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The Safavid Synthesis: From Qizilbash Islam to Imamite Shi'ism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Kathryn Babayan
Kathryn Babayan*
Affiliation:
Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Michigan
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Extract

The Safavids evolved from a Sufi order (1301) into a messianic movement (1447) before they finally established their imperium with world-conquering aspirations (1501). Isma'il, the first pīr (spiritual guide) of the Safavid order to assume the political role of shah, claimed to be the reincarnation of a host of prophets and kingly heroes from Iran's cultural past. “Prostrate thyself! Pander not to Satan! Adam has put on new clothes, God has come,” writes Isma'il in his poetry (Divan), composed as he, together with his adepts, the Qizilbash (Redheads), conquered Iran and Iraq (1501-13).

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Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 1-4: Religion and Society in Islamic Iran during the Pre-Modern Era , 1994 , pp. 135 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1994

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Footnotes

*

This article is based on research conducted for my dissertation, “The Waning of the Qizilbash: The Temporal and the Spiritual in Seventeenth Century Iran” (Princeton University, June 1993), from which I have drawn. The article is dedicated to the memory of Martin B. Dickson.

References

1. For the Dīvān of Ismā’īl whose pen name was Khata'i, see // Canzoniere di Shāh Ismā'īl, ed. Tourkhan Gandjei (Naples, 1959); Vladimir Minorsky, “The Poetry of Shah Ismā'īl I,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 10 (1942): 1006–53; Sadeddin Nuzhet Ergun, Hatayi Dīvāni: Shah Ismā'īl Safevi edebi hayatti ve nefesleri (Istanbul,1956); Wheeler Thackston, “The Dīvān of Khatā'ī: Pictures for the poetry of Shah Ismā'īl,“Asian Art (Fall 1988): 37–63.

2. Vladimir Minorsky, the “father” of Safavid historiography, quotes an anonymous Venetian merchant who was in Tabriz in 1518: “This Sophy is loved and reverenced by his people as a God and especially by his soldiers, many of whom enter into battle without armor, expecting their master Ishmael to watch over them in fight” (Introduction to Tadhkirat al-mulūk [Cambridge, 1943], 13). Hans Roemer quotes a Qizilbash battle cry without citing a source: “My spiritual leader and master, for whom I sacrifice myself (Qurban oldigim pirüm murshidim)” (Cambridge History of Iran, ed. Peter Jackson and Lawrence Lockhart [Cambridge, 1986], 6:214).

3. Ghuluww (n.) is derived from the Arabic root “gh-l-w,” literally, “to exceed the proper boundary.” Hence, it would be more appropriate to render ghāli (pi. ghulāt) as “exaggerator” than “extremist.” The use of the term is problematic. Ghuluww has been attributed pejoratively to individuals with extreme or unorthodox views on the nature of intercessors between man and God. For the Shi'a it is the apotheosis of the Imams, the immaculate descendants of Muhammad through his daughter Fatima. For the Sunnis it is the elevation of a saintly man (walī), a dervish, or a shaykh to a Godhead. The term has also been applied rather loosely in different historical contexts to a variety of dissenters.

My use of the term is an effort to make it more specific for the historian of Islamdom. Martin Dickson emphasized both the continuity of ghulāt movements throughout Islamic history and their distinct nature, which was nurtured by religious systems— Christian heresies such as gnosticism, Zoroastrian heresies such as Mazdakism, Manichaeism, and Zurvanism, in addition to mainstream Zoroastrianism—that were alive in Sasanian Iran before the advent of Islam.

4. The term ‘Alid is used here to denote all those who regarded descent in the male line from ‘Ali, not primarily from Fatima, as legitimate. For those who gave precedence to the whole family of ‘Ali, any descendant of Abu Talib could become a leader.

5. See, for example, Fazlullah b. Ruzbihan Khunji's description of Sultan Junayd and Haydar in his Tārīkh-i ‘ālam-ārā-yi Amīnī, ed. John Woods (London: Royal Asiatic Society, forthcoming), 259–309 (ff. 132a-158a).

6. The date 998–99/1590 has been chosen as the inauguration of the Isfahan phase of Safavid rule for several reasons. It marks the end of the second civil war (984–98/1576–90) when ‘Abbas I finally consolidated power and weakened the Qizilbash. The death of Ya'qub Khan Dhu'1-Qadr (998/1590), signaling the victory of ‘Abbas over the rebellious Qizilbash, inspired the contemporary Afushta Natanzi to write a history of the reign of the Safavid shah entitled Naqāwat al-āthār fī dhikr al-akhyār (ed. I. Ishraqi [Tehran, 1350 Sh./1971]). It also marks the approximate date on which Isfahan was conceived as a capital city (1000/1591–92). See McChesney, Robert, “Four sources on Shah ‘Abbās's Building of Isfahan,” Muqarnas 5 (1980): 105Google Scholar.

7. Dickson, Martin, “Shāh Ṭahmāsb and the Uzbeks (The Duel for Khurasan with ‘Ubayd Khan, 930–46/1524–40)” (unpublished diss., Princeton University, 1958), 8Google Scholar (hereafter “Duel“).

8. See Aubin's excellent study on the Lahijan Sufis in his “Révolution chiite et conservatisme: Les Soufis de Lahejan, 1500–14” (Safavides II, Études), Moyen Orient & Océan Indien 1 (1984): 2–9Google Scholar. Aubin, however, assumes that the Ross Anonymous is an early source, though evidence—both art historical and literary—indicates that it was most probably committed to writing in the middle of the seventeenth century. For a study on the dating of the Ross Anonymous see Morton, A. H., “The Date and Attribution of the Ross Anonymous: Notes on a Persian History of Shāh Ismā'īl I,” in Melville, Charles, ed., Pembroke Papers 1 (Cambridge, 1990), 179–212Google Scholar. Morton makes use of the author's annotations to the British Library manuscript of the Ross Anonymous and proposes the 1680s as the time of its composition.

9. The cognomen dada (Turkish dede) is more nuanced than lala (mentor) or khalīfa (spiritual deputy). In the early Ottoman context of Turkoman frontier culture, dada was used synonymously with the appellation bābā, designating the spiritual leader of a group of dervishes or of a tribe. By the middle of the sixteenth century the term seems to have lost its spiritual associations in Iran, for it is used synonymously with lala to designate preceptors of Safavid princesses. The fact that both Lala Bek and Dada Bek received purely military posts, while Khalifa Bek was also awarded the post of khalīfat al-khulafā', is indicative of the evolution the term was undergoing in the sedentary phase of Safavid rule. I would like to thank Cemal Kafadar for his insights into the use of the term dede in Ottoman frontier culture.

10. Lala Bek was chief of all the military forces of the combined oymāqs (amīr alumarā’). He also received the honorary title of Vakil, the temporal lieutenant of the shah, symbolizing the degree of trust that Isma'il had reposed in him. Dada Bek was named chief of the 3,000 elite royal guards (qūrchī-bāshī) culled from all oymāqs,.

11. The divān-begī, also referred to as the amīr-i dīvān, adjudicated matters of common law ('urf). According to the Tadhkirat al-mulūk, 50–51, he sat four days a week, jointly with the Sadr, in the kishīk-khāna. “There, directed by the Sadr, he interrogated (bāz-khwāst) those guilty of the four capital crimes, namely, murder, rape, blinding, and breaking of teeth.” He also executed shar'ī decisions, maintained order in the city, and had control over provincial tribunals. Twice a week he sat in his house and heard civil cases of common law.

12. The khalīfat al-khulafā’ was the deputy of Sufi affairs, acting on behalf of the shah and appointing his representatives in the provinces—all of whom were chosen from among the Qizilbash. See Minorsky, Tadhkirat al-mulūk, 12Google Scholar. The degeneration of this post at the end of Shah ‘Abbas Fs reign is indicative of the changes going on in this period. See the list of civil officials at the death of ‘Abbas I where no mention is made of a khalīfat al-khulafā’ (Turkman, Iskandar Bek Munshi, Tārīkh-i ‘ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī, 2 vols. [Tehran, 1350 Sh./1971], 2:1084–93Google Scholar). The office survived into the reign of Shah Sultan Husayn, but its function seemed to have been transformed, for not only was it bestowed on a sayyid—in the classical age it was awarded to the Qizilbash only—it entailed the enforcement of purely shar'i matters. See Shah Sultan Husayn's farmdn for the appointment of a khalīfat al-khulafā’ in Ja'farian, Rasul, Din va siyāsat dar dawrah-yi Ṣafaviyyah (Qum, 1370 Sh./1991), 426Google Scholar.

13. The religious history of sixteenth-century Safavid Iran remains to be studied more precisely. The current debate among Arjomand, Newman, and Stewart revolving around the role of the Imamite ulama in early Safavid history is a positive sign in this direction.

14. Aubin, “Révolution chiite,” 1–40Google Scholar.

15. Ghiyath al-Din Khwandamir, Ḥabib al-siyar, ed. Jalal al-Din Huma'i, 4 vols. (Tehran, 1333 Sh./1954), 4:602, as cited in Dickson, “Duel,” 14.

16. For the role of Husayn Khan Shamlu in the “grand sedition” (1531–34), the attempted poisoning of Shah Tahmasb in order to replace him with the more pliant seventeen-year-old prince Sam Mirza, see Dickson, “Duel,” 265–95Google Scholar.

17. Tahmasb, Shah, Tadhkira-yi Shāh Ṭahmāsb (Berlin, 1343/1923), 14Google Scholar, as cited in Dickson, “Duel,” 96.

18. See Said Arjomand, Amir, The Shadow of God on Earth and the Hidden Imam (Chicago, 1984), 105–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19. Forty thousand ghulāms had been incorporated into Shah Tahmasb's court in 961/1533–34. Sharaf Khan Bitlisi, a Kurdish prince who was a ghulām at Tahmasb's court, writes (in 1596): “From the age of nine to twelve, from 1551–54, I was a page at the inner palace. For it was the Shah's policy to educate the sons of illustrious families along with the princes of the realm …” (Dickson, Martin and Welch, Stuart Cary, The Houghton Shāhnāmeh, 2 vols. [Cambridge, 1981], 2:242aGoogle Scholar, n. 30). This statement by Bitlisi indicates that during the reign of Tahmasb (1524–76) a system of palace schools existed wherein children from prominent families were educated. This system must then have been expanded and institutionalized under ‘Abbas in order to accommodate a larger number of ghulāms.

20. After Shah ‘Abbas I's Georgian campaign in 1025/1616–17—during which approximately 330,000 slaves were reportedly captured—he began to utilize them thoroughly in the administration of the bīrūn and the andarim (Bek, Iskandar, ‘Ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī 2:900–901Google Scholar).

21. Ibid., 1088. In Iskandar Bek's words, “Since some of the oymāqs did not possess qualified candidates to take on high posts once their Qizilbash amīrs and governors had died, a ghulām was appointed, due to his justice, skill, bravery, and self-sacrifice, to the rank of amīr of that clan (īl), army (qushūn va lashkar) and to the governorship (ḥukūmat) of that region (ulkā).” Twenty-one ghūlams held such positions at the death of ‘Abbas I.

22. Newman, Andrew, “The Myth of the Clerical Migration to Safavid Iran,” Die Welt des hlams 33 (1993)Google Scholar. Also see Devin Stewart's article, “Notes on the Migration of ‘Amili Scholars to Safavid Iran,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies (forthcoming), where he maps out the current historiographical points of contention among Ja'far al-Muhajir, Newman, Arjomand, and himself on the issue of ‘Amili migration to Safavid Iran.

23. For the Bab's later use of ḥadīth in his khurūj see Amanat, Abbas, Resurrection and Renewal: The Making of the Babi Movement, 1844–50 (Ithaca, 1989), 193–7Google Scholar. On Islamic scholars who linked the apocalyptic circumstances of the ẓuhūr recorded in ḥadīth literature to political upheavals see ibid., 89–93.

24. Sayyid Ahmad Husayni, ed., Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭī-yi kitābkhānah-yi ‘umūmī-yi ḥażrat-i āyatullāh al-'uẓmā Najafī Mar'ashī, 20 vols. (Qum, n.d.), 4:154–5, MS 1381. This anonymous work, dedicated to Shah Tahmasb in 974/1566–67, is a commentary on the ḥadīth discussing the just order that shall be established at the end of time. It attempts to draw parallels between the order evoked in this ḥadīth and that of the Safavids. It has been noted by Sayyid Husayn Mudarrisi Tabataba'i that some Safavid scholars considered Safavid rule the dawlat-i ḥaqq—the utopia-like order that the Mahdi is to establish in Imamite eschatology (Tabataba'i, Husayn Mudarrisi, Zamin dar fiqh-i Islāmī, 2 vols. [Tehran, 1362 Sh./1983], 2:222Google Scholar, fn. 84).

25. See, for example, the various monographs on ghayba in Buzurg, Aqa, al-Dharī'a ild tasānīf al-shī'a, 25 vols. (Tehran and Najaf, 1355–98/1936–78), 16:74–85Google Scholar.

26. As in Arba'īn ‘uqāb, written for Shah Tahmasb (930–84/1524–76). See Danishpazhuh's description in Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi kitābkhānah-yi dānishgāh-i Tihrān, 18 vols. (Tehran, 1340 Sh./1961), 3:1069, MS 1116. Also see Buzurg, Aqa, Dharīa 1:419Google Scholar.

27. Shaykh ‘Ali Karaki, Matā'in al-mujrimiyya fī radd al-ṣūfiyya, probably written in 1526; Karaki's fatwā is preserved by his student, Muhammad b. Ishaq b. Muhammad Hamavi, in his work written in 938/1531 and entitled Anīs al-mu'minīn (ed. Mir Hashim Muhaddith [Tehran, 1363 Sh./1984]).

28. The ghuluww of the Qizilbash, the vitality of Sufism as a socio-religious force, and the respect philosophy enjoyed among Iranian intellectuals had also minimized the effect of early attacks by sharī'a-minded ulama, such as Karaki, on Abu Muslim.

29. Three polemics written against Abu Muslim and the Sufis have survived from the reign of Shah Tahmasb (1524–76). There appears to have been a lull until the end of the reign of Shah ‘Abbas I (1629), when a reinterpretation of the Abu Muslim legends emerged among the Imamite religious community in Isfahan. This attempt to redefine Abu Muslim's role in the ‘Abbasid revolution from a strictly orthodox Imamite perspective ignited one of the major debates in seventeenth-century Safavid intellectual history. These debates found articulation in a body of literature called refutations (radd.). Sayyid Ahmad ‘Alavi wrote his Iẓhār al-ḥaqq in 1043/1633–34 in defense of Mir Lawhi's critique of Abu Muslim, elaborated in his Tarjuma-yi Abū Muslim. ‘Alavi's son, Sayyid ‘Abd al-Hasib, noted on the back of an extant manuscript of lẓhār al-ḥaqq in 1063/1653 that some ulama came to Mir Lawhi's aid and wrote treatises on Abu Muslim in support of Mir Lawhi's refutation in order to quell the anger of the “masses.” Another contemporary ‘ālim listed seventeen treatises against Abu Muslim. For a list of these disputations see Buzurg, Aqa, Dharī’a 4:150–51Google Scholar.

30. Most of the extant manuscripts of the Abū Muslimnāmas name Abu Tahir Tusi or Tarsusi, a storyteller (qiṣṣakhw ān) at the court of Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi (d. 421/1030), as their source.

31. According to ‘Abd al-Husayn Zarrinkub—who, unfortunately, does not cite his source—storytellers referred to as “Sufis of Ardabil” would recite stories about Muhammad b. Hanafiyya and Abu Muslim to draw parallels between the nature of Abu Muslim's da'wa and the aims of the Safavid revolutionaries. See ‘A.-H. Zarrinkub, Dunbāla-yi justujū-yi taṣawwuf dar Īrān (Tehran, 1366 Sh./1987), 228–9, also quoted by Ja'farian, Dīn va siyāsat, 235 and idem, “Rūyārū'ī-yi faqīhān va ṣūfiyān dar ‘aṣr-i Ṣafaviyya,” Kayhān-i andīsha 33 (1369 Sh./1990).

32. The Kaysaniyya, a collective designation used by heresiographers to denote all sects that evolved out of Mukhtar's movement (685–87), upheld the divine candidacy of Muhammad b. Hanafiyya (d. 700/81) due to his descent from AH b. Abu Talib. However, it was the position that the Kaysaniyya ascribed to Muhammad b. Hanafiyya that made them distinctly ghulāt: to them he was a messiah who continued the succession of revelation after Muhammad. For the Kaysaniyya, Muhammad was no different from Adam, Jesus, or Muhammad b. Hanafiyya. See W. Madelung, Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed., “KAYSANIYYA.”

For her study of the Abū Muslim legend entitled Abū Muslim, le porte-hache de Khorasan dans la tradition épique turco-iranienne (Paris, 1962), Irene Melikoff consulted the following manuscripts of the Abu Muslimnāma: Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, ancien fond turc, nos. 57–60 (copied in 998/1590), no. 321 (end of sixteenth century) and no. 344 (19 Muharram 905/26 Aug. 1499); BNP, supplément persan, nos. 842, 842 bis, 843–4 (sixteenth century); Belediye Kitabhanesi, B.14 (sixteenth century). A printed version of the Tehran University manuscript, edited by Iqbal Yaghma'i, as well as the Majlis Library manuscript, summarized by Muhammad Ja'far Mahjub in his article, “Dāstānhā-yi ‘āmiyāna-yi Fārsī,” Majalla-yi sukhan 10: 167— 74, 283–91, 380–86, have been consulted by the author. Both date from the late Timurid period.

33. A copy of the Junaydnāma exists in the Sulaymaniya Library in Istanbul, Fatih 4354. The manuscript was copied in Rabi’ I 969/November 1562. The compiler notes that the Junaydnāma was translated from the Persian in 924/1518 (cited by Melikoff, Abū Muslim, 79)Google Scholar. A second copy (Blochet [1932–33] II 19 [Supplement 636]) was entitled Kissa-i Seyyid Cuneyd ve Reside-i ‘Arab. Ahmet Karamustafa has identified the translator as Vahdi, a learned Sufi most probably of the Khalvatiyya or the Zayniyya order. See Karamustafa's critical edition and analysis of Vahidi's Menākib-i hvoca-i cihān ve netice-i cān (Cambridge, 1993), 43–7.

34. Togan, Zeki Velidi, “Sur l'origine des Safavides,” Mélanges Massignon III (Damascus, 1959): 346–8Google Scholar. Togan makes use of three manuscripts of the Ṣafwat alṣafā, two pre-Safavid (Leiden MS 2639 dated 890/1485, Ayasofya MS 3099 dated 896/1491) and one Safavid (Ayasofya MS 2123 dated 914/1508) to demonstrate that a tampering with Safavid genealogy takes place whereby the Safavids are transformed from descendants of the Prophet, without further elaborations, into Husayni/Musavis. He demonstrates that the Husayni/Musavi incorporation into the Ṣafwat al-ṣafā (1508) occurred before Mir Abu'1-Fath al-Husayni's rescension commissioned by Shah Tahmasb in 940/1533. The Futūḥāt-i shāhi (927/1520–21) by Sadr al-Din Sultan Ibrahim Amini Haravi (Vaziri Library, Yazd, MS 5774), is the first chronicle from the Safavid period to include a Husayni/Musavi genealogy for Shah Isma'il.

35. Historians such as Roger Savory have understood the Safavid espousal of Imamism as a choice dictated by international considerations. Savory argues that Shi'ism was adopted by the Safavids in opposition to their Ottoman Sunni neighbors. This reading, however, suffers on a number of counts. Its interpretation is not only blurred by historical anachronisms, it also fails to give credence to the internal dynamics of the Safavid revolutionary movement. In short, it ascribes little value to Qizilbash Islam, regarding the Qizilbash as a purely political force. Said Arjomand has attempted to revise this interpretation, taking into account internal political realities. He sees the adoption of Imamism as a choice determined by considerations of state. The religious nature of the Safavid movement that led to the choice of Imamism as the religion of their imperium, however, is neglected in these interpretations.

36. Natanzi, Naqāwat al-āthār, 516Google Scholar. Kiya, Sadiq, Nuqṭavīyān yā Pisīkhāniyān (Tehran, n.d), 23Google Scholar, quoting from a contemporary source, Fani's, Muhsin Dabistān almadhāhib (2 vols. [Tehran, 1362 Sh./1983], 1:273–8Google Scholar). Bek, Iskandar, Ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī 1:476Google Scholar, mentions the name of another Qizilbash who was killed: Budaq Bek Din Oghlu Ustajlu. Fani mentions that Husayn Khan Shamlu was found crying at the rawżat al-shuhadā’ (Muharram 1002) and Shah ‘Abbas I asked him why a man from Sham was crying for Husayn. Shamlu responded: “I am not crying for Husayn; some of our good young men have also been killed” (Dabistān 1: 277).

37. Ibid., 275.

38. Ibid., 276; also quoted in Kiya, Nuqṭavīyān, 22Google Scholar.

39. Not to be confused with their Zoroastrian namesakes in India.

40. Madelung, W., Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran (Albany, 1988), 9–12Google Scholar. The term mahdī (in the lower case) is used here to refer to the concept of a generic messiah.

41. Ibid, 11.

42. Fani, Dabistān 1:273–4, 276Google Scholar.

43. We may be dealing here, rather, with a case similar to that of medieval and early modern Russia, where a prevailing “dual model” made the present always a function of an abandoned, yet potentially ever-present, past. I would like to thank Peter Brown for having articulated this point. See Lotman, J. M., The Semiotics of Russian Cultural History (Ithaca, 1985), 30–66Google Scholar.

44. Fani, Dabistān 1:275Google Scholar.

45. Ibid., 276.

46. Bek, Iskandar, Ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī 1:473Google Scholar.

47. He must have returned to Qazvin after it had been made the official capital in 1555.

48. Bek, Iskandar, Ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī 1:473Google Scholar.

49. Ibid.

50. Ibid.

51. Note that Tahmasb did, however, blind the poet Abu'l-Qasim Amiri, a high-ranking Nuqtavi, in 973/1565. He also carried out a large-scale purge in Kashan in 981/1573–74. See Amoretti, B. S., “Religion in the Timurid and Safavid Periods” in Jackson, Peter and Lawrence, Lockhart, eds., Cambridge History of Iran (Cambridge, 1986), 6:645Google Scholar.

52. Although Said Arjomand argues that the Safavid attack on Sufis and Sunnis began with the inception of Shah IsmaiTs rule and that the Naqshbandis were the first order to be “ferociously suppressed” (Shadow of God, 109–21), Dina Le Gall demonstrates that some Naqshbandi shaykhs like Sun'ullah Kuzakunani, the founder of the Naqshbandi takīya in Tabriz, lived there unharmed up to the turn of the seventeenth century. See Gall, Dina Le, “The Ottoman Naqshbandiyya in the pre-Mujaddidī Phase: A Study in Islamic Religious Culture and its Transmission” (unpublished diss., Princeton University, 1989), 22–31Google Scholar. Studies on particular Sufi ṭarīqats in their local Safavid contexts need to be conducted before any further generalizations are made.

53. See Tabataba'i, Sayyid Husayn Mudarrisi, An Introduction to Shi'i Law (London, 1984), 50Google Scholar.

54. Bek, Iskandar, Ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī 1:474Google Scholar.

55. Ibid.; Natanzi, Naqāwat al-āthār, 515Google Scholar.

56. Natanzi, Naqāwat al-āthār, 515–16Google Scholar.

57. Bek, Iskandar, Ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī 1:474Google Scholar.

58. According to Natanzi, Naqāwat al-āthār, 517, around 200 disciples would congregate daily in his takīya. See also Bek, Iskandar, Ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī 1:474Google Scholar.

59. Iskandar Bek, loc. cit., states that ‘Abbas, while casually strolling through the streets of Qazvin, which he would often do to get acquainted with different groups of people, chanced upon Darvish Khusraw's takīya. Natanzi's version is slightly different: the shah, who knew of Darvish Khusraw, was walking in the street one day when Darvish Khusraw ran out and lured him into his takīya with his “smooth talk (charb zabānī)” (Naqāwat al-āthār, 516).

60. Bek, Iskandar, Ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī 1:474Google Scholar.

61. Natanzi, Naqāwat al-āthār, 516Google Scholar.

62. Bek, Iskandar, Ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī 1:474Google Scholar.

63. Ibid.

64. Ibid.; Natanzi, Naqāwat al-āthār, 517Google Scholar.

65. Natanzi, Naqāwat al-āthār, 517Google Scholar.

66. Fani, Dabistān 1:277: “Va ham az amīnī shanīda ka Shāh ‘Abbās amīn-i kāmil būd.”

67. Qazi Ahmad Qummi, Gulistān-i hunar, ed. Ahmad Suhayli Khwansari (Tehran, 1352 Sh./1973), 140–41; Sadiqi Bek, Majma’ al-khawāṣṣ, ed. ‘Abd al-Rasul Khayyampur (Tabriz 1327 Sh./1948), 154–5. Royal patronage in the Safavid era remains to be studied. Martin Dickson and Cary Welch's magnum opus, The Houghton Shāhnāmeh, represents a singular attempt to capture the styles and personalities of fifteen painters who collaborated together with their royal patron, Shah Tahmasb, in the creation of the Houghton Shāhnāmeh. Nomi Hagar, a student of Dickson, has pursued in her forthcoming dissertation a study of the identity of court painters as a group and their associations with Safavid royal patrons of the sixteenth century.

68. Natanzi, Naqāwat al-āthār, 521Google Scholar.

69. Bek, Iskandar, Ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī 1:474Google Scholar.

70. Ibid.

71. Natanzi, Naqāwat al-āthār, 514Google Scholar.

72. Darvish Riza (d. Dhu'l-Hijja 1040/July 1631), a Qizilbash (Afshar) who had served in the Safavid provincial administration, claimed to be the awaited Mahdi and rose against the Safavid order two years after Shah Safi's accession.

73. Natanzi, Naqāwat al-āthār, 518Google Scholar.

74. Bek, Iskandar, Ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī 1:474Google Scholar. Interestingly, Queen Elizabeth was faced with similar prophetic forecasts for the year 1588, which was seen as a fatal year in which the world would be destroyed and the Lord would appear triumphant. She, too, attempted to suppress and refute these forecasts that occurred in the Armada year. See Aston, Margaret, “The Fiery Trigon Conjunction: An Elizabethan Astrological Prediction,” ISIS (1970): 177CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

75. Natanzi, Naqāwat al-āthār, 522–3Google Scholar.

76. Shāhīsīvān literally means “those who love the shah.” They were recruited from among the different Qizilbash tribes. In return for official posts, they readily broke away from tribal loyalties and fought for the person of the shah.

77. Bek, Iskandar, Ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī 2:610–12Google Scholar.

78. See McChesney, Robert, “Waqf and Public Policy: The Waqf of Shāh ‘Abbās, 1011–1023/1602–16,” Asian and African Studies 15 (1981): 169–70Google Scholar.

79. Bek, Iskandar, Ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī 2:882Google Scholar.

80. Aubin, “Révolution chiite.”

81. Bek, Iskandar, Ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī 2:882Google Scholar.

82. Bek, Iskandar, Dhayl-i tārīkh-i ‘ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī, 87Google Scholar.

83. Majlisi, II, Raj'at, ed. Bidar, Abu Dharr (Tehran, 1367 Sh./1988), 16–17Google Scholar.

84. Majlisi II, Biḥār al-anwār, 2nd ed. (Qum, n.d), 13:836 (translated by ‘Ali Davani as Mahdī-yi maw'ūd).

85. Martin Gaudereau, Relation de la mort de Shāh Soliman, roy de Perse et du couronement de Sultān Husayn, son fils, avec plusieurs particularités, Bibliotheque National (Microfiche 8o O2h.l68), 95. The author, probably a missionary priest of the Augustinian order, says, “Les schismatiques arméniens ont profité de la maladie du Roi [Sulayman] pour nous surprendre, et à force d'argent ont extorqué de la Reine mere un ordre au Dīvān Begī de se transporter à Zulpha pour en chasser tous les Missionaires. II y vint en effet le 11 Janvier 1694, chasa premièrement les pères Carmes, rasa l'Eglise qu'ils avoient commencé de bâtir … ils vouloient bien ensuite faire le même aux jésuites et à nous.”

86. In his journal of travels to Iran in 1609 John Cartwright mentions that in ancient times the Safavid shahs had been crowned and girded by the khalīfat al-khulafā'. I would like to thank Willem Floor for providing me with this information. See W. Floor, The Persian Textile Industry, Its Development, Production and Use, Bibliotheca Persica, ed. E. Yarshter (forthcoming).

87. Muhammad Ibrahim b. Zayn al-'Abidin Nasiri, Dastūr-i shahriyārān (British Library, Or. 2942), f. 17a, a defective unicum manuscript that stops at the year 1110/ 1698–99. It was two weeks before Shah Sultan Husayn ascended the throne, an indication that the court was divided at the time of Shah Sulayman's death (1 Dhu'l-Hijja 1105/24 July 1694). Martin Gaudereau speaks of the prominence of the eunuchs in Sultan Husayn's succession politics. The eunuchs were to be divided between two candidates: Sultan Husayn, the oldest son among the surviving princes and a ṭālib-i ‘Urn (seeker of religious knowledge); and Sultan Tahmasb, who was younger but was said to have been his father's choice (Gaudereau, Relation, 35Google Scholar). Likewise, the court had been divided over an heir to Shah ‘Abbas I, and it was not until ten days after his death that his grandson Safi was enthroned. By contrast, ‘Abbas II's accession took place four days after his father's death, for his mother, Anna Khanum, was in alliance with the powerful grand vizier, Sam Taqi; together they controlled the court.

88. Nasiri, Dastūr-i shahriyārān. The six other ‘ālims were: the ṣadr-i khāṣṣa, the ṣadr-i mamālik, Aqa Jamal, Shaykh Muhammad Ja'far Qazi, Aqa Razi b. Husayn Khwansari, and Shaykh ‘Ali b. Shaykh Husayn Karbala'i. The khuṭba appears on ff. 19b-20b; the farmān appears on ff. 44a-46a.

89. Ibid., f. 43b.