Download PDF | The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran: Power, Religion and Rhetoric (I.B. Tauris & Bips Persian Studies) 2009.
305 Pages
Colin P. Mitchell is Assistant Professor of History at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. After completing his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto, he has held both a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Fellowship and a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Cornell University.
Acknowledgements
The writing and completion of this book would have been impossible without the assistance and advice from a number of individuals and institutions. First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to my former supervisor, Maria Subtelny, for her never-ending support and inspiration. It was she who introduced me to the intricate world of medieval Perso-Islamic epistolography, and I imagine I would still be mired in an array of didactic epistolary manuals if not for her patient and insightful guidance. Other sources of scholarly tutelage during my doctoral degree include Virginia Aksan and Roger Savory, who both provided a wealth of suggestions and tips while writing a dissertation on the medieval Safavid dynasty. I would also like to thank Robert McChesney whose remarks as external examiner were invaluable. The transformation of this project from a doctoral dissertation to a formal academic text has taken me on a lengthy journey, during which I visited places and met individuals who each played a unique and often invaluable role.
I would formally like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for providing me with postdoctoral scholarships that allowed me to teach and research at the Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University. While sharing co-appointments to Near Eastern Studies and the Society for the Humanities at Cornell, I was able to significantly broaden the scope and depth of this research project. These fellowships also allowed research trips to Iran and Europe, and I would like to thank the Institut Français de Recherche en Iran for providing lodging and institutional support while staying in Tehran. A number of individuals were especially helpful during these sojourns, including Nasrullah Pourjavady, Ehsan Eshraqi, Reza Pourjavady, Ziva Vesel, Justine Lundau, and John Davidson. I would also like to thank the staff and administration of the Central University Library of Tehran University as well as the Library of the Majlis-i Shura-yi Islami. In addition, I would like to express my gratitude to the British Library, particularly Dr. Isa Waley, as well as the staff of the Bodleian Library at Oxford University and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Various individuals have been involved to some degree in helping this project along, either in the form of practical advice or taking time to read sections or chapters.
These include: Maria Subtelny, Sholeh Quinn, Bill Hanaway, Paul Losensky, Rudi Matthee, C.E. Bosworth, Sajjad Rizvi, Bert Fragner, Christoph Werner, Maria Szuppe, and Reza Pourjavady. I would also like to indicate my gratitude to Nasrin `Askari for her help with particularly problematic Persian texts. Likewise, I would like to thank my colleague, Amal Ghazal, for her assistance with Arabic translations. I would like to acknowledge the financial and intellectual support of my department and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of Dalhousie University. The logistical and financial assistance from the BIPS’ Persian Studies series, headed by Vanessa Martin, was very much appreciated, and I’d also like to thank the anonymous, external reviewers for their detailed, insightful comments on my manuscript. On the editorial front, I’m indebted to Paula Sarsen and Brenda Conroy for their tireless efforts. I would like to thank my parents and extended family, and I am grateful to my sons, Maxwell and Thomas, for providing distractions when they were most needed. Above all else, I cannot understate the sense of indebtedness I feel to my wife Jill for her unwavering support and love.
Introduction
The popular interpretation of the emergence of a robust empire under the Safavid dynasty in 906/1500–01 as a watershed in Iranian history is no surprise, given that one of the more dynamic historiographical undercurrents in this field has been the question of Iran’s ability to survive as a distinct cultural entity after successive periods of domination by Arabs, Turks, and Mongols.1 While the ethnic origins of the Safavid family remain unclear, this “Persian” dynasty promulgated Twelver Shi`ism as state doctrine and arguably laid the foundation in Iran for a well-entrenched and aggressive class of Shi`ite jurists and theologians, who were governed principally by a religious and legal framework first formed in the Arab world.
More satisfying explanations for understanding the endurance of an “Iranian” identity probably lie with the impressive variegation of Persian culture that had developed leading up to the Safavid period. Dating back to the Indo-Aryan large-scale migrations of the second millennium BCE, the Iranian Plateau has been an arena of acculturation on a dramatic scale: Mesopotamian jurisprudence, Zoroastrian dualism, Buddhist mystical philosophy, Indian mathematics, Semitic universalism, and Hellenistic political philosophy and ethics. The seventh-century spread of Islam and the subsequent supremacy of AraboIslamic culture between the eighth and eleventh centuries only added another dimension to the well-established traditions of syncretism in the region. With the strong Hellenistic and Byzantine influences at work, some have hypothesized an “Irano-Mediterranean” cultural frontier in which Islam “consummated” the monarchical and monotheistic trends of late antiquity.2
With the ongoing Turkic migrations from the Steppe Region after the tenth century and the dramatic arrival of the Mongols in the thirteenth century, “Greater Iran”—◊zarbijn, `Irq, the Iranian Plateau, Khursn, and Transoxania—had indeed emerged as a part of the Islamic world that was unsurpassed in religious and cultural plurality. This plurality—or at least the perception of it—was seriously challenged with the advent of the modern era. Beginning in the nineteenth century, strands of nationalist historiography emerged that openly praised the glories of preIslamic Iran while vilifying the stultification and backwardness of Muslim Arab civilization. This invigorated program of Persian cultural authority was bolstered by rereading and popularizing a number of “Iran-glorifying” texts, and as Tavakoli-Targhi has noted, mytho-historical texts like the Shh nmah gained authority and were recited popularly towards a “process of cultural transference that intensified the desire for a recovery of the ‘forgotten history’ of ancient Iran.”3 Intellectuals and literary figures of the Qajar period developed a narrative of a timeless “homeland” (va†an) and “patriotism” (˛ubb-i va†an), but it should be noted that some of this was in response to the imperial ambitions of the Ottoman, Russian, and British empires.4 If such Iranian nationalists worked stolidly to inflate the grandeur of pre-Islamic Persian history, they were frenetic in their efforts to distance themselves from Arabic culture and the Islamic faith; as the acerbic Arabophobe, Mırz Fat˛ `Alı Akhundzdah (1812–78), stated: “the Arabs were the cause of the Iranian people’s misfortune.… It has been 1,280 years now that the naked and starving Arabs have descended upon [Iran] and made [its] life miserable.”5 This concept of “Iranian-ness” was reinforced and promoted even more so during the Pahlavı era, and Mohammed Reza Shah did his utmost to link the regime with his ancient “Aryan” predecessors.6
For those elements of modern Iranian society that were deemed inconsistent with this greater cultural agenda, such as Arabic and Qur’nic scholars working in theological seminaries in Qum or popular Azeri cultural movements based in Tabrız, there was little accommodation. In 1979, Iran was set on a theocratic course, and the argument of a pre-Islamic age of glory became anathema, at least to the new clerical custodians. For the Ayatollah Khomeini, those mythical and historical kingships of ancient Iran were products of the “age of ignorance” (zamn-i jahliyya). Moreover, those caliphates and kingships that ruled after the seventh-century revelation of the message of Islam to the Prophet Mu˛ammad were a clear abrogation of Twelver Shi`ite doctrine: only a descendant of Mu˛ammad through `Alı, an Imam, could lead the Muslim community. Predictably, the Persian cultural predilections developed during the Qajar and Pahlavi periods were refashioned. Those pre-Islamic kings and heroes who dominated ancient Iranian mytho-history, like Darius and Rustam, were superceded by an Arab and Judaic “prophetography,” whereby Adam, Moses, Solomon, Jesus, and Mu˛ammad now stood in their place. The ancient Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism had enjoyed a certain degree of official sentimentality from the Pahlavi regime, as had the Baha’i community, but Zoroastrians and Baha’is alike found themselves marginalized after 1979.
On account of Twelver Shi`ite doctrine and orthopraxy, Arab personalities like `Alı, ˘asan, and ˘usain were especially vaunted, and religious rituals such as the `Ashüra commemoration of ˘usain’s martyrdom at Karbal became popular after decades of religious antipathy on the part of the Pahlavi regime. Officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran threatened to abolish the celebration of certain pre-Islamic Iranian festivals dating back to the Achaemenian period, most notably the marking of the New Year during the spring equinox. Concurrently, senior hierocrats directed state resources and manpower towards exclusive commemoration of events associated with early Arabo-Islamic history, such as the birth and death of the Prophet and the various martyrdoms of the Prophet’s descendants. These political turns and shifts have had no small impact on the historical study of Safavid Iran. Particularly, debate has persisted regarding the extent to which medieval Iranian dynasties like the Safavids balanced the respective appeals of pre-Islamic Iranian mytho-history and the golden Prophetic Age of seventh-century Medina and Mecca as sources of “collective self-view,” to use Dµrkheimian language. As noted by Colin Heywood in his celebrated essay on mytho-history and Ottoman studies, this notion of Islamic societies being moulded and characterized by appeals to different elements of their past has been a tenacious historiographical feature.7
The varying ramifications for such “classicism” was first articulated with any coherency by the notable Islamic historian, G. E. Von Grunebaum, who suggested that classicism in the Islamic context was in reality “a tool to assist in the realization of the aspirations of the age that elects to seek fulfillment on the conjured-shadow of an authoritative model past.”8 In terms of how such classicism dictated medieval Perso-Islamic dynasties like the Safavids, there remains much to be done.9 This study contends that the Safavid state developed a dynastic legitimacy that operated on a multiplicity of levels which, in turn, reflected the complex and multifaceted nature of the medieval eastern Islamic world. In building their dynastic ideology, the Safavid shahs successfully incorporated an extremely variegated collection of political, cultural, and religious identities in a way that later regimes of Iran were unable, or unwilling, to do. The Safavid appreciation for “mythistory”10 was not confined to Achaemenian and Sasanian periods, nor was their religious program defined strictly by orthodox Islamic interpretations of prophecy and eschatology. They were not exclusive in their patronage of different ethnic elements, and they would at times show religious tolerance toward indigenous and foreign non-Muslims. In Safavid official rhetoric, distributed both within and without Iran, imperial and pre-Islamic Persian icons stood side -by side with the greatest figures of Islamic prophecy and Shi`ite hagiography: King Darius and the Prophet Mu˛ammad, King Jamshıd and Imm `Alı, Emperor Anüshırvn and the sixth Imm Ja`far ∑diq.
This in itself is not entirely surprising, given that the medieval Islamic period was known for its amalgamation of Islamic orthodoxy with pre-Islamic Iranian concepts of justice, kingship, and social hierarchy.11 Rulers representing the dynasties of the Timurids, the Qara Qoyünlüs, the ◊q Qoyünlüs, the Uzbeks, the Mughals, and the Ottomans all accessed and rhetorically compared themselves to the mythical heroes and historical kings of Iran found in the Shh nmah, while at the same time standing as pious Muslim rulers who were implementing the Qur’nic Shari`ah. In the Safavid case, however, the dynasty was expected to rule on behalf of the Imamate (the twelve direct descendants of the Prophet Mu˛ammad) and cast themselves as both the custodians of the Shi`ite traditions and the legal plenipotentiaries of the ahl al-bait (Family of the Prophet). This issue of religious and cultural hybridity in premodern Iran has been recently examined by Kathryn Babayan in her study, Mystics, Monarchs, and Messiahs. Herein she identifies and examines a medieval Iranian “semiosphere,” in which symbols and coded language reflect two distinct pre-Islamic Persianate and Islamic-Alid ethoi and “cultural systems,” but Babayan notes that they are often merged and overlapped by religious scholars and bureaucrats during the Safavid period.12 In addition to these trilateral appeals—to pre-Islamic Iranian glory, the Abrahamic Prophetic traditions, and Imami hagiography and history—the Safavids also patronized and incorporated the Turkic and Mongolian elements of the Central Asian Steppe. The most visible manifestation of this dynamic was the Safavid promotion of Turkic amirs to prominent court positions and the use of their tribal clans and kinsmen for military purposes. This was not simply a policy of convenience for the Safavid shahs. They spoke Turkish, occasionally wrote poetry in Turkish, and remained true to the Central and Inner Asian tradition of an elaborate tent culture and a peripatetic royal court, despite popular categorizations of this dynasty as a “Persian” political renaissance. The Safavids had no problem rationalizing the inclusion of Turco-Mongolian titles of honour (khn, bahdur) to their ever-growing corpus of titulature, not to mention traditional Turco-Mongol notions of corporate familial sovereignty. The initial ethnic dichotomy in the Safavid court between Persian and Turk would soon become multitudinous as Shh Ism`ıl and his successors patronized, supported, and incorporated Kurds, Arabs, Georgians, Circassians, and Armenians into the Safavid imperial project. The Safavid ideological framework showed remarkable creativity and malleability with respect to different religious doctrines and their interpretation in the Safavid court. The decision by Shh Ism`ıl to propagate Twelver Shi`ism was an endorsement of both the Qur’nic-biblical cycle of prophecy, beginning with Adam and ending with Mu˛ammad, as well as the sanctity of the Imamate, or `Alı (son-in-law of the Prophet) and his descendants. This young ruler, however, emerged in a milieu defined by millenarian anxieties, which he manipulated by claiming divine sanction and support for a string of victories in his first ten years of power.
The central Islamic world of the early sixteenth century was an unprecedented era with respect to contested space and competitive legitimacies, and the resulting ideological programs of investing political sovereignty with spiritual authority were undoubtedly “best illustrated in the triumph of the Safavi movement Much to the distaste of orthodox Sunni and Shi`ite elements alike, Shh Ism`ıl would continue to present himself in a messianic light to his Turkic tribal adherents as long as he continued to enjoy military and political success. The presentation of the Safavid shah as “the Perfect Man” (al-insn al-kmil), in turn, reflected a strong Neoplatonic/Gnostic influence at work, which had been articulated systematically by the school of mystical philosophy rooted in the writings of Ibn `Arabı. While these proclivities would be tempered, vestiges of such apocalyptic and Gnostic imagery would continue to be represented in Safavid ideology throughout the sixteenth century. In addition to mollifying Turkic Qizilbsh14 supporters, any mystical dimension to Safavid dynastic rhetoric was instrumental in securing the support of the large number of different Sufi orders, or †arıqahs. Such †arıqahs dominated the religio-political landscape of sixteenth-century Iran and Central Asia, and their support and ultimate assimilation were considered imperative for a nascent dynasty like the Safavids. Thus, it is difficult to see the “formational” reigns of Ism`ıl (1501–24), ‡ahmsp (1524–76), and `Abbs (1589–1629) through an exclusive lens of Persian Twelver Shi`ism, which in turn allowed for the formation of a national identity.15 This is not to deny the centrality of Twelver Shi`ism to the Safavid imperial project but simply to point out that there was a panoply of important religious, ethnic, and political constituencies in play during the sixteenth century. Indeed, the underlying premise of this present work is that Safavid ideological pretensions in the sixteenth century were reflections of this unparalleled heterogeneity, and that this malleability allowed them to survive the transition from parochial mystical movement to political empire and emerge as a viable, premodern Islamic state.
During this period, the Safavid shahs relied on an impressively variegated range of legitimization, which included `Alid messianic rhetoric (to mobilize their zealot nomadic adherents); Turco-Mongol symbols and apocryphal legends (to accentuate martial traditions and a sense of loyalty to Steppe); legalistic and orthopraxic aspects of Twelver Shi`ite doctrine; ancient, pre-Islamic Iranian notions of divine kingship and statecraft; and, lastly, a vigorous commitment to citing Abrahamic Prophetic history. This issue of shifting legitimacies in Safavid Iran has been studied from a variety of perspectives, including Kathryn Babayan and Sholeh Quinn.16 Whether it was court chronicles like Khvndamır’s ˘abıb al-siyar and Iskander Beg Munshı’s Trıkh-i `lam r-yi `Abbsı or Shh ‡ahmsp’s memoirs (Tazkirahyi ‡ahmsp), various episodes in the history of the Safavids as both a religious movement and an imperial dynasty were interpreted and profiled to best suit the legitimacy that was in vogue at the time. This present study operates from similar premises but instead focuses on the Safavid state chancellery (dıvn-i insh or dr al-insh) to best understand these issues of collective and elite self-view in sixteenth-century Iran. The Safavids inherited and developed a healthy respect for diplomatic correspondence (tarassul), which will be discussed in more detail further on, and we thankfully have access to a sizeable corpus of epistolary evidence for the sixteenthand seventeenth centuries. While the majority of these letters, missives, and epistles have been collected and edited,17 little has been done by way of approaching them with a greater historiographical agenda.18 The overarching approach of this project is that diplomatic epistolary evidence from the Safavid court is a valuable index to this aforementioned issue of shifting legitimacies in the sixteenth century, whereby a number of paradigmatic discourses (mystical, millenarian, hierocratic, kingly, imperial) were adopted and exchanged in a relatively short period of time.
The different constituent sections of such letters—salutatios, intitulatios, inscriptios, narratios, poetry, rhymed prose—comprise a wealth of prose and poetic material, which rhetorically manipulate and provide commentary on this wide-ranging collection of mythical, historical, and religious personalities. With each modification in dynastic legitimacy, Safavid epistolary stylists (munshıs) and secretaries (ktibs) incorporated a new body of tropes, metaphors, similes, and allusions to best present their current shah to the court and the outside world. At the same time, Safavid chancellery officials were subject to stylistic influences from both preexisting dynasties (Timurids, ◊q Qoyünlü) as well as contemporaries (Ottomans, Mughals). The rhetorical epistolary tools available to the average Safavid stylist or chancellor were indeed wide in scope and deep in complexity.
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