Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T05:08:04.808Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Nature of Legitimacy: Representations of the Natural World in Iskandar Beg Munshi’s Tārīkh-e ʿĀlam-ārā-ye ʿAbbāsī

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Amit Sadan
Amit Sadan*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines history-writing in Safavid Iran and, in particular, the notable chronicle from the time of Shah ʿAbbas I, the Tārīkh-e ʿĀlam-ārā-ye ʿAbbāsī(TAAA). It rethinks Safavid history-writing via the perspective of environmental history. This article asks, “How was the natural world represented in the chronicle, and in what way did this representation shape the Safavid historical narrative?” It argues that the ways in which the TAAA portrays human encounters with nature suggest ʿAbbas’ unique sovereignty over it. Because of his piety and devotion, he was considered blessed with divine grace, making him the only human being with the ability to regulate natural manifestations—that is, to dominate, to manipulate, to survive, and to contain nature. Against a backdrop of an absence of environmental readings of Safavid history, the article suggests looking at the TAAA’s representation of this natural world as a powerful legitimizing force for ʿAbbas’ reign, as it is one that has not yet been foregrounded.

Keywords

Environmental HistorySafavid IranHistory-WritingIskandar Beg MunshiNatural DisastersAnimal Studies
Type
Narration and Translation
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 1-2 , March 2021 , pp. 41 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The author would like to thank Prof. Kathryn Babayan for her dedicated guidance and engagement in a fruitful intellectual dialogue that made this article possible. Thanks are also in order to the anonymous reviewers and the Iranian Studies editorial board for constructive and generous comments.

References

Allsen, Thomas T. The Royal Hunt in Eurasian History. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ambraseys, N.N., and Melville, C.P. A History of Persian Earthquakes. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Anooshahr, Ali. “The Rise of the Safavids According to their Old Veterans: Amini Haravi’s Futuhat-e Shahi .” Iranian Studies 48 (2015): 249–267. doi: 10.1080/00210862.2013.870839CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arjomand, Said Amir. The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order, and Societal Change in Shi'ite Iran from the Beginning to 1890. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1984.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Babayan, Kathryn. Mystics, Monarchs and Messiahs: Cultural Landscape of Early Modern Iran. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Beg, Iskandar Munshi. Tārīkh-e ʿĀlam-ārā-ye ʿAbbāsī. Trans. Savory, Roger M. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Bosworth, I., and Afshar, C.E. “‘Ajāeb al-Maklūqāt.” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/7, 696–699.Google Scholar
Çipa, Erdem. “‘The Lesser Day of Resurrection’: Ottoman Interpretations of the Istanbul Earthquake of 1509.” In Catastrophes and the Apocalyptic in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Bjork, Robert E., 97–111. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Çipa, Erdem. The Making of Selim: Succession, Legitimacy, and Memory in the Early Modern Ottoman World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chalyan-Daffner, Kristine. “Natural Disasters in Mamluk Egypt (1250‒1517): Perceptions, Interpretations and Human Responses.” PhD diss., Ruperto Carola Heidelberg University, 2013.Google Scholar
Corboz, Elvire. Guardians of Shiʿism: Sacred Authority and Transnational Family Networks. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Fleischer, Cornell H. Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire: The Historian Mustafa Ali (1541‒1600). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Floor, Willem. Safavid Government Institutions. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2001.Google Scholar
Foltz, Richard C. Animals in Islamic Tradition and Muslim Cultures. Oxford: Oneworld, 2006.Google Scholar
Ghereghlou, Kioumars. “Chronicling a Dynasty on the Make: New Light on the Early Ṣafavids in Ḥayātī Tabrīzī’s Tārīkh (961/1554).” Journal of the American Oriental Society 137 (2017): 805–832. doi: 10.7817/jameroriesoci.137.4.0805CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanaway, William L Jr. “The Concept of the Hunt in Persian Literature.” Boston Museum Bulletin 69 (1971): 21–69.Google Scholar
Von Hees, Syrinx. “The Astonishing: A Critique and Re-reading of ‘Ağā’ib Literature.” Middle Eastern Literatures 8 (2005): 101–120.Google Scholar
Matthee, Rudi. “The Decline of Safavid Iran in Comparative Perspective.” Journal of Persianate Studies 8 (2015): 276–308. doi: 10.1163/18747167-12341286CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mcchesney, R.D., “Four Sources on Shah Abbas’s Building of Isfahan.” Muqarnas 5 (1988): 103–134. doi: 10.2307/1523113CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCracken, Peggy. In the Skin of a Beast: Sovereignty and Animality in Medieval France. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meisami, Julie Scott. Medieval Persian Court Poetry. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mikhail, Alan. The Animal in Ottoman Egypt. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Mikhail, Alan. “Climate and the Chronology of Iranian History.” Iranian Studies 49 (2016): 963–972. doi: 10.1080/00210862.2016.1241609CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mikhail, Alan. Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: An Environmental History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Colin Paul. “Am I My Brother’s Keeper? Negotiating Corporate Sovereignty and Divine Absolutism in Sixteenth-century Turco-Iranian Politics.” In New Perspectives on Safavid Iran: Empire and Society, ed, 33–58. Mitchell, Colin. New York: Routledge, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moin, Ahmed Azfar. “Islam and the Millennium: Sacred Kingship and Popular Imagination in Early Modern India and Iran.” PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2010.Google Scholar
Morimoto, Kazuo. “The Earliest ʿAlid Genealogy for the Safavids: New Evidence for the Pre-Dynastic Claim to Sayyid Status.” Iranian Studies 43 (2010): 447–469. doi: 10.1080/00210862.2010.495561CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morton, A.H., “The Chub-i Tariqat and Qizilbash Ritual in Safavid Persia.” Etudes Safavides (1993): 225–246.Google Scholar
Popp, Stephan. “Mughal Horoscopes as Propaganda.” Journal of Persianate Studies 9 (2016): 45–59. doi: 10.1163/18747167-12341293CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quinn, Sholeh Alysia. Historical Writing during the Reign of Shah ʻAbbas: Ideology, Imitation, and Legitimacy in Safavid Chronicles. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Quinn, Sholeh Alysia. “Notes on Timurid Legitimacy in Three Savafid Chronicles.” Iranian Studies 31 (1998): 149–158. doi: 10.1080/00210869808701902CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quinn, Sholeh Alysia. “The Dreams of Shaykh Safi al-Din and Safavid Historical Writing.” Iranian Studies 29 (1996): 127–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quinn, Sholeh Alysia. “Through the Looking Glass: Kingly Virtues in Safavid and Mughal Historiography.” Journal of Persianate Studies 3 (2010): 143–155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quinn, Sholeh, and Melville, Charles. “Safavid Historiography.” In A History of Persian Literature, ed. Yarshater, Ehsan, 209–257. London: I.B. Tauris, 2012.Google Scholar
Rizvi, Kishwar. “The Suggestive Portrait of Shah ‘Abbas: Prayer and Likeness in a Safavid Shahnama.” The Art Bulletin 94 (2012): 226–250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rizvi, Kishwar. “Transformations in Early Safavid Architecture: The Shrine of Shaykh Safi al-Din Ishaq Ardabili in Iran (1501‒1629).” PhD Diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000.Google Scholar
Savory, Roger. Iran Under the Safavids. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Steel, Karl. How to Make a Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Thackston, W.M. The Gulistan of Saʿdi. Bethesda, MD: Ibex Publishers, 2008.Google Scholar
Varlık, Nükhet. Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: The Ottoman Experience 1347–1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.Google Scholar
White, Sam. The climate of rebellion in the early modern Ottoman Empire. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar