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The Ulama of Jabal ‘Amil in Safavid Iran, 1501–1736: Marginality, Migration and Social Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Rula Jurdi Abisaab
Rula Jurdi Abisaab*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Yale University
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Extract

Shortly after the investiture of Shah Isma'il (r, 907-30/1501-24) in Iran as the first Safavid monarch, Twelver Shi'ism was declared the religion of the new empire. Shah Isma'il and succeeding monarchs seemed determined to convert Iran from Sunnism to a literate urban version of Twelver Shi'ism, distinct from the folk religion of the Turkoman nomads. The process of conversion to Shi'ism is best understood within the larger political framework of Ottoman-Safavid relations, as an attempt to demarcate Safavid territory against Ottoman encroachments and insulate its inhabitants from Sunnite leanings. To disseminate the Shi'ite creed and apply Islamic law (sharī'a) in accordance with the Shi'ite school (madhhab), the shahs invited the Shi'ite ulama from Arabic-speaking territories such as Iraq, Bahrain, and Jabal ‘Amil (in present-day Lebanon) to reinforce their counterparts in Persia. Among these, the contribution of the scholars of Jabal ‘Amil became especially notable as they successfully cultivated Safavid patronage and reaped unprecedented socio-economic power.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 1-4: Religion and Society in Islamic Iran during the Pre-Modern Era , 1994 , pp. 103 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1994

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Professor Abbas Amanat of Yale University and Professor Said A. Arjomand of SUNY at Stony Brook for their great assistance in reading and commenting on this paper. I am also indebted to Professor Hossein Modarressi of Princeton University whose thorough remarks illuminated some of the paper's central arguments. Professor Rifa'at Abou Al-Hajj of California State University, Long Beach, was inspiring in his critique of the paper's theoretical underpinnings. Any shortcoming is solely my responsibility.

References

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23. Of al-Muhaqqiq al-Thani's sons, only ‘Abd al-'Ali was mentioned by Iskandar Beg Munshi among the distinguished scholars at the time of Shah Tahmasp. See Iskandar Beg Munshi (d. 1043/1633), Tārīkh-i ‘ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī, ed. Iraj Afshar (Tehran, 1972), trans. Roger Savory, History of Shah ‘Abbas the Great (Boulder, 1978), 1:244–5; on Hasan and ‘Abd al-'Ali al-Karaki see Tehrani, Agha Buzurg, Ṭabaqāt a'lām al-shī'a; ‘ Munzavi, Ali Naqi, ed., al-Kawdkib al-muntashara fl'l-qarn althānī ba'd al-'ashara (Tehran, 1952), 57, 122–3Google Scholar.

24. Ibid., 205; Muhammad Baqir Khwansari (1226–1313/1811–95), Rawḍāt al jannāt fī aḥwāl al-'ulamā’ wa'l-sādāt (Beirut, 1991), 2:287–8Google Scholar.

25. Tehrani, Tabaqat, 71–2Google Scholar; idem, al-Dharī'a ilā taṣānīf al-shī'a (Najaf & Tehran, 1978), 24:251.

26. al-Din al-Mar'ashi al-Najafi, Sayyid Shihab, al-Ijāz.a al-kabīra (Qum, 1993), 335Google Scholar.

27. al-Isfahani, Mirza ‘Abdullah Afandi, Ta'līqāt amal al-āmil, ed. al-Husayni, Ahmad (Qum, 1989), 81Google Scholar. For a brief account of Ahmad, the brother of Mirza Habibullah al-‘Amili, see idem, Riyāḍ al-'ulamā’ wa ḥiyāḍ al-fuḍalā’ (Qum, 1980–81), 1:34 and 5:87.

28. Ibid. 5:183.

29. This figure was reached on the basis of a comprehensive scrutiny of major biobibliographical dictionaries, among which are: Muhammad al-Hurr al-'Amili (d. 1104/1693), Amal al-āmil, ed. Ahmad al-Husayni, 2 vols. (Baghdad, 1965); al-Isfahani, Mirza ‘Abdullah Afandi, Riyāḍ al-'ulamā’ wa ḥiyāḍ al-fuḍalā', 5 vols. (Qum, 1981)Google Scholar; idem, Ta'līqāt amal al-āmil; Agha Buzurg Tehrani, al-Dharī'a, 25 vols.; idem, Tabaqāt; idem, Ihyā’ al-dāthir; Hasan al-Sadr (d. 1944), Takmīlāt amal al-āmil, ed. Ahmad al-Husayni (Najaf, 1985); ‘Abd Allah al-Tustari, al-Ijāza al-kabīra (Qum, 1989); Gazzi Isfahani, Shaykh Karim, Tadhkirat al-qubūr (Qum, 1951)Google Scholar; al-Din al-Mar'ashi al-Najafi, Sayyid Shihab, al-Ijāza al-kabīra (Qum, 1993)Google Scholar; al-Husayni, Ahmad, Tarājim al-rijāl, 2 vols. (Qum, 1993)Google Scholar.

30. In the case of one ‘Amili scholar, Zayn al-Din ‘Ali ‘Arab (alive in 982/1521), it is not clear whether ‘“Arab” was a part of his name before his migration to Iran. He was given the posts of qāḍī and Shaykh al-Islam in Herat under Shah Isma'il after whose death he returned to Jabal ‘Amil. See Mirza Afandi, Riyāḍ al-'ulamā’ 3:323; Ghiyath al-Din b. Tamam al-Din Khwandamir, Ḥabīb al-siyarfi akhbār qfrād al-bashar (Tehran, n.d.), 3:114Google Scholar.

31. Al-Shahid al-Thani refers to Juba’ as “my first home” (waṭanī al-awwal)— “waṭan” here denoting the place of birth. See al-Thani, al-Shahid, al-Durr al-manthūr, 159Google Scholar.

32. It is inaccurate to refer to any of the ‘Amilis as Lebanese, because the Lebanese polity as we know it today was not a recognizable entity or source of identity of any sort for the ‘Amili ulama.

33. al-Amin, Hasan, A'yān al-shī'a 19:59Google Scholar.

34. Ibid. 10:61; al-Bahrani, Yusuf, Lu'lu'āt al-baḥrayn fi'l-ijāzāt wa tarājim rijāl alḥadīth (Beirut, 1986), 146Google Scholar.

35. Other sources state that the report was submitted to the qāḍi of Sidon. See Tehrani, Ṭabaqāt 8:205–7Google Scholar; Majlisi, Muhammad Baqir, Biḥār al-anwār (Tehran, 1956—72), 107:185–90Google Scholar.

36. al-Makki bn, Fahd (d. 871/1467), Laḥẓ al-alḥāẓ (Damascus, 1928–29), 168Google Scholar.

37. Ibid; Tehrani, Ṭabaqāt 8:205–7Google Scholar; al-Amin, Muhsin, A'yān al-shī'a 10:59–60Google Scholar.

38. Ibid.

39. Shuhba, Ibn (d. 851/1448), Ta’rīkh Qāḍī b. Shuhba, ed. Darwish, Adnan (Damascus, 1977), 1:134–5Google Scholar.

40. al-'Amili, Al-Hurr, Amal al-āmil 1:183Google Scholar.

41. al-Thani, Al-Shahid, al-Durr al-manthūr 2:183Google Scholar.

42. Ibid; Khwansari, Rawḍāt al-jannāt 3:346Google Scholar.

43. al-Thani, Al-Shahid, al-Durr al-manthūr, 184Google Scholar.

44. Khwansari, Rawḍāt al-jannāt 3:363Google Scholar; al-Amin, Muhsin, A'yān al-shī'a 7:157Google Scholar.

45. Andrew Newman argues that Shi'ites traveled freely within Ottoman territory and were not searched or investigated at any point. This presupposes that such checkpoints were existent in Ottoman Syria to begin with. We do not have historical evidence that such systematic measures were followed by the Ottomans in Syrian territories. This question, however, does not help us in deciding whether the ulama's lives were actually threatened or not, and thus has no bearing on the real religio-political milieu within which the ‘Amilis lived.

46. Abdul-Rahim Abu Husayn accurately points to the ‘Amilis’ marginal access to public office due to their being Shi'ite. This runs counter to Ja'far al-Muhajir's argument about the inherent austerity of ‘Amili scholars. As for the teaching posts which Andrew Newman points to as evidence for the ‘Amilis’ otherwise easy access to socio-economic resources in the Ottoman empire, these were located in third- if not fourth-rate schools whose endowment funds (awqāf) were limited. To give but one example, Husayn b. ‘Abd al-Samad, the father of Shaykh Baha'i, was promised a teaching post at a school in Baghdad. He traveled there from Jabal ‘Amil to find that its awqāf were meager and had to wait for 21 days before he was able to exchange his post for another. For a full account see al-Shahid al-Thani's biography by his student, Ibn al-'Udi al-Jizzini (alive in 962/1555), “Bughyat al-murīd fi'1-kashf ‘an aḥwāl al-shahīd,” of which the extant parts were collected in al-Durr al-manthūr, 177–8.

47. Khwandamir, Ḥabīb al-siyar 3–4:117–8Google Scholar.

48. Ibid., 98; Savory, Roger, “The Provincial Administration of the Early Safavid Empire” in Studies on the History of Safawid Iran (London, 1987), 124Google Scholar.

49. Hourani, Albert, “From Jabal ‘Amil to Persia,” BSAOS 49 (1986): 137Google Scholar; Arjomand, Shadow of God, 126–7Google Scholar; Khwansari, Rawḍāt al-jannāt, 361–2Google Scholar. Again Ja'far al-Muhajir, drawing on Rawḍāt al-jannāt, refers to Husayn b. Sharaf al-Din al-Ardabili, another Persian scholar who, by Shah Isma'il's request, had composed the first works in Persian of a legalistic Shi'ite nature (al-Hijra, 183–4).

50. Afandi, Mirza, Riyāḍ al-'ulamā’ 3:90Google Scholar.

51. Modarressi, Shi'i Law, 51–2Google Scholar; al-Amin, Hasan, Dā'irat al-ma'ārif al-Islāmiyya alshī'iyya, ed. (Beirut, 1981)Google Scholar, vol. 3, s.v. “al-Najaf,” “Ḥalab,” “al-Ḥilla.” It is important to note that Najaf was a center of learning during the time of al-Muhaqqiq al-Thani and Ibrahim b. Sulayman al-Qatifi at a period slightly earlier than that of al-Muqaddas al-Ardabili (Momen, Moojan, An Introduction to Shi'i Islam [New Haven, 1985], 123Google Scholar). Momen notes that by the 18th century there were around 100 ‘Amili ulama in comparison to 33 from Bahrain, 15 from Astarabad, and 8 from Najaf.

52. Biographies of the scholars of Jabal ‘Amil at the time help us reconstruct the role of Jabal ‘Amil as a leading Shi'ite center of learning. See Khwansari, Rawḍāt aljannāt 4:264, 339–42, 359–60, 7:22–5; Momen, Introduction, 120, 122–3. Momen bases his conclusions on the biographical work of Mirza Muhammad ‘Ali Kashmiri, Nujum al-samā’ (Lucknow, 1303/1885)Google Scholar.

53. al-Amin, Muhsin, A'yān al-shī'a, 10:59–64Google Scholar.

54. Rumlu, Hasan, Ahsanu't-Tawarikh: A Chronicle of the Early Safawis, trans. Seddon, C. N. (Baroda, 1934)Google Scholar, vol. 2; Munshi, Iskandar Beg, ‘Ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī, Savory trans., 1:247–8Google Scholar; Afandi, Mirza, Riyāḍ al-'ulamā’ 2:119Google Scholar. Muhsin al-Amin pointed to the contradictions and confusion present in the biography of Husayn b. ‘Abd al-Samad and advanced his own version (A'yān al-shī'a 6:60). On the same question see Devin Stewart, “A Biographical Notice on Baha’ al-Din al-'Amili (d. 1030/1621),” Journal of the American Oriental Society 111, no. 3 (1991): 563–71. Stewart tries to show that Husayn had arrived in Iran seven years prior to al-Shahid al-Thani's death. A Safavid chronicler documented that Husayn b. ‘Abd al-Samad turned away from his homeland to the land of fortune during 963/1556, that is, two years before the death of al-Shahid al-Thani, where he entered the service of the shah who treated him with great honor (Isfahani, Muhammad Yusuf Walih, Khuld-i barīn: Iran dar rūzgār-i Ṣafaviyyān [Tehran, 1372 Sh./1993], 433)Google Scholar.

55. Al Safa, Muhammad Jabir, Ta’rīkh Jabal ‘Āmil (Beirut, 1981), 137–8Google Scholar, has insights into the history and self-image of ‘Amili Shi'ism. See also ibid, 76–80 and Ahmad Rida's series “al-Matāwila aw al-shī'a fi Jabal ‘Āmil,” al-'lrfān 2, no. 5 (1910): 240–41; Muhsin al-Amin, A'yān al-shī'a.

56. For further details see Stewart, Devin, “Twelver Shi'i Jurisprudence and Its Struggle with Sunni Consensus” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1991), 198–9Google Scholar.

57. Shihab al-Din, al-Karaki Husayn b., Hidāyat al-abrār, 219–22Google Scholar.

58. See Eberhard, Elke, Osmanische Polemik gegen die Safawiden im 16 Jahrhundert nach arabischen Handschriften (Freiburg, 1970), 56–60Google Scholar; Glassen, “Schah Isma'il I.”

59. See Lambton, “Quis Custodiet Custodes?” 137–41Google Scholar.

60. See Allouche, ‘Adel, The Origins and Development of the Ottoman-Safavid Conflict (906–962/1500–1555) (Berlin, 1983), 146–50Google Scholar.

61. Arjomand, Shadow of God, 123–9Google Scholar.

62. See Salihi Shahidi, ‘Abd al-Husayn, “Madrasa-yi falsafī-yi Qazvīn dar ‘aṣr-i Ṣafavī,” Ḥawza 58 (1952): 169–92Google Scholar; Munzavi, al-Kawākib al-muntashara, 354–7Google Scholar, 656–7

63. Munzavi, al-Kawākib al-muntashara, 355–6Google Scholar.

64. al-Amin, H., ed., A'yān al-shī'a 6:36–7Google Scholar. For a biographical account of Shihab al-Din al-Karaki see Ma'sum, Ibn, Sulāfat al-‘aṣr (Cairo, 1324), 356Google Scholar. Less prominent ‘Amilis who advanced Akhbari arguments are mentioned briefly by Husayn b. Shihab al-Din al-Karaki in Hidāyat al-abrār, 221–2. These are Zayn al-Din b. Muhammad b. al-Hasan b. al-Shahid al-Thani, Husayn b. Zahir al-'Amili (contemporary with Sahib al-Ma'alim [d. 1011/1602]), and Muhammad al-Harfushi al-'Amili (d. before 1096/1684).

65. Ibid.

66. See the following article by Rosemary Stanfield Johnson in this volume.

67. Newman, “Myth of the Clerical Migration,” 93Google Scholar.

68. See al-Bahrani, Lu'lu'āt al-baḥrayn, 153Google Scholar.

69. Khwansari Rawḍat al-jannāt 4:347Google Scholar.

70. Al-Muhaqqiq al-Thani, “Nafaḥāt al-lāhūt fi la'n al-jibt wa'1-ṭāghūt,” in Anvar, ‘A., Fihrist-i nusakh-i khaṭṭī-yi kitābkhāna-yi millī, collection 1703 (Tehran, 1344–58 Sh./1965–79), 5:8Google Scholar. This treatise was completed in 917/1511 in Mashhad. It was also published at least twice, but I have relied here on the original manuscript.

71. Ibid.

72. Husayn b. ‘Abd al-Samad, “Munāẓara ma'a ba'ḍi ‘ulamā’ Ḥalab fi'1-imāma,” in al-Husayni, Ahmad, Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭī-yi kitābkhāna-yi ‘umūmī-yi Mar'ashī, collection 1161, no. 3 (Qum, 1975), 2Google Scholar. Contrary to Newman's understanding of the conditions surrounding this debate, Husayn b. ‘Abd al-Samad explicitly states that the Aleppine ‘ālim became an intimate friend, so much so that the former could discard taqiyya (bi-ḥaythu lā attaqih). Conducted in disguise, such debates were certainly uncommon among Shi'ites and Sunnites during the Ottoman period.

73. ‘Abd al-Samad, Husayn b., “Munāẓara,” 2Google Scholar.

74. al-Din al-Karaki, Husayn b. Shihab, Hidāyat al-abrār, 219–20Google Scholar.

75. Husayn al-Mujtahid, “Risāla fi ta'yīn maqtal ‘Umar” and “Risāla fī yawm qatl ‘Umar,” MSS 3987/3 & 4, Majlis Library, Tehran, described in Ha'iri, ‘A. et al, Fihristi kitābkhāna-yi majlis-i shūrā-yi millī (Tehran, 1305–57 Sh./1926–78), 10:419–20Google Scholar, 423–8.

76. Tehrani, al-Dharī'a 11:151Google Scholar; Khwansari, Rawḍāt al-jannāt 2:312–3Google Scholar.

77. al-Mujtahid, Husayn, “Risāla fi ta'yīn maqtal ‘Umar,” 419–20Google Scholar.

78. Munshi, Iskandar Bek, ‘Ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī 1:213–17Google Scholar, Savory trans., 1:317–20.

79. “Ajwibat masā'il al-Shaykh Ṣāliḥ al-Jazā'iri li'1-Bahā'ī,” MS 1691/4, Mar'ashi Library, Qum.

80. Ibid., 58.

81. Husayn b. ‘Abd al-Samad, “al-'Iqd al-Ṭusayni (al-Ṭahmāsbī),” published in a collection on Friday prayer by Sayyid Javad Modarressi Yazdi (Yazd, n.d.). Husayn completed “al-'Iqd” in 970/1562–63.

82. Ibid., 31.

83. Ibid. See also Roemer, “Safavid Period,” 240. Roemer discusses how the Ottomans and the Uzbeks dealt with the question of Friday prayer in their polemical debates with Safavid theologians.

84. Munzavi, al-Kawākib al-muntashara, 656–7Google Scholar, 525–6. Munzavi finds ‘Amili legalistic Shi'ism alien to the spirit of Shi'ite gnosticism which he maintains to be characteristic of the Persian religious and intellectual milieu.

85. Ibid., 32–3.

86. Ibid., 34.

87. Savory, Roger, “The Emergence of the Modern Pérsian State under the Safavids,” Īrānshināsī 2, no. 2 (1971): 28–41Google Scholar.

88. See Humphreys, Stephen, Islamic History: A Framework of Inquiry (Princeton, 1991), 198–200Google Scholar. See also Hourani, Albert, “How Should We Write the History of the Middle East?” IJMES 23, no. 2 (1991): 127–8Google Scholar.