The Myth of the Clerical Migration to Safawid Iran: Arab Shiite Opposition to Al al-Karak

and Safawid Shiism

Author(s): Andrew J. Newman
Source: Die Welt des Islams, New Series, Vol. 33, Issue 1 (Apr., 1993), pp. 66-112
Published by: BRILL
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Die Welt des Islams 33
(1993)
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION
TO SAFAWID IRAN:
Arab Shiite
Opposition
to 'Ali al-Karaki and
Safawid
Shiism1
BY
ANDREW
J.
NEWMAN
Oxford
It is a conventional wisdom of Safawid studies
that, following
the
establishment of Twelver Shiism, the Safawid shahs induced
large
numbers of Arab Twelver clerics to
migrate
to Iran to assist in the
propagation
of the faith in Safawid
territory.
In
Western-language
scholarship
the assertion that
large
numbers of Arab Twelver ulama
responded
to invitations
by
Safawid
rulers-particularly
the first
two, IsmCil
(905/1499-930/1524)
and
Tahmasp (930/1524-984/
1576)-to
leave their homeland to settle in Safawid
territory
dates
at least to the work of E.G. Browne. More than
fifty years ago,
Browne
suggested
there was a
paucity
of Twelver scholars in
early
Safawid Iran and wrote that
Bahrayn
and
Jabal
CAmil "furnished
the bulk" of the "learned
[Twelver]
Arabs" introduced
by
IsmaCil
into Iran
following
his
profession
of the faith at the Safawid
capture
of Tabriz in 907/ 1501.2 More recent scholars have
only
echoed this
suggestion,3
at least
tacitly assuming
IsmaCil's
profession
of faith
1
The author would like to thank Professor Wilferd
Madelung
and Drs. Yann
Richard and Nikki Keddie for their criticism of earlier drafts of this
paper.
The er-
rors herein are his
responsibility
alone.
2
E.G.
Browne,
A
Literary History of
Persia 4
(London, 1953, reprint
of the
origi-
nal 1924
edition), 360,
406-407.
3
See, for
example,
Jean
Aubin,
"Etudes Safavides.I. Shah Ismacil et les Nota-
bles de
l'Iraq Persan", Journal of
the Economic and Social
History of
the
Orient,
II
(1959),
54; idem,
"La
Politique Religieuse
des
Safavides",
in Le Shi'isme Imamite
(Paris:
Presses Universitaires de
France, 1970), 239;
S.H.
Nasr,
"The School of
Ispa-
han",
in M.M.
Sharif, ed.,
A
History of
Muslim
Philosophy
2
(Wiesbaden, 1966),
906, 906n8, citing Browne; ibid; idem, "Religion
in Safavid
Persia",
Iranian Studies
7
(1974), 274;
S.A.
Arjomand,
The Shadow
of
God and the Hidden Imam
(Chicago
and
London: The
University
of
Chicago Press, 1984),
131,
136, 107, 122f, esp.
128-
133. See also Erika Glassen, "Schah IsmaCil I. und die
Theologen
seiner
Zeit", Der
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 67
at once rendered Safawid
territory
an
acceptable,
indeed
inviting,
haven for Arab Twelver clerics
living
under Sunni domination.
The
purpose
of the
present essay
is to
challenge
the continued use-
fulness of this
"migration
thesis" with reference to the first half-
century following
IsmCail's
profession.
Far from there
having
been
a massive
migration
of Arab Twelver clerics to Safawid
Iran,
close
examination of the actions and movements of both established and
younger
Arab Twelver clerics show that a number of clerics from the
Hijaz,
the Persian Gulf area of
Bahrayn-on
the eastern Arabian
coast-, Arab
Iraq,
and the
Jabal
CAmil area of Lebanon rejected
the Safawid identification with Twelver Shiism in this
period.
Cleri-
cal
disquiet
with the Safawids stemmed from such factors as the
abruptness
of IsmSCil's conversion to Twelver
Shiism;
the consis-
tently
extremist nature of Safawid
religio-political
discourse
which,
following Tabriz,
was an unorthodox
amalgamation
of non-Shii and
Shii
religious expression
and
policies;
the lack of interest in and un-
derstanding
of the doctrines and
practices
of the faith
among
the
Safawid
elite;
the constant
uncertainty surrounding
the future of the
Safawid
polity; and,
in
particular,
the manner in which one of their
number,
the Lebanese CAll al-Karaki (d.
940/1534),
associated him-
self with and
represented
the Safawid court in this
period.
At the
same
time, throughout
this
period
Sunni rulers-the Ottomans in
particular-avoided alienating
Twelver clerics
living
in their territo-
ry.
In
sum,
for Arab Twelver clerics resident in Sunni-controlled
domains, remaining
in their homeland was
preferable
to
migrating
to Safawid
territory.
Islam, 48,
no. 2
(1972), 262-265, esp. 264n40, citing Browne, ibid; Roger
Savory,
Iran Under the
Safavids
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 30; Ann
K.S.
Lambton,
State and Government in Medieval
Islam;
an Introduction to the
Study
of
Is-
lamic Political
Theory;
the
Jurists (London:
Oxford
University Press, 1981), 266-268,
266n12
citing Glassen, ibid; Norman
Calder, "Khums in Imami Shii
Jurispru-
dence from the Tenth to the Sixteenth
Century, A.D.", Bulletin
of
the School
of
Orien-
tal and
African
Studies
45, part
1
(1982), 46; Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shii
Islam
(New
Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1985), 108; and Albert
Hourani, "From
Jabal
CAmil to
Persia", BSOAS, 49, part
1
(1986), esp.
136f. In
Arabic,
see 'All
Mroueh,
Al-
Tashayyuc bayn
Jabal
cAmil wa- Iran
(London:
Riad El-
Rayyes Books, 1987), 43, giving
an
unspecified
reference to
Phillip
Hitti.
A.J.
NEWMAN
The Problematic
Aspects of
Safawid
Shiism
The
impression
of Twelver Shiism
confronting
Arab Twelver
clerics resident outside Safawid
territory throughout
the first
fifty
years
after Tabriz can
only
have been
negative.
Clerical unease with
the Safawid association with the faith stemmed from the
abruptness
of Ismdil' s interest in and conversion to the
faith;
the extreme na-
ture of Safawid
religious expression which,
after
Tabriz, comprised
an unorthodox blend of non-Shii and Shii
allusions;
the Safawid
elite's clear lack of interest in the
specifics
of the
faith;
and critical
military
defeats suffered
by
the Safawids less than fifteen
years
after
Tabriz which
suggested
the transient nature of the Safawid Shii ex-
periment.
IsmSCil's interest in Twelver Shiism had no
precedence
in
early
Safawid
history.
Founded
by Shaykh
Safi al-Din
(d. 735/1334),
the
early leadership espoused
no
Twelver,
let alone Shii or other dis-
tinctly separatist, religious discourse,
nor did
they
claim CAlid
family
connections or descent from
any
of the twelve Imams or other mem-
bers of the
Prophet's family.
Under Safi al-Din the order's adher-
ents were in fact
mainly
Shafici
Sunnis,
and in its
early years
the
order
enjoyed good
relations with the established Sunni
political
authorities.4
During Junayd's period
of
leadership
of the
movement, begin-
ning
in
851/1447,
the order embraced a new extreme
religio-
political
discourse and offensive
military strategy.
The
adoption
of
both was the function of and in
response
to
changes
in the order's
social
composition, particularly
the influx of
supporters
drawn from
the
poorer peasantry
and tribal
nomads,
and the
antagonism
of
these elements to
existing political
and socio-economic structures.5
4
Michel M.
Mazzaoui,
The
Origins of
the
$afawids, Freiburger Islamstudien,
Bd.
3.) (Wiesbaden:
Franz
Steiner, 1972), 46-53,
54-56. See also
Aubin,
"Etudes. I",
42, 45;
Adel
Allouche,
The
Origins
and
Development of
the
Ottoman-Safavid
Conflict,
906-962/1500-1555
(Berlin:
Klaus Schwarz
Verlag, 1983), 32-38; I.P.
Petrushevsky,
Islam in
Iran, originally published
in Russian in 1966 and translated
from the Russian
by
Hubert Evans
(London:
The Athlone
Press, 1985), 314; Arjo-
mand, ibid,
78.
5
See
Petrushevsky, ibid, 316-21; Jean-Louis
Bacque-Grammont,
Les Otto-
mans,
les
Safavides,
et leurs Voisins
(Istanbul:
Nederlands
Historisch-Archaeologisch
Instituut, 1987), 13-14;
Jean
Aubin, "L'Avenement des Safavides Reconsidere
(Etudes
Safavides
III)", Moyen
Orient et Ocian Indien 5
(1988),
4.
68
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 69
The new discourse included
praise
for
Junayd
as "the
Living One,
there is no God but he". Followers from Anatolia and elsewhere also
viewed
Haydar (864/1460
-
893/1488), Junayd's
son and
successor,
as God.6 Such rhetoric
encouraged
the new offensive
military
strategy which, despite
an uneven
record,
culminated in the
capture
of Tabriz some
fifty years
later.
Ismacil was fourteen in 907/1501
-
1502 when the Safawids seized
Tabriz and he made his
profession
of faith. This
profession
was less
the result of
any profound study
and
appreciation
of the doctrines
and
practices
of Twelver Shiism
by
IsmCil or the forces at the centre
of the tribal confederation than the culmination of the messianic
radicalism
adopted underJunayd,
further
encouraging
and cement-
ing
the
profound
sense of
separation from,
and
hostility among
the
order's followers
to,
the
existing
socio-economic and
political
struc-
ture as dominated
by
Sunni Muslims. The socio-economic outlook
of the
Qizil
Bash
political hierarchy
itself
was, however,
fundamen-
tally
conservative:
meaningful changes
to the
underlying
structures
of
society
were not to be
effected,
let alone tolerated.7 As formulat-
ed
by
that
hierarchy immediately prior
to and
especially
after Tabriz
Safawid
religious
discourse was less concerned with
compatibility
with
any single religious
doctrine than with
legitimising
a
highly
hi-
erarchical structure within the Safawid order itself and the
authority
of the elite within that
structure,
the
primacy
of the leader's
position
in
particular.
Such a
highly
stratified structure of
authority
assured
the
authority
of the elite to articulate and
impose
its conservative
worldview on and
among
the order's adherents.
In this
context,
Safawid
religious
discourse was
necessarily
as ex-
treme as that of Ismicil's
immediate,
non-Twelver
predecessors.
While some elements of this discourse
emphasized
the
affinity
with
6
The
contemporary
Sunni court chronicler Fadlallah b. Ruizbihan
al-Khunji
alleged
the veneration of
Haydar
was such that the
daily religious duty
of namaz
(prayer)
and other
public
manifestations of Muslim
worship
were
neglected.
See
Mazzaoui, ibid, 73, citing al-Khunji's
Td 'rikh-i CAlam
Ard-yi
Aminf. Allouche
(ibid,
43-44)
cited an
early
tenth/sixteenth
century
Turkish source
stating Junayd
ex-
pressed
some Shii tendencies and claimed CAlid
lineage.
See also
Mazzaoui, ibid,
54; Arjomand, ibid, 79-80; Momen, ibid, 101-102.
7
On the essential socio-economic and
political
conservatism of the Safawid
sys-
tem, see
Aubin, "Etudes.
I", passim; Petrushevsky,
ibid; Aubin, "Revolution
Chiite et Conservatisme. Les Soufis de
Laihejan,
1500-1514
(Etudes
Safavides.
A.J.
NEWMAN
the
distinctively
Sufi roots of the
movement8-encouraging
the
continued
allegiance
of the order's
followers-,
that discourse also
focused on the
presence
on earth of a
superior, implicitly divine,
ruler in
society
who was both
political
leader and ultimate arbiter in
all matters of faith and
practice.9
In both its extreme nature and in
its non-Twelver
references,
such rhetoric was
certainly incompatible
with Twelver
orthodoxy.
The
expression
of the Safawids'
understanding
of Ismi'il's rela-
tionship
to Twelver Shiism itself was
frequently clearly
extreme:
claims for his
imamate,
as his
pretensions
to identification with other
divinities,
were a constant feature of IsmS'il's
reign.10
In
911/1505,
for
example,
four
years
after Tabriz'
capture,
in the Arabic
pre-
face to a
firman
inscribed in Isfahan's
Masjid-i Jumac,
Isma'il
was described as
"khalifat
al-zaman
(the
successor of the
age),
the
II.)", Moyen
Orient et Ocean Indien I
(1984), passim; idem,
"Etudes
III", passim,
esp.
125f.
8
IsmiCil's
appeals
to both the earlier
egalitarian
nature of the movement and
the
distinctly
militant form of Sufism then
prevailing
in the order
may
be seen in
his
poetry,
where he addressed his followers
variously
as
ghdzi
(raider), isuf,
and
akhi
(brother),
and used such
mystical
terms as ahl-i
iqrar (men
of
recognition)
and
ahl-i
haqq (men
of
truth).
See Vladimir
Minorsky,
"The
Poetry
of Sha.h Ismicil
I",
BSOAS,
10
(1942), 1042a, 1043a, 1044a,
1047a. Aubin
("Etudes. I", 51) suggested
Ismacil's consistent use of such rhetoric served to blur the distinction between the
decadence of his
private
conduct in this
period
and the
public image
he wished to
project
of himself as the
fighting
leader of a
militantly
ascetic Sufi order. See also
idem, "Etudes III", 36-57; Bacque-Grammont,
Les
Ottomans, 47, 47n80;
note 22.
9
By
contrast with the references in the
previous note, therefore, Ismcil's
poetry
also contained references to himself not
only
as of the same essence as "of
the adherents of the wall'"-i.e. Imam CAlIYbut also "God's
light
... the Seal of
the
Prophets
. . . the Perfect Guide . . . the Absolute
Truth",
and
"Jesus,
son of
Mary",
and such
earlier, pre-Islamic
Persian rulers as
Faridufn, Jamshid,
and Za-
hak,
Rustam and Alexander. See
Minorsky, ibid, 1042a,
1048a-
1049a, 1047a,
and
note 8. See also
Mazzaoui, ibid, 73; Allouche, ibid, 153-156; Arjomand, ibid,
80-81;
note 16.
10
Secondary-source
authors have
suggested
that soon after Tabriz Ismacil be-
came
unhappy
with the divine status attributed him
by
his followers. See the ac-
count of a Venetian merchant in Iran from 917/1511-927/1520 "that Ismael
(sic)
is not
pleased
with
being
called a
god
or a
prophet",
cited in
Lambton, ibid,
265- 266. See also
Roger Savory,
"The
Principal
Offices of the Safavid State Dur-
ing
the
Reign
of Ismacil I
(907-30/1501-24)",
BSOAS
23, part
1
(1960), 91; Arjo-
mand, ibid, 110. Aubin
("Etudes III", 129)
has identified this merchant as Fran-
cesco Romano. On concern for the
spread
of Safawid
propaganda
in
Anatolia,
see
Bacque-Grammont, ibid, 17-49,
and
passim.
See also note 63.
70
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 71
spreader
of
justice
and
beneficence,
al-imam al-'adil al-kamil
(the just,
the
perfect Imam),
al-hadi
(the guide), al-ghazi,
al-wdl[ ..."11
An
inscription
on a coin minted in Kashan the next
year,
912/
1506, referred to him as al-sul.tn al-cddil
(the
just
sultan),
as did that
on a coin minted twelve
years
later in Mashhad in 924/1518.12
Although
such terms as al-imam al-Cddil
(the just Imam)
and al-
sul.dn al-Cadil could have secular
implications,
in Twelver Shii
discourse
they
could also refer to the Hidden Imam himself.13
Given claims for IsmaCil's identification with
other, non-Shii,
11
Lutfallah Hunarfar,
Ganjineh-i
Asar-i Ta'rnkhi-yi
Isfahdn (Isfahan, 1344),
86-87. On the
particular socio-political
context of
thisfirman,
see
Aubin,
"Etudes.
I", 58-59,
and
idem,
"Etudes.
II",
11.
12
H.L.
Rabino,
"Coins of the Shahs of
Persia",
Numismatic
Chronicle,
IVth
series, 1908, 368; Sibylla Schuster-Walser,
Das
Safawidische
Persien im
Spiegel
eu-
ropdischer Reiseberichte,
1502-1722
(Hamburg, 1970),
45.
13
The intent of such terms has been the
subject
of some discussion in the field
of Twelver Shii studies. Calder has
argued they
referred to the Imam himself while
Madelung
and
Arjomand
have
suggested they
referred to a
just
secular ruler.
Madelung
in
particular
has noted the term imam
al-asl,
as used
by
Jacfar b.
al-Hasan,
al-Muhaqqiq
al-Hilli
(d. 676/1277),
was a clear reference to the Imam,
in contrast to the terms cited above. More
recently
Sachedina has
suggested
Twelver scholars
employed
some caution in their discussions of
rightful authority
during
the occultation of the
Imam, especially
when in the
minority,
and that the
specific legal
context determined whether the terms "the
just
Imam" or "the
just
sultan" in a
legal
text referred to the Imam or secular
authority.
See W.
Madelung,
"A Treatise of the Sharif al-Murtad. on the
Legality
of
Working
for the Govern-
ment
(Mas'alafi'l-camal maCa'l-Sultian)", BSOAS,
vol.
43, part
1
(1980), 18-31;
Ar-
jomand, ibid, 21-23,
and notes
therein;
Norman
Calder, "Judicial Authority
in
Imami Shii
Jurisprudence", Bulletin,
British
Society
for
Middle Eastern
Studies,
Vol.
6,
no. 2
(1979),
106; idem, "Legitimacy
and Accommodation in Safavid Iran: The
Juristic
Theory
of Muhammad
Baqir
al-Sabzevari
(d. 1090/1679)",
Iran XXV
(1987), esp.
91
-92;
A.A.
Sachedina,
The
Just
Ruler in Shiite Islam
(New
York: Ox-
ford
University Press, 1988), passim, esp. 89-118, 192, 226, 232-236. For use of
the term imanm
al-asl,
see JaCfar b.
al-Hasan, al-Muhaqqiq al-Hilli, Shartdii al-Islam
(Najaf,
1389/1969), 2:11-12,
and
Sachedina, ibid, 170, 193, 199, 270n47. It
ought
to be noted these clerical authors were all in the Usuill tradition. See also notes
42,
43, 46, 48, 50,
51. The intended
meanings
of these references stand in contrast to
the intentions behind the term al-sultian al-'adil as it
appeared
on coins issued be-
tween 743/1342-1343 and 745/1344-1345 in reference to the Ilkhanid
Sulayman,
who lacked the messianic
aspirations
of the
early
Safawid shahs. See
John
Masson
Smith,
Jr.,
The
History
of
the Sarbadar
Dynasty,
1336-1381 A.D. and its Sources
(The
Hague: Mouton, 1970),
195-196. See also Ismaiil's references in his
poetry
to
himself as Muhammad
Mustaf-a,
the seal of the
Prophet's "reappearance",
and
references to the sixth Imam JaCfar
al-Sadiq (d. 148/765)
and the
eighth
Imam CAll
Musai Rida
(d. 203/818)
in
Minorsky, ibid, 1048a, 1049a;
Arjomand,
ibid, 80.
A.J.
NEWMAN
divinities,
the use of such terms with reference to the shah
only
exploited
this
ambiguity
of
meaning
to bolster IsmaCil's
pretensions
to the imamate. Like identification with these other
personalities,
claims to the imamate would reinforce the
larger-than-life image
of
the leader
among
the
poorer peasants
and tribal nomads who formed
the bulk of the Safawid levies in this
period.
Such claims would also
appeal
to
similarly receptive
elements of the Twelver
community
throughout
the
region
as a whole-not as well-versed in the details
and technicalities of the
largely Arabic-language
Twelver
legal
deci-
sions and
religious terminology
as the
higher
ranks of the educated
Twelver
clergy-,
if not also elements of Iran's urban and rural
population.
Ismacil's
reign
also witnessed efforts to reconstruct Safawid line-
age
so as to establish the CAlid descent of
Shaykh
Safi
al-Din,
the
founder of the order
and, by extension,
that of his familial succes-
sors.
Indeed,
the Safawid claim was to have been descended from
the line of the fifth
Imam,
Miusa al-Kazim
(d.
183/799).14
Court
officials echoed these claims of CAlid
lineage.15 Together
with the
exploitation
of the
ambiguity
of the
religious terminology-and,
in-
deed, reinforcing
the
suggestion
the Safawids intended that termi-
nology
to refer to the shah as the
Imam-,
this
genealogy
further
legitimised
claims for Ismic'i's imamate and thus his
authority
with-
in the
order,
Safawid
territory,
and the
larger
Twelver
community.
The efforts both to establish familial ties with the cAlids and to
lay
claim to the
imamate,
inasmuch as
they
were
mutually reinforcing,
occasionally converged.
In
926/1519,
for
example, twenty years
af-
ter the
capture
of Tabriz and six
years
after the Safawid
capture
of
Baghdad
and the
nearby
Shii shrine
cities,
an
inscription
on a wood-
en
panel
of a box at the
grave
of Imam
Miusa,
from whom the
Safawids had now
'proven'
their
descent,
referred to the com-
14
See the
study
of
manuscripts
of
$afwat
al-aJfa,
the
eighth/fourteenth century
account of the
Shaykh's life, by
Z.V.
Togan,
"Sur
l'Origine
des Safavides",
Melanges
Louis
Massignon
3
(Damas:
Institut Francais de Damas, 1957), passim.
See
also
Mazzaoui, ibid, 46-51, 20,
and his references to Ahmad Kasravi's research
on Safawid
lineage.
See also
Allouche, ibid, 157-168,
and note 6.
15
In his Habib
al-Siyar
the Safawid court chronicler
Ghiyath
al-Din Khwan-
damir
(d. 943/1536?)
described Ismicil as "the heir to the
caliphate
of cAll". See
Lambton, ibid, 275. The
phrasing
alluded to both familial and
religio-political
as-
sociations. See also the discussion below and note 66.
72
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 73
mand-no doubt also
publicly proclaimed-to
build the box as
having
been issued
by
"al-sultan al-'adil al-kamil
... Shih
Ismiil? .16
The radical Safawid
religious polemic,
denied
any possibility
of
contributing
to some new socio-economic
order,
did manifest itself
in a militant
religious separatism
which
emphasized
the
necessity
of
constant
struggle against
both Shii and Sunni
opponents.
The
former included encounters with the MushaCshac and the
Qizil
Bash
rebellion of Shih
Qull,
both movements with socio-economic and
religio-political
characteristics similar to those of the Safawids fol-
lowing
the accession of
Junayd.
In southern
Iraq,
the social
origins
of the MushaCshac movement
were as tribal-based as the
later, militantly
messianic Safawid order.
Its
leadership espoused
an
aggressively
messianic Shiism which
resembled elements of the Safawids' own radical social and
religious
rhetoric.
Moreover,
by
the
early
tenth/sixteenth
century,
the
Mushacshac movement-like the Safawids-had
adopted
clear ex-
pressions
of commitment to the Twelver faith.17
Given the
exclusivity
inherent in the Safawid identification with
the
faith,
such
expressions
were
by
definition
illegitimate. Following
the Safawid
capture
of
Baghdad
and the shrine cities in
914/1508,
the MushaCshac
leadership pledged fealty
to Ismacil and
gifts
were
exchanged. Nevertheless,
later that
year
the
joint
rulers of the con-
federation were killed
by
the new Safawid
governor
of
Shushtar,
most
likely
on Ismacil's orders. The murders
provoked
an outburst
among the adherents of the MushaCshac, Basra and al-Ahsa ex-
periencing especially
violent anti-Safawid outbursts.18
16
Shaykh
Muhammad Hasan Al
Yasin,
Ta'rfkh al-Mashhad al-Kd.zim
(Bagh-
dad, 1387/1967),
71. The last two references noted
appeared
after the Safawid
defeat at
Chaldiran,
discussed
below,
and were thus
clearly
efforts to
re-emphasize
Ismacil's divine
pretensions
as a
rallying point
for the confederation
following
this
disaster.
Thus,
Ismi'il's
apparent
turn inwards after
Chaldiran,
evident in his
poetry (Allouche, ibid, 156),
was not evident in
post-Chaldiran
references to him
in the Twelver Shii context. Cf.
Arjomand,
ibid,
179.
17
In
914/1508,
for
example,
coins with
distinctly
Twelver
inscriptions
were
minted
by
the Mushacshac
governor
of Shushtar. See
Jasim
Hasan
Shubbar,
Ta'rikh
al-MushaCshaCiyin
wa
Tardjim
Acld'ihim
(Najaf,
1385/1965), 216-217,
85- 87.
Cf.
Momen, ibid, 102;
Arjomand,
ibid,
76-77.
18
See the references cited in note
17,
and also
Shubbar, ibid, 86n2,
where
924/1518 is
given
as the
year
of the leaders' execution. Cf.
Arjomand,
ibid.
A.J.
NEWMAN
Several
years later,
in
917/1511-1512,
Shah
Quli,
of the
Qizil
Bash Takkaliu
tribe,
launched a rebellion in Ottoman
territory
against
Sultan
Bayazid
II. When the rebellion was
crushed,
the re-
maining
rebels fled to Safawid
territory, plundering
a caravan of
merchants
along
the
way.
Ismiail had offered Shah
Quli
no
military
assistance and now he received these
refugees
with some little
warmth.
Eventually
he distanced himself further from their cause
and
subjected
them to some
persecution.
The Safawid
hostility
to this rebellion
may
be traceable to the
Safawid desire to avoid conflict with the Ottomans at this
point
and
Ismdail's
dismay
at the havoc
wrought by
Shah
Qull's
partisans
on
trade routes
important
to the Safawids.19
However,
inasmuch as
the
supporters
of the radical
socio-religious message
of Shah
Quli,
like that of the later Safawids and the Musha'shac, were drawn
espe-
cially
from the rural
peasantry
and nomadic elements and as that
message
itself
paralleled
that of the
Safawids,
the latter themselves
were
certainly
concerned that same
aggressiveness
not be rekindled
among
their own followers.20
Safawid Shiism's
continuing capacity
for
generating
militant
anti-Sunni attitudes and activities
among
its
supporters
was certain-
ly
evident in the
years following
Tabriz. In the ten
years following
Tabriz Safawid armies
captured
much of
present-day
Iran and
eastern
Iraq
from Sunni
opponents.
The
apparent
Safawid commitment to Twelver Shiism was be-
lied, however, by
the
very
limited
degree
of Safawid interest in and
understanding
of the faith.
Indeed,
the Safawid identification with
Twelver Shiism was
generally
limited to
public profession
of
faith,
scattered, officially-sponsored persecution
of Iranian
Sunnis,
formal
19
Petrushevsky, ibid, 324. On IsmSCil's attitude
during
the
period
before Chal-
diran,
see also
Jean-Louis Bacque-Grammont, "Etudes
Turco-Safavides, I. Notes
sur le Blocus du Commerce Iranien
par
Selim
Ier", Turcica,
6
(1975), 74-75;
Al-
louche, ibid, 94-95. Ismgal was less concerned with
Qizil
Bash rebellions in Otto-
man
territory
when these were under Safawid control.
See, for
example, Allouche,
ibid, 96-98. On the Safawid involvement in the later Chelali
rebellion,
after Chal-
diran,
see
Bacque-Grammont,
Les
Ottomans, 272-275; Allouche, ibid, 128. See also
note 27 below.
20
On the social
composition
of Shah
Quli's
movement, see
Petrushevsky, ibid,
316-317, and
especially
324. On its
messianism, see
Bacque-Grammont, ibid,
27n42;
note 62.
Compare Arjomand, ibid, 110,
and
Momen, ibid,
106.
74
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 75
cursing
of the Sunni
caliphs,21
and wars
against
the Ottomans and
the
Uzbegs-the
latter as much rooted in
military
and
political,
as
religious,
conflicts. At the centre of the Safawid
polity especially,
for
example,
there is little evidence IsmiCil's interest in and
knowledge
of the doctrines and
practices
of the faith were ever more than
super-
ficial.
During
his
five-year
exile
prior
to the
capture
of Tabriz
Ismacil's teacher Shams al-Din
al-Lahiji (d.
912/1506-
1507)
in-
structed the future Safawid ruler in the
Qur'an
and some works in
Arabic and
Persian,
but himself
appears
to have known little of
Twelver doctrine and
practice.
The shah's
personal
behaviour also
suggested
little
acquaintance
with and interest in that doctrine and
practice.22
As for the
ruling political hierarchy,
after Tabriz
religious
creden-
tials were not a criterion for
holding positions
at court.
Appoint-
ments to such
temporal posts
as amir
al-umard', qurchibdshi,
and wazir
in this
period depended primarily
on status within the broader
Safawid
socio-political
formation. As a
result,
none of these
appoin-
tees were
professing Twelvers,
let alone Arab Twelver clerics.23
Probably
more
important
to the Arab Twelver clerics resident out-
side Safawid
territory,
of those
appointed
to the
post
of
sadr,
the
sup-
posed
head of the
religious classes,24
none was a
professing
Twelver
21
Aubin, "Etudes
I", 54-56, 58; Savory,
"The
Principal
Offices . .. Ismicil
I", 103; Momen, ibid, 109; Aubin, "Etudes
III",
43. See also notes
29, 32,
39.
22
See
Aubin, "Etudes
III",
48f. See also notes
8,
68. On
Lahiji,
see the refer-
ences cited in note 25.
23
Savory,
"The
Principle
Offices . . .
IsmaCil", 93-102. On the
socio-political
composition
of the Safawid
leadership,
see
Aubin,
"Etudes.
I", 60f, 78;
Petru-
shevsky, ibid, 322-323; Aubin, "Etudes.
II", passim; idem, "Etudes
III",
112-118, 120. The
story
that at Ismicil's
profession
of faith in Tabriz no book of
Twelver doctrine or
practice
was
immediately
available as a
reference,
if not abso-
lutely accurate,
reflects the
degree
of the
leadership's prior familiarity
with the de-
tails of the faith. See Hasan-i
Rumlu,
Ahsdn al-Tawdrikh
(Tehran, 1357),
86. See
also
Mazzaoui, ibid, 80,
6, 28n2; Arjomand, ibid, 106; Momen, ibid,
108. In a fur-
ther indication of
poor
Safawid
familiarity
with
key
texts of the
faith, Qawdcid
al-
Isldm,
attributed to al-Hasan b.
Yuisuf, al-Allama al-Hilli
(d. 726/1325), eventually
located
according
to court chronicler
Rumlu, is not a title listed as a work of al-
cAllama. Mazzaoui
suggested
this work was al-'Allama's
Qawdcid al-Ahkdm. See
also notes
36,
55.
24
On the
post
of sadr
see,
for
example, Aubin, "Etudes.
I", 54; Savory,
"The
Principal
Offices.. IsmaCil
I", 103-105; idem,
"The
Principle
Offices of the
Safawid State
During
the
reign
of
Tahmasp
I
(930-984/1524-1576)", BSOAS, 24,
A.J.
NEWMAN
scholar or
lay believer,
let alone an Arab. As with other court
posts,
appointment
as sadr did not
depend
on faith.
Indeed,
the first sadr
was Isma'1l's teacher
al-Lahiji.25
part
1
(1961), 79-83; idem,
"Safavid
Persia",
in P.M.
Holt, etal., eds.,
The Cam-
bridge History of Islam,
vol.
1,
"The Central Islamic Lands"
(Cambridge:
Cam-
bridge University Press, 1970), 402-03; Lambton,
"Quis
Custodiet Custodes?
Some Reflections on the Persian
Theory
of
Government",
Studia Islamica 5
(1955),
134f; idem, State, 268;
Gottfried
Herrmann,
"Zur
Entstehung
des
Sadr-Amtes",
in Die Islamische Welt zwischen Mittelalter und
Neuzeit,
Festschriftfiir
Hans Robert Roemer
zum 65.
Geburtstag,
Ulrich Haarmann and Peter
Bachman,
Beiruter Texte und Stu-
dien,
Bd. 22
(Beirut, 1979), 278-295; Arjomand, ibid, 123-127,
301n7.
25
On those who held the
post
of sadr in this
period,
see
Rumlu, ibid, 20; Aubin,
"Etudes.
I", 53-54, 69-71, 73, 76; Mazzaoui, ibid, 86; Savory,
"The
Principle
Offices ...
IsmaCil", 103-105, 97, 102; Aubin,
"Etudes. II", 11-13, 20; Savory,
"The
Principal
Offices ...
Tahmasp", 65; Arjomand, ibid, 116, 106-107;
Caro-
lineJ. Beeson,
"The
Origins
of Conflict in the Safawid
Religious
Institution"
(un-
published
Ph.D.
thesis,
Princeton
University, 1982), 79-86; Momen, ibid, 108;
Aubin,
"Etudes
III",
115-116.
Arjomand (ibid, 107)
cited the late tenth/sixteenth
century
court chronicle Takmilat al-Akhbir that "there was no doubt" of the Shiism
of the sixth sadr, Amir Jamal al-Din
al-Astarabadi,
who held office until
931/1524-1525. In
fact,
al-Astarabadi was not
especially
well-versed in Twelver
doctrine and
practice.
He was a student of the Iranian Sunni
philosopherJamal
al-
Din al-Dawwani
(d. 908/1502),
who himself had
rejected
IsmaCil's claims to the im-
amate. See Mirza Muhammad
Baqir al-Khwansari,
Raudit
al-Jannat,
M.T. al-
Kashfi and A.
Ismacilyin, eds.,
(Tehran-Qum,
1390-
1392), 8:71; Mazzaoui, ibid,
85; Arjomand, ibid, 96, 97-98, 179; Aubin,
"Etudes. I", 59. Rumlfi
(ibid,
248-
249),
who
completed
his chronicle in
985/1577-1578,
noted an
agreement
between
CAli al-Karaki and al-Astarabadi for
exchange
of instruction in
philosophy by
al-
Astarabadi for
teaching
of the tenets of Twelver Shiism
by
al-Karaki-an account
accepted by
Nfirallah al-Shushtari
(d. 1019/1610-1611)
in his
Majalis
al-Mu'minFn
2
(Tehran, 1354), 233-234,
and such later Twelver
biographers
as
al-Khwansari,
ibid,
2:211
-214,
Muhsin
al-Amin, Acyin
al-Shia
(Damascus, 1935f), 41:176-177,
and
al-Husayn
b. Muhammad
Taqi al-Nfuri,
Mustadrak al-Wasd'il 3
(Tehran,
1382),
432. See also
Mroueh, ibid,
46-47.
Having
mentioned this
exchange,
Rumlu wrote "no one rendered
greater
service to the faith". Lambton understood
the latter statement as
referring
to al-Astarabadi. Twelver
biographers, however,
interpreted
it as
applying
to al-Karaki. See
Lambton,
"Quis",
134-135;
al-
Khwansari, ibid, 4:369; al-Amin, ibid, 41:176-177; al-Nfiri, ibid, 3:432;
and the
sources cited in the discussion on al-Astarabadi below. On remuneration al-
Astarabadi received for his
services,
see
Aubin, "Etudes
III",
97,
166. In his
Khuldsat al-Tawdrikh 1
(Tehran, 1359, 296-298), completed
in
999/1590,
the court
chronicler
Qa7di
Ahmad
Qummi
reported
the
agreement
for the
exchange
in lessons
as between al-Karaki and Mansur al-Dashtaki
(d. 948/1541), appointed
co-sadr in
936/1529.
Although Savory accepted
this rendition of the
exchange
in his "The
Principle
Offices ...
Tahmasp", 82, biographies
of al-Dashtaki's life contain
no mention of such instruction. Cf. the earlier account of
Rumlu, ibid,
391-
394, al-Khwansarri, ibid, 7:176-179,
and the discussion of al-Dashtaki below.
76
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 77
The
politico-military
fortunes of the Safawids in this
period
could
only
have been an added concern to Twelver clerics resident outside
Safawid
territory.
On the one
hand, although
the first ten
years
fol-
lowing
the
capture
of Tabriz were
generally
ones of
victory
for
Safawid
armies,
the
depredations
suffered
by
local
populations
in
the constant
warring, among
the different Safawid tribes and be-
tween the
Qizil
Bash armies and their Shii and Sunni
opponents, ap-
pear
to have been horrendous.26
Perhaps
more
importantly,
less than fifteen
years
after Tabriz the
Safawids suffered two
important
defeats at the hands of their Sunni
enemies. At least
partly
as a result of conflicts internal to the Safawid
leadership
in
918/1512,
two
years
after IsmSail's
capture
of Khura-
san, Uzbeg
armies defeated the Safawids near the Oxus and seized
Herat, Mashhad, and TUis.
Although
the Safawids retook these
areas two
years later,
in
920/1514,
the Ottomans inflicted a
major
defeat on the Safawids at Chaldiran in
Azerbaijan. Many highrank-
ing
Safawid
officials, including
the former and current
sadr,
were
killed in this battle. Two
years
after
Chaldiran,
in
922/1516,
the
Qizil
Bash
governor
of Khurasan
split
from the central
authority
and retained virtual
autonomy
for six
years.
To
outsiders,
these
events could
only
have
suggested
the continued
viability
of the
Safawid
experiment-however
extremist and
extremely
violent-
was uncertain.
Sunni fortunes in this
period, by contrast, clearly
seemed on the
rise.
Uzbeg
successes
against
the Safawids have been recounted. As
for the Sunni
Ottomans,
three
years
after
Chaldiran,
in
923/1517,
they gained
control over
Syria, Lebanon, Egypt,
and the
Hijaz.27
See also our
forthcoming entry
on Mansuir al-Dashtaki in
Encyclopaedia
Iranica on
disagreements
between him and Dawwani.
26
Aubin,
"Etudes
III",
69f.
27
Bacque-Grammont
has
suggested
the
psychological
warfare
waged by
Is-
ma.il
against
the Ottomans
following
Chaldiran
successfully portrayed
a
stronger
image,
to
foreign powers
for
example,
of the Safawid
position
than was
really
the
case. See
Bacque-Grammont,
Les Ottomans,
e.g. 275f,
and
passim. Especially
after
the fall of
Syria, Lebanon, Egypt,
and the
Hijaz
to the
Ottomans,
the extent to
which Shii clerics
living
in these
areas,
not
formally
associated with the Ottoman
government,
were also mislead
by
Safawid
propaganda
is not
clear,
however. See
also note 16 on Ismiicl's continued extremist Shii rhetoric after Chaldiran. Selim's
imposition
of a trade blockade
against
the Safawids after
Chaldiran, although
its
A.J.
NEWMAN
In
sum,
the Safawid identification with Twelver Shiism offered
few
positive images
to Twelver clerics resident outside Safawid terri-
tory
in this
period.
Relative to the order's historical lack of interest
in the
faith,
Ismaeil's
abrupt
conversion was
problematic.
The
Safawid
religious
discourse after that
profession
was as extreme as
it had been since
Junayd's reign and,
now
combining
both elements
of its earlier non-Shii
expression together
with Shii
allusions, clearly
unorthodox. The Safawid elite's interest in and
knowledge
of the de-
tails of the faith was limited and
prospects
for the continued
viability
of the Safawid
polity were,
at
best,
uncertain.
The unease these
aspects
of Safawid Shiism
generated among
or-
thodox Twelver clerics was
compounded by
the
very public
manner
in which one of their number did associate himself with the Safawids
very
soon after the
capture
of Tabriz and the
profession
of faith
by
IsmdCil.
CAli al-Karaki at the Court
of
IsmSceil
CAli b.
al-Husayn al-Karaki,
later
given
the title
"al-Muhaqqiq
al-Thani"
(the
second
investigator),
is
frequently
cited in the secon-
dary
sources as one of the
large
number of Arab clerics said to have
migrated
to Safawid
territory
in this
period.28
Al-Karakl's association with the Safawid court
began very
soon
after the
capture
of Tabriz. Born in the late 860s/1450
-
1460s in the
Jabal
cAmil
village
of Karak
Nuh,
al-Karaki studied in
Syria
and
Cairo
early
in his life. Al-Karaki's association with the Safawid
Shiism
began
almost
immediately upon
Ismicil's
profession
of faith
in 907/1501. In
908/1503,
al-Karaki was
present
at the Safawid
cap-
ture of Kashan
and, presumably
with court
authority
and
approval,
endorsed the
rulings
of a local Sunni
qada,
allowing
the latter to
keep
his
post
after the
qadi
had
agreed
to IsmaCil's call to curse the Sunni
caliphs.29
In 909/1504 al-Karaki settled in
Najaf
with some finan-
impact
on the Safawid
economy
is
unclear,
may
have contributed to a low
image
of Safawid
prospects by
these clerics. On this
blockade, see
idem, "Etudes Turco-
Safavides. I".
28
See the sources in notes 3 and
94,
and
Mroueh, ibid, 44.
29
Al-Shushtari, ibid, 2:233-234. See also
al-Khwansari, ibid, 7:194f; al-Nuri,
ibid, 3:432; al-Amin, ibid,
41:179. See also notes 32 and 39.
78
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 79
cial
support
from the court. In 910/1505 he was in Isfahan with Is-
ma'il. In 914/1508 al-Karaki and
Baghdad's
Shii
naqib
had been
jailed by
the
Aq-qiuyunlu.
When the Safawids
captured Baghdad
that
year,
both were released and
joined
Ismcil in his tour of the
Shii shrine cities and al-Hilla.30 Two
years later,
in
916-917/1511,
al-Karaki was with Ismacil at the
capture
of Herat.31
Al-Karaki did not hesitate to
openly
utilize his
religio-legal
knowledge
and skills to
support specific aspects
of Safawid Shiism
in this
period, including
the more extreme manifestations of the
Safawid identification with and
expression
of the faith.
Thus,
as will
be discussed in
greater
detail
below,
he
consistently
defended the ex-
treme anti-Sunnism of Safawid Shiism. In
916/1511,
the
year
Herat
was
captured,
for
example,
al-Karaki
completed
and dedicated to
Ismacil "Nafahat al-Lahut fi LaCn
al-Jibt wa'l-Taghfit"
in which he
argued
for the
legality
of
cursing
the Sunni
caliphs, thereby lending
support
to a
practice already adopted by
Ismacil.32
Sometime between the
capture
of Herat and the battle of Chaldir-
an several
years later,
al-Karaki
replied
for Ismacil to
questions
ad-
dressed him
by
the Ottoman Sultan
Selim,
including questions
as to
why
Ismacil had
destroyed
the tomb of the Sunni
jurist
Abu Hanifa
(d. 150/767)
in
Baghdad
at the Safawid
capture
of the
city
in
914/1508.33 Such efforts not
only represented
al-Karaki's
approval
30
Muhammad
Baqir al-Majlisi,
Bihar
al-Anwdr,
108
(Tehran,
1392/1972),
28-
34; Agha Buzurg
Muhammad
al-Tehrani, al-DharCa ild
Tasd.nf
al-Sh:Ca
(Tehran
and
Najaf, 1353-1398), 1:124, 122; Rumlu, ibid, 677-678, ad.
914/1508;
W.
Madelung, "al-Karaki", El2, 4:610. Cf.
Arjomand, ibid, 133.
31
Mirza CAbdallah al-Isbahani
Afandi, Riyad
al-CUlama
(Qum,
1401) 3:445;
al-
Khwansarl, ibid, 4:363; al-Nuri, ibid; al-Amin, ibid, 41:176f; al-Tehrani, ibid,
24:250-251; Mroueh, ibid,
46. On the
conquest
of Khurasan and its
consequences
for the
Qizil
Bash,
see
Aubin, "Etudes.
II.",
15f.
32
Al-Tehrani, ibid, 24:250-251; al-Amin, ibid, 41:180; ICjaz Husayn
al-
Kantfiri,
Kashf al-Hujub
(Calcutta, 1914), 284; Madelung, ibid; Arjomand, ibid,
165. On Ismail's
policy
of
cursing
the
caliphs,
see
al-Khwansari, ibid, 7:194nl. See
also notes
21,
39. On actions
by
Ottoman
jurists against
the
Safawids, see
Bacque-
Grammont,
Les
Ottomans, 51-53, 115; Allouche, ibid, 111-112, 170-173. On the
Ottoman use of
Friday
prayer
services to denounce
Ismiail, see
Allouche, ibid, 128.
33
Anonymous,
'Alam
Ard-yi
Shah
Ismd'il, Asghar
Muntazir
$ihib, ed.,
(Tehran, 1349),
516. On the
damage
done
by
Ismail to the tomb and the Ottoman
repairs
undertaken
following
the
capture
of
Baghdad
in
941/1534,
see 'Abbas al-
CAzzawl, Ta'rfkh
al-cIraq
bayn Ihtilalayn (Baghdad, 1369/1949), 4:30-32; Aubin,
"Etudes
III", 45; note 85.
A.J.
NEWMAN
for these
specific
instances of anti-Sunni
extremism,
but lent further
legitimacy
both to the Safawid's extreme anti-Sunni rhetoric and
confrontations with Sunnism both at home and abroad and thus
also,
more
generally,
to the Safawid identification with Twelver
Shiism.
As discussed
below,
al-Karaki's
support
for the Safawid identifi-
cation with Twelver Shiism extended to
support
for the extremist
claims made
by
the Safawids
concerning
IsmaCl' s
relationship
to the
faith itself. For
eight years
after
Tabriz,
at least until
916/1510,
al-
Karaki endorsed the Safawids' use of such terms as al-sultin al-Cddil
and al-imdm al-ddil to refer to Ismcil,
thereby encouraging
the
shah's
exploitation
of the
ambiguity
of
meaning
of these terms to
bolster the shah's claim to the imamate.
Al-Karaki was
well-compensated
for his association with and the
services he rendered the court. In addition to the remuneration he
received as
early
as
909/1504,
mentioned
above,
al-Karaki received
land
grants-including
several
villages-in
Arab
Iraq
from
Ismacil,
probably
after the
capture
of
Baghdad
in 914/1508.34 After the
cap-
ture of Herat two
years later,
in
916/1510,
Ismacil
granted
al-Karaki
additional administrative
authority
in Safawid
territories,
also
ap-
parently
in Arab
Iraq,
and an annual
stipend
of
70,000 dinars,
which al-Karaki distributed
among
his students.35 Between
922/1516 and
931/1525,
the
year
after Ismacil's
death,
al-Karaki
spent
much time in Safawid-controlled
Najaf,
from where he could
easily
oversee his
eastern-Iraqi
financial affairs.36
34
Al-Karaki
completed
his
khardj
essay
in 916/1510 in defense of his
acceptance
of land
grants
in
Iraq likely
received in this
period.
See CAli b.
al-Husayn al-Karaki,
"QatiCat
al-Lajaj
fl Hall
al-Kharaj", in, Kalimmat
al-Muhaqqiqmn
(Qum,
1402),
161
-
162. See also W.
Madelung,
"Shi'ite Discussions on the
Legality
of the Kha-
raj", in, Proceedings of
the Ninth
Congress of
the Union
Europeenne
des Arabisants et Is-
lamisants, Rudolph Peters, ed., (Leiden: Brill, 1981),194n4,
and the sources cited
in the notes above. Both al-Karaki's service to the court and remuneration
appear
to have
predated
that of
al-Astarabadi, appointed
sadr after Chaldiran in
920/1514,
on whom see note 25.
35
See the sources cited in the notes
above,
note
96, and
al-Nuri, ibid, 3:431.
36
Al-Karaki's movements can be dated
by iyazdt:
in
924/1518, 928/1521,
929/1522,
and 931/1524 he was in
Najaf.
See
al-Majlisi, ibid, 108:58-59, 60f;
al-
Tehrani, ibid, 1:212, 214-215, 213; Afandi, ibid, 1:26,
30. It is therefore
unlikely
the reference to
"Shaykh Zayn
al-Din CAll" as
being
in Herat from 928/1521-
930/1523,
in Habib
al-Siyar
referred to al-Karaki. See
Afandi, ibid, 3:444-445, and
80
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 81
The
Open Opposition
to
Safawid
Shiism. Criticism
frdm
theffIyjz,
the
Gulf
and Arab
Iraq
The most
problematic
evidence
supporting
the
migration
thesis
cited
by
Browne and echoed
by
more recent scholars must be the
characterizations of Amal al-Amul and Lu 'lu'at
al-Bahrayn
as
biogra-
phies "entirely
devoted" to those Twelver clerics who came to Iran
"tto make the
process
of
transforming
Iran into a Shiite land
possi-
ble".37
Although
such characterizations are
unjustified,3 they
are
probably
at least
implicitly accepted by
other commentators as well.
The factors
contributing
to Twelver clerics'
general
unease with
Safawid Shiism have been discussed. Careful consideration of the
actions and movements of Arab scholars in the first
half-century
after Tabriz discloses
specific
instances of clerical
rejection
of
Safawid Shiism. The
disapproval
of clerics in the
H:ijaiz,
the
Gulf,
and Arab
Iraq,
for
example,
was
open
and
vocal,
and focused
espe-
cially
on al-Karaki-'s conduct in his
capacity
as an
official, openly-
acknowledged
associate of the court and therefore a
representative
of the court's
understanding
and
expression
of the faith. Some
clerics were
particularly
concerned with al-Karak-i' s
clearly
Usi:li
tendency
to favour
expansion
of the role and
authority
of the
faqihi
in the absence of the Imiim. In
many
instances the unease with
note 60. Court chroniclers
frequently
were not conversant with matters and men
of
religion.
See our "Towards a Reconsideration of the 'Isfahan School of
Philosophy': Shaykh
Bahii'i and the Role of the Safawid
CUlamii',
Studia
Iranica,
Tome
15,
fasc. 2
(1986),
177
-178n39,
and notes
23,
55. Cf.
Arjomand, i'bid, 133.
37
The citations are from
Nasr, "Religion",
274. See also
Browne, ibid; Aubin,
"Etudes.
IL",
54. See also
Nasr, "Spiritual Movements, Philosophy
and
Theology
in the Safavid
Period",
in
Cambridge History of Iran, VI, Peterjackson
and Laurence
Lockhart, eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, p.
661.
38
Amal
al-Amil, completed
in
1098/1687,
contains one section of over 200 bio-
graphical
notices on cAmili scholars well-known
throughout
Shii
history
and a
second of more than 1000 notices on non-cAmili scholars alive from the onset of
Twelfth Imiim's occultation. Of the more than 133 full entries in al-Bahriini's Lu'-
lu 'at
al-Bahrayn, completed
a
century later,
about half are
biographies
of clerics of
the
Safawid-period
or later. Of the
latter,
less than
thirty-nearly
all of the second
Safawid
century-possess
the nisba Bahririni. See Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-H-urr
al-c,Amili,
Amal
al-Amilfi- Tardjim
c
Ulamd
Jabal
CAmil
(Baghdad,
1385/1965
-1966)
and Yi?isuf
al-Bahriini, Lu'lu'at
Ba4raynfl'l-Ijdzdt
wa
Tardjim
Ryjel
al-HadzNt
(Beirut,
1406/1986).
For details on both
works,
see
al-Tehrainr, ibid, 2:350, 18:379-380.
See also Hourani, ibid,
139.
A.J.
NEWMAN
which these clerics viewed al-Karaki's association with Safawid
Shiism mirrored broader
popular
discontent.
In the
Hijaz,
the
implementation
of
policies
based on the ex-
treme anti-Sunnism of Safawid Shiism
produced
distress within the
Twelver
community.
Sometime after Tabriz IsmaCil instituted the
practice
of
openly reviling
the
early
Sunni
caliphs.
Al-Karak' s
open
association with this
policy began
soon after his affiliation with the
Safawids commenced. As recounted
above,
at the
capture
of Kashan
in 908/1503 he allowed a local Sunni
qd.di
to retain his
position
after
the latter
agreed
to curse the
caliphs.
In
916-917/1511,
al-Karaki
authored "Nafahat al-Lahut" in which he
approved openly reviling
the Sunni
caliphs. Indeed,
al-Karaki was
generally
well-known for
his
reviling
both of the
caliphs
and
past
Sunni scholars and for en-
couraging his students to do the same. The
cursing
of the
caliphs
led
to
complaints
from the
Hijazi
Twelver
community
to fellow clerics
in Safawid
territory. According
to
Sayyid
NiCmatallah
al-Jaza'iri (d.
1112/1710),
Twelver clerics in Mecca
complained
to the ulama in
Isfahan
"you
revile their imams in Isfahan and we in
al-Haramayn
are chastised for this
cursing
and
reviling."39
The nature of the
chastisement is not clear. There could
only
have been resentment
against
al-Karaki for his association with and
promotion
of this
poli-
cy, however, and, together
with the riots in Basra and al-Ahsa
sparked by
Isma'il's murder of the MushaCsha'
leadership,
the un-
ease within the Twelver
community
in the
Hijaz
and the Gulf at the
appearance
of Safawid Shiism in the
region
was
clearly
substantial.
Al-Karakl's association with and
acceptance
of remuneration
from the Safawid court was also the
subject
of criticism
by
Twelver
clerics.
Perhaps
the earliest condemnation of al-Karaki's court af-
filiations was the censure of his
acceptance
of financial favours from
the court
by
an unidentified
group
of clerics
upon
his settlement in
Arab
Iraq,
in 908/1503 or
909/1504,
soon after al-Karaki had
joined
the court and had settled in
Iraq,
soon after IsmCail's
profes-
sion of the faith.40 As this rebuke came after al-Karakl's
settling
39
Al-Bahrani, ibid, 153; al-Khwansari, ibid, 4:362; Muhammad b.
Sulayman
Tunukabuni, Qisas
al-Ulamad
(Tehran, n.d.), 347-348; al-Amin, ibid, 41:178;
Mroueh, ibid,
46.
40
In his
kharaj essay, completed
in
916/1510, al-Karaki referred to a
group
of
82
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 83
in Arab
Iraq,
it seems
likely
these clerics were themselves based
there.
The details and
implications
of the clerical criticism of al-Ka-
raki's
acceptance
of remuneration from the court are
perhaps
best understood
by
consideration of the
exchanges
between al-
Karaki and Ibrahim b.
Sulayman
al-Qatifi
(d.
after
945/1539),
be-
ginning
within ten
years
of Tabriz.
Al-Qatifi,
by
birth from the
eastern Gulf area of
Bahrayn,
had settled in
Najaf
by 913/1507,
the
year
before the Safawid
capture
of
Baghdad.
He then moved to
al-Hilla.41
The first of the confrontations between the two occurred some-
time between the Safawid
capture
of
Baghdad,
in
914/1508,
and
916/1510,
when
al-Qatifi journeyed
to
Mashhad, met,
and debated
al-Karaki.
According
to
al-Qat.ifi's
description
of this debate in his
"al-RisMla
al-Ha'iriyya",
an
essay completed
within several
years
of his return to
Najaf,
al-Karaki
challenged
al-Qatifi's
refusal of
gifts
from al-hukkdm
(rulers)-a
clear allusion to an
attempt by
Ismaiil to win favour with
al-Qatifi. Al-Qatifi
replied acceptance
of
such
gifts
was makrih
(reprehensible)-a
ruling
in
agreement
with
those of earlier Usuli Twelver clerics on the
legality
of
accepting
gifts
from al-zalim
(the oppressor)
or
al-j
'ir
(the tyrant)-and
added
that al-Karaki
ought
to have hesitated before
pursuing any
relation-
ship
with IsmaCil.42
According
to his own record of this
encounter,
al-Qatifi
did not
formally
define IsmaCil as
al-ja'ir
or
al-.zlim,
clerics who had
challenged
his
acceptance
of financial favours from the court when
he had settled in Arab
Iraq, likely
a reference to his
having
settled in Arab
Iraq
as
early
as the dates
given.
Al-Karaki noted he had
replied
to their
objections, citing
supporting
akhbdr and
fatdwi.
See
al-Karaki, ibid,
and note 52.
41
Al-Bahrani, Lu'lu'at, 165-166; al-Tehrani, ibid, 1:134;
'All b. al-Hasan al-
Bahrani,
Anwdr
al-Badrayn (Najaf, 1377/1957-1958),
282.
42
Al-Qatifi
mentioned this confrontation with al-Karaki and
explicitly
referred
to Ismacil's
attempt
to enlist his services in his later
khardj
essay.
There he noted
he had also
argued
shubha
(judicial doubt) ought
to have
compelled
al-Karaki to re-
fuse the shah's
gifts which,
as the
concept
of
"hesitation", was a
clearly
Akhbari
line of
argument.
As will be discussed
below,
al-Qatlfi's
criticism of al-Karaki in
his later
khardj
essay
was more
decidedly,
and
openly,
Akhbari. See
al-Qatifi,
"Al-
Siraj
al-Wahhaj", in Kalimdt
al-Muhaqqiqin,
291 f. See also notes
44,
48 and 51. On
points
of
dispute
between Usulis and
Akhbaris, see our
two-part
"The nature of
the Akhbari/Usuli
dispute
in late Safawid
Iran", BSOAS, LV, part 1, (1992),
22-51, part
2
(1992),
250-261.
A.J.
NEWMAN
although
in his use of these terms
al-Qatifi
was
certainly referring
to Ism?il.43
According
to
al-Qatifi,
al-Karaki countered
acceptance
of such
gifts
was
"obligatory
or recommended"- a formulation used
by
Usull scholars in reference to the
legal
status of
accepting gifts
from al-sul.tan al-'adil or al-imam al-'adil. Inasmuch as the
ambiguity
inherent in these terms was
being exploited
in other instances to bol-
ster Ismall's
pretensions
to the
imamate,
the use of such terms
by
al-Karaki-as a
religious
scholar
certainly
aware of their alternate
meanings-amounted
to a
public
declaration of his
acceptance
of
Isma'il's characterizations of himself as the ultimate arbiter of the
faith's doctrines and
practices.
Al-Karaki's
interpretations
were
apparently
shared
by
other cler-
ics in this
period: attending
al-Karaki in his encounter with
al-Qatifi
in Mashhad were a number of
other,
unidentified clerics.44 That
Ism-ail had also sent
gifts
to
al-Qatifi
suggests
a
wide-ranging
effort
by
the court to win the adherence of the clerical class. The clerics in
Mashhad had
perhaps accepted
some benefaction from the court for
having performed,
or in
hope
of
performing,
some court service.
The second confrontation between the
two,
the well-known ex-
change
of
khardj
essays, began shortly
after their Mashhad confron-
43
The Akhbari scholar
al-Shaykh al-$aduiq (d. 381/991-992)
had defined
al-zalim as a false claimant to the imamate. See A.A.A.
Fyzee's
translation of
al-$aduq's
al-ICtiqdddt
in A Shicite Creed
(Oxford:
Oxford
University Press, 1942),
107. See also
Joseph Eliash, "Misconceptions Regarding
the Juridical Status of the
Iranian
cUlama",
International
Journal of
Middle Eastern
Studies,
vol.
10,
no. 1
(Febru-
ary, 1979), 17; Sachedina, ibid,
34. In later Usfiul
writings, however,
as with the
terms al-sultdn
al-cddil, al-sul(idn
al-jd'ir
and al-imdm
al-jd'ir
also referred to secular
authority. See,
for
example, Sachedina, ibid, 93-94, 99, 170.
Al-Muhaqqiq
al-Hilli made
rulings
similar to
al-Qatifi's,
using
al-ji
'ir and al-zalim
interchangea-
bly,
in
corresponding
sections of his Shardi'i
al-Isldm, 2:10
-
12,
and
al-Mukhtafsar
al-
NJfiC
(Najaf, 1383/1964, 145),
as did al-Hasan b.
Yusuf, al-cAllama al-Hilli in his
Qawa'id
al-Isldm
(Qum,
n.d., 1:122)
and Tahrfr al-Ahkam
(Mashhad, n.d., 1:163).
See also note 13.
44
Al-Qatlfi's
essay
is summarized in
al-Bahrani, Lu'lu'at, 161-163. See also
Afandi, ibid, 1:15f; al-Khwansari, ibid, 1:25; al-Tehrani, ibid, 6:4. The reference
by
al-Bahrani to a
further, similar, but
undated, confrontation in
Iraq
between the
two men
specifically
over
al-Qatifi's
refusal of the
gifts
of
Tahmasp
most
likely
also
referred to the Mashhad encounter. For details of the other issues debated at this
confrontation in
Mashhad,
and the
Akhbari-style
of
al-Qatifi's
rejoinders,
see al-
Bahrani, ibid.
84
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 85
tation. In
916/1510,
al-Karaki
completed
his
kharaj
essay
"Qatiat
al-Lajaj"
to refute
opposition
which had arisen since his confronta-
tion with
al-Qat.ifi
in
Mashhad, particularly
criticisms
arising
from
al-Karakl's recent
acceptance
of
villages
in Arab
Iraq
from Ism-
eil.45
In this
essay
al-Karaki
attempted
to
legitimize
his
receipt
of
this land
by declaring
it to be
kharaj
which,
as
such, belonged
to the
Imam. Al-Karaki ruled the
faqih
who
possessed sifdt al-niydba
(the
qualities
of
deputyship), by
virtue of the
principle
of
niydba
cdmma
(general deputyship)-the general authority possessed
on the Im-
am's behalf
during
the
occultation-,
was
permitted
to
accept
al-
kharaj
and
al-muqdsama
from sultan
al-jawr.
These references were
clearly
meant as a defense of al-Karaki's
own
acceptance
of this land from Ismacil. The
legal
formulation it-
self, however,
was
clearly
different from that used
against
al-Qatifi
in Mashhad not
long before;
there al-Karaki had identified Ismacil
as al-sul.tin al-cadil/al-imdm al-cadil. On one level, al-Karaki' s new for-
mulation
suggested
he now viewed Ismcil an
unjust
secular ruler
and was now
justifying
his
acceptance
of remuneration from the
court as a
prerogative
of
thefaqith
as the nd'ib al-imdm
(the deputy
of
the
Imam)
allowed to interact with
al-jd'ir,-a
ruling
in
agreement
with those of earlier Usufll clerics.46 On a
deeper level, however,
al-
Karaki's abandonment of references to Ismacil as al-Cddil
suggests
he
now also realised his earlier
support
for Safawid allusions to Is-
maCil's imamate was untenable. Both recantations are
likely
at-
tributable to the
opposition
to his conduct which had arisen within
the
community
since his confrontation with
al-Qatifi
in
Mashhad,
to which al-Karaki referred in his
essay.
45
Earlier references to the
kharaj
essays
include
Madelung,
"Shi'ite Discus-
sions", passim; idem, "al-Karaki";
H.M.
Tabataba'!,
Kharij
in Islamic Law
(Lon-
don: Ithaca
Press,
1983),
passim, esp. 51-58, 133-136, 157-166, 169-180,
190-191, 193-197; Lambton, State, 271-273; Arjomand, ibid, 193-194, 230,
134, 136, 137; Calder, "Legitimacy
and
Accommodation",
96. On the
opposition
which
prompted
al-Karaki's
composition
of this
essay,
see also note 52. On the ter-
minology,
see
Tabataba'i, ibid, passim.
46
Elsewhere in the
essay
al-Karaki stated that in the occultation the
qualified
faqih
was
permitted
to
accept
al-khardj
and
al-muqasama
from al-imim
al-ji'ir;
slightly
different
terminology employed
to make the same
point.
See
al-Karaki, ibid, 173,
180, 188-189. Permission for
thefaqth
to work for
al-jd'ir
in the interests of enforc-
ing
the law had been
accepted by
Uisull clerics as
early
as the
Buwayhid period. See,
A.J.
NEWMAN
Al-Qatifi
completed
his rebuttal to al-Karaki's
essay
in
Najaf
in
924/1518, eight years
after al-Karaki had written his treatise.47
By
this
time,
for reasons to be discussed
below,
al-Qatifi
was much less
ambiguous
in his use of terms to refer to Ismacil and the nature of
his rule than he recorded himself as
having
been in his confrontation
with al-Karaki in Mashhad.
In this
essay, al-Qatifi formally adopted
the definition of
al-jd'ir
as a false claimant to the imamate as set down
by
the
Buwayhid-
period
Akhbari
al-Shaykh
al-Saduq.
Al-Qatifi
then declared
illegal
receipt
of items such as
al-khardj
from
al-jd'ir
because
al-ja'ir
had, by
definition,
taken these
improperly
from their
rightful
owners. Al-
Qatifi
ruled al-Karaki
ought
to have hesitated before
participating
in such a transaction-a
further, clearly
Akhbari line of
argument.
In
any case,
al-Qatifi
argued,
the
gifts
of al-zalim-a term of whose
frequent
substitution with
al-ja'ir
in Usuli
jurisprudence al-Qatifi
was
certainly aware-ought
to be avoided.48 This line of
argument
clearly
derived from and revealed
al-Qatlifi's understanding
of al-
Karaki's
expression
of his own
relationship
to IsmCail as that of nad'ib
to al-imam
al-jd'ir,
but his denial of the Usuli notion that the na'ib
could serve him.49
In the same
essay,
al-Qati.fi
adopted yet
another
plainly
Akhbari
criticism.
Al-Qatifi
refused to
identify
na'ib al-imim as
thefaqih,
sug-
gesting
niyaba had ceased in 329/941 with the death of the fourth
safir
of the Hidden Imam.
Al-Qatifi
then declared such items as
al-zakdt,
which recent Usulis had ruled was to be delivered to
thefuqahd'
for
distribution
during
the
occultation,
were instead to be
given directly
to the intended
recipients.50
This
repudiation
of the
authority
of the
fuqahd'
over al-zakdt
during
the occultation
clearly
and
openly signi-
fied
al-Qatifi's
blanket
rejection
of the more
general
Usiuli
concept
for
example, Madelung,
"A Treatise of the Sharif
al-Murtada", 28-29. See also
note 51.
47
For the dates of both
essays,
see
al-Tehrani,
ibid,
12:164, 17:10.
48
Al-Qatifi,
ibid, 309-311, 249, 295, 291;
notes
42,
43. On "hesitation" as a
specifically
Akhbari
legal concept,
see our
two-part
BSOAS
essay.
49
Ibid, 295,
300f. See also the discussion on al-Karaki above.
50
Ibid, 308-309. On the historical
development
of what in fact was the Usull
position concerning
the
disposition
of al-zakit
during
the
occultation,
see
Calder,
"Zakat in Imami Shii
Jurisprudence
from the Tenth to the Sixteenth
Century",
BSOAS, 46, part
3
(1981),
468-480.
86
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 87
of
thefaqih's
status as na 'ib al-imam
during
the
occultation,
a
rejec-
tion at the core of the Akhbari
critique
of the Usuli tradition.51
Al-Qatifi's kharij
essay
also reveals
al-Qatifi
and his
critique
clearly enjoyed
the
support
of Twelver clerics. In his
preface,
al-
Qatifi
noted he had refused an earlier
request
to rebut al-Karaki's
khardj
essay
because he had seen al-Karaki's
essay only briefly
while
in
Simnan; now,
he
wrote,
he had decided to
compose
such a
reply.
Though
al-Qatifi
did not
identify
the source of the earlier
request,
it most
likely
came from someone
who,
like
al-Qatifi
himself,
was
a cleric based in Arab
Iraq.52
The condemnation of al-Karaki and his association with Safawid
Shiism was also at least
partly
rooted in
popular
resentment in Arab
Iraq
with Safawid Shiism. In his
khardj
essay al-Qat.ifi
noted that fol-
lowing
the Safawid
conquest
of Arab
Iraq,
in
914/1508,
the
poor
and
property
holders such as "weavers and other artisans" in
Iraq
had
been forced to
pay
taxes which
al-Qatifi
claimed financed the later
tour of the area
by IsmaCil-and,
it will be
remembered, by
the local
naqib
and al-Karaki himself.53
The Akhbari/Usuli dimension of the
kharaj
confrontation between
al-Qatifi
and al-Karaki was also evident in other
exchanges
between
the two in this
period.
The two
disagreed
on the nature and
impact
of textual
prohibitions against intermarriage
between individuals
51
The Akhbari
critique
of the Usiull
understanding
of the
authority
of
thefaqih
during
the occultation was linked to the Akhbari
critique
of Usuiill rationalist
jurisprudence: development
of the rationalist
legal
sciences both
permitted
and en-
couraged extrapolation
of the
concept
of
thefaqih
as nd'ib al-imdm. See our BSOAS
essay. Compare Sachedina, ibid, 203.
52
Al-Qatifi,
"al-Siraj
al-Wahhaj",
240-241.
Madelung ("Shi'ite
Discus-
sions", 199) suggested
the earlier
request
had come from "a
high dignitary
in the
Safavid state"
opposed
to al-Karaki.
Al-Qatifi,
however,
described the individual
who had made the
request
as "one to whom obedience is
necessary". By
this
time,
al-Qatifl's
hostility
to the Safawids was
well-known,
and
given
the lack of
any
bio-
graphical
information
linking
him to
anyone
in the Safawid
political hierarchy
and
this
description
of the individual in
question,
it seems
unlikely
this was a reference
to some
figure
in the Safawid
political hierarchy.
It seems more
probable
this was
a reference to a senior
religious figure, perhaps
one of
al-Qatifi
's teachers in Arab
Iraq,
who
objected
to al-Karaki's
receipt
of land from the Safawids. Such a refer-
ence also
suggests
such a cleric-but not
al-Qatifi
himself-was
among
those to
whom al-Karaki referred in his
kharaj
essay
as
having objected
to his association
with the court in 908-909/1503-1504-on which see note 40.
53
Al-Qatifi,
ibid, 291f. See also note 56 and
Madelung, ibid, 198.
A.J.
NEWMAN
related
by
blood and also those individuals related
by
al-ri.d'
(wet-
nursing).
In
916/1510,
the same
year
he
completed
his
kharaj
essay,
al-Karaki also
produced
an
essay
on al-ridac.
Al-Qatifi
completed
a
reply
to the latter in
926/1520,
two
years
after
completing
his rebut-
tal to al-Karaki's
kharaj
essay.
Al-Qatifi's
essay
was as much a criti-
cism of the course of Usuli
jurisprudence-in particular
the use of
logical reasoning
and
presumptions
of
permission
al-Karaki
applied
when the
legal
sources
appeared
unclear or not
immediately
relevant-and a demand for more litteral
readings
of the texts as it
was a discussion of issues
relating
to al-ri.dC.54
The two also clashed over the
question
of the
legality
of the
perfor-
mance of
Friday congregational prayer during
the occultation. In
917/1511,
a
year
after his
completion
of his
essays
on
al-khardj
and
al-ri.dac,
and while with IsmaCil on his Khurasan
campaign,
al-
Karaki
completed
a
general prayer essay
entitled
"al-JaCfariyya
f'l-Salat". In this
essay
al-Karaki ruled that
during
the occultation
the
prayer
was lawful bi shart
al-faqih al-jdmic
li'l-shard 'it
(on
condition
[of
the
presence]
of the
qualified
faqih)
and based on istishab
(con-
tinuance).
This was a formulation in
agreement
with both the rul-
ings
on this issue of earlier Usuili clerics and the
general
Usuili ten-
dency
to
argue
for an
expansion
in the
authority
of
thefaqih
as na'ib
al-imam
during
the occultation. Al-Karaki's
completion
four
years
later,
in
921/1515,
of a
separate essay specifically addressing
the le-
gality
of the
prayer
in the
occultation, however, suggests
his earlier
ruling
had been controversial.
In his rebuttal to al-Karaki's
position
on
congregational prayer
in
the occultation,
al-Qatifi
specifically
addressed al-Karaki's
ruling
the
prayer
was
legal
in the
presence
of a
qualifiedfaqih.
The
essay,
although
not
extant, appears
to have been as
distinctly
Akhbari as
al-QatifiT
's
essays
on
al-kharij
and al-ri.dac. Given al-Karakl's
open
support
for the Safawid identification with the faith and
al-Qatifis
rejection
of that
support
and
identification,
the
naming
of the ruler in
54
Al-Bahrani, ibid, 161, 154n5; al-Tehrami, ibid,
11:
188, 192; al-Am[n, ibid,
181f. These
essays
were discussed
by
the
present
writer in "The Foster-Parent
Relationship: Religion
and Politics in Sixteenth
Century
Shii
Thought",
delivered
at the Seventeenth Annual
Meeting
of the Middle East Studies Association of
North
America, Chicago,
November
3-6,
1983. The
essays
are
presently
the sub-
ject
of
additional, detailed
study by
the
present
writer.
88
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 89
the khutba of the
prayer
and the
tendency
in these
prayers
to address
matters on the ruler's
agenda-both lending
the shah's
authority
additional
legitimacy-may
have been the subtext in the clash over
the
prayer.55
The
timing
of these written-and thus
relatively public-ex-
changes
between al-Karaki and
al-Qatifi
coincided with the
chang-
ing
fortunes of Safawid
politico-military authority
in the
region.
Al-
Karaki
completed
his
kharaj
and ri.dc
essays
in 916/1510 and "al-
JaCfariyya"
in
917/1511,
when Safawid
politico-military power
in
the
region
was on the
ascendancy.
In 914/1508 the Safawids had
captured Baghdad
and the Shii shrine cities and in 916/1510 Herat
fell to Safawid armies.
By contrast,
al-Qatifi
completed
his
reply
to al-Karaki's
kharaj
es-
say eight years later,
in
924/1518,
and his rebuttal on al-ri.ddc two
years later,
in 926/1520-both well after the
stunning
Safawid
defeat at Chaldiran in
920/1524, following
which Safawid
regional
authority,
indeed the
very viability
of the Safawid
polity itself,
be-
came
increasingly problematic. Clearly,
on the issue of
kharaj,
for
55
CAll
al-Karaki, "al-JaCfariyya fi'l-Salat",
in
Cairo,
Dar al-Kutub al-
Mi,riyya,
MS 217/2
Fiqh Shia,
fol. 84a. See also
Qummi,
ibid, 237; Afandi, ibid,
1:17,
3:448; al-Bahrani, ibid, 161; al-Tehrani, ibid, 5:110-111, 15:62, 75-76;
Ar-
jomand,
The
Shadow,
136. See also al-Karaki's discussion on this
question
in the
section on
prayer
in his
laterJamic al-Maq4sid,
as cited
by Calder, "Zakat", 479;
Sachedina, ibid, 177-204,
and
esp.
180- 181. The
importance
of the
performance
of this
prayer
to the
ruling political power
is clear. The
reading
of IsmaCil's name
in the
Friday khufba
to demonstrate the
allegiance
of an area seized for the Safawids
to the Safawid
throne,
for
example,
is noted
by
court chroniclers. See
Allouche,
ibid, 96-97, citing
Rumlu and CAlam
Ard-yi
Shah IsmdCil. The incident referred to
in the
latter,
said to have occurred in
Aleppo,
is considered a false
report,
however.
The
importance
of this
prayer
to the court is further attested to
by
the definition
by
Rumlu and
Qummi
of the
niydba
of
thefuqahda
in terms of the conduct of
Friday
prayer,
itself another
example
of court chroniclers' lack of
familiarity
with Twelver
law and
practice,
cited
by
Arjomand
in his "Two Decrees of ShSh
Tahmasp
Con-
cerning
Statecraft and the
Authority
of
Shaykh
CAll
al-Karaki',
in
Arjomand, ed.,
Authority
and Political Culture in Shi'ism
(Albany:
State
University
of New York
Press,
1988), 262n6,
261n4. Cf.
Arjomand's suggestion (ibid, 251)
that al-Karaki himself
instituted
Friday prayer
after the
939/1532firman
discussed below. See also notes
23, 36,
and
86,
and the discussion of the
religio-historical
roots of the debate on
this
question
in our "Towards a
Reconsideration",
194-196. For an instance of
the Ottomans' use of
Friday prayer
to name the sultan and thus
legitimise
his
rule,
see
Allouche, ibid,
137. See also note 32. On the
'qualifications'
of
thefaqih
and
istishab,
see further our BSOAS
essay.
A.J.
NEWMAN
example,
clerical and
popular
discontent with both al-Karaki and
Safawid Shiism
expressed
in
al-Qatifi's
khardj essay
had been
present
earlier.56
Only
in the aftermath of
Chaldiran, however,
did
al-Qatifi
return to al-Karaki's
khardj
essay
to
compose
the rebuttal
he had declined to write earlier and
subject al-Karaki,
IsmaCil and
the Safawid association with Twelver
Shiism, and, indeed,
the
course of Usuili
jurisprudence
to date to criticism from a more
open,
explicitly
Akhbari
position
than he had
apparently expressed
in his
confrontation with al-Karaki in Mashhad.
Al-Qatifi's
similarly
Akhbari-style reply
to al-Karaki on al-ri.ddC was also
composed
after
Chaldiran.
Al-Qatifi's
essay
on
Friday congregational prayer,
like-
wise a
challenge
to al-Karaki and the Usiull
interpretation
of
thefaq-
ih's
authority, may
also have been
completed
sometime in this
period.
Although
he was resident in Safawid-controlled
Najaf during
the
period
he authored the
essays
on
al-kharaj
and al-ri.dd, the court took
no action
against
al-Qatifi.
This inaction
probably
stemmed from
a combination of
factors, including
a weakened
post-Chaldiran
court structure more concerned with
political
and
military
than reli-
gious affairs, perhaps
also
coupled
with the
feeling
overt action
against
al-Qatifi,
like-minded
clerics,
and
potentially large portions
of the
local, large
Shiite
population
would not
only
fail to
crush,
but
might actually
lend further
publicity
and/or
legitimacy
to their
op-
position.
The court
may
also have continued to entertain the
hope
the
manifestly generous
financial remuneration
enjoyed by
al-
Karaki would attract to court other scholars who themselves
could,
more
effectively,
assist in
muting
further criticism.
The anti-Safawid riots in the
Gulf,
the criticisms of the
Hijazi
clerics,
that of
al-Qatifi,
a native of the Gulf
transplanted
to Arab
Iraq,
and fellow clerics and
lay
believers based in Arab
Iraq
illu-
strate both the
widespread
clerical and
lay
discontent with Safawid
Shiism and al-Karaki's manner of association with it in
particular,
56
On the
question
of
khardj, al-Qatifi
(ibid. 249)
noted that
people
of the vil-
lages given
al-Karaki after the Safawid
conquest
of the
area, having just
been con-
quered,
were too afraid to
complain
about their
being unjustifiably exploited.
He
added, however,
the
granting
of the
villages
to al-Karaki would have been
illegal
even had the
villagers
been content with the transaction.
90
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 91
and show this discontent arose
immediately following
al-Karakl's
decision to attach himself to and
accept
remuneration from the
Safawid court within months of Ismiail's
profession
of faith.
The CAmili
Response
to
Safawid
Shiism
Al-Karaki's advancement in Safawid service
might
at least be ex-
pected
to have served as an
example
to the ulama of his native Leba-
non. In the
event,
these
scholars, certainly
aware of both the
gener-
ally problematic aspects
of Safawid Shiism and the
particulars
of
al-Karaki's association with the
court, rejected many,
if not
all,
aspects
of both.
During
Ismiicl's
reign
the
expression
of this
rejec-
tion was more indirect and
circumspect
than that of the clerics and
lay-believers
discussed above. Both established and
younger
CAmili
Twelver scholars clerics avoided
prolonged
contact and
long-term
association with the Safawid court
during
IsmaCil's
reign.
If more
guarded,
the Lebanese reaction nevertheless amounted to the same
clear
repudiation
of both Safawid Shiism and
any legitimacy
lent it
by
al-Karaki's association.
CAll b. Hilal
al-Jaza'iri
and CAl1
al-Maysi
were
among
the Twel-
ver clerics so well-established
by
this time that their avoidance of the
Safawids
represented
a
rejection
of the Safawid identification with
the faith.
Al-Jaza'iri
was born in
Iraq
and
eventually
settled in the
Jabal
CAmil
region.
It
may
have been here
al-Jaza'iri gave
an
jiaza
to al-Karaki himself in 909/1504.
Although al-Jaza'iri
lived at least
two and
perhaps
as
many
as
eight years
after Tabriz'
capture,
there
is no evidence he ever made
any
further contact with al-Karaki or
the Safawid court itself.57
Shaykh
CAll b. cAbd al-CAli
al-Maysi (d. 938/1531)
was from al-
Mays,
near al-Karaki's home
village
of Karak NIuh in the
Jabal
57
Al-Hurr
al-CAmill, ibid, 2:210; Afandi, ibid, 4:280-283; al-Khwansari, ibid,
4:
357-359; al-Tehrani, ibid,
8:19. H.M.
Tabataba'i,
in his An Introduction to Shii
Law, a bibliographical
study (London:
Ithaca
Press, 1984, 50) gave al-Jaza'iri's
death
as 909/1504-915/1510. Al-Kantiiur
(ibid, 13), probably
in
error, noted an
iyaza
from
al-Jaza'iri
to al-Karaki dated 900/1495.
Al-Jaza'iri's reputation
was suffi-
ciently
established within the
community by
916/1510 that in his
kharaj
essay
com-
pleted
that
year
al-Karaki
attempted
to
legitimise
his
arguments by quoting
al-
Jaza'iri,
an effort
rejected by
al-Qatifl.
See
al-Karaki, ibid, 190;
al-Qatifi,
ibid, 308.
A.J.
NEWMAN
CAmil. He can be
placed
in Damascus in
903/1497,
but there is
no record he made contact with the Safawids
during
IsmiCil's
reign.58
Shaykh
al-Hasan b. Jacfar al-Karaki al-CAmili
(d. 933/1526)
was
a student of
al-Maysi.
Al-Hasan had first-hand
experience
with
Safawid Shiism,
actually journeying
to Safawid
territory
in this
period
and
seeing
IsmaCil. Al-Hasan chose not to remain in Safawid
territory, however,
but returned to Lebanon and died in
Jabal
CAmil.59
Younger,
less well-established clerics from the
region
were also
reluctant to associate with the Safawids.
Shaykh Zayn
al-Din b. cAll
al-cAmili, for
example,
was a student of both
al-Maysi
and al-Hasan
al-Karaki
and,
as
such, certainly
aware of his teachers' attitudes
toward the Safawids.
Although
Arjomand
suggested
the
Shaykh
not
only
entered but held a
post
in Safawid
territory during
Ismtcil's
reign,
in
fact, Zayn
al-Din never entered Safawid
territory.60
Zayn
al-Din's student and close associate
al-Husayn
b. cAbd
al-Samad al-CAmill
(d. 984/1576),
the father of
Shaykh
Baha'i
(d. 1030/1620-1621),
was born in 918/1512
and,
as
Zayn
al-Din
himself, studied under the same al-Hasan al-Karaki. Neither he nor
58
Al-Majlisi, ibid, 108:38-39,
35-38.
54-57; Afandi,
ibid, 4:119,
122;
al-
Bahrani, ibid, 170, 170n26; al-Khwansari, ibid, 4:374-375; Tunukabuni, ibid,
347; al-Tehrani, ibid, 1:230.
59
CAll b. Muhammad
al-CAmili, Al-Durr
al-Manthur,
A.
al-Husayni, ed.,
(Qum,
1398), 2:159; al-Hurr
al-CAmili, ibid, 1:56; Afandi, ibid, 1:165,
al-
Khwansari,
ibid, 2:294-295. See also the discussions of
al-Maysi
and al-Hasan
below.
60
According
to
Arjomand, Shaykh
Zayn
al-Din served as
Shaykh
al-Islam of
Herat from 928/1521 -930/1523, when the
city
was under Safawid control. See Ar-
jomand,
ibid, 302n30, citing
the reference to the Arab scholar
"Shaykh Zayn
al-Din
CAll" in the
contemporary
court chronicle of
Ghiyath
al-Din
Khwandamir, Habib
al-Siyar (Tehran, 1333/1954-1955),
4:609-610.
According
to his student and bi-
ographer al-Jazzini, however, the
Shaykh,
who was seventeen in
928/1521,
was in
al-Mays
from 925/1519 to 933/1526. For
al-Jazzini's biography,
see
al-CAmill, al-
Durr, 2:158, 168,
and its
Persian-language abridgement
in
Tunukabuni, ibid, 259.
Afandi
(ibid,
3:444-
445)
also
suggested
the individual named
by Khwandamir was
not
Shaykh Zayn
al-Din. Much
later,
in
965/1557,
the
Shaykh
was executed
by
the
Ottomans and
subsequently
called al-Shahid al-Thdn[
(the
second
martyr).
See al-
Khwansari, ibid, 4:374; al-Tehrani, ibid, 1:218;
our discussion of
Shaykh Zayn
al-
Din
below; notes
36, 87, 94,
97.
92
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 93
his own father 'Abd al-Samad
(d. 935/1528)
is recorded as
having
made contact with the Safawids in this
period.61
Even as Safawid Shiism was so
problematic
for these
clerics,
for
none was Sunni
policy
toward Arab Twelver clerics resident in their
territories
sufficiently repressive
to
provoke emigration
to Safawid
territory.
Prior to the Ottoman
conquest
of the
region
in
922 -923/1516- 1517 al-Karaki
himself,
for
example,
travelled
throughout
the area to
study.
After the Ottoman
conquest, Shaykh
Zayn
al-Din and
al-Husayn
b. CAbd al-Samad were not restricted in
their travels in Ottoman
territory.
Between 925/1519 and the end of
Ismail's
reign
in
930/1524, Zayn
al-Din travelled
fromJabal
CAmil
to Damascus, Cairo, and the
Hijaz
and even visited Istanbul several
times.62
By
such natural clerical movement Twelver scholars
throughout
the
region
became aware of the manner of al-Karaki's association
with the Safawids and the reaction of fellow Twelver clerics in the
Gulf, the
Hijaz,
and Arab
Iraq
both to Safawid Shiism and al-
Karaki's association with the court. Al-Hasan al-Karaki's visit to
Safawid
territory,
for
example,
served to familiarize
him, and,
through him,
other CAmill clerics with Ismacil's extremist unortho-
dox
religious
discourse and
personal behaviour,
the limited
degree
of Safawid interest in and
understanding
of the
faith,
and
aspects
of
al-Karaki's association with the court.
Zayn
al-Din's
trip
to the
Hijaz
no doubt
acquainted
him with the discontent of
Hijatzi
clerics
with such extremist Safawid
policies
as the
cursing
of the
caliphs,
a
policy supported by
al-Karaki.
61
On
al-Husayn,
see our "Towards a
Reconsideration", 169-171,
and our
discussion below. On CAbd
al-$amad,
see al-Hurr
al-'Amili, ibid, 1:109; Afandl,
ibid, 3:128; al-Khwansari, ibid, 2:346; al-Amin, ibid,
38:41.
62
On al-Karaki's
travels, see,
for
example, Afandi, ibid,
3:441f. On
Shaykh
Zayn al-Din,
see
al-CAmili, al-Durr, 2:158-176, 182; Tunukabuni, ibid, 258. See
also the discussion of
Shaykh Zayn
al-Din below. The failure of the Ottoman crush-
ing
of Shah
Quli
in 917/1511-1512 and
subsequent
efforts under Selim I to root
out Shiism in eastern
Anatolia-involving
the massacre of thousands of
Qizil
Bash
(see,
for
example, Momen, ibid, 106)-to
have alarmed these clerics is best ex-
plained by
the extreme
socio-religious message
and the social
composition
of Shah
Quli's
movement and the
Qizil
Bash themselves. More similar to those of the
post-
Junayd
Safawid movement than
not,
the radical
message
and
peasant
and nomadic
roots of both were
likely
viewed with little
sympathy by relatively
more conserva-
tive, urban-based clerics. See also the reference to
Bacque-Grammont
in note 10.
A.J.
NEWMAN
In
sum, during
IsmCail's
reign
Safawid Shiism
presented
few
posi-
tive
images
to Twelver clerics resident outside Safawid
territory.
Among
the factors in these clerics'
rejection
of Safawid identification
with the faith were Ismacil's
abrupt
conversion to the
faith,
the
Safawids'
consistently extreme,
unorthodox
religious discourse,
the
Safawid
hierarchy's
lack of interest in and
understanding
of the doc-
trines and
practices
of the faith
and,
in contrast with Sunni success-
es,
the
uncertainty
of the future of the Safawid
polity.
The treatment
Twelver clerics received from Sunni
political
institutions
ruling
their homelands was not
sufficiently
harsh or
repressive
to drive
them to
emigration.
cAl1 al-Karaki was one of the few clerics in this
period
who can
categorically
be shown to have left his homeland
spe-
cifically
to associate himself with Safawid Shiism and the Safawid ef-
fort to
propagate
the faith in the
territory
under their control. That
association itself also contributed to the aversion of
many clerics,
and
laybelievers,
for Safawid Shiism
during
Ismacil's
reign.
The Accession
of Tahmasp
The
general aspects
of Safawid Shiism
problematic
for Arab
Twelver clerics
living
outside Safawid
territory during
IsmCcil's
reign
remained so in the
years immediately following
the accession
of
ten-year-old Tahmasp
in 930/1524.
Safawid
religious
discourse continued as extreme as before even
as the interest in and
understanding
of the doctrines and
practices
of Twelver Shiism
by
members of the
ruling political hierarchy
re-
mained as limited. As in the case of
IsmaCil, public proclamation
of
Tahmasp's superior, implicitly divine,
status never
entirely
ceased.63 A coin minted in Yazd in 955/1548 referred to
Tahmasp
63
Western-language
scholars have
suggested Tahmasp attempted
to moderate
or even
suppress
veneration of himself as divine. As evidence these scholars have
cited later
copies
of
Tahmasp's
diwdn in which were omitted both earlier references
to his
having proclaimed
himself mahdi and similar claims of his
predecessors,
and
Tahmasp's suppression
of a
group
of Sufis who
proclaimed
him mahdi in
962-963/1554-1555. See Hans R.
Roemer, "Comments", Iranian Studies 7
(1974), 216; Lambton, ibid, 265n7, 276-277;
Arjomand,
ibid, 110; Momen, ibid,
109. The
suppression
of the Sufi revolt
probably
had causes similar to those under-
lying
the Safawid attitude toward the
uprising
of Shah
Quli
described above.
94
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 95
as al-sul.tn al-'adil. An
Arabic-language inscription
dated 962/1554
at a shrine in Isfahan, for
example,
described
Tahmasp,
then in his
forties,
as sahib al-zamdn
(lord
of the
age),64
a term
which,
like the
other
religious
terms discussed
above,
could refer both to the Imam
and secular
authority.65
Claims for
Tahmasp's standing
as a
sayyid
and an 'Alid also continued.66
Such rhetoric
emphasized
the extremist
religious message
of
Safawid Shiism since
Junayd
even as the radical socio-economic and
political agenda implied by
that earlier messianism was
being
minimized.
Focusing
on the
person
of the
shah,
such discourse
might
also counter-balance the
centrifugal
forces within the Safawid
confederation
producing
the internal disorder which marked the
early years
of
Tahmasp's reign,
as discussed below. In the
event,
Safawid tribal
levies,
for
example,
venerated their leader as di-
vine.67
The Safawid
hierarchy's
interest in and
understanding
of the faith
in this
period
remained as
perfunctory
as it had
during
the
reign
of
Ismail. As
then,
none of the chief officers of the Safawid
polity
during Tahmasp's reign
was a convicted
believer,
let alone a
Twelver cleric.68
Indeed,
Sunnism
persisted
in certain
prominent
areas of Safawid
territory. Qazwin
remained a
pocket
of Sun-
nism, for
example,
and a
Qazwlni
notable was twice vizier
during
64
Rabino, ibid,
370.
Hunarfar,
ibid,
388. For an undated coin minted in
Qaz-
win
referring
to
Tahmasp
as al-sul.tn
al-Cddil,
see
Rabino, ibid,
369.
65
In his Kitib
al-Ghayba (Najaf, 1385, 74, 3, 63)
Muhammad b. al-Hasan
al-Tusi
(d. 460/1067),
for
example,
had referred to the absent Imam
variously
as
sultan
al-waqt
(sultan
of the
time)
and sahib al-zaman. See also notes
11, 13,
and
43,
and
Sachedina, ibid, 100,
102-105.
66
Togan, ibid, 356; Mazzaoui, ibid,
48. See also the reference to the Safawid as
"the house of
Prophethood
and
vilayat"
in an undated decree of
Tahmasp
translat-
ed in
Arjomand's
"Two
Decrees", 261. The
phrase implicitly
referred to the
religio-political legitimacy
of the rule of CAll and his
family,
i.e. the Imams. Its use
in
Tahmasp's
decree
emphasized
Safawid claims to cAlid
lineage
and
authority.
See
also the
following
note.
67
As late as five
years
before his death in 984/1576 a Venetian
report
noted
Tahmasp's subjects regarded
him as "not a
king,
but as a
god,
on account of his
descent from the line of All''. See Lambton, ibid, 266;; Arjomand,
The
Shadow,
179.
68
Savorv,
"The
Principle
Offices ...
Tahmasp", passim, esp.
71-79. On
those
holding
the
post
of sadr see the discussion below. The
personal
behaviour of
Tahmasp appears
to have been as
problematic
as that of his
predecessor
as well.
See
Aubin,
"Etudes
III", 49-50, and notes 8 and 22.
A.J.
NEWMAN
the
early years
of
Tahmasp's reign,
the second time for fifteen
years.69
Finally,
the
political-military viability
of the
polity
could not have
seemed
any
more certain in the
early years
of
Tahmasp's reign
than
it had
following
Chaldiran. The first ten
years
of
Tahmasp's rule,
from 930/1525 to 940/1533-the last decade of al-Karaki's life-was
one of
nearly
continuous
jockeying
for
pre-eminence by
different
tribal elements within the Safawid confederation. A
period
of civil
war between the
Ustajlu
and other coalition members occurred from
932/1526 to 933/1527. There followed a brief Rumlu/Takkalu
duumvirate,
Takkaluf domination from 933/1527 to 937/1530, and
Shamlu domination from 937/1530 to 940/1534. Both the
Uzbegs
and the Ottomans seized the
opportunities
offered
by
these internal
struggles
to attack Safawid
territory.
The
Uzbegs
launched at least
five
major
efforts
against
Khurasan in this
period.
The Ottomans
undertook several
campaigns against
western Safawid
territories,
and,
in
941/1534,
seized
Baghdad
and the shrine cities from the
Safawids.70
Al-Karaki at the Court
of Tahmasp
In 931/1524-
1525,
the
year
after
Tahmasp's accession,
Safawid
regional power
was on the wane and al-Karaki was under
open
at-
tack in Arab
Iraq-by
al-Qatifi
and his clerical associates and ele-
ments of the
lay community-and
faced the
implicit disapproval
of
many
of his fellow Lebanese. In these
circumstances,
al-Karaki left
Arab
Iraq
to make what the Twelver
biographers
referred to as his
"second
trip"
to Safawid Iran. Given the
opposition
his
open
as-
sociation with the Safawids had
generated among
clerics and
lay
be-
lievers,
the Safawid court was his
only remaining
source of
sup-
port.71
If not his "second
trip", certainly
from this
point
al-Karaki
69
Arjomand, ibid, 119-120.
70
For a
summary
of these
events,
see
Savory,
"The
Principle
Offices ... Is-
mail?", 101; idem,
"The
Principle
Offices .. .
Tahmasp", 65-71; idem,
"Safavid
Persia", 403-404; Allouche, ibid, 133-140.
71
In 932/1526 al-Karaki was in
Yazd,
in 936/1529 in
Mashhad,
and in
937/1530 he was in Isfahan and
Qum.
See
Rumlufi, ibid, 245f; Afandi, ibid, 3:454;
al-Khwansarl, ibid, 7:178. Al-Karaki maintained connections with Arab
Iraq
in
96
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 97
totally
cast his lot
with,
and
spent
the
majority
of his time
at,
the
court.
Al-Karaki's
position
at court in
this,
the next and last ten
years
of his
life,
was
by
no means
assured,
however. Within three
years
al-Karaki became the focal
point
of several court controversies. Os-
tensibly religious,
these
disputes
coincided with the internal
political
disorders
threatening
of the bases of the
polity itself, however, and,
accentuated
by
and reflective of these
political struggles,
became ve-
hicles for the factional
infighting.
Al-Karaki's victories in these dis-
putes
more
corresponded
with and were the
product
of the
triumph
of certain factions within the confederation than
they represented
the vindication of al-Karaki's
religious authority
at court or within
the Twelver
community.
Al-Karaki's confrontations at court in this
period seemingly
in-
volved
disputes
between himself and those in the
post
of sadr. In
931/1524, the
year
after Ismacil's
death,
that shah's last
sadr,
al-
Astarabadi,
died. Shah
Qawwam
al-Din al-Isfahani was
appointed
sadr. The latter was from an
important family
in
Isfahan,
a
poet,
and,
like his
predecessors
in the
office,
not known for
any
Twelver
proclivities.
Al-Isfahani held the
post
about five
years, during
the
Ustajlfi
civil war
administration,
the Rumlu/Takkalu
coalition,
and
into the Takkalu
period.72
In the middle of the Takkalu
period, however,
in 935/1528-
1529, Nicmatallah al-Hilli
(d. 940/1533)
was
appointed
co-sadr to al-
Isfahani. Al-Hilli was the first
genuine
Twelver scholar to hold the
office under the Safawids. He had received an
iydza
from al-Karaki
himself in
Najaf
in
929/1522,
was a
sayyid,
and claimed the rank of
mujtahid.73
At al-Isfahani's death in
936/1529,
Mansur al-Dashtaki
was
appointed
co-sadr in his
place.
Al-Dashtaki was a
sayyid,
a native
this
period, however, allowing
him to
supervise
his affairs in the area. In 933/1527
and
935/1528,
for
example,
he was in
Najaf,
in 934/1527 he
gave
an
iyjza
to 'AIi
al-Maysi
in
Baghdad,
and in
940/1533,
the
year
of his
death,
he was
again
in
Iraq.
See
al-Majlisi,
ibid, 108:28-34, 69-81, 81-83; Afandi, ibid, 3:441-442;
al-
Tehrani, ibid, 1:215-216; al-Amin, ibid,
41:180. Cf.
Arjomand, ibid,
133.
72
Savory,
"The
Principles
Offices .. .
Tahmasp", 80; Beeson, ibid, 90,
95.
See also
al-Majlisi, ibid, 108:69f; al-Tehrani, ibid, 1:213, 215.
73
Al-Hilli was also a student of
al-Qatifl.
See
Afandi, ibid, 1:15, 5:250-253;
al-Bahrani, ibid, 165n20; al-Khwansarl, ibid, 1:26, 7:176-178; al-Amin, ibid,
5:187-188, 50:20; al-Bahrani, Anwdr, 288;
and notes 75-77.
A.J.
NEWMAN
of Shiraz
and, although
like the sixth
sadr, al-Astarabadi,
a student
of the Sunni
philosopher al-Dawwani,
al-Dashtaki was at least a
nominal Twelver.74
While al-Hilli and
al-Dashtaki, by
their
acceptance
of
positions
at
court, obviously approved
of some
degree
of clerical association with
the
Safawids,
both also
clearly
had doubts about the manner in
which
al-Karaki-who,
if he had received
many
favours from Is-
mail as
yet
held no official
position
at the
present
court75-had de-
fined certain elements of Twelver doctrine and
practice.
Al-Hilli
was
apparently specifically
concerned with al-Karakli's Usull
expan-
sionist view of
thefaqih
as na 'ib al-imam with
which,
as a student of
al-Karaki,
he was
certainly
familiar. His
position
at court
perhaps
giving
him additional
confidence,
al-Hilli
challenged
his teacher's
ruling permitting congregational prayer
with the attendence of the
faqth
during
the
occultation; given
thefaqih's
role in
Friday prayer,
its
suspension
could
only
diminish the role and
authority
of
thefaqih
as nd'ib al-imdm in the
community.
Al-Hilli
may
have drawn addi-
tional
strength
for his
challenge
from
correspondence
with his
teacher
al-Qatifi-still
resident in Safawid-controlled Arab
Iraq-,
74
Rumlui, ibid, 294
(ad. 930/1524),
332-335
(ad. 940/1533), Khwandamir,
ibid, 4:610; Afandl, ibid, 5:250-253; al-Khwansari, ibid, 7:176-178; al-Amin, ibid,
50:20; Savory, ibid, 81; idem,
"Safavid
Persia", 403;
Arjomand,
ibid, 134;
note
25.
75
Although completed
in
929/1523,
Habib
al-Siyar's portrayal
of al-KarakF's
general standing
in this
period, according
him no titles or
honorifics,
was accurate.
The author
praised al-Hilli-yet
to be
appointed co-sadr-, however,
as "the best
of the
sayyids
and Culama of al-Hilla". See
Khwandamir, ibid,
4:610. There
is,
un-
fortunately,
little additional information on al-Hilli's
origins, when,
and or under
what circumstances he first came to court. Given al-Karaki's eventual
triumph
at
court,
it is not
surprising
later court chroniclers embellished his
importance
and
scorned his rivals. Rumlu
(ibid, 248) styled
al-Karaki
mujtahid
al-zamdn in entries
as
early
as that for 931/1524. See also Rumlu's reference to al-Karaki cited in note
25.
Qummi
(ibid, 237-238, 296, 297-298)
awarded him such honorifics as nd'ib
al-imam and
jdmi'
al-sharaPic wa'l-sharad'it. See also note 77. Niurallah al-Shfushtari
also referred to al-Karaki as
mujtahid
al-zaman in his
Majilis
al-Mu'minin
(2:230-231),
written at the same time as the chronicles of Rumlfl and
Qummi.
See
note 25 on the dates of
completion
of these two court chronicles. See also
Arjomand,
ibid, 136. The
eleventh/sixteenth-century
court chronicle Td'rikh-i 'Alam
Ard-yi
'Abbdsi described al-Karaki as
"mujtahid
al-zamdn". See Iskander
Beg Munshi,
His-
tory
of
Shah CAbbas the
Great, Roger Savory, transl., (Boulder, Colo., 1978),
1:
234,
244-45. Al-Karaki's reference to himself as na'ib al-imam in his earlier
khardj
essay
less
represented
claim to court
recognition
as such at that time than the Usull view
of the
faqih
as nd'ib
during
the Imam's occultation.
98
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 99
who
opposed
such
prayer
and whose
open
criticism of al-Karaki and
the
authority
of
thefaqih during
the
occultation, continuing
unabat-
ed
throughout
the
early years
of
Tahmasp's reign,76 points
to the
continuing vitality
of the
critique
of the Arab
Iraqi community,
and
indeed also the Akhbari
polemic, throughout
this
period.
Al-Hilli's
challenge
to al-Karaki was also no doubt
encouraged by
the factional
infighting
within the Safawid confederation.
Indeed,
several
royal princes
and court
officials, including
the muhrd&r
Mahmfid
Beg, supported
al-Hilli's
challenge.
Two Iranian
clerics,
Qadi
Musafer al-Tabrizi and Maulana
Husayn al-Ardabill,
neither
with
any
apparent
links to
al-Qatifi
and each
presumably
with ties
to elements in the Safawid
hierarchy,
also
joined
al-Hilli in
opposing
al-Karaki's
ruling
on
Friday prayer
and called for a
public airing
of
disagreements
on the
question.
In the
event,
there was no such
public meeting.
Al-Hilli was im-
plicated
as the author of a letter
defaming
al-Karaki
and,
in
afirman
issued in
936/1529,
was
formally
banished to
Baghdad
and forbid-
den to contact
al-Qatiffi.
The latter was himself admonished for his
continued criticism of al-Karaki.77
Shortly
afterwards al-Dashtaki confronted al-Karaki on the more
technical
question
of al-Karakl's formulations on the
qibla.
The dis-
76
Al-Qatifi's
continued criticism of al-Karaki can be inferred from al-Karaki's
completion
in
933/1527,
two
years
after his "second
trip"
to court and now
perhaps
more
optimistic
about his
situation,
of a direct attack on
al-Qatifi.
See
al-Tehrani,
ibid, 12:147-148. The 936/1529
firman, banishing
al-Hilli from court and ad-
monishing
al-Qatifi
for his
persistent
criticism of
al-Karaki, suggests
al-Qatifi
had
continued his attacks on al-Karaki in the
intervening
three
years.
See the
following
note and the translation of the
936/1529firrman by
Arjomand
in his "The
Mujtahid
of the
Age
and the Mulld-bdshi: An Intermediate
Stage
in the Institutionalization
of
Religious Authority
in Shi'ite
Iran",
in his
Authority
and Political
Culture,
81. See
also note 81.
77
Rumlu, ibid, 333-334;
Qummi,
ibid, 237-238; Afandi, ibid, 3:452-453;
al-
Khwansari, ibid, 4:370-372; al-Amin, ibid, 50:20, Mroueh, ibid, 47,
all
citing
Rumlfu.
Compare
Arjomand,
The
Shadow,
136.
Thefirman
can be dated
by
a refer-
ence to it in
thefirman
of
939/1533,
on which see
below, and
Afandi, ibid, 3:459;
Arjomand,
"Two
Decrees", 255; note 80.
Compare Arjomand, ibid, 250; idem,
"The
Mujtahid
of the
Age",
81.
Qummi's
version of the
firman
banishing
al-Hilli
described al-Karaki as nd'ib
al-imam, obviously
a later insertion
reflecting
the title
granted
him
by
the court several
years
later. The later death of Mahmfd
Beg
from
a fall while al-Karaki was
praying nearby
is
reported
in
Qummi,
ibid, 237-239;
al-Khwansarl, ibid; al-Niur, ibid, 3:432; Mroueh, ibid,
45.
A.J.
NEWMAN
agreement
of the two men became
pronounced
and a
majlis
was con-
vened, attended
by Tahmasp.
As with
al-Hilli, however,
al-Karaki
triumphed:
in 938/1531-1532 al-Dashtaki was dismissed and re-
placed by
a student of
al-Karaki,
MuCizz al-din al-Isfahani
(d.
952/1545-46).78 Again,
as with al-Hilli's
challenge,
factional in-
fighting
at court was
certainly
a factor in al-Dashtaki's
critique.
The
court
majlis
was
likely
also attended
by
members of the Safawid
po-
litical
hierarchy, probably
interested less in the
process
and details
of the debate than its outcome.
Al-Karaki's victories demonstrate he also was not without his
sup-
porters
within the
political hierarchy. Indeed,
as the tenor of the ex-
changes
between al-Karaki and
al-Qatifi
had coincided with
politico-military
events and trends
during
IsmSeil's
reign,
al-Ka-
raki's confrontations with and victories over al-Hilli and al-Dashtaki
in 936/1529 and 938/1531
-
1532 coincided with
political develop-
ments within the
confederation, specifically
the decline of Takkalu
domination of both the Safawid confederation and the
young
Tahmasp
and the ascendance of the Shamlu in 937-938/1531
respectively.
The Shamlu remained
pre-eminent
until 940/1533.79
In
939/1532,
in the midst of the Shamlu
period,
was issued the
well-knownfirmin
which described al-Karaki as nd'ib
al-imdm,
"seal
of the
mujtahids,
"guardian
of the
Prophet's religion",
"heir to the
knowledge
of the Prince of the
prophets",
and
"guide
of all the
peo-
ple
of the
age".
The
firman
placed
control of all
religious
affairs in
al-Karaki's hands and admonished
sayyids, lords,
and nobles of the
state, together
with
governors
and other administrators to
give
"obedience and submission to
[al-Karaki]
in all affairs."
Thefirman
stated no further documentation was to be deemed
necessary
for
these officials to
obey
al-Karaki. The decree also conferred a num-
ber of additional administrative
posts
on al-Karaki in eastern
Iraq
and
granted
him further
suyurghdls
in western Safawid territories.
78
Rumlu, ibid, 393-394, 510-511;
Qummi,
ibid, 296; al-Khwansarl, ibid,
7:178; Madelung, "al-Karaki",
ibid;
Arjomand,
"Two
Decrees", 251. On the
qib-
la
dispute,
see
al-Shushtari, ibid, 2:231; Afandi, ibid, 3:453-454; al-Khwansari,
ibid, 4:372; al-Amin, ibid, 41:179.
Compare Savory, ibid, 81-82; Arjomand, The
Shadow,
135. On the
qibla,
see also our "Towards A
Reconsideration", 181f. See
also notes
80, 83, 87, 96.
79
Savory,
"The
Principle
Offices ...
Tahmasp", 80; idem, "Safavid Persia",
403; Beeson, ibid, 35, 90,
95.
100
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 101
Armed with this
firm&n,
al-Karaki issued a series of commands to
Safawid
government
officials
laying
down bases for items of reli-
gious administration,
such as the
levying
of
khardj
and the
appoint-
ment in
every village
of a
prayer
leader to instruct the
people
in the
tenets of Twelver Shiism. He also ordered the
expulsion
of Sunni
ulamai from Safawid
territory.
His earlier
qibla
formulations now
lent further
legitimacy by
his official
status,
al-Karaki now also com-
manded
changes
in the direction of the
qibla
of
mosques throughout
Safawid
territory
on the
grounds
the direction of Mecca had been
improperly
calculated *80
Both the issuance of
thefirmdin
and the substance of
thefirmdn
itself
represented
less
resounding
evidence of the
strength
of al-Karak-i' s
authority
at the court or within the Twelver
community
than
might
seem to be the
case,
however. At court the involvement of tribal and
court officials in
religious
matters from the time of al-Hilli's
challenge
to al-Karaki to the issuance of the
939/1532firmdn
did not
reflect
any sudden,
new interest in
religious
affairs
per se;
as has al-
ready
been
shown, during
both Ismiicil's
reign
and
Tahmdsp's reign
to
date,
none of the court officials were Twelver clerics or committed
lay
believers.
Indeed,
the
politicians' ignorance
of the detailed af-
fairs of the faith and lack of interest in and commitment to its
propa-
gation
within their realm was
clearly
in evidence in
thefirmnin's
im-
plicit acknowledgement
that the doctrines and
practices
of the faith
were still little-known in Safawid
territory
three decades after
Tabriz. The distinctive
religious terminology
of the 939/1532
firmndn-granting
al-Karaki
authority
based on and commensurate
with Usi:ili notions of the
authority
of na-'ib al-inmdm-further
suggests
al-Karaki himself was
delegated
to
complete
the text of the decree
after
agreement
on the details of al-Karaki' s
authority
and remuner-
ation;
absent was
any
extreme
religious
rhetoric.
The alliance of
princes
and court officials with
al-IHilli
against
al-
80
Afandi, ibid, 3:450;
al-Bahririni,
Lu 'lu
'at, 152-153;
al-KhwainsarCi, ibid,
4:361
-365; Tunukaibuni, ibid, 347; al-Amin, ibid; al-Niiri, ibid,
3:43
1, 434;
Mroueh, ibid,
44. The text of the 939/1533
firnndn
can be found in
Afandi, ibid,
3:45 5
-
460 and al-
Nfi:i,
ibid, 3:43 2
-
43
4, and has been translated
by Arjomand in
his "Two
Decrees",
252
-
256. On a variation between these two versions see
Arjo-
mand, ibid, 262n1 1. See also
idem, The
Shadow,
133
-
134,
134n40. At least some
of the
qibla changes
were
implemented;
see note 87. See also note 55.
A.J.
NEWMAN
Karaki and the interest of various court officials in al-Dashtaki's
challenge
instead demonstrates the extent to which
religious
dis-
putes
could become vehicles for manoeuvre in the
prevailing,
ex-
tremely
fluid
politico-military dynamic.
Both the 936/1529 and the
939/1532
firman represented recognition by
the forces behind the
throne of an individual whose
loyalty-however problematic
the
Safawids'
religious
discourse and
prospects
for survival-had been
longstanding
and
unquestioning.
The
939/1532firman
in
particular
was an effort
by
these same forces to cede
responsibility
for details
of
religious
doctrine and
practice
to that
individual, thereby freeing
themselves to address the confederation's internal
political
problems.
That the Shamlfi-dominated court
only reprimanded
and
threatened
al-Qatifi,
banished
al-Hilli,
and dismissed al-Dashtaki
further
suggests
the court was hesitant to become
any
more
deeply
involved in doctrinal
disagreements, perhaps
also reluctant to lend
their
opposition
any
further
recognition and, thereby,
any
legitima-
cy,
a combination of factors
probably
also at the heart of the court's
inaction
against
al-Qatlfi's
censure of al-Karaki in the
years
after
Chaldiran.
Thefirman
also cannot be seen as evidence of al-Karaki's authori-
ty
within the Twelver
community.
The attacks of al-Hilli and al-
Dashtaki on
al-Karaki,
at least the first of which was launched
by
a Twelver cleric whose
reputation
in the
community
was estab-
lished,
demonstrated that both al-Karakl's
standing
within the
Twelver
community
and Safawid identification with the faith itself
remained as
problematic
now as it had
throughout
IsmC-l's
reign.
To the extent al-Karaki was involved in the
firmdn's
composition,
the
leniency
of the
punishments
meted out to his
opponents suggests
al-Karaki,
aware of the
continuing
weakness of his own
position
wi-
thin the
larger
Twelver
community,
the
broader, problematic
Safawid
political situation,
and-as witnessed
by
the
authority
he
was
being given
to
propagate
the faith in Safawid
territory-the
su-
perficiality
of the Safawid
hierarchy's
interest in the faith to
date,
was himself reluctant to
press
the court for such
penalties against
his
opponents
as could not be undone and as
might
lend the
opposition
additional
legitimacy.
In sum the
939/1532firman highlighted
the continued lack of court
interest in Twelver Shiism and the continued weakness of the
posi-
102
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 103
tion of al-Karaki and Safawid Shiism itself within the
larger
Twelver
community,
and thus underlined the ultimate
dependence
of both
al-Karaki and the faith itself on the favour of the court. The ultimate
verdict as to the
strength
and
authority
of
thisfirman,
al-Karaki, and
Safawid Shiism itself was
perhaps
best delivered
by al-Qat.ifi
him-
self. Still based in Safawid-controlled Arab
Iraq
he continued his
sniping against al-Karaki,81 demonstrating
the
persistence
of the
community's antagonism,
if not also the
vitality
of the Akhbari cri-
tique,
in this
period.
The criticisms of al-Hilli and al-Dashtaki and the
continuing
criti-
cisms of
al-Qatifi
in this
period
demonstrate
open
and vocal criti-
cism of Safawid Shiism and al-Karaki continued
during
the
early
years
of
Tahmasp's reign
as it had
throughout
IsmiCil's reign. The
more
circumspect rejection
of Safawid Shiism and al-Karaki's court
associations
by
Lebanese clerics evident
during
Ismicil's
reign
also
continued into this
period.
Those clerics who had avoided Safawid
Shiism
during
IsmaCil's rule continued to avoid association with it
during
the
early years
of
Tahmasp's reign.
Al-Hasan b. Jacfar al-
Karaki
(d. 933/1526)
had
taught Shaykh Zayn
al-Din al-CAmili.
Having
met
Ismacil,
he made no effort to meet
Tahmasp
in the
early
years
of his
reign.
cAli
al-Maysi (d. 938/1531),
a teacher of both
Shaykh Zayn
al-Din and
al-Hasan, although
he received an
ijdza
from al-Karaki in Safawid-controlled
Baghdad
in
934/1531, during
Tahmasp's reign,
did not
subsequently capitalize
on his association
with al-Karaki to secure a
post
or
favours,
let alone render
any
ser-
vice to the court.
Indeed, al-Maysi
returned to
Lebanon, died,
and
was buried there.82
Among
the
relatively younger generation
of
Twelver clerics resident outside Safawid
territory,
both
Shaykh
81
For criticism
by
al-Qatifi
of al-Karaki in
939/1532,
the
year
thefirman
itself
was
issued,
see
al-Tehrani, ibid, 13:107-108, 2:296, 6:22;
CAbdol
Husayn Hairi,
et
al., eds.,
Fihrist
Kitdbkhana-yi
Majlis-i
Shurd-yi Milli,
7
(Tehran, 1346),
146
-
148.
82
On these individuals see the sources cited in notes
58, 59,
71.
Al-Maysi's
son
was born in 926/1519 died and studied under
Shaykh Zayn
al-Din.
Together
with
his father he received the .iaza from al-Karaki in 934/1531.
Although
he was buried
in Isfahan in
993/1585,
it is not clear when or under what circumstances he came
to Safawid
territory.
See al-Hurr
al-cAmili, ibid,
1:
110; al-Bahrani, ibid,
134-
135;
al-Khwansarl, ibid, 4:199-202; al-Tehrani, ibid, 13:78-79; Mroueh, ibid,
150-151.
Al-Maysi's great grandson Lutfallah was a close associate of the court
under CAbbas I who built him a
mosque
in
Isfahan, completed
in 1028/1619. See
Hunarfar, ibid, 401f; Hourani, ibid,
138.
A.J.
NEWMAN
Zayn
al-Din and
al-Husayn
continued to avoid the Safawids
during
Tahmasp's reign
as
they
had
during
the latter
years
of Ismi'il's
reign.
Clerical
Opposition During
the Later Years
of
Tahmdsp's Reign
Al-Karaki himself died about a
year
after the issuance of the
939/1532
firman.
His influence at court
initially
survived him. Al-
Karaki's student al-Isfahani served five
years
as
sadr, including
three
following
his teacher's death. After al-Isfahani, another student of
al-Karaki was
appointed
sadr.83
Aspects
of Safawid Shiism
problematic
for Twelver clerics resi-
dent outside Safawid
territory
earlier in
Tahmasp's reign
continued
so after al-Karaki's
death,
however. As has
already
been
suggested,
for
example,
the Safawid Shii
religious
discourse remained extreme
in this
period.
The deterioration of Safawid fortunes also continued
apace.
In
941/1534,
two
years
after the issuance of the
firman designating
al-
Karaki na'ib
al-imam,
and a
year
after al-Karaki's
death,
the Otto-
mans
captured Tabriz, Gilan,
and Shirvan.
Baghdad
and the shrine
cities also fell to the
Ottomans,
and
they
retained this
territory
for
nearly
a
century.
Shamlu domination of the
court, during
which al-
Karaki's
position
at court was
seemingly secured, collapsed
follow-
ing
the fall of eastern
Iraq
and the
Ustajlu
rose to
prominence.
Sub-
sequent
Ottoman
expeditions strengthened
their
position
in Kur-
distan and Armenia
by
960-961/1553-
1554,
and culminated in a
962/1555
treaty
with the Safawids
recognising
Ottoman
authority
over Arab
Iraq, Kurdistan,
and the area north of
Azerbaijan.84
As the Ottomans continued to assume
greater regional promi-
nence, they
continued to evince little formal
hostility
to the resident
Twelver
clergy.
At the
capture
of
Baghdad
and the shrine cities in
941/1534,
for
example,
Sultan
Sulayman
visited the Shii centres of
Kufa and al-Hilla and the shrines themselves. He ordered that the
salaries of the shrines' attendants be
paid
from the
Baghdad treasury
and that
repairs
be made to the shrines themselves.85
83
On al-Karaki's
students,
see note 96. See also
Arjomand, ibid,
135.
84
Allouche, ibid,
141-145.
85
Al
Yasin, ibid, 85-86. See also notes
33,
88.
104
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 105
The 939/1532
firman's
failure to enhance both al-Karaki's
posi-
tion within the Twelver
community
and the
authority
of Safawid
Shiism itself is demonstrated
by
the continued
controversy
sur-
rounding
al-Karaki's association with Safawid Shiism after his
death and the continued
rejection
of Safawid Shiism
by
Arab
Twelver clerics resident abroad. The continued
open rejection by
al-
Qatifi,
as
representative
of like-minded clerics and
lay-believers
in
Arab
Iraq,
has been discussed. Sometime after al-Karaki's death
Friday prayers
were discontinued in Safawid
territory, suggesting
the forces within the
community opposed
to its
performance-as
represented by
al-Qatifi
and
al-Hilli-finally
had their
way
at and
with the court.86
In the context of the
continuing
decline of Safawid
power
and al-
Karaki's
death,
Lebanese
opposition
to al-Karaki's
legacy
became
less
circumspect. Al-Husayn
b. CAbd
al-Samad,
for
example,
authored an
essay
critical of al-Karaki's
qibla
calculations. His as-
sociate and friend
Shaykh Zayn
al-Din visited the
great mosque
in
Kufa after al-Karaki's death and the Ottoman seizure of the area in
941/1534 and
pointedly
refused to
pray
in the
qibla
direction
speci-
fied
by
al-Karaki after the
939/1532firman.87
Given their continued
avoidance of Safawid
territory,
such overt criticism of al-Karaki's
qibla
formulations constituted both condemnation of the association
with the Safawid court from which al-Karaki had derived the
authority
and
power
to
implement
his
rulings
and of the
authority
claimed
by
Safawid Shiism itself. As such their
polemic
was a
clear,
public repudiation
of Safawid Shiism
itself,
less
circumspect
than
86
On the discontinuation of the
prayer services,
see our "Towards a Recon-
sideration", 170nl7,
and note 97.
87
See the discussion in our "Towards a
Reconsideration",
181- 185 and note
80.
Al-Husayn's hostility
to al-Karaki
may
also have
sparked
his
spreading or,
at
least later
being
associated
with,
the
report
al-Karaki died from
poisoning,
as noted
by
Afandi
(ibid, 3:442). Shaykh Zayn
al-Din first visited
Iraq only
in
946/1539,
five
years
after the area's
capture by
the Ottomans. His second visit to the area was in
955-956/1548-1549, perhaps
a visit to
al-Husayn.
See
al-CAmili, al-Durr, 2:
169,
179-180; Tunukabuni, ibid,
250. The
timing
of his visits indicates the
Shaykh
avoided eastern
Iraq
and the shrines while
they
were under Safawid
control,
from
914/1508 to 941/1534. See also note 94. On later Twelver criticism of al-Karaki's
qibla formulations, likely by
an Iranian
cleric,
see our "Towards a Reconsidera-
tion", 182f.
A.J.
NEWMAN
their own earlier
responses
to Safawid Shiism and al-Karaki and that
of earlier
generations
of Lebanese clerics
during
al-Karaki's life-
time.
At the same time
Zayn
al-Din al-cAmili and
al-Husayn
b. CAbd
al-Samad suffered no such harassment from Ottoman officials in
this
period
as to drive them to
emigration. Zayn
al-Din travelled un-
hindered in Ottoman
territory, journeying
into eastern
Iraq
some-
time after the Ottoman
capture
of
Baghdad
in 941/1534.
During
a
visit to Istanbul in 952/1545 the
Shaykh actually
received an
ap-
pointment
to teach all five schools of Islamic law-i.e.
including
the
Twelver Shii-in
Bacalbak,
where he was
teaching
in 953/1546.
Al-Husayn,
who had
participated
in an
open
discussion of the Ima-
mate with non-Twelver clerics in
Aleppo, accompanied Zayn
al-Din
to Istanbul and received a
teaching appointment
in
Baghdad.88
Only
the
Shaykh's
sudden execution
by
the Ottomans in 965/1557
obliged al-Husayn-then nearly fifty years
old-to abandon Otto-
man for Safawid
territory, taking
with him his
thirteen-year-old son,
Shaykh
Baha'i.
They
arrived in Safawid Iran
nearly sixty years
after
Ism&Cil's
profession
of faith in 907/1501.89
88
Al-CAmili, al-Durr, 2:158-176, 182. Cf.
Tunukabuni, ibid, 258. On al-
Husayn,
see
al-Amin, ibid, 26:94, 89-92.
Al-Husayn's apparent
dedication of a
945/1538
essay
to Sultan
Sulayman may
have
given
him some additional
credibility
with the Ottomans in this
period.
See R.P.A.
Dozy,
Catalogus
Codicum Orientalium
Bibliothecae Academiae
Lugduno Batavae, 1, Leiden, 1851, pp.
343-44. See also al-
Tehrani, ibid, 24: 367-8,
where no such dedication is noted.
89
See our "Towards a
Reconsideration",
169-170. For
al-Husayn's
later
career with the
Safawids,
see
ibid, 170-173,
179,181-182; Mroueh, ibid, 52-53,
63;
notes 90-92.
Relying especially
on references
by al-Husayn
in his "Wuufil al-
Akhyar"-composed
in Mashhad-to an
apparently living Zayn
al-Din as conclu-
sive evidence that
al-Husayn
was in Iran
prior
to his teacher's
execution,
Stewart
recently suggested
that
al-Husayn
b. CAbd al-Samad entered Iran sometime
prior
to the death of
Shaykh Zayn
al-Din.
Danish-pazhufh
also
suggested al-Husayn
came
to Iran in 960/1553.
Concrete evidence on
al-Husayn's
exact movements in this
period,
as noted in
our "Towards a
Reconsideration",
is at best inconsistent. As to the
dating
of
"Wusul
al-Akhyar", Danish-pazhfih himself, having
considered the same and
other references in the
treatise,
concluded it was
completed
ca.
969/1561,
that is
after
Zayn
al-Din's
death; elsewhere, however,
he noted the existence of a
copy
of
the
essay
made in Tius
apparently
in 960/1553!
Danish-pazhfih
most
likely
based his own assertion as to
al-Husayn's
movements
on such sources as the
twelfth/eighteenth-century
Lu 'lu'at
al-Bahrayn,
which states
Baha'i,
born in
953/1547,
was 7
years
old when his father came to Iran. Other
106
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 107
The murder of
Shaykh Zayn
al-Din and
al-Husayn's flight
did
not
spark
a mass
emigration
to Safawid
territory
of Arab Twelver
clerics
living
under Ottoman domination.
(The
brief effort to re-
establish Sunnism under Ismail II
(984/1576- 1577) only
added to
clerical
uncertainty
about the commitment to the Twelver faith
among
both the Safawid elite and the
population.) Among
CAmili
scholars neither
Zayn
al-Din's own son al-Hasan
(d.
1011/1602-
1603), aged
seven at his father's
death,
or his relative
and associate
Sayyid
Muhammad b. cAl1 al-CAmili
(d. 1009/1600)
were removed from Ottoman to Safawid
territory. Indeed, although
the two studied in the Lebanon with
Zayn
al-Din's associate
al-Husayn
b. CAbd
al-Samad,
who himself later left for Safawid ter-
ritory,
instead of
following
their teacher's lead both later travelled
to Arab
Iraq
and studied with the Iranian clerics CAbdallah al-Yazdi
sources, including
earlier
biographical works,
are less
categorical
or
simply
con-
tradictory
about Baha'i's
age
at his arrival in Iran.
By
contrast with Danish-
pazhuh,
for
example,
the
biographer
Muhsin al-Amin
(d. 1373/1952),
based both
on references
by
Iskander
Beg
Munshi-who
incorrectly
referred to
al-Husayn
as
"'Abd al-Samad"-that
al-Husayn
had come to Iran after his teacher's death and
al-Husayn's
denunciation of the Ottomans as
"tyrants
and
hypocrites"
in his
"Wusul
al-Akhyar", categorically rejected
al-Bahrani's
dating
of Baha'i's
age
as
seven when he entered Iran and the
corollary
that
al-Husayn
came to Iran before
his teacher's death.
Neither Stewart nor
Danish-pazhfih suggested why, prior
to
Zayn
al-Din's exe-
cution, al-Husayn might
have described the Ottomans in such terms and fled their
territory
when he had
only recently
been
appointed
to a
teaching post
in
Baghdad
and when the disdain of both
al-Husayn
and his teacher for al-Karaki's association
with the Safawids was clear. The execution of his teacher would have been sufficient
incentive for
al-Husayn
to have abandoned Ottoman
territory
with his
very preg-
nant wife. See D.J. Stewart,
"A
Biographical
Notice on Baha' al-Din
al-'Amili",
Journal of
the American Oriental
Society,
Vol.
111,
number 3
(July-September,
1991),
pp. 564-567;
M.T.
Danish-pazhuh, ed.,
Fihrist-i
Kitdbkhdnih-yi Ihdd-yiAghd-yi Say-
yid
Muhammad Mishkat bi
Kitdbkhdnih-yi Dinishgd-yi Tehran, Tehran, 1330-1335,
5:1750-1752; M.T.
Danish-pazhfuh
and CA.N.
Munzavi, eds.,
Fihristi-i Nush-
khahdy-i
Khatti
Kitdbkhdna-yi
Markazi
Danishgdh-i Tehran, Tehran, 1330-1357,
15:4241; al-Amin,
ibid
(1979 edition),
26:
86; Iskander
Beg Munshi, ibid,
1:
247-248. See also the sources cited in our "Towards a
Reconsideration",
pp. 170-171,
nn.
14, 19,
and al-Bah.
rni, Lu'lu'at
al-Bahrayn, p.
26.
Al-Husayn's composition
of a
reply
for
Tahmasp
to a letter sent him
by
the Otto-
man Sultan
Sulayman
(dated
as 962/1555 in our "Towards a
Reconsideration",
170),
inasmuch as it concerned the "release of his
(i.e.
the
Sultan's) son",
in fact
may
well have been
composed
after
966/1559,
when the Sultan's son
Bayezid
defected to the Safawids. On
Bayezid,
see
Allouche, ibid, 145;
Iskander
Beg
Munshi, ibid,
1: 166-173.
A.J.
NEWMAN
(d. 981/1573)
and Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Ardabil
(d. 993/1585),
resident there after themselves
abandoning
Safawid
territory.
Al-Hasan b.
Zayn
al-Din and S. Muhammad exhibited further dis-
taste for the Safawids
by
later
abandoning
a
pilgrimage
to Mashhad
for fear CAbbas I would
press
them into
government
service.90
Among
Twelver clerics in the
Hijaz
and the Gulf later in the
tenth/sixteenth
century
unease with Safawid Shiism was also
clearly
still
present.
In the
Hijaz
the
naqib Sayyid
cAli b. al-Hasan b. cAli
b.
Shudqum
al-Madani
(d. 960/1552), although
he
resigned
his
po-
sition and travelled to
India,
made no effort to associate with the
Safawids. His son al-Hasan
(d. 999/1591)
himself later also
resigned
as
naqib
and travelled to India.
Although
he
journeyed through
Iran
and met
Tahmasp
in
964/1556,
he returned to and died in India.91
In the Gulf there is no record such
prominent
scholars as
Shaykh
Dawud b. cAbdallah b. Abui
Shafiz,
who had his own school in
Bahrayn,
or his
contemporary
al-Husayn
b. al-Hasan al-Gharifi
(d. 1001/1593)
had
any
contact with the Safawids.92
90
Both al-Yazdi and al-Ardabili had studied
together
under students of al-
Dawwani
(on
whom see note
25)-who
himself had denounced Ismail-at the
school in Shiraz founded
by
al-Dashtaki after his dismissal from
Tahmasp's
court.
Al-Yazdi left Safawid
territory
sometime between 962/1553 and 967/1558. Al-
Ardabili authored an
essay
critical of al-Karaki's
kharij
formulations. On these
scholars,
see
al-tAmill, al-Durr, 2:199-209; Afandi, ibid, 1:225-234, 5:132-134,
3:191-194,
1:56-57; al-Khwansari, ibid, 2:296-302, 7:45-56; al-Amin, ibid,
21:158-173, 46:103-107, 9:192-198; Madelung,
"Shi'ite
Discussions",
201. On
al-Ardabili see
Arjomand,
ibid, 137,
and our "Towards a
Reconsideration",
176n35. On the later debates on
kharij,
see
Madelung, ibid, 201
-202; Tabataba'i,
Kharij,
56-59. It should be noted that
al-Husayn
b. 'Abd
al-$amad,
refused
per-
mission
by
Tahmasp
in the 980s/1570s to take his son
Shaykh
Baha'i-then in his
thirties-with him to
perform
the
hajj,
himself never returned to Safawid
territory.
Indeed, from
Bahrayn just prior
to his
death, al-Husayn
wrote his son
questioning
his own earlier association with and service to the Safawids. See
al-Amin, ibid,
26:342.
91
See
al-Amin, ibid, 41:61, 22:109f; Afandi, ibid, 1:236-243. In 983/1575
al-Hasan received an
ij'za
from
al-Husayn
b. 'Abd
al-Samad, who had
by
then left
Safawid
territory
and had
repudiated
his earlier association with the court. See al-
Tehrani, ibid, 2:87. See also notes
61,
89.
92
Al-Amin, ibid, 25:106-108; al-Ba.hramn, Anwdr, 80-81, 81-84.
Shaykh
Dawfud debated
al-Husayn
b. CAbd al-Samad when the latter arrived in
Bahrayn
in 983-984/1575-1576.
108
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 109
Summary
and Conclusions
Western-language
scholars have
long suggested
that
following
IsmC'il's
profession
of faith at the
capture
of Tabriz
many
Arab
Twelver scholars
emigrated
to Safawid
territory
to
participate
in the
effort to
spread
the faith
throughout
Safawid
territory.
CAli al-
Karaki is cited in
many secondary
sources as one of the
many
Arab
scholars
supposed
to have
journeyed
to Safawid
territory
in the
fifty
years
after Tabriz and the few criticisms of al-Karaki
by
his contem-
poraries
noted in these sources are often described as
purely per-
sonal in
origin.93
Doubtless al-Karaki was not without
support among
contem-
porary
Twelver clerics and he
may
not have been the
only
Arab
Twelver cleric to have
emigrated
to Safawid
territory
to assist the
Safawids in their
propagation
of the faith
during
the first
fifty years
after Tabriz.94
Indeed, among
al-Karaki's students were a number
93
Arjomand,
for
example, argued
the basis of the
disagreement
between al-
Karaki and
al-Qatifi
was "the
jealousy
of
al-Qatifi
and the scholars from his
region"
with "IsmiCil's
(sic)
choice of
[al-Karaki]
as
spokesman
for Shiism" and
"Ismiail's considerable donations to al-Karaki for the maintenance of his students
and madrasas". He branded
al-Qatifi's
challenge
to al-Karaki's as "insincere".
Arjomand,
The
Shadow,
136. See also
Savory,
"The
Principle
Offices ...
Tahmisp",
82.
94
Of the clerics named
by
Arjomand
(ibid, 302n30)
as
having
come to Iran in
this
period-al-Karaki, Shaykh Zayn al-Din, al-Husayn
b. CAbd
al-$amad,
cAli al-
Minshir, and Mir
Sayyid Husayn-,
however,
only
al-Karaki can be shown to
have left his homeland for Safawid
territory specifically
to associate with the court
during
the first
fifty years
after Tabriz. CAli al-Minshar
al-CAmili,
a student of al-
Karaki and later
Shaykh
al-Islim in
Isfahan,
met
al-Husayn
b. cAbd
al-$amad
at
his arrival in Iran. Other than his
nisba, however,
there is no evidence of his
origin
or when or under what circumstances he came to Iran.
Indeed,
he was
long
a resi-
dent of India before
coming
to Iran. "Mir
Sayyid Husayn"
was
Sayyid al-Husayn
al-Karaki al-CAmili
(d. 1001/1593),
the
grandson
of cAll al-Karaki and son of
al-Hasan b. Jacfar. He can be
placed
in Iran
only possibly
as
early
as 966/1569,
when he dedicated an
essay
on
Friday prayer
to the
shih,
or
perhaps
962/1565 or
959/1552,
when he
apparently
rededicated to the shaih a treatise
originally
written
for
Sultin
Ahmad Khin
Husayni
Gilani
(d. 1009/1600).
References to his
having
been Shaikh al-Isldm at Ardabil and later been at court most
likely
relate to his subse-
quent
career in Safawid Iran. See
Afandi, ibid, 4:266f, 3:443,
2:62f;
al-Khwinsari,
ibid, 2:343, 4:266, 365, 2:320f; al-Nuri, ibid, 3:420; al-Tehrini, ibid, 8:232;
18:353;
Danesh-pazhfuh, ed., Fihrist-i
Kitdbkhdnih-yi
Ihdi-yiAgd-yi
SayyidMuhammadMishkat,
6:2222-2226;
notes
60, 82; Lambton,
"Quis"
p. 140; idem, State, pp. 267-268;
Iskander
Beg Munshi, ibid, 1:245, 205, 33, 320; 2:631. Mroueh
(ibid, 154)
misread
A.J.
NEWMAN
of individuals whose nisba
suggests
a Lebanese or Gulf
connection,
although
identification of
place
of
origin
based on nisba alone is cer-
tainly problematic95,
and it
certainly
cannot be inferred all who
received an
ijaza
from him
subsequently
entered court
service,
let
alone remained in Safawid
territory.96
However,
it is also clear that
throughout
the
half-century
after
Tabriz Arab Twelver clerics resident in the
Hijaz,
the
Gulf,
Arab
Iraq,
and the Lebanon were adamant in their refusal to associate
with the Safawid court. To be
sure,
there is no direct evidence the
HIijazi
clerics who authored the letter to their brethren in
Isfahan,
those who rioted
against
the Safawids in Basra and
al-Ahsa,
or the
CAmili clerics who
consistently
avoided Safawid
entanglements
ac-
cepted
all the elements of Ibrahim
al-Qatifif's
polemic, especially
his
distinctly
Akhbari
repudiation
of the status of the
faqih
as na'ib al-
imam in the occultation.97
Al-Qatifi's
references in his
khardj
essay,
however, suggest
a number of
clerics,
at least some of whom were
the reference to
Shaykh Zayn
al-Din
separating
himself from his student and bi-
ographer
al-Jazzini
(on
whom see note
60)
to
suggest
the latter
emigrated
to Khur-
asan. In
fact,
as is clear from the
original
reference in al-Jazzini's
biography-and
was
accepted by
later clerical
biographers-,the
reference was to the
apparent
and
unexplained
intention of the
Shaykh
himself to travel to
Khurasan,
which
trip
never occurred. On
Shaykh Zayn al-Din,
see notes
60, 87,
97. Al-Jazzini himself
died and was buried
inJabal
tAmil. See
al-CAmill, al-Durr, 2:151; al-Tehrani, ibid,
3:136-137; al-Amin, ibid, 46:26-29.
95
By
nisba alone
Shaykh
Baha'l was Lebanese
but, given
his removal
by
his
father to Iran at an
early age,
he can
hardly
be counted as
having
himself come to
Iran
specifically
to assist the court in
propagation
of the faith. Al-Karaki's son CAbd
al-?Ali
(926/1520-993/1585), although probably
born in
Najaf-where
his father
was then based-and known to have been buried in
Iran,
was still
given
the nisba
al-CAmili in late
Safawid-period biographies.
See al-Hurr
al-CAmill, ibid, 1:110,
and
Afandi, ibid,
3:131. See also Iskander
Beg Munshi, ibid, 1:244-45; al-
Khwansari, ibid, 4:199, 202; al-Amin, ibid, 38:41; Arjomand, ibid, 137.
96
Lists of al-Karaki's students can be found in
Afandi, ibid, 3:442f; al-Majlisi,
ibid, 108:40f; al-Tehrani, ibid, 1:213f; Mroueh, ibid, 47,
135. One of his students
may
have been the brother of
al-Husayn
b. CAbd
al-$amad.
97
Shaykh
Zayn
al-Din
al-CAmili,
for
example,
envisioned an
expanded
role for
the
faqih
as na'ib in the collection and distribution of al-zakit and al-khums.
Al-Husayn
b. CAbd
al-$amad
and the
Bahrayni
scholar
al-Husayn
b. al-Ghariff
favoured the
performance
of
congregational prayer during
the occultation. On
Shaykh Zayn al-Din, see
Calder, "Zakat", 477-480; idem, "Khums", 44-45,
47. On
al-Husayn
b. CAbd
al-$amad,
see our "Towards a
Reconsideration", 170,
170n17. On
al-Gharifi,
see
al-Tehrani, ibid, 15:70.
110
THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 111
based in Arab
Iraq,
considered him a skilful
spokesman
for their
objections
to the
growing authority
of
thefaqih
within the Twelver
community postulated by
the Usulis and al-Karaki's exercise of the
faqih's prerogatives
in
particular,
as well as Usull
jurisprudence
in
general.
Elements of the Twelver
Iraqi
artisanal and
peasant
classes
certainly supported aspects
of
al-Qat.ifi's
criticisms-even if
they
may
not have understood or
supported
all the doctrinal
specifics
of
his
arguments.
The criticisms of these different
groups
of Twelver
scholars and
laybelievers
resident outside Safawid
territory
inter-
sected in the
rejection
of the Safawid identification with Twelver
Shiism,
al-Karakl's association with the
court,
and
aspects
of the
manner in which al-Karaki
interpreted
and exercised his
authority
as an
openly-acknowledged representative
of the court. The
open-
ness of that criticism was
frequently
related to
larger political
events
and trends.
Throughout
the first Safawid
century,
the continued
strength
of
the Twelver centres in Arab
Iraq,
the
Gulf,
andJabal
CAmil, provid-
ed the
independent
material basis for a focus of Twelver faith and
scholarship. Indeed,
on
balance,
the
majority
of the
prominent
Twelver clerics of the tenth/sixteenth
century
resided and studied
outside Safawid Iran. The existence of these centres
permitted
the
articulation of the
critique
of Safawid Shiism in
general
and the
manner of al-Karaki's association with the faith in
particular
dis-
cussed in this
essay.
In the eleventh/seventeenth
century, however,
in an
improved
politico-military atmosphere,
the
patronage
of the Safawid court
and the Safawid
political
and socio-economic elite established and
supported
Twelver centres in
Iran,
in
Isfahan,
for
example.
These
Iranian centres became a focus for the
region's
Twelver
community,
attracting
both Iranians and
Arabs, producing many
of Twelver
scholars
prominent
in the second Safawid
century,98
and
promot-
ing
Persian as a
language
of
expression
of works on Twelver doctrine
and
especially practice-the
latter as
part
of
yet
another effort to
spread
Twelver Shiism
among
the
Persian-speaking population.
Scholars from these centres became close associates of the
court,
98
Newman,
"Towards a
Reconsideration",
174-176.
112
A.J.
NEWMAN
continuing
al-Karakil's
legacy
of service to and
support
of the
Safawid
agenda
for Twelver Shiism.
As the faith became more
firmly
established in
Iran, however,
conflicts over
points
of Twelver doctrine and
practice, including
dis-
agreements
over the relation between
clergy
and state and the na-
ture of clerical
authority
in the occultation
inevitably
found
expres-
sion in Iran as well.