid descent is taken as legitimating the claim to rule, while being the son of an eminent religious dignitary is seen as implying that the candidate is unlikely to infringe the Sharī›at.

(167) This configuration was characterized above all by the diminished power of the central government (due to the reassertion of tribal power) and the enhanced social position and honor of the 'ulamā›. See Lambton's, A.K.S. writings on the Qājār period, for instance: Persia: the breakdown of society, in Cambridge History of Islam (Cambridge 1970), I, pp. 430–67Google Scholar.