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Some Observations on Religion in Safavid Persia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Hamid Algar
Hamid Algar*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
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Extract

It is indisputable that the religious history both of the Safavid period and of the two centuries that preceded it remains inadequately explored. There existed in Transoxania and Anatolia, as well as the Iranian plateau, a plethora of groups and individuals with diverse tendencies and aspirations that it is difficult, in our present state of knowledge, to synthesize into a comprehensible whole. There are however a number of minor observations on Professor Nasr's presentation that I wish to make. The first is an expression of respectful disagreement, and the others are intended to direct attention to matters not mentioned in his otherwise comprehensive paper.

Professor Nasr's contention that Sufism owes its essential origin to Shiᶜism, and that therefore its suppression in the Safavid period ought to be regarded as a return to the womb that bore it, is highly contestable.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 1-2: Studies on Isfahan: Proceedings of the Isfahan Colloquium, Part I , Spring Winter 1974 , pp. 287 - 293
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1974

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References

Notes

1. Corbin, Henry, “Sih Guftār dar bāb-i Tārīkh-i Maᶜnavīyāt-i Īrān,” Majalla-yi Dānishkada-yi Adabīyāt- i Tihrān, vol. V (1337/1959), p. 56.Google Scholar

2. En Islam Iranien (Paris: 1972), vol. III, pp. 9–11.Google Scholar

3. “Les Kubrawiya entre Sunnisme et Shiisme aux Huitième et Neuvième Siècles de l'Hégire,” Revue des Etudes Islamiques (1961), pp. 61-142.

4. Mirṣād al-ᶜIbād min al-Mabda’ ila 1-Maᶜād, ed. Riyāḥī, Muḥammad Amīn (Tehran: 1352/1973), p. 20.Google Scholar

5. Ibid., pp. 244, 258.

6. Hujjat al-Abrār dar Asāmī-yi Auliyā-yi Kibār, Bibliothèque Nationale, ancien fonds persan, 1226, ff. 103b-173b. Some information on Khazīnī and another work of his is to be found in Fuad Köprülü, Türk Edebiyatinda İlk Mutasawiflar, 2nd ed. (Ankara: 1960), p. 323.Google Scholar

7. See Münib, Bandirmalizâde Ahmed, Mirat at-Turuk (Istanbul: 1306/1889), p. 12.Google Scholar

8. Muḥammad b. Husayn b.ᶜAbdullāh Qazvīnī, Silsilanāma-yi Khwājagān-i Naqshband, ms. Laleli (Istanbul: 1381), ff. 9a-llb.Google Scholar

9. Ibid., ff. 2b-3a. We may note in passing that Imam Jaᶜfar aṣ-Ṣādiq was also physically descended from Abū Bakr: his maternal grandfather was Qāsim b. Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr, one of the prominent tābiᶜīn.

10. Ḥāfiẓ Ḥusayn Karbalā'ī Tabrīzī, Rauḍāt al-Janān wa Jannat al-Jinān, ed. Jaᶜfar Sulṭān al-Qurrā'ī (Tehran: 1344/1965), I, p. 135.Google Scholar

11. Maktūbāt (Lucknow: 1306/1889), III, pp. 247–248.Google Scholar Sirhindī's Risāla dar Radd-i Ravāfid is printed as an appendix to this edition of the Maktūbāt.

12. Dīvān (Bulaq: 1260/1844), pp. 41–42, 68.Google Scholar

13. See Aubin, Jean, “La Politique Religieuse des Safavides,” Le Shiᶜisme Imamite (Paris: 1970), pp. 237–238.Google Scholar

14. See Mazzaoui, Michel, The Origins of the Safavids (Wiesbaden: 1972), p. 73.Google Scholar

15. Minorsky, V., “The Poetry of Shāh Ismāᶜīl I,” BSOAS, vol. X (1940-1943), pp. 1006a–1053a.Google Scholar

16. The subject has been examined in detail by Eberhard, Elke in Osmanische Polemik gegen die Safawiden im 16. Jahrhundert nach arabischen Handschriften (Freiburg: 1970).Google Scholar

17. On this topic see the interesting study of Asrar, Ahmet, Osmanlilarin Dini Siyaseti ve İslam Alemi (Istanbul: 1972).Google Scholar