Page 14 - ISLAM Rock n Roll

The Safawids: a Su –Shiʿi synthesis The second great early modern Islamic dynasty to
emerge from the 15th century onward was the Safawid Empire. Its origins were in the political fragmentation that had followed the earlier collapse of the Mongol khanate
of Greater Iran. Such a respite proved favourable for the growing activities of various religio-political movements, most of which were essentially Shiʿi or in uenced by Shiʿi ideas and included the Nizari Ismailis, who had survived clandestinely a er the Mongol destruction of Alamut in 1256, the Twelver Shiʿis and certain Shiʿi-related movements with millenarian or Mahdist aspirations for the deliverance of the oppressed, such as the Sarbadars, the Huru s,
the Nuqtawis and the Mushaʿshaʿ. Given that these Shiʿi tendencies were spreading in predominantly Sunni regions it was no surprise that some Shiʿi-related movements were occasionally persecuted by various Sunni rulers for their perceived revolutionary message. Nevertheless, the number of people supporting these Shiʿi movements, o en from Shiʿi–Su backgrounds, began to increase. However, instead of any previous form of Shiʿism being propagated what happened was that a new type of popular Shiʿism began
to appear across Anatolia, Iran and Central Asia, which
was eclectic in nature and expressed largely in Su form. And that culminated in the movement propagated by the Safawid shaykhs, Junayd, Haydar and Ismaʿil and their Turkoman tribal followers.
The historian Marshall Hodgson (d. 1968) designated this popular Shiʿi phenomenon as ‘tariqa Shiʿism’, since it was transmitted mainly through certain Su tariqas. These tariqas remained outwardly Sunni, however, following one of the Sunni madhhabs, but were also particularly devoted to ʿAli b. Abi Talib and the ahl al-bayt (People of the House) of the Prophet; ʿAli being included in the lineage to the Prophet (silsila) of the shaykhs of these Sunni Su s. Eventually, though, some of these Su tariqas professed Shiʿism, and
in this atmosphere of religious eclecticism ʿAlid loyalism became more widespread and Shiʿi elements began to be superimposed, however super cially, on Sunni Islam. The result was that by the 15th century there was a general increase in Shiʿi allegiance throughout Iran, although the
majority still adhered to Sunni Islam. The historian Claude Cahen (d. 1991) referred to this process as the ‘Shiʿitisation of Sunnism’, as opposed to the conscious propagation of Shiʿism of any speci c form, and it prepared Iran for both the o cial adoption under the Safawids of Shiʿi Islam in its Twelver form and an ever-closer relationship between both Twelver Shiʿism and Su sm and Nizari Ismailism and Su sm.
Several Su tariqas played a leading role in this spread of Shiʿism including the Nurbakhshiyya, which was an o shoot of the Kubrawiyya tariqa involved in the conversion of the Il-Khanid ruler Ghazan, and the Niʿmat-Allahiyya, which had been founded by Shah Niʿmat Allah Nur al-Din b. ʿAbd Allah Wali (d. ca. late 14th–15th century). Both these tariqas eventually professed Shiʿism, but it was the Safawiyya
tariqa that established a Shiʿi state in Iran, their political and military success culminating in a Safawid shaykh conquering the land of Iran and being proclaimed as Shah Ismaʿil.
The Safawiyya tariqa was founded by Shaykh Sa al-Din (d. 1334), an eminent Su shaykh and a Sunni of the Sha ʿi madhhab, and for whom the Safawid dynasty later claimed an ʿAlid genealogy back to the seventh Imam of the Twelver Shiʿis, Musa al-Kazim (d. 799). Centred in Ardabil, in northwestern Iran, the tariqa soon spread throughout the rest of Azarbayjan, eastern Anatolia, Syria and Khurasan, also acquiring a strong in uence over several Turkoman tribes in Azarbayjan and adjoining regions.
With Shaykh Sa ’s fourth successor, Junayd (d. 1460), the Safawiyya tariqa was transformed into a militant revolutionary movement. He was the rst Safawid shaykh to display Shiʿi sentiments combined with beliefs of the type manifested by the early Shiʿi ghulat. Characterised by millenarian expec- tations, due to an awareness that the 10th century of Islam was drawing ever near, and even dei cation of the order’s shaykhs, these beliefs had little in common with the doctrines of established Twelver Shiʿism, other than the veneration
of the Twelve Imams. He was expelled from Ardabil by
his relatives and found refuge among the Turkoman tribes of Eastern Anatolia and his disciples (murids) among the Turkomans, who had little understanding of Shiʿism of any particular branch but were inspired by their belief in their
282
Painting made in Qazwin or Tabriz (Iran, mid-16th century) showing a Su and courtier conversing at a shrine. The painting is inscribed with a poem:
‘That one who has su ered torment in the lane of separation and who has been scorched by the love of the sun-faced ones comes to the master of love and declares his condition, but before he hears the answer from the master he dies from the severity of the weather and extreme cold.’
(opposite above) Detail of a steel dervish sta forming the name of ʿAli, Iran, ca. 18th and 19th centuries.
(le ) Detail of a beaten and engraved, tinned copper and cast brass kashkul, dervish’s begging bowl (Iran, rst half of the 16th century). Engraved with Shiʿi invocations and the names of its various owners, the kashkul was probably kept in a mosque. Painting made in Qazwin or Tabriz (Iran, mid-16th century) showing a Su and courtier conversing at a shrine.
shaykh, became a loyal ghting force following Junayd in a ghazwa against the kingdoms of the Caucasus.
A er Junayd’s death, in battle against the Christians
of the Caucasus, his policies were continued by his son
and successor, Haydar, who was responsible for instructing his Su soldiers to adopt the scarlet headgear of 12 gores (triangular pieces of cloth), commemorating the Twelve Imams, for which they became known as the Qizilbash (Turkish, red head). Haydar was also killed on campaign in 1488, ghting the Muslim ruler of Shirwan in the Caucasus, as was his son and successor, Sultan ʿAli, in 1493. But the Safawiyya tariqa, already supported by a multitude of loyal adherents among the powerful Turkoman tribes, was further empowered when Sultan ʿAli’s successor, his youthful brother, Ismaʿil, was presented to the Qizilbash, as the representative of the hidden Imam of the Twelvers, and possibly even the awaited Mahdi himself. With Ismaʿil at their head, the Qizilbash seized Azarbayjan from the Aq Qoyunlu dynasty and entered their capital, Tabriz, in the summer of 1501. Ismaʿil now proclaimed himself king (shah) and declared Shiʿism the o cial religion of his newly founded Safawid state, inaugurating a new era for Shiʿi Islam and the various Shiʿi communities. During the next decade, Shah Ismaʿil i
(r. 1501–1524) brought all of Iran under his control, and his dynasty, under which Iran e ectively became a nation- state, ruled until 1722.
283