Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History Volume 20. Iran, Afghanistan and the Caucasus (1800-1914) 9004471685, 9789004471689

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Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History Volume 20. Iran, Afghanistan and the Caucasus (1800-1914)

Edited by David Thomas and John Chesworth With Reza Pourjavady Douglas Pratt

Christian-Muslim Relations A Bibliographical History

History of Christian-Muslim Relations Editorial Board Jon Hoover (University of Nottingham) Sandra Toenies Keating (Providence College) Tarif Khalidi (American University of Beirut) Suleiman Mourad (Smith College) Gabriel Said Reynolds (University of Notre Dame) Mark Swanson (Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago) David Thomas (University of Birmingham)

Volume 48 Christians and Muslims have been involved in exchanges over matters of faith and morality since the founding of Islam. Attitudes between the faiths today are deeply coloured by the legacy of past encounters, and often preserve centuries-old portrayals. The History of Christian-Muslim Relations, Texts and Studies presents the surviving record of past encounters in a variety of forms: authoritative text editions and annotated translations, studies of authors and their works and collections of essays on particular themes and historical periods. It illustrates the development in mutual perceptions as these are contained in surviving Christian and Muslim writings, and makes available the arguments and rhetorical strategies that, for good or ill, have left their mark on attitudes today. The series casts light on a history marked by intellectual creativity and occasional breakthroughs in mutual recognition, although, on the whole beset by misunderstanding and misrepresentation. By making this history better known, the series seeks to contribute to improved recognition between Christians and Muslims in the future. A number of volumes of the History of Christian-Muslim Relations series are published within the subseries Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History.

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hcmr

Christian-Muslim Relations A Bibliographical History Volume 20. Iran, Afghanistan and the Caucasus (1800-1914) Edited by David Thomas and John Chesworth with Reza Pourjavady and Douglas Pratt

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LEIDEN BOSTON 2023

Cover illustration: engraving of the Iranian convert to Christianity Alexander Kazembeg, born Muḥammad ʿAlī Kāẓimbey (1802-70), by W. Holl from an original painting, in W. Ellis (ed.), The Christian keepsake and missionary annual, London, 1836, facing p. 155. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at https://catalog.loc.gov https://lccn.loc.gov/2009029184

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1570-7350 isbn 978-90-04-47168-9 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-52690-7 (e-book) Copyright 2023 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau, V&R unipress and Wageningen Academic. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

CONTENTS Foreword ......................................................................................................... ix List of Illustrations and Map ..................................................................... xv Abbreviations ................................................................................................ xvii Essays Reza Pourjavady, Introduction: Iran, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in the 19th century .............................................. 3 Reza Pourjavady, Russo-Iranian wars 1804-13 and 1826-8 .................... 24 Jonathan L. Lee, Christians of Afghanistan under the Mughals and Durrānī monarchy, 1700-1901 .............................................................. 29 Matthew Shannon, Christian missionaries and the foundation of modern schools in Iran between the 1830s and 1910s .............................. 49 Iran and Afghanistan Āqā Muḥammad ʿAlī Bihbahānī Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī Ḥājj ʿAlī Akbar Navvāb Shīrāzī Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn ibn Muḥammad Henry Martyn Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah Mullā ʿAlī-Akbar Izhihī Iṣfahānī Mīrzā Muḥammad Akhbārī Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī Mir Muḥammad Ḥusayn Khātūnābādī Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qummī Ḥusayn ʿAlī-Shah Iṣfahānī Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī

Reza Pourjavady........................ Reza Pourjavady........................ Alberto Tiburcio........................ Heidar Eyvazi............................. Scott Ayler and Reza  Pourjavady............................. Mehdi Mousavi.......................... Leila Chamankhah................... Majid Montazer-Mahdi........... Hamed Naji Esfahani............... Dennis Halft............................... Rasul Jafarian.............................

69 76 81 85 89 112 121 130 136 143 150

S. Yaser Mirdamadi................... Reza Tabandeh.......................... Sara Faridzadeh.........................

157 167 170

vi

Contents Mīrzā ʿĪsā Qāʾim-Maqām Farahānī Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī Alexander Kazembeg Muḥammad Shah Qajar Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī Mīrzā Najaf ʿAlī Khān Dānish Tabrīzī Mīrzā Malkum Khān Āqā Najafī Iṣfahānī Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Marʿashī Shahrastānī ʿAbbās-Qulī Khān Sipihr Kāshānī Muḥammad Taqī Kāshānī Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah Qajar Muḥammad Khān Kirmānī Mīrzā Āqā Khān Kirmānī William St Clair Tisdall Iran’s first Constitution and the Supplement to it Muḥammad ʿAlī Dāʿī l-Islām Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn Khān Kirmānī Mīrzā Muḥammad Ṣādiq Fakhr al-Islām Church Missionary Society – Persian Mission

Ghazaleh Faridzadeh............... 176 Eliza Tasbihi............................... 187 Hadi Jorati................................... 198 Mehdi Mousavi.......................... 205 Denis Hermann......................... 211 Fatima Tofighi............................ 221 Urs Gösken.................................. 225 Amin Ehteshami....................... 234 Heidar Eyvazi............................. 242 Mohammad Ghafoori.............. 249 Hossein Kamaly......................... 254 Mehdi Mousavi.......................... 261 Denis Hermann......................... 270 Roman Seidel............................. 276 Adam Simnowitz and Gordon Nickel............................ 285 Saeid Edalatnejad..................... 310 Heidar Eyvazi............................. 318 Denis Hermann......................... 327 Mansour Motamedi................. 332 John Chesworth.........................

357

Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia Mik‘ayēl Ch‘amch‘eants‘ Joseph Emin Yovhannēs Karnec‘i T‘eimuraz Bagrationi Giorgi Avalishvili Ioane Batonishvili Aleksandre Chavchavadze Gēorg Axverdean Daniel Chonkadze Mgrdič‘ Bešigt‘ašlian Mirzə Fətəli Axundzadə Grigol Orbeliani Akaki Tsereteli Ełia Dēmirč‘ibašian Vazha-Pshavela

Seta B. Dadoyan......................... 371 James Harry Morris.................. 394 S. Peter Cowe.............................. 406 Darejan Menabde..................... 413 Nana Gonjilashvili.................... 419 Oktai Kazumov.......................... 427 Zoia Tskhadaia........................... 433 S. Peter Cowe.............................. 438 Tamar Tsitsishvili...................... 445 S. Peter Cowe.............................. 451 Leila Rahimi Bahmany............ 461 Ada Nemsadze........................... 477 Manana Kvataia......................... 484 S. Peter Cowe.............................. 490 Tamar Sharabidze..................... 497

Contents Ilia Chavchavadze Mir Möhsün Nəvvab Siamant‘ō Məmməd Səid Ordubadi

vii

Maia Ninidze.............................. Leila Rahimi Bahmany............ S. Peter Cowe.............................. Leila Rahimi Bahmany............

510 523 529 538

Contributors ..................................................................................................

547

Index of Names ............................................................................................. Index of Titles ................................................................................................

553 566

FOREWORD David Thomas Like the other two great empires of the Islamic world, the Ottoman and Mughal Empires, the Iranian Empire experienced widespread changes in the 19th century. It differed from the others in largely retaining its independence from European intrusion, and also in surviving beyond the start of the 20th century. Whereas the Mughal Empire was dismantled and replaced by rule from London after 1857 and the Ottoman Empire was dismembered after the First World War, followed by the abolition of the sultanate and caliphate, Iran retained its integrity and its monarchy. The shahs and their governments did find it expedient to engage with the wider world, though they were largely able to retain political and cultural independence, complemented and supported by the powerful influence of Shīʿī Islam over the people. By the beginning of the 19th century, this form of the faith had virtually become the institutional religion of the country, and its leaders played prominent parts in lending ideological support against threats from the Sunnī Ottomans to the west and the Orthodox Christian Russians to the north. They also influenced the approach adopted towards the Christian Armenians and Georgians on the northern borders and towards Christian minorities and European and American missionaries within the empire. As with the earlier volumes in this series, Christian-Muslim relations. A bibliographical history 20 is concerned with engagement between the followers of the two world faiths in what may be called the domain of Iranian rule and influence in the 19th century as this is recorded in written form. The variety of documents from this region that come within its scope is remarkable. Not only are there polemical attacks that resemble and draw upon traditions of refutation from earlier times, targeted against the fundamental beliefs and doctrines of the other faith, but on the Muslim side there are also essays in which ideas from post-Enlightenment European thinkers are used to instil notions of constitutional and educational changes, greater freedom for women, and some sort of recognition for followers of religions other than Islam. One or two writers in this period even went as far as to consider the possibility that all faiths were expressions of a truth that none possessed exclusively, and that the assemblage of rituals and beliefs surrounding the fundamental principles

x

Foreword

of Islam should be disposed of in favour of the urgent pursuit of reason and scientific method. The need for modernisation of social structures and their religious underpinnings is illustrated graphically in the popular move to produce a constitution for Iran in the first decade of the 20th century. This introduced constraints on the monarchy and some equalisation within society, not least for women, and it made all citizens equal under law irrespective of religion, in this moving Iran closer towards European ideals based on reason and the principle of human rights. The inevitable clash with proponents of traditional Islam led to revisions in the draft that upheld the scriptural principle of the superiority of Muslims over others, producing internal conflicts within the constitutional documents that were not resolved. This example demonstrates how old religious traditions could not sit easily with imported ideals that defied them. In principle, Iranian Christians in the 19th century lived under the regulations that had governed client communities within Islamic societies since the earliest Islamic times; despite their contributions through commercial and intellectual activities, they and other non-Muslims did not enjoy equal status to their Muslim neighbours. Christian missionaries from outside also regarded them as misguided in their beliefs and observances, and sometimes directed as much attention to attempting to correct them as to preaching to Muslims and debating with them. The adversities endured by the local Christians are maybe evidenced by the paucity of known rejoinders from them to Muslim arguments about the perceived defects in their religion. Missionaries from Europe and the United States were active in Iran through most of the 19th century, running schools and hospitals in addition to engaging with Muslims over matters of faith when opportunities arose. The records of encounters between religious experts from the two faiths shows that the topics of their debates recalled those of centuries earlier, which is to be expected, but also that their methods had hardly changed – indeed, individuals from both faiths tended to ignore the problem of their scriptures not being acknowledged by the other and were known to quote passages to support their arguments, a mistake that was hardly ever made in the earliest centuries of encounter. The largely Christian kingdoms of Armenia and Georgia to the north of Iran continued to be of as much political interest to Iranian rulers as to Ottomans and Russians. The cultures of both these countries were extensively influenced by their southern neighbour, not only because of the beauty of Iranian poetry and graphic art they could not ignore but also because armies from Iran repeatedly came to intimidate or displace native

Foreword

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dynasties. Given this, it is not surprising that, for example, in Georgian poems and plays Muslims are depicted as inhuman and even subhuman. But what is surprising is that in some of the best-known works the usual hostility between Christians and Muslims is subverted when a hero from one side glimpses valour and nobility of character in a warrior from the other and the two form a bond that transcends religious differences. While this was a useful narrative or dramatic device, it also suggests that attitudes were less stereotypical than might be expected. A unique work from this period, or any other, that deserves a particular mention for its creative application of post-Reformation European thinking to Islam is Kəmalüddövlə məktubları (‘The letters of Kamāl al-Dawla’) written in 1864 by the Azerbaijani Mirzə Fətəli Axundzadə (1812-78). It takes the form of three letters purportedly sent by an Indian prince to an Iranian prince, which advocate the abandonment in Iran of Islam in its old, stilted Arab expression, together with its alphabet, in favour of a form of ‘Protestant Islam’, which like Protestant Christianity would allow independence of belief and action. Unsurprisingly, the author was extremely reluctant to let his name be known when the work was finally published. Taken together, the entries in this volume, from both Christian and Muslim authors, encompass a surprising variety of approaches that often repeat old attitudes but not infrequently clash with accepted norms. The purpose of the volumes in the CMR series is to provide full analytical accounts of the known works written by Christians and Muslims about and against the other throughout the world in the period 600-1914, and also of works that provide direct or indirect evidence of the attitudes that were communicated. The aim is to be exhaustive and here as much as in earlier volumes the editors have been generously helped by scholars both well-established and new. As with recent volumes, the work has been unusually challenging because of the restrictions imposed by Covid 19. Nevertheless, this volume is presented as a full account of works from within each faith about the other that appeared in the Persianate world in the century leading up to 1914. Like its predecessors, CMR 20 starts with introductory essays that outline the historical and social background in the part of the world covered. Following these come the entries that make up the bulk of the volume. The principle has been to choose works largely about or against the other faith or containing significant information or judgements that cast light on reciprocal attitudes. By their nature, apologetic and polemical works are included, while letters, official reports and works of travel and history also frequently qualify. The reason for including a work may sometimes

xii

Foreword

not seem obvious because its direct references to the other faith are few, though it has repeatedly emerged that a seemingly unpromising work attests to distinct attitudes in the way it is structured or its information has been selected, or occasional comments about the other faith point to the bias of its author. Everything is included that has been judged to contribute in any significant way towards conveying the information about the religious other that was possessed by people in this part of the world in the 19th century, and towards constructing the impressions about the religious other that they generally held to be true. This principle is easily applied in most cases, though in some instances it proves difficult. The approach has therefore been inclusive (perhaps too inclusive in some minds), especially regarding works that contain very slight though insightful details or that appear to touch only obliquely on relations. Another principle is that inclusion of works within this volume, like its predecessors, has been decided according to the date of their author’s death, not the date when the works themselves appeared (though the date of publication is used where no other information is available). The adoption of this approach has led to evident anomalies at the beginning, where authors may have died in the years just after 1800 but were mainly or almost entirely active before 1800. Other criteria could have been adopted, such as an author’s most active period, though, while this might have worked for some, it would not have helped at all for many others. When it comes to the end-date of the volume, the year 1914, this principle has been relaxed. There is no plan at present to continue the CMR series beyond the early 20th century and so, for the sake of completeness, authors who died after 1914 have been included provided their major period of activity occurred before this limit. Each entry is divided into two main parts. The first is concerned with the author: it contains essential biographical details, an outline account of their intellectual activities and writings, the chief primary sources of information about them, and scholarly studies on them from the mid-20th century onwards. Some entries are concerned with organisations or clusters of authors who were active at roughly the same time and wrote on the same theme, in which case they are situated in the sequence of entries as appropriate. Without aiming to be exhaustive in biographical detail or scholarly study, this section contains enough information to enable readers to pursue further points about the authors and their general activities. The second part of the entry is concerned with the works of the author that are particularly devoted to the other faith. Here, the aim is completeness as far as possible. A work is named and dated, and then

Foreword

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in two important sections its contents are described, with emphasis on what it says about Christianity or Islam, and its significance in the history of Christian-Muslim relations is appraised, including any innovative features and influence on later works. The following sections list publication details (manuscripts, where known, and then editions and translations) and studies from roughly the middle of the 20th century onwards. Both these sections are intended to be fully up to date at the time of going to press. A few words about transliteration of Caucasian languages may be helpful at this point. It is a particularly challenging matter and consistency has proved difficult to maintain, for the following reasons. Armenian is written in Classical Armenian as well as Eastern and Western forms; Azerbaijani was originally written in Persian script, subsequently in Cyrillic, then a modified Latin alphabet; Georgian transliteration is often simplified to aid pronunciation, with ‘ch’ for ‘č’ and ‘dz’ for ‘ż’ etc. This means that there is much scope for variant forms. In consequence, entries in these languages, particularly Armenian and Georgian, may contain terms that conform to different conventions, and that more than one form of transliteration may appear within the same entry. Like preceding volumes in the series, CMR 20 provides information that will enable a work to be identified, its importance appreciated, manuscripts, editions and the latest studies located. Each work is also placed as far as possible in chronological order of completion or publication together with other works from the same region that were written at the same time, though this grouping should be regarded as more a matter of organisational expediency than anything else. Proximity between entries is not an indication of any direct relationship between the works about which they were written, let alone influence between them (though this may sometimes be stated by an author or be discernible in the work). In this period, as in any other, it is as likely that an author was influenced by a work written in another country or century as much as by a work from their immediate locality or time. The task of producing CMR 20 has involved numerous contributors, and it is pleasing to note how many have readily agreed to write entries and have sometimes produced contributions that will remain authoritative for many years to come. Under the direction of David Thomas, the work for this volume was led by John Chesworth (Research Officer, and also Armenia and Georgia), Douglas Pratt (preliminary editing of entries), Reza Pourjavady (Iran, and also transliteration of Persian) and Charles Tieszen (essays), who are members of a much larger team that comprises

xiv

Foreword

25 specialists in total, covering all parts of the world. Several other scholars gave assistance in identifying relevant material, finding contributors and generally lending their expertise. Without their help and interest, the task of assembling the material in this volume could not have been completed. Among many others, special gratitude goes to Peter Cowe, Maka Elbakidze, Heidar Eyvazi and Denis Hermann. In addition, Carol Rowe copy-edited the entire volume with her keen eye for detail, Phyllis Chesworth carefully compiled the indexes and Louise Bouglass prepared the map. We are deeply indebted to everyone who has contributed to bringing this volume into being, not least colleagues at Brill, Leiden, who produced it with their usual speed and efficiency. Extensive efforts have been made to ensure the contents of the volume are both accurate and complete, though in a project that crosses as many boundaries of time, place, language and disciplines as this it would be unrealistic and rash to imagine there are no mistakes or omissions. Details must surely have escaped scrutiny, contributors may have withdrawn at the last minute (works that for this reason have not been discussed in full entries are often touched upon in introductory essays), authors could have been ignored, unknown historical works may have come to light, new dates and interpretations may have been put forward, and new editions, translations and studies (in particular) published. Therefore, corrections, additions and updates are cordially invited. They will be incorporated into the online version of CMR and into any further print editions. Please send details of omissions and corrections to David Thomas at d.r.thomas.1@ bham.ac.uk.

ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAP 1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Portrait of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah, artist unknown, 1809-10, from the 5 Hermitage, St Petersburg. VР-1107, CC-PD-Mark ......................... Postcard of Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Baku, published by Bering and Raabe, Baku, around 1900 ....................................... 21 Lithograph by Vladimir Mashkov (1792-1839) and Karl Beggrov (1799-1875), ‘Persian payment of indemnity in Tabriz following the results of the Treaty of Turkmenchay’, from the Hermitage, St Petersburg. ERG-26173, PD-Russia-1996 ...................................................................................... 27 Engraving, ‘Persia Mission; The Boys School’, in The Gleaner pictorial album, London, 1889, p. 88 ................................................ 57 Extract from Nūr al-hidāya fī ithbāt al-risāla by ʿAlī Akbar Shīrāzī, from S. Lee, Controversial tracts, Cambridge, 1824, Appendix A, pp. 40-1 ............................................................................ 83 Detail from a mural in the Negaristan Palace outside Tehran (1812-13) commissioned by Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (1722-1834), portraying an imaginary New Year's reception at the court. It shows the British envoys John Malcolm, Hartford Jones and Gore Ouseley with court officials. RCIN 1005133, courtesy of the Royal Collections Trust .......................................... 119 First page of Mullā ʿAlī-Akbar Ījī, Zubdat al-maʿārif, Tehran: Chāpkhāna-yi Ḥājjī ʿAbd al-Muḥammad, 1851 .............. 126 First page of Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī, Risāla-yi nuṣrat al-dīn, Bombay, 1868 ............................................................... 215 Photograph of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah with an attendant, by A.J. Melhuish, London, 1873. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London; NPG x134169 ........................................... 262 Opening page of Muḥammad Khān Kirmānī, Ḥusām al-dīn dar ithbāt-i taḥrīf-i Tawrāt u Injīl, n.p., 1893-4 ................................ 273 Photograph, ‘Group of Persia missionaries’, in The Church Missionary Gleaner, April 1895, p. 52 ............................................... 286 Front page of Daʿwat al-Islām, vol. 1, issue 1, October 1906 ....... 324 Photograph, ‘The play of Husain and Hassan, Persia’, from an article by Mrs Griffith, ‘A Mohammedan Festival in a Persian city’, in The Church Missionary Gleaner, 2 September 1901, p. 141 ................................................................................................ 362

xvi

ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAP

14

Title page of Mik‘ayēl Ch‘amch‘eants‘, Patmut‘iwn hayots, vol. 1, Venice, 1784 ............................................................................................ Photograph of Mirzə Fətəli Axundzadə. Courtesy of the Institute of Manuscripts of Azerbaijan .......................................... Photograph of Vazha-Pshavela by Alexander Roinashvili. Courtesy of the National Parliamentary Library of Georgia .... Artwork accompanying Siamant‘ō, Garmir lurer barekamēs, from Ampołǰagan kordz‘ə [‘Complete works’], Boston MA, 1910, p. 195 ........................................................................ Front cover of Məmməd Səid Ordubadi, Qanlı sənələr, Baku, 1911 .................................................................................................

15 16 17 18

374 462 498 533 541

Map of Iran, Afghanistan and the Caucasus ................................. xviii

ABBREVIATIONS ARF ABCFM BFBS BNF BSOAS CMS EI EI2 EI3 EIr ICMR MDZ MW ODNB

Armenian Revolutionary Federation American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions British and Foreign Bible Society Bibliothèque nationale de France Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Church Missionary Society Encyclopaedia of Islam Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition Encyclopaedia of Islam THREE Encyclopaedia Iranica; http://www.iranicaonline.org Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum; https://www.digitale -sammlungen.de/ The Moslem World, later The Muslim World Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 2004-; http://www.oxforddnb.com

PCUSA Presbyterian Church of the United States of America Q Qur’an

Map of Iran, Afghanistan and the Caucasus

Essays

Introduction: Iran, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in the 19th century Christian-Muslim Relations in Iran (1800-1914) Reza Pourjavady As part of the Sasanid Empire, the land of Iran was invaded by the Arabs between 637 and 651. Ever since then, Iran has been under Muslim rule, except for a period of about 35 years in the second half of the 13th century, when the Buddhist Mongols ruled it. With the emergence of the Safavid Empire in 1501, the land was reunited and it re-asserted its Iranian identity. Several policies of the Safavids, including their proclamation of Twelver Shīʿism as the state religion, made its culture distinct from that of its Muslim neighbours, the Ottoman and the Mughal Empires. The fall of the Safavids in 1722 was a significant milestone in the history of Iran. This happened when a rebellious Pashtun force attacked the Safavid capital Isfahan, and after a six-month siege overthrew the dynasty. Within eight years, the future Nādir Shah, a Safavid general, defeated the Pashtun army and reunited the country, but Afghanistan gained independence from Iran following Nādir Shah’s death in 1747.1 His successor Karīm Khān Zand (r. 1751-79) did not attempt to capture Afghanistan, which was ruled by Aḥmad Shah Durrānī (r. 1747-73). In addition, the Kingdom of Kʻartʻli-Kakhetʻi in the Caucasus decided to distance itself from the central power in Iran by seeking Russian protection. In the late 18th century, Āqā Muḥammad Khān (r. 1789-97) defeated Karīm Khān’s successors and founded the Qajar dynasty. He intended to reunite the former Safavid territories2 and he succeeded in doing so, apart from the eastern areas of Afghanistan. Despite this military success, the changes that had taken place through the previous decades made it difficult to keep control of all those areas in the long term.

1 See D. Balland, ‘Afghanistan x. Political history’, in EIr. 2 See J.R. Perry, ‘Āḡā Moḥammad Khan Qājār’, in EIr.

4

Introduction The Qajar dynasty

The first ruler of Iran in the 19th century was Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (r. 1797-1834), the second shah of the newly established Qajar dynasty. His approach to government was somewhat different from that of his predecessor. Unlike Āqā Muḥammad Khān, who led his forces in person to different parts of the country, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah preferred not to campaign himself but instead to oversee fighting from the capital. He sought to strengthen governmental, social and cultural institutions, and he had many diplomatic advantages over his predecessor, establishing extensive contacts with European states. Nevertheless, as a result of two wars with Russia, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah was forced to cede Iranian rule over the Caucasus to its Christian northern neighbour.3 More than previous rulers of Iran, he was attentive to scientific and technical progress in the West. During his reign, increasing numbers of students were sent to Europe and printing technology was used for the first time. Some of his innovations were due to his son, Crown Prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā (d. 1833), who died before acceding to the throne. Tehran, which had been chosen as the capital in 1786, became an important city during the 36 years of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah’s rule.4 Under Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah’s successor, his grandson Muḥammad Shah (r. 1835-48), the son of ʿAbbās Mīrzā, Christian missionaries opened schools in Iran for the first time.5 During the long rule of Muḥammad Shah’s son, Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah (r. 1848-96), Iran gradually became acquainted with modern industries and science, particularly in the first three years of his reign, when Mirzā Taqī Khān Farāhānī, better known as Amīr Kabīr (d. 1852), was his chief minister. The latter engaged foreign advisers and founded the first polytechnic, Dār al-Funūn, in the capital. Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah travelled to Europe three times and witnessed the progress being made there. Under his rule, Tehran, which grew gradually in the first half of the 19th century, became the country’s most important economic and cultural centre.6 In 1856, in a reaction to Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah’s attempts to bring Herat under his rule, the British in Calcutta declared war against the Qajar state, and the island of Khark and the port of Bushehr in the Persian Gulf were invaded by British troops. In 1857, a treaty was signed between the two 3 See R. Pourjavady, ‘Russo-Iranian wars, 1804-13 and 1826-8’, in CMR 20, 24-8. 4 See A. Amanat, ‘Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah Qājār’, in EIr. 5 See J. Calmard, ‘Moḥammad Shah Qājār’, in EIr. 6 See H. Algar, ‘Amīr Kabīr, Mīrzā Taqī Khan’, in EIr.

Reza Pourjavady

5

Illustration 1. Portrait of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah

nations, according to which Iran was obliged to relinquish all claims over Herat and Afghanistan.7 In the last years of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah’s reign, Iran witnessed a financial and economic crisis, creating dissatisfaction among the people. In 1896, he was assassinated by someone who claimed to be a reformist. The most important act of his son and successor, Muẓaffar al-Dīn Shah (r. 1896-1907), was to issue a constitutional farmān in 1906 and assist in establishing the Majlis, the Iranian Parliament, though only 40 days after granting the Constitution he died. His successor, Muḥammad ʿAlī Shah (r. 1907-9), was opposed to the Constitution, and in 1907 he dissolved the Majlis and declared the Constitution abolished on the grounds that it contradicted sharīʿa. With the military and political support of Russia he set cannons to fire on the Majlis, but the constitutionalists eventually 7 See J. Calmard, ‘Anglo-Persian war (1856-57)’, in EIr.

6

Introduction

succeeded in gaining power. In 1909, the Majlis deposed Muḥammad ʿAlī Shah and placed his young son Aḥmad Shah (r. 1909-25) on the throne. Aḥmad Shah’s uncle, ʿAlī Riḍā Khān ʿAḍud al-Mulk (d. 1910) and, after his death, Abū l-Qāsim Nāṣir al-Mulk (d. 1927) took charge of the shah’s affairs as regents. Aḥmad Shah was formally crowned in 1914.8 Non-Muslim minorities The official religion of Iran during the Qajar period remained Twelver Shīʿism, which was the country’s dominant religion. Among the Christians, the Assyrians (or Nestorians) lived mainly in rural areas in parts of Kurdistan and western Azerbaijan, while the Armenians were mainly urban dwellers. Some of them lived in the cities of Azerbaijan, though their major settlement was New Julfa, just outside Isfahan, to where they had been moved by Shah ʿAbbās in the early 17th century. The Jews were scattered through various areas in the country, including Isfahan, Shiraz, Hamadan, Kashan and Mashhad. Zoroastrians were mainly to be found in the central part of Iran, in and around Yazd and Kerman. While the Christian communities spoke their own languages and tried to keep their identities distinct, the Jews and Zoroastrians tended to become integrated into the wider culture and did not emphasise their own cultural differences. The Qajars considered themselves the successors of the Safavids and generally followed them in the way they interacted with religious minorities. Among non-Muslim religious groups, four had the status of being ‘protected’ (dhimmī): Armenian Christians, Assyrian Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, though despite this, members of these communities were generally considered impure by Twelver Shīʿī scholars; they paid the poll tax (jizya), and it was forbidden for Muslim women to marry them.9 During the first half of the 19th century, however, some changes were made to the rights and taxation of Christians, and later Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah also moderated the dhimmī treatment of Jews and Zoroastrians under pressure from the British diplomats William T. Thompson (d. 1883) and Charles Alison (d. 1872). He issued a  farmān  in 1882 exempting the Zoroastrians from paying the jizya tax, and another in 1865, known as ‘justice and kindness’, 8 See M.J. Sheikh-ol-Islami, ‘Aḥmad Shah Qājār’, in EIr. 9 For more details regarding the rulings of the Shīʿī ʿulamāʾ of the time pertaining to interactions with members of these minorities, see D. Tsadik, Between foreigners and Shi’is. Nineteenth-century Iran and its Jewish minorities, Stanford CA, 2007, pp. 17-32.

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regarding the treatment of the Jews,10 but these legal modifications were not fully implemented until the constitutional revolution of 1906-10. In addition to the Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, Iran in the 19th century witnessed the emergence of two other significant religious minorities, the Bābīs and the Bahāʾīs. The Bābīs were the followers of ʻAlī Muḥammad Shīrāzī (d. 1850), who in 1844 first assumed the title Bāb, the ‘gate’ to the Twelfth Imām. Four years later, in 1848, he claimed to be the Imām himself and abrogated Islamic sharīʿa by claiming to be an independent manifestation of God and promulgating a new religious law. By 1848, the increased fervour of the Bābīs and the clerical opposition they experienced had led to a number of confrontations between them and the Qajar government, all resulting in massacres in which hundreds of Bābīs were killed. Finally, on 9 June 1850 and by order of Amīr Kabīr, Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah’s chief minister, the Bāb was executed and as a result the Bābīs fled into exile in the Ottoman Empire, especially to Cyprus, as well as going into hiding in Iran. Among notable Bābī figures, Mīrzā Ḥusayn ʿAlī Nūrī, known as Bahāʾullāh, was exiled to Baghdad and later to Istanbul and Edirne. He was accompanied by his younger half-brother, Mīrzā Yaḥyā Ṣubḥ-i Azal, whom the Bāb appears to have appointed as his successor. In his writings, the Bāb referred implicitly to the advent of another messianic figure as ‘he whom God shall make manifest’ (man yuẓhiruhu Allāh). While residing in Baghdad in 1863, Bahāʾullāh informed a few Bābī followers that he was the one promised by the Bāb, and in the years following, 1863-8, he wrote letters to Bābī followers in Iran, openly proclaiming himself the spiritual ‘return’ (rajʿa) of the Bāb. At the time, Bahāʾullāh and Ṣubḥ-i Azal were living in Edirne. After this, the relationship between the two brothers deteriorated, while Bahāʾullāh was much more successful in establishing himself as the leader of the Bābī community. In 1873, Bahāʾullāh composed the Kitāb-i aqdas (‘The most holy book’), which he intended to supersede the Qur’an and the Bāb’s Bayān. After 1873, his followers in Iran, the Bahāʾīs, began to follow the rules of the Kitāb-i aqdas and thus separated themselves from the Bābīs. Between 1873 and 1892, Bahāʾism spread vigorously in Iran, not only among Shīʿīs but also among the Zoroastrians in Yazd and Kerman

10 Tsadik, Between foreigners and Shi’is, pp. 56-9; S. Farridnejad, ‘The royal farmān and the abolition of Zoroastrian poll tax in Qajar Iran’, Himalayan and Central Asian Studies 25/1-3 (2021) 105-31.

8

Introduction

and Jews in Kashan and Hamadan.11 By the end of the 19th century, Bahāʾīs made up the largest non-Muslim religious minority in the country.12 The Supplement to the Iranian Constitution, which was ratified in 1907 (a year after the Constitution itself), recognised the civil rights of all Iranians regardless of their religion. However, unlike the Armenians in two regions of the south and north, and the Assyrians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who each had one representative in the Parliament, the Bābī and Bahāʾī communities had no kind of political representation.13 Missionary organisations active in Iran Presbyterians In 1827, the German missionary Joseph Wolff (1795-1862) wrote a report about his trip to Azerbaijan and his visit to the Assyrian Christians there. This drew the attention of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), which was at the time affiliated to the Congregational Church and several Reformed and Presbyterian denominations. For a better assessment of the state of the Assyrians in Azerbaijan, Eli Smith (1801-57)14 and H.G.O. Dwight (1803-62) made an exploratory visit to the city of Urmia in the province of West Azerbaijan in north-western Iran. Their encouragement eventually led to the Revd Justin Perkins (1805-69) being sent to Urmia.15 Arriving in Iran in 1834, Perkins’s mission aimed to revive the ancient Nestorian Church so that it might once again become an agent of evangelisation in Iran. However, he focused first on the education of Assyrians and Armenians. Within five years he established a school for boys and another for girls. Shortly after opening schools for local Iranian Christians, the Presbyterians changed direction and opened separate schools for Muslims at the request of Muḥammad Shah. By 1895, the mission had

11 See S. Maneck, ‘Conversion of religious minorities to the Bahá’í faith in Iran. Some preliminary observations’, Journal of Bahá’í Studies 3/3 (1990) 35-48. 12 See J. Cole, ‘Bahaism: i. The faith’, in EIr. 13 See S. Edalatnejad, ‘Irans’ first Constitution and the Supplement to it’, in  CMR  20, 310-17. 14 See D.D. Grafton, ‘Eli Smith’, in CMR 16, 125-33. 15 See P.S. Seto, ‘Conversion: vi. To Protestant Christianity in Persia’, in EIr; M. Shannon, ‘Christian missionaries and the foundation of modern schools in Iran between the 1830s and 1910s’, in CMR 20, 49-69, pp. 52-3.

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established 117 schools with 2,410 pupils.16 In addition to education, within a few years medical work became part of the Presbyterian mission programme. Gradual social and political changes in Iran facilitated the expansion of this mission. Between 1835 and 1870, about 50 Presbyterian missionaries, many of whom were women, were active in the province of West Azerbaijan. Apart from charitable activities, they were engaged in training indigenous Christian leaders to carry out evangelistic work among Iranians. The Presbyterians’ mission in Iran ended in 1918. Between 1869 and 1871, changes occurred in the administration of the ABCFM. This had impacts on the board’s vision of its mission, with the consequence that the Mission to Nestorians was renamed the Mission to Persia and was expanded throughout the north of the country. Stations were opened in Tehran (1872), Tabriz (1873), Hamadan (1880), Rasht and Qazvin (1906), Kermanshah (1910) and Mashhad (1911), and the mission also built hospitals in many cities. By 1913, Presbyterian hospitals had been founded in Urmia, Tehran, Hamadan, Kermanshah and Tabriz.17 The Church Missionary Society18 In 1869, the Revd Robert Bruce, a member of the Church Missionary Society (CMS), settled in New Julfa. During the devastating famine of 1871-2, he received immense funding of about £16,000 in donations, which made the local people see him as an influential figure and benefactor. After the famine, his educational project gradually developed and, by 1875, his school had 135 students, including Catholics and Armenians as well as 30 Muslim boys. The governor of Isfahan, Ẓill al-Sulṭān (r. 1874-1918), was supportive of the missionaries’ school and medical work, though Bruce was banned from teaching any religion (dars-i madhhabī) other than that of the students’ parents. While Bruce was in charge of CMS activities in Isfahan, the targets of the mission were the Armenians and, to some extent, the Jews. However, the missionaries hoped to attract the Bābīs, and later Bahāʾīs as well, and they engaged in intense religious debates with them. However, they

16 See J. Rostam-Kolayi, ‘From evangelizing to modernizing Iranians. The American Presbyterian Mission and its Iranian students’, Iranian Studies 41/2 (2008) 213-39, p. 219. 17 See M. Zirinsky, ‘American Presbyterian missionaries at Urmia during the Great War’, published online by the Iran Chamber Society, p.3:  https://iranchamber.com/religions /articles/american_presbyterian_missionaries_zirinsky.pdf. 18 See J. Chesworth, ‘Church Missionary Society - Persian Mission’, in CMR 20, 357-65.

10

Introduction

remained ambivalent about the Bābīs and Bahāʾīs, both seeing them as a potential instrument in their attempt to spread Christianity within the Muslim community and also regarding them as competitors in the effort to convert Muslims.19 Bruce’s indirect mission led to a few conflicts with the Muslim clerics of Isfahan.20 After almost 24 years of work in New Julfa, Bruce returned to England in 1893, and the Revd William St Clair Tisdall,21 who had arrived in New Julfa a few months earlier, was appointed the new head of the mission. Under his direction, the mission’s politics and goals were revisited. Tisdall believed that more aggressive measures were needed in order to advance Christianity in Persia, and he did not hesitate to evangelise Muslims as well as others. Thus, tension with the ʿulamāʾ increased during his time in post.22 Besides Isfahan, the CMS was also active in other cities in southern Iran, namely Shiraz, Kerman (founded in 1897) and Yazd. An agreement with the American Presbyterian Mission in 1895 prevented the CMS from continuing missionary activities in northern Iran, which was recognised as an American preserve.23 The French Catholics In 1838, the French Catholic layman Eugène Boré went to Tabriz to study Persian. A year later, in January 1839, he established a school in the city, named the Université humanitaire (Dār al-ʿilm-i shināsāʾī-i milal), anticipating that, by teaching French to the people, he could familiarise them with European sciences. Despite harassment from local Armenians and American missions, he attracted a good number of students and received a royal  farmān  for his efforts. In April 1840, following a  farmān  from Muḥammad Shah Qajar in which Roman Catholics were granted permission to open schools in Iran without fear of harassment from Armenians, Boré persuaded the French Lazarist brothers to come to the country. Within a few years, they had opened schools in a number of cities and towns, the most important being the Collège Saint-Louis (Madrasa-yi San Lūʾī) in Tehran, which was opened in 1860-1. The Lazarists were followed 19 See H.A. Walcher, In the shadow of the king. Zill al-Sultan and Isfahan under the Qajars, London, 2008, p. 223. 20 See Y. Armajani, ‘Christianity: viii. Christian missions in Persia’, in EIr. 21 See G. Nickel and A. Simnowitz, ‘William St Clair Tisdall’, CMR 20, 285-309. 22 See Walcher, In the shadow of the king, pp. 218-43. 23 Armajani, ‘Christianity: viii. Christian missions in Persia’.

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by the Sisters of Charity, who opened several girls’ schools, including École Jeanne d’Arc (Madrasa-yi Zhāndārk) in Tehran.24 The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Mission In 1886, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Edward White Benson, decided to support the Assyrian (Nestorian) Church in eastern Anatolia and Iranian Azerbaijan. Like other missionary organisations, the primary effort of the mission that was established was to provide education. This work expanded rapidly. By 1888, the mission was responsible for high schools in Urmia, Sopurghan and Ordushahi, and 40 village schools, of which 17 were in eastern Anatolia and the remainder in Iran. The mission was also furnished with a printing press in Urmia, which published many liturgical and educational books. The mission continued until the outbreak of World War I in 1914.25 The Lutheran Churches The Lutheran Churches were active in and around Urmia from the 1880s onwards. Their missionary activities were carried out by native Assyrians. The pioneering figure was Pera Johannes (1850-1924), who was associated with the Hermannsburg mission. He built a church and opened two schools in the village of Vazīrābād, with the assistance of his son, Luther Pera (1883-1943).26 His religious activities continued until the summer of 1914, when he was removed from his church by the Russian bishop and put in jail.27 Jaure Abraham, one of Johannes’s disciples, was also associated with the German Lutheran Church. He also opened two schools in his home village of Gūgtapa.28 Another native Assyrian priest, Knanishu Morat Khan,

24 D. Hadidi, ‘France: xv. French schools in Persia’, in EIr; Shannon, ‘Christian missionaries and the foundation of modern schools in Iran’, in CMR 20, pp. 50-4. 25 See R.E. Waterfield, Christians in Persia. Assyrians, Armenians, Roman Catholics and Protestants, London, 1973, pp. 124-32; J.F. Coakley, ‘The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Assyrian Mission Press. A bibliography’, Journal of Semitic Studies 30/1 (1985) 35-73. 26 See G.D. Malech,  History of the Syrian nations and the Old Evangelical-Apostolic Church of the East, Piscataway NJ, 2006, p. 375. 27 See M. Tamcke, ‘Letters on the Sayfo from Assyrian eyewitnesses’, in S. Talay and S.Ö. Barthoma, Sayfo 1915. An anthology of essays on the genocides of Assyrians/Arameans during the First World War, Piscataway NJ, 2018, p. 95. 28 See Malech, History of the Syrian Nations, p. 376.

12

Introduction

was associated with the Swedish Lutherans.29 Nestorius George Malech (1865-1927) served under the Norwegian Lutheran Mission from 1893 and, from 1896, he was in charge of several schools. Within ten years of starting their activities (1896-1905), the Lutheran Mission’s schools were teaching about 1,000 boys and girls in the rural area of the region.30 The Russian Orthodox Church In 1897, the Assyrian Bishop of Sapurghan, Mar Yonan, went to St Petersburg with a petition from some Assyrians in Urmia to join the Russian Orthodox Church. In response, the Russians sent missionaries to Urmia. The activities of the church continued until the Russian revolution in 1917.31 Translations of the Bible into Persian In the 19th century, the Protestants completed a translation of the whole Bible into Persian. The first phase of this was carried out at Fort William College in Calcutta under the supervision of Colonel R.H. Colebrook by Āqā Sabat (Thābit?) of Baghdad and Mīrzā Fiṭrat of Benares. The translation of the Gospels of Luke and Matthew was published in 1805 in Calcutta,32 and the project progressed from that time. In June 1807, the Anglican priest Henry Martyn (1781-1812) was asked to help with the project. He worked closely with Āqā Sabat for some years and completed a draft of the Persian translation of the whole New Testament. However, Martyn realised that the translation needed revision with the assistance of a native speaker. In 1811, he went to Iran and stayed for 11 months in Shiraz, where he was able to revise the translation with the assistance of Sayyid ʿAlī Khān Shīrāzī. The Persian translation of the New Testament was first published under Martyn’s name by the Russian Bible Society, St Petersburg, in 1815.33

29 See Malech, History of the Syrian Nations, pp. 376-7. 30 See Malech, History of the Syrian Nations, pp. 390-5. 31 See Malech, History of the Syrian Nations, pp. vii-viii. 32 See Waterfield, Christians in Persia, pp. 91, 178-9. 33 See S.D. Ayler,  ‘Henry Martyn: “Translations of Christian scripture into Urdu, Persian and Arabic”’, CMR 20, 101-5; Waterfield, Christians in Persia, pp. 89-95; A. Amanat, ‘Mujtahids  and missionaries. Shi’i responses to Christian polemics in the early Qajar period’, in R. Gleave (ed.), Religion and society in Qajar Iran, London, 2005, 247-69, p. 263.

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In 1830, William Glen, who was living in Astrakhan, was asked to translate the poetic and prophetic books of the Old Testament into Persian and he did so with the assistance of a native Iranian, Fāḍil Khān Hamadānī. His translations of Psalms and Proverbs were published in 1835 and 1841 respectively by the British and Foreign Bible Society in London. His translation of the entire Old Testament was eventually published in 1846 by the Committee of Foreign Missions connected with the United Associate Synod of Scotland in Edinburgh.34 Robert Bruce, who spent 24 years in New Julfa (1869-93), revised both Martyn’s translation of the New Testament and Glen’s translation of the Old Testament. He started this work from the very beginning of his time in New Julfa. His translation of the New Testament was completed in 1881, and after some revisions it was published by E.H. Palmer. His revised translation of the whole Bible was brought out by the British and Foreign Bible Society in London in 1895.35 By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, these translations became widely available in Iran, and Muslim scholars did not hesitate to quote from them. In addition to these systematic translations, there were also in the early 19th century some domestic efforts to translate the Bible. Around 1811, at the request of the Qajar Crown Prince, ʿAbbās Mīrzā, and under the supervision of his vizier, Mīrzā ʿĪsā Qāʾim-Maqām, several biblical projects were started. Their aim was to read the Bible from an Islamic standpoint and provide biblical proofs for the prophethood of Muḥammad.36 A Jewish rabbi, Mullā ʿAbd al-Ghanī, who converted to Islam under compulsion, was charged with the task of translating the Pentateuch,37 and another scholar, a certain Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn ibn Muḥammad, possibly also a Jewish convert, was commissioned to write a commentary on the Pentateuch. Four volumes of this massive commentary entitled Miṣbāḥ al-ẓulumāt fī tafsīr al-Tawrāt (‘Illumination of the gloom in commentary on the Torah’) are extant.38 Muḥammad Bāqir Salmāsī prepared a partial Persian translation of the Gospels from Syriac and Latin, though he was not competent in these languages and so he apparently consulted the Chaldean Bishop of Khusravī,  Mar Hanna Guriel, who had studied in the Vatican and thus 34 See Waterfield, Christians in Persia, p. 179. 35 See Waterfield, Christians in Persia, p. 180. 36 M.B. Salmāsī, Tarjuma-yi Anājīl, MS Qom, Marʿashī – 13276, fol. 5r. 37 T.S.R. O Flynn, The Western Christian presence in the Russias and Qajar Persia c.1760c.1870, Leiden, 2017, pp. 155-6. 38 See H. Eyvazi, ‘Miṣbāḥ al-ẓulamāt fī tafsīr al-Tawrāt’, in CMR 20, 86-8.

14

Introduction

knew Latin as well as Syriac.39 All these biblical projects were pursued during the first Russo-Iranian war (1804-13), and there is no evidence of their being continued afterwards. Christian-Muslim debates The period of Qajar rule in Iran (1795-1925) is marked by three major controversies that occurred between Christian missionaries and Shīʿī scholars. The first started in 1811, during Henry Martyn’s stay in Iran. While in Shiraz, he invited a distinguished jurist, Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī (d. 1839), to write a treatise providing proofs with reasoning for the religion of Islam. Mīrzā Ibrāhīm complied and wrote the treatise,40 and in a matter of weeks Martyn responded, undermining Mīrzā Ibrāhīm’s premises for his argument.41 Martyn wrote two more Persian treatises while he was in Shiraz, the second a supplement to the first, and the third against the Sufis.42 Martyn’s first treatise achieved fame shortly after its composition. Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah seems to have had the impression that the British government had sent Martyn to pave the way for the conversion of Iranians to Christianity and, in the summer of 1812, he requested Mīrzā ʿĪsā QāʾimMaqām, the Crown Prince’s vizier, to prepare an answer. Although Martyn died in October 1812, at least twelve scholars with a variety of expertise (jurists, philosophers, Sufis and Akhbārīs) were commissioned to write answers to his work. These were all composed within five years of the shah’s order being issued.43 The second controversy arose when the polemical works of the Christian missionary Karl Gottlieb Pfander (1803-65), particularly his  Mīzān al-ḥaqq  (‘The balance of truth’), were received in Iran.44 In the second half of the 19th  century, at least five Shīʿī scholars, namely Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī (d. 1871),45 Najaf ʿAlī Khān Dānish Tabrīzī (d. 1891),46 Āqā Najafī Iṣfahānī (d. 1914),47 Muḥammad Ṣādiq Fakhr al-Islām (d. c. 39 O Flynn, Western Christian presence, pp. 155, 748. 40 See R. Pourjavady, ‘Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī’, in CMR 20, 76-80. 41 See R. Pourjavady, ‘Henry Martyn: “Risāla-yi avval dar javāb-i Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī ”’, in CMR 20, 91-5. 42 See R. Pourjavady, ‘Henry Martyn: “Risāla-yi duvum’”, and “Risāla-yi sivum”’, in CMR 20, 96-7, 98-101. 43 Pourjavady, ‘Henry Martyn: “Risāla-yi avval dar javāb-i Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī ”’, 91-5; Amanat, ‘Mujtahids and missionaries’, pp. 255-66. 44 See G. Nickel, ‘Karl Gottlieb Pfander’, in CMR 23 (forthcoming). 45 See D. Hermann, ‘Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī’, in CMR 20, 211-20. 46 See F. Tofighi, ‘Mīrzā Najaf ʿAlī Khān Dānish Tabrīzī’, in CMR 20, 221-4. 47 See A. Ehteshami, ‘Āqā Najafī Iṣfahānī’, in CMR 20, 234-41.

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1911),48 and Muḥammad Taqī Kāshānī (d. 1903), responded to his antiIslamic arguments. William St Clair Tisdall,49 who was resident in New Julfa from 1892 onwards, started the third significant controversy. He wrote some polemical works in Persian under the pen name of ʿAbd al-Masīḥ. One of these was a response to a polemical work by Muhammad Sādiq Fakhr al-Islām entitled  Burhān al-Muslimīn  (‘The proof of Muslims’), to which Fakhr al-Islām replied.50 Moreover, between 1902 and 1905, Tisdall took part in debates with Muḥammad ʿAlī Ḥasanī Dāʿī l-Islām in Isfahan. These were recorded in the periodical Al-Islām.51 The policies of the Qajars regarding the non-Muslim minorities in Iran remained more or less the same in the last decade of their rule before they were overthrown by the Pahlavis (1925-79) in 1925. Compared to the Qajars, their successors were more liberal in matters of religion. Christians in particular were given the right to preach. However, as a consequence of the Pahlavis’ attitude, many missionary schools were nationalised and the remainder were required to operate under Iranian supervision. The Islamic revolution in 1979 was a crucial turning point, following which tension between Twelver Shīʿīs and religious minorities, including Christians, increased drastically. Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia John Chesworth Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Georgians have been in the South Caucasus since ancient times. Muslim invaders crossed the River Araxes (Aras) in 639 and captured the Georgian town of Tbilisi (Tiflis in Persian) in 645 but were eventually repulsed by Jewish Khazars together with Christian Armenian and Georgian forces, leaving the south-eastern part of the region, present-day Azerbaijan, Islamised.52 48 See M. Motamedi, ‘Mīrzā Muḥammad Ṣādiq Fakhr al-Islām’, in CMR 20, 332-56. 49 See Nickel and Simnowitz, ‘William St Clair Tisdall’. 50 See Motamedi, ‘Mīrzā Muḥammad Ṣādiq Fakhr al-Islām’, in CMR 20, 332-56. 51 See H. Eyvazi, ‘Muḥammad ʿAlī Dāʿī al-Islām’, in CMR 20, 318-26.  52 G.M. Yemelianova and S.L. Akkieva, ‘The Muslim Caucasus’, in G.M. Yemelianova and L. Broers (eds), Routledge handbook of the Caucasus, London, 2020, 68-84; L. Broers and G.M. Yemelianova, ‘The “long millennium”. The Caucasus from the medieval to the early modern periods’, in Yemelianova and Broers, Routledge handbook of the Caucasus, 87-106, p. 89; T. de Waal, The Caucasus. An introduction, Oxford, 20192, pp. 19-22.

16

Introduction

From the 16th century onwards, Eastern Armenia south of the Caucasus mountains came under Iranian control, whereas Western Armenia in the eastern parts of Anatolia came under Ottoman control, with shifting borders between the two as competition between the Iranian and Ottoman Empires favoured one and then the other. Armenia retained its own form of Orthodox Christianity, though with some believers becoming Catholic Orthodox. Georgia’s four kingdoms, holding their own form of Orthodox Christianity, had been Iranian client states for many years, with the ruling classes often declaring themselves nominally Muslim. Azerbaijan came under Iranian control and, from the rise of the Safavids in the 16th century, was generally Shīʿa. While the Azerbaijanis were a Turkic people, they followed a different form of Islam from that of the Turkic Ottomans.53 The forced relocation by Shah ʿAbbās I (r. 1588-1629) of Armenians from the region of Nakhchivan, many from the town of Jolfā (Julfa), to a settlement named Now Jolfā (New Julfa) near Isfahan in 1604 led to a sizeable Armenian community there, which continued into the 19th century.54 The Georgian elite were held as hostages by the Safavid court: the women were taken to the royal harem and the men served as slave soldiers (ghulāms).55 In the early 18th century a detachment of Georgian slave soldiers were sent to suppress a revolt in Kandahar.56 By the 19th century, there was a sizeable Georgian Shīʿa Muslim community living in the Fereydan region of Isfahan Province.57 By the 18th  century, there was an Armenian diaspora of traders and intellectuals distributed through Istanbul, Venice, Amsterdam, Kabul, Kandahar,58 Calcutta and other commercial centres. During the 1770s, there were attempts within this diaspora to incite the Armenians and Georgians to rise up and fight for freedom; some of these are described by Joseph Emin, an Armenian who had spent time in Europe and was involved in campaigns against Ottoman and Persian rule before returning to Calcutta.59 Under Peter the Great (r. 1689-1725), Russia in the early 53 T.K. Blauvelt, ‘The Caucasus in the Russian Empire’, in Yemelianova and Broers, Routledge handbook of the Caucasus, 107-20, p. 109. 54 R. Pourjavady, ‘Introduction. The Safavid Empire’, in CMR 10, 14-19, p. 18. 55 Pourjavady, ‘Introduction’, p. 17. 56 See J. Lee, ‘Christians of Afghanistan under the Mughals and Durrānī monarchy, 1700-1901’, in CMR 20, 29-48, pp. 32-4. 57 B. Rezvani, ‘The Fereydani Georgian representation of identity and narration of history’, Anthropology of the Middle East 4/2 (2009) 52-74, pp. 52-3. 58 See Lee, ‘Christians of Afghanistan’, pp. 34-6. 59 Joseph Emin, The life and adventures of Joseph Émïn, an Armenian, London, 1892; see J.H. Morris, ‘Joseph Emin’, in CMR 20, 394-405.

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18th  century began actively to expand its sphere of interest across the Caucasus mountains, with military campaigns in 1722-3 to the Caspian Sea as far as Baku in Azerbaijan. Catherine the Great (r. 1762-96) expanded the Russian Empire to the shores of the Black Sea, taking over the Khanate of Crimea in 1795. The Georgian kingdoms were the first to come under Russian control. The Georgievsk Treaty of 1783 between King Heraclius II (Erekle, r. 1744-98) and Russia made the Georgian kingdoms of Kʻartʻli and Kakhetʻi into Russian protectorates. The Russian forces later pulled out of Tbilisi and, in 1795, Shah Muḥammad Khān Qajar (r. 1789-97) invaded, Heraclius was defeated and Tbilisi was sacked.60 However, the deaths of Heraclius, Catherine the Great and Muḥammad Khan Qajar in quick succession changed the political balance and, in 1801, Tsar Paul (r. 1796-1801) abrogated the Treaty of Georgievsk and occupied Kʻartʻli-Kakhetʻi, forcing many elite families into exile in St Petersburg. A number of Georgians, including Giorgi Avalashvili (1769-1850), Ioane Batonishvili (1768-1830) and Tʻeimuraz Bagrationi (1782-1846), who spent time in Russia in government service, also wrote about the religious situation.61 Russia then began a campaign to occupy the southern Caucasus, now referred to by Russia as Transcaucasus, led by Pavel Tsitsianov, who was killed in the siege of Baku in 1806. Yerevan in Armenia was twice besieged by the Russians, in 1804 and 1808, but they failed to capture it from the Iranians until the Khanate of Yerevan fell in 1828.62 The Georgian Orthodox Church was forced to become part of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1811, one of the causes that drove the eastern Georgian kingdoms to stage an uprising against the Russians in 1812, backed by the Iranians.63 The Treaty of Gulistan in 1813 forced the shah, under pressure from Great Britain, to confirm Russia’s conquests in the southern Caucasus.64 The completion of a military road across the Caucasus in 1817 aided Russian expansion and its retention of the land it held. The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) was exiled to the Caucasus in 1820, and his 60 Blauvelt, ‘The Caucasus in the Russian Empire’, pp. 100, 109; S.H. Rapp, ‘Georgian Christianity’, in K. Parry (ed.),  The Blackwell companion to Eastern Christianity, Oxford, 2007, 137-55, p. 150. 61 N. Gonjilashvili, ‘Giorgi Avalashvili’, in  CMR  20, 419-26; O. Kazumov, ‘Ioane Batonishvili’, in CMR 20, 427-32; D. Menabde, ‘Teimuraz Bagrationi’, in CMR 20 413-18. 62 De Waal, The Caucasus, p. 40. 63 Rapp, ‘Georgian Christianity’, pp. 150-1. 64 C. de Bellaigue,  The Islamic enlightenment, London, 2017, p. 117; de Waal,  The Caucasus, p. 40.

18

Introduction

poem Kavkazskiy plennik (‘The Prisoner of the Caucasus’, 1821) introduced the region to the Russian cultural imagination.65 In 1826, Iran retaliated and regained Azerbaijan, but it was defeated by Russian forces led by Ivan Paskevich, who also conquered Yerevan. The 1828 the Treaty of Turkmenchay was agreed, acknowledging Russian control over the whole southern Caucasus region, including eastern Armenia, in what was made into a viceroyalty. Article 15 of the treaty encouraged Armenians to move from Iran to Russian-held Armenia and, between 1828 and 1830, up to 60,000 did so.66 Paskevich then invaded Anatolia, leading to the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829 in which the Ottomans formally surrendered their claims to the Transcaucasus.67 The 1832 Georgian uprising against Russian occupation of their country led to the ringleaders being summoned to St Petersburg and then sent into internal exile. Among them was Aleksandre Chavchavadze (1786-1846), who was exiled to the city of Tambov, having burned all the poems he had written after 1820 lest they should incriminate him.68 But the appointment in 1845 of Mikhail Vorontsov (1782-1856) as viceroy of the Caucasus led to reforms. Among these was recognition of the aristocratic status of around 30,000 Georgians, who then became dependents of the tsarist court and acquired European culture and habits. At this time, the Georgian church began actively to proselytise among the remote mountain peoples, many of whom were Muslims.69 A number of Armenian writers attempted to raise Armenian awareness of their past and to call for a stand against the injustices they were facing under their Muslim oppressors. These include Khachatur Abovian (180948), whose novel Vērk‘ Hayastani (‘Wounds of Armenia’) takes the form of a dialogue between the author and his people set against a background of the annexation of the Khanate of Yerevan in 1828; Rap‘ayel Patkanean (1830-92), whose poem ‘Arak‘si artasuk‘ĕ’ (‘The tears of the river Araxes’) reflects on the dire situation of the Armenian people, with the river avowed to remain in mourning until the people are restored.70 65 See O. Breininger, ‘Alexander Pushkin’, in CMR 22 (forthcoming). 66 See Pourjavady, ‘Russo-Iranian war’, 24-8; De Waal, The Caucasus, p. 44. 67 De Bellaigue, Islamic enlightenment, p. 130. 68 D. Rayfield, The literature of Georgia, London, 2010, pp. 152-6; De Waal, The Caucasus, p. 45. 69 Blauvelt, ‘The Caucasus in the Russian Empire’, p. 115; de Waal,  The Caucasus, pp. 44-6. 70 See K.B. Bardakjian,  A reference guide to modern Armenian literature, Detroit MI, 2000, pp. 135-44.

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In a similar way, Georgian writers such as Vazha-Pshevela (1861-1915) and Akaki Tsereteli (1841-1915) recalled glorious events from the country’s past, including the destruction of the Safavid fortress at Bakhtrioni (1659), to show how Christian Georgians had previously related to Muslims with respect.71 During the 19th  century newspapers began to be produced locally: in Armenian, including  Kavkaz  (Tbilisi, 1846-7),  Ararat  (Echmiadzin, 1868-1919), and  Hayakhan Ashkarkh  (Yerevan, from 1879); in Georgian, such as  Droeba  (Tbilisi, 1866-85) and  Iveria  (Tbilisi, 1877-1906); and in Azerbaijani, Kəşkül (Tbilisi, 1883-91) and Şərqi-i Rus (Tbilisi, 1903-5). They published news reports as well as poems and short stories that helped to raise awareness of national identity as well as inter-communal and interreligious tensions.72 In 1861, following the Crimean War of 1853-6, Tsar Alexander II (r. 185581) abolished serfdom throughout the Russian Empire. In the Caucasus, this had a profound effect on Georgia in particular, which had been a feudal state with serfs tied to the land. The result was that many were turned off the land they had worked on and left homeless and unemployed, increasing the drift to urban centres such as Tbilisi, Baku and Batumi.73 By the 19th century, in the southern Caucasus, Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Georgians were living across the whole region, with each community having its own places of worship, specialist trades and districts within the towns, though everywhere Armenians controlled commerce and business. The 1899 census for Tbilisi gives a population of 172,000, of whom one third were Armenian, one quarter Georgian and one quarter Russian, with Azerbaijanis, Ossetians, Iranians, Greeks and central Europeans making up the remaining portion.74

71 T. Sharabidze, ‘Vazha-Pshavela’, in  CMR  20, 497-509; M. Kvataia, ‘Akaki Tsereteli’, in CMR 20, 484-9. 72 See M. Grigorian, ‘Media and democracy in Armenia’, in E. Herzig and M. Kurkchiyan (eds),  The Armenians. Past and present in the making of national identity, London, 2014, 180-95, pp. 180-2, Sharabidze, ‘Vazha-Pshavela’, in  CMR  20, pp. 506-8, M. Ninidze, ‘Ilia Chavchavadze’, in  CMR  20, 510-22, L. Rahimi Bahmany‚ ‘Məmməd Səid Ordubadi’, in CMR 20, 538-46. 73 K. Rice, ‘The Caucasus and Iran’, in Yemelianova and Broers, Routledge handbook of the Caucasus, 347-58, pp. 348-9 (on Baku); A. Arkun, ‘Into the modern age, 1800-1913’, in Herzig and Kurkchiyan (eds), The Armenians. Past and present in the making of national identity, 65-88, pp. 68-9; R. Suny, The making of the Georgian nation, Bloomington IN, 1988, pp. 86, 89; O. Wardrop, The kingdom of Georgia, London, 1888, pp. 1-4, 8-34 (descriptions of Batumi and Tbilisi by a British traveller). 74 De Waal, The Caucasus, p. 48.

20

Introduction

The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8 led to the capture by the Russians of Batumi on the Black Sea, an incursion into eastern Anatolia and the capture of the fortress of Bayazid. The Ottoman distrust of their Armenian citizens, who they saw as siding with the Russians as fellow Christians, led to massacres and forced expulsions from Western Armenia to Eastern Armenia. The Armenian novelist Raffi (1830-88) wrote moving accounts of the treatment of Western Armenians in Jallaledin (1880) and Khent‘ (‘The fool’, 1881) in an attempt to wake his own people out of their apparent fatalistic lethargy.75 Following the Russian defeat of the Ottomans in the war of 1877-8, the Treaty of Berlin (1878) confirmed the new borders between them and committed the Ottomans to protect Armenians within their territories.76 The loss of territory led to the migration of Georgian Muslims to Ottoman Anatolia where they were given land to settle near the Black Sea.77 After the Russian Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881, his successor, Alexander III (r. 1881-94), abolished the viceroyalty in Transcaucasus, reducing it to the same status as other regions. Russian Orthodox ‘military cathedrals’ were built across the region, including in Baku, Tbilisi and Kars, with lavish memorials to the Russian regiments that had triumphed in the suppression of the Caucasus.78 The oil fields around Baku, with a rail link and later a pipeline to the refinery at Batumi, made both these cities commercially important, attracting growing populations from the various peoples.79 The Azerbaijanis were Muslim Shīʿīs although they rejected clericalism, producing an atmosphere in which the author Mirzə Fətəli Axundzadə (1812-78) felt he could propose a form of ‘Protestant Islam’.80 Modernisation amongst the Azerbaijanis was less than in the Armenian and Georgian populations. The 1897 all-Russia census recorded that fewer than five percent of ‘Tatars’ could read or write. Əli bəy Husnəyzadə (18641940), an Azeri newspaper editor and intellectual, campaigned to ‘Turkify, Islamise, modernise’ the people,81 while Məmməd Səid Ordubadi (18721950), another journalist and activist, attacked Muslim superstition.82 75 Bardakjian, A reference guide to modern Armenian literature, pp. 144-8. 76 De Bellaigue, Islamic enlightenment, p. 104. 77 O. Özel. ‘Migration and power politics. The settlement of Georgian immigrants in Turkey (1878-1908)’, Middle Eastern Studies 46/4 (2010) 477-96. 78 De Waal, The Caucasus, p. 51. 79 De Waal, The Caucasus, p. 49. 80 L. Rahimi Bahmany, ‘Mirzə Fətəli Axundzadə’, in CMR 20, 461-76. 81 De Waal, The Caucasus, pp. 51-2. 82 Rahimi Bahmany, ‘Məmməd Səid Ordubadi’, in CMR 20, 538-46.

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Illustration 2. Alexander Nevsky Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Baku

In 1885, Armenian-language schools were closed throughout the country. Revolutionary movements were formed supporting radical action against Russian and Ottoman rule, among them the socialist Hunchakians in Geneva (1887) and the nationalistic Dashnaktstutiun in Tbilisi (1890).83 Following the death of Tsar Alexander III in 1903, the Russian state expropriated Armenian church land and property. This provoked an increase in nationalist desires, forcing the decision to be reversed two years later.84 Tensions between Armenian and Azerbaijani nationalist movements led to the 1905 Armeno-Tatar war, with fighting right across the Caucasus resulting in at least 10,000 deaths. The two communities spoke each other’s languages and mixed freely, meaning that the razing of villages and pogroms in Baku caused deep distress both locally and worldwide.85 Mir 83 Arkun, ‘Into the modern age’, pp. 78-81. 84 O. Önol, ‘The Armenians and Tsarist Russia’, Ankara, 2009 (MA Diss. Bilkent University), pp. 67-71. 85 L. Sargent, ‘The “Armeno-Tatar War” in the South Caucasus (1905-1906)’, Ab Imperio 4 (2010) 143-69.

22

Introduction

Möhsün Nəvvab (1833-1919) wrote about these events in 1905–1906-cı illərdə erməni-müsəlman davası (‘The Armenian-Muslim war of 1905-1906’) setting out the actions of both sides.86 In western Armenia, a revolt was crushed by the Ottomans in 1894, followed by massacres in 1895-6 ordered by Sultan Abdul Hamid II that killed 88,000 people and left 546,000 destitute.87 This led to the migration of significant numbers of Armenians to North America, which continued until immigration restrictions were introduced in the 1920s.88 The Armenian intellectual and poet Siamant‘ō (Adom Earčanian, 1878-1915) published a cycle of twelve poems Garmir lurer paregamēs (‘Red news from my friend’) about the Cilician massacres in 1909, revealing the contradiction between the Great powers’ condemnation of the atrocities and their lack of effective intervention.89 This pattern of violence against the Armenian population of eastern Anatolia came to a climax during the First World War. When Ottoman forces were defeated by the Russian army at Sarikanis near Kars in 1915, Armenians rebelled, provoking a violent response by the Turks at Van in eastern Anatolia. On 24 April 1915, Mehmed Talaat Pasha (1874-1921) of the Young Turks ordered the mass deportation of Armenians from the region. Siamant‘ō was among 250 Armenian intellectuals arrested in Istanbul. Between 800,000 and 1,200,000 people died, many forced to walk across the deserts of Syria until they perished from exhaustion, leading to this action being condemned as genocide.90 With the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917 and the overthrow of the tsar, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan each declared independence. They formed a federation, but this quickly collapsed as a result of differences in aims. The regions were recaptured by Russia in 1921 and remained part of the Soviet Union until 1991, when they regained independence.91

86 See L. Rahimi Bahmany, ‘Mir Möhsün Nəvvab’, in CMR 20, 523-8. 87 Arkun, ‘Into the modern age’, pp. 80-2; de Waal, The Caucasus, p. 54. 88 M. Bolsajian, ‘The Armenian diaspora. Migration and its influence on identity and politics’, Global Societies Journal 6 (2018) 29-40, p. 30. 89 S.P. Cowe, ‘Siamant’ō’, in CMR 20, 529-37. 90 R.G. Hovannisian, ‘Genocide and independence, 1914-21’, in Herzig and Kurkchiyan, The Armenians, 89-112, pp. 91-4, U.Ü. Üngör, ‚‘Genocide and the end of the Ottoman Empire’, in C. Carmichael and R.C. MacGuire (eds), The Routledge history of genocide’, Abingdon, 2015, 275-87. 91 A. Saparov, ‘Between the Russian Empire and the USSR’, in Yemelianova and Broers, Routledge handbook of the Caucasus, 121-35.

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The history of Christian-Muslim relations in the southern Caucasus has its roots in the 7th century, with a Muslim invasion. This was followed by centuries of the region acting as a buffer between the Iranian and Ottoman Empires, with many instances of repression and harsh treatment of Christians and occasional enlightened treatment by certain Muslim rulers. The encroachment of Russia into the southern Caucasus in the 18th century raised new tensions between the faiths, which had by then often learned to live together more or less in harmony. Russian expansionist policies led to deep distrust of Christian minorities in Muslim states, and to forced migrations of these minorities from them.

Russo-Iranian wars 1804-13 and 1826-8 Reza Pourjavady As soon as Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (r. 1797-1834), the second ruler of the newly established Qajar dynasty, ascended the throne of Iran in 1797, he was engaged in a territorial dispute with Russia over the Caucasus. The Christian Kingdom of Kʻartʻli-Kakhetʻi in the eastern parts of present-day Georgia had for many years complied with the directions of the Iranian government, but it was now no longer prepared to submit to Iranian control. It rejected the authority of the new Iranian dynasty and decided to seek Russian protection against Iran. This was a sensitive matter for the Qajar state as the previous ruler, Āqā Muḥammad Khān (r. 1789-97), had been killed in the Caucasus while endeavouring to compel obedience by force.1 The Russians, who had been showing interest in the Caucasus from the 1760s, became more eager to expand their influence and presence in the region during the reign of Tsar Alexander I (r. 1801-25). In 1803, Alexander put Prince Pavel Dmitrievich Tsitsianov (d. 1806) in charge of Caucasian affairs, and the prince had no qualms about using force, but any violation of Iran’s sovereignty over the Caucasus was not an issue that the Qajar government could easily overlook. The Caucasus had belonged to Iran since 1502, and the Iranians considered it an integral part of their territory. In mid-January 1804, a Russian army stormed the citadel of Ganja in Azerbaijan, massacring between 1,500 and 3,000 inhabitants of the city, which they then renamed Elizavetpol in honour of the Russian emperor’s wife. The congregational mosque was turned into a church, and Russian law replaced Islamic law. This was the start of the first Russo-Iranian war, which lasted nine years. On 23 May 1804, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah ordered Russian troops to withdraw from Iranian territory in the Caucasus. Their refusal to do this was taken by Iran as a declaration of war.2 Iranian troops were sent to the region, though it did not take long for the Crown Prince, ʿAbbās Mīrzā, who was the commander in chief of the operation, to realise that the Iranian army was incapable of confronting the Russian military and that it urgently required modernisation. At first, 1 See J.R. Perry, ‘Āḡā Moḥammad Khan Qājār’, in EIr. 2 See E. Andreeva, ‘Russia i. Russo-Iranian relations up to the Bolshevik Revolution’, in EIr.

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they turned to the British government, but no help was forthcoming so they turned to the French. In April 1807, an ambassador from Iran went to Paris and signed a treaty with Napoleon, under which Napoleon recognised Iranian sovereignty over the Caucasus and promised to aid the country in modernising its army. Subsequently, French envoys were sent to train Iranian soldiers. However, in June of the same year (only two months later), Napoleon signed a new treaty with Russia in Tilsit, ending all disputes between the two countries. As a result, the treaty with Iran was totally ignored, and the mission of the French envoys, who at the time were still making their way to Iran, was revised. ʿAbbās Mīrzā and his minister (qāʾim-maqām) Mīrzā ʿĪsā were informed about Tilsit by the Russian General Gudovich in October 1807. This information obviously coloured Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah’s attitude towards the French envoys.3 In 1808, the Qajar state decided to declare the ongoing war a religious war, jihād. Various factors played a role in making this decision. First, in the confrontation itself there were indications that the war was indeed a religious one. At least until that time, Caucasian Christians had been inclined to accept the authority of Christian Russia rather than Muslim Qajar rule. Second, the Russians aimed to spread Christianity in the region, evidenced by some mosques in the invaded cities being turned into churches. Third, European governments such as Britain and France, although promising a great deal, did not give much help towards strengthening the Iranian military, creating suspicion that they might be secretly allied with Russia. In addition, counting the war as a jihād might help the Qajar state justify spending large sums of money on it and would require rulers in other parts of Iran to assist the Crown Prince in advancing the war. At the request of the Crown Prince, his vizier Mīrzā ʿĪsā asked the ʿulamāʾ to judge whether the ongoing fighting against the Russians could be considered a jihād and whether it could, under Islamic law, legitimately be funded from taxes. Many high-ranking scholars responded with the relevant fatwās, including Sayyid Jaʿfar Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ, Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qummī, Āqā Sayyid ʿAlī Iṣfahānī, Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī and Muḥammad Ḥusayn Khātūnābādī. All the scholars who issued a fatwā on the matter fully supported the Crown Prince and what were seen as defensive measures.4 3 See J. Calmard, ‘Garden Mission’, in EIr. 4 See C. Masroori, ‘Russian imperialism and jihad. Early 19th-century Persian texts on just war’, Journal of Church and State 46/2 (2004) 263-79; R. Gleave, ‘Religious rituals, social identities and political relationships in Tehran under Qajar rule, 1850s-1920s’, in R. Gleave (ed.), Religion and society in Qajar Iran, London, 2005, 373-92.

26

Russo-IRANIAN wars 1804-13 and 1826-8

In the last years of the war, 1811-13, several European delegations, as well as Georgian and Armenian allies coming from the war zone, were resident at the Crown Prince’s court in Tabriz, where it seems occasional debates took place between Muslim scholars and Christian guests. Around 1811, the prince ordered the Muslim scholars associated with his court to study the Old and New Testaments and better prepare themselves with arguments in support of Islam based on the Bible.5 Several workshops were organised under the supervision of Mīrzā ʿĪsā to study the Old and New Testaments. In February 1812, N.F. Ritischev assumed command of the Russian forces and opened peace negotiations with the Iranians. The British ambassador, Sir Gore Ouseley (1770-1844), acted as an intermediary and made a series of proposals to Rtischev, though none was accepted. Towards the end of 1812 and in early 1813, the Russians were emboldened to pursue a more aggressive campaign in the Caucasus, and eventually the Qajar ruler had to ask Ouseley to arrange an immediate cease-fire.6 The Treaty of Gulistān was then concluded between the two sides on 24 October 1813. Despite all the promises of the British ambassador, he ultimately failed to gain anything substantial for the Iranian side, which came as a great disappointment to the Qajars. Under the terms of the treaty, they had not only to recognise Russian sovereignty over Georgia but also to give up any claim to authority over the khanates of the eastern Caucasus as well as making other major political and economic concessions. However, not every detail was appropriately addressed in the Treaty of Gulistān, which was based on the status quo. This meant that each side would remain in possession of territories currently under their control, pending future negotiations. In early 1825, General Alexei P. Yermolov, the governor of Georgia, ordered the occupation of the northern shore of Lake Gokcha (Sivan), which the Iranians had assumed was part of their territory.7 Using this as a staging post, the Russian army advanced further and in June 1826 they invaded Bash Apran (Aparan), about 40 miles north of the Armenian capital, Yerevan.8 At the same time, reports were reaching Iran that the Russians were treating the Muslim population harshly in their newly-conquered lands and discriminating against them. Some reports even intimated that 5 See M.B. Salmāsī, Tarjuma-yi Anājīl, MS Qom, Marʿashī Library – 13276, fol. 5r. 6 E.L. Daniel, ‘Golestān treaty’, in EIr. 7 See M. Behrooz, ‘Revisiting the Second Russo-Iranian War (1826-28). Causes and perceptions’, Iranian Studies 46/3 (2013) 359-81, p. 368. 8 Behrooz, ‘Revisiting the Second Russo-Iranian War’, p. 372.

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Russian soldiers had raped Muslim women. Regardless of their accuracy, they created much agitation and rage among Iranians. One of the most distinguished jurists of the time, Sayyid Muḥammad Ṭabāṭabāʾī, who lived in Karbala, wrote a letter to Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah pointing out the mistreatment of Muslims by the Russian occupiers and reminding him of his responsibilities not only as the ruler of Iran but also as the head of the faith of Muḥammad. Subsequently, he went to Tehran with a number of other scholars to encourage the shah to pursue the jihād further.9 For his efforts in pushing the Qajar government to start the war, Sayyid Muḥammad Ṭabātabāʾī later became known mujāhid (one who engages in jihād). Finally, in July 1826, the Qajar court decided to wage a new war. They achieved initial victories in the summer of 1826 but the second war ended catastrophically for Iran. Eventually, in 1828 the Treaty of Turkmenchay was signed, under which Iran renounced its sovereignty over Yerevan and Nakhchivan.10

Illustration 3. Iranian representatives in Tabriz paying indemnity following the signing of the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828

  9 Behrooz, ‘Revisiting the Second Russo-Iranian War’, p. 374. 10 Behrooz, ‘Revisiting the Second Russo-Iranian War’, p. 379.

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Russo-IRANIAN wars 1804-13 and 1826-8

Following the Treaty of Turkmenchay, Alexander Griboedov was appointed as the Russian ambassador plenipotentiary to Iran. In 1829, in the Tehran bazaar, Griboedov and his staff took a number of Christian women who had converted to Islam to the Russian embassy. Their actions caused a riot in the city. Ḥājī Mīrzā Masīḥ, a Tehran mujtahid, delivered a fatwā authorising an assault on the Russian embassy in order to liberate the Muslim women allegedly being held there. Shortly afterwards, the embassy was attacked and Griboedov and some of his staff were killed. Russian sources claim that British agents, who feared Russian influence in Tehran, were also involved in provoking the people.11 Concerned that the Russians might use Griboedov’s death as a pretext for a new war, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah sent a delegation to Russia to apologise, present valuable gifts, and giving assurances that the Iranian government had nothing to do with the incident.12 11 G.A. Bournoutian, ‘Griboedov, Alexander Sergeevich’, in EIr; H. Algar, Religion and state in Iran (1785-1906). The role of the ulama in the Qajar period, Berkeley CA, 1969, p. 97. 12 Bournoutian, ‘Griboedov, Alexander Sergeevich’.

Christians of Afghanistan under the Mughals and Durrānī monarchy, 1700-1901 Jonathan L. Lee Standard works on Afghanistan barely mention the country’s Christian heritage,1 and most Afghans are unaware that their country ever had a Christian presence. Yet the first reference to an Eastern Syriac (Nestorian) Christian presence in what is now Afghanistan dates to as early as the late second century, with a passing mention of an order of celibate women in Kaisaniye, Bactria (modern Balkh), which at the time was part of the kingdom of the Kushans.2 By the first half of the 5th century, Nestorian bishops from Herat, Būshang (Pūshang, Fūshang),3 and Sigistān (Sijistān, modern Sīstān), were present at the Eastern Church Synod. Subsequent synods were attended by representatives from Bādisī (Bādghīs), Bīst (Būst), Farāh, Qādistān (Qādis in modern Bādghīs province),4 Zarang (Zaranj) and Marw al-Rūdh (Marūchāk? Bālā Murghāb?).5 Christianity co-existed with Buddhism and Zoroastrianism, the more dominant pre-Islamic religions of the region, and survived for several centuries after the Arab Muslim conquests, which began in the mid-7th century. Ibn Ḥawqal (10th century), for example, notes there was a church at Sikah near Herat.6 The Christian presence was eventually extinguished probably during the devastating campaigns of Tīmūr Lang (r. 1370-1405), though traces of this heritage still remain. A sub-district (wulswālī) of Herat province is known as Injīl (‘gospel’) and local tradition claims Herat’s Friday Mosque is built on the site of a church. In 2001, P. Gignoux 1 But see V. Gregorian, The emergence of modern Afghanistan, Stanford CA, 1969, pp. 62, 65, 78. 2 Bardaisan of Edessa, The book of laws of countries, ed. and trans. H.W.J. Drijvers and G.E. van Baaren-Pape, Assen, 1965, pp. 47, 61; A. Mingana, ‘The early spread of Christianity in Central Asia and the Far East. A new document’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 9/2 (1925) 1-41, pp. 4-5. 3 Pūshang, or Būshang, was located west of Herat; see V. Minorsky (ed.), Ḥudūd al-ʿālam, the ‘regions of the world’, a Persian geography 372 A.H.-982 A.D., London, 1970, pp. 20a, 104. 4 Probably Qadis in eastern Badghis province. 5 J-B. Chabot, Synodicon Orientale ou recueil et synodes nestoriens, Paris, 1902, pp. 285, 299, 301, 311, 316, 423-4, 486, 585; Mingana, ‘Early spread of Christianity’, pp. 13-15. 6 Muḥammad Abū l-Qāsim ibn Ḥawqal, The oriental geography of Ebn Haukal, ed. W. Ouseley, London, 1800, p. 218.

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Christians of Afghanistan

published pictures of a bronze processional cross with a Pahlavi inscription referring to the ‘Church of Herat’. Dating to the mid-8th century,7 this cross is the first archaeological evidence of the Christian presence in Afghanistan. Roman Catholic missions to Afghanistan under the Mughals and Safavids References to the Christian presence under the Mughal and Safavid dynasties in the region today known as Afghanistan are few and far between, and the communities themselves left no written record.8 In 1581, Fr Antonio Monserrate (1536-1600), a Jesuit missionary at the Mughal court, accompanied Akbar the Great (r. 1556-1605) to Peshawar and Kabul during the campaign to suppress Akbar’s rebellious brother, Mīrzā Muḥammad Hakīm.9 However, there were probably Armenian merchants living in Kabul and Kandahar during the first half of the 16th century, if not earlier, probably part of the diaspora deported to Iran during the Safavid dynasty’s war with Ottoman Turkey.10 There was also an Armenian community in Lahore when Jesuit missionaries first arrived in the city in the 1580s. Most of them belonged to the Armenian Apostolic Church. Regarding them as schematics and heretics, the Jesuits managed to persuade a small number of them to embrace Roman Catholicism.11 Some Armenians held prominent positions in the Mughal court, while others served in the army, including in the Kabul garrison.12 Most of the Armenians, however, were engaged in   7 P. Gignoux, ‘Un croix de procession de Hérat inscrite en pehlevi’, Le Muséon 114, fasc. 3-4 (2001) 291-304; M.T. Antony and M. Mailaparampil, ‘The Pahlavi inscribed processional cross of Herat, Afghanistan and the Pahlavi crosses of south India’, The Harp 32 (2017): https://www.nasrani.net/cross-study-religio-cultural-traditions-churches-india-parthia /#footnote_12_1597.   8 See M.J. Seth, Armenians in India, from the earliest times to the present day, Calcutta, 1937, pp. 207-24; J.L. Lee, ‘The Armenians of Kabul and Afghanistan’, in W. Ball and L. Harrow (eds), Cairo to Kabul. Afghan and Islamic studies presented to Ralph PinderWilson, London, 2002, 157-62; J.L. Lee, The Armenians of Afghanistan. Interfaith relations and survival strategies, 1556 to the present, indicative title of a book in preparation to be published by Edinburgh University Press.   9 A. Monserrate, The commentary of Father Monserrate, S.J., ed. J.S. Hoyland, Oxford, 1922 (1992), pp. 150-4; H. Heras, ‘The Jesuits in Afghanistan’, part 1, The New Review (January 1935) 1-14. 10 I.B. McCabe, The Shah’s silk for Europe’s silver. The Eurasian trade of the Julfan Armenians in Safavid Iran and India (1530-1750), Atlanta GA, 1999, p. 31; B. Bhattacharya, ‘Armenian European relations in India 1500-1800. No Armenian foundation for European empire?’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 48/2 (2005) 277-322, pp. 277-8. 11  P. Du Jarric, Akbar and the Jesuits, ed. C.H. Payne, London, 1926, p. 135. 12 Seth, Armenians in India, chs 1 and 4.

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the lucrative overland trade with Iran, in particular with the Armenian colony of New Julfa in Isfahan established by the Safavid monarch Shah ʿAbbās I in 1605.13 Armenian merchants of Lahore and Agra were also instrumental in facilitating a series of pioneering missionary journeys by the Jesuits into Kashmir, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Tibet and China. In 1603, the Jesuit lay brother Bento de Góes (1562-1607), disguised as an Armenian merchant, passed through Jalalābād, Kabul and Tāluqān on his way to China. He was accompanied by Isaac, an Armenian from Lahore.14 One motivation that inspired these journeys was rumours of the survival of a remnant of Christians in Inner Asia and beyond the Indus. In 1626, the Jesuit Joseph de Castro (1577-1646) visited Kabul ‘to look after the new Christians who accompany the king and to preach our Holy Law’.15 In the 1640-50s, the wife of the Mughal governor of Kabul, ʿAlī Mardān Khān, was a Portuguese Catholic, Maria de Ataides.16 Fr Heinrich Roth (1620-68) passed through Herat, Kandahar and Kabul in 1653 and claimed to have encountered Christians affiliated to the Mar Thoma Church.17 In 1676, Fr Gregorio Roiz attempted to enter Kāfiristān but did not ‘detect any signs that […] they had once been Christians’.18 Another Portuguese woman at the Mughal court, Donna Juliana Diaz da Costa (d. 1734),19 was in Kabul in 1700/1 and secured permission from the prince governor, Muḥammad Muʿaẓẓam, later Shah ʿĀlam (r. 1707-12), for Fr Antonio Magalhaens to pay a pastoral visit to Christian troops stationed in the city, though he probably never took up the offer as he died the following year.20 Jesuits continued to visit the Christians in Kabul twice a year until the early 18th century; their ministry probably ended with the invasions of the Iranian ruler Nādir Shah

13 McCabe, The Shah’s silk, pp. 33, 43-60, 80-105; S.D. Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. The global trade networks of Armenian merchants from New Julfa, Berkeley CA, 2011, pp. 44-66. 14 H. Heras, ‘The Jesuits in Afghanistan part 2’, The New Review (February 1935) 1-16, p. 2; C. Wessels, Early Jesuit travellers in Central Asia, 1603-1721, The Hague, 1924 (1997), pp. 1-41. 15 Heras, ‘Jesuits in Afghanistan’, part 2, p. 6; H. Hosten, ‘Three letters of Fr. Joseph de Castro, S.J. and the last year of Jahangir (1626-27)’, Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 22 (1927) 141-66, p. 141. 16 N. Manucci, Storia do Mogor, or Mughal India, 1653-1708, ed. W. Irvine, London, 1907, vol. 3, p. 179, and vol. 4, pp. 188-91; M. Soroush, ‘Ali Mardan Khan’, in EIr. 17 Heras, ‘Jesuits in Afghanistan’, part 2, pp. 10-11. 18 Heras, ‘Jesuits in Afghanistan’, part 2, p. 12; E. Maclagan, The Jesuits and the Great Mogul, London, 1932, pp. 126, 340; A. Kircher, China illustrata, ed. C.D. van Tuyl, Amsterdam, 1987, pp. 83-4. 19 Maclagan, Jesuits and the Great Moghul, pp. 181-9. 20 Heras, ‘Jesuits in Afghanistan’, part 2, pp. 14-15; Maclagan, Jesuits and the Great Moghul, p. 131.

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(r. 1736-1747) and subsequently of Aḥmad Shah ʿAbdālī (r. 1747-73), which led to the Mughal loss of Kabul, Peshawar and Lahore.21 Catholic missionaries did not return to Afghanistan until 1879, when Fr George Browne of the Mill Hill Mission,22 who had been co-opted as Catholic chaplain to the British army of occupation during the Second Afghan War (1878-81), was in Kabul. During his time in the city he met with the small Armenian community but was not asked to perform divine service.23 Georgians in Afghanistan In 1641, Fray Manrique, an Augustinian, encountered a garrison of Georgian cavalry in the Safavid frontier town of Farāh in south-western Afghanistan. These ghulāms (literally ‘slaves’) had been conscripted into the Safavid army following the conquest of Georgia and had been forced to convert to Shīʿism. Hearing that a European was passing through their area, they sought him out and made the sign of the cross but Manrique showed little sympathy for these ‘schismatics’ who were ‘oblivious of the Divine sacrament of baptism’ and damned them as ‘in all ways as much Moors as the Moors themselves’.24 In 1832, Charles Masson (1800-53), a deserter from the Indian Army who had fled to Kabul, while wandering on the city’s Kūh-i ʿĀsmāyī, found ‘a neglected stone, distinguished by a sculptured mitre’, which he identified as the last resting place of ‘a Georgian bishop, who it would seem died at Kâbal three to four centuries ago’.25 Masson did not sketch the headstone or note the inscription, which is now lost. Nothing more is known about this ‘bishop’. In May 1704, Shah Sulṭān Ḥusayn (r. 1694-1722), the Safavid ruler of Persia, sent several thousand Georgian ghulāms under Giorgi XI (r. 1676-88, 1703-9), prince of Kʻartʻli, to Kandahar to suppress a revolt by local tribes. The uprising was ruthlessly put down and Mīr Wa‌ʾis (1673-1715), the head of the Hūtak Ghilzay tribe, was sent as a prisoner to Tehran in anticipation of his execution. However, he convinced the Safavid monarch that it was Giorgi who had planned the rebellion and in 1709 Mīr Wa‌ʾis was allowed 21 Heras, ‘Jesuits in Afghanistan’, part 2, p. 16. 22 A. Camps, ‘Mission and Afghanistan in the nineteenth century’, in A. Camps, Studies in Asian Mission History, 1956-1998, Leiden, 2000, 213-58, pp. 221-3. 23 For Browne’s reports, see Archives Liverpool, Mill Hill Missionary Archives – Pakistan: PAK (1878-82), 19-A-49. 24 F.S. Manrique, Travels of Fray Sebastien Manrique, 1629-1643, ed. C.E. Luard and H. Hosten, Oxford, 1927, vol. 2, pp. 343-6. 25 C. Masson, Narrative of various journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan, the Panjab and Kalat, London, 1842, vol. 2, p. 275.

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to return to Kandahar. He then formed an alliance with the ʿAbdālī and Kākar tribes and in the uprising that ensued the Georgian garrison was slaughtered almost to the last man. Mīr Wa‌ʾis then declared independence from Iran.26 The British traveller George Forster (1752-91) stayed with a Georgian merchant named ‘Bagdasir’ during his visit to Kabul in 1793. Bagdasir had been living in Kabul for some 20 years, that is since about 1773, around the time Tīmūr Shah moved the capital from Kandahar to Kabul. The Georgian lived in a serai in Kabul’s royal citadel, the Bālā Ḥiṣār, along with the Armenians,27 and had Georgian and Armenian associates in Kandahar, Herat and Kashmir. Bagdasir, though, ‘abhorred’ his Armenian neighbours’ adherence to the Armenian Apostolic Church, presumably because he himself was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church.28 In about 1808, a certain ‘Padre Puigi’, an Italian-speaking Georgian-born priest ‘of the Latin rite’ was reported to be on his way to Kabul to ‘exercise the functions of the Apostolic Vicar’.29 This individual was probably the same ‘Catholic priest of Greek descent’ who Mountstuart Elphinstone noted was in Kabul in the same year.30 Nothing else is known about him but his visit was probably brief. In 1828, when the American adventurer Josiah Harlan was in Kabul, he employed a Georgian servant called ‘John’, who lived with his widowed mother in the Lower Bālā Ḥiṣār. John’s father had served in the Saddūzay ghulām khāna, or royal guard, so it is possible he was Bagdasir’s son. During Harlan’s stay, John was accused of violating the zanāna (women’s quarter) of an Arab ghulām and thrown into prison. His distraught mother petitioned Harlan to intercede on her son’s behalf with Nawāb Jabbār Khān, half-brother to Amīr Dōst Muḥammad Khān. He ordered the Georgian’s release on the grounds that ‘the sacred considerations of hospitality overruled again[st] their unfounded claims’.31 The attitude of Jabbār 26 Umar Kamal Khan (ed.), Rise of Saddozais and emancipation of Afghans, Multan, 1991, pp. 118-31 (a translation of ʿAlī Muḥammad Khān Khudākka Saddūzay’s, Tadhkīrat al-mulūk); L. Lockhart, Nadir Shah, London, 1938, pp. 5-6. 27 G. Forster, A journey from Bengal to England through the northern parts of India, Kashmir, Afghanistan and Persia, London, 1798, vol. 2, pp. 71-2. 28 Forster, Journey from Bengal, vol. 2, p. 77. 29 R.J. Mackintosh, Memoirs of the life of Sir James Mackintosh, London, 1835, vol. 1, pp. 398-9. 30 M. Elphinstone, An account of the kingdom of Caubul, 2 vols, London, 1815 (18393), vol. 1, p. 267 (p. 204 in the 1815 edition). 31 Archives West Chester PA, Chester County Historical Society – Josiah Harlan, Cabul, 1827-1828, in Oriental Sketches, or reminiscences of travel in India etc. by an Assistant Surgeon of the Bengal medical staff (fols 171-4).

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Khān reflected a wider culture of tolerance towards non-Muslims – Jews, Armenians and Hindus – that prevailed under the Saddūzay and the early years of the Muḥammadzay dynasty.32 This Georgian family probably left Kabul shortly after Harlan, as there is no mention of them in subsequent European travelogues. Armenians under Nādir Shah and the Durrānī dynasties The number of Armenians and Georgians in Kabul, Kandahar and other cities in the Mughal and Safavid eras was probably relatively small.33 However, in 1722, Shah Māḥmūd, son of Mīr Waʾis Hūtak, invaded Iran, forced Shah Sulṭān Ḥusayn to surrender and occupied the Safavid capital of Isfahan. Shah Māḥmūd then plundered the Armenian quarter of New Julfa and demanded payment of a vast ransom. Six hundred Armenians and some Georgians were conscripted into the Afghan army as ghulāms, while between 40 and 60 Armenian girls and some boys were surrendered and distributed among Shah Māḥmūd’s followers. At least some of these Armenians were sent to Kandahar and doubtless some of the girls bore children to their Afghan masters.34 In 1729, Nādir Qulī Bīg (later known as Nādir Shah) defeated the Hūtakīs and reasserted Persian authority. In an attempt to revive the overland trade, he settled several thousand Armenian families from the Van and Ararat regions in Mashhad. They were given their own maḥalla, known as New Nakhijivān, constructed a church, though this was never completed, and even opened wine shops.35 The project failed, however, because these Armenians were peasants with no craft skills or commercial background. By the early 1820s, there were no Armenians left in Mashhad.36 Nādir Shah also developed an alliance with the Armenian Apostolic Church and 32 Forster, Journey from Bengal, vol. 2, p. 73; Masson, Narrative, vol. 2, pp. 246-7; Elphinstone, Kingdom of Caubul, vol. 1, pp. 266-7 (p. 208 of the 1815 edition). 33 Gregorian, Emergence of modern Afghanistan, p. 65. 34 Petros di Sarkis Gilanentz, Chronicle concerning the invasion of Persia in 1722, etc., ed. C.O. Minasian, Lisbon, 1959, pp. 13, 39-41; Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean, p. 204; W. Floor, The Afghan occupation of Safavid Persia 1721-1729, Paris, 1998, pp. 105-6. 35 Lockhart, Nadir Shah, p. 279; R. Smbatian, ‘Nadir’s religious policy towards Armenians’, in R. Smbatian (ed.), Studies on Iran and the Caucasus, Leiden, 2015, 131-8, p. 134; F. Orouji, ‘Nadir Shah’s cooperation with the Armenians’, Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 22 (2013) 253-61; E.H. Stirling, The journals of Edward Stirling in Persia and Afghanistan 18281829, ed. J.L. Lee, Naples, 1991, p. 188. 36 J.B. Fraser, Narrative of a journey into Khorasan in the years 1821 and 1822, London, 1825, p. 467.

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Armenians troops were incorporated into his army. 37 During the siege of Kandahar in 1736, two Armenians from Persia cast a huge siege gun and after the city was conquered Nādir Shah relocated a hundred Armenian and Georgian military families from Mashhad to Kandahar and promoted their leader, ‘Aswa Ditor’ (Armenian, Asvatsatur?), whose Persian name was Khudādād, to a high rank.38 Later, Nādir Shah relocated some of these families to Kabul.39 Following Nādir Shah’s assassination in 1747, Aḥmad Shah ʿAbdalī (later known as Aḥmad Shah Durrānī) (r. 1747-72), who had served in Nādir Shah’s royal guard, established an independent Afghan kingdom in Kandahar. Over the following two decades, he conducted a series of invasions of northern India and, a year or so after being declared king, he expelled the Mughal garrison from Kabul and moved there the remaining Armenians who were in Kandahar and also Persian Qizilbāshīs.40 In about 1755, Aḥmad Shah also deported most of the Armenian artillerymen in Lahore to Kabul or Kandahar.41 These Armenians later cast three more huge cannons, one of which was used at the Battle of Panipat in 1761.42 As members of the royal guard, the ghulām khāna, they were bound for life to the ruler’s service. However, they were permitted to engage in overland trade, which was the backbone of Kabul’s economy, and to produce wine and brandy.43 At least one of their families owned land and at one time had been ‘very rich’.44 37 Smbatian, ‘Nadir’s religious policy’, pp. 134-5. 38 Archive London, British Library – India Office Library and Records, Masson Papers: IOR/Mss. Eur. E163.11, fol. 16v (Charles Masson, Journal, 1 July 1832-14 July 1833, entry under 5 June 1833); Rev. Imam Shah, ‘Report on the Armenians of Cabul’, in Church Missionary Intelligencer and Record 5 (1880) 682-7, p. 683. Imam Shah says these Armenians came from Tehran, but Masson is to be preferred because he lived with the Armenians and his account is much nearer in time to the event in question. 39 Masson, Journal, 5 June 1833; Imam Shah, ‘Report on the Armenians’, p. 683; Foster, Journey from Bengal, vol. 2, p. 58; Alexander Burnes, Travels into Bukhara; being the account of a journey from India to Cabool, Tartary and Persia, 2 vols, London, 1834, vol. 1, pp. 1489; Seth, Armenians in India, p. 207; Archives Birmingham, University of Birmingham, Cadbury Research Library – Church Missionary Society CMS/B/OMS/ C I 4 O/16/1 (Rev. Imam Shah, Letter from Cabul, 14 August 1879). 40 Imam Shah, ‘Report on the Armenians’, p. 683; Sajjad Nejatie, ‘Iranian migrations in the Durrani Empire, 1747-93’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 37/3 (2017) 494-509. 41 Heras, ‘Jesuits in Afghanistan’, part 2, p. 16; Seth, Armenians in India, p. 207. 42 Seth, Armenians in India, p. 207; Maclagan, Jesuits and the Great Moghul, p. 133; Imam Shah, ‘Report on the Armenians’, p. 683. 43 Forster, Journey from India, vol. 1, pp. 86-7; Archives London, British Library – India Office Records, Masson Papers: IOR/Mss Eur. 163/11, fol. 14r (Charles Masson, Journal, 1 July 1832-14 July 1833, entry under 18 May 1833); Burnes, Travels into Bukhara, vol. 1, pp. 149-50. 44 Imam Shah, ‘Report on the Armenians’, p. 682.

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The influx of several hundred Armenian families into Kabul must have created something of an accommodation problem. The artillerymen were probably housed in the Bālā Ḥiṣār citadel, the residence of the governor, while the remainder, being non-Muslims, were probably assigned their own maḥalla, similar to that of the Shīʿa Qizilbāshīs in Murād Khānī and Chindawāl. The location of this Armenian maḥalla, if it existed, is unknown but, given that Masson found the grave of a Christian ‘bishop’ in west Kabul on the slopes of the Kōh-i Āsmāyyī, it is likely they were housed somewhere in this area. At least one priest accompanied the Armenians,45 and the church that was set aside for their use would have been located within the Armenian maḥalla;46 it was possibly the house used by the Jesuits during their pastoral visits to Kabul. The original maḥalla, church and cemetery were abandoned sometime in the early 19th century. The church was relocated to the Armenian serai in the Lower Bālā Ḥiṣār, while a walled garden to the south-east of the Bālā Ḥiṣār was dedicated as a new cemetery.47 Shortly after Aḥmad Shah Durrānī’s death in 1772, his son and heir Tīmūr Shah moved the capital of the kingdom to Kabul. Tīmūr had little interest in pursuing the relentless campaigns of his father, so a number of the Armenian ghulāms were manumitted and left for Persia, India or Armenia. Those who remained became increasingly impoverished due to the lack of employment in military service and the steep decline in the overland trade following the Hūtakī and Nādir Shah’s sack of New Julfa.48 In about 1784, Hovsep Episcopos Erkaynabazuk Arghut’ean (1743-1801), Supreme Primate of Armenians in the Imperial Russian dominions, sent two priests to Kabul to minister to the Armenians there.49 Nothing is known of their fate but, if they ever reached Kabul, they probably left soon after, for, following the death of Tīmūr Shah in 1793, a bitter civil war ensued between his sons, Zamān Shah (r. 1793-1801) and his younger brother Shah Shujāʿ (r. 1803-9; 1839-42) on the one hand, and their half-brother Maḥmūd

45 Imam Shah, Letter from Cabul, 7 August 1879; Forster, Journey from India, vol. 1, p. 86. 46 Imam Shah, ‘Report on the Armenians’, pp. 682, 685. 47 Imam Shah, ‘Report on the Armenians’, p. 686; Imam Shah, Letter from Cabul, 7 August 1879. 48 Forster, Journey from Bengal, vol. 1, pp. 86-7. 49 Archive Yerevan, Matenadaran Institute of Ancient Manuscripts – Catholicosate Archives, Correspondence of Hovsep Episcopos Erkaynabazuk Arghut‘ean (Letter to Ter Hovanness and Ter Baghtasar, K’eapul, Astrakhan, 17 October 1784; my thanks to Sebouh Aslanian for providing this reference, together with a transcript of the original Armenian text and an English translation).

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Shah (r. 1801-3; 1809-18) on the other.50 The Armenian ghulāms became embroiled in this conflict, which was marked by a growing intolerance of Shīʿīs and Christians fuelled by radical Naqshbandī pīrs from the Kōh Dāman, north of Kabul, affiliates of the north Indian Mujaddidī ṭarīqa.51 After the fall of the Saddūzays in 1824 and the rise of the Muḥammadzay dynasty under Amīr Dōst Muḥammad Khān (r. 1826-39, 1845-63), most of the remaining Armenians of the ghulām khāna were discharged and left for Persia or India.52 By 1828, the community in Kabul was reduced to between 23 and 25 individuals, members of four inter-related families.53 The Armenians were also by this time impoverished – a situation made worse when Dōst Muḥammad Khān banned the production of brandy and wine.54 To add to their woes, sometime in the mid 1820s their priest died and was not replaced.55 One income stream left to them was acting as hosts (mehmāndār) and dragomen for European travellers and explorers. In 1832, the converted Jew and Christian missionary Joseph Wolff preached in the Armenian church on his way to India and recorded how the Armenian women fell at his feet, pleading with him to help them migrate to Jerusalem as they had ‘no means of subsistence’.56 The following year, Masson forwarded a letter from the heads of the community addressed to the ‘Armenian bishop’ in Calcutta, which appears have been an appeal for a replacement priest.57 Presumably in response to this letter, in November 1835, the Indian government granted a road pass (rāhdārī) to ‘Rev. Aratoon Elijah’ of New Julfa and two companions to proceed to Kabul.58 However, 50 ‘Translation of a letter dated Herat, 7 Shavaul 1218 (19 January 1804)’, in C.W. Vane (ed.), Correspondence, despatches and other papers of Viscount Castlereagh, London, 1851, vol. 5, 280-7, p. 282. 51 ‘Letter dated Herat’, 19 January, 1804; J.L. Lee, Afghanistan, a history, 1260 to the present day, London, 1998 (20222), pp. 165-6; Masson, Narrative, vol. 3, pp. 22-6; C. Noelle, State and tribe in nineteenth-century Afghanistan, Richmond, Surrey, 1997, pp. 15, 27, 52, 278-9; A. Olesen, Islam and politics in Afghanistan, Richmond, Surrey, 1995 (1996), pp. 44-9. 52 J. Wolff, Researches and missionary labours, Philadelphia PA, 1837, p. 163. 53 Harlan, ‘Oriental sketches’, fols 169, 176; Wolff, Researches, p. 154; 19v); Imam Shah, ‘Report on the Armenians’, pp. 682-5. 54 Harlan, ‘Oriental sketches’, fol. 176; Burnes, Travels into Bukhara, vol. 1, p. 149. 55 Imam Shah, Letter from Cabul, 7 August 1879; I.N. Allen, Diary of a march through Sinde and Afghanistan, London, 1843, p. 313; R.H. Kennedy, Narrative of the campaign of the army of the Indus in Sind and Kaubool in 1838-9, London, 1840, vol. 2, pp. 91-2. 56 Wolff, Researches, p. 163. 57 The letter is missing from Masson’s correspondence but his covering letter to Col. H. Pottinger suggests this was the case; Archives London, British Library – India Office Records, Masson Papers: IOR/Mss. Eur. 161/I, 2 (C. Masson to H. Pottinger, 1 July 1833). 58 Archives London, British Library – India Office Records: IOR/F/4/1620/64992 Jan.Sept. 1835 (Extract, Political letter from the government of India at Fort William, 28 November

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the war between Afghans and Sikhs was at its height and, when Elijah reached Peshawar, he was afraid to continue and returned to Calcutta.59 During the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839-42), when the British Army of the Indus occupied Kabul and placed Tīmūr Shah’s son, Shah Shujāʿ al-Mulk, on the throne, the Revd G. Pigott, the Anglican chaplain to the Bombay Division, conducted divine service in the Armenians’ church and baptised two children.60 During the siege of the British cantonment in November 1841, the heads of the Armenian community, the brothers Tīmūr Khān Vartan and Dānyal (Daniel) Khān, supplied the garrison with horses, cattle and wheat.61 The brothers were merchants and Tīmūr had hosted Masson; he also practised as a physician and was the church’s lay deacon. After General Pollock’s ‘Army of Retribution’ occupied Kabul in October 1841, the Revd I.N. Allen, chaplain of the Bengal Native Infantry, baptised three more Armenian children in church and was struck by the Armenians’ ‘deep reverence and love to the house of God’, as well as by their ‘depressed state’.62 Following the East India Company’s withdrawal and the subsequent assassination of Shah Shujāʿ in 1842, Dōst Muḥammad Khān returned from exile in India. Since the Armenians had provided material support to the invaders, they were fined heavily.63 Probably in an attempt to raise the funds to pay for the fine, one elderly Armenian, Yūsuf, or Hovsep, Khān, travelled to Calcutta in the hope of selling a rare manuscript of the New Testament, but failed to do so because his asking price was too high.64 Despite being out of favour with the amīr, Tīmūr remained in Kabul, though his brother Dānyal left for Lahore, where he secured the contract to supply spirits to the army garrisons there and also in Dera Ismaʿil Khān and Bannu.65 Matters took a turn for the worse in 1847, when Muḥammad ʿAẓam Khān (1818-69), the amīr’s fifth eldest son, demanded the hand of Tīmūr’s eldest daughter. Tīmūr refused, so the prince threatened to take her by force, 1835); Masson Papers: IOR/Mss. Eur 161/2/18 (correspondence with C. Wade, vol. 2, C. Wade to C. Masson, 5 February 1836). 59 Allen, Diary of a march, p. 314. 60 Allen, Diary of a march, pp. 311-12. 61 F. Sale, A journal of the disasters in Afghanistan, 1841-42, London, 1843, p. 58; J.H. Stocqueller, Memorials of Afghanistan, London, 1842, appendix VII, p. lxi. 62 Allen, Diary of a march, pp. 315-16. 63 Imam Shah, ‘Report on the Armenians’, pp. 682-3. 64 Seth, Armenians in India, p. 220. 65 H.B. Edwardes, ‘Political diary, 19 January 1848’, in Political diaries of Lieutenant H.B. Edwardes, assistant to the Resident at Lahore, 1847-1849, Allahabad, 1911, p. 216.

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whereupon Tīmūr appealed to George Lawrence, assistant political officer of the Punjab, to intervene. Lawrence wrote a private letter to the amīr, who initially stated his opposition to the marriage but later gave his consent, claiming the marriage was consensual, and promised that Tīmūr’s daughter would be free to practise her Christian faith.66 This alliance, however, unwittingly embroiled the Armenians in Afghanistan’s dynastic struggles. In the civil war that followed the death of Dōst Muḥammad Khān in 1863, ʿAẓam Khān supported his elder brother, Muḥammad Afḍal Khān, who contested the succession with the amīr’s designated heir, Shēr ʿAlī Khān. After Afḍal Khān’s death in 1867, ʿAẓam Khān briefly reigned as amīr and appointed his son by his Armenian wife, Muḥammad Isḥāq Khān (b. 1851), as military governor of the northern provinces of Afghan Turkistan. ʿAẓam Khān was defeated in 1868 and fled to Persia, where he died soon after. Muḥammad Isḥāq Khān fled to Samarkand, which had recently fallen to Russian forces, along with Afḍal Khān’s heir and pretender to the throne, ʿAbd al-Raḥman Khān.67 Seth claims, without citing his source, that, when Shēr ʿAlī Khān became amīr, he persecuted Tīmūr’s family ‘terribly’, tried to convert them to Islam and to ‘turn their church into a mosque’.68 The Revd Imam Shah, however, who interviewed an elderly Armenian woman relative of Isḥāq Khān’s mother in 1879, states that the amīr treated the Armenians ‘kindly and gave them very respectable positions in the State’.69 The Armenians’ position was somewhat precarious due to their relationship to Isḥāq Khān’s mother, but Seth’s claim of attempted forced conversion is not supported by contemporary sources. After the Church Missionary Society (CMS) established a presence in Peshawar in 1855, the Kabul Armenians increasingly looked to these Anglican missionaries for spiritual support. Between 1856 and 1874, at least four of the Armenians were baptised in Peshawar,70 some attended 66 ‘Political diary of Maj. G. Lawrence, 1-7 and 8-14 August 1847, 4-10 April, 30 July-5 August, 13-19 August 1848’, in Punjab Government Records, Lahore Political Diaries, 18461849 [Allahabad, 1911], vol. 4, pp. 378, 380, 498, 537; Imam Shah, ‘Report on the Armenians’, p. 683. Lawrence claimed his intervention prevented the marriage from going ahead; G. Lawrence, Reminiscences of forty-three years in India, London, 1874, p. 234. The name of Tīmūr’s daughter is not given. 67 J.L. Lee, The ‘Ancient Supremacy’. Bukhara, Afghanistan and the battle for Balkh, 7321901, Leiden, 1996, pp. 551-2. 68 Seth, Armenians in India, p. 223. 69 Imam Shah, ‘Report on the Armenians’, p. 683. 70 Archives Birmingham, University of Birmingham, Cadbury Research Library – Church Missionary Society: CMS/B/OMS/C I 1 O 155/3 (Revd Worthington Jukes, Annual

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the mission’s church in the old city,71 and some of their boys were sent to the CMS school.72 More riskily, the Armenians on occasions sheltered Afghan Muslim converts and sent ‘enquirers’ to Peshawar to be catechised and baptised.73 One of the Peshawar pupils was Lūqā (var. Lukka, Lucas) (born c. 1849), whose Persian name was Sarwar al-Dīn,74 a grandson of Tīmūr Khān and nephew of Muḥammad Isḥāq Khān’s Armenian wife. In 1869, when Shēr ʿAlī Khān passed through Peshawar on his way back to Kabul after his meeting with the Viceroy, he was so impressed with Lūqā that he gave him employment in the royal service.75 However, a year later Lūqā and also his half-brother and aunt were arrested following unrest fomented by supporters of ʿAbd al-Raḥman Khān. The brothers were released shortly after, following a petition to the amīr by the Peshawar missionaries, but his aunt remained incarcerated in Ghazni.76 Lūqā was later employed as a court translator, for in 1879 he was said to be the ‘butler’ and English tutor to Muḥammad Aḥmad ʿAlī Khān, a grandson of Shēr ʿAlī Khān.77 Following the death of Shēr ʿAlī Khān in 1879 and British allegations that the amīr had signed a secret treaty with Russia, British forces occupied Khōst and Nangarhār, forcing Shēr ʿAlī Khān’s heir, Yaʿqūb Khān, to sign the humiliating Treaty of Gandamak. One of the key provisions of this agreement was for a British political officer to be stationed in Kabul. Major Pierre Cavagnari (b. 1841) was appointed to this post. Taking advantage of Letter, 1876); Archives Peshawar, St John’s Church – Baptistry Registry of CMS Mission at Peshawar (4 May 1855-18 January 1923). 71 W. Jukes, Reminiscences of missionary work in Amritsar, 1872-1873, and on the Afghan frontier in Peshawar, 1873-1890, London, 1925 (2000); http://anglicanhistory.org/india /jukes1925. 72 Archives Birmingham, University of Birmingham, Cadbury Research Library – Church Missionary Society: CMS/B/OMS/C I1 O 147/41 (Revd T.P. Hughes, Some account of the Armenian Christians in the city of Cabul, appendix 1, in Ninth report of the Peshawar mission, London, 1871, 19-23, p. 19); H.M. Clark, Robert Clark of the Panjab, pioneer and missionary statesman, London, 1907, pp. 120-1. 73 F. Davidson, ‘A Christian in Kabul’, The Moslem World 8 (1918) 2-12, p. 9; Imam Shah, Annual report 1881, pp. 4, 5. 74 T.P. Hughes, ‘About the Afghans. Christianity in the city of Cabul’, Church Missionary Gleaner 6 (February 1879) 13-15; Davidson, ‘A Christian in Kabul’, p. 3; variants of his name include, Sorvidin, Sirudin, Sarwidin. 75 Davidson, ‘A Christian in Kabul’, pp. 3, 5. 76 Hughes, Some account of the Armenian Christians, pp. 19-20; Seth, Armenians of India, pp. 208, 224. 77 Archives Liverpool, Mill Hill Missionary Archives – Pakistan: PAK (1878-82), 19-A-49, fols 8-9 (Father Browne to Father Benoit, 3 November 1879); Archives London, British Library – India Office Records: IOR/L/PS/7/23, fols 628, 912-3 (Deputy Commissioner, Lahore, to Commissioner, Peshawar, 18 September 1879; Memorandum by W.G. Waterfield, Commissioner and Superintendent, Peshawar, 20 September 1879).

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this situation, the Revd T.P. Hughes, head of the CMS mission in Peshawar, sent the Revd Imam Shah, priest of All Saints’ Church and a Muslim convert, to Kabul to minister to the Armenians.78 He was accompanied by a cousin of Lūqā’s, Sarkīs Sarwar (born c. 1842), who had served in the army of Dōst Muḥammad Khān but later enlisted in the Corps of Guides.79 Imam Shah was warmly welcomed by the Armenians, who were by now reduced to just 14 individuals.80 He conducted two services in their church and baptised eight of the Armenians. He also interviewed Sarkīs Sarwar’s elderly mother, who was a living history of the community.81 Imam Shah met Lūqā, who knew him from his Peshawar days, and was briefed on ‘Kabul affairs’. Lūqā also complained that the new amīr had reduced his allowance by half.82 Imam Shah and Sarkīs left Kabul on 1 September 1879 and, three days later, Cavagnari and his escort were massacred by mutineers, an act which precipitated the British occupation of Kabul and southern Afghanistan. When Sarkīs arrived in Lahore, he was interviewed by the Deputy Commissioner about the death of Cavagnari. Sarkīs, who knew Dr Kelly, the medical officer of Guides, claimed he had warned Kelly of the impending attack on the residency. Lūqā too claimed he had warned Cavagnari of his ‘imminent danger’, only to be ignored.83 During the British occupation of Kabul, Lūqā had a meeting with Fr Browne of the Mill Hill Missionaries and claimed he passed on intelligence to General Roberts through the priest.84 More prosaically, Lūqā supplied Browne with wine so he could celebrate mass.85 Browne visited the Armenian church, where he was greeted with honour but was not asked to conduct services. He reported that the community was deeply distressed, 78 Archives Birmingham, University of Birmingham, Cadbury Research Library – Church Missionary Society: CMS/B/OMS/C I4 O 15/2 (Revd T.P. Hughes to secretaries, 27 August 1879). 79 ‘Hughes to secretaries’, 27 August 1879; Archives London, British Library – India Office Records: IOR/Mss. Eur. F388/2 (T.P. Hughes, Life among the Afghans, 7. The Church and School, 1879), published in Sunday at Home 26 (December 1879), p. 126. 80 Imam Shah, Letter from Cabul, 7 August 1879. 81 Imam Shah, Letter from Cabul, 7 August 1879; Imam Shah, Annual report, 1881, fol. 4; Imam Shah, ‘Report on the Armenians’, pp. 682, 686. 82 Waterfield, ‘Memorandum’, 20 September 1879; ‘Deputy Commissioner, Lahore’, 18 September 1879. 83 Archives New Delhi – National Archives of India: Foreign Secret, Progs no. 283, September 1886, PR_000001159463 (notes by Colonel W.G. Waterfield of a conversation with Mr Jerome Kirchgesner, electrician, returned from Kabul at Peshawar, 16 April 1886, fols 1, 2); Davidson, ‘A Christian in Kabul’, pp. 5-6. 84 Archives Liverpool, Mill Hill Missionary Archives – Pakistan: PAK (1897), 20-D-9B (Lucas A. Joseph Siridin to Father Browne, Peshawur [sic], March 1897). 85 ‘Browne to Benoit’, 3 November 1879, fol. 8.

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for General Roberts had ordered all the buildings in lower Bālā Ḥiṣār, including the Armenian church and serai, to be levelled in order to make way for a new road and military structures.86 Browne raised the matter with General Roberts, who assured him he would ‘as soon as possible […] assign them some confiscated houses in the city and to make provision for a little chapel for them’.87 The levelling went ahead, which left hundreds of people, including the Armenians, homeless,88 but nothing was done about rehousing them or providing a new building for their church. Twelve years later, one elderly Armenian woman, most likely Sarkīs’s mother, wept as she related how ‘the church built by a Mahomedan King for their use [was] destroyed by Christians’.89 The reason for Robert’s failure to honour his pledge was that, in December 1879, the British cantonment was besieged by thousands of Afghans and was only relieved in the nick of time. Lūqā, who narrowly escaped being shot by the besieging Afghans, managed to take refuge inside the cantonment.90 After the siege was raised, General Roberts marched out to relieve the garrison in Kandahar. Then, in July 1880, under the Lyall Agreement, Britain recognised ʿAbd al-Raḥman Khān as amīr and withdrew from Kabul a short time later. ‘Abd al-Raḥman Khān appointed Muḥammad Isḥāq Khān as governor (nāʾib) of Afghan Turkistan, and Muḥammad Isḥāq Khān’s Armenian cousins Lūqā and Badr al-Dīn were put in charge of the gunpowder factory at Tatang near Jalalābād.91 In the autumn of 1888, however, their situation dramatically changed for the worse, with the revolt of Muḥammad Isḥāq Khān in Mazār-i Sharīf. Despite being supported by garrisons in Turkistan and all but one of the Uzbek amīrs of the region, this rebellion was swiftly crushed.92 Isḥāq, whom the amīr damned as ‘Ishak the Armenian’, fled back to Samarkand, never to return to Afghanistan.93 The sister of Isḥāq’s mother was confined ‘in a very narrow place’,94 and her two sons, Lūqā 86 For plans of the Bālā Hisār in 1879/80, see C.W. Woodburn, The Bala Hissar of Kabul. Revealing a fortress-palace in Afghanistan, Chatham, 2009, p. 34. 87 ‘Browne to Benoit’, 3 November 1879, fol. 8. 88 J. Duke, Recollections of the Kabul campaign, 1879 and 1880, London, 1883, pp. 168-9. 89 J.A. Gray, At the court of the amir, London, 1895, p. 209. 90 Davidson, ‘A Christian in Kabul’, p. 6; Seth, Armenians in India, p. 217. 91 Archives London, British Library – India Office Records: IOR/L/PS/7/55, fol. 193 (Kabul newsletter, 7 September 1888); Archives Peshawar, Peshawar Record Office – Office of Commissioner, Peshawar: file no. 59, XVII, F. 1897, serial no. 2062, bundle 73 (Petition of Joseph Sarvuin, Armenian, to Commissioner, Peshawar, 7 October 1897). 92 Lee, The ‘Ancient Supremacy’, pp. 495-543. 93 Sultan Mahomed Khan, The life of Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanistan, London, 1900, vol. 1, p. 261. 94 Archives London, British Library – India Office Records: IOR/L/PS/7/55, fol. 619 (Kabul newsletter, 25 September 1888).

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and Badr al-Dīn, were brought to Kabul in chains and imprisoned, as were other members of this extended family.95 The amīr initially ordered them all to be expelled to Peshawar but later relented. The brothers were released and Lūqā was reinstated as head of the gunpowder factory,96 but only after the two men had signed pledges of good conduct.97 Their families, however, were kept in Kabul, in effect as hostages. The revolt of Muḥammad Isḥāq Khān and the brutal suppression that followed, which British officials privately referred to as a reign of terror,98 along with the period of incarceration, appears to have been a turning point for Lūqā. In 1886, British officials interviewed Jerome Kirchgesner, a French engineer employed by the amīr, who stated that ‘the best friend the English have in all Kabul is Sahir ul din Khan alias “Lukka”’. Lūqā had even asked Kirchgesner to arrange for a supply of invisible ink so he could ‘correspond with the British government’.99 In the spring of 1889, the English doctor Alfred Gray was engaged by Amīr ʿAbd al-Raḥman Khān as his personal physician. Since Gray spoke no Persian, the amīr appointed Yaḥyā, a young Armenian who had been educated in India, probably Lahore, as his translator.100 Gray and Yaḥyā soon formed a strong bond of friendship, but Yaḥyā also had enemies. Two Indians accused him of mistranslating their words to the amīr,101 while Salter Pyne, the British engineer in charge of the munitions factory, the māshīn khāna, told Gray to dismiss Yaḥyā because ‘all persons hate him’.102 The Kabul news-writer too denounced Yaḥyā in his report as ‘a wicked person’ and an ‘evil-wisher of the British government’.103 In June 1891, when Gray returned to England to be married, he took Yaḥyā with him and,   95 Kabul newsletter, 25 September 1888; Archives London, British Library – India Office Records: IOR/L/PS/7/55, fols 19, 21-4, 189 (Kabul newsletter, 24 August; 28 August; 4 September 1888).   96 Davidson, ‘A Christian in Kabul’, pp. 6-9; L. Starr, Frontier folk of the Afghan border and beyond, London, 1920, p. 24.   97 Archives London, British Library – India Office Records: IOR/L/PS/7/55, fol. 707 (Kabul newsletter, 9 October 1888).   98 For this revolt and the subsequent ‘Turkistan Atrocities’, see J.L. Lee, ‘Ancient Supremacy’, pp. 530-70.   99 Waterfield, ‘Conversation with Jerome Kirchgesner’, 16 April 1886, fols 1, 2.   100 Gray, At the court of the amir, p. 453. Gray does not refer to Yaḥyā by name in his book. His signature appears on Gray’s marriage certificate and in papers held by Simon Gray in the Gray family archive. 101 Archives London, British Library – India Office Records: IOR/L/PS/7/59, fol. 1227 (Kabul newsletter, 28 March 1890). 102 Archives London, British Library – India Office Records: IOR/L/PS/7/63, fol. 637r (Kabul newsletter, 6 June 1891). 103 Kabul newsletter, 5 June 1891.

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during their visit, Gray and Yaḥyā were interviewed by Sir Steuart Bayley, secretary of the India Office’s political and secret department.104 Yaḥyā may have been asked to provide occasional intelligence about the amīr’s affairs, though there is no evidence that he did so, or that Gray passed on intelligence. According to Bayley, Gray knew very little about affairs at the Afghan court and it was Yaḥyā who provided most of the information during their interview. Gray and Yaḥyā returned to Afghanistan in March 1892 but, by February of the following year, the amīr was no longer consulting Gray about his health. Then, in April 1893 the European employees of the māshīn khāna went on strike.105 Amīr ʿAbd al-Raḥman Khān suspected Gray of being behind the discontent,106 while the Kabul news-writer blamed Yaḥyā.107 As a result, Yaḥyā was placed under house arrest and his guards were ordered to shoot to kill if he tried to escape.108 As for Gray, he was dismissed and returned to England.109 Yaḥyā, though, survived this ordeal and, in the summer of 1893, he accompanied Naṣr Allāh Khān, the amīr’s second son, on his state visit to Britain. On his return in early 1896, however, the amīr accused Yaḥyā of spying.110 Dr Lillias Hamilton, who had come to Kabul to recuperate from sickness, but who also treated some of the women in the amīr’s zanāna, supported by Sultan Muḥammad Khān, one of the amīr’s munshīs, was probably the source of this allegation.111 Though there was no evidence to support this claim, such an accusation was sufficient to put the lives of Yaḥyā and all the remaining Armenians in danger, for the amīr had no compunction when it came to imprisoning,

104 Archives London, British Library – India Office Records: IOR/L/PS/3/311, fols 772-3 (H.M. Durand to Sir Steuart [Bayley], 30 June 1891; Memo. S. Bayley, 18 August 1891); IOR/L/ PS/7/63, fol. 639r (Kabul newsletter, 6 June 1891), courtesy of Simon Gray. 105 Archives London, British Library – India Office Records: IOR/L/PS/7/70, fol. 1083 (Trans-frontier Journal, May 1893, p. 5). 106 Archives London, British Library – India Office Records: IOR/L/PS/7/70, fol. 1103 (Kabul newsletter, 16 May 1893, p. 2). 107 Archives London, British Library – India Office Records: IOR/ L/PS/7/70, fol. 1517r (Kabul newsletter, 3-6 June 1893, p. 2). 108 Kabul newsletter, 3-6 June 1893, p. 2. 109 Archives London, British Library – India Office Records: IOR/L/PS/7/70, fol. 1573r (Trans-frontier Journal, June 1893, p. 6). 110 Archives England – Gray family archives (Yahya Khan, Armenian, to Dr Gray, Peshawar, 26 September 1897); Simon Gray, History of my ancestors, 2018, private publication, ch. 10, no pagination. 111 ‘Yahya Khan to Gray’, 26 September 1897; S. Gray, History of my ancestors, ch. 10; for Lillias Hamilton see Namatullah Kadrie, ‘“Pen and tongue” untied. Lillias Hamilton’s uncensored view of ʿAbd al-Rahman Khan’, Afghanistan 3/1 (April 2020) 1-26, pp. 3-5.

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torturing and executing those he deemed a threat. Their situation was not helped by the Armenian revolt in Ottoman Turkey.112 Finally, in December 1896, the amīr ordered all the Armenians to be expelled to India. Their property and assets were seized, along with all their personal papers and some of the treasures they had salvaged from the church prior to its destruction.113 After a harrowing winter journey, in January 1897 the Armenians, including the elderly and babes-inarms, straggled into Peshawar. Some continued their journey to Lahore, where they had relatives, while others left for Calcutta, which had a large Armenian community. Of the refugees, 16 remained in Peshawar, mostly members of Lūqā’s extended family and that of his uncle, Hirāpīyat Bābā Jān. The families were destitute and had nowhere to stay, so Lūqā and Yaḥyā appealed for financial assistance to various officials only for their pleas to fall on deaf ears, as did a petition for the government to gift them land in Kashmir (Lūqā’s father, Āndryās, was a Muslim convert from Kashmir, who had married an Armenian women).114 The refugees were eventually taken in by the missionaries of the Church of England’s Zenana Missionary Society (CEZMS) and housed in the Gor Khatri serai.115 Lūqā subsequently adopted the Anglo-Indian surname name of Joseph and died around 1919. Several of his children and grandchildren, and the descendants of Hirāpīyat Bābā Jān (Anglo-Indian, Hyrapiet), served with the CMS and CEZMS in Peshawar. Fārūq Kīnūsī (Anglo-Indian, Farukh Kinosie), one of the daughters of Bābā Jān, was put in charge of the Annie Norman Industrial School

112 ‘Lucas A. Joseph to Fr. Browne’, Peshawur, March 1897; Seth, Armenians in India, pp. 217-18; Davidson, ‘A Christian in Kabul’, p. 9; Shahzad Z. Najmuddin, Armenia. A resumé, Victoria, Canada, 2006, pp. 109-10. 113 Archives Birmingham, University of Birmingham, Cadbury Archives – Church Missionary Society: CEZ/G/EA 2/1M (‘Peshawar’, by E.P., in Church of England Zenana Missionary Society Correspondence, 1880-1957, pp. 8-9, [the report is undated]); CEZ/G/EA 4/3 (Notes and reminiscences of E[leanor] L[ydia] M[itcheson] of Peshawar, ed. E. Martin, undated); Davidson, ‘A Christian in Kabul’, p. 9; Najmuddin, Armenia. A resumé, p. 115. 114 Archives New Delhi, National Archives of India – Foreign, Frontier Part B, nos 167-8, September 1897, PR_0000014904255 (Settlement of an Armenian colony in Kashmir), despite repeated request for digitalisation this file has not been accessed; Archives Liverpool, Mill Hill Missionary Archives – Pakistan: PAK (1897) 20-D-9 (John Waterhouse to Fr. Henry, Peshawar, 23 March 1897); Archives London, National Army Museum – Roberts Papers: NAM 7101/23/40 (Bishop of Lahore to Roberts, 19 February 1898). 115 E.P., ‘Peshawar’, pp. 8-9; Reminiscences of E.L.M.; Archives Peshawar, Peshawar Record Office: Office of the Deputy Commissioner, series 1342, bundle 49, file 82 (1910) (Zafar Khan, Tehsildar, to Dpty Commissioner, Peshawar, 14 July 1910; Revd Wigram to Deputy Commissioner, Peshawar, 16 July 1910).

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for women116 and, during the First World War, worked in the hospital dispensary.117 In 1918, she was appointed as a CEZMS auxiliary missionary.118 Fārūq’s sister, Khāksārīn, who anglicised her name to Kathleen, trained as a medical doctor in Ludhiana, and another sister(?), who went under the Anglo-Indian name of Agnes Theodore, became head nurse of the Danish Tent Mission’s hospital in Multan.119 Lūqā’s eldest surviving son, Paul N. Joseph (c. 1891-1966), trained as a surgeon in the Lahore medical college and, after Partition, was appointed medical superintendent of Peshawar’s mission hospital. He was later ordained as an Anglican deacon.120 Several of Dr Joseph’s sons served in the Indian and subsequently Pakistani army or air force; his eldest daughter trained as a teacher, while the husband of another daughter rose to be inspector general of Pakistan Police and subsequently Pakistan’s ambassador to the Holy See. None of the Armenians ever retuned to Afghanistan. Conclusion For around 300 years Armenians, and to a lesser extent Georgians, played a minor but important role in the social, military and dynastic history of the Mughal and Durrānī kingdoms in the region later known as Afghanistan. These Armenians were essential to the overland trade with Iran, and their knowledge of these trade routes facilitated the journeys of Jesuit missionaries and European explorers. Later, the Kabul community leaders provided accommodation for foreign visitors and acted as their dragomans. Such assistance provided vital services to foreigners, who were often ignorant of court protocols and lacked the networks and connections that the Armenians were able to access. Many of the Armenians served in the Saddūzay royal guard, the ghulām khāna, and played a minor role in sustaining the Durrānī monarchy, acting as a counterpoise to Afghan tribal leaders as well as militant pīrs and mullās. Amīr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Khān even appointed Lūqā to the important post of supervisor of the 116 E.P., ‘Peshawar’, p. 8. The report refers to her as ‘an Armenian Christian, one of the refugees’. 117 India’s women and China’s daughters. The magazine of the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society (January 1918) p. 53. 118 Archives Birmingham, University of Birmingham, Cadbury Archives – Church Missionary Society: CMS/B/OMS/G2 I4 O, year box 1918, no. 2 (CMS and CEZMS Ladies Joint Conference, Minutes of the Standing Committee, Lahore, 16 January 1918). 119 E. Geismar, Ved Afghanistans Grænse, Teltmssionens Historie til 1917, Copenhagen, 1917, pp. 109, 116, 120. 120 Najmuddin, Armenia. A resumé, p. 116.

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gunpowder factory. During the second half of the 19th century, Armenians who had been educated in Peshawar or Lahore were able to mediate the milieu of the English and British India to the amīr and his court, since very few officials had much understanding of European culture or politics. The Armenians’ friendship with missionaries and with British officials, however, proved to be a double-edged sword. Their enemies and rivals played on the possibility of their divided loyalties, a situation exacerbated by the fact that they were Christians and not Muslims. Such suspicions probably arose during the First Afghan War, when their leaders provided material support for the besieged British garrison. This led to the impoverished community being heavily fined after Amīr Dōst Muḥammad Khān returned from exile, and the forced marriage of Tīmūr’s daughter to Dōst Muḥammad Khān’s half-brother. This liaison also embroiled the Armenians in the power struggle that ensued on the amīr’s death, a struggle in which the Armenians ended up on the wrong side and endured a brief period of imprisonment. The failed rebellion of Isḥāq Khān, whose mother was Tīmūr’s daughter, led to further periods of incarceration. Additional suffering followed during the Second Anglo-Afghan War with the destruction of the Armenians’ church and serai. In the end, their position became untenable and in some way their expulsion, brutal though it was, benefited their descendants, many of whom made important contributions to medical missions, education and the Indian and Pakistan military. Despite suffering the trauma of being uprooted from their homes in Persia, the Armenian Christians in Afghanistan were never pressurised to convert to Islam and were even gifted a building for a church. European travellers noted with surprise the toleration and lack of prejudice shown to them by the highest levels of government. Muslims and Christians attended each other’s funerals and exchanged gifts at Nawrūz, Easter and Christmas.121 Wolff and Burnes even participated in a formal debate (munāẓara) on the merits of Islam versus Christianity, which was conducted with mutual respect.122 One or two high-ranking Muḥammadzais sent their children to mission schools in India and, when Amīr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Khān passed through Peshawar in 1885, the Revd Worthington Juke presented him with a ‘handsomely bound’ copy of the New Testament in Pushtu, which the amīr

121 Masson, Travels, vol. 2, p. 246. 122 Burnes, Travels into Bukhara, vol. 1, p. 150.

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accepted ‘with great reverence’.123 Even when the Armenians were imprisoned and eventually expelled, the reasons were political rather than ideological. However, while free to practise their faith, the fact remained that those who belonged to the ghulām khāna were bound in servitude and were not free to emigrate without the issuing of a royal decree ( firmān) of release. Despite living in a predominantly Muslim ethos, the Armenians of Kabul retained their Christian faith. Initially the community’s ecclesiastical ties were with New Julfa near Isfahan but, after the loss of their priest, they increasingly looked to India. Despite Christological and liturgical differences, Anglican priests and army chaplains were allowed to celebrate the eucharist in their church and baptise their children. Even the Catholic Fr Browne was welcomed, despite the Armenian Apostolic Church being regarded as schismatic by the papacy. The establishment of the CMS mission in Peshawar meant the link with English Protestant missionaries was strengthened, with some children being educated in the mission school and others baptised in Peshawar’s All Saints’ Church. However, this growing relationship with British India led to their enemies accusing them of divided loyalties, even of spying. Increasingly caught between two worlds, the tension was ultimately unresolvable and, along with thousands of other Afghan citizens, they incurred the wrath of the paranoid ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Khān and were expelled, never to return. 123 Church Missionary Intelligencer and Record 10 (July 1885) pp. 555-6; J. Duke, Recollections of the Kabul campaigns 1879 and 1880, London, 1888, pp. 159-60; Gregorian, Emergence of modern Afghanistan, p. 87.

Christian missionaries and the foundation of modern schools in Iran between the 1830s and 1910s Matthew Shannon Between the 1830s and 1910s, global and local trends intersected in Iran to lay the foundation for modern schools. During the ‘age of imperialism’, Europeans and Americans exported their political, economic and cultural models to many parts of the world and, in the Middle East, Christian missionaries initiated the foundational encounters of the modern era. These were asymmetric encounters, and Iranian reformers and educationalists living under the Qajar Dynasty (1789-1925) saw Western education as a means of ‘defensive developmentalism’.1 To survive the European onslaught, the monarchies of the Middle East attempted to develop national institutions and cultivate new collective identities, and this project involved rethinking traditional models of education. Prior to the 19th century, Shīʿī clerics and other faith leaders would teach the young of their communities religious languages, literatures and laws in schools and seminaries. Missionaries introduced ‘new schools’ to Iran that were adaptable to different socio-religious contexts, provided teaching in the vernacular (with literacy as a main objective), were run according to the insights of the scientific revolution, were open to both young men and young women, and were otherwise appealing to modern Iranians by the turn of the 20th century.2 A critical synthesis of the historiography and the missiology reveals the significance of ‘place’ to the dialectics that drove the process of change over time in Iran’s educational landscape. Place is a ‘social process’ involving the natural, built and human environments and ‘defined by deep 1 E. Hobsbawm, The age of empire, 1875-1914, New York, 1989; M.A. Dogan and H. Sharkey (eds), American missionaries and the Middle East. Foundational encounters, Logan UT, 2011; J. Gelvin, The modern Middle East. A history, New York, 2005 (20205), pp. 70-88. 2 Classic references include I. Sadiq, ‘Modern Persia and her educational system’, New York, 1931 (PhD Diss. Teachers College, Columbia University); R. Arasteh, Education and social awakening in Iran 1850-1960, Leiden, 1962; R. Mottahedeh, The mantle of the Prophet. Religion and politics in Iran, New York, 1985; D. Menashri, Education and the making of modern Iran, Ithaca NY, 1992; M. Ringer, Education, religion, and the discourse of cultural reform in Qajar Iran, Costa Mesa CA, 2001.

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conflicts of persons, institutions, and processes, both local and global’.3 A global conception of place accounts for the ideas and institutions of the many missionary societies that intervened in Iran. A local conception maps spatial variations and charts the contingencies that gave form and meaning to mission schools and the resulting encounters between people of different nationalities and faiths. To borrow from Joanna DeGroot, ‘[religious] world-views and practices were constitutive of and constituted by relationships, inequities, hierarchies and linkages within and between communities in Iran, and between Iran and the wider world’.4 This chapter devotes three sections to three places in time: the Iranian-OttomanRussian borderlands, the British imperial zone in southern Iran, and the capital city of Tehran from the Russo-Iranian wars to the First World War. The history of mission schools in these three places relates to the geopolitical currents of the time and to the ethno-linguistic and religious specificities of a given locale. This history indicates that, between the 1830s and the 1910s, missionaries were as driven by intra-Christian rivalries as by Christian-Muslim dialogue. The scramble for the Caucasus The Roman Catholic orders in Iran under the Safavids (1501-1722) fled when the dynasty collapsed, but the Qajars reopened the Shīʿī kingdom to Christian missionaries.5 The treaties that ended the Russo-Iranian wars in 1813 and 1828 stripped territory from the Qajars, and missionaries operating south of the Aras River (loosely speaking, the boundary between Russian and Persian territory) engaged a prostrate rather than a powerful Iran.6 The first missionaries to arrive in Iran’s southern Caucasus in the 1830s were Protestants from the Basel Mission and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), and Catholics from France’s Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians, or Lazarists). Early 3 T. Stanley, The poco field. An American story of place, Champaign IL, 2012, pp. 2-3. 4 J. de Groot, Religion, culture and politics in Iran. From the Qajars to Khomeini, New York, 2007, p. 8. 5 H. Chick, A chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia and the papal mission of the 17th and 18th centuries, London, 1939; J. Flannery, The mission of the Portuguese Augustinians to Persia and beyond, 1602-1747, Leiden, 2013; R. Matthee, ‘Iran’s relations with Europe in the Safavid period. Diplomats, missionaries, merchants and travel’, in A. Langer (ed.), The fascination of Persia. The Persian-European dialogue in seventeenth-century art and contemporary art of Teheran, Zurich, 2013, 6-39. 6 J.C. Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East. A documentary record 1535-1914, Princeton NJ, 1956, vol. 1, pp. 84-6, 96-102.

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activity from the 1830s to the 1860s concentrated in Iranian Azerbaijan. Some missionaries settled in the provincial capital of Tabriz, many opened schools on the western plain of Lake Urmia, and some went further afield. The missionaries reached a diverse variety of communities, the most significant being the Assyrian Christians, primarily but not exclusively those from the Church of the East.7 Farangis (‘foreigners’) needed royal authorisation and community consent to open schools in Iran. The German and Swiss Protestants from the Basel Mission set the template for missionary cooperation in negotiations with princes such as ʿAbbās Mīrzā (1789-1833) and Amīr Kabīr (1807-52), both of whom had residences in Tabriz and attempted to use the modern sciences to revive their defeated armed forces and build a state bureaucracy.8 The Basel Mission sent Christoph Friedrich Haas (1801-82) to Tabriz, and ʿAbbās Mīrzā endorsed his pilot school in 1831. Muḥammad Shah’s 1834 firman of approval was important, and modern education in European languages and sciences proved popular in Tabriz. But in 1835 Haas’s superiors in Switzerland deemed his schools tangential to the work of an evangeliser, and ‘Basel quickly ceded its mission rights and folded up its tents’ to the Americans. The Dominican scholar Thomas O Flynn writes that Haas and others like him ‘failed to become more than harbingers of the first permanent Protestant institutional mission in Persia’.9 That function belonged to the ABCFM. The ecumenical Protestant mission society was established in 1810 by Williams College graduates in New England.10 In 1835, armed with the recommendations of the Smith-Dwight report, the ABCFM charged Justin Perkins (1805-69) and his colleagues to travel to Urmia in Azerbaijan and open a ‘Mission to the Nestorians’, Assyrian Christians from the Church of the East.11 Some scholars regard   7 Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia PA – PCUSA Board of Foreign Missions, Secretaries’ Files, Iran Mission, 1881-1968: 91/18/22 (S. Maghsoodpour, ‘The Assyrian Church of the East in Iran’, 9 June 1969). See also J. Joseph, The Nestorians and their Muslim neighbors. A study of Western influence on their relations, Princeton NJ, 1961; W. Baum and D. Winkler, The Church of the East. A concise history, New York, 2003.   8 E. Abrahamian, Iran between two revolutions, Princeton NJ, 1982, pp. 36-58; Ringer, Education, religion, and the discourse of cultural reform in Qajar Iran.   9 T.S.R. O Flynn, The Western Christian presence in the Russias and Qājār Persia, c.1760c.1870, Leiden, 2017, pp. 525-56, quotations on p. 556. 10 E. Conroy-Krutz, Christian imperialism. Converting the world in the early American republic, Ithaca NY, 2015. 11 The missiology is vast and remains a primary source for many researchers. E. Smith, Researches of the Rev. E. Smith and Rev. H.G.O. Dwight in Armenia, Boston MA, 1833; J. Perkins, A residence of eight years in Persia among the Nestorian Christians with notices of the Muhammedans, Andover MA, 1843; W. Campbell (ed.), A memoir of Mrs. Judith Grant, New York, 1844; A.C. Lathrop (ed.), Memoir of Asahel Grant, New York, 1847.

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Perkins as a prejudiced Orientalist who, in addition to his notable linguistic work in modern Syriac, forced post-Reformation Christian factionalism onto a delicately balanced society.12 But Adam Becker and Heleen Murrevan den Berg have recently offered more nuanced perspectives based on evidence of two-way exchanges rather than one-way imposition. Becker writes that, when Perkins met Assyrian leaders, ‘It was the educational part of the potential mission that they recognized and demanded.’ Perkins had relationships with Assyrian clergy and educationalists, one of whom transferred to the Americans the influential ‘School of Elias’. He introduced a pedagogical alternative to the malpanas, or Assyrian religious teachers, and by 1866 the ABCFM had 62 schools with 1,163 students.13 Most were ‘peripheral schools’ in rural villages where Assyrian clergy used material from the American Mission Press to teach boys and girls in Syriac and boost literacy rates. By contrast, ‘central schools’ were located in population centres where people of influential and diverse backgrounds lived, and where mission stations were located. Murre-van den Berg argues that, in addition to the requisite royal permission, missionaries ‘were nearly completely dependent on the cooperation of the Assyrians’ in their educational endeavours.14 Based on analysis of Assyrian sources in their original languages, her scholarship alters missiological accounts that lionise individual missionaries by redirecting the focus towards the Christian communities of north-west Iran. The ABCFM ran two central schools. In 1836, Perkins established what became Urmia College. Classes were taught in Syriac and other languages to train young men to be ‘teachers and preachers’, doctors and tradesmen. David Tappan Stoddard (1818-57) ran the theological programme until his death in 1857, and Joseph Stuart (1855-1905) taught medicine and treated patients into the 20th century.15 Because ABCFM missionaries believed 12 K. Ghaneabassiri, ‘U.S. foreign policy and Persia, 1856-1921’, Iranian Studies 35 (2002) 145-75; E. Sanasarian, Religious minorities in Iran, New York, 2000, pp. 40-4; R. Schwartz, ‘Missionaries on the Rezaiyeh Plain, Iran’, MW 69 (1979) 77-100. 13 A. Becker, Revival and awakening. American evangelical missionaries in Iran and the origins of Assyrian nationalism, Chicago IL, 2015, pp. 89-96, 106-8, 137-40. 14 F. Hellot, ‘The Western missionaries in Azerbaijani society (1835-1914)’, in R. Gleave (ed.), Religion and society in Qajar Iran, New York, 2005, pp. 272-5; H. Murre-van den Berg, ‘The missionaries’ assistants. The role of Assyrians in the development of written Urmia Aramaic’, Journal of the Assyrian Academic Society 10 (1996) 10-12. See also D. Malick, The American Mission Press. A preliminary bibliography, Chicago IL, 2008. 15 J.P. Ameer, ‘Yankees and Nestorians. The establishment of American schools among the Nestorians of Iran and Turkey, 1834-1850’, Cambridge MA, 1997 (PhD Diss. Harvard University); Becker, Revival and awakening, pp. 261-6; L. Wytenbroek, ‘Generational differences. American medical missionaries in Iran, 1834-1940’, in D. Bagot and M. Whiskin (eds), Iran and the West. Cultural perceptions from the Sasanian Empire to the Islamic Republic,

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that ‘no nation could be effectively uplifted unless the mothers of the nation should receive the benefits of Christian education’, schools for girls almost always accompanied those for boys in the mission field. In 1843, the Mount Holyoke College graduate Fidelia Fiske (1816-64) introduced to Urmia Mary Lyon’s model of women’s education, according to which school life was informed by an emphasis on motherhood and Christian belief as much as the sciences and humanities. Local Assyrians supported ‘Mount Holyoke in Persia’, and in 1888 the school was renamed in Fiske’s honour.16 More broadly, the Iranian government expressed the hope that American and French cultural influence would establish ‘equilibrium’ between competing imperial powers.17 Consequently, the Roman Catholic Church reasserted its influence through French Lazarists. In 1839, under the protection of a French diplomatic mission and an Iranian royal decree, Eugène Boré (1809-78) opened the Université humanitaire for young men in Tabriz. Boré’s pedagogy fused the hard sciences with soft notions of European culture, and long-standing emphasis on languages and textual humanities with emerging fields in the natural and physical sciences, and it differed from ABCFM procedures in teaching foreign languages such as French and in enrolling Iranian Muslims. Outside Tabriz, and to the ire of the ABCFM, Boré opened schools for Chaldeans – Assyrian Catholics in communion with Rome. He was the first link in a chain of Lazarists that countered the Protestant ‘incursion’ in north-west Iran. To that end, in 1840, the Lazarists established a seminary for Chaldean priests in Khusrava, the ‘Little Rome of Persia’. In 1862, they opened the Saint-Louis School in Tehran and, in 1863, the Daughters of Charity, which had been founded by St Vincent de Paul, opened girls’ schools and medical dispensaries in Urmia and Khusrava. Together, the brothers and sisters of this ‘double religious family’ were rivalled only by

London, 2018, 179-94. See also J. Thompson (ed.), Memoir of the Reverend David Tappan Stoddard, missionary to the Nestorians, Boston MA, 1858; R. Speer, The foreign doctor. A biography of Joseph Plumb Cochran, New York, 1911. 16 T. Laurie, Woman and her saviour in Persia, Boston MA, 1863; A century of mission work in Iran (Persia) 1834-1934, Beirut, 1936, pp. 76-8; J. Elder, History of the Iran Mission, Tehran, [1960], pp. 12-15. See also F. Kashani-Sabet, ‘American crosses, Persian crescents. Religion and the diplomacy of US-Iranian relations, 1834-1911’, Iranian Studies 44 (2011) 60725, pp. 615-16; H. Murre-van den Berg, ‘“Dear mother of my soul”. Fidelia Fiske and the role of women missionaries in mid-nineteenth century Iran’, Exchange 30 (2001) 33-48. 17 S. McFarland, ‘A peripheral view of the origins of the cold war. The crises in Iran, 194147’, Diplomatic History 4 (1980) 333-52, p. 334; M. Mousavi, ‘France among the most-favored nations. The French commercial policy and influence in Iran (1815-48)’, Iranian Studies 54 (2021) 143-67.

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the Americans. According to O Flynn, in 1858 the Lazarists administered a network of 17 schools with at least 382 students.18 The scramble for the Caucasus intensified in the last third of the 19th century. In 1871 the ABCFM transferred its mission to the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America (PCUSA), whose Board of Foreign Missions was based in New York, leading to a change of mission strategy.19 Rather than aiming to support the Church of the East, the Presbyterians used mission schools as feeders for their own Evangelical Church.20 Protestant factionalism and Western power both became manifest in Iran through no fewer than nine additional missionary societies from the United States and Europe. Most impactful were the British and Russian state churches. In 1881, the Archbishop of Canterbury sent a mission to Urmia. According to one view, ‘The Englishmen in their cassocks were more in keeping with Nestorian ideas of a priest than were the American pastors in their frock coats and shovel hats.’ However, although the British opened many schools in two decades, the Church of England’s mission waned in the early 1900s after the Russian Orthodox Church established a mission in Urmia.21 In these ways, post-Reformation religious competition intersected with the so-called great game of nation states as European and American Christians vied for influence among Assyrian Christians. And the impact was severe. Whether in the form of a possible Assyrian national ‘awakening’ or the horrific sectarian bloodshed of the First World War, mission education forever changed north-west Iran.22 Between Abadan and Calcutta While Russia gnawed away territory from Iran in the north, Britain demanded concessions in the south. This began in 1857 with the Treaty of 18 O Flynn, Western Christian presence, pp. xiv, 691-2, 705-20, 736-8, 741-3, 751; D. Hadidi, ‘France xv. French schools in Persia’, in EIr; S. Poole, ‘Eugène Boré and the Vincentian missions in the Near East’, Vincentian Heritage Journal 5 (1984) 79-82. 19 J. Bassett, Persia. Eastern mission, Philadelphia PA, 1890, pp. 74-8; J. Bassett, Persia. The land of the imams, New York, 1886. 20 Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia PA – PCUSA Board of Foreign Missions, Secretaries’ Files, Iran Mission, 1881-1968: 91/18/22 (M. Abhari, ‘The history and present situation of the Evangelical Church in Iran’, 11 May 1970). 21 R. Waterfield, Christians in Persia, London, 1973, pp. 128, 130; J.F. Coakley, The Church of the East and the Church of England. A history of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Assyrian mission, New York, 1992, pp. 218-22. See also R. Matthee and E. Andreeva (eds), Russians in Iran. Diplomacy and power in the Qajar era and beyond, New York, 2018. 22 Becker, Revival and awakening; M. Zirinsky, ‘American Presbyterian missionaries at Urmia during the great war’, http://www.iranchamber.com/religions/articles/american _presbyterian_missionaries_zirinsky.pdf.

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Paris, which ended the Anglo-Persian War and bestowed on Britain most favoured nation status in Iran, and it continued under Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah (r. 1848-96). The ‘travelling king’ famously visited London, and late in his reign Muslims began to attend non-Muslim schools.23 In 1895, PCUSA and the Church Missionary Society (CMS) reached an intermission agreement. It was part of the Anglo-American ‘great rapprochement’, and it allotted to the CMS a vast swathe of territory that stretched hundreds of miles from Isfahan to Kerman via Yazd and south to Shiraz. Missiologists once praised this PCUSA-CMS agreement, but writers now compare it to the AngloRussian convention of 1907 that divided Iran into geopolitical spheres of influence.24 Indeed, the ‘imperial crossroads’ of southern Iran were buttressed on one side by the Royal Navy’s Persian Gulf Residency, and on the other by the East India Company, after 1858 the Raj.25 As British power enveloped Iran, between 1869 and 1915 the CMS opened schools.26 The first Anglican representative in Iran was Henry Martyn (17811812). He was as much a linguist as a preacher and, for that reason, Abbas Amanat notes that he had the ‘right stuff’ for the CMS and the East India Company. In 1805, Martyn went to Calcutta on behalf of the East India Company and, in 1811-12, he went to Shiraz to begin a translation of the New Testament into Persian. Generations of missiologists have considered the deeply flawed Martyn Bible the most important consequence of this episode, though Amanat shifts the focus to the debates between Christian missionaries and Shīʿī mujtahids. Most notably, Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Fasāʾī responded to Martyn’s apologia with a form of reasoning known as radd-i padri, or ‘refuting the padre or priest’, which was what Iranians then called Christian missionaries.27 However important to the history of ChristianMuslim relations, Martyn the man was more fleeting than Martyn the myth.28 He died in 1812, when Britain was still embroiled in the Napoleonic

23 Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East, pp. 161-3; N. Sohrabi, Taken for wonder. Nineteenth-century travel accounts from Iran to Europe, New York, 2012, pp. 73-103. 24 G. Hewitt, The problems of success. A history of the Church Missionary Society, 19101942, London, 1971, vol. 1, pp. 375-6, 383, 389. Reference to B. Perkins, The great rapprochement. England and the United States, 1895-1914, New York, 1968. 25 J. Macris and S. Kelly (eds), Imperial crossroads. The great powers and the Persian Gulf, Annapolis MD, 2012. See also the writings of John Malcolm and James Morier. 26 K. Ward and B. Stanley (eds), The Church Mission Society and world Christianity, 17991999, Grand Rapids MI, 2000. 27 A. Amanat, ‘Mujtahids and missionaries. Shīʿī responses to Christian polemics in the early Qajar period’, in Gleave (ed.), Religion and society in Qajar Iran, 247-69, p. 248; S. Wilberforce (ed.), Journals and letters of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D., London, 1837, vol. 2, pp. 363-407. 28 Kashani-Sabet, ‘American crosses, Persian crescents’, pp. 611-13.

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wars, and CMS educational work was not to begin in Iran for another 60 years. In 1869, Robert and Emily Bruce moved from India to Iran and, in 1875, the CMS sponsored their mission ‘to invade Persia in the name of the Lord’.29 The Bruces founded the ‘Persia Mission’ and directed it from New Julfa until the early 1890s. Located across the Zayandeh Rud from Isfahan, New Julfa dates back to the forced resettlement of Armenians from Julfa on the River Aras to the north during the 17th century. They brought with them the Armenian Apostolic Church, whose priests maintained an education system to train their successors and young men from elite and merchant families. Armenians embraced ‘a more universal, Western-oriented form of education’ in the 19th century, as modern schools ‘became a sine qua non for every community that could maintain a church’.30 In fact, the Armenians of Isfahan were the first Iranians to open a modern school for girls in 1858.31 A decade later, the CMS opened a school for Armenian girls that, as another first, ‘represented the earliest official female educational efforts’ of British missionaries in Iran. Emily Bruce ran the school for a decade, until the Society for Promoting Female Education in the East sponsored Isabella Read (1851-1919). This Irishwoman was a pioneer missionary who spent four decades teaching young Armenian women, first at the CMS school and later at Armenian-run schools. Gulnar Eleanor Francis-Dehqani’s vivid analysis of the subject is unmatched: she argues that, despite Victorian prejudices, ‘the educational window Isabella opened was two way’, in that, while the schools were primarily intended to provide education by Christians for Christians, they opened up the means for inter-cultural exchanges between Iranians and Europeans.32 In the 1890s and 1900s, the CMS moved attention from the Christians of New Julfa to the Muslims of Isfahan. A new generation of missionaries helped the Persia Mission ‘get a permanent footing’ in Isfahan proper, and schools followed the hospitals into the city. Between 1897 and 1900, new 29 E. Stock, The history of the Church Missionary Society, London, 1899, vol. 3, pp. 123-5. 30 J. Barry, Armenian Christians in Iran. Ethnicity, religion, and identity in the Islamic Republic, New York, 2019, p. 67; Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia PA – PCUSA Board of Foreign Missions, Secretaries’ Files, Iran Mission, 1881-1968: 91/18/22 (J. Hananian, ‘The Armenian Apostolic Church in Iran’, 15 May 1969). 31 J. Rostam-Kolayi, ‘Origins of Iran’s modern girls’ schools. From private/national to public/state’, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 4 (2008) 55-88, p. 62. 32 G.E. Francis-Dehqani, ‘Religious feminism in an age of empire. CMS women missionaries in Iran, 1869-1934’, Bristol, 1999 (PhD Diss. University of Bristol), pp. 140-79, quotations on pp. 161-2. See also G.E. Francis-Dehqani, ‘CMS women missionaries in Iran, 1891-1934. Attitudes towards Islam and Muslim women’, in S. Ansari and V. Martin (eds), Women, religion and culture in Iran, New York, 2002, 27-50.

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Illustration 4. The Church Missionary Society Persian Mission, Boys’ School, Isfahan

stations opened in Kerman, Yazd and Shiraz and, in 1912, British Anglicans established the Episcopal Church in Iran. In contrast to the Presbyterian Evangelical Church, the majority of Episcopal Church members were Muslim converts. Educational work continued apace and, in 1915, the boys’ school that Bruce opened was renamed Stuart Memorial College on a new campus in Isfahan. At the same time, the Stileman Memorial School was one of the first vocational schools for Iranian women.33 In the early 20th century, a CMS station was opened in the desert city of Yazd, a historical home to Iran’s Zoroastrian community.34 The works of the missionary Napier Malcolm (1870-1921) and his wife indicate that religious worldviews were central to CMS educationalists and their counterparts in Yazd. The city’s ʿulamāʾ ‘see in the schools the greatest danger 33 Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia PA – PCUSA Board of Foreign Missions, Secretaries’ Files, Iran Mission, 1881-1968: 91/18/22 (H.C. Gurney, ‘The history and present situation of the Episcopal Church in Iran’, 11 May 1970); Hewitt, Problems of success, pp. 3824. See also H.B. Dehqani-Tafti, Design of my world, New York, 1982, pp. 23-36; Rostam-Kolayi, ‘Origins of Iran’s modern girls’ schools’, pp. 75-6. 34 For context, see John Wilson’s writings on India’s Parsi community. In 1853, Indian Parsis created the Society for the Amelioration of Conditions in Iran, whose educational work overlapped in some areas with that of the CMS. On both subjects, see M. Ringer, Pious citizens. Reforming Zoroastrianism in India and Iran, Syracuse NY, 2011, pp. 47-70, 142-62.

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to their religion’ and, in addition to ‘continual friction’ with Islamic leaders, mission schools ‘aroused the greatest opposition’ from Zoroastrian dasturs. The Malcolm memoirs offer a glimpse into the ‘official mind of imperialism’, yet Iranian parents lined up for interviews and, upon acceptance of their sons into the school, paid six months’ fees for them to study modern subjects and read the Bible. Given their location in the heart of Persia, most CMS schools prioritised the Persian language, but Malcolm found that ‘the teaching of English is one of those things which missionaries are distinctly asked to undertake, and which they are able to undertake with great advantage’. As Iran became integrated into the world system, ‘there are rich Persians wanting secretaries who can write French and English’ and ‘business firms trading with England and India who want English-speaking clerks and correspondents’. The missionaries thought to themselves: ‘[W]ho should teach it better than the Englishman’?35 The CMS school for boys in Yazd has been the subject of an Iranian documentary, and a sequel could be made about the girls’ school. Prior to the First World War, both schools enrolled Muslims and Zoroastrians.36 While Martyn and the Bruces travelled to Iran from India, future generations witnessed the Anglo-Persian Oil Company take root in the oil fields of the south-east.37 Between Abadan and Calcutta, CMS missionaries ran schools that, in a British sphere of influence, became part of an Iranian discourse about the interlinked phenomena of colonialism and modernity. Despite a temporary withdrawal from Isfahan during the First World War, the schools were reopened and repurposed in the mid-20th century, increasingly under Iranian management. In 1937, just prior to their nationalisation, the CMS reported six schools with 1,090 students in four cities.38

35 For quotations here and on the previous page, see N. Malcolm, Five years in a Persian town, London, 1908, pp. 239-48, quotations on pp. 239, 246 and, U. Malcolm, Children of Persia, New York, 1911, pp. 62-74, quotations on pp. 69-70, 73. Reference to R. Robinson and J. Gallagher, with A. Denny, Africa and the Victorians. The official mind of imperialism, London, 1961. 36 ‘British Reverend Napier Malcolm under spotlight in Iranian documentary’, Tehran Times, 12 November 2019, https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/441930/British-Reverend -Napier-Malcolm-under-spotlight-in-Iranian-documentary; Francis-Dehqani, ‘Religious feminism’, pp. 86-9, 100-39; G.E. Francis-Dehqani, ‘Great Britain xv. British schools in Persia’, in EIr. 37 K. Shafiee, Machineries of oil. An infrastructural history of BP in Iran, Cambridge, 2018. 38 Hewitt, Problems of success, pp. 385-6; Arasteh, Education and social awakening, p. 115 table 14. See also H.B. Dehqani-Tafti, The hard awakening, New York, 1981.

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Tehran When Tehran was made the national capital under the Qajar dynasty, the gated city was less than one square mile in size. The city expanded and, in the late 19th century, it was surrounded by an octagonal wall with 12 gates and contained a population of about 150,000. As seen by one missionary, Tehran was ‘beautifully situated on the northern edge of a great plain with a noble mountain range rising like a wall behind it’.39 In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the cosmopolitan capital in the foothills of the Alborz Mountains was home to a diverse population and a dizzying array of private schools. Globalising trends accelerated as European and American missionaries followed Iran’s best and brightest to Tehran, which, following the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, was the seat of a new representative government. Many mission societies opened schools for religious minorities in Tehran. European missions to Iranian Jews began in the mid-19th century with Joseph Wolff (1795-1862), Jacob Samuel (c. 1800-c. 1840) and the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews.40 The Alliance israélite universelle was the most consequential philanthropic organisation in the Jewish diaspora, founded in Paris in 1860 with an educational mandate to modernise Jewish schools around the world.41 In 1898, Joseph Cazès established an Alliance school in Tehran and, following this, in other cities in Iran. The schools were staffed by foreign teachers, with teaching based on a French curriculum, and guided by a modern interpretation of Jewish law.42 In addition to education for boys, the Ettehad school in Tehran ‘spearheaded modern-style schooling for Jewish girls’.43 It has been shown that the Alliance was a source of protection for Iranian 39 T. Grigor, ‘Tehran. A revolution in making’, in J.J. Christie, J. Bogdanovic and E. Guzman (eds), Political landscapes of capital cities, Boulder CO, 2016, 347-76; A. Madanipour, Tehran. The making of a metropolis, Chichester, UK, 1998; R. Speer and R. Carter, Report on India and Persia, New York, 1922, p. 341. 40 Waterfield, Christians in Persia, pp. 95-8; O Flynn, Western Christian presence, pp. 757-934. 41 A. Netzer, ‘Alliance Israélite Universelle’, in EIr; A. Netzer, The Jews of Persia and Alliance in the late nineteenth century. Some aspects, Jerusalem, 1976. 42 A. Cohen, ‘Iranian Jewry and the educational endeavors of the Alliance israélite universelle’, Jewish Social Studies 48 (1986) 15-44. See also M. Laskier, ‘Aspects of the activities of the Alliance Israélite Universelle in the Jewish communities of the Middle East and North Africa 1860-1918’, Modern Judaism 3 (1983) 147-71; H. Sahim, ‘Jews of Iran in the Qajar period. Persecution and perseverance’, in Gleave (ed.), Religion and society in Qajar Iran, 293-310. 43 Rostam-Kolayi, ‘Origins of Iran’s modern girls’ schools’, p. 63.

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Jews, a professional opportunity for European educators, and also a potential channel for integrating Jewish communities into a Muslim-majority society.44 The same has been shown for Tehran’s Bahāʾī schools.45 Whereas scholars of religious studies have mainly written about the encounter in the 19th century of ABCFM missionaries with Assyrian Christians, diplomatic, social and cultural historians have written about PCUSA schools for the Persian-speaking Iranian population. PCUSA sustained the original American Mission in Urmia and, by 1890, had established new posts across northern Iran, with some 147 schools.46 In Tehran, the American School for Girls, known as Iran Bethel, was started on the initiative of an evangelical Armenian woman in 1874 and it was taken over in 1875 by Presbyterian missionaries. The first class earned their diplomas in 1891 and, during the school’s 92-year history, a total of 550 students graduated.47 Presbyterian chroniclers trace the careers of Sarah Bassett, Anna Schenck, Cora Bartlett, Annie Dale and other Iran Bethel principals, along with their unpredictable interactions with the Iranian government. Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah visited the school and approved of its work but, in 1903, his successor demanded that all Muslims should withdraw their daughters because ‘they were being taught to wear high shoes and long skirts’. Still, enrollments more than tripled in the next decade and, in 1913, nearly half of the 345 students were Muslim.48 Women’s education was deemed significant by urbane Tehranis, who shared with the missionaries in the assumption that women, especially in their capacity as mothers, were essential to the future of Iran’s constitutional experiment.49 This sexist mentality resulted in a slanted curriculum, yet mission schools were potentially liberating spaces for both American and Iranian 44 I. Headrick, ‘A family in Iran. Women teachers, minority integration, and family networks in the Jewish schools of the Alliance Israélite Universelle in Iran, 1900-1950’, Journal of the Middle East and Africa 10 (2019) 307-22. 45 S. Shahvar, The forgotten schools. The Baha’is and modern education in Iran, 18991934, New York, 2009; J. Rostam-Kolayi, ‘The Tarbiyat girls’ school of Tehran. Iranian and American Baha’i contributions to modern education’, Middle East Critique 22 (2013) 77-93; S. Zabihi-Moghaddam, ‘Promoting the advancement of women. Baha’i schools for girls in Iran, 1909-35’, Iranian Studies 46 (2013) 273-305. 46 Arasteh, Education and social awakening, p. 121, table 15; M.M. Davis, ‘Evangelizing the Orient. American missionaries in Iran, 1890-1940’, Columbus OH, 2001 (PhD Diss. Ohio State University). 47 Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia PA – PCUSA / UPCUSA, Board of Foreign Missions / COEMAR, Secretaries’ Files, Iran Mission, 1956-1973: 161/2/20 (J. Doolittle, ‘Annual report of Iran Bethel’, 1966). 48 Elder, History of the Iran Mission, pp. 28-31; Century of mission work, pp. 6-7. 49 F. Kashani-Sabet, Conceiving citizens. Women and the politics of motherhood in Iran, New York, 2011; N. Nabavi, Modern Iran. A history in documents, Princeton NJ, 2016, pp. 83-90.

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women, a feature that is foregrounded in Michael Zirinsky’s social histories of female missionaries in Iran, and Jasamin Rostam-Kolayi’s educational histories of women and gender. Zirinsky paints portraits of career educators such as Mary Park Jordan (1867-1954) and Annie Stocking Boyce (1880-1973), and argues that, while they ‘represented luxury and power’ and were ‘clearly part of the vigor and wealth of the age of imperialism’, Presbyterian women in general engaged with their hosts and ‘encouraged Iran’s modernization’.50 Rostam-Kolayi argues that PCUSA moved ‘from evangelizing to modernizing Iranians’ as the Mount Holyoke model in Urmia ‘traveled to other locations in Iran’ under the Presbyterian flag. Iran Bethel students read the Bible and learned foreign languages, and they studied the modern sciences and liberal arts alongside the ‘domestic sciences’ and ‘household arts’. In these ways, the ‘discourse of scientific domesticity’ was embedded in the curriculum alongside the ‘gospel of science’.51 Both English-language historical works and memoirs by such prominent Iranians as Sattareh Farman Farmaian (1921-2012) and Farah Diba Pahlavi (1938- ) show that students who had been trained in mission schools, including Iran Bethel and the French École Jeanne d’Arc, were among the elite women of the Qajar and Pahlavi eras.52 Historians offer a more explicit narrative about the American School for Boys, which was opened by PCUSA in Tehran in 1873 and was a pipeline between the Presbyterian Mission and the Pahlavi state. The first class of this ‘grammar school’ graduated in 1891, and the campus added a boarding department as it continually expanded over the next two decades. In 1902, the curriculum was equivalent to that of an American middle school, and in 1913 it ran as far as the twelfth grade.53 Enrollments grew in the 1890s from 118 to 134, with Armenians initially forming the majority of the student body. Muslims attended the American ‘man factory’ in 50 M. Zirinsky, ‘Harbingers of change. Presbyterian women in Iran, 1883-1949’, American Presbyterians 70 (1992) 173-86, quotations on pp. 174-5, 184; M. Zirinsky, ‘A Presbyterian vocation to reform gender relations in Iran. The career of Annie Stocking Boyce’, in Ansari and Martin (eds), Women, religion and culture in Iran, pp. 51-69. 51 J. Rostam-Kolayi, ‘From evangelizing to modernizing Iranians. The American Presbyterian mission and its Iranian students’, Iranian Studies 41 (2008) 213-40, pp. 221-4, 232. More broadly, see B. Reeves-Ellington, K.K. Sklar, and C.A. Shemo (eds), Competing kingdoms. Women, mission, nation, and the American Protestant empire, 1812-1960, Durham NC, 2010. 52 S. Farman Farmaian, Daughter of Persia, New York, 1992, pp. 56-60, 73-5; F. Pahlavi, An enduring love. My life with the shah, New York, 2004, pp. 43-57. 53 A. Boyce, ‘Alborz College of Teheran and Dr. Samuel Martin Jordan’, in A.P. Saleh (ed.), Cultural ties between Iran and the United States, Tehran, 1976, pp. 164-5, 176-7; Elder, History of the Iran Mission, pp. 26-8.

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greater numbers during the first decade of the twentieth century, which coincided with Iran’s constitutional era. Among the 220 students in 1906, there were 128 Muslims, 83 Armenians and a few Zoroastrian and Jewish students, whose families collectively paid approximately 1,000 dollars in tuition. Despite this cost and the available alternatives, the Presbyterians boasted that ‘parents pass by these schools representing their own language and nation and trust to Christian institutes for the training of their sons’.54 More has been written about Samuel Martin Jordan (1871-1952) than about any other American educator in Iran. Jordan took over the American School for Boys in 1898, guided its early 20th-century growth, founded the American (later Alborz) College in 1925 and served as its principal until 1940. Former students and teachers have since honoured their mentor and colleague.55 As in other areas, Zirinsky was a trailblazer in pushing the conversation about Jordan and his educational mission into the critical historiography.56 Years later, in 2011, Iranian Studies published a special issue that framed American missionary education in terms of ‘development’ and ‘modernity’.57 In this sense, historians writing in the 21st century reach comparable conclusions about American Presbyterian education in Iran, Lebanon and Egypt.58 Perhaps more important is that Samuel Jordan was, like all missionaries in the country, a bridge between Iran and their home country. The historian Thomas Ricks traces the ties between Tehran and the Brainerd Society of Lafayette College to show how Jordan’s alma mater in Pennsylvania raised funds and recruited teachers for ‘Lafayette in Persia’.59 Zirinsky explains that Jordan mattered because he wore many 54 Century of mission work, pp. 84-6; Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, PA – Samuel Martin Jordan biographical file: 360/74/2 (‘Samuel Martin Jordan’, [1907]). 55 Invariably, the most widely cited source is Boyce’s essay on Jordan. See also Y. Armajani, ‘Sam Jordan and the evangelical ethic in Iran’, in R. Miller (ed.), Religious ferment in Asia, Lawrence KS, 1974, pp. 22-36. 56 M. Zirinsky, ‘A panacea for the ills of the country. American Presbyterian education in inter-war Iran’, Iranian Studies 26 (1993) 119-37; M. Zirinsky, ‘Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s. American Presbyterian educators and Reza Shah’, Iranian Studies 26 (1993) 337-56. 57  J. Lorentz, ‘Educational development in Iran. The pivotal role of the mission schools and Alborz College’, Iranian Studies 44 (2011) 647-55. See also H. Chehabi, ‘Diversity at Alborz’, Iranian Studies 44 (2011) 715-29; A. Gheissari, ‘The American College of Tehran, 1929-32. A memorial album’, Iranian Studies 44 (2011) 671-714; M. and A. Gheissari, The American College of Tehran. A memorial album, 1932, Irvine CA, 2020. 58 B. Anderson, The American University of Beirut. Arab nationalism and liberal education, Austin TX, 2011; H. Sharkey, American evangelicals in Egypt. Missionary encounters in an age of empire, Princeton NJ, 2008, pp. 149-78. 59 T.M. Ricks, ‘Alborz College of Tehran, Dr. Samuel Martin Jordan and the American faculty. Twentieth-century Presbyterian mission education and modernism in Iran

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clashing hats that somehow matched in the Iranian context. He was a Presbyterian proselytizer, a progressive American ‘reformer’, a ‘conservative liberal’ who took ‘practical action’, a history teacher and an administrator who used institutions to empower men and women, an internationalist with the ethnocentricities of the day, and an ‘athletic Christian’ who championed ‘constructive revolutions’ among Iranian youth.60 Prior to the First World War, Jordan’s was ‘the largest missionary school in Persia’, with more than 300 students in 1910.61 Conclusion Between the 1830s and the 1910s, Christian missionaries opened schools for Iranian students in three distinct places, and all parties involved were impacted by these ‘enmeshed histories’ of the 19th and early 20th centuries.62 American and European Christians softened their evangelical message, embraced the ‘social gospel’ and fused ‘Christ and culture’ to engage Iranians more respectfully.63 Through their travels, writings and correspondences, missionaries also informed a culture of ‘Persophilia’ among their compatriots.64 The missionaries built schools and other institutions that came to benefit Iranians on a national scale. Yet, in terms of Christian-Muslim relations, this history was fraught with problems and produced an ambiguous legacy. On the one hand, in three different places across Iran, the missionaries did not have a positive record on interfaith dialogue. First, the IranianOttoman-Russian borderlands devolved into a killing field during and after the First World War. There were many victims and many causes, but the mass killing of Assyrians in north-west Iran was, in part, an example of ‘confessional cleansing’ between Muslims and Christians. ‘Whatever their intentions,’ Zirinsky wrote of the missionaries, ‘what they experienced, and in some measure caused, could well be described as hell on (Persia)’, Iranian Studies 44 (2011) 627-46, pp. 638-43; Lafayette College, Lafayette in Persia, https://sites.lafayette.edu/lafayetteinpersia/. 60 M. Zirinsky, ‘Inculcate Tehran. Opening a dialogue of civilizations in the shadow of God and the Alborz’, Iranian Studies 44 (2011) 657-69, pp. 660-4; S.M. Jordan, ‘Constructive revolutions in Iran’, MW 25 (1935) 347-53. 61 W.A. Shedd, Historical sketch of the missions in Persia, Philadelphia PA, 1911, p. 31. 62 H. Sharkey, ‘American missionaries and the Middle East. A history enmeshed’, in Dogan and Sharkey (eds), American missionaries and the Middle East, ix-xliii. 63 W. Hutchison, Errand to the world. American Protestant thought and foreign missions, Chicago IL, 1987. 64 H. Dabashi, Persophilia. Persian culture on the global scene, Cambridge MA, 2015.

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earth.’65 Second, people of different faiths grew uneasy as British influence encroached on southern Iran. Jamāl al-Dīn Asadābādī, known as ‘al-Afghānī’ (1838-97), was a pan-Islamist reformer who placed Britain at the centre of his anti-imperialist critique of so-called Christian influence in Iran and the Middle East. His debates with the European Orientalist Ernest Renan (1823-92) indicate how the earlier culture of ChristianMuslim apologetics from the era of Henry Martyn was grafted onto international debates of the modern era.66 Third, American missionaries and their institutions in Tehran, which many Iranian Christians, royals and nationalist elites deemed desirable for the purposes of defensive developmentalism, were never accepted by pan-Islamists or the Shīʿī ʿulamāʾ. In 1891, at a moment of political upheaval in Iran, an American missionary doctor on friendly terms with the Qajar government was listed among the ‘enemies of the truth faith’.67 In the early 1920s, when American Presbyterians were staking land claims for the Alborz College campus, a cleric and parliamentarian attempted unsuccessfully to prevent the construction of Samuel Jordan’s school in central Tehran.68 On the other hand, a by-product of the dialogue between Iran and the West during this time was that Iranians modernised their own curricula and institutions. This was true for some of the non-Muslims with whom Christian missionaries worked, but also for Muslim and nationalist reformers. Over time, Shīʿī clerics and lay allies endorsed new pedagogies and opened schools to meet the expectations of the Iranian people as the country reckoned with the meaning of modernity.69 This is probably the most meaningful outgrowth of the Christian-Muslim encounter. In the 19th century, mission institutions dotted Iran’s educational landscape, but missionaries knew they were in the minority in the early 20th century. In Tehran alone there was the Dār al-Funūn and other ‘well equipped’ schools, including ‘some two score Moslem schools, many of them of good 65 M. Zirinsky, ‘American Presbyterian missionaries at Urmia during the Great War’, pp. 19-20. See also H. Travis (ed.), The Assyrian genocide. Cultural and political legacies, New York, 2018. 66 N. Keddie, An Islamic response to imperialism. Political and religious writings of Sayyid Jamal ad-Din ‘al-Afghani’, Berkeley CA, 1968, pp. 84-95, 181-7. 67 N. Keddie, Sayyid Jamal ad-Din ‘al-Afghani’. A political biography, Berkeley CA, 1972, p. 324; S. Mahdavi, ‘Shahs, doctors, diplomats and missionaries in 19th century Iran’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 32 (2005) 169-91, p. 178. 68 Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia PA – PCUSA, General Assembly Council Property Services, General International Property Files: 437-1, Alborz and Sage College (J.D. Payne, 1 August 1927). 69 N. Zarrinnal, ‘The origins of dabestan. Mirza Hasan Rushdiyeh and the quest for new education’, Iranian Studies 54 (2021) 247-79.

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endo[w]ment and support’.70 School construction only increased during Iran’s Constitutional Revolution. The first majles, or parliament, gathered in 1906 to draft the ‘Fundamental Laws’, and two articles of the 1907 ‘Supplement’ guaranteed Iranian citizens access to education. In subsequent years, government ministries established a ‘pedagogic state’, though it was not until the Pahlavi era (1925-79) that foreign schools became subject to tight regulations and even nationalisation, and when ‘public’ education became the norm.71 In Iran, the period from the 1830s to the 1910s witnessed a shift in educational preferences from traditional schools to modern ones that emphasised literacy in the vernacular, balanced the study of humanities with the sciences, and professionalised their teaching goals and administrative structures. Christian missionaries were by no means responsible for all these developments, whether positive, negative or neutral in impact. But they were part of the processes through which global flows of people and ideas about religion and education transformed places around the world. Iranian Christians and Muslims alike often distinguished Western education, especially its association with science and technology, from the political ambitions of governments and the religious aims of mission boards in the United States and Europe. To understand these variations, scholars can delve deeper into the historical peculiarities of specific places, in Iran and around the world where Christians and Muslims have historically interacted. If there was Christian-Muslim dialogue in Iran during the 19th and early 20th centuries, it related less to theological conversations than to educational visions for the modern world. 70 Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, PA – Samuel Martin Jordan biographical file: 360/74/2 (‘Samuel Martin Jordan’, [1907]). Additional statistics in Sadiq, ‘Modern Persia and her educational system’, pp. 35-6. He notes that in 1906 a mere 50 of Iran’s 1,072 ‘modern schools’ were foreign schools. 71 Nabavi, Modern Iran, pp. 60-73, esp. p. 71; A. Marashi, Nationalizing Iran. Culture, power, and the state, 1870-1940, Seattle WA, 2008, pp. 86-109; Rostam-Kolayi, ‘Origins of Iran’s modern girls’ schools’.

Iran and Afghanistan

Āqā Muḥammad ʿAlī Bihbahānī Āqā Muḥammad ʿAlī Kirmānshāhī, Āqā Muḥammad ʿAlī Mujtahid, Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn al-Waḥīd al-Bihbahānī, Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad Bāqir al-Bihbahānī, Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad Bāqir Iṣfahānī Date of Birth 1732 Place of Birth Karbala Date of Death 1801 Place of Death Kermanshah

Biography

Muḥammad ʿAlī Bihbahānī was born in Karbala on 20 June 1732 and was brought up in Behbahan in the south-west of Iran. He was the eldest son of the renowned jurist Muḥammad Bāqir Bihbahānī, also known as Waḥīd (1706-92). Muḥammad ʿAlī studied various subjects with his father, particularly jurisprudence. When his father travelled to Karbala and Najaf in 1746 and 1747, the young Muḥammad ʿAlī accompanied him and benefited there from meeting some distinguished jurists including Ḥusayn al-Khwānsārī (d. 1777) and Shaykh Yūsuf al-Baḥrānī (d. 1772), from whom he received a licence to narrate Hadith (ijāzat al-riwāya) (Ḥabībābādī, Makārim al-āthār, vol. 2, p. 566). Following his father, Muḥammad ʿAlī moved to Karbala in the 1760s. In 1773, he went on the pilgrimage to Mecca, where he stayed for two years. Returning in 1775, he was prevented from settling in Karbala by an outbreak of the plague. At his father’s request, he took up residence in Kermanshah. In 1778, Bihbahānī spent a while in Rasht, under the patronage of its ruler Hidāyatullāh Khān Fūmanī (d. 1785), where he composed his magnum opus on jurisprudence, Maqāmiʿ al-faḍl (‘The clubs of learning’) (Ḥabībābādī, Makārim al-āthār, vol. 2, p. 565). Later, he spent some time in Qom and Tehran, though he spent most of his remaining years in Kermanshah. In 1790 or 1791, the first Qajar ruler, Āqā Muḥammad Khān (r. 1789-97), invited him to Tehran (Sipihr, Nāsikh al-tawārīkh, vol. 1, p. 60), where he frequently visited the court, enjoying the shah’s patronage. He was able to establish a good relationship with Muḥammad Khān’s successor,

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Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (r. 1797-1832) and it is reported that the shah dismissed Muḥammad ʿAlī Khān, the ruler of Kermanshah, for causing trouble to Bihbahānī (Aḥmad Bihbahānī, Mirʾāt al-aḥvāl, vol. 1, pp. 139-40, 146-7). Sir John Malcolm (1769-1833), who met Bihbahānī in 1800 in Kermanshah, describes him as ‘a man of considerable information’, who ‘enjoyed the highest respect and confidence of the king’ (History of Persia, vol. 2, p. 388). Bihbahānī died on 3 December 1801 in Kermanshah. Bihbahānī is widely known for being responsible for the persecution and death of several distinguished Sufi masters. This excessive hostility towards the Sufis arose in the last six years of his life. In 1795, the celebrated Niʿmatullāhī master Maʿṣūm ʿAlī-Shah, whose followers were estimated to number around 60,000, passed through Kermanshah. Bihbahānī had him arrested, then publicly interrogated him and eventually had him killed (Maʿṣūm ʿAlī-Shah, Ṭarāʾiq al-ḥaqāʾiq, vol. 3, pp. 174-5). Another prominent Niʿmatullāhī figure, Muẓaffar ʿAlī-Shah, was arrested in Kerman. At the request of Bihbahānī and on the orders of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah, he was sent in custody to Kermanshah, where he died in Bihbahānī’s house in 1800 while under arrest (Maʿṣūm ʿAlī-Shah, Ṭarāʾiq al-ḥaqāʾiq, vol. 3, pp. 207-8). Bihbahānī also ordered the persecution and possibly the killing of some other Sufis (Tunikābunī, Qiṣaṣ al-ʿulamāʾ, p. 199; Algar, ‘Behbahānī’; Mullāzāda, ‘Bihbahānī’, p. 757). Bihbahānī composed over 30 works. Four years before his death in 1797, he listed his writings at the request of Muḥammad Ḥasan Fānī Zunūzī (d. 1803; for this list, see Fānī Zunūzī, Riyāḍ al-janna, vol. 4, pp. 337-9). Many of these works are on jurisprudence and legal methodology. He also composed several works on theology and polemics: against Judaism and Christianity (discussed below), against the Sunnīs, titled Sunnat al-hidāya li-hidāyat al-sunna (‘The tradition of guidance for the guidance of tradition’) and against the Sufis, titled Khayrātiyya (‘The donation’).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary J. Malcolm, The history of Persia, London, 1829, vol. 2, pp. 387-9 B. Khwānsārī, Rawḍāt al-jannāt fī aḥwāl al-ʿulamāʾ wa-l-sādāt, Tehran, 1887, vol. 7, p. 660 M.M. Maʿṣūm ʿAlī-Shah, Ṭarāʾiq al-ḥaqāʾiq, ed. M.J. Maḥjūb, Tehran, 1966, vol. 3, pp. 174-5, 196, 207-8, 469-71, 591 A. ibn M.ʿA. Bihbahānī, Mirʾāt al-aḥvāl-i jahān-namā. Safar-nāma, Qom, 1994-5, vol. 1, pp. 131, 133-8

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M.T. Lisān al-Mulk Sipihr, Nāsikh al-tawārīkh: Tārīkh-i Qājāriyya, ed. J. Kiyānfar, Tehran, 1998-9, vol. 1, p. 60 Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān Tunikābunī, Qiṣaṣ al-ʿulamāʾ, Tehran, 2004, pp. 199-201 M.Ḥ. Fānī Zunūzī, Riyāḍ al-janna, ed. ʿAlī Rafīʿī, Qom, 2007, vol. 4, pp. 336-9 Secondary R. Pourjavady, ‘Introduction’, in R. Pourjavady (ed.), Philosophy in Qajar Iran, Leiden, 2018, pp. 1-35 Ḥ. Muttaqī, ‘Kitābshināsī-i āthār u ta‌ʾlīfāt-i ʿilmī-i ʿAllāma-yi Dhu l-funūn Āqā Muḥammad ʿAlī Bihbahānī Kirmānshāhī Ḥāʾirī’, Āyina-yi Pazhūhish 19 (2008) 93-130 R. Pourjavady and S. Schmidtke, ‘Muslim polemics against Judaism and Christianity in 18th century Iran. The literary sources of Āqā Muḥammad ʿAlī Bihbahānī’s (1144/1732-1216/1801) Rādd-i shubuhāt al-kuffār’, Studia Iranica 35 (2006) 69-94 M.H. Mullāzāda, art. ‘Bihbahānī, Muḥammad ʿAlī’, in Ghulām-ʿAlī Ḥaddād ʿĀdil (ed.), Dānishnāma-yi jahān-i Islām, Tehran, 1999, vol. 4, pp. 754-8 H. Algar, art. ‘Behbahānī, Moḥammad-ʿAlī’, in EIr ʿA. Davānī, Āqā Muḥammad-Bāqir ibn Muḥammad Akmal Iṣfahānī maʿrūf bi Waḥīd-i Bihbahānī, Tehran, 19832, pp. 275-331 N. Pourjavady and P.L. Wilson, Kings of love, Tehran, 1978, pp. 128-31 H. Algar, Religion and state in Iran, 1785-1906. The role of the ulama in the Qajar period, Berkeley CA, 1969, pp. 39-40, 43, 63 M.ʿA. Muʿallim Ḥabībābādī, Makārim al-āthār dar aḥvāl-i rijāl-i dawra-yi Qājār, Isfahan, 1963, vol. 2, pp. 561-7

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Rādd shubuhāt al-kuffār bar dhikr-i abḥāth-i milal-i thalāth ‘Rejecting the sophistries of the unbelievers by presenting inquiries into the three faiths’ Date 4 March 1801 Original Language Persian Description At the beginning of the introduction to Rādd shubahāt al-kuffār, Bihbahānī explains that, while he was in Tehran in 1798, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah requested explanations about a few matters including interreligious issues. Bihbahānī composed this work in response to the request. However, the composition

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was interrupted when, after writing two or three parts ( juzw), he turned to completing his anti-Sufi polemic, Khayrātiyya, presumably because of the significant role the work could play in his anti-Sufi campaign. Following the completion of Khayrātiyya, he returned to the Rādd and completed it on 4 March 1801. Initially, Bihbahānī wanted to call it Al-ẓarāʾif (‘The elegant discussions’), because according to the abjad calculation system, the sum of the numerical values of the letters of this title corresponds to 1213, the date he began to write the work according to the Iranian calendar (1798-9). However, the work was not completed in that year because of the interruption, making it pointless to give it this name. He then chose the title Rādd shubahāt al-kuffār bar dhikr-i abḥāth-i milal-i thalāth (‘Rejecting the sophistries of the unbelievers by presenting the inquiries of the three faiths’). It is an extensive work, containing 281 pages in the printed edition. The work deals with ‘subtle discussions regarding the inquiries of the three faiths’ (laṭāʾif-i abḥāth-i milal-i thalāth), Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Although Bihbahānī does not mention his primary source, a close study reveals that the work is extensively based on Saʿd ibn Manṣūr ibn Kammūna’s (d. 1284) Tanqīḥ al-abḥāth li-l-milal al-thalāth (‘Examination of the inquiries into the three faiths’), and in fact includes translations of extensive portions of this work. The Rādd consists of a lengthy introduction (pp. 3-24), three chapters (baḥth), each subdivided into several sections (nūr), and two epilogues. After explaining the circumstances that led to the composition of the work, Bihbahānī opens the main part of the introduction (pp. 6-24), which is on the nature of prophethood. Apart from a few omissions and some additional remarks, this is a translation of the first chapter of Ibn Kammūna’s Tanqīḥ (see Ibn Kammūna, Examination of the inquiries into the three faiths, ed. M. Perlmann, Berkeley CA, 1967, pp. 2-21). The first chapter (pp. 24-52) is devoted to ‘[the religion] of the Jewish people and the doubts and discussions related to it’ (dar dhikr-i [millati] yahūdān u shukūk u abḥāth-i mūrada bar ān). Bihbahānī here translates most of ch. 2 of Ibn Kammūna’s Tanqīḥ (see Examination, pp. 22-50) and adds two brief passages, one from Majd al-Dīn Fīrūzābādī’s (d. 1415) Qāmūs al-lugha (Rādd, p. 25) and the other from Jāmāsbnāma (a text originally written in Middle Persian attributed to the legendary Jāmāsb, the Persian version of which was composed sometime before mid-14th century (pp. 26-7). He also adds a note ( fāʾida) at the end of the chapter on the contents of the Old Testament (pp. 50-2). The second chapter (pp. 53-89) is devoted to ‘the religion of the Christians’ (dar bayān-i millat-i Naṣārā). This is mainly a translation of ch. 3 of

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the Tanqīḥ, though most of section eight (pp. 78-89) is based on a Persian work on the lives of the Apostles titled Ḥavārī-nāma (also Dāstān-i aḥvāl-i ḥavāriyān) by the Jesuit missionary Jerome Xavier (1549-1617) with the collaboration of ʿAbd al-Sattār Lāhūrī of the ʿAbdālī tribe (d. after 1615; see Xavier and Lāhūrī, Ḥavārī-nāma, MS Bodleian 593, fols 109v-111r, 120v-122v, 147v-149r, 171v-174r, 184v-187r, 192r). Bihbahānī explicitly refers to Ḥavārīnāma as his source at the beginning of this section (p. 78). The third and by far the longest chapter (pp. 90-191) deals with Islam. As Bihbahānī is more familiar with this subject than the others, this chapter is less dependent on the Tanqīḥ, though part of it is a translation of the fourth chapter of Ibn Kammūna’s work (Examination, pp. 67-108) with omissions and additions. Some sections are based on other sources. For section seven to the beginning of section eight (pp. 124-71), Bihbahānī uses a summary of Sayyid Aḥmad ʿAlavī’s (d. between 1644 and 1650) Lavāmiʿ-i rabbānī dar radd-i shubha-yi Naṣrānī (‘The divine rays in refutation of the Christian’s sophistry’, MS Cambridge, University Library – Dd 6.83). ʿAlavī’s work was a response to Pietro della Valle’s (1586-1652) Persian polemic against Islam, Risāla […] dar baʿḍī umūr-i dīn-i masīḥiyān (‘A treatise […] on some matters related to Christianity’), and ʿAlavī quotes the first two chapters of Della Valle’s work passage by passage, responding to each of his arguments. Bihbahānī, in turn, incorporates all of ʿAlavī’s quotations of Della Valle’s work, summarising his response to each of them. The first epilogue (pp. 191-209) is ‘on some harsh criticisms and remarks concerning the antagonistic Jewish people’ (dar dhikr-i baʿḍī maṭāʿin u abḥāth wārida bar ṭāʾifa-yi yahūdān-i ʿunūd). Together with a few additional remarks, this is a selective translation of Ifḥām al-Yahūd (‘Silencing the Jews’) by the Jewish convert to Islam, Samawʾal al-Maghribī (d. 1175) (see Samawʾal al-Maghribī’s Ifḥām al-Yahūd. The early recension, ed. I. Marazka, R. Pourjavady and S. Schmidtke, Wiesbaden, 2006, pp. 20-1, 23-32, 35-41, 43). The second epilogue (pp. 210-79), although it is titled ‘a brief note on five [common] principles of [the three] religions’ (dar dhikr-i mukhtaṣarī az uṣūl-i khamsa-yi dīn-i milliyīn), in fact deals only with Christianity. Here, Bihbahānī draws heavily on ʿAlī Qulī Jadīd al-Islām’s (d. c. 1722) Hidāyat al-ḍāllīn wa-taqwiyya al-muʾminīn (‘Guidance for those who are led [or who lead] astray and strengthening for the believers’; see ʿAlī Qulī Jadīd al-Islām, Hidāyat al-ḍāllīn [vol. 3], MS Qom, Marʿashī – 3651, selected from fols 1-145v). Since Bihbahānī refers to only one epilogue in the introduction to the Rādd (p. 5), it is possible that this epilogue was added after the completion of the draft on 4 March 1801 (for a more detailed study of

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Bihbahānī’s appropriations of the sources mentioned above, see Pourjavady and Schmidtke, ‘Muslim polemics’). Though Rādd shubahāt al-kuffār does not constitute much of an original contribution to the genre of Muslim polemics against Christianity and Judaism, the wide range of sources used by Bihbahānī provides a detailed picture of the interreligious polemical literature in circulation in Iran at the turn of the 18th/19th century. Regarding Ibn Kammūna’s Tanqīḥ and Samawʾal al-Maghribī’s Ifḥām, it is even possible to determine the recensions that were available to Bihbahānī. All the copies of them that are either of Iranian provenance or remain in the libraries of Iran today are based on a codex written by Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī (d. 1311) in 1286 in Konya: MS Qom, Marʿashī – 12868 (for a facsimile publication see Majmūʿa-yi Quṭb al-Dīn-i Shīrāzī [with an English introduction by S. Schmidtke and R. Pourjavady], Qom, 2012). The version of the Tanqīḥ in this codex differs significantly from other extant copies of the text and, in the case of Ifḥām al-Yahūd, it is known that Samawʾal al-Maghribī revised it extensively four years after completing it in 1163. Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī’s codex contains the early recension of this text. Bihbahānī’s version of both texts corresponds to this codex, meaning that Bihbahānī had at his disposal either this codex or a copy (e.g. MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī – 593). The variety of sources Bihbahānī used in the Rādd enabled him to strengthen his arguments. Ibn Kammūna in his Tanqīḥ, for example, denies that the Old Testament in its Hebrew version had been falsified, although he maintains that the Old Testament used by Christians has some problems (Examination, pp. 30-1). Bihbahānī repeats this in ch. 1 (pp. 35-6). Elsewhere, adopting ʿAlī Qulī Jadīd al-Islām’s view, Bihbahānī claims that the Latin translation of the Old Testament was modified and falsified by St Jerome (c. 347-420, to whom he refers as ‘Jarānīm’), the translator of the Hebrew Old Testament texts into Latin (p. 163), supporting Ibn Kammūna’s assertion that the Old Testament that is in the hands of Christians contains mistakes that occurred during the process of translation. Significance Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah’s court was known for being interested in interreligious discussions. However, one might assume that such interest in the Qajar court emerged following the first Russo-Iranian war (1804-13), which was considered a Christian-Muslim conflict. The composition of the Rādd at the request of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah in 1801, suggests that the shah was interested in the topic even before the beginning of the war.

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Although the work with its wide range of sources could have been a significant source for later authors of polemical works, it is not known whether any appropriation of it was made. The only scholar who later paid some attention to the work was the author’s son, Muḥammad Jaʿfar Kirmānshāhī (d. 1843). A while after his father’s death, Kirmānshāhī was asked to write a treatise on the proof of the prophethood of Muḥammad, and instead of writing a new composition he referred the questioner to the extensive work of his father and provided him with a copy of it (MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī – 12, fol. 2v). Publications MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī – 12, fols 2v-87v (instead of the original preface, the copy contains a note by the son of the author, Muḥammad Jaʿfar Kirmānshāhī; in the catalogue, the work is misattributed to Muḥammad Jaʿfar Kabūdar-Āhangī – see Ardalān Javān, Fihrist-i kutub-i khaṭṭī-i Kitābkhāna-yi Markazī-i Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī, 1977-8, vol. 1, p. 29) MS Qom, Marʿashī – 1475, 88 fols, copy completed in 1839; see Ḥusaynī, Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭī-i Kitābkhāna-yi […] Marʿashī, Qom, 19756, vol 4, pp. 266-8 MS Qom, Masjid-i Aʿẓam-i Qum – 3151/1, 63 fols; see Ustādī, Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭī-i Kitābkhāna-yi Masjid-i Aʿẓam-i Qum, Qom, 2009-10, vol. 3, p. 968 Āqā Muḥammad ʿAlī Bihbahānī, Rādd shubahāt al-kuffār, ed. Sayyid Mahdī Rajāʾī, Qom: Intishārāt-i Anṣāriyān, 1992-3 Studies R. Pourjavady and S. Schmidtke, A Jewish philosopher of Baghdad. ʿIzz al-Dawla Ibn Kammūna (d. 683/1284) and his writings, Leiden, 2016, pp. 52-4 R. Jaʿfariyān and M. Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf. Guzārishī az guftugūhā-yi Masīhī-Islāmī dar dawra-yi Ṣafavī u Qājārī, Tehran, 2016, pp. 124-7 Pourjavady and Schmidtke, ‘Muslim polemics’ Reza Pourjavady

Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī Ḥājjī Ibrāhīm Mujtahid Shīrāzī, Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Fasāʾī, Ḥājjī Mīzā Ibrāhīm Mujtahid, Muḥammad Ibrāhīm ibn Ḥusayn Ḥasanī Ḥusaynī, Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Ḥasanī Ḥusaynī Date of Birth Around 1769 Place of Birth Shiraz Date of Death 1839 Place of Death Shiraz

Biography

Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī was from a well-known and learned family in Shiraz. Among his ancestors were two distinguished philosophers, Ṣadr al-Dīn Dashtakī Shīrāzī (d. 1498) and the latter’s son Ghiyāth al-Dīn (d. 1542). His father, Ḥasan Shīrāzī, known as Mīrzā-Jānī Fasāʾī (d. 1797 or 98), held a high administrative position under the Zand dynasty. According to Mīrzā Ḥasan Fasāʾī (d. 1898-99), Muḥammad Ibrāhīm was born in 1759/60 (Fārsnāma-yi Nāṣirī, vol. 2, p. 927). However, his date of birth was more likely to be about ten years after this, around 1769/70. He started his education in Shiraz, studying Arabic literary sciences and to some extent mathematics and theology. When Āqā Muḥammad Khān (r. 1789-97) captured Shiraz in 1792, he took Muḥammad Ibrāhīm with him to Tehran as a hostage to guarantee Mīrzā-Jānī’s loyalty (Fārsnāma-yi Nāṣirī, vol. 2, p. 927). Following Āqā Muḥammad Khān’s death in 1797, Muḥammad Ibrāhīm left Tehran for Karbala to study jurisprudence and legal methodology. He studied with the best-known jurist of the time, Sayyid ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad Ṭabāṭabāʾī (d. 1816). The duration of his study is unknown, though it must have been more than four years as he was still in Karbala in 1801 (Fārsnāma-yi Nāṣirī, vol. 2, pp. 927-8). He then moved back to his hometown, Shiraz. In 1809, Muḥammad Ibrāhīm went on pilgrimage to Mecca and a year after to Mashhad (Fārsnāma-yi Nāṣirī, vol. 2, p. 928). He then settled in Shiraz, where he taught jurisprudence and legal methodology. Fasāʾī considers Mīrzā Ibrāhīm to be the most knowledgeable mujtahid of Shiraz in his time (Fārsnāma-yi Nāṣirī, vol. 1, p. 742). This is supported by the fact that he was among the mujtahids who were asked for a fatwā on the jihād against Russian forces (Fārsnāma-yi Nāṣirī, vol. 1, p. 699). When Fatḥ-ʿAlī

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Shah (r. 1797-1834) visited Shiraz, he stayed in Muḥammad Ibrāhīm’s house (Fārsnāma-yi Nāṣirī, vol. 1, p. 742). The shah probably knew him in person from the time before his reign when Mīrzā Ibrāhīm’s father was in his service. At one point, Mīrzā Ibrāhīm chose to move out of Shiraz to the small town of Iṣṭahbānāt, east of Shiraz. After three years, at the request of the ruler of Fārs, Ḥusayn ʿAlī Mīrzā Farmānfarmāʾī (d. 1835), he returned to Shiraz, where he died in May-June 1839 (Fārsnāma-yi Nāṣirī, vol. 2, pp. 928-9). Mīrzā Ibrāhīm composed three works on jurisprudence and legal methodology: 1. an independent composition, titled Baḥr al-ḥaqāʾiq fī maʿrifat al-rumūz wa-l-daqāʾiq, completed in or before 1812; 2. a gloss on Ḥasan ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-ʿĀmilī’s (d. 1552) Maʿālim al-uṣūl, titled Tanqīḥ al-masāʾil fī maʿrifat uṣūl wa-l-daqāʾiq, and 3. a gloss on the commentary on Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Makkī ʿĀmilī’s (d. 1384) Al-lumʿa l-Dimashqiyya (Fārsnāma-yi Nāṣirī, vol. 2, p. 929).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary M.I. Shīrāzī, Baḥr al-ḥaqāʾiq fī maʿrifat al-rumūz wa-l-daqāʾiq, MS Tehran, Majlis – 13590, fol. 1v Ḥ.Ḥ. Fasāʾī, Fārsnāma-yi Nāṣirī, ed. Manṣūr Rastigār Fasāʾī, 2 vols, Tehran, 1988, vol. 1, p. 742; vol. 2, pp. 927-9 Secondary R. Jaʿfariyān and M. Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf. Guzārishī az guftugūhā-yi Masīḥī-Islāmī dar dawra-yi Ṣafavī u Qājārī, Tehran, 2016, pp. 548-60 A. Amanat, ‘Mujtahids and missionaries. Shīʿī responses to Christian polemics in the early Qajar period’, in R. Gleave (ed.), Religion and society in Qajar Iran, London, 2005, pp. 247-69

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Risāla fī ithbāt nubuwwa khāṣṣa ‘Treatise on proof of [Muḥammad’s] particular prophethood’ Date 1811 Original Language Arabic Description Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī wrote this treatise in response to Henry Martyn’s questions to him about the reasons to believe in the prophethood of

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Muḥammad after Jesus Christ. It is 12 folios in length in both copies held in the Cambridge University Library, and 23 folios long in the copy held at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. All references here are to MS Cambridge, University Library – Add. 567. The work has no subdivisions and makes no reference to other works. At the beginning, Shīrāzī refers to Henry Martyn only vaguely as ‘one of the Christian scholars’ (baʿḍ aḥbār al-Naṣārā). He intends his argument to be beneficial to Martyn and to any other reader. Mīrzā Ibrāhīm had expected Martyn to respond to the work and consequently have a debate with him. With this in mind, he advises his opponent and himself to avoid arguments that are not constructive, to try to be fair and rational instead of following others, and to avoid prejudice (fol. 3v). According to Mīrzā Ibrāhīm, a prophetic mission can be verified by the production of a miracle – that is, an action that goes beyond the normal. The miracle may be of any kind, though it is necessary to rely on the views of experts in that area to establish its miraculous nature. For instance, for Moses’s miracle of turning his staff into a snake, the views of magicians should be referred to. For the healing miracles of Jesus, the views of physicians are relevant (fols 3v, 4v, 5v, 6v). After this preliminary argument, Mīrzā Ibrāhīm holds that the major miracle of Muḥammad was the book he brought, the Qur’an. He argues that the Qur’an is miraculous in terms of its eloquence, which exceeds the level of normal Arabic writings, as is attested by Arabs in general and those who are acquainted with Arabic rhetoric in particular. This is also confirmed by the fact that no one could produce the like. Those who are not native Arabic speakers, such as Persians, might be unacquainted with the subtleties of Arabic language and therefore might not grasp the eloquence of the Qur’an, but they must rely on experts in this matter (fols 6v, 7v). Unlike the miracles of earlier prophets, the eloquence of the Qur’an is purely intellectual, a form of miracle that is much higher than miracles experienced by the senses (fols 8v, 9v). Many other miracles have been attributed to Muḥammad, though the transmission of the accounts of them does not provide broad authentication (tawātur). The reason for this, he says, is that the Companions of Muḥammad did not pay much attention to recording these miracles properly because they did not feel the necessity. Having the Qur’an at their disposal, they did not pay much attention to lesser (anqaṣ) miracles than the Qur’an (fols 10v, 11v). At the same time, it should be noted that the accounts of the miracles of other prophets have not provided broad authentication either. So, one could say that except for the Qur’an, other miracles attributed to prophets have the same level of credence and, in this respect, there is no difference between the miracles attributed to Muḥammad and those attributed

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to other prophets (fols 11v, 12v). The Qur’an, however, is a special case. Its composition is miraculous, as has been established previously, and there is no doubt that it was revealed through Muḥammad, which confirms his claim to prophethood (fols 13v, 14v). Significance It can be assumed that there must have been some debates between Mīrzā Ibrāhīm and Henry Martyn prior to the composition of this treatise. From these debates, Mīrzā Ibrāhīm apparently knew about Martyn’s denial of the eloquence of the Qur’an and his rejection of other miracles attributed to Muḥammad. In this treatise, Mīrzā Ibrāhīm on the one hand emphasises the miraculous nature of the Qur’an and on the other undermines Martyn’s qualification to make a judgement about it. Moreover, Mīrzā Ibrāhīm argues that the miracles of other prophets do not have broad authentication and to that extent they are not equal to those attributed to Muḥammad. It seems that Mīrzā Ibrāhīm wrote this treatise in Arabic with the intention of keeping the debate at the level of scholars and avoiding raising doubts for ordinary Muslims. Martyn, however, wanted his work to be read by as many as possible, so he responded in Persian and wrote two further treatises. In his diary, he wrote about some later conversations with Mīrzā Ibrāhīm. On 26 June 1811, which must be after the composition of the first of Martyn’s tracts, Martyn wrote: ‘Mīrzā Ibrāhīm, after reading my answer, had nothing to reply, but made such a remark as I did not expect from a man of his character, namely, that he was sufficiently satisfied the Qur’an was a miracle, though he had failed to convince me’ (Martyn, Journal and letters). In early September (2-6), Mīrzā Ibrāhīm again spoke with Martyn on the matter. This time he argued that Martyn’s arguments against Islam were equally applicable against Christianity and Judaism and that, as Martyn triumphed when he was on the offensive, he should likewise admit weakness when he was on the defensive (Martyn, Journal and letters). A few days later (12-15 September), Martyn again wrote about Mīrzā Ibrāhīm in his diary. This time he implies that Mīrzā Ibrāhīm had some inclinations towards Christianity: ‘Mīrzā Ibrāhīm is still in doubt, and thinks that he may be a Christian, and be saved without renouncing Mahomedanism, asks his nephew what is requisite to observe; he said, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Well, said he, what harm is there in doing that’ (Martyn, Journal and letters). Among later Muslim scholars who responded to Martyn’s treatises, Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī (d. 1831) seems to be the only one

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who had Mīrzā Ibrāhīm’s text at his disposal. In his Irshād al-muḍillīn, Hamadānī refers to Mīrzā Ibrāhīm as ‘the learned scholar of the time’ ( fāḍil-i muʿāṣir) (Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī, Irshād al-muḍillīn, MS Tehran, Millī – 1285, fol. 2r). He then translates the treatise and compares each element with Martyn’s responses to it. Unlike Hamadānī’s positive attitude, Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī’s (d. 1830) was dismissive of Mīrzā Ibrāhīm’s treatise. He describes him as ignorant, one who has dealt with the matter without proper authority (bū l-faḍūl-i jahūl) (ʿA. Nūrī, Ḥujjat al-Islām, ed. Ḥ. Nājī Iṣfahānī, Tehran, 2012, p. 172). He also states that, had Martyn met a learned scholar who could resolve the problem for him, his treatise would not have reached the wider public (Nūrī, Ḥujjat al-Islām, p. 192). Nūrī might have been unaware of the identity of the individuals with whom Martyn disputed, and made these judgements on the basis of Martyn’s response. About 14 years after the composition of Mīrzā Ibrāhīm’s work, Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qāʾim-Maqām (d. 1835), the vizier of ʿAbbās Mīrzā, describes Mīrzā Ibrāhīm as ‘a simple ascetic’ (zāhidī sāda) and his treatise as ‘a disorganised booklet, potential for misuse, based on the views and positions of the old scholars’ (A. Qāʾim-Maqām, ‘Preface’, in Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī, Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa, lithograph edition, Tehran, 1825, p. 2). Publications MS Oxford, Bodleian Library – Or. 765, fols 1b-23a, copied by a Persian hand (in or before 1821) MS Cambridge, University Library – Add. 567, fols 3v-14v (in or before 1824, copied and owned by Samuel Lee containing a partial draft of his translation) MS Cambridge, University Library – Add. 1044, fols 1v-13r S. Lee, Controversial tracts on Christianity and Mohammedanism, Cambridge, 1824, pp. 1-39 (English trans. based on MS Cambridge, University Library – Add. 567); 006605740 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) Studies W. Muir, The Mohammedan controversy. Biographies of Mohammed, Sprenger on tradition, the Indian liturgy and the Psalter, Edinburgh, 1897, pp. 10-11 Project Canterbury, Rev Henry Martyn, Journal and Letters, at: http://anglicanhistory.org/india/martyn/1811.html Reza Pourjavady

Ḥājj ʿAlī Akbar Navvāb Shīrāzī Bismil Shīrāzī, ʿAlī Akbar Shīrāzī, ʿAlī Akbar Munajjim Shīrāzī, ʿAlī Akbar Bismil-i Shīrāzī Date of Birth 1773-4 Place of Birth Shiraz Date of Death 1846-7 Place of Death Shiraz

Biography

ʿAlī Akbar Shīrāzī belonged to a family of scholars who moved from Isfahan to Shiraz in the post-Safavid period. His father, Āqā ʿAlī Naqīb, and his uncle, Āqā Buzurg, both became teachers at the Madrasa-yi Ḥakīm in Shiraz, where ʿAlī Akbar Shīrāzī studied religious sciences, literature, mathematics, logic and philosophy. He kept close ties with Ḥusayn ʿAlī Mīrzā Farmānfarmāʾī (d. 1835), one of the sons of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (r. 17971834), who ruled the province of Fārs. He married Ḥusayn ʿAlī’s daughter, and received the title Navvāb (‘deputy’). Navvāb Shīrāzī’s pen-name was Bismil. He composed numerous literary, religious and philosophical works. The best-known is Tazkira-yi dilgushā (‘The heart-expanding remembrance’), which provides the biographies of 157 poets. Navvāb was himself a poet, having written a dīvān of Persian and Arabic poems. He also composed a work in Persian on semantics and rhetoric titled Tuḥfat al-safar li-nūr al-baḥr (‘The masterpiece of travels for the light of the sea’), and a commentary on Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s (d. 1274) work on astronomy titled Sharḥ-i sī faṣl (‘The treatise in thirty sections’), which he dedicated to Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah. His religious works include Baḥr al-liʾālī (‘The sea of pearls’), which contains biographies of the fourteen infallible beings (the Prophet, his daughter and the Twelve Imams). He also composed a treatise on determining the qibla (Risāla dar qibla) (Rastigār, ‘Introduction’, pp. 31-4), a Persian commentary on the Qur’an, and a work called Dhakhīrat al-najā fī mīrāth al-amwāt (‘Safety provisions for the inheritance of the dead’), written for Ḥusayn ʿAlī Mīrzā (Hūshiyār, ‘Bismil Shīrāzī’, pp. 425-6). In philosophy and rational theology, he wrote a gloss on Shawāriq al-ilhām (‘The lights of inspiration’), which is a commentary on Naṣīr al-Dīn

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al-Ṭūsī by ʿAbd al-Razzāq Lāḥījī (d. 1661-2), and a treatise on the proof for the existence of God entitled Ithbāt al-Wājib taʿālā (‘Confirmation of the Necessary Being, exalted is He’) (Rastigār, ‘Introduction’, pp. 31-4; Hūshiyār, ‘Bismil Shīrāzī’).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Ḥājj Mīrzā Ḥasan Ḥusaynī Fasāʾī, Fārsnāma-yi Nāṣirī, ed. Manṣūr Rastigār Fasāʾī, 2 vols, Tehran, 1988 Ḥājj ʿAlī Akbar Bismil Shīrāzī, Tazkira-yi dilgushā, ed. Manṣūr Rastigār Fasāʾī, Shiraz, 1992 Secondary R. Jaʿfariyān and M. Ṣiddīqī, ‘Nūr al-hidāya fī ithbāt al-risāla’, in Az Darband tā Qaṭīf. Guzarishi az guftugūhā-yi masīhī-islāmī dar dawra-yi Ṣafavī u Qājār, Tehran, 2016, 298-347 A. Mir-Ansari and K. Brown, art. ‘Bismil Shīrāzī’, in W. Madelung and F. Daftary (eds), Encyclopaedia Islamica; http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1875-9831_isla _COM_05000010 A. Amanat, ‘Mujtahids and missionaries. Shīʿī responses to Christian polemics in the early Qajar period’, in R. Gleave (ed.), Religion and society in Qajar Iran, London, 2005, 247-69 Ṣafūrā Hūshiyār, art. ‘Bismil Shīrāzī’, in Dānishnāma-yi jahān-i Islām, vol. 3, Tehran, 1998, 425-6 Manṣūr Rastigār Fasāʾī, ‘Introduction’, in Ḥājj ʿAlī Akbar Bismil Shīrāzī, Tazkira-yi dilgushā, Shiraz, 1992, 17-35 M.M. Āqā Buzurg Ṭihrānī, Al-dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-Shīʿa, Beirut, 1983, vol. 24, p. 398

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Nūr al-hidāya fī ithbāt al-risāla ‘The light of guidance in the proof of prophethood’ Date 12 August 1811 Original Language Persian Description Written in response to the first polemical treatise by the Protestant missionary Henry Martyn, Nūr al-hidāya is an apology for Islam rather than a polemic against Christianity. Consisting of roughly 20 pages divided into an introduction and two ‘question’ sections, it was written in Shiraz in 1811, during Martyn’s residence in the city. In the preface to the work, Shīrāzī

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Illustration 5. Opening page of Nūr al-hidāya fī ithbāt al-risāla in Persian with an English translation by Samuel Lee

refers to Martyn respectfully as ‘one of the seekers of salvation among the Christian scholars’ (‘Nūr al-hidāya’, p. 302). One of the themes of the essay concerns the account of the Prophet’s predictions of future events and his miracles apart from the Qur’an itself. According to Rasūl Jaʿfariyān and Maryam Ṣiddīqī, in this section the author drew upon Muḥammad Bāqir Majlisī’s Ḥayāt al-qulūb (‘The lives of the hearts’) (‘Nūr al-hidāya’, p. 300). The work does not seek to demonstrate the veracity of Islam through biblical proofs – as was customary in interreligious debates in Iran during the Qajar and Safavid periods. Rather, it defends the internal coherence of Islamic doctrine, providing proofs from the Qur’an and Hadith. It introduces major concepts of Hadith analysis, such as tawātur (authentication through multiple recurrence), and gives a detailed account of the requirements of prophethood. Thematically, the work focuses on traditions related to the revelation of prophethood to Muḥammad and to the miracles associated with him, particularly those performed in the presence of the Meccan polytheist ruler ʿAmr ibn Hishām ‘Abū Jahl’ (d. 624). True to the Shīʿī allegiance of its author, the work emphasises the special status of the ahl al-bayt. It dedicates significant space to recounting traditions

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about the life of Fāṭima and affirms the imamates of Ḥasan and Ḥusayn, even referring to the notion that the martyrdom of the latter was foretold by the Prophet. Significance Nūr al-hidāya is one of many responses written by Iranian ʿulamāʾ to Henry Martyn’s first polemical work, though it was the only response which Martyn actually received. Martyn wrote on 12 September 1811 that he met Ḥājj ʿAlī Akbar Navvāb in a ceremony organised by the prime minister, where Ḥājj ʿAlī Akbar presented a copy of the treatise to the prime minister and another copy to Martyn. Moreover, Ḥājj ʿAlī Akbar explained to Martyn that the treatise included four answers to Martyn’s objection to the Prophet’s use of the sword. Martyn, however, was not much impressed by Ḥājj ʿAlī Akbar’s arguments and stated that ‘passion had blinded his reason, so that he smote the wind’ ( Journal and letters, 12 September 1811; see http://anglicanhistory.org/india/martyn/1811.html). As well as being circulated in Iran, an excerpt of Nūr al-hidāya, together with an English translation, was included in the 1824 work Controversial tracts (pp. 40-71), an anthology by Samuel Lee (d. 1852), a Cambridge Orientalist who collaborated with the Iranian expatriate scholar Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ on a Persian biblical translation project. Publications MS Qom, Gulpāygānī – 1657-9/207, 63 fols (30 January 1820) MS Tehran, University of Tehran – 2999, 19 fols (pp. 488-507) (1832-3) MS Yazd, Kāẓimīnī Collection – 1/235, 29 fols (1849-50) MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī – 16833 MS Cambridge, University library – E.G. Browne Collection, Add. 3231 S. Lee, Controversial tracts, pp. 40-71, notes 72-9 (part of the Persian text with parallel English trans.); 102424915 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) Ḥājj ʿAlī Akbar Bismil Shīrāzī, ‘Nūr al-hidāya fī ithbāt al-risāla’, in R. Jaʿfariyān and M. Ṣiddīqī (eds), Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, 300-11, 344-7 (Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī edited the parts of the text not edited by Lee) Studies Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī (eds), ‘Nūr al-hidāya fī Ithbāt al-risāla’, pp. 298347 (notes on the text) Alberto Tiburcio

Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn ibn Muḥammad Date of Birth Unknown; mid to late 18th century Place of Birth Unknown Date of Death Unknown; after 1811 Place of Death Unknown

Biography

Nothing is known about the scholar named Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn ibn Muḥammad, apart from what can be inferred from his one known work, Miṣbāḥ al-ẓulumāt fī tafsīr al-Tawrāt. He could have written this in Kāẓimayn, a part of Baghdad where the shrines of two Shīʿī Imams are located, so there is a possibility that he lived there. He wrote it at the request of Mīrzā ʿĪsā Qāʾim-Maqām (d. 1822), vizier of the Qajar Crown Prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā (d. 1833), so he must have been active in the early decades of the 19th century, suggesting he was born in the latter part of the 18th century and died sometime in the first part of the 19th. In some of his discussions, particularly on the Book of Leviticus, he uses Islamic legal terminology, indicating that he was well-versed in fiqh. He knew Persian and Hebrew, and also Arabic and Turkish, his competence in these languages being demonstrated in the Arabic and Turkish words, poems and idioms he uses in the commentary. And he was clearly expert in Hebrew scripture and major Jewish works based on it, including studies by leading Jewish intellectuals of the Middle Ages. It is strange that a Muslim intellectual with such thorough knowledge of Hebrew and Jewish sacred literature is not better known, particularly one who came to the attention of a senior Qajar courtier. It may speculatively be asked whether he was, in fact, a convert from Judaism, though his name and his knowledge of Islamic law tend to argue against this. He was certainly almost unique in his time, and one of only a few individuals in the course of Islamic history who possessed more than superficial knowledge of a faith other than his own. His accomplishment in the one work known from him raises many intriguing questions about him and his scholarly interests, not to speak of his attitude towards non-Islamic religions.

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MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Secondary H. Eyvazi, ‘Ravish-shināsī-yi Miṣbāḥ al-ẓulumāt fī tafsīr al-Tawrāt. Muqaddama-yi taḥlīlī bi hamrāh-i dībāja u si bāb-i nakhust-i sifr-i paydāyish’, Qom, 2019 (PhD Diss. University of Religions and Denominations, Qom), 20-120.

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Miṣbāḥ al-ẓulumāt fī tafsīr al-Tawrāt ‘Illumination of the gloom in commentary on the Torah’ Date 1811 Original Language Persian Description Miṣbāḥ al-ẓulumāt fī tafsīr al-Tawrāt (‘Illumination of the gloom in commentary on the Torah’) is a translation and interpretation of the books of the Pentateuch (altogether, the extant parts of the work, transcribed in four manuscripts, contain 804 fols). While it says nothing about Muslim relations with Christians, it provides important hints about an individual whose interests extended far enough beyond his own faith to lead him to study the biblical text in its original Hebrew form, and also about a possible move within the Iranian establishment to encourage close study of another religious tradition as much to learn from it as to expose flaws within it. Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn states that he wrote it in ʿAṭabāt (MS Qom, Gulpāygānī Library – 20/146-4026, fol. 2v), a name which was applied to Kāẓimayn (a suburb of Baghdad), Samarrāʾ, Najaf and Karbalāʾ. He does not specify the place precisely, but since the copy of the work (MS Qom, Gulpāygānī Library – 20/146-4026, fol. 1r) was made in Kāẓimayn, he was presumably living there when he wrote. The work was written at the request of Mīrzā ʿĪsā Qāʾim-Maqām (d. 1822), the vizier of the Qajar Crown Prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā (d. 1833) (MS Qom, Gulpāygānī Library – 20/146-4026, fols 8v-9r). From what Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn says in the prologue about Muslim scholars needing to consult the rabbinical texts in order to understand the true meaning of the Pentateuch and not being able to take the literal meaning of verses for their arguments (fol. 10r), it seems it could have been intended for polemical and apologetic purposes in addition to assisting exegesis of the Qur’an.

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The surviving elements show that the work in its full form comprised a prologue and three parts. The prologue, contained in MS Qom, Gulpāygānī Library – 20/146-4026, covers 12 preliminary topics, providing information about Jewish beliefs and explaining theological and historical keywords and other items that might be helpful for a Muslim reader. Following this, the first part, contained in MS Mashhad, Āstan-i Quds-i Raḍawī – 50, is a translation of and commentary on the Book of Genesis. The second part, contained in MS Mashhad, Āstan-i Quds-i Raḍawī Library – 52, is a translation of and commentary on the Books of Leviticus and Numbers to ch. 18, and the third part, contained in MS Mashhad, Āstan-i Quds-i Raḍawī Library – 51, is a translation of and commentary on the Books of Numbers from ch. 19 and Deuteronomy. Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn transcribes the Hebrew of these biblical books into Persian script and gives an interlinear Persian translation. However, as he states in the prologue, in the original version the text also included biblical verses in Hebrew script (MS Qom, Gulpāygānī Library – 20/146-4026, fol. 10r). Presumably, since the scribes could not have known how to write Hebrew, they left a blank line that could be filled in at a later date. In MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī Library – 50, fol. 87v, there is an example of a faulty attempt to write in Hebrew script, but the scribe soon abandoned this. In his commentary, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn uses the Qur’an alongside rabbinical sources. He identifies these clearly, and singles out leading authorities such as Rabbi Akiva, Judah ha-Nasi and Rashi. His most significant sources are: the Babylonian Talmud, Sefer Raziel ha-malʾakh (‘The book of the Angel Raziel’), the commentary on the Pentateuch by Rashi (d. 1105), Mishneh Torah by Maimonides (d. 1204), the Zohar, Jacob ben Shlomo ibn Habib (d. 1516) and Levi ibn Jacob ibn Habib’s (d. c. 1545) Ein Yaakov, and Akeydat Yitzchak by Isaac ben Moses Arama (d. 1494). Significance This work represents an extremely rare attempt by a Muslim scholar to offer a fair-minded interpretation of the complete Hebrew Pentateuch. The lack of polemic within it is evidenced by the fact that, even when there is an inconsistency between the biblical and the qur’anic versions of a story, there is no attempt here to favour the one narrative over the other. Instead, as he explains in the prologue, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn tries to find a solution through interpretation (MS Qom, Gulpāygānī Library – 20/1464026, fol. 28v). The lack of any apparent polemical intention suggests an

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openness to Jewish scripture and an acceptance of its integrity that challenges centuries of condemnation of it as corrupted. A question remains as to why Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn was sponsored to compose the translation and commentary by the Crown Prince’s vizier. Further research may show whether the latter was acting out of scholarly benevolence, or whether there was some ulterior apologetic or polemical motive. Publications MS Qom, Gulpāygānī Library – 20/146-4026, 58 fols (1847; copied by Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad Muhsin al-Iṣfahānī, containing the prologue) MS Qom, Gulpāygānī Library – 23/894569/1, 23 fols (undated, incomplete at the end; containing the prologue) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī Library – 50, 251 fols (undated; containing a translation of and commentary on Genesis) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī Library – 51, 251 fols (1811, copied by Muḥammad Ḥusayn al-Khuʾī, incomplete at the end; containing a translation of and commentary on Leviticus-Numbers 18) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī Library – 52, 244 fols (1811; containing a translation of and commentary on Numbers 19 to the end of Deuteronomy) Eyvazi, ‘Ravish-shināsī-yi Miṣbāḥ al-ẓulumāt fī tafsīr al-Tawrāt’, pp. 135231 (this contains a critical edition of the prologue and the first three chapters of Genesis) Studies H. Eyvazi and R. Jaʿfariyān, ‘Miṣbāḥ al-ẓulumāt fī tafsīr al-Tawrāt. Tafsīr-i Shīʿī bar Asfār-i khamsa’, Āyina-yi Mīrāth 17 (2019) 109-32 H. Eyvazi, ‘Āyā khudā tafīlīn mībandad? Taḥlīl-i baynā-matnī-i āya-yi qālat al-yahūd yad Allāh maghlūla’, Muṭālaʿāt-i Qurʾān u Ḥadīth 12/2 (2019) 1-22 Eyvazi, ‘Ravish-shināsī-yi Miṣbāḥ al-ẓulumāt’ H. Eyvazi, ‘Nakhustīn talāshhā-yi Shīʿī dar tafsīr-i Kitāb-i Muqaddas. Miṣbāḥ al-ẓulumāt fī tafsīr al-Tawrāt’, Āyīna-yi Pazhūhish 27 (2017) 46-58 Heidar Eyvazi

Henry Martyn Date of Birth 18 February 1781 Place of Birth Truro, Cornwall, United Kingdom Date of Death 16 October 1812 Place of Death Tokat, Anatolia

Biography

Born and raised in Truro, Cornwall, Henry Martyn was admitted in 1797 to St John’s College, Cambridge, where he excelled in mathematics and classical languages. The death of his father in early 1800 was the catalyst that led to his evangelical conversion. Martyn was profoundly influenced by Charles Simeon (1759-1836) of Cambridge, a leading Anglican preacher of the era and close friend of the group of Anglican evangelicals known as the Clapham Sect, associated with William Wilberforce. Martyn received his BA in 1801. He became a Fellow of St John’s College in 1802, receiving his MA in 1804 and his BD in 1805, the year he was ordained a priest in the Church of England. He was commissioned as an East India Company chaplain, supported by Charles Grant of the East India Company Court of Directors. In preparation for his new career, he studied Hindoostanee (a language widely used in the northern Subcontinent using both Devanagari and Urdu scripts) in London with the Scottish linguist John Gilchrist. He departed from England in November 1805 and in May 1806 reached the Calcutta Presidency, where he soon became a member of a small cadre of like-minded chaplains, later known as the ‘Evangelical Chaplains’. Though his duties were primarily within British Army regiments and British civilians at Dinapore, and later Cawnpore, Martyn’s linguistic aptitude led to his assignment to prepare translations of the New Testament into Hindoostanee, as it was known (Urdu), Persian and Arabic for the British and Foreign Bible Society. Importantly, this turned his focus in ministry towards Islam. He worked closely with Muslim munshīs (secretaries / language teachers), notably Mīrzā Fiṭrat, while translating the New Testament into Urdu, and frequently engaged in religious debates with him. He completed his Urdu New Testament in June 1810. In addition, at Cawnpore Martyn preached to a mixed audience of Muslim and Hindu mendicants and was instrumental in the conversion of a member of the

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ashrāf, Shaykh Sāliḥ (1776-1827), who later took the name ʿAbd al-Masīḥ and became a Christian preacher and eventually an Anglican priest. At the same time as this, Martyn was overseeing the translation of the Persian and Arabic New Testaments by ‘Nathaniel’ Jawād ibn Sabat (17741827), although the quality of Sabat’s translation work was increasingly questioned. The collapse of Martyn’s health in 1810 due to tubercular illness led to his evacuation from India in early 1811. Recovering sufficiently at sea, Martyn commenced work in Shiraz on a New Testament translation into Persian. Assisted by Mīrzā Sayyid ʿAlī Khān Shīrāzī, Martyn oversaw the translation of the New Testament and Psalms, finishing both in May 1812. During this period, he also engaged in extensive private religious discussions with Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī (d. 1839) and other Muslim scholars and Sufis concerning the competing claims of Christianity and Islam. These discussions led to an extraordinary series of treatises, later translated and published by Samuel Lee (1824). Following the completion of the Persian New Testament, Martyn entrusted a copy to the British ambassador at Tabriz, Sir Gore Ouseley, who presented this manuscript edition to Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah Qajar. Martyn departed Tabriz, en route to Britain on 1 September 1812, but died of a fever in Tokat, Anatolia.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary J. Sargent, Memoir of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D., London, 1816 S. Wilberforce (ed.), Journals and letters of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D., London, 1837 H.M. Jeffery (ed.), ‘Two sets of unpublished letters of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B. D.’, Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall 7 supplement (1883) 1-62 G. Smith, Henry Martyn. Saint and scholar, London, 1892 (the fullest and most authoritative biography) F.J.H. Darton (ed.), The life and times of Mrs. Sherwood, (1775-1851), London, 1910 (letters include personal recollections of Martyn) S.D. Ayler (ed.), The letters of Henry Martyn, East India Company chaplain, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2019 Secondary A.A. Powell, art. ‘Martyn, Henry (1781-1812)’, in ODNB M. Hanilce, ‘Henry Martyn’s personal effects and his grave in Tokat’, Cedrus 5 (2017) 543-56 K.J. Thomas, A restless search. A history of Persian translations of the Bible, Atlanta GA, 2015 N. Green, Terrains of exchange. Religious economies of global Islam, Oxford, 2014

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I.M. Randall, ‘Henry Martyn (1781-1812) and the Baptists in India’, Baptist Quarterly 45 (2013) 87-113 B. Stanley, ‘An “ardour” of devotion. The spiritual legacy of Henry Martyn’, in R.F. Young (ed.), India and the Indianness of Christianity. Essays on understanding, Grand Rapids MI, 2009, 108-26 B.V. Henry, Forsaking all for Christ. A biography of Henry Martyn, London, 2007 A. Amanat, ‘Mujtahids and missionaries. Shi’i responses to Christian polemics in the early Qajar period’, in R. Gleave (ed.), Religion and society in Qajar Iran, London, 2005, 247-69 A.A. Powell, Muslims and missionaries in pre-Mutiny India, London, 1993 C.E. Padwick, Henry Martyn. Confessor of the faith, London, 1922

Scott Ayler

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Risāla-yi awwal [dar javāb-i Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī] ‘The first treatise [in response to Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī]’ Date June 1811 Original Language Persian Description Before he wrote this work, Martyn requested Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī, one of the distinguished jurists of Shiraz, to write a treatise in defence of Islam, presenting all his arguments in support of its validity. Accepting the challenge, Mīrzā Ibrāhīm composed a short treatise in Arabic. The present work is Martyn’s response to this. It contains 14 folios in MS Cambridge, University Library – Add. 567 (written on one side only). At the beginning, Martyn thanks Mīrzā Ibrāhīm for replying to his question. He calls Mīrzā Ibrāhīm ‘the scholar who met the requirement of ijtihād in Islam’ ( fāḍil-i mujtahid-i Islām). However, he maintains that while reading the treatise he realised that he was in disagreement with Mīrzā Ibrāhīm on some matters and so he decided to write a treatise exploring those problematic points (fol. 39v). In his treatise, Mīrzā Ibrāhīm argued that a miracle must be testified by experts in the field to which the miracle applies. For instance, the miracle of Moses turning his staff into snake needs the attestation of magicians

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and the healing and life-giving miracles of Jesus need to be testified to by physicians. In other words, they should attest that such action exceeds human ability. Martyn rejects this premise, arguing that a miracle should be evident to everyone regardless of their knowledge. In this respect, he also criticises Mīrzā Ibrāhīm for assuming that the miracle of Moses is in the same category as magic and the miracle of Jesus belongs to the category of medicine. To him, these miracles are categorically different from what magicians and physicians practise (fols 39v-42v). Moreover, Martyn denigrates Mīrzā Ibrāhīm’s knowledge of antiquity for, according to Martyn, Muslim historians, unlike Europeans, do not have access to historical works written in antiquity and so their historical accounts of this period are not always accurate. One example is Mīrzā Ibrāhīm’s suggestion that at the time of Moses it was magic and at the time of Jesus medicine that prevailed in the region. These are false suppositions, based on an inaccurate account of the relevant events as presented by Muslim historians (fols 42v-43v). Martyn then undermines Mīrzā Ibrāhīm’s argument for the Qur’an being a miracle. He rejects Mīrzā Ibrāhīm’s suggestion of the need to rely on the view of its inimitability held by the Arabs. Martyn maintains that the Qur’an is not eloquent at all, though even if we take it as an eloquent text this does not necessarily mean that it is miraculous in nature because one can find in other languages compositions without peer. A unique text in terms of eloquence is not necessarily a miracle (fols 43v-46v). Towards the end of the work, Martyn criticises the lack of freedom of opinion in the umma of Islam. According to him, if someone doubted the miracles of Muḥammad, even if the authorities did not sentence him to death, he would encounter all kinds of persecution within the community. He might be threatened or warned, his wife and his children might avoid him and people might reject him. Martyn claims that in other religious communities, one is free to write whatever he wants on matters of belief without any consequence (fol. 51v). However, throughout this work, Martyn carefully avoids any polemical statement against Islam, and he is particularly cautious not to say anything negative about Muḥammad. He might have expected to receive a response from Mīrzā Ibrāhīm and he was careful not to discourage his opponent from continuing the debate. Although Mīrzā Ibrāhīm wrote his treatise in Arabic, Martyn chose to respond to him in Persian, probably because he wanted his work to have a wide audience. Moreover, a text written in Persian could more easily be revised in Shiraz. Indeed, the level of Persian used in this composition

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is very sophisticated, making it hard to believe that Martyn composed it with no assistance from a native speaker. As we know, in his Persian translation of the New Testament, he enjoyed the assistance of Mīrzā Sayyid ʿAlī Khān Shīrāzī. It is likely that the same person revised the draft of this work, as well as the two treatises that followed. Significance Contrary to Martyn’s expectation, Mīrzā Ibrāhīm chose not to respond to the work. However, the treatise gained fame shortly after its composition, even beyond Shiraz. The only response that Martyn received was from ʿAlī Akbar Navvāb Shīrāzī (1846-7), who submitted his retort personally to Martyn on 12 September 1811 (Wilberforce, Journals and letters) In summer 1812, the Qajar monarch Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah considered this treatise a threat and ordered Mīrzā ʿĪsā Qāʾim-Maqām, known as Āqā Buzurg, to commission scholars to respond to it. On 20 August 1812, Martyn wrote in his journal, Learned from Mirza Aga Meer that my work had been read by Mirza Abdoolwahab to the king, who observed to Mirza Boozorg, visir of Abbas Mirza, that the Feringees’ government and army and now one of their Moollahs was come into the east. He then directed Mirza Boozorg to prepare an answer’. (Wilberforce, Journals and letters, 20 August 1812)

Mīrzā ʿĪsā sent the Qajar officials to scholars in various cities asking them to write a response. The commissioned scholars were of all kinds: jurists, philosophers, Sufis and Akhbārīs. In most cases, Mīrzā ʿĪsā provided them with a copy of Martyn’s first treatise. The scholars who responded to Martyn at the request of the court and whose responses are extant are: Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī (d. 1831); Muḥammad Ḥusayn ʿAlī Shah Iṣfahānī (d. 1818); Muḥammad Ḥusayn Khātūnābādī (d. 1818); Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī (d. 1831); Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī (d. 1828/29); Mullā ʿAlī Akbar Izha‌ʾī (d. 1817); Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qummī (d. 1817/18); Mīrzā Muḥammad Akhbārī (d. 1817). In addition to these, manuscript collections contain other treatises in response to Martyn whose authors have not been identified (see Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, pp. 350-1, 354-5). Furthermore, based on Joseph Wolff’s (1795-1862) account, dated 1825, the following renowned scholars also responded to Henry Martyn: Mullā Sayyid Taqī Burghānī (d. 1846), Mullā Ibrāhīm Kalbāsī (d. 1845), Sayyid Muḥammad Mujāhid Karbalāʾī (d. 1826), Shaykh Mūsā ibn Jaʿfar Najafī (d. 1827) (Wolff, Missionary journal, London, 1829, vol. 3, pp. 155-6; O Flynn, Western Christian presence, pp. 154-5). The commissioning policy continued for about five years from 1812 to 1817.

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Among the responses, the Qajar state favoured Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī’s Irshād al-muḍillīn (‘Guide to those who err’). Hamadānī cites Mīrzā Ibrāhīm’s treatise and Martyn’s first and second treatises piece by piece and comments on them. The Qajar court gave a copy of this work to the British ambassador, Sir Gore Ouseley (1770-1844). However, the ambassador was informed that another answer was in preparation (J. Morier, A second journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Constantinople, between the years 1810 and 1816, London, 1818, p. 224). Ouseley brought the codex containing Irshād al-muḍillīn by Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī to the United Kingdom (MS Cambridge, University Library – Add. 797) and lent it to Samuel Lee, who translated Martyn’s treatises as well as Hamadānī’s response into English in his monumental work, Controversial tracts on Christianity and Mohammedanism, published in 1824. During the preparation of this work, in 1822-3, Lee contacted Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī, who was visiting London on a diplomatic mission, asking him for a biography of Hamadānī. Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ provided this and, when he returned to Iran, informed the Qajar court about the English translation of the response. The Qajar court was pleased to hear that it was well received in the United Kingdom (see Abū l-Qāsim’s preface to Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa, lithograph edition, Tehran, 1824, p. 3). Although Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī’s Irshād al-muḍillīn was favoured by the Qajar court, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah, who probably read the response himself, asked the author to compose another treatise that would provide a detailed account of Muḥammad’s miracles other than the Qur’an. This became his Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa. It seems the Qajar court initially planned to give a copy of Hamadānī’s second response to Sir Gore Ouseley as well, but Ouseley left Iran before the completion of that work. Witnessing the large impact of the treatises, Martyn in the last months of his life became doubtful as to whether his strategy in them was in total harmony with his Christian mission. In a letter composed on 8 August 1812, he wrote to a friend, Let not the book written against Mahomedanism be published until approved in India. A European who has not lived amongst them cannot imagine how differently they see, imagine, reason, object, from what we do. This I had full opportunity of observing during my eleven months residence at Shiraz. (Wilberforce, Journals and letters)

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Publications MS Cambridge, University Library – Add. 1044, fols 35v-46v MS Oxford, Bodleian Library – Or. 765, fols 23v-45r (incomplete at the end, joined with the second tract by Henry Martyn, copied by a Persian hand in or before 1821) MS Cambridge, University Library – Add. 567, fols 39v-52v (copied only on the verso sides of the folios in or before 1824; copied and owned by Samuel Lee, with his marginal notes) MS London, SOAS – 40307, 9 fols MS Tehran, Majlis – 3958, fols 91r-86r, line 5 (the introduction is missing – the work is joined with Martyn’s second treatise) Wilberforce, Journals and letters, London, 1837; http://anglicanhistory .org/india/martyn/1811.html S. Lee, Controversial tracts on Christianity and Mohammedanism, Cambridge, 1824, repr. New Delhi, 2010, 2012, pp. 80-101 (English trans.); 006605740 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) R. Jaʿfariān and M. Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf. Guzārishī az guftugūhā-yi Masīḥī-Islāmī dar dawra-yi Ṣafavī va Qājārī, Tehran, 2016, pp. 281-95 (edition based on MS Tehran, Majlis – 3958, in which Henry Martyn’s first and second treatises were combined) Studies T.S.R. O Flynn, The Western Christian presence in the Russias and Qajar Persia c.1760-c.1870, Leiden, 2017 L. Vander Werff, ‘Appendix A. A summary examination of the three Persian tracts by H. Martyn’, in L. Vander Werff, Christian mission to Muslims. The record: Anglican and Reformed approaches in India and the Near East, 1800-1938, South Pasadena CA, 1977, 269-70 W. Muir, The Mohammedan controversy. Biographies of Mohammed, Sprenger on tradition, the Indian liturgy and the Psalter, Edinburgh, 1897, pp. 11-12

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Risāla-yi duvum [dar takmīl-i javāb-i Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī] ‘The second treatise [on completing the response to Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī]’ Date June-September 1811 Original Language Persian Description This treatise, the original of which is contained in MS Cambridge University Library – Add. 567, is made up of 10 folios (written on one side of the leaves only). In his first treatise, Henry Martyn avoided dealing with the personality of Muḥammad. In the second, he ‘explains the falseness of Muḥammad’s religion’ (Risāla-yi sivum, MS Cambridge, University Library – Add. 567, fol. 29v. He also describes it as a ‘more direct attack on the glaring absurdities of Mahomedanism, with a statement of the nature and evidences of Christianity’ (Wilberforce, Journals and letters, letter composed in Tabriz on 8 August 1812). Martyn argues that there is no justification for believing in Muḥammad. On the contrary, the following reasons suggest that he was not a prophet: 1. his name is not mentioned in the books of earlier prophets; 2. he propagated his religion by the sword; 3. he made some religious laws based on his personal and sexual desires; 4. he appointed his own relatives to succeed him; 5. the Qur’an is an ordinary book composed by a human being and it is not in any sense divine (fols 29v-33v). Martyn then opposes the Islamic idea of salvation based on good deeds (aʿmāl-i shāyista) and repentance (tawba u ʿafw-i ilāhī). Instead, he argues that salvation is only possible if an individual other than a human sacrifices himself for their sake. That individual is Jesus, God’s spirit (Rūḥ Allāh) and God’s word (Kalimat Allāh), and Jesus has the same relation to God that the word and spirit of a human have to the human. On this point, Muir notes that Martyn seems to have adopted the expressions God’s spirit and God’s word by way of accommodation (they are found in Q 4:171), though following his refutation of the Qur’an, nothing could be gained by this adaptation (Muir, Mohammedan controversy, p. 13). Martyn then describes Jesus the Messiah whose name was mentioned in the books of earlier prophets, and who is considered by Christians to be ‘the seal’ (khātam) of the prophets (fols 33v-37v).

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At the end of the treatise, Martyn asks the reader to consider the treatise fairly and, if he finds its argument convincing, not to be turned against embracing Christianity by the death threats and accusations of fools, ‘because life passes by, like a wind at the dawn’. Moreover, he prays for those who are not persuaded by the argument of the treatise that God might help them find the truth of Christianity so that they can propagate it further among the people (fols 37v-38v). Significance Among the Muslim scholars who responded to Martyn, Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī was the only one who dealt with this second treatise as well as the first. Hamadānī cites the text of the treatise piece by piece, adding his comments after each. He notes that the tone of the second treatise is harsher than that of the first. To him, some of its arguments reveal the obstinacy and animosity (lijājat u ʿinād) of the author (Hamadānī, Irshād al-muḍillīn, MS Tehran, Millī – 1285, p. 218). Publications MS Cambridge University Library – Add. 1044, fols 25v-34v MS Cambridge University Library – Add. 567, fols 29v-38v (copied only on the verso sides of the folios in or before 1824; copied and owned by Samuel Lee, with his marginal notes) MS Oxford, Bodleian Library – Or. 765, fols 45r-58v (copied by a Persian hand in or before 1821) MS Tehran, Majlis – 3958, fols 86r (line 5)-88v (incomplete at the end – joined with the first treatise by Henry Martyn) Wilberforce, Journals and letters; http://anglicanhistory.org/india/mar tyn/1811.html Lee, Controversial tracts, pp. 102-23 (English trans.); 006605740 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) Studies Vander Werff, ‘Appendix A’ Muir, Mohammedan controversy, pp. 11-14

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Risāla-yi sivum [dar radd-i ṭarīq-i ahl-i taṣawwuf] ‘The third treatise [on rejection of the path of the Sufis]’ Date 1812 Original Language Persian Description This treatise, found in in MS Cambridge University Library – Add. 567, contains 13 folios (written on one side of the leaves only) and comprises three discussions. The first (fols 16v-20v) deals with the Sufis, arguing that union with God, which is their goal, cannot be attained by following the Sufis’ own path. In the second discussion (fols 20v-25v), which is actually a continuation of the first, Martyn argues that union with God can only be attained in Christianity. The third discussion (fols 25v-28v) is about the divine origin of the Old and New Testaments and the miracles attributed to Moses and Jesus. Martyn’s host in Shiraz, Jaʿfar ʿAlī Khān, was himself a Sufi, and introduced Martyn to the doctrine of the ‘unity of existence’ (see Wilberforce, Journals and letters, 10 June 1811). In addition to him, Martyn was also in contact with the Niʿmatullāhī Sufi shaykh, Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Ḥusaynī Shīrāzī, known as Sukūt (d. 1823-4), and two of his disciples, Mīrzā Sayyid ʿAlī and Āqā Muḥammad Ḥasan. Martyn spent 18 March 1812 with Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim and his disciples. The Sufis had a Persian translation of a Hindu book at their disposal and read from it to Martyn, who expressed his contempt for the Brahmans’ path of perfection. Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim responded: ‘This is the way that pleased them, and my way pleases me. Thus God provided something for the tastes of all, and as the master of a feast provides a great variety, some eat pilaw, others prefer kubab.’ When Martyn continued to criticise the Hindu path, Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim asked him what in his opinion the path was. Martyn replied: ‘We all agree in one point, namely, that union with God is perfection; that in order to that we must receive the Spirit of God, which Spirit was promised on condition of believing in Jesus’ (see Wilberforce, Journals and letters, 18 March 1812). The similar sequence of arguments in this treatise suggests that Martyn composed it following this meeting with Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Sukūt and his disciples. In the treatise, Martyn accuses Sufis and apostates of being the two groups that undermine prophethood. While apostates (malāḥida) reject

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the need for prophets altogether, Sufis do not consider prophets essentially different from other people (fol. 16v). Furthermore, Sufis hold to the doctrine of waḥdat-i wujūd (‘unity of existence’), which entails that there is nothing, no one and no action other than God. God manifests Himself in everything and everyone so there is no proximity to or distance from God. Everything and everyone is on the path of God, from God and with God. Martyn shows his disagreement with this by saying that even the Sufis, when they deal with worldly matters and in everyday transactions (umūr-i dunyawī u maʿāsh), do not follow this principle. They avoid pain and loss, and instead seek pleasure and profit (fol. 16v). According to Martyn, mystics (ʿurafāʾ), including the Brahmans of India (Birahmana-yi Hind) and the Sufis (ahl-i taṣawwuf ) are true seekers of perfection (ṭālib-i kamāl). They make efforts to separate (tajarrud) themselves from sensual allusions (awham-i maḥsūsa) and deepen their meditation and love for the essence of Brahma, which in the technical language of the Hindus is called dhyan (contemplation) (fol. 18v). This task requires engaging in meditation to such a degree as to annihilate the sensations of pain, pleasure, love, hatred and the like (fols 17v-19v). Martyn maintains that, despite the claims of the Sufis and Brahmans, transcendence above thoughts associated with sensual perceptions is impossible, though even if it were possible Sufis would have to overcome three difficulties, each of which would prevent them enjoying the true love of God: 1. if God does not manifest His beauty, the seeker is caught up in his own fantasy about God; 2. if God manifests His beauty but this beauty does not appeal to the mundane tastes of humankind, this beauty will not lead the seeker to the love of God; 3. because of the seeker’s sins, anxiety about God’s wrath prevents him from attaining the sought-for perfection. Since Sufism cannot resolve these three problems, union with God is impossible. Martyn found it surprising that so many sensible people (ashkhāṣ-i ṣāḥib-i fahm, fol. 20v) follow Sufism, despite the fact that the goal is beyond reach. He believes they would not follow this path if they were aware of a better one (fols 19v-20v). Martyn now argues for Christianity as the only path by which union with God is possible. He asserts that union between two things occurs only when they are of the same type. There is no way that God, the absolute, can be united with a human being. However, if the Spirit of God (rūḥ-i khudāyī) dwells within the human, then union is possible. Martyn maintains that, based on the New Testament, the Spirit of God has a manifestation (ẓuhūr) in the sensual world (maḥsūsāt) in the person of Jesus Christ,

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who is called ‘The Word of God’ (Kalimat Allāh; cf. Q 4:171). Through love, Christians attain union with Christ and become members of the spiritual body of Christ. Since Christ has the Spirit of God, Christians share the Spirit with him. Moreover, Christ’s sacrifice was an atonement made by the whole spiritual body of Christ. In other words, those Christians who truly love Christ are saved through Christ’s sacrifice (fols 20v-25v). In the final discussion in the treatise, Martyn presents arguments to support the claim that the Old and New Testaments have a divine origin. To him, the fact that these books have been known for hundreds of years and yet no one has attributed them to someone else suggests that their divine attribution is beyond any doubt. On the miracles of Moses, he argues they are as described in the Old Testament, because the people of the time would have objected to him if the account given were not true. As for the miracles of Jesus, the Apostles who narrated them had no reason to lie because they did not pursue any worldly aim. Besides his miracles, the basis of Jesus’s claim is the Old Testament prophecies of the coming of Christ at a specific time, which corresponds to the historical account of Jesus (fols 25v-28v). Significance Among the scholars who responded to Martyn, Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī, the author of Irshād al-muḍillīn, appears to be the only one who was familiar with this third treatise, though his Irshād al-muḍillīn does not contain any response to it. The Irshād was meant to have an epilogue (Irshād al-muḍillīn, MS Tehran, Millī – 797, p. 5), which was to be on Martyn’s third treatise (Irshād al-muḍillīn, pp. 269-70), but this is not found in any version of Hamadānī’s work, including the copy submitted to Sir Gore Ouseley and later used by Lee for his translation (MS Cambridge University Library – Add. 1044). It appears that Hamadānī changed his mind and dropped the idea of responding to Martyn’s third treatise. Nevertheless, in the course of his Irshād, Hamadānī blames Martyn for the three positions set out in the third treatise: 1. not acknowledging religious law (sharīʿa) at all; 2. not submitting to any exercise which elevates the station of the soul; 3. arguing for the Trinity while rejecting ‘unity of existence‘, despite the fact that the two doctrines have a common principle (Irshād al-muḍillīn, MS Tehran, Millī – 1285, pp. 123, 173-4, 250-4; Lee, Controversial tracts, pp. 266, 330, 422-8).

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Publications MS Oxford, Bodleian Library – Or. 765, fols 59r-81r (copied by a Persian hand in or before 1821) MS Cambridge University Library – Add. 567, fols 16v-28v (in or before 1824; copied and owned by Samuel Lee, with his marginal notes) MS Cambridge University Library – Add. 1044, fols 13v-25v Lee, Controversial tracts, pp. 139-60 (English trans.); 006605740 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) Wilberforce, Journals and letters; http://anglicanhistory.org/india/mar tyn/1811.html Studies Vander Werff, ‘Appendix A’ Reza Pourjavady

Translations of Christian scripture into Urdu, Persian and Arabic Date 1806-12 Original Language Various languages Description Henry Martyn was soon identified by his fellow chaplains in India as most suited to make a valuable contribution in the sphere of translation, given his strong linguistic aptitude and classical training. In 1807, he was assigned by East India Company chaplain David Brown to prepare translations of the Christian scriptures into Hindoostanee (Urdu), Persian and Arabic, a task that soon fell under the auspices of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS). These translations were designed to facilitate the dissemination of the Christian Scriptures amongst Muslim communities. Biblical translation work in Urdu Martyn began his translation efforts with Urdu, having already laid a foundation in the language in England with linguist John Gilchrist and having made only limited strides in either Persian or Arabic since his arrival in South Asia. He began with a translation of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer into Urdu (Calcutta, 1814), which came to 169 pages in the first

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edition. Soon afterwards he launched fully into an Urdu translation of the New Testament, working closely with Mīrzā Fiṭrat, a Shīʿa Muslim scholar from Benares, as his primary assistant. Fiṭrat had previously assisted in 1805 with translating the Gospel of Matthew into Persian under Lt Colonel R.H. Colebrook and he had assisted John Gilchrist in the Urdu translation at Fort William College. When it was complete, Martyn’s New Testament was vetted by a small group of Urdu-speaking literati from the surrounding region, and he announced its completion in June 1810 to the Calcutta Corresponding Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Injīl yaʿne vas̤īqah jadīd Ḥaz̤rat ʿĪsā Masīḥ ʿalai-hissalām kā (‘The Gospel or New Testament of the Lord Jesus Christ, peace be upon him’) was published posthumously in Serampore in 1814. After Martyn’s death, it was discovered that he had also translated most of the Old Testament into Urdu, with Mīrzā Fiṭrat’s assistance. These documents came into the possession of chaplains Daniel Corrie and Thomas Thomason, and Thomason worked on revising Martyn’s entire work on the Bible until his own death. Subsequently, the work was passed on to a succession of revisers. J.A. Shurman, the chief of these, rejected his immediate predecessors’ revisions and largely reverted to the work of Martyn and Fitrat, who were credited as the translators (Hooper, The Bible in India, p. 41). The full Bible, containing 938 pages for the Old Testament and 306 for the New Testament, was published in Calcutta in 1843. Biblical translation work in Persian Martyn’s oversight of work on a New Testament translation in Persian began soon after the arrival of Jawad (Nathaniel) Sabat at Dinapore in 1807. Sabat, a convert to Christianity, presented himself as a capable scholar, but the quality of his work in Persian was increasingly questioned. In January 1811, Martyn departed from Calcutta in an attempt to regain his health at sea, intending also to evaluate the quality of Sabat’s work with authorities in Persia. He arrived in Persia in May 1811 and was soon persuaded that a wholly new translation of the New Testament into Persian was essential. Establishing himself in Shiraz at the residence of Jaʿfar ʿAlī Khān, he began the translation of the New Testament and Psalms with the assistance of Mīrzā Sayyid ʿAlī Khān, completing the work in February 1812. The text was published by the British and Foreign Bible Society under the oversight of Sir Gore Ouseley (St Petersburg, 1815). The edition numbered 455 pages. Its revision, with the continuing assistance of Mīrzā Sayyid ʿAlī Khān, totalling 741 pages was published in Calcutta the following year.

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Biblical translation work in Arabic As with the Persian work, Jawad (Nathaniel) Sabat was initially seen as the best assistant for a translation of the New Testament into Arabic, which was to be overseen by Martyn. Martyn’s abilities in Arabic, though rated by General (later Sir) John Malcolm as ‘superior to that of any Englishman in India’ (Smith, Henry Martyn, p. 331), were inferior to his skills in either Urdu or Persian. Nevertheless, Martyn carefully scrutinised Sabat’s translation efforts and questions arose about Sabat’s competence, which stalled the translation. Martyn later had passages evaluated by Arab readers while in Persia and encouraged the chaplains in Calcutta to have Sabat continue his work (Ayler, Letters of Henry Martyn, p. 548). Sabat’s translation of the New Testament, Al-ʿahd al-jadīd al-mansūb ilā rabbinā wa-mukhallisinā ʿĪsā al-Masīḥ (‘The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’), was published in 1816 by the British and Foreign Bible Society, with editing undertaken by Thomason. Though Martyn had overseen the earlier phases of the work, it is not possible to determine with any accuracy the extent of his contribution to the final product. Significance Biblical translation work in Urdu The Urdu translation of the New Testament has been widely viewed by evangelicals as Martyn’s finest achievement in translation. It showed remarkable resilience over the following decades, though efforts were made to simplify some vocabulary that tended to rely too heavily on Persian and Arabic terminology. It remained, however, the starting point for all future work in Bible translation into Urdu. Its impact was felt in Agra, Lucknow and the Gangetic core region in the years immediately following his death through the labours of Daniel Corrie (Powell, Muslims and missionaries, pp. 110-17). Having preceded the publication of the Qur’an into Urdu, Martyn’s New Testament served as the foundation for evangelical outreach to Muslims in North India during the following three decades. Biblical translation work in Persian Martyn’s translation of the New Testament into Persian is often overshadowed by his Urdu work, but the Persian translation demonstrated competence and was resilient, going through seven editions by 1878.

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The British ambassador to Persia, Sir Gore Ouseley, formally presented a manuscript copy of the New Testament to the ruler, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah Qajar, who praised it for being completed ‘in a most excellent manner’ (Thomas, Restless search, p. 186). Ouseley had further copies produced, and these he presented to the leading scholars around the shah. Visiting Persia over a decade later, the missionary Joseph Wolff reported that it was still widely read amongst the Sufis near Shiraz (Wolff, Missionary journal, vol. 3, p. 35). The St Petersburg edition was distributed across the Russian frontier with Persia by way of Tabriz (Green, Terrains of exchange, p. 114). Martyn’s translation of the New Testament remained the accepted version for use by evangelicals until the revisions made by Robert Bruce, a Church Missionary Society missionary, in the 1870s and 1880s. Biblical translation work in Arabic Martyn saw the issuing of a new translation of the New Testament in Arabic as the most significant of the translation projects to which he had been assigned, due to its broad geographical range (Ayler, Letters, p. 450). He considered the existing translations in Arabic wholly inadequate as a means of appealing to Muslims. The purpose of the British and Foreign Bible Society was not, he argued, merely to support existing Christian communities, ‘but to invite the fastidious Muslim to review the sacred law which he supposes abrogated’ (Ayler, Letters, pp. 449-50). In the absence of an accepted alternative, Sabat’s translation was reprinted by the British and Foreign Bible Society in London (1825), but was never deemed wholly adequate by evangelicals. Publications Henry Martyn, A compendium of the Book of Common Prayer, translated into the Hindoostanee language, Calcutta, 1814 Henry Martyn, Injīl yaʻne vas̤īqah jadīd Ḥaz̤rat ʻIsá Masīḥ ʻalai-hissalām kā, Serampore, 1814 Henry Martyn, Paymān-i jadīd-i Khudāvand va Rahānandah-ʾi mā ʿIsá-yi Masīḥ, St Petersburg, 1815 Henry Martyn, Paymān-i jadīd-i Khudāvand va Rahānandah-ʾi mā ʿIsá-yi Masīḥ, Calcutta, 1816 (revision of the St Petersburg edition) Henry Martyn, A compendium of the Book of Common Prayer, translated into the Hindoostanee language, London, 1818; hindustani1818 (digitised version available through mammana.org)

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Henry Martyn, Kit’ab ul quds Pura’na aur Naya’ Ahdna’ma: yaane Tauret, Zabu’r, Nubu’wat aur Injil. Tarjuma asal zaba’non se zaba’n i hindi’ men, Calcutta, 1843 Studies Ayler, Letters of Henry Martyn Thomas, Restless search Green, Terrains of exchange Amanat, ‘Mujtahids and missionaries’ Powell, Muslims and missionaries J.S.M. Hooper, The Bible in India. With a chapter on Ceylon, Oxford, 1938 Smith, Henry Martyn J. Wolff, Missionary journal of the Rev. Joseph Wolff, vol. 3, London, 1829

Memoirs and letters Date 1802-12 Original Language English Description Memoir of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D. On Henry Martyn’s death, his personal journals were transcribed by the East India Company chaplains Daniel Corrie and Thomas Thomason and sent to Britain to assist in the preparation of a memoir. Corrie had first removed material he considered ‘purely personal’ (Corrie and Corrie, Memoirs, p. 257), but the remaining documents were more than sufficient for a memoir. John Sargent (1780-1833), who had been a student at Cambridge with Martyn and had close ties to the influential Anglican evangelicals Charles Simeon and William Wilberforce, undertook the project. The journals, combined with a small collection of letters gathered by Simeon and Sargent, provided the backbone of the Memoir of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D. that Sargent published in 1816, with a more widely distributed second edition published in 1819. The latter numbers 509 pages. Sargent lacked personal experience in Asia and relied primarily on quotations from Martyn’s journal and a handful of personal letters in his possession to compensate for his inadequate grasp of detail. Consequently,

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the narrative portions of the memoir contain a number of errors about Martyn’s early life and significant omissions concerning the details and structure of Martyn’s translation efforts and ministry among Muslims, which persisted until Smith’s 1892 biography. This included neglecting the important contribution of Muslims to Martyn’s translation efforts and in shaping Martyn’s own perspectives on Islam. Journals and Letters of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D. Twenty-one years after Sargent’s work, in 1837 Samuel Wilberforce, third son of William Wilberforce, prepared a fuller memoir in two volumes, Journals and letters of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D., utilising much fuller extracts from the transcribed copies of Martyn’s journal. In addition, Wilberforce included newly available examples of Martyn’s correspondence to fill in gaps between journal entries and to develop aspects of his life that were not discussed extensively in Martyn’s journal. Wilberforce stated that he provided his two volumes ‘merely as a supplement’ to Sargent’s memoir of Martyn (Wilberforce, Journals and letters, vol. 1, p. 2), not including any narrative to join the long passages from journals and letters. These new passages detail Martyn’s journey to Bengal from Britain and provide great detail about his daily work as a translator alongside his assistants in both Dinapore and Cawnpore. Following the completion of Wilberforce’s memoir of Martyn, all trace of the original journal MSS or subsequent transcribed copies disappeared; they were apparently destroyed in accordance with Martyn’s original wishes. Henry Martyn. Saint and scholar Derivative biographies of Martyn followed, with no additional substantive contribution until George Smith’s 1892 biography, Henry Martyn. Saint and scholar. First modern missionary to the Mohammedans. The first subtitle indicated a focus on the man and the second his mission. Smith’s biography sought to improve on earlier efforts in several ways. First, he corrects a number of errors present in the Sargent biography and, utilising Wilberforce’s additional passages from Martyn’s journal, seeks to overcome what he terms the ‘mutilated form’ in which Sargent presented Martyn’s journals (Smith, Henry Martyn, p. v). Further, Smith made use of newly discovered correspondence, including a group of 16 transcribed

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letters published in the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall published in 1883 by Martyn’s grand-nephew, Henry Martyn Jeffery. The inclusion of details from the memoirs of author Mary Sherwood, who knew Martyn well, also presents a more nuanced portrait of Martyn’s character and temperament. Finally, Smith was a capable biographer with considerable personal experience in South Asia. At 580 pages, the biography details the process by which Martyn was commissioned to translate the Christian scriptures into Urdu, Persian and Arabic; his local assistants in the endeavour; Martyn’s substantial interactions with colleagues on questions of ministry and translation; a careful discussion of Martyn’s year in Persia; and even an account of the re-interment of Martyn’s body on a hillside overlooking Tokat. Smith’s work concludes with a chapter discussing the continuing influence of Martyn in South Asia and Persia as well as on the evangelical movement. The Letters of Henry Martyn The Letters of Henry Martyn, East India Company Chaplain was published in 2019, edited by Scott Ayler. This collection, preceded by a 58-page introduction, amounts to 596 pages. A total of 105 autograph manuscripts were fully transcribed for this volume, 67 of which have never been published in whole or in part. All 327 letters or portions of letters extant today are included along with the location of the originals. Each letter is annotated, identifying names and places referred to. The volume includes an extensive introduction evaluating key themes and the role of Martyn’s correspondence. Correspondence published for the first time includes letters to evangelical friends at Cambridge, a letter to Church Missionary Society (CMS) Secretary Josiah Pratt concerning Bible translations, and a letter to Martyn’s Persian host, Jaʿfar ʿAli Khan. A number of letters from Martyn’s extensive correspondence with chaplains Daniel Corrie and David Brown have been added, filling important gaps concerning Martyn’s activity as a translator in Urdu, Persian and Arabic. Further, reports on the ongoing progress of the various translations addressed to the Calcutta Corresponding Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society have been transcribed for the first time. The latter reports give details of Martyn’s progress and setbacks in the three New Testament translations (Urdu, Persian and Arabic) that had been assigned to him and his perception of the importance of these translations in the ongoing work of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

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Significance Memoir of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D. Despite occasional errors and gaps in historical detail, Sargent’s 1816 Memoir went through 12 British editions by 1835 and was repeatedly reprinted on both sides of the Atlantic. Its timing was significant. The Christian public was becoming increasingly aware of foreign missionary efforts via the CMS and other missionary societies that had been formed since the beginning of the century. After the passage of the 1813 East India Company Charter permitting missionary presence in British India and the appointment of Thomas Middleton as Bishop of Calcutta in 1814, Anglican evangelicals needed to recruit capable candidates from Britain for overseas service. Sargent’s memoir helped greatly to launch ‘the cult of Henry Martyn’ amongst evangelicals of all stripes (Stanley, ‘“Ardour” of devotion’, p. 114) and inspired many to enter foreign missionary service. Martyn’s own focus on translation of the Christian scriptures for Muslim readers in three languages and on his Christian witness to Muslims in India and Persia made the volume a seminal work in the English-speaking world for the emergence of Protestant Christian missionary interest in the Muslims of South Asia and Persia. Equally important, it became a touchstone of evangelical spirituality for much of the 19th century. Journals and letters of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D. By 1837, Martyn’s fame as a missionary was well established, and the generation of notables who had supported his efforts had died. The publication by Samuel Wilberforce, son of William Wilberforce, of additional journal passages and letters was an effort by a second generation of mission-minded Anglicans to further institutionalise Martyn as an inspiration and example. Wilberforce’s more complete memoir was wellreceived, but its expense and timing ensured it could not compete with the astonishing popularity of Sargent’s work. Nevertheless, it provided a much larger selection of journal materials prior to the disappearance of the original MSS and gave a clearer picture of Martyn’s work. The journals were a unique document in Anglicanism, an original spiritual statement of the burgeoning evangelical movement within the Church of England, and they were valued as such by the movement’s leadership. The longer passages used by Wilberforce also gave a clearer picture of Martyn’s work amongst Muslims and fuelled continued interest in missionary outreach to South Asia and the Middle East.

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Henry Martyn. Saint and scholar Smith’s publication of Henry Martyn came at a time when the memory of Martyn’s achievements was fading, despite the capacity of the Sargent and Wilberforce’s volumes still to inspire evangelicals. Smith’s second subtitle, First modern missionary to the Mohammedans, was indicative of Smith’s own emphasis on Martyn as a forerunner of future generations of missionaries dedicated specifically towards outreach to Muslims. He expressed his intention to tell Martyn’s life again ‘in the light of recent knowledge of South Africa and India, Persia and Turkey, and of Bible work and missionary history in the lands of which, by his life and by his death Henry Martyn took possession for the Master’ (p. vi). Smith provides the most thorough portrait of Martyn’s translation projects, the context in which each was undertaken, and his relationship to the other chaplains to whom he was accountable for his work. Just as important, he gives a clearer sense of the role of Muslims who assisted the translation process of the Urdu and Persian translation and demonstrates Martyn’s efforts to have the translation vetted by Muslim literati before its publication. What emerged was the fullest and most complete account of Martyn’s life in print. Smith places great stress on the inspirational role that the reading of Sargent’s and Wilberforce’s works had had in raising up new missionaries who would work among Muslims, including George Maxwell Gordon and Thomas Valpy French. This focus on successors to Martyn’s work among Muslims lies at the heart of Smith’s work and continues Sargent’s and Wilberforce’s agenda to use Martyn as a catalyst to ignite further evangelical efforts of outreach to the Muslim world. The letters of Henry Martyn Martyn’s early biographers were particularly attentive to his spirituality and suffering for the gospel, and often, with the exception of Smith, neglected important aspects of his work and ministry. The Letters of Henry Martyn provides a corrective, inasmuch as the letters detail his daily work as a translator, chaplain and member of a team of like-minded Anglican evangelicals dedicated to the evangelisation of South Asia and the Middle East. Greater clarity about the discussion of proper terminology, the role of assistants, the process of vetting the Urdu translation and Martyn’s own assessment of earlier translations allows a fuller picture of Martyn’s efforts directed towards Muslims. Martyn’s reports to the Calcutta Corresponding Committee of the Bible Society detail his understanding of the status of previous translations of the Bible in Persian and Arabic and explain why,

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in Martyn’s opinion, they were inadequate to appeal to Muslim readers (Ayler, Letters, pp. 447-50). The letters describe his interactions and debates with his assistants, Mīrzā Fiṭrat and Mīrzā Sayyid, on topics of translation and his exchanges with them about Christianity and Islam in great detail. These interactions appear to have shaped his perspectives on Islam far more than his own reading and study. He never ceased to consider Islam to be ‘Satan’s ripest work’ (Ayler, Letters, p. 561), but his interactions with individual Muslims, particularly with Sufi and other acquaintances in Persia, give evidence of genuine warmth towards them, though rarely respect for their perspectives. Publications J. Sargent, Memoir of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D., London, 1816 (18 editions to 1858) J. Sargent, Memoir of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D., London, 18192, repr. Cambridge, 2010; 008893082 J. Sargent, Memoir of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D., Boston MA, 18202; 008639733 J. Sargent, ‘Leben des selig vollendeten Missionars Heinrich Martyn’, Magazin für die neueste Geschichte der evangelischen Missions- und Seelgesellschaften 6 (1821) 3-103 (German trans.); 002129463 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) J. Sargent, Vie de Henri Martyn, missionnaire aux Indes orientales et en Perse, Geneva, 1828, repr. 1828 (French trans. of 6th edition) J. Sargent, Vie de Henri Martyn, missionnaire aux Indes orientales et en Perse, Paris, 18462 (French trans. of 6th edition); 008639746 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) J. Sargent, Het leven van den eerwaarden Henry Martyn, zendeling in Indië, trans. G. Jaspers, Amsterdam, 1861 (Dutch trans.); 008732047 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) S. Wilberforce (ed.), Journals and letters of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D., 2 vols, London, 1837, repr. 1839 (abridged); 006582880 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library), http://anglican history.org/india/martyn H.M. Jeffery (ed.), ‘Two sets of unpublished letters of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D.’, Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall 7 supplement (1883) 1-62 G. Smith, Henry Martyn. Saint and scholar, London, 1892, repr. New York, 1903, Norderstedt, 2016; 001400945 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library)

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S.D. Ayler (ed.), The letters of Henry Martyn. East India Company chaplain, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2019 Studies A.A. Powell, ‘The letters of Henry Martyn, East India Company chaplain’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 30/3 (2020) 579-81 (review article) Stanley, ‘An “ardour” of devotion. The spiritual legacy of Henry Martyn’, in R.F. Young (ed.), India and the Indianness of Christianity. Essays on understanding, Grand Rapids, 2009, 108-26 Jeffery, ‘Two sets of unpublished letters’ E.G. Corrie and H. Corrie, Memoirs of the Right Rev Daniel Corrie, LL.D. First Bishop of Madras, London, 1847, pp. 257-9 W. Carus, The life of the Rev. Charles Simeon, M.A., London, 1847, pp. 435-7 Scott Ayler

Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah Qajar of Persia Date of Birth May 1769 Place of Birth Damghan Date of Death October 1834 Place of Death Isfahan

Biography

Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (r. 1797-1834) was known as Bābā Khan before he became shah. As a result of his father’s claim to power, he was held hostage and grew up in Shiraz in the court of Karīm Khān Zand (r. 1751-79). He left Shiraz after the latter’s death and fought alongside his uncle, Āghā Muḥamad Khān (r. 1786-97), during his campaigns to subdue other rivals in Iran. During Āghā Muḥamad Khān’s reign, Bābā Khan was the prince regent and governor-general of Fārs province (1794-7). The cultural environment of Shiraz had a significant impact on the formation of his literary and cultural attitude. There, he also learned how to govern, particularly because Āghā Muḥamad Khān himself insisted on his training as the next shah and therefore treated him exceptionally well (Malcolm, History, p. 205). After Āghā Muḥamad Khān was assassinated on his way to subdue Georgia, Bābā Khan succeeded his uncle in July 1797, so becoming Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah. However, the young shah’s weak position gave rise to internal power struggles. After suppressing all his rivals and consolidating his rule over Iran, he appointed his elder sons to local governments to establish a network of Qajar power in the country. He decided not to choose his successor until late in his life, but to let his sons compete with each other for the throne. In that way he aimed to prevent them from revolting against the central government and keep them running their local states effectively. John Malcolm, a plenipotentiary for the English East India Company who paid a visit to the shah in Tehran in 1800, describes Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah’s interest in Europe, the European way of government and global affairs. The Shah was also curious to know about the manners of the British court, saying your king is, I see, only the first magistrate of the country […] such a condition of power […] has permanence but it has no enjoyment: mine

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is enjoyment […] that is real power […] but then it has no permanence. When I am gone my sons will fight for the Crown and all will be confusion. (Malcolm, Sketches, p. 215)

Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah frequently asked Malcolm about the mines of South America, the wealth of the British Empire in India and the power of Napoleon Bonaparte and whether France was a powerful nation. Harford Jones-Brydges, another British envoy to Iran in 1809, admitted that ‘the Shah possessed not only a very strong, but a very amiable mind, and the remarks which he made, and the inferences he drew from time to time, manifested very considerable powers of reflection’ (Jones-Brydges, His majesty’s mission, p. 300). However, defeats by Russia in the wars of 1804-13 and 1826-8, which led to the secession of the southern Caucasus, changed Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah’s attitude until the end of his life. Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah was a deeply religious person with a special devotion to Shīʿī scholars, to the extent that they even intervened in the affairs of the government and the shah benefited from their advice in crucial matters (Algar, Religion and state in Iran, p. 52). James Fraser, a British traveller who twice visited Iran in the 1820s and 1830s, described the shah as a sincere man in his religious professions (Fraser, Historical and descriptive account, p. 229). Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah’s affinity with Shīʿī religious jurists, who at the same time legitimised his rule, promoted religious dialogue and debates during his long reign. The long foreign wars with Russia, which were deemed a conflict between Muslim and Christian powers, also contributed to religious discussions in Iran. The peace with Russia in 1828 brought a relative calm to Iran and gradually led to the arrival of numerous Western missionaries, especially to Azerbaijan, and British, American and German Protestant missionaries became active in Tabriz. In addition to religious tendencies, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah had a desire to accumulate wealth and a passion for patronage of art and architecture, creating a prosperous cultural environment in Iran. He mostly spent his summers in his encampment at Sūltāniyeh, known as Chaman (‘pasture’), or in his favourite palace, Negārestān, on the outskirts of his capital, Tehran, together with his harem. Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah sought legitimacy for his rule by associating himself with the ancient past of Iran. He built the Sūltāniyeh palace on the ancient ruins of the Mongol Ilkhanid dynasty (1256-1353). Inspired by the Sasanian rock reliefs, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah carved himself on rock faces in various parts of Iran, establishing his status as the legitimate ruler of the realm (Luft, ‘Qajar rock reliefs’, pp. 41-3). His numerous portraits were also a demonstration of Qajar rule and the

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consolidation of his power (Diba, ‘Images of power’, p. 31). A literary circle, Anjoman-e Khāqān, formed by scholars and poets of the time under FathʿAlī Shah’s patronage, led to a literary movement reviving classical Persian poetry (Amanat, ‘Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah Qājār’). As for the shah’s literary tastes, ‘he is said to be distinguished in private by elegant manners, and to possess many accomplishments, that of poetry being one’ (Fraser, Historical and descriptive account, p. 229). Writing as a poet, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah used the pen name Khāqān, which was also a title his chroniclers used to address him. He composed a book of poetry (Divān-e she‛r) that mostly contained lyrical poems in the classical style and also ordered the composition of a lengthy epic poem (Shāhanshāhnāma or ‘Book of the king of kings’) based on Ferdowsi’s Shāhnāma, portraying him as a warrior fighting against the Russians. In the last years of his life, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah’s image as a powerful ruler was shattered by a humiliating defeat in the war with Russia as well as tensions over the succession. After the death of the Crown Prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā in 1833, he nominated his grandson Muḥammad Mīrzā as his successor. In September 1834, he left for Isfahan to suppress the insubordination of one his sons and died there of natural causes. He was buried in the shrine of Fāṭema Maʿṣūmā in Qom. Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah disputably represents in the Iranian psyche, the image of a weak ruler, submissive to the Shīʿī clerics and his name has always been associated with the humiliating treaties of Gulistān (1813) and Turkmenchāy (1828) in which Iran ceded to Russia its vast territories in the southern Caucasus. The long wars with Russia brought forward the issue of Muslim-Christian relations and led to the publication of Jihādiyya tracts (1818) that called for further war against Russians to prevent the abuse of the Muslims of the Caucasus (Haeri, Nakhostīn, p. 393). Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah’s reign took place at the height of the rivalry between European empires in Iran, which transformed the country into a hotbed of power struggles and influence. Muslim-Christian relations in this period were formed in an atmosphere of war with Russia and the European rivalries in Iran and were reflected in religious tracts, polemics and debates between Muslims and Christian missionaries in Iran in the early 19th century.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary J. Malcolm, The history of Persia, vol. 2, London, 1815 H. Jones-Brydges, The dynasty of the Kajars. Translated from the original Persian manuscript, London, 1833

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H. Jones-Brydges, An account of the transactions of his majesty’s mission to the court of Persia in the years 1807-11, London, 1834 J. Malcolm, The sketches of Persia, London, 1845 J.B. Fraser, Historical and descriptive account of Persia, New York, 1871 Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah Qajar, Kalām al-molūk molūk al-kalām. Dīvān-e Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah, Bombay, 1886 Azod al-Dowla, Tārīkh-e ‘Azodī, ed. ʻAbdulḥusain Nawāʼī, Tehran, 1976 H. Shahidi (ed.), Gozāresh-e safar-e Mirza Sāleh Shīrāzī, Tehran, 1983 Muḥammad Taqī Sipihr, Nāsikh al-tawārīkh. Tārikh-e Qājāria, ed. Jamshīd Kiyānfar, 3 vols, Tehran, 1998 Rezā-Qulī Hedāyat, Rawżat al-ṣafā, ed. Jamshīd Kiyānfar, vol. 9, Tehran, 1999 Mīrzā Faḍl-Allāh Khāvarī Shīrāzī, Tārīkh-e Ḍu’l-Qarnayn, ed. Naser Afsharfar, 2 vols, Tehran, 2001 Azod al-Dowla, Life at the court of the early Qajar shahs, trans. and ed., M.M. Eskandari-Qajar, Washington DC, 2014 (English trans. of Azod al-Dowla, Tārīkh-e ‘Azodī) Secondary G.R.G. Hambly, ‘Iran during the reigns of Fath ʽAli Shah and Muhammad Shah’, in P. Avery, G. Hambly and C. Melville (eds), The Cambridge history of Iran, vol. 7. From Nadir Shah to the Islamic Republic, Cambridge, 20073, 144-69 A. Amanat, art. ‘Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah Qājār’, in EIr P. Luft, ‘The Qajar rock reliefs’, Iranian Studies 34 (2001) 31-49 L. Diba, ‘Images of power and the power of images. Intention and response in early Qajar painting (1785-1834)’, in L.S. Diba and M. Ekhtiar (eds), Royal Persian paintings. The Qajar epoch 1785-1925, New York, 1998, 30-49 A. Haeri, Nakhostīn rouyārouīhā-ye andīshgarān-e īrān bā do ravīyeh-ye tamaddon-e būrjūāzī-ye gharb, Tehran, 1988 M. Bamdād, Tārīkh-e rejāl-e Īrān, Tehran, 19793, vol. 4, pp. 61-70 H. Algar, Religion and state in Iran, 1785-1906, Berkeley CA, 1969

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Farmāns related to the missionary activities of Leopoldo Sebastiani Date 1806-8 Original Language Persian Description Leopoldo Sebastiani (1770-1843) was a Roman Catholic physician who travelled extensively in the Middle East at the turn of the 19th century. He was sent to Iran by the Catholic Church primarily to re-establish the Safavid

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churches of Isfahan, but he was also willing to pursue pro-British and antiFrench political activities (O Flynn, Western Christian presence, pp. 49-50; Piemontese, ‘Lapidi di militi e civili emigrati’, pp. 27-8). As a result, the British government and the East India Company supported him during his missionary journeys and used him as a British agent (O Flynn, Western Christian presence, p. 71). In India, he translated the Greek Gospels into Persian, and these may have reached Henry Martyn before his departure for Iran in 1811 (O Flynn, Western Christian presence, pp. 146-7). Sebastiani’s papal mission to Isfahan began in 1805, and he was well received by the then governor-general of Isfahan, Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṣadr-i Iṣfahānī, who, on 20 March 1806, in an address to the Armenians of the Julfa district, issued a farmān that highly commended Sebastiani (O Flynn, Western Christian presence, pp. 59, 62-3). In February 1807, during a lengthy visit to the shah, Sebastiani also received two royal farmāns that not only entrusted him with restoring churches, but also allowed him to work freely in Iran and be exempt from taxes (O Flynn, Western Christian presence, pp. 62, 65, 79). One of the reasons Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah supported Sebastiani in his religious endeavours was that he also worked as a British agent and the shah had first relied on the British to help him in his ongoing war with Russia. However, the tide soon turned against Sebastiani due to the rivalry between the French and the British, which redoubled Iran’s diplomatic efforts vis-à-vis European powers. A year later, when the shah’s alliance with Napoleonic France was strengthened and relations with Britain soured, the proFrench chancellor Mīrzā Shafīʿ addressed all governors through a farmān on 14 September 1808, seeking to arrest and expel Sebastiani for his antiFrench activities (O Flynn, Western Christian presence, p. 75). As a result, he was forced to leave Iran for Baghdad in the autumn of 1808. He neither returned nor ever wrote about his time in Persia (Barjesteh, Qajar era health, p. 91). Significance The crown of Sebastiani’s work was the translation of the Gospels into Persian, which was first published in Calcutta in 1813. However, he failed in his papal mission in Iran because he was primarily pursuing political goals and, when he failed, he was forced to leave the country. Although Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah initially supported him by issuing farmāns, Sebastiani was eventually expelled because relations between Iran and Britain were damaged in 1807-8. Moreover, Iran’s highly religious community at the time

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restricted missionaries’ activities, so that they could only operate among other Christian and religious minorities. The war with Russia, deemed a Muslim-Christian conflict, also weakened the position of Christians as a non-Muslim community and restricted their activities in Azerbaijan. Russia even encouraged Iranian Armenians to emigrate to its newly captured territories in the Caucasus (Shafiyef, Resettling the borderlands, p. 57). Both the recently conquered Russian Caucasus and the Ottoman Empire were much more receptive to local Christians than Iran and offered Western missionaries a stable base for their activities. Publications MS Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana – Scritture riferite nei Congressi (sc) di Propaganda Fide: Mesopotamia e Persia, Chaldei e Latini (1614-1892), vol. 12 (1804-10), fols 435-6r-v MS Vienna, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Archivio Nunciatura Vienna (ASV Arch. Nunz Vienna) – 210, fol. 6r-v (1808) Studies F. Shafiyef, Resettling the borderlands. State relocations and ethnic conflict in the south Caucasus, Ontario, 2018 T.S.R. O Flynn, The Western Christian presence in the Russias and Qajar Persia c.1760-c.1870, Leiden, 2017 Y. Armajani, art. ‘Christianity viii. Christian missions in Persia’, in EIr A.M. Piemontese, ‘Lapidi di militi e civili emigrati d’Italia in Persia’, Quaderni di Oriente Moderno 88 (2008) 25-70 S. Barjasteh et al. (eds), Qajar era health, hygiene and beauty, Rotterdam, 2003 Haeri, Nakhostīn R.E. Waterfield, Christians in Persia. Assyrians, Armenians, Roman Catholics and Protestants, London, 1973, pp. 92-5, 178-80

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Farmān to Gore Ouseley acknowledging the reception of Henry Martyn’s translation of the New Testament Date 1814 Original Language Persian Description The British Protestant missionaries who were sent to Iran from India were at the forefront of Christian-Muslim polemics, and the most prominent example was the Anglican missionary Henry Martyn (1781-1812). Under the protection of the British minister Gore Ouseley, during his journey from Bushehr to Tabriz in 1811-12, Martyn worked hard to capture the attention of Iranian Muslims and to question Shīʿī jurists on key topics such as the prophethood of Muḥammad and the veracity of the Qur’an. In addition to his Christian erudition, Martyn had extensive knowledge of Islamic teachings. Although he was only present in Iran for a year and died unexpectedly in Turkey in 1812, he was highly effective in upsetting the Shīʿī and Sufi elites of the country. His tracts and his anti-Muslim polemics within religious circles prompted top Shīʿī clerics – including Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī, who issued a response to him, Sayf al-umma wa-burhān al-milla – to oppose and refute his ideas, which they felt threatened their influence on Muslim communities. Altogether, Islamic jurists produced 28 controversial treatises in response to Martyn, introducing a new development into Shīʿī polemics (O Flynn, Western Christian presence, p. 152; Amanat, ‘Mujtahids and missionaries’, p. 256). Martyn was also well versed in Persian and completed a lucid translation of the New Testament into Persian while he was in Shiraz. He intended to present this to Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah in person in Tehran, but the shah would not receive him. Instead, Gore Ouseley presented a copy to him in order to promote Martyn’s achievement. On his departure in 1814, Ouseley received a farmān from Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah that acknowledged Martyn’s erudite translation and described it as written ‘in a style most befitting sacred books, that is, in an easy and simple diction’ (Smith, Henry Martyn, pp. 486-7; Amanat, ‘Mujtahids and missionaries’, pp. 264-5).

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Illustration 6. British envoys John Malcolm, Hartford Jones and Gore Ouseley with officials of the court of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah

Significance The royal farmān shows the importance and impact of Martyn’s translation in Iranian religious circles. It also highlights the role of Britain in Iran. Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah sought to develop relations with Britain in any way possible, expecially since Gore Ouseley, who mediated the Gulistān Treaty between Iran and Russia in 1813, had promised to reclaim parts of lost Iranian territories through post-war negotiations with the Russians. Publications MS Tehran, Malik National Library and Museum – 3681, fol. 45 (April 1814) G. Fowler, Three years in Persia, London, 1841, repr. London, 2011, pp. 126-7 (English trans.); 008730540 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) G. Fowler, Drei Jahre in Persien und Reiseabentheuer in Kurdistan, trans. C. Richard, Aachen, 1842, repr. 1845, np, 2006, vol. 1, pp. 105-6 (German trans.); Geogr.it.o.314 (digitised version available through MDZ) G. Smith, Henry Martyn. Saint and scholar, first modern missionary to the Mohammedans 1781-1812, London, 1892, repr. New York, 1903, 1990, Norderstedt, 2016, pp. 486-7 (English trans.); 001400945 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library)

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Studies O Flynn, Western Christian presence A. Amanat, ‘Mujtahids and missionaries. Shi’i responses to Christian polemics in the early Qajar period’, in R. Gleave (ed.), Religion and society in Qajar Iran, London, 2005, 247-69 J.R.C. Martyn, Henry Martyn (1781-1812), scholar and missionary to India and Persia. A biography, Bloomington IN, 1999 Haeri, Nakhostīn G. Ouseley and J. Reynolds, Biographical notices of Persian poets, with critical and explanatory remarks, London, 1846, pp. ccxxiii-ccxxv Mehdi Mousavi

Mullā ʿAlī-Akbar Izhihī Iṣfahānī Mullā ʿAlī-Akbar Ījī; Mullā ʿAlī-Akbar Iṣfahānī; Mullā ʿAlī-Akbar Izhihī; Mullā ʿAlī-Akbar Rūydashtī Iṣfahānī; Mullā ʿAlī-Akbar ibn Muḥammad Bāqir Ījī Sipāhānī Date of Birth Unknown; mid-18th century Place of Birth Probably Izhih, east of Isfahan Date of Death 1817 Place of Death Isfahan

Biography

ʿAlī-Akbar Izhih was born sometime in the mid-18th century, probably in the village of Izhih near Isfahan during one of the most turbulent eras of post-Safavid Persia, when the county was struggling to find peace and harmony in the aftermath of the Afghan assault in 1722. His family included several renowned scholars (jurists and theologians), notably his father Mullā Muḥammad Bāqir and his grandfather Muḥammad Sharīf al-Dīn (known as Mullā Sharīfā-yi Isfahānī). He studied with a number of famous scholars of his time (Khwānsārī, Rawḍāt al-jannāt, vol. 4, p. 407), including philosophers such as Āqā Muḥammad Bīdābādī (d. 1783-4) and Sayyid Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Khātūnābādī Iṣfahānī (d. 1788-9) (Karbāsīzāda Iṣfahānī, Ḥakīm-i Mutiʾallih-i Bīdābādī, pp. 97-169). As a philosopher, ʿAlī-Akbar Izhihī’s position was distinct from that of two rival traditions, the Shaykhī and the Akhbārī schools, whose worldviews he rejected in his works. He has been described as a competent Shīʿī faqīh, a mutakallim and a preacher with a reputation for piety and asceticism (Khwānsārī, Rawḍāt al-jannāt, vol. 4, pp. 406-7) and it has been claimed that he was once appointed as the congregational and Friday prayer imam of Yazd during the reign of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (r. 1797-1834) (Kashmīrī, Nujūm al-samāʾ, vol. 1, p. 444). He was also one of the ʿulamāʾ who was requested by Mīrzā ʿĪsā Qāʾim Maqām Farahānī (d. 1822), the vizier of the crown prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā (d. 1833), to issue a fatwā sanctioning fighting in the first Russo-Iranian War (1804-13) (Dunbulī, Al-ma‌ʾāthir al-sulṭāniyya, p. 187).

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Izhihī wrote 29 books, including short treatises, commentaries and glosses, on a variety of juridical and theological issues (for the list of his writings, see Qāsimī, Bazm-i maʿrifat, pp. 116-30), among which Risāla-yi jihādiyya, Zubdat al-maʿārif and Risāla dar radd-i pādrī (also fādrī) Naṣrānī are of particular interest here. According to Khwānsārī, Izhihī wrote two more refutations, one in ḥikmat and kalām against Shaykh Aḥmad al-Aḥsāʾī, and the other in jurisprudence refuting Mīrzā Muḥammad Nīshābūrī (also Nīsābūrī) Akhbārī (d. 1818), one of the founding figures of the Akhbārī school (Rawḍāt al-jannāt, p. 407). The latter is known to be extant (MS Qom, Marʿashī 12821/4). Among other known works of Izhihī is a Twelver Shīʿī creed (Risāla-yi iʿtiqādāt, MS Qom, Gulpāygānī 29/92-5752). Izhihī died in 1817 in Isfahan and was buried in Takht-i Fūlād cemetery.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Muḥammad Bāqir ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn Khwānsārī, Rawḍāt al-jannāt fī aḥwāl al-ʿulamāʾ wa-l-sādāt, ed. Asad ul-llāh Ismāʿīlīan, 8 vols, Qom, 1972 Mīzā ʿĪsā Qāʾim Maqām Farāhānī, Aḥkām al-jihād wa-asbāb al-rishād, ed. GhulāmḤusayn Zargarīnizhād, Tehran, 2001 Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad Ṣādiq Āzād Kashmīrī, Nujūm al-samāʾ fī tarājim al-ʿulamāʾ. Sharḥ-i ḥāl-i ʿulaemāʾ-i Shīʿa-i qarnhā-yi yāzdahum u dawāzdahum u sīzdahum-i hijrī-i qamarī, ed. Hāshim Muḥaddith, vol. 1, Tehran, 2016 ʿAlī Akbar Izhihī, Maʿārif-i ilāhiyya, in Nuṣūṣ wa-rasāʾil min turāth al-ʿilmī l-khālid, ed. Majīd Hādīzāda, Tehran, 2017, vol. 4, pp. 213-38 Secondary Muṣṭafā Dirāyatī, Fihristwāra-yi dastnawishtahā-yi Īrān (Dinā), 12 vols, Tehran, 2010 ʿAlī Karbāsīzāda Isfahanī, Ḥakīm-i mutiʾallih-i Bīdābādī. Iḥyāgar-i ḥikmat-i Shīʿa dar qarn-i davāzdahum-i hijrī, Tehran, 2009 Raḥīm Qāsimī, Bazm-i maʿrifat. Mashāhīr-i Takht-i Fūlād-i Iṣfahān, Isfahan, 2009 ʿAbd al-Razzāq Bey Dunbulī, Al-ma‌ʾāthir al-sulṭāniyya. Tārīkh Īrān wa-ḥurūbiha maʿa Rūsiyā, Arabic trans. by Muḥammad Sayyid Abū Zayd, Cairo, 2005

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Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Risāla-yi jihādiyya ‘Treatise about rulings on jihād’ Date 1808-13 Original Language Persian Description During the first Russo-Iranian war (1804-13), Mīrzā ʿĪsā Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī, otherwise known as Mīrzā-yi Buzurg (d. 1822), requested several scholars, including Izhihī, to provide legitimisation for the fighting as a holy struggle against infidel Russia (Zargarīnizhād, ‘Barrasī-yi aḥkām al-jihād’, pp. 378-9). Later, Mīrzā ʿĪsā composed Aḥkām al-jihād wa-asbāb al-rashād, in which he brought together the opinions of several of these scholars. Izhihī’s own treatise on jihād does not appear to be extant (it is referred to as Risāla-yi jihādiyya and also Fatwā darbāra-yi jihād), though some of his opinions can be known from eight quotations in Mīrzā ʿĪsā’s compilation. The first of these (p. 129) classifies infidels (kuffār) into three groups: people possessing a revealed book (ahl al-kitāb), those who lack any book or prophet, and those who possess a pseudo-book, such as the Zoroastrians. It also distinguishes between offensive and defensive jihād. For the former, the presence of the Imām and his permission, or the presence of his vizier, is a prerequisite, but the latter does not require such a condition; indeed fighting against infidels who take up arms against Muslims and invade their territories is deemed compulsory. The second quotation (pp. 172-3) contains a declaration that, in the absence of the Imām, the current political authority, here Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah, has every right to declare jihād against the infidels. On possible collaboration between infidels and Muslims, in the third quotation (p. 178) Izhihī maintains that if infidels assist Muslims in jihād they should receive various kinds of financial help, including alms, tax on land (kharāj), and some shares in arāḍī maftūḥat al-ʿanwa (‘lands seized by Muslims without war or bloodshed and belonging to the Imām’). The fourth quotation (p. 220) contains arguments for the resources to finance jihād, including kharāj and the benefits of arāḍī maftūḥat al-ʿanwa, and, if these are not enough, the shah can utilise alms, because jihād is the most important interest (maṣlaḥat) of Islam and so every possible resource should be spent on it. Izhihī’s reasoning for the office of the secular

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monarchy as a substitute for the absent Imām is a typical argument of an Uṣūlī jurist-theologian of the early Qajar period. The fifth and sixth quotations contain rulings regarding fighting-men praying and fasting. Izhihī argues that like any other compulsory (wājib) and recommended (mandūb) duty, prayers and fasting should be regarded as a minor (qaṣr) obligation for soldiers (p. 293). Desertion from Islam or from the battlefield is forbidden (ḥarām), and a soldier who commits such a treasonable act has committed apostasy (irtidād) and is thus regarded as a murtadd (apostate), because such actions weaken Islam and empower kufr (pp. 295, 299). The seventh quotation (p. 301) touches on war booty. Izhihī argues here that everything Muslims take, including captives, land and movable property, belongs to ḥākim-i Eslāmī. After movable property is divided into five portions, one portion belongs to the descendants of the Prophet. The eighth quotation (p. 305) states that those who die in war should be treated as martyrs and may be buried without washing or shrouding. Izhihī concludes that jihād against infidel Russia is wājib-i kifāʾī (a collective obligation) and since the maṣlaḥat-i ʿumūmī (public interest) of society is at stake, it is incumbent on everybody to participate. Significance These legal opinions show that a scholar of the early Qajar era considered war with Russia to be more than a mere hostile engagement between Iran and a northern neighbour, but rather a military engagement with the status of a holy war between Muslims and infidels; Russia was a religious (Christian) ‘other’, not a rival Muslim ‘other’. Publications Mīrzā ʿĪsā Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī, Aḥkām al-jihād wa-asbāb al-rishād, ed. Ghulām-Ḥusayn Zargarīnizhād, Tehran, 2002 Studies Ghulām-Ḥussayn Zargarīnizhād, ‘Barrasī aḥkām al-jihād wa-asbāb al-rishād. Nakhustīn athar dar adabiyyāt-i takwīn-i adabiyyāt-i jihādī-i tārīkh-i muʿāthi-i Īrān’, Majalla-yi Dānishkada-yi Adabīyyat u ʿUlūm-i Insānī 979/155 (2000) 373-402

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Zubdat al-maʿārif ‘The essence of insights’ Date 1814 Original Language Persian Description The structure of this work (here, the 1851 lithograph edition is used; the pages are unnumbered) resembles a Twelver Shīʿī creed. It contains five chapters covering knowledge of the self, kalām, prophethood including a discussion on the Qur’an as a miracle, the imamate, and resurrection. The work is dedicated to the second Qajar ruler, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah, who is praised in the introduction. While the work is not about relations between Islam and other faiths, the chapter on prophethood contains a discussion comparing Islam with other religions. Following a few sections on prophets in general, including their miracles, Izhihī focuses on the Prophet Muḥammad and his miracles, adducing typical traditional arguments to defend the authority of the Qur’an. No one, he says, has been or will be able to produce a text like the Qur’an because it both contains revelation and is the culmination of rhetoric and the highest level of eloquence. Izhihī’s discussion covers an array of topics including the excellence of the Qur’an and its bearers, such as the first Imām, ʿAlī. In the discussion on other miracles of the Prophet, there is a reference to a certain Yūsuf of Farank, who doubted that the Prophet split the moon: Beware that at this time, a foreign unbeliever has arrived in Isfahan and has caused scepticism about the miracle of splitting the moon, and some believers of feeble faith [believed him] and disseminated his sophistry. [His scepticism] became the subject of conversation among people. He said: that miracle is one of the strange things and extraordinary accidents (sawāniḥ-i gharība) that are documented in books and journals. If such a thing had happened, it would have been documented in journals and recorded in histories, though it is not.

The person to whom Izhihī refers was almost certainly the Italian Leopoldo Sebastiani (1770-1843, see above pp. 115-17), known in Iran as Mullā Yūsuf (O Flynn, Western Christian presence, p. 79). He spent three years in Isfahan, June 1805-November 1808 (Western Christian presence, p. 63), where he met a number of Shīʿī scholars. Izhihī adduces numerous Hadiths to authenticate this miracle of splitting the moon, and goes on to

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Illustration 7. First page of Zubdat al-maʿārif

respond to the Italian’s denial of claims about Muḥammad’s infallibility, and his criticisms of Muḥammad marrying Zaynab, whose husband felt compelled to divorce her when he knew the Prophet admired her. Significance What Izhihī says here about Christianity reveals an acute contrast between his apologetic approach and the approach that had been used for hundreds of years by Muslims replying to Christian arguments. While his quotations from Hadiths and other items of distinctly Islamic evidence might be accepted as bases for proof by Muslims, they would have no power to convince a non-Muslim who did not accept their authority. Muslim apologists had realised this very early on in their encounters with Christians and resorted to other forms of argument.

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It is surprising that Izhihī does not show awareness of this apologetic weakness. Either he was operating within a self-contained intellectual environment where serious encounters with outsiders rarely took place, or he was writing solely with a traditional Muslim audience in mind. Publications The work is extant in two recensions, the first completed in 1809 (see R. Jaʿfarīyān and M. Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf. Guzārishī az guftugūhā-yi Masīḥī-Islāmī dar dawrayi Ṣafawī u Qājārī, Tehran, 2016, p. 127) and the second five years later in 1814. Numerous manuscripts are extant. Mullā ʿAlī-Akbar Ījī, Zubdat al-maʿārif, Tehran: Chāpkhāna-yi Ḥājjī ʿAbd al-Muḥammad, 1851 (lithograph edition); 009026050 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) Mullā ʿAlī-Akbar Ījī, Zubdat al-maʿārif, ed. Jalāl al-Dīn Izhihī, Isfahan, 1956-7 Studies Jaʿfarīyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, p. 127 T.S.R. O Flynn, The Western Christian presence in the Russias and Qājār Persia, c. 1760-c. 1870, Leiden, 2016

Risāla-yi radd-i pādrī, ‘Treatise in refutation of the priest’; Kitāb-i marḥūm Mullā ʿAlī-Akbar dar jawāb-i shubuhāt-i pādrī, ‘The book of the late Mullā ʿAlī-Akbar in response to the sophistries of the priest’ Date 1814-15 Original Language Persian Description Izhihī wrote Risāla-yi radd-i pādrī at the request of Mīrzā ʿĪsā QāʾimMaqām Farāhānī (d. 1822), the vizier of crown prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā. In this refutation, which is 110 pages long in MS Tehran, Madrasa-yi ʿĀlī Muṭahharī (Sipahsālār) 1856/3, he attempts to shed light on the doubts of a Christian missionary priest (pādrī-i Naṣrānī), who has been identified as Henry Martyn (Jaʿfarīyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, p. 350). The work contains an introduction, 11 chapters and an epilogue.

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In the introduction, Izhihī argues that Christianity is corrupt. The substantive chapters then cover such topics as: proof of the prophethood of Muḥammad; his excellence as mentioned in the ‘Book of Seth’; his excellent status according to Zoroastrian scholars; his legitimacy according to the Torah; proof of his prophethood according to the Gospel. There are brief chapters on qur’anic verses, including preaching and advice; on the revelations sent to Moses and Jesus; and on the missionary’s scepticism about the miracle of the Qur’an. Ch. 10 discusses kings mentioned in Jewish scriptures, and ch. 11 contains further discussion about doubts concerning the Prophet’s infallibility. Throughout, Izhihī replies to Martyn’s views on the prophethood of Muḥammad as the Seal of the Prophets, as well as clarifying more generally the ‘corrupt ideas of Christians’ (ʿaqāʾid-i fāsida-yi Naṣārā) about the Trinity (MS Tehran, Madrasa-yi ʿĀlī Muṭahharī (Sipahsālār) 1856/3, p. 6), which he says means associating other beings with God. He defends tawḥīd and the belief that Islam is the last religion in the Abrahamic line of revelation, using both transmitted and rational proofs to support his arguments. After elucidating the oneness of God (tawḥīd) as the only defensible doctrine to explain the Deity and His attributes, particularly that of Necessary Existence (wājib al-wujūd) as opposed to Trinity, which for him is absolutely indefensible, Izhihī moves on to the prophethood (nubuwwa) of Muḥammad and tries to remove any suspicions about him and his message. Muḥammad is the promised prophet of the Testaments, the Paraclete, the Seal of the prophets, the first one through whom the Deity manifested Himself (obviously the Akhbārī doctrine of tajallī), the one whose progeny from his son-in-law ʿAlī is blessed by God, and whose name and excellent qualities are mentioned in all the heavenly and revealed books (pp. 11-14). The task of defending the prophethood of Muḥammad provides Izhihī with a golden opportunity to attack the Christian doctrines of original sin and atonement. His tone here is much harsher than in his earlier Zubdat al-maʿārif, as he addresses the missionary directly and passionately, asking why he and his fellow Christians are not wary of such false beliefs. However, as in Zubdat al-maʿārif, he gives a considerable amount of space to replying to the missionary’s scepticism about the Prophet’s miracles, chief among them the Qur’an. Although the Prophet performed other miracles, Izhihī argues that the Qur’an is the most significant because of its rhetoric and eloquence, which make it stand out from other books, and because it includes the message of earlier prophets.

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It seems that the missionary had a number of objections to this miracle, such as why it was in the form of a book in the first place. Izhihī replies that miracles should be understood in accordance with the culture of a prophet and his time: at the time of the Prophet Muḥammad the Arabs were proud of their mastery and proficiency in Arabic literature and poetry and so his miracle was in the form of a book. He also addresses the missionary’s questions about Muḥammad’s marriage to Zaynab, the wife of his adopted son, Zayd ibn Ḥārith, who divorced her at his request. The missionary argues that here Muḥammad was acting out of lust and this is an example of him committing sin, but Izhihī argues along traditional lines that the marriage was in obedience to a command from God and so the missionary is wrong. From Izhiʾī’s responses to the missionary’s assertions, it becomes clear that he felt extremely uncomfortable with the latter’s questions about the divine nature of the Qur’an and the Prophet’s impeccability in his marriage with Zaynab. Also, he was deeply disturbed by the fact that for the missionary the Qur’an could not be treated as a miracle or a book containing revelation, despite its supreme literary beauty. Significance This work is important in underlining the weight of tradition that had built up over many centuries pertaining to Muslim perceptions of Christianity and refutations of it. But, as in Zubdat al-maʿārif, what Izhihī says here about Christianity points to what seems to be his unawareness of the nature of interfaith debate. He assumes that the missionary will accept the premises of his argument, and seems unable to find grounds that both Christians and Muslims would accept as valid. Publications MS Tabriz, National Library – 3321, 118 fols (1230/1814-15) MS Tehran, Madrasa-yi ʿĀlī Muṭahharī (Sipahsālār) 1856/3, 110 pages (pp. 79-189) Leila Chamankhah

Mīrzā Muḥammad Akhbārī Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Nabī Nayshābūrī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Nabī l-Naysābūrī, Abū Aḥmad Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Nabī l-Muḥaddith al-Salafī l-Khurāsānī Date of Birth 1765 Place of Birth Farrukhabad Date of Death 1817 Place of Death Kāẓimayn, Baghdad

Biography

Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Nabī ibn ʿAbd al-Ṣāniʿ Nayshābūrī, known as Mīrzā Muḥammad Akhbārī, was born on 12 May 1765 in Farrukhabad, India. He left India for the ḥajj when he was 20 years old and then decided to stay in Iraq (Jaʿfariyān, Du risāla, p. 124). Around 1785, he was in Najaf and spent more than ten years there, after which he lived for almost the same length of time in Karbala to study and teach. In his autobiography, he mentions this period only passingly, without referring to either the subjects he studied or his teachers (cited in Jaʿfariyān, Du risāla, p. 117). However, it can be seen from his writings and activities that he studied Arabic linguistics and literature, Shīʿī Hadiths and jurisprudence, as well as occult sciences and to some extent logic and Islamic philosophy. He became an expert in the art of disputation. In jurisprudence, he was a staunch supporter of the Akhbārī school, insisting that understanding sharīʿa does not require the deployment of complicated interpretive techniques (ijtihād). This approach was opposed to the view of mainstream jurists, the Uṣūlīs, who were not tolerant of such views. Eventually, Mīrzā Muḥammad fled from Karbala to Kāẓimayn, a suburb of Baghdad, probably because of the hostility that he faced from his fellow mujtahids as a result of his campaign against them (Jaʿfariyān, Du risāla, pp. 22-5). Soon afterwards, Mīrzā Muḥammad left Kāẓimayn for Iran. After spending some time in Mashhad, Shiraz and Gīlān, he settled in the capital, Tehran, where he enjoyed the patronage of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (r. 1797-1834). An incident called ‘the inspector’s head’ had a deep impact on the prestige

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of Mīrzā Muḥammad at the Qajar court. Apparently, in 1806, during the siege of Baku by Russian forces under Pavel Tsitsianov (d. 1806), Mīrzā Muḥammad claimed that he could bring Tsitsianov’s head to the shah and this was reportedly done (Sipihr, Nāsikh al-tawārīkh, vol. 1, p. 141), which, according to one biographer, brought Mīrzā Muḥammad a great financial reward from the shah (cited in Jaʿfariyān, Du risāla, p. 124). After this incident, Mīrzā Muḥammad spent several years in Tehran, during which he continued campaigning against the Uṣūlī jurists (Jaʿfariyān, Du risāla, pp. 26-7). The mujtahids of the time, including the two leading figures, Shaykh Jaʿfar Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ Najafī (d. 1812) and Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qummī (d. 1817-18) were greatly concerned about Mīrzā Muḥammad’s activities, and composed several works in response to his criticisms (Jaʿfariyān, Du risāla, pp. 21-9). Around 1812, Mīrzā Muḥammad returned to Iraq and settled in Kāẓimayn, where he continued to teach and write against the views of the Uṣūlīs. After some years, some mujtahids of Iraq, most notably Sayyid Muḥammad al-Mujāhid (d. 1826) and Shaykh Jaʿfar’s son, Shaykh Mūsā Kāshif al-Qiṭāʾ (d. 1827), issued a fatwā declaring that Mīrzā Muḥammad was an apostate (Khwānsārī, Rawḍāt al-jannāt, vol. 7, p. 129; Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ, Al-ʿabaqāt al-ʿanbariyya, pp. 185-6). Consequently, a mob attacked Mīrza Muḥammad’s house on 15 February 1817 and murdered him and his eldest son. His murder, which led to further violence, marked the first fatal incident in Uṣūlī-Akhbārī conflict. Mīrzā Muḥammad was a prolific author who wrote about 30 books and 56 treatises in Arabic and Persian, and two collections of poetry (for the full list of his works, see Jaʿfariyān, Du risāla, pp. 125-30). The main part of his oeuvre was devoted to criticism of mujtahids, including his Munyat al-murtād fī dhikr nufāt al-ijtihād (‘The desire of the inquirer on mentioning the disclaimers of ijtihād’), Fatḥ al-bāb ilā l-ḥaqq wa-l-ṣawāb (‘Opening the door to truth and what is right’) and Īqāẓ al-nabīh (‘Awakening the nobleman’). He also wrote several polemics against various intellectual trends and religious denominations, including one against Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (d. 1792) titled Faṣl al-maqāl fī radd maqālat Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (‘The decisive treatise on the rejection of the epistles of Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’) and one against the Sufis titled Nafathat al-maṣdūr (‘The spittle of the diseased chest’).

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MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn Shīrvānī, Bustān al-siyāḥa yā Siyāḥat-nāma, 9 vols, Tehran, 1936 Mīrzā Muḥammad Akhbārī, Īqāẓ al-nabīh, ed. Ibrāhīm ibn Aḥmad, Basra, 1937 Al-Sayyid Muḥammad Bāqir Khwānsārī, Rawḍāt al-jannāt fī aḥwāl al-ʿulamāʾ wa-lsādāt, ed. Muḥammad ʿAlī Rawḍātī, 8 vols, Qom, 1978 Muḥammad al-Ḥusayn Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ, Al-ʿabaqāt al-ʿanbariyya, ed. Jawdat al-Qazwīnī, Beirut, 1998, pp. 86-103, 183-7 Muḥammad Taqī Sipihr, Nāsikh al-tawārīkh. Tārīkh-i Qājāriyya, ed. Jamshīd Kiyānfar, Tehran, vol. 1, 1998 Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān Tunikābunī, Qiṣas al-ʿulamāʾ, ed. Muḥammd Riḍā Barzigar and ʿIffat Karbāsī, Tehran, 2004 Jaʿfar Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ, Du risāla az Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ alayh-i Mīrzā Muḥammad Akhbārī, ed. Rasūl Jaʿfariyān, Tehran, 2012 Mīrzā Muḥammad Akhbārī, ‘Sharḥ-i ḥāl-i khudnivisht’, trans. and ed. Rasūl Jaʿfariyān, in Du risāla az Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ alayh-i Mīrzā Muḥammad Akhbārī, Tehran, 2012, pp. 117-18 Secondary ʿAlī ibn Jaʿfar, Āl al-Jassās al-Khuwayladī, Shahīd al-muḥaddithīn; https://archive .org/details/20200713_20200713_1425 Aḥmad Kāẓimī Mūsavī, Khāqān-i ṣāḥib qirān u ʿulamā-yi zamān, Tehran, 2018, pp. 49-50, 133-9 Rasūl Jaʿfariyān, ‘Ẓuhūr al-Mīrzā Muḥammad al-Akhbārī baʿd al-Waḥīd al-Bihbahānī wa nizāʿ talāmidhati-hi al-uṣūliyīn maʿa-hu’, Maqālāt u Risālāt-i Tārīkhī 3 (2016) 169-91 R. Shokri, trans. S. Umar, art. ‘Al-Akhbārī, Mīrzā Muḥammad’, in Encyclopaedia Islamica Rasūl Jaʿfariyān, Du risāla az Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ alayh-i Mīrzā Muḥammad Akhbārī, Tehran, 2012, pp. 9-36, 115-35 H. Algar, art. ‘Aḵbārī, Mīrzā Moḥammad’, in EIr; http://www.iranicaonline.org /articles/akbari-mirza-mohammad R. Gleave, ‘Mīrzā Muḥammad al-Akhbārī’s Kitāb al-jihād’, in Le Shi’isme imamite quarante ans après. Hommage à Etan Kohlberg, ed. M Amir-Moezzi et al., Paris, 2009, 209-27 W. Madelung, art. ‘Akhbāriyya’, in EI2 H. Algar, Religion and state in Iran, 1785-1906. The role of the ulama, Berkeley CA, 1969, pp. 64-6

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Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Ayīna-yi ʿAbbāsī dar namāyish-i ḥaqq-shināsī, ‘The mirror for ʿAbbās to exhibit the knowledge of the truth’; Amālī-i ʿAbbāsī, ‘The writing for ʿAbbās’ Date 10 July 1815 Original Language Persian Description This untitled book, dedicated to the crown prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā (d. 1833), was written in response to the first polemical treatise by Henry Martyn (d. 1812). In the preface, Mīrzā Muḥammad mentions that, on 7 June 1815, a certain Mīrzā Maḥmūd, who was apparently a messenger of ʿAbbās Mīrzā, met him in the Kāẓimayn district of Baghdad to inform him about a Persian treatise that a Christian missionary (baʿḍī az pādriyān) had written. Mīrzā Muḥammad does not mention the name of the missionary, but indicates that in his treatise this man rejected the claim that the Qur’an was a miracle. Prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā was requesting Mīrzā Muḥammad, together with many other Shīʿī scholars, to write in response a treatise that proved the prophethood of Muḥammad. Mīrzā Muḥammad admitted that this is difficult for him because he did not have access to the missionary’s work. His treatise is a defence of Islamic principles in general. Whilst Ayīna is not a polemic specifically against Christianity – it also criticises Jews and Zoroastrians – a major part certainly argues against Christian teachings and defends Islam. In the introduction, Mīrzā Muḥammad argues against Christians who believe that Jesus was the last messenger. He relies on a numerical argument to establish that the perfect number is seven, so the number of the law-giving prophets should also be seven. He enumerates them as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus and Muḥammad. In consequence, he rejects the Jewish belief that four is the perfect number and the Christian argument for the nobility of six (Akhbārī, Ayīna-yi ʿAbbāsī, p. 28). Mīrzā Muḥammad also criticises the Sunnīs and the Shīʿī mujtahids for straying from the path of the Imāms. He persistently reminds the reader that the only true path is Twelver Shīʿī Akhbārism, and he divides the Abrahamic religions into four pillars (rukn): Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Muslims. He classifies them according to the chronology

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of their emergence and also according to their animosity against Islam and Muslims. The order of the emergence is Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Christianity, while the order of their animosity places the Jews in the first place. Here he relies on Abū l-Fatḥ Muḥammad al-Shahrastānī’s (d. 1153) taxonomy of religions in Al-milal wa-l-niḥal (ed. W. Cureton, London, 1842, pp. 163-99). The first chapter of Ayīna is a critique of Judaism. He argues that, in the Book of Creation in the Old Testament, the name of Muḥammad is mentioned as Muʾad Muʾad. It seems this interpretation comes from Muḥammad Bāqir Majlisī’s Tadhkirat al-a‌ʾimma (MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrāy-i Islāmī – 2942, p. 20). He also believes that, in the Torah, the promise of the kingdom on the last day refers to the Hidden Imām. He then lists Jewish sects: Anāniyya, ʿĪsawiyya, Yudaghāniyya, Mushkāniyya, Maghāriyya, and Asāmira (Samaritans). The ʿAnāniyya and ʿĪsaviyya accept Jesus as one of the Israelite prophets, but not the Messiah, while the Mushkāniyya affirm Muḥammad as the prophet for the Arabs (the Mushkāniyya is the only sect found in al-Shahrastānī’s Al-milal wa-l-niḥal). At the beginning of this chapter (p. 77), he praises Maḥḍar al-shuhūd fī radd al-Yahūd by Ḥājjī Bābā Qazvīnī Yazdī, an anti-Jewish polemic completed in 1797. It seems that he derived some of his materials from this treatise. Ch. 2 deals with Christianity which, Mīrzā Muḥammad says, is the second religion in the hierarchy of truthfulness after Islam. He argues against the idea that Jesus can be the Lord, mainly based on negative theology; he rejects the attribution of any sensibilia (maḥsūsāt) and intelligibilia (maʿqūlāt) to God and criticises the doctrine of the Trinity by invoking the concept of God’s transcendence (tanzīh). As for the crucifixion, he believes that neither Jews nor Christians realised that the man crucified was not in fact Jesus of Nazareth. On the doctrine of redemption, Mīrzā Muḥammad argues that whoever affirms Jesus’s prophethood will be delivered from sin. This means that Muslims will be among the saved since they also affirm Jesus’s prophetic vocation. Mīrzā Muḥammad accuses St Paul of introducing corrupted interpretations into Christianity, and similarly maintains that the usurper caliphs in Islam corrupted their religion by distorting the true path of the Prophet and the Imāms. He also discusses here the three known Christian sects, Melkites, Nestorians and Jacobites, and their differences (pp. 127-34). In ch. 3, Mīrzā Muḥammad refutes the doctrine that Jesus was God’s son. He quotes the four Gospels extensively to prove that Jesus’s disciples knew him as a son of Adam, and that the idea of the son of God is based on a misreading of the Gospels. Ch. 4 is devoted to the Zoroastrians, and

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the last chapter deals with Islam, forming a response to the critics of Islam and of the prophethood of Muḥammad. Mīrzā Muḥammad explains the meaning of miracles and lists Muḥammad’s miracles to prove his vocation. He finishes the treatise with a short epilogue offering the occult meaning of the Basmala. Significance Although it was supposed to be a response to Henry Martyn’s anti-Islamic works, Ayīna-yi ʿAbbāsī in fact illustrates an Akhbārī Shīʿī perspective on Christian-Muslim debates more generally. The extensive quotations from the four Gospels in the chapter on Christianity indicate Shīʿī scholars’ knowledge of Christian scripture in the early 19th century. Overall, the work is an important example of a Shīʿī critical perspective on Christianity. Publications Details of the manuscript copies of this work held in Iranian libraries are given in Rasūl Jaʿfariyān and Maryam Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf. Guzārishī az guftugūhā-yi maṣīhī-islāmī dar dawra-yi Ṣafawī u Qājārī, Tehran, 2016, p. 128. MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 7013, 117 fols, copied by Muḥammad Amīn Raḍavī (1816) MS Birjand, Private Collection of Shaykh Muḥammad ʿAlī Dayyānī – 132, 98 fols (1816) MS Tehran, Millī – 5-30814, 98 fols (1816) MS Tehran, University of Tehran – 3418/1, 124 fols (1819) MS Qom, Fayḍiyya – 1106, 111 fols (undated) MS Qom, Marʿashī – 3914, 107 fols (undated) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 40, 80 fols (undated) MS Tabriz, Private collection of Qāḍī Muḥammad ʿAlī Ṭabāṭabāʾī without shelf number (undated) Selections MS Qom, Gulpāygānī – 5/64-774/2, 25 fols (1816) MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī – 14767-10 Sayyid Mīrzā Muḥammad [Akhbārī] Nayshābūrī, Ayīna-yi ʿAbbāsī dar namāyish-i ḥaqq-shināsī, Baghdad, 2019 Studies Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, pp. 127-8 Majid Montazer-Mahdi

Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī Date of Birth 1771 Place of Birth Narāq, Iran Date of Death 1828/9 Place of Death Kashan, Iran, buried in Najaf

Biography

Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī studied in Kashan until he was about 19. His teacher was his father, Mullā Mahdī Narāqī, who was an important religious scholar and philosopher of his time. About 1790, Aḥmad accompanied his father to Iraq, living in Najaf and Karbala until 1794. Following his father’s death in 1795, he undertook the annual pilgrimage. In 1797, the year that Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah Qajar (r. 1797-1834) ascended the throne of Iran, he briefly returned to the Shīʿī shrine cities of Iraq to continue his studies in jurisprudence ( fiqh) under Mahdī Baḥr al-ʿUlūm al-Najafī (d. 1797), Mīrzā Mahdī Shahrastānī (d. 1801), Shaykh Jaʿfar ibn Khiḍr Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ (d. 1812) and Sayyid ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad Ṭabāṭabāʾī (d. 1816). He then returned to Kashan, where he assumed a position of intellectual leadership and religious-legal authority, and Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah also appointed him as the head of the Madrasa Sulṭānī of Kashan. In addition to his scholarly pursuits, Aḥmad Narāqī was also involved in public affairs, including acting as a religious judge (qādī) in Kashan and leading the prayers at the congregational mosque. He died in either 1828 or 1829 and his funeral took place in Najaf, where he was buried in the courtyard of the Imām ʿAlī shrine. As many as 40 different works have been attributed to Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī (Muṣṭafā Dirāyatī, Fankhā: Fihristagān-i nuskha-hā-yi khaṭṭī Īrān, Tehran, 2011-, vol. 36, p. 890), the majority on legal topics. The most influential work of fiqh he produced was Mustanad al-Shīʿa fī aḥkām al-sharīʿa. Other important works include a detailed commentary on his father’s Tajrīd al-uṣūl on the principles of jurisprudence. He also produced a summary and Persian translation of his father’s work on Islamic ethics (akhlāq), Jāmiʿ al-saʿādāt, which he titled Miʿrāj al-saʿāda. Narāqī also composed poetry, including a mystical-ethical didactic poem called the Ṭāqdīs.

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MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Muḥammad Bāqir ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn Khwānsārī, Rawḍāt al-jannāt fī aḥwāl al-ʿulamāʾ wa-l-sādāt, Tehran, 1970, vol. 1, pp. 103-7 Ḥasan Ḥusaynī Fasāʾī, Fārsnāma-yi Nāṣirī, ed. Manṣūr Rastigār Fasāʾī, Tehran, 1988, p. 271 Muḥammad Taqī Lisān al-Mulk Sipihr, Nāsikh al-tawārīkh. Tārīkh-i Qājāriyya, ed. Jamshīd Kiyānfar, Tehran, 1998, vol. 1, p. 35 Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān al-Tunikābunī, Qiṣaṣ al-ʿulamāʾ, ed. Muḥammad Riḍā Barzigar Khāliqī and ʿIffat Karbāsī, Tehran, 2005, pp. 164-7 Ḥabīb Allāh Kāshānī, Lubāb al-alqāb fī alqāb al-aṭyāb, Qom, 2015, p. 154 Secondary ʿAbd al-Rasūl Khayyāmpūr, Farhang-i Sukhanvarān, Tehran, 2014, p. 338 M.M. Āqā Buzurg Tihrānī, Ṭabaqāt aʿlām al-Shīʿa, Beirut, 2008, vol. 10, pp. 116-17 Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad Ṣādiq Āzād Kashmīrī, Nujūm al-samāʾ fī tarājim al-ʿulamāʾ. Sharḥ-i ḥāl-i ʿulamā-yi Shīʿa qarnhā-yi yāzdahum u davāzdahum u sīzdahum-i hijrī-i qamarī, ed. Hāshim Muḥaddith, Tehran 20082, vol. 1, p. 367 ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn Sipihr, Mirʾāt al-waqāyiʿ-i Muẓaffarī, ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn Navāʾī, Tehran, 2007, vol. 1, p. 251 Riḍā Qulī Khān Hidāyat, Tadhkira-yi Riyāḍ al-ʿārifīn, ed. Abū l-Qāsim Rādfar and Gītā Ashīdarī, Tehran, 2006, p. 463 Said Amir Arjomand, ‘Political ethic and public law in the early Qajar period’, in R. Gleave (ed.), Religion and society in Qajar Iran, London, 2005, 21-40 Riḍā Ustādī, Sharḥ aḥvāl va āthār-i Mullā Mahdī Narāqī va Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī va Khāndān-i Īshān, Qom, 2003, pp. 206-340 Riḍā Qulī Khān Hidāyat, Majmaʿ al-fuṣaḥāʾ, ed. Muẓāhir Muṣaffā, Tehran, 20032, vol. 2, p. 1008 ʿAlī Aṣghar Jābulqī Burūjirdī, Ṭarāʾif al-maqāl, ed. Mahdī Rajāʾī, Qom, 1990, vol. 1, p. 57 Muḥammad ʿAlī Mudarris Tabrīzī, Rayḥānat al-adab, Tehran, 19903, vol. 6, p. 160 Hamid Dabashi, ‘Early propagating of Wilayat-i Faqih and Mulla Ahmad Naraqi’, in Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Hamid Dabashi and Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr (eds), Expectation of the Millennium. Shīʿism in history, Albany NY, 1989, 287-300 Ḥasan al-Amīn, Mustadrakāt aʿyān al-Shīʿa, Beirut, 1987, vol. 7, p. 82 Muḥammad Ḥirz al-Dīn, Maʿārif al-rijāl fī tarājim al-ʿulamāʾ wa-l-udabāʾ, Qom, 1986, vol. 6, p. 401 Muḥammad ʿAlī Ḥabībābādī, Makārim al-āthār dar aḥvāl-i rijāl-i dawra-yi Qājār, Iṣfahān, 1983, vol. 4, p. 1235

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Muḥsin al-Amīn, Aʿyān al-shīʿa, Beirut, 1983, vol. 3, p. 183 ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Kalāntar Ḍarrābī, Ta‌ʾrīkh-i Kāshān. Bi inḍimām-i yāddāshthā-yī az Allahyār Ṣāliḥ, ed. Īraj Afshār, Tehran, 1977, p. 282

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Sayf al-umma wa-burhān al-milla ‘The sword of the community and proof of the religion’ Date December 1817 Original Language Persian Description Sayf al-umma wa-burhān al-milla (‘The sword of the community and proof of the religion’) was penned by Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī in response to polemical tracts against Islam written by the first of the Anglican missionaries to Iran, Henry Martyn (d. 1812). He finished writing it on 27 December 1817. Narāqī begins with a panegyric for Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah Qajar (r. 1797-1834) indicating that he has composed the treatise at the request of the shah and his son, crown prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā (pp. 31-4). In order to write the treatise, Narāqī says that he assembled some of the Jewish religious scholars of Kashan and asked them about the meaning of various passages and phrases in the Old Testament. In one case, he says he made use of the library of a Jewish scholar by the name of Mullā Moshe. Sayf al-umma is divided into three chapters. The first deals with preliminary discussions regarding how one can prove the prophethood of Muḥammad. Narāqī says that the most important criterion for establishing the principles of religion (uṣūl al-dīn) is reason (ʿaql) and that the method of arguing against someone who denies the prophethood of Muḥammad in particular is to first prove prophethood in general, before discussing the role of miracles in demonstrating that a particular individual is a genuine prophet, and then the various ways in which the prophethood of Muḥammad might be demonstrated (pp. 57-8). The second chapter sets out to demonstrate that Muḥammad was a messenger sent by God, and uses four major arguments. First, Muḥammad, like the messengers who came before him, claimed that he had been given a mission by God and he performed a miracle to prove this (pp. 61-78). Second, Muḥammad performed two kinds of miracles: those he performed

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during his lifetime, and these naturally could no longer be witnessed after he had died, and also a miracle he performed that can still be witnessed today, the miracle of the Qur’an. This leads Narāqī to a discussion about the inimitability of the Qur’an (iʿjāz al-Qurʾān), which forms the core of his argument. He points to a number of aspects of the Qur’an which, he claims, demonstrate its divine origin; for example, the purity and eloquence of its Arabic and the absence of any contradictions within its text. He highlights the fact that the Qur’an contains examples of miraculous knowledge and stories of the prophets in their most authentic forms, even though Muḥammad was illiterate. He also says that the Qur’an contains information about the Unseen and points to the special qualities and benefits of reciting certain verses and chapters in order to obtain benefit, repel harm, and cure illnesses. He offers a number of other arguments for Muḥammad being a prophet, such as his outstanding moral character, the wisdom found in his sayings and those of his linear descendants, and the saintly miracles that occur in his shrine and the shrines of his descendants (pp. 79-94). Third, Narāqī argues that the reason why God kept sending prophets to humankind was that the teachings of previous prophets were lost, and that immorality and unbelief reappeared as a result. This meant that, when the prophet Abraham died, another prophet came after him, and so on, one-by-one, until the time came for Muḥammad to be sent. This was because the teachings of Jesus also became distorted and fell prey to deviation after his death, requiring someone to revive them, and that reviver was Muḥammad (pp. 95-8). Fourth, one of the ways in which prophethood can be established is by way of prophetic predecessors, each foretelling the advent of successors. Here, Narāqī quotes some 61 passages from both the Old and New Testaments that, he claims, foretell the coming of Muḥammad. Of these, the majority – more than 40 – are drawn from the Old Testament and written in both Hebrew and Persian. About a quarter of Narāqī’s work is devoted to this section alone (pp. 99-190). In the third, most substantial, chapter, Narāqī responds to Martyn’s polemics by quoting passages from Martyn and analysing and responding to the arguments they contain (pp. 191-434). In his work, Narāqī makes use of the writings of ʿAlī Qulī Jadīd al-Islām, especially his Sayf al-muʾminīn wa-hidāyat al-ḍāllīn. Although he names the work in just one place, where he says that its author ‘was a Christian priest and notable’ who lived close to his own time and ‘converted to

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Islam’ (p. 323), he uses it extensively (pp. 96, 108, 323, 407 et passim). Based on the passages that ʿAlī Qulī Jadīd al-Islām quotes from the polemical tract of the Catholic scholar Filippo Gaudagnoli (d. 1696), Narāqī accuses Martyn of plagiarising Gaudagnoli’s arguments (p. 33). He also follows ʿAlī Qulī Jadīd al-Islām in claiming that St Jerome (d. 420), the translator of the Bible into Latin, introduced corruptions into the text (p. 316). At the end of his work he also provides an account of the seven fundamental doctrines and practices of the Christian faith that matches the one found in Sayf al-muʾminīn (pp. 421-6). Narāqī also makes use of a polemic against Judaism, Maḥḍar al-shuhūd fī radd al-Yahūd (‘The gathering of witnesses in refutation of the Jews’), written in 1797 by Ḥājjī Bābā Qazvīnī, a Muslim convert from a Jewish family. The name of this text is explicitly mentioned in Sayf al-umma (pp. 141, 323). Another work that Narāqī relies upon is Nevuat ha-yeled (‘The prophecy of the child’) of Nahman. He came across a passage from this quoted in Maḥḍar al-shuhūd, and found a copy of the original text in the library of Mullā Moshe (pp. 141-2; Tsadik, ‘Nineteenth century polemics’, pp. 7-15). He also quotes passages from the Zoroastrian text, the Jāmāsbnāma, directly from Muḥammad Bāqir Majlisī’s (d. 1699) Tadhkirat al-a‌ʾimma. Significance Being one of the most important Shīʿī scholars of his time, Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī was highly respected by the Qajar state. For this reason, his response to the polemical treatise by Henry Martyn added a great deal of value to the state’s campaign in defence of Islam. A testimony to its popularity and influence is that it is extant in 34 manuscripts (Dirāyatī, Fankhā, vol. 18, pp. 653-6), and was reprinted in 1850, 1912 and 1912. At the beginning of these reprints, a table of contents of some 38 pages prepared by the author’s son has been added. Publications MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī – 5015/1, 200 fols (1816) MS Qom, Markaz-i Iḥyāʾ-i Mīrāth-i Islāmī – 563, 235 fols, copied by Muṣṭafā Kāshānī (1817) MS Tehran, Millī – 38, 258 fols (1817) MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī – 2071, 507 pp., copied by Muṣṭafā Kāshānī (1818) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 29015 (1818) MS Shiraz, Shāh-i Chirāq – 575, 488 pp., copied by Muṣṭafā Kāshānī (1818) MS Tehran, University of Tehran, Ilahiyyat – 287, 168 fols (1820)

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MS Qom, Masjid-i aʿẓam – 368, 201 fols, copied by Muḥammad Hāshim Kāshānī (1820) MS Qom, Madrasa-yi Raḍavī – 57, 148 fols, copied by Rajab ibn Muḥammad Gulpāygānī (1820) MS Qom, Fayḍiyya – 391, 320 fols (1821) MS Tehran, Millī – 82/2, 370 pp. (1826) MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī – 348 pp. (1822) MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī – 4982/2, 140 fols, fols 17b-156b (1827-8) MS Tehran, University of Tehran, Ilahiyyat – 88, 189 fols (1828) MS Mashhad, Gawharshād – 77, 143 fols, copied by Āqā Kūchak Kāshānī (1829) MS Qom, Marʿashī – 15197, 165 fols (1831) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 13957, copied by Muḥammad ʿAlī Iṣfahānī (1832) MS Qom, Gulpāygānī – 4/11-541, 139 fols, copied by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Kāshānī (1845) MS Tehran, Millī – 1731, 240 fols, copied by Muḥammad Mahdī Mūsavī Khurāsānī (1846) MS Tehran, Millī-i Malik – 1750/1 (1847) MS Qom, Masjid-i aʿẓam – 4092, 189 fols, copied by Samīʿ ibn Muḥammad Jaʿfar Shawqī (1848) MS Tehran, University of Tehran – 930, 227 fols, copied by Ghulām-ʿAlī Kāshānī (1850) MS Tehran, Millī-i Malik – 2338, 432 pp. copied by Muḥammad ʿAlī Kāshānī (1870) MS Tehran, University of Tehran – 2720, 185 fols (1879) MS Qom, Gulpāygānī – 5/64-774/1, 110 fols (1885) MS Tehran, University of Tehran – 1011, 261 fols MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī – 3844, 450 pp. MS Tehran, Madrasa-yi ʿĀlī-i Muṭahharī (Sipahsālār) – 1791/1, 167 fols MS Qom, Markaz-i Iḥyāʾ-i Mīrāth-i Islāmī – 1891 MS Qom, Markaz-i Iḥyāʾ-i Mīrāth-i Islāmī – 555 MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 25413 MS Qom, Maʿṣūma Shrine– 100/2, 208 fols, 62b-269b MS Mashhad, Private collection of Shaykh ʿAlī Ḥaydar – 1023, 190 fols MS Tabriz, Tarbiyat – 117 Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī, Sayf al-umma, Lithographic edition, Tehran 1850, 323 pp.

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Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī, Sayf al-umma, Lithographic edition, with an introduction by the author’s son, Muḥammad Narāqī, Tehran 1912, 424 pp. Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī, Sayf al-umma, ed. Sayyid Mahdī Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Qom: Pazhūhishgāh-i ʿUlūm u Farhang-i Islāmī, 2006 (based on the 1912 lithograph and the following three manuscripts: MS Qom, Markaz-i Iḥyāʾ-i Mīrāth-i Islāmī – 563, MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī – 2071 and MS Tehran, Millī-i Malik – 2338) Studies A. Amanat, ‘Mujtahids and missionaries. Shīʿī responses to Christian polemics in the early Qajar period’, in R. Gleave (ed.), Religion and society in Qajar Iran, London, 2004, 247-69 Kāẓim Raḥmatī, ‘Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī u Kitāb Sayf al-umma wa-burhān al-milla’, Kitāb-i Māh Dīn 107-9 (2006) 195-205 D. Tsadik, ‘Nineteenth century Shi‘i anti-Christian polemics and the Jewish Aramaic “Nevaut ha-yeled” [The prophecy of the child]’, Iranian Studies 37 (2004) 5-15 Hamed Naji Esfahani

Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī Mullā ʿAlī ibn Jamshīd Nūrī Iṣfahānī, Mullā ʿAlī Māzandarānī Date of Birth Unknown; around 1760 Place of Birth Nūr (Māzandarān, Iran) Date of Death 1831 Place of Death Isfahan

Biography

Mullā ʿAlī ibn Jamshīd Nūrī Māzandarānī Iṣfahānī, known as Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī, was an Imāmī (Twelver Shīʿī) scholar and teacher of philosophy and theology, with a strong inclination towards mystical thought and practice (ʿirfān). Born in the city of Nūr on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, he moved to Isfahan in central Iran after his initial formation. In Isfahan, he studied with the philosopher and mystic Āqā Muḥammad Bīdābādī (d. 1783) and the philosopher and jurist Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Mudarris Khātūnābādī (d. 1788). He was politically well connected and maintained close relationships with the ruling Zand and Qajar elites. While he taught in Isfahan for most of his life, his scholarly network extended to leading jurists in Qom and in the shrine cities in Iraq. Nūrī’s numerous students included Mullā ʿAbdullāh Zunūzī (d. 1841), Mullā Muḥammad Jaʿfar Lāhījānī Langarūdī (d. 1844) and Mullā Ismāʿīl Iṣfahānī, better known as ‘Wāḥid al-ʿAyn’ (d. 1860), as well as Mullā Hādī Sabzawārī (d. 1873), the most prominent philosopher of the Qajar era. Nūrī wrote glosses in Arabic and Persian mainly on metaphysical and philosophical works, including those of Mīr Dāmād (d. 1631) on the occult, particularly lettrism (ʿilm al-ḥurūf ). As a commentator on the philosophy of Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1636), he was an important link in the transmission of Ṣadrā’s teachings and thus contributed to the further development of the Ṣadrian school of thought in 19th-century Iran.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary R.-Q. Hidāyat, Tadhkira-yi Riyāḍ al-ʿārifīn, Tehran, 1937, p. 328 R.-Q. Hidāyat, Majmaʿ al-fuṣaḥāʾ, Tehran, 1957, vol. 2, p. 496

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M.M. Maʿṣūm ʿAlī-Shah, Ṭarāʾiq al-ḥaqāʾiq, ed. M.J. Maḥjūb, Tehran, 1960, pp. 506-7 M.Ḥ. Zunūzī, Riyāḍ al-janna, ed. ʿA. Rafīʿī ʿAlamrawdashtī, Qom, 1991, vol. 4, pp. 23-4 S.M.B. Khwānsārī, Rawḍāt al-jannāt, 9 vols, Beirut, 1991, vol. 4, pp. 391-3 M. Tunikābunī, Qiṣaṣ al-ʿulamāʾ, ed. M.R. Barzagar-Khāliqī and ʿI. Karbāsī, Tehran, 2004, pp. 191-210, 238-9 Secondary J. Esots, Patterns of wisdom in Safavid Iran. The Philosophical School of Isfahan and the Gnostic of Shiraz, London, 2021, pp. 226-7 S. Rizvi, ‘Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī’, in R. Pourjavady (ed.), Philosophy in Qajar Iran, Leiden, 2018, 125-78 M. Aminrazavi, ‘Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī’, with a translation of his glosses upon ‘the secrets of verses’ by L.-P. Peerwani, in S.H. Nasr and M. Aminrazavi (eds.), An anthology of philosophy in Persia, vol. 5. From the School of Shiraz to the twentieth century, London, 2015, 419-38 J. Eshots [sic], ‘Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī as an exponent of Mullā Ṣadrā’s teachings’, Transcendent Philosophy 12 (2011) 55-68; repr. in Ishraq. Islamic Philosophy Yearbook 7 (2016) 44-53 J. al-D. Āshtiyānī, ‘Muqaddima’, in Mullā Ṣadrā, Al-shawāhid al-rubūbiyya fī l-manāhij al-sulūkiyya, ed. J. al-D. Āshtiyānī, Qom, 1999, 86-95 Gh.-Ḥ. Riḍānizhād Nūshīn, Ḥakīm-i Sabzawārī. Zindagī, āthār, falsafa, Tehran, 1992, pp. 65-9 M. Ṣadūqī Suhā, Ḥukamāʾ wa ʿurafāʾ-yi muta‌ʾakhkhir az Ṣadr al-muta‌ʾallihīn, Tehran, 1980, pp. 33-40

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Ḥujjat al-Islām, ‘Evidence for Islam’; Burhān al-milla, ‘Proof of the religion’; Radd-i pādrī, ‘Refutation of a priest’ Date 1817 Original Language Persian Description Nūrī’s Ḥujjat al-Islām (‘Evidence for Islam’), also called Burhān al-milla (‘Proof of the religion’) or simply Radd-i pādrī (‘Refutation of a priest’), is a Shīʿī refutation of Christianity in Persian (in the edition by Nājī Iṣfahānī, it is 297 pages long). The polemical work, which was completed in 1817

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and dedicated to the Qajar ruler Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (r. 1797-1834), is directed against the Anglican missionary Henry Martyn (1781-1812). Martyn had composed several anti-Muslim tracts in Persian following a series of public disputations with the Shīʿī scholar Mīrzā Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī (d. 1839) during his stay in Shiraz between June 1811 and May 1812. In reaction to Martyn’s objections to Islam, the Qajar court, especially Crown Prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā (d. 1833) through his minister Mīrzā ʿĪsā Farāhānī (d. 1822), known as Qāʾim-Maqām, commissioned twelve Shīʿī scholars, among them Nūrī, to write a reply to the Anglican missionary. The request correlated with the Russo-Persian war of 1804-13, a period in which the shah had a strong interest in propagating the idea of a religious conflict between Christianity and Islam. Nūrī’s rebuttal of Martyn’s positions, whom he refers to in his text as pādrī-i Naṣrānī (the Christian priest) or simply as Naṣrānī (the Christian), is divided into two preliminary principles on the nature of being (see Nūrī, Ḥujjat al-Islām, ed. Nājī Iṣfahānī, pp. 10-11; references are to this edition). On the one hand, the Shīʿī scholar attacks the religion of his opponent from a general point of view and, on the other, he demonstrates the veracity of Islam and its teachings, mainly by rational argumentation. Throughout his work, Nūrī quotes portions from Martyn’s tracts and then successsively refutes them. Following these two preliminary principles, in a series of arguments Nūrī addresses core issues discussed by Christians and Muslims, such as God’s revelation, the mission of Muḥammad and the Imams, the nature of miracles and the signs of Muḥammad’s prophethood, as well as the divinity and inimitability of the Qur’an. By contrasting Jesus with Muḥammad, he criticises the Christian doctrines of the divine and human natures of Jesus and the Trinity. In his argument, Nūrī draws on earlier Shīʿī scholars, among them the theologian and philosopher ʿAbd al-Razzāq Lāhījī (d. 1661), the son-in-law and student of Mullā Ṣadrā, whom he criticises for his Avicennan positions regarding the nature of miracles (pp. 178-86). Besides Christianity, Nūrī also addresses Judaism and the Hebrew Bible by reinterpreting the four kingdoms in the Book of Daniel 2:31-45, 7:1-8 and 8:1-11 in favour of the victory of Islam (pp. 54-9). In this section, he draws on Jewish exegetical material in a Persian translation, which was available to him through Anbāʾ al-anbiyāʾ (‘Tidings of the prophets’), a mid-18th-century anti-Jewish tract by the converted Jew Ismāʿīl Qazvīnī, the father of the prominent Shīʿī scholar Ḥājjī Bābā Qazvīnī Yazdī. Most of the sources used by Nūrī, however, still remain to be identified.

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Significance Nūrī’s Ḥujjat al-Islām belongs to a series of Shīʿī responses to the Anglican missionary Henry Martyn that were commissioned by the Qajar court in the 1810s. The work thus represents a new phase in the production of Shīʿī anti-Christian writings: on the one hand, they were directed against Protestantism, the denomination to which a new generation of missionaries to Iran and to India belonged, and, on the other, they were closely linked to the shah’s political interest regarding his relations with Britain and with Russia. A systematic analysis of extant Shīʿī responses to Christianity, studied against the backdrop of the history of the early 19th century, is still lacking. The fact that Nūrī’s rebuttal of Martyn’s tracts is preserved in 22 manuscripts known to date, held by libraries in Iran and in India, points to its popularity among Muslim scholars. Publications MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī – 18234, 238 fols (1815-16; see Y. Iʿtiṣāmī et al., Fihrist-i Kitābkhāna-yi Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Millī, vol. 1-, Tehran, 1926-, vol. 50, p. 74) MS Hamadan, Kitābkhāna-yi Gharb – 1489/6, fols 187-344 (1816-17; see J. Maqṣūd, Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭī-i Kitābkhāna-yi Gharb, Madrasa-yi Ākhūnd – Hamadān, Hamadān, 1974, p. 337) MS Tehran, Kitābkhāna-yi Millī-i Malik – 304, 119 fols (1816-17, copied by Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī; see Ī. Afshār and M.T. Dānishpazhūh, Fihrist-i kitābhā-yi khaṭṭī-i Kitābkhāna-yi Millī-i Malik, 12 vols, Tehran, 197396, vol. 2, p. 207) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī – 76, 249 fols (13 March 1817, copied by Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Jaʿfar al-Ḥasanī, donated by Tāj-Māh Bēgum in 1845-6; see ʿA.A. Javān et al., Fihrist-i kutubi khaṭṭī-i Kitābkhāna-yi Markazī-i Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī, Mashhad, 21987-, vol. 1, pp. 114-15, no. 119; M.Ā. Fikrat, Fihrist-i alifbāʾī-i kutub-i khaṭṭī-i Kitābkhāna-yi Markazī-i Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī, Mashhad, 1990, p. 214) MS Tehran, Dānishkada-yi Ilāhiyyāt – 83/1, fols 8-99 (1817-18, copied by ʿAlī Murād ibn Ḥusayn ibn Sabz ʿAlī Siyārastāqī Tunikābunī Gīlānī in the madrasa of Mīrzā Ḥusayn in Isfahan; see M.T. Dānishpazhūh, Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭī-i Kitābkhāna-yi Dānishkada-yi Ilāhiyyāt u Maʿārif-i Islāmī-i Dānishgāh-i Tihrān, 2 vols, Tehran, 1966-9, vol. 1, p. 229)

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MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī – 2065, 204 pages (1817-18, copied by Mullā Ḥājjī Muḥammad; see Iʿtiṣāmī et al., Fihrist-i Kitābkhāna-yi Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Millī, vol. 6, pp. 59-60) MS Tehran, Kitābkhāna-yi Millī-i Malik – 6930, 92 fols (1817-18, copied by Ghiyāth al-Dīn ibn Ṣadr al-Dīn Ḥusaynī Bārfurūshī); 355478bb (digitised version available through the Digital library of the National Library of Iran, https://dl.nlai.ir/UI/355478bb-2dd6-4ef2 -bef2-90595059e5cf/Catalogue.aspx) MS Tehran, Dānishkada-ya Ilāhiyyāt – 354, 111 fols (23 January 1818; see Dānishpazhūh, Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭī-i Kitābkhāna-yi Dānishkada-yi Ilāhiyyāt u Maʿārif-i Islāmī-i Dānishgāh-i Tihrān, vol. 1, p. 46) MS Tehran, Kitābkhāna-yi Markazī u Markaz-i Asnād-i Dānishgāh-i Tihrān – 2871/1, fols 2-25 (1831-2; see ʿA.N. Munzavī, M.T. Dānishpazhūh et al., Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭī-i Kitābkhāna-yi Markazī u Markaz-i Asnād-i Dānishgāh-i Tihrān, vol. 1-, Tehran, 1951-, vol. 10, pp. 1715-16) MS Tehran, Kitābkhāna-yi Millī-i Malik – 754, 165 fols (1845-6; see Afshār and Dānishpazhūh, Fihrist-i kitābhā-yi khaṭṭī-i Kitābkhāna-yi Millī-i Malik, vol. 2, p. 207) MS Hyderabad, India, Salar Jung – Aq. 46, 96 fols (1855, copied by Ḥasan ibn ʿAbd al-Majīd Ḥusaynī Wāʿiẓ Iṣfahānī; see M. Ashraf, A catalogue of the Persian manuscripts in the Salar Jung Museum & Library, vol. 1-, Hyderabad, 1965-, vol. 7, pp. 375-6) MS Tehran, Dānishkada-yi Adabiyyāt – 142 (1866-7; see M.T. Dānish­ pazhūh, Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭī-i Dānishkada-yi Adabiyyāt, 3 vols, Tehran, 1960-2, vol. 3, p. 15) MS Tehran, Markaz-i Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif-i Buzurg-i Islāmī – 1132, 110 fols (December 1891, copied by Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Maḥmūd; see A. Munzawī, Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭī-i Markaz-i Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif-i Buzurg-i Islāmī, 2 vols, Tehran, 1998-2006, vol. 2, p. 86) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī – 14328 (1891-2; see Fikrat, Fihrist-i alifbāʾī-i kutub-i khaṭṭī-i Kitābkhāna-yi Markazī-i Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī, p. 214) MS Tehran, Kitābkhāna-yi Millī-i Malik – 1578, 193 fols (1891-2, copied by Ismāʿīl ibn Muḥammad ʿAlī Iṣfahānī; see Afshār and Dānishpazhūh, Fihrist-i kitābhā-yi khaṭṭī-i Kitābkhāna-yi Millī-i Malik, vol. 2, p. 207)

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MS Qom, Kitābhkāna-yi ʿUmūmī-i Āyat Allāh Gulpāyigānī – 2/123303, 135 fols (date unknown; see ʿA. Ṣadrāʾī Khūʾī and A.F. Ḥāfiẓiyān Bābulī, Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭī-i Kitābhkāna-yi ʿUmūmī-i Āyat Allāh Gulpāyigānī, 9 vols, Mashhad, 2009, vol. 3, p. 1581) MS Tehran, Dānishkada-yi Adabiyyāt – 115/15 (date unknown; see Dānishpazhūh, Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭī-i Dānishkada-yi Adabiyyāt, vol. 3, p. 15) MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī – 3958/1, pp. 1-163 (date unknown; see Iʿtiṣāmī et al., Fihrist-i Kitābkhāna-yi Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Millī, vol. 10, p. 2098) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī – 498, 66 fols (copied by Muḥammad Saʿīd Ḥusaynī Tunikābunī, collated by Mullā Ismāʿīl Iṣfahānī in 1819-20, donated to the library by ʿAḍud al-Mulk in 185960; see Javān et al., Fihrist-i kutub-i khaṭṭī-i Kitābkhāna-yi Markazī-i Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī, vol. 4, p. 91, no. 543, Fikrat, Fihrist-i alifbāʾī-i kutub-i khaṭṭī-i Kitābkhāna-yi Markazī-i Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī, p. 214) MS Qom, Kitābkhāna-yi ʿUmūmī-i Ḥaḍrat Āyat Allāh al-ʿuẓmā Marʿashī – 1062, 87 fols (date unknown; see A. Ḥusaynī, Fihrist-i Kitābkhāna-yi ʿUmūmī-i Ḥaḍrat Āyat Allāh al-ʿuẓmā Marʿashī Najafī, vol. 1-, Qom, 1975-, vol. 3, p. 249, no. 1062) MS Qom, Kitābkhāna-yi ʿUmūmī-i Ḥaḍrat Āyat Allāh al-ʿuẓmā Marʿashī – 16078/3, fols 10-98 (date unknown; copied by Muḥammad Jaʿfar Nūrī; see Ḥusaynī, Fihrist-i Kitābkhāna-yi ʿUmūmī-i Ḥaḍrat Āyat Allāh al-ʿuẓmā Marʿashī Najafī, vol. 40, pp. 667-8) MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī – 1131/4 (Ṭabāṭabāʾī), fols 137-141 (date unknown; see Iʿtiṣāmī et al., Fihrist-i Kitābkhāna-yi Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Millī, vol. 23, p. 598; the manuscript is listed under an incorrect shelf mark 1132/5 in M. Dirāyatī, Fihristvāra-yi dastnivishthā-yi Īrān [Dinā], 12 vols, Tehran, 2010, vol. 4, p. 499, no. 98921, and in M. Dirāyatī, Fihristgān: Nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭī-i Īrān [Fankhā], 45 vols, Tehran, 2012-15, vol. 12, p. 598, no. 18) ʿAlī Nūrī, Ḥujjat al-Islām (Burhān al-milla). Kitābī dar naqd-i guftār-i Henry Martyn, ed. Ḥ. Nājī Iṣfahānī, Tehran, 2012 (the edition is based on two manuscripts, MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī – 76, and MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī – 498; the latter is listed under an incorrect shelf mark 543, in the edition, pp. 7 [very brief introduction in English], 75 [extensive introduction in Persian])

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Studies Rizvi, ‘Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī’, esp. 153-5 D. Halft, ‘Ismāʿīl Qazvīnī. A twelfth/eighteenth-century Jewish convert to Imāmī Šīʿism and his critique of Ibn Ezra’s commentary on the Four Kingdoms (Daniel 2:31-45)’, in M.L. Hjälm (ed.), Senses of scripture, treasures of tradition. The Bible in Arabic among Jews, Christians and Muslims, Leiden, 2017, 280-304, pp. 291-2 Nājī Iṣfahānī, ‘Muqaddima’, in Nūrī, Ḥujjat al-Islām, ed. Nājī Iṣfahānī, Persian introduction, pp. 17-80, esp. pp. 40-74 Dennis Halft

Mir Muḥammad Ḥusayn Khātūnābādī Muḥammad Ḥusayn Khātūn Ābādī, Amīr Muḥammad Ḥusayn ibn Mīr ʿAbd al-Bāqī Ḥusaynī Khātūnābādī Iṣfahānī Date of Birth 1745 Place of Birth Isfahan Date of Death 1818 Place of Death Isfahan

Biography

Muḥammad Ḥusayn was the son of ʿAbd al-Bāqī Khātūnābādī, a member of a leading scholarly family from Khātūnābād that had come to Isfahan during the reign of the Safavid ruler ʿAbbās I (r. 1588-1628). Its members became local figures of note. Active during the period of the Afsharids (1736-50) and the Zands (1750-95), Muḥammad Ḥusayn’s father died in 1793 (or 1794) with several works on religious conduct and prayer to his name. Little is known about Muḥammad Ḥusayn’s education, though his writings make clear that he must have studied Islamic law as well as philosophy and rational theology. He apparently spent some time in Karbala following classes in Islamic law, and he was a student of the prominent Shīʿī scholar Muḥammad Bāqir Bihbahānī (d. 1791, surnamed ‘Waḥīd’) for a number of years (Khwānsārī, Rawḍāt al-jannāt, vol. 2, p. 364; Mahdawī, Aʿlām-i Iṣfahān, vol. 2, p. 697). He probably studied philosophy and theology with scholars from Isfahan who were living in Karbala at the time. Having completed his studies, Khātūnābādī settled in Isfahan, where he became active in the religious profession and was respected as a scholar. Following the death of his father, he was the leader of the Friday prayer in the central mosque of Isfahan (Mahdawī, Aʿlām-i Iṣfahān, vol. 2, p. 697). Fatḥ-ʿAlī (r. 1797-1834) bestowed on him the honorary title of Sulṭān al-ʿulamāʾ (‘king of scholars’; Muʿallim Ḥabībābādī, Makārim al-āthār, vol. 3, p. 959). In Isfahan, Khātūnābādī spent the greater part of his time teaching, besides occupying himself with religious affairs and his function as a leader of congregational and Friday prayers (Kirmānshāhī, Mirʾāt al-aḥwāl, vol. 1, p. 99). Some 800 students would attend his classes at any one time (Mahdawī, Aʿlām-i Iṣfahān, vol. 2, p. 698). From the study certificates issued by him, it becomes apparent that he also taught for a

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while in Tehran and in Mashhad (Amīn, Mustadrak, vol. 10, p. 263; Tehrānī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 12, p. 638). Seven extant works by Khātūnābādī dealing with theology, philosophy, law and religious manners, remain mostly unedited. These include three on polemical subjects, Jihādiyya, Risāla-yi radd-i pādrī, and Risāla dar tawḥīd (MS Tehran, Majlis – 1825), together with: Khalq al-afʿāl, composed in 1775 (MS Tehran University – 1825); Risāla‌ʾī dar jawāz-i intiqāl-i naʿsh-i murdagān bih ʿAtabāt (MS Tehran University – 5524); Ḥāshiya‌ʾī bar Kitāb-i Shifā-yi bū ʿAlī Sīnā (MS Qom, Marʿashī – 4838); Maṣābīḥ al-qulūb, on legal matters for the uninitiated (MS Tehran University – 5818). He also wrote Risāla‌ʾī dar qaḍā wa-qadar, which is not known to have survived (Muʿallim Ḥabībābādī, Makārim al-āthār, vol. 3, p. 959).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary MS Tehran, Majlis – 1825, Muḥammad Ḥusayn Khātūnābādī, Risāla dar tawḥīd Muḥammad Bāqir Khwānsārī, Rawḍāt al-jannāt fī aḥwāl al-ʿulamāʾ wa-l-sādāt, vol. 2, Tehran, 1970, p. 364 Āghā Aḥmad Kirmānshāhī, Mirʾāt al-aḥwāl Jahān-namā, Qom, 1994, pp. 97-8 Secondary Ḥ. Nājī Iṣfahānī, ‘Introduction’ to ‘Risālat Ḥāshiyat al-Khātūnābādī ʿalā Ilāhiyyāt Kitāb al-Shifāʾ’, in Mīrāth-i ḥawzayi Iṣfahān, Isfahan, 2022, vol. 16, pp. 345-58 Aṣghar Muntaẓir al-Qāʾim and Nāṣir Karīmpūr (eds), Dānishnāma-yi takht-i fūlād-i Iṣfahān, Isfahan, 2010-15, vol. 2 Muṣliḥ al-Dīn Mahdawī, Aʿlām-i Iṣfahān, vol. 3, ed. Ghulām Riḍā Naṣrullāhī, Isfahan, 2008 Muṣliḥ al-Dīn Mahdawī, Dānishmandān u buzurgān-i Iṣfahān, Isfahan, 2005 Aḥmad Ḥusaynī Ashkivarī, Tarājim al-rijāl, Qom, 2002 M.M. Āghā Buzurg al-Ṭihrānī, Ṭabaqāt aʿlām al-Shīʿa, vols 9-10, Beirut, 1998 Ḥasan Amīn, Mustadrak aʿyān al-Shīʿa, Beirut, 1987 Muḥammad ʿAlī Muʿallim Ḥabībābādī, Makārim al-āthār dar aḥwāl-i rijāl-i dawra-yi Qājār, Isfahan, 1985 M. Mahdawī, Rijāl Iṣfahān yā Tadhkirat al-qubūr, Isfahan, 1949

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Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Jihādiyya ‘Matters of holy war’ Date Between 1808 and 1813 Original Language Persian Description This work, written in the question-answer format, is about the legal position on holy war against Russia. Khātūnābādī wrote it during the first RussoPersian war (1803-13). Three copies are extant: two in the Āstān-i Quds-i Riḍawī Library in Mashhad (nos 2292 and 2348) and one in the Marʿashī Library in Qom (no. 12620). The treatise was edited by Muḥammad Ḥasan Rajabī in the collection of treatises and fatwās written in that period on jihād against Russia (Rasāʾil va fatāwā-yi jihādī), 50 pages long in the 1999 edition (pp. 121-71). Like many other legal rulings and explanatory tracts written during the two Russo-Persian wars, the Risāla-yi jihādiyya was intended to urge believers to participate in these wars; more precisely, to prove the legal case for fighting. After an introduction (p. 121) in which he quotes Q 4:95: ‘God has preferred in rank those who struggle with their possessions and their selves over the ones who sit at home’, Khātūnābādī refers to FatḥʿAlī Shah’s efforts to maintain the security and tranquility of the country and its inhabitants – a situation that changed from day to day with the assault of the ‘Russian hordes’ (pp. 122-3). When the Russians attacked Azerbaijan, the shah felt compelled to send his son ʿAbbās Mīrzā to do battle with them (p. 123). ʿAbbās Mīrzā wanted to be clear about the situation by getting answers to a number of legal questions and it is to this end that Khātūnābādī was called in to help. He continues by explaining that, over the last 12 years, ‘Russian infidels’ had subjugated considerable areas of Muslim lands, chasing its populations across its borders, spilling Muslim blood and pillaging wherever they went. He goes on to explain that scholars in the past had already dealt with almost all legal issues, though the subject of raids such as these to seize control of Muslim territory and the consequent duty to wage holy war had never been broached. Thus, it was incumbent on the learned community to clarify the legal aspects of such a war (pp. 123-5). After this introduction, there follow a number of queries, which, on the order of ‘His eminence most high’, probably a reference to ʿAbbās Mīrzā,

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Khātūnābādī then answers one by one, even if his answers are ‘of little substance, while anxiety remains’ (p. 125). The treatise contains 24 questions and answers on various aspects of holy war (pp. 125-70). Besides the usual topics, new ground is covered and it is this that gives this treatise its importance. Among the issues discussed, Question 1 treats the importance of holy war on Russia as an action worthy of reward, on a par with the holy wars waged by the Immaculate Imams (pp. 125-36). Question 2 is about those for whom engaging in holy war is a religious duty (pp. 136-8), while Question 3 goes into whether such a duty is collective (wājib-i kifāʾī) or individual (wājib-i ʿaynī; p. 138). Question 4 deals with the ‘jurisconsult of the age’ (mujtahid-i ʿaṣr) and his approval of this holy war as legal under Islamic law, as well as with the wider consideration that this war is defensive and so approval is in fact not needed (p. 139), even though later on Khātūnābādī refers among other things to financial aspects tied to this approval. Another matter concerns those trying to escape participating in it (Question 8, pp. 140-1). On the question of martial music, Khātūnābādī is of the opinion that such music is certainly allowed in times of war (Question 9, pp. 141-2) and there is also the question of whether it is permissible to make use of the services of French infidels to wage war against Russian infidels (Question 10, pp. 142-3). In Questions 11, 12 and 13, Muslims living in Russia are advised to flee these lands of idolatry (bilād-i shirk; pp. 143-8). The following two questions deal with the need for a vigilant persistence in this holy war (murābaṭa) (he gives a useful list of traditions concerning this) and with the financial aspects of it, including the matter of booty (pp. 148-50). In Question 23, which deals with the wartime obligations of officials administering customary law (ʿummāl-i ʿurf ) such as vizirs, head clerks, secretaries and others, Khātūnābādī says that all of them, including doctors, surgeons and artisans, will have their reward for participating in this holy war against the infidels (p. 156). Significance Khātūnābādī’s treatise explains the opinion of a Shīʿī jurist of the early Qajar period concerning military actions against Russian forces. By treating the military actions as a jihād, it is an attempt to place these actions within the framework of sharīʿa, in which jurists have the right to interfere. It also reveals the author’s opinion about a Muslim-Christian war.

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Publications MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī – 22921, 57 fols (undated) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī – 2348, 114 fols (undated) MS Qom, Marʿashī Library – 12620, 62 fols (undated) Muḥammad Ḥasan Rajabī (ed.), Rasāʾil u fatāwā-yi jihādī. Shāmil-i risālahā u fatvāhā-yi ʿulamāʾ-i Islāmī dar jihād bā qudrathā-yi istiʿmārī, Tehran, 1999, pp. 121-170 Studies C. Masroori, ‘Russian imperialism and jihad. Early 19th-century Persian texts on just war’, Journal of Church and State 46/2 (2004) 263-79

Risāla-yi radd-i pādrī ‘Treatise in refutation of the priest’ Date Between 1815 and 1818 Original Language Persian Description Risāla-yi radd-i pādrī was written in response to Henry Martyn’s first of three treatises responding to Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzʾī. It comes to just under a hundred pages in Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf. In the introduction, Khātūnābādī explains that ‘some Christian priest’ (namely, Martyn) had had the boldness to compose a text critical of matters to do with the inimitability of the Qur’an and the true metaphorical properties of qur’anic verses. Khātūnābādī regards it as a weak and disjointed piece, lacking any foundation. He goes on to say that, at the instigation of a number of high-placed personalities, among them Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah and the crown prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā, a number of scholars had taken up the pen to answer Martyn’s treatise. However, their answers were deemed unsatisfactory, and now Khātūnābādī had been requested to write a fitting rebuke (Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, pp. 377-8). Generally speaking, the controversy between Martyn and his opponents turned on the question of whether Muḥammad was a true prophet. Since his prophethood is founded on miracles, such as the inimitability of the Qur’an and other feats, the discussions revolve around the nature of wonders. The inimitability of the Qur’an is asserted in the Qur’an itself (e.g. Q 17:88, 11:13), where the Prophet is told to challenge his opponents to come up with something similar.

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Khātūnābādī lists 20 contentious issues concerning wonders, the first two in connection with the Jews and the remainder in answer to Henry Martyn. In each case, he first cites the view with which he disagrees and then follows with a critical analysis of it. His approach consists of a sectionby-section quotation from the work of Martyn, with his answer added. This work is a fine example of a well-structured and coherent piece of writing in this field. Indeed, in comparison with similar treatises in this field, it stands out as being more orderly and fluent. The issues he deals with include Martyn’s criticisms of ‘abrogation’ (naskh), the Sabbath, miracles, the uniqueness of the Qur’an, the assertion that there is no mention of the name Muḥammad in earlier scriptures, and other related matters. Before embarking upon his answers, Khātūnābādī gives a detailed explanation of the conceptual differences between miracles (muʿjizāt), sorcery (siḥr) and magic ( jādū), wondrous acts by holy men (karāmāt), false miracles (muʿjizāt-yi durūgh), the extraordinary (khāriq-i ʿādat) and similar notions, all with a view to being better able to proceed once certain concepts have been clarified. He also gives a detailed explanation of the concept of the inimitability (iʿjāz) of the Qur’an, followed by an account of the different forms this inimitability may take, stating that this is more than just rhetoric. In addition, he also mentions the rich variation in the miracles ascribed to the Prophet. Khātūnābādī made a special effort to make sure that his answers would reflect the common views expressed in Islamic theology and tradition, producing a coherent and unified account. Significance The lasting significance of Risāla-yi radd-i pādrī is in its being a prime example, both in substance and in form, of a Muslim intellectual response to a Christian theological critique of Islam. In his response to Martyn’s work, Khātūnābādī does not himself show any familiarity with relevant Christian literature, though he does not take an aggressive stance towards Martyn. Instead, he endeavours to produce rational arguments based on Islamic sources (such as Muḥammad Bāqir Majlisī’s [d. 1698] Ḥayāt al-qulūb and Ḥaqq al-yaqīn) in order to counter Martyn’s perceived errors. This work was thus something of a model Muslim refutation (though any later works that may show its influence have not so far been traced). Publications MS Tehran, Majlis – 3953, 110 fols (undated) MS Qom, Markaz-i Iḥyāʾ-i Mīrāth-i Islāmī – 406, 75 fols (5 July 1815, copied at the request of the author) MS Tehran, University of Tehran – 5524, fols 19v-61v (9 February 1816)

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MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Riḍawī – 6916 (1819-20) Muḥammad Ḥusayn Khātūnābādī, ‘Risāla-yi radd-i pādrī’, in R. Jaʿfariyān and M. Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf. Guzārishī az guftugūhā-yi Masīḥī-Islāmī dar dawra-yi Ṣafavī u Qajārī, Tehran, 2016, pp. 375-473 (edition based on MS Tehran, Majlis – 3953 and MS Qom, Markaz-i Iḥyāʾ-i Mīrāth-i Islāmī – 406) Studies Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, pp. 359-65 Rasul Jafarian

Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qummī Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad Ḥasan ibn Naẓar ʿAlī l-Shaftī l-Gīlānī l-Qummī; Mīrzā Qummī; Mīrzā-yi Qummī; Muḥaqqiq-i Qummī Date of Birth Approximately 1738-40 Place of Birth Darra Bāgh, Iran Date of Death Approximately 1817-18 Place of Death Qom

Biography

Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qummī was born into a scholarly family in the village of Darra Bāgh in western Iran. His father, Muḥammad Ḥasan, was a religious scholar from Shaft in the Gilan province of northern Iran – hence his son’s title as Shaftī and Gīlānī. In his childhood, Abū l-Qāsim studied Arabic grammar and literature under his father. In Khwānsār, a part of Isfahan province, he studied jurisprudence ( fiqh) and legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh) under Sayyid Ḥusayn Khwānsārī, whose sister he married. In 17601, after receiving permission to narrate Hadiths (riwāya) from Khwānsārī, he went to Karbala and became a student of Muḥammad Bāqir Bihbahānī, known as Waḥīd (d. 1791-2), who was widely considered the reviver of Shīʿī Imāmī legal theory against the Akhbārīs. After receiving narration and ijtihād permission from Bihbahānī, Qummī initially returned to his birthplace, then spent time at Isfahan and Shiraz during the period when Karīm Khān Zand (r. 1751-79) ruled, and finally arrived in Qom around 1780. He lived there for around 40 years until his death. He had a good relationship with the founder of the Qajar dynasty, Āqā Muḥammad Khān (r. 1789-97), and with Khān’s successor Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (r. 1797-1834) for whom he wrote Irshād nāma, a treatise in which he criticises the fatalistic political theology according to which the king is divinely destined irrespective of whatever he does, whether he is just or unjust. He argued that God has given humans free will and they themselves, including the ruler, are responsible for what they do; otherwise God’s reward and punishment would be futile (‘Irshād nāma’, pp. 378-81).

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Abū l-Qāsim’s presence and activities revived Qom as the centre of Islamic learning in Iran after its post-Safavid decline. It was because of his long residence there that he became known as Qummī. Among his disciples, the most famous was Muḥammad Bāqir al-Shaftī (1761-1844), who is considered the first Shīʿī jurist bearing the title of Ḥujjat al-Islām (‘Proof of Islam’). Qummī has been widely credited with a rather radical and idiosyncratic doctrinal position in the history of Imāmī legal theory, the view that in the period of the Twelfth Imam’s occultation every opinion (ẓann) of a mujtahid has ‘probative force’ (ḥujjiyya) in the process of ijtihād (because there is no higher authority to contradict him). This differed from mainstream Imāmī legal theory, which was of the view that only specific opinions (ẓunūn khāṣṣa) sanctioned by the Prophet or the Imams have authority. The root cause of the difference between the majority of Imāmī ʿulamāʾ and Qummī in this regard is that, while they consider the gate of legal knowledge (ʿilm) and what is tantamount to knowledge (ʿilmī) open in the absence of the Imām, Qummī takes both gates as closed (insidād bāb ʿilm wa-ʿilmī). Simply put, Qummī argues that, in the absence of the Imam, legal knowledge is inaccessible. Opening the gate of legal knowledge and what is tantamount to it would discredit (with a few exceptions) the probative force of any legal opinion (ẓann) of a mujtahid, whereas closing the gates would open for Qummī the gate of taking every legal opinion issued by a mujtahid as having at least pro tanto probative force in the absence of the Imam. His best-known book in legal theory is Al-qawānīn al-muḥkama fī l-uṣūl al-mutqana, better known as Qawānīn al-uṣūl. This was completed in 1791 and soon became a seminary textbook, used until recent times in Shīʿī seminaries in both Iran and Iraq. More than 40 commentaries have been written on it, including a commentary by Shaykh Murtaḍā Anṣārī, the later authoritative expert in Imāmī legal theory. Abū l-Qāsim Qummī is considered one of the most prolific Twelver Shīʿī scholars. In addition to his main works such as Jāmiʿ al-shatāt and Qawānīn, more than a hundred treatises on various ‘Islamic sciences’ have been attributed to him (Khwānsārī, Rawḍāt al-jannāt, vol. 5, p. 373). Qummī also composed poetry in Persian and Arabic and some theurgies (kirāmāt) have been attributed to him in Imāmī hagiographical sources. He was around 81 years old when he died, and he was buried in Shaykhān cemetery in Qom.

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MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qummī, ‘Irshād nāma-yi mīrzā-yi Qummī’, ed. Ḥasan Qāḍī Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Nashrīya-yi Dānishkada-yi Adabīyāt-i Tabrīz 87 (1967) 365-83 Mīrzā Muḥammad Bāqir Khwānsārī, Rawḍāt al-jannāt fī aḥwāl al-ʿulamā’ wa-lsādāt, Qom, 1972-3, vol. 5, pp. 369-80 Seyyed Hossein Modarressi Tabatabai (ed.), ‘Panj nāma az Fatḥ-ʿAlī shah-i Qājār bi mīrzā-yi Qummī’, Barrisihā-yi Tārīkhī 59 (1975) 247-76 Muḥammad ʿAlī Mudarris Tabrīzī, Rayḥānat al-adab fī tarājim al-maʿrūfīn bi-lkunya wa-l-laqab, Tehran, 1995-6, vol. 6, pp. 68-71 Muḥammad Tunikābunī, Qiṣaṣ al-ʿulamāʾ, Tehran, 2005, pp. 225-8 Secondary Mohammad Hossein Mokhtari, Hossein Fouladi Darabi and Mojtaba Rostami Kia, ‘The impossibility of episteme from the viewpoint of Mirza Qomi and Gadamer (comparative study)’, Journal of Fiqh and Usul 53 (2021) 141-58 Āghā Buzurg Ṭihrānī, Ṭabaqāt aʿlām al-Shīʿa. Kirām al-Barara fī l-qarn al-thālith baʿd al-ʿishra, Beirut, 2009, vol. 10, pp. 52-4 Muḥammad-Ḥossayn al-ʿIrfānī, Al-Mīrzā al-Qummī, bāʿith ʿilm al-uṣūl, trans. Kamāl al-Sayyid, Qom, 1995 Sayyid Muḥsin Amīn, Aʿyān al-Shīʿa, Beirut, 1983, vol. 2, pp. 411-13 Ḥusayn Mīrzāʾī, ‘Sharḥ-i ḥāl-i marḥūm Mīrzāy-i Qummī’, Rāh-i ḥaqq, published in 10 parts, 1958-9

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Jāmiʿ al-shatāt ‘The scattered collection’ Date 1817-18 Original Language Persian Description Jāmiʿ al-shatāt (‘The scattered collection’), compiled by an unknown collector sometime after the death of the author, is a compendium of legal questions posed by unknown persons to Qummī together with his answers in Persian and Arabic. The collection is arranged in 32 chapters and covers legal issues from ritual purity and prayer to marriage contracts. The focus here is on the chapter that deals with aḥkām al-jihād (regulations governing offensive war). Qummī defends the permissibility of defensive war in certain circumstances while arguing against offensive

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war (missionary or primary jihād or jihād ibtidāʾī) during the period of occultation of the Twelfth Imam, because the right to wage offensive war is the prerogative only of the Imam or his ‘special deputy’. The right to fight against armed Muslim rebels is also reserved only for the Imam or his special deputy. Qummī is clear that even a qualified (jāmiʿ al-sharāʾiṭ) jurist, even though he may be considered the Imam’s ‘general deputy’ (nāʾib al-ʿāmm), is not allowed to wage missionary or primary jihād against unbelievers or rebels, the implication being that the shah is not allowed to declare jihād. In contrast, in the case of a defensive war, a qualified jurist should be consulted concerning its legal legitimacy and the shah is permitted to lead and finance it out of the land tax. Qummī emphasises time and again that the term jihād is to be applied only to an offensive war. A defensive war is not a real jihād because defence can only be regarded as jihād metaphorically. Defensive war is justified when Muslim lands or people are attacked by non-Muslims in such a way that the ‘citadel of Islam’ (bayḍat al‐Islām) and the Muslim community are in serious danger. In such a situation no permission, either from a qualified jurist or Muslim ruler, is needed to mount a defence and, indeed, Muslims could, or rather should, fight unbelieving attackers even under the leadership of an unjust ruler if necessary. This duty, however, is a ‘collective duty’ (wājib kifāʾī), though if those who are closer to the Muslim lands under attack are capable of deterring the attackers, other Muslims who are further away are under no obligation to engage directly in the defence. For Qummī, the legal difference between jihād and defensive war is that, while in the former those who are killed are truly martyrs, in the latter they are ‘like martyrs’ but are not real or actual martyrs. He is reluctant to say that for those who are killed in a defensive war the Islamic burial rites, such as washing, shrouding and funeral prayer are exempted, as is the case with martyrs in an offensive war. His dictum is that, if a defensive war is carried out by an unjust ruler, most funeral rites are not exempted (ed. Morteẓā Raẓavī, p. 380, but see also pp. 390-1 where he seems to be taking a different stance, or at least is not explicit about his own view). The fatwās or juristic considerations regarding jihād in this chapter are not always discussed in an abstract way, detached from current events. Rather, there are clear and numerous references to the first Russian War (1804-13) and how to deal with it from a juridical perspective (see pp. 377403, 457-86).

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Significance A Shīʿī jurist’s position on jihād might be taken as an indication of his theory of political government in the period of occultation. If he sanctions a government to wage war against unbelievers attacking Muslims, it might be taken as a sign that he regards the government as legitimate. Qummī’s position on jihād, which is in favour of Muslims joining the Qajar war against Russia, might then be interpreted as his de jure recognition of the Qajar government. But a close reading of Qummī’s fatwās and his juristic discussions on jihād suggests that he takes a rather subtle position in this regard. He only accords de facto recognition to the Qajar government and implies that defensive war is waged only to protect Muslims and not the government as such, since the policies of the government are not sacrosanct. The clearest example of this in this chapter is when some representatives of the Qajar court ask Qummī whether he is willing to designate someone as a ‘religious custodian’ (mutaṣaddī-yi sharʿī) of war against Russia to work alongside its civil (ʿurf ) custodian. His response is rather short, enigmatically sarcastic and evasive: ‘Among my endless troubles, only this much has remained to make the civil (ʿurf ) align with the religious (sharʿ)’ (p. 401). He then goes on to reiterate that defensive war needs the permission of neither the Imam nor a qualified jurist. He adds that, even assuming a qualified mujtahid’s permission is needed to declare defensive war, he himself is still not willing to interfere in affairs of war as a consultant. It is because, as a qualified mujtahid, he is not politically in charge of applying Islamic law as he does not have basṭ-i yadd, sufficient power to implement sharīʿa freely. He thus avoids giving credit to the Qajar government, even in the context of a defensive war against Russia. His position, then, seems to be in line with the mainstream political theology of Imāmī jurists, to the effect that, during the occultation of the Imam, any ruler, even a just ruler, is a usurper and unjust ( jāʾir), since only the Imam has the right to rule. But in the absence of the hidden Imam, unjust rule is better than no rule, as the latter leads to chaos and anarchy and, therefore, the weakening of Muslims. Publications Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qummī, Jāmi‘ al-shatāt, Tehran, 1893; 009026102 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qummī, Jāmi‘ al-shatāt, Tehran, 1976

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Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qummī, Jāmi‘ al-shatāt, ed. Morteẓā Raẓavī, Tehran, 1992, vol 1, pp. 347-415 Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qummī, Jāmi‘ al-shatāt, Qum, 2021, vol. 3 Studies Dihqān-Nayyirī Luqmān, Mortaḍā Dihqān-Nizhād and Sayyid Ḥasan Qurayshī Kerīn, ‘Mīrzā-yi Qummī va ḥavādith-i sīyāsī, ijtimāʿī va mazhhabī-yi ʿaṣr-i ū’, Tārīkh 7 (2008) 89-122 Dihqān-Nizhad Morteza, Firiydūn Allāhyārī and Sayyid Ḥasan Qurayshī Kerīn, ‘Jihād u difāʾaz dīdgāh-i Mīrzā-yi Qummī va Imām Khumaynī, siyāsat-i difāʿī’, Tārīkh 7 (2008) 155-85 Muḥammad ʿAlī Khayrullāhī, ‘Dīdgāhhā-yi fiqhī-yi Mīrzāy-i Qummī dar jarayān-i janghhā-yi Īrān u Rūssiyya’, Fiqh u Mabānī-yi Ḥuqūq 5 (2006) 131-50 R. Gleave, ‘Jihad and the religious legitimacy of the early Qajar state’, in R. Gleave (ed.), Religion and society in Qajar Iran, New York, 2005, 41-70 Abdul-Hadi Hairi, ‘The legitimacy of the early Qajar rule as viewed by the Shi’i religious leaders’, Middle Eastern Studies 24 (1988) 271-86

Risāla fī aḥkam al-jizya fī zamān al-ghayba ‘Treatise on poll tax regulations in the period of occultation’ Date 1817-18 Original Language Arabic Description This is another chapter of Jāmiʿ al-shatāt in which Qummī contends that, even during the time of the occultation of the Twelfth Imam the law of jizya is to be applied to dhimmīs, that is non-Muslims who are under Muslim rule and who are not enemies of Muslims but are not willing to convert to Islam. The jizya law is still to be applied whether administered by a just jurist or by an unjust ruler. Either way, the ruler is responsible for implementing jizya law. The revenue from the jizya should be spent on Muslim fighters and then (or instead, if there are no fighters) on the public welfare of Muslims.

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When a dhimmī broke the dhimma law in the period of the Imams, the dhimmī could be killed, enslaved, pardoned or deported to dār al-ḥarb. But in the period of occultation, killing and enslaving are not options; rather, the dhimmī can only be deported – unless he has killed a Muslim or insulted the Prophet Muḥammad or the sacred doctrines of Islam. In such cases the dhimmī can be executed. Qummī concludes that, even in the time of an unjust ruler, if dhimmīs living under his rule observe the dhimma law they should be protected, and therefore attacking them is not permissible. Qummī argues against jurists who think non-Muslims in dār al-ḥarb could justifiably become the subject of attack by Muslims, even randomly without the permission of the Imam and when there is no war between Muslims and non-Muslims. According to these jurists, non-Muslims, including their wives and children, could be kidnapped and enslaved, their property could be confiscated even by robbery and trickery at a time of peace between Muslims and non-Muslims. Qummī, however, argues that the mere fact of them being likely to fight (mujarrad kawnihim ḥarbiyyīn) does not justify their enslavement or the confiscation of their property (pp. 269-72). Qummī then proposes the following conditions of dhimma law: 1. The dhimmī should pay the poll tax; 2. He should not break the peace pact by, for instance, fighting Muslims or helping non-Muslims fight against Muslims; 3. He should not commit adultery with a Muslim woman; 4. He should not marry a Muslim woman; 5. He should not convert Muslims; 6. He should not commit robbery; 7. He should not shelter a spy; 8 He should not reveal Muslim secrets to enemies; 9. He should not kill a (male or female) Muslim; 10. He should avoid insulting Muslim beliefs; 11. He should avoid doing in public that which is undesirable (munkar) according to sharīʿa; 12. He should not build a synagogue or a church or ring a church bell, or build his buildings higher than those of Muslims, and dhimmīs are to be distinct in their appearance from Muslims in, for example, clothing, titles and the animals they ride. Significance Overall, Qummī has a moderate view with respect to the treatment of religious minorities. They are either dhimmīs, who are then protected by definition, or ḥarbīs, who cannot be attacked unless they have already launched hostilities against Muslims. And even in such a situation, Muslims are only allowed to fight in order to defend themselves.

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Qummī’s theory of jizya law, especially his critique of jurists who think ḥarbīs could be kidnapped and enslaved and their property confiscated even if they are not at war with Muslims, has not so far been the subject of detailed study. The virtual absence of the juristic anti-dhimmī position after Qummī in Imāmī legal works and the consensus among jurists that dhimmīs should be protected under Muslim law may indicate the effectivenss of Qummī’s criticism of the anti-dhimmī position. Publications Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim al-Qummī, Rasāʾil al-Mīrzā l-Qummī, ed. ʿAbbās Tabrīziyān, Qom, 2005, vol. 1, pp. 257-75

Risāla dar iʿjāz-i Qurʾān ‘Treatise on the inimitability of the Qur’an’ Date Early 19th century Original Language Persian Description Risāla dar iʿjāz-i Qurʾān is a short (less than 20 pages), incomplete treatise in reply to the first treatise that the Christian missionary Henry Martyn (1781-1812) had written in response to Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Fasāʾī (fl. 1812). In his work, Martyn argues that both Muslims and Christians agree on the prophethood of Jesus Christ, but Muslims further claim that Muḥammad came as a prophet of God after Jesus, and thus the religion of Jesus is superseded by the religion of Muḥammad. Martyn contends that the burden of proof is upon Muslims to substantiate their additional claim for Muḥammad’s prophethood. Otherwise the agreed point between Christians and Muslims, which is the continuing prophethood of Jesus, would be already proved and consequently, when Christians enter into discussions with Muslims, they should not need to establish this point afresh. Martyn then goes on to criticise the Islamic claim for Muḥammad’s prophethood by presenting a critique of the ‘inimitability’ (muʿjiza) of the Qur’an (Lee, Controversial tracts, pp. 80-101), concluding that, since this has not been proved but rather disproved, the prophethood of Jesus is already established without the need to argue for it directly. In response, Qummī argues that Christians bear the equal burden to prove their claim to the continuing prophethood of Jesus. What is common between Christians and Muslims is simply his prophethood and

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not that Jesus is the prophet of God ‘till the end of days’ (‘Iʿjāz-i Qurʾān’, p. 1225). For this additional claim Christians should produce fresh arguments, and therefore when discussing with Muslims they should not shift the burden of proof by a fallacious appeal to the point of agreement between Christians and Muslims (p. 1229). To substantiate his claim, Qummī enumerates what he thinks are all the possible options between Christians and Muslims concerning the ‘special prophethood’ (al-nubuw­ wat al-khāṣṣa) of Jesus and Muḥammad, although he does not use this technical term. These are that: 1. God sent Jesus as His prophet ‘till the end of days’; 2. God sent Jesus as His prophet until the coming of Muḥammad, and so Muḥammad is the promised prophet of God after Jesus; 3. God sent Jesus as His prophet, but He remained silent about the duration of his prophethood, and 4. God sent Jesus as His prophet until the coming of Muḥammad, but Muḥammad is not the promised prophet of God after Jesus. Qummī contends that options 1, 3, and 4 are denied by Muslims, while option 2 is denied by Christians, with the result that none of them is an agreed point between Christians and Muslims. Since the common point is only the fact of Jesus’s prophethood, Christians should argue directly and independently for what they think is his continuing prophethood (p. 1237). Significance This work remained unpublished until only a few decades ago. In 1973, Hossein Modarressi Tabatabai discovered the incomplete manuscript and published a part of it. But he mistakenly assumed that Martyn’s treatise, which is called Mizān al-ḥaqq (‘The balance of truth’), was by Karl Gottlieb Pfander (1803-65), a later German Christian polemicist who also wrote a polemic under the same title. Martyn and Qummī had no direct contact, although when Martyn was on his way to Tehran he asked to see and discuss theological issues with him in Qom but Qummī declined, apparently due to his illness (see Dihqān-Nayyirī et al., ‘Mīrzā-yi Qummī va ḥavādith-i sīyāsī’, pp. 110-11). The discussion between the two over who holds the burden of proof concerning the prophethood of Muḥammad is an instance of an ongoing contemporary philosophical debate regarding the burden of proof. Publications Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qummī, ‘Iʿjāz-i Qurʾān, pāsukh bi shubahāt-i Henry Martyn dar mawḍūʿ-i iʿjāz-i Qurʾān’, ed. Seyyed Hossein and Modarressi Tabatabai, Vaḥīd 109 (1973) 1115-18; 110 (1973) 1225-37

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Studies Luqmān Dihqān-Nayyirī, Mortaḍā Dihqān-Nizhād and Sayyid Ḥasan Qurayshī Kirīn, ‘Mīrzā-yi Qummī va ḥavādith-i sīyāsī, ijtimāʿī va mazhhabī-yi ʿaṣr-i ū’, Tārīkh 7 (2008) 89-122 Jaʿfar Iṣfahānī, ‘Mīrzā-yi Qummī va raddiya-yi ū bar Hinrī Mārtīn’, Tārīkh u Farhang-i Muʿāṣir 2 (1992) 258-63 S. Lee, Controversial tracts on Christianity and Mohammedanism, Cambridge, 1824 S. Yaser Mirdamadi

Ḥusayn ʿAlī-Shah Iṣfahānī Muḥammad Ḥusayn Iṣfahānī, Zayn al-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥusayn ʿAlī Shah Iṣfahānī Date of Birth Unknown; presumably mid-18th century Place of Birth Probably Khansar, Isfahan Date of Death 1818 Place of Death Karbala

Biography

Muḥammad Ḥusayn Iṣfahānī, known as Zayn al-Dīn with the Sufi title Ḥusayn ʿAlī-Shah, was the head of the Niʿmatullāhī Sufi order from 1800 to 1818. He came from a scholarly family and was probably born in Khansar (Khwānsār) near Isfahan, though some think Tabriz. He was known as a religious scholar, preacher and jurist. In his youth, Muḥammad Ḥusayn studied religious sciences, particularly fiqh, in Isfahan, and was a preacher in mosques. After completing his studies, he became a disciple of the Niʿmatullāhī Sufi masters Maṣʿūm ʿAlī-Shah (d. 1797), Nūr ʿAlī-Shah (d. 1797) and Fayḍ ʿAlī-Shah (d. 1785). Nūr ʿAlī-Shah appointed him as a spiritual leader and instructed him to return to his home town. Later, Muḥammad Ḥusayn moved to the Madrasa-yi ʿAlī-Qulī Āqā in Isfahan, where he taught and preached. This allowed him to cultivate better relations with the Shīʿī ʿulamāʾ, though as a Sufi he was not safe from their criticisms, jealousy and attacks. He was accused of treason and was summoned by Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (r. 1797-1834) to Tehran for interrogation. The shah was so impressed with him that he asked to receive spiritual instruction from him. He sent him back to Isfahan, with permission to continue to lead public prayers. In 1818, Muḥammad Ḥusayn went to Karbala on pilgrimage, having appointed his successor as leader of his order. He died on 10 November 1818, and was buried in the mosque of Sayyid Kāzim Rashtī near the holy city.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī – 22920 (Riḍā-Qulī Khān Hidāyat, Uṣūl al-fuṣūl) Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn Mast ʿAlī-Shāh Shīrvānī, Bustān al-sīyāḥa, Tehran, 1936 Muḥammad Maʿṣūm Shīrāzī, Ṭarāʾiq al-ḥaqāʾiq, vol. 3, Tehran, 1966

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Secondary Abbas Amanat, Resurrection and renewal. The making of the Babi movement in Iran, 1844-1850, New York, 1989 ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn Zarrīnkūb, Dunbāla-yi justjū dar taṣavvuf-i Īrān, Tehran: Intishārāt-i Amīr Kabīr, 1983 M. Moosa, Extremist Shiites. The Ghulat sects, Syracuse NY, 1988 W.R. Royce, ‘Mīr Maʿṣūm ʿAlī Shāh and the Niʿmat Allāhī revival 1776-77 to 179697. A study of Sufism and its opponents in late eighteenth century Īrān’, Princeton NJ, 1979 (PhD diss. Princeton University) N. Pourjavady and P.L. Wilson, Kings of love. The poetry and history of the Ni‘matullāhī Sufi order, Tehran, 1978 M. de Miras, La méthode spirituelle d’un maître du soufism iranien, Nur ‘Ali-Shah, circâ 1748 1798, Paris, 1974

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Risāla-yi radd-i pādrī ‘A treatise in refutation of the priest’ Date 1812-19 Original Language Persian Description Henry Martyn began his missionary work in Iran in 1811; Muḥammad Maʿṣūm Shīrāzī calls this a ‘calamity’ ( fitna) for Iranian society (Ṭarāʾiq, vol. 3, p. 227). Martyn’s time in the country and the polemical treatises he wrote gave rise to a new literary genre among Shīʿī scholars, known as ‘refutations of the priest’ (radd-i pādrī). Muḥammad Ḥusayn’s Risāla-yi radd-i padrī was either the first or one of the first of these, and the probable basis of later examples. In its published form it is 184 pages long, without chapter divisions. Most of the treatises in response to Henry Martyn were written at the request of the crown prince’s vizier, Mīrzā ʿĪsā Farāhānī, known as Mīrzā Buzurg (d. 1821). Although Muḥammad Ḥusayn does not mention his name in the introduction to the Risāla, he does say that he has written it at the request ‘of a friend’ (baʿḍī az dūstān), suggesting that he may have received the request from the vizier indirectly. He certainly eulogises the crown prince, together with the shah, at the beginning of the work. In the treatise, he responds to the ‘futile’ objections of Martyn, who has rejected the miracle of the Qur’an and other miracles of Muḥammad, accusing Martyn of being motivated by ‘carnal desires and temptations

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from Satan’ (Risāla, p. 45). He explains the principles of the Islamic faith, the oneness and justice of God, prophethood, imāma and resurrection, and points out that he does not rely on Islamic sources as evidence for Muḥammad’s prophethood, but employs rational arguments that would be acceptable to anyone from any religion (p. 51). His method is to cite a passage from Martyn’s treatise and then refute it. There is no indication anywhere in the work that he is familiar with other Christian works, and he even refrains from referring to any Muslim works, rather restricting his responses to dialectical arguments alone. Significance The treatise had considerable influence on the radd-i pādrī genre. Indeed, Muḥammad Maʿṣūm Shīrāzī claims that it forms the basis of all subsequent responses to Martyn by the ʿulamāʾ (Ṭarāʾiq, vol. 3, p. 227). It is noteworthy that Riḍā Qulī Khān Hidāyat (d. 1871) incorporated most of it into his Aṣl al-uṣūl fī ḥuṣūl al-wuṣūl (Risāla, pp. 42-3). Publications MS Mashhad, Astān-i Quds Raḍawī – 6916 MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī – 3958 MS Tehran, Kitābkhānih Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī – 12972 (Riḍā-Qulī Khān Hidāyat, Uṣūl al-fuṣūl) MS Hamadan, Bu-Ali Sina University – 578 (Riḍā-Qulī Khān Hidāyat, Uṣūl al-fuṣūl) Muḥammad Ḥusayn, Risāla-yi radd-yi pādrī, ed. Maḥmūd Riḍā Isfandiyār, Tehran, 2008 Studies Riḍā-Qulī Khān Hidāyat, Tadhkira-yi rīyāḍ al-ʿārifīn, Tehran, 2007 Abbas Amanat, ‘Mujtahids and missionaries. Shī’ī responses to Christian polemics in the early Qajar period’, in R. Gleave (ed.), Religion and society in Qajar Iran, London, 2005, 247-69 Ḥājj Mīrzā Muḥammad Bāqir Sulṭānī, Rahbarān-i ṭarīqat u ʿirfān, Tehran, 1992 ʿAbd al-Hādī Ḥāʾirī, Nakhustīn rūyārūyī-i andīshagarān-i Īrān, Tehran, 1988 Muḥammad Maʿṣūm Shīrāzī, Ṭarāʾiq al-ḥaqāʾiq Reza Tabandeh

Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī Mīrzā Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī, Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ Kāzirūnī Date of Birth About 1790 Place of Birth Kazerun, Shiraz Date of Death About 1845 Place of Death Unknown; Iran

Biography

Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī was born in Kazerun, a city to the west of Shiraz, at the end of the 18th century. His father, Ḥājj Bāqir Khān Kāzirūnī, was a merchant. Since Mīrza Ṣāliḥ is known as Shīrāzī, he must have spent his early youth in this city. He later moved to Tabriz, where he was in the service of the Qajar crown prince, ʿAbbās Mīrzā (d. 1833), and his vizier, Mīrzā ʿĪsā Qāʾim-Maqām (d. 1822). Between 1810 and 1813, Mīrza Ṣāliḥ acted as secretary to Henry LindsayBethune (1787-1851), infantry commander of ʿAbbās Mīrzā’s new model army (Qāsimī, Avvalīnhā-yi maṭbūʿāt-i Īrān, p. 15; Green, ‘Journeymen’, p. 205). He also assisted the British Orientalist William Price (1780-1830) and the British ambassador Sir Gore Ouseley (1770-1844) in their exploration of Iran. At Price’s request, he authored a set of dialogues in Persian that were translated into English by Price in his Grammar of three principle Oriental languages (Vahdat, Occidentalist perceptions, p. 23). Through his constant contact with British commanders and diplomats, Mīrza Ṣāliḥ learned some English. He was one of the five courtiers of ʿAbbās Mīrzā who received scholarships and went to London between 1815 and 1819 under the supervision of Colonel Joseph D’Arcy (1780-1848). Knowing that Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ was willing to study in England, D’Arcy recommended him to ʿAbbās Mīrzā for a scholarship (Fragner, Persische Memorienliteratur, p. 14), though the crown prince was reluctant to let his administrator accompany the delegation (Farman Farmayan, ‘Forces of modernization’, p. 12). Unlike the other four students, who were earmarked for degrees in technical subjects, Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ sought permission to study European languages, literature and philosophy (Mīrza Ṣāliḥ, Majmūʿa-yi Safarnāmahā, 2008, p. 46). Soon after his arrival in England, he realised that the qualifications for his entry into the social circles of higher learning involved mastering the

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manners of an English gentleman. For this reason, he adopted English dress and studied in the small town of Croydon at the ‘gentlemen’s academy’ run by the Revd John Bisset (d. 1852). He improved his English and started learning Latin, French and, to some extent, Anglican theology, particularly the fashionable writings of William Paley (1743-1805) (Green, ‘Journeymen’, p. 206). Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ was also interested in printing. Before his return to Iran in 1819, he became the understudy of a London printer, Richard Watts, with whose help he purchased a printing press which was shipped to Iran. After his return home, Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ was recruited as ʿAbbās Mīrzā’s official translator. Thanks to his knowledge of Europe, he was employed as a confidante and adviser in foreign political affairs and acted as a contact person between ʿAbbās Mīrzā and European missionaries to Iran. He was also sent abroad several times as a member of various political delegations. In 1822, he was sent to Great Britain as a diplomat (Rāʾīn, ‘Introduction’, pp. 34-9). He was one of the Iranian negotiators of the Treaty of Turkmenchay between Qajar Iran and the Russian Empire in 1827 (Dunbulī, Maʿāthir-i sulṭāniyya, p. 523; Rāʾīn, ‘Introduction’, pp. 31-2). In 1829, Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ was chosen to accompany Prince Khusraw Mīrzā Qajar (1813-75) to St Petersburg to apologise officially for the murder of Alexander Griboedov (1794-1829), the Russian ambassador to Iran. Even after the time of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (r. 1797-1834), he was employed under Muḥammad Shah (r. 1834-48) as mustawfī-i niẓām (‘state accountant’) (Ringer, Education, religion, and the discourse of reform, p. 30). Besides his diplomatic and political involvements, Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ established a lithographic publishing house in Tabriz, with a press and equipment imported from Russia. In 1837, he published the first Persian newspaper, the Kạ̄ ghadh-i Akhbār (literally ‘Newspaper’), utilising the printing press that he had imported from England in 1819.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī, Safarnāma, ed. Ismāʿīl Rāʾīn, Tehran, 1968 ʿAbd al-Razzāq Dunbulī, Maʿāthir-i sulṭāniyya, ed. Ghulām Ḥusayn Zargarīnizhād, Tehran, 2004 Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī, Majmūʿa-yi Safarnāmahā, ed. Ghulām Ḥusayn Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ, Tehran, 1985, 2008

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Secondary V. Vahdat, Occidentalist perceptions of European architecture in nineteenthcentury Persian travel diaries. Travels in Farangi space, London, 2017, pp. 21-6 N. Green, The love of strangers. What six Muslim students learned in Jane Austen’s London, Princeton NJ, 2015, pp. 1-20 N. Green, ‘The madrasas of Oxford. Iranian interactions with the English universities in the early nineteenth century’, Iranian Studies 44 (2011) 807-29 N. Green, ‘Journeymen, middlemen. Travel, transculture, and technology in the origins of Muslim printing’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 41 (2009) 203-24 F. Qasimī, Avvalīnhā-yi maṭbūʿāt-i Īrān, Tehran, 2004, pp. 9-141 M.M. Ringer, Education, religion, and the discourse of reform in Qajar Iran, California, 2001, pp. 15-53 B.G. Fragner, Persische Memoirenliteratur als Quelle zur neueren Geschichte Irans, Wiesbaden, 1979, pp. 13-75 Ḥ. Maḥbūbī Ardakānī, Tārīkh-i muʾassasāt-i tamaddunī-i jadid dar Īrān, 3 vols, Tehran, 1975, vol. 1, pp. 176-9, 222-4 H. Farman Farmayan, ‘The forces of modernization in nineteenth-century Iran. A historical survey’, in W.R. Polk and R.L. Chambers (eds), Beginnings of modernization in the Middle East. The nineteenth-century, Chicago IL, 1968, 119-51 I. Rāʾīn, ‘Introduction’, in Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī, Safarnāma, ed. Ismāʿīl Rāʾīn, Tehran, 1968, 1-39 Ḥ. Maḥbūbī Ardakānī, ‘Duvvumīn kārivān-i maʿrifat’, Yaghmā 18 (1965) 592-8 M. Mīnuvī, ‘Awwalīn kārvān-i maʿrifat’, Yaghmā 6 (1953) 274-8

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Safarnāma ‘Travelogue’ Date Between 1819 and 1821 Original Language Persian Description The travel diaries of Mīrza Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī start from 30 April 1815, that is shortly before he travelled to England as a student, and end on 11 November 1819 following his return journey, when he left Erzurum for Tabriz. The compilation must have taken place sometime between 1819 and 1821, when Mīrza Ṣāliḥ was sent again to England on a diplomatic mission. He made at least two copies of the work, keeping one for himself and giving the other to Sir Henry Willock (d. 1858), the United Kingdom’s chargé

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d’affaires in Iran (Mīrza Ṣāliḥ, Safarnāma, 1968, p. 41; the references that follow are to this edition). The text is divided into four chapters. The first (pp. 89-95) presents Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ’s preliminary remarks about preparing for the journey. He underpins this by describing the goals of the trip to an unnamed friend. First, he has the opportunity to compare his religion with other religions and, thus, to evaluate it. Research would increase the value of his beliefs and convictions. Second, he will learn more about the world and its conditions, and third, he will be of use to some Muslims on his return home. The route was via Armenia, Georgia, Russia, and then by sea to England. In ch. 2 (pp. 97-238), Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ reports in detail about his time in Russia, the first major foreign country that he entered, and especially St Petersburg. The main topics he includes are the degree of development and the geographical position of Russia between Asia and Europe, how progress has been achieved and the political and social reforms carried out by its rulers (Peter the Great and Catherine the Great). He also mentions the imitation and adaptation of facilities, institutions, regulations and systems of rules from other Western European countries (Farang), and the religion of the Russians. He is eager to study religions, and so he visits churches and engages in discussions with priests (pp. 139-41). While in Moscow, he writes a full account of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia (pp. 221-3). In ch. 3 (pp. 239-512), Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ starts writing about his arrival in England. One of the main subjects of this section is the minority religious sects of England, a sign that he was becoming increasingly interested in religion there. Having already studied with churchmen such as John Bisset (d. 1852), he was well versed in the theological differences between what he termed the various ‘sects’ ( firqa) of Christianity. He appears to have been one of the first Muslims to write about dissenting groups, such as the Unitarians, Methodists and Baptists (pp. 400, 476, 480). Elsewhere in the diary, he writes about the flight of foreign Protestant refugees to London in the previous century and how they were allowed to settle there. He also met Catholics in Devon and summarises their beliefs, and he observed their status in England as a religious minority. He writes a brief but accurate summary of the differences between Catholics and Protestants, noting that while Catholics revere statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, and even make pilgrimages to places where special statues are venerated, Protestants regard such practices as forbidden and do not place any such images in their churches. He had read a Catholic catechism and is fully aware that, unlike Protestants, Catholics believe that the bread and wine of the mass are truly transformed into the flesh and blood of Christ (pp. 397-402).

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On a trip to Gloucester, Mīrza Ṣāliḥ meets a Miss Bleechley, who is a Methodist and appears to have attempted to convert him to Methodism (p. 476). He also had the opportunity to become acquainted with Freemasonry as a significant force in England. The first Iranian to become a Freemason in England was the ambassador, Abū l-Ḥasan, who was initiated on 15 June 1810. He was given the honorary rank of past grand master under the sponsorship of Sir Gore Ouseley, who six months earlier had himself been appointed as the first ‘provincial grand master for Persia’ (Green, ‘Journeymen’, p. 170). As Mīrza Ṣāliḥ made his tour of the West Country, he made the acquaintance of a Mr Percy, whom he describes as holding the rank of master among the Freemasons. And so, on Mr Percy’s recommendation, on 4 November 1818, he was initiated as a Freemason and accepted into the Farāmūshkhāna (lit. ‘House of forgetting’), as he called it (p. 495). As he cryptically describes in his diary, he arrived in London at 2 o’clock in the afternoon and entered the Farāmūshkhāna an hour later. The meeting lasted four hours. These are the only details he provides and we learn no more from his diary of what went on that day. Mīrza Ṣāliḥ was amazed at the state of development in England. He writes extensively of the country’s history and prosperity, and has evidently researched widely about the genesis and form of English government. He gives a detailed account of the division of governance between the king, the House of Lords and the House of Commons (Dabashi, Reversing the colonial gaze, p. 143). The main goal of his research is to explore the origins of progressiveness and thus the economic, social and political advantages of the English. His discussion of England extends over 170 pages, covering the 5th to the 19th centuries. Ch. 4 (pp. 513-93) recounts his journey from England to Tabriz, with full descriptions of his observations about the Ottoman territories. Like many earlier authors of journals, Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ tends to include long, detailed excursions, mostly historical, social, geographical, economic and ecological features of the countries visited. Significance What sets Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ apart from many of his forerunners in the field of travel literature is that, in his descriptions, he sees himself not only as an observer and recorder, with reference to his eyewitness accounts as confirmation of his credibility, but also as a participant in his experiences. The travelogue moves away from the traditional, polyhistorical and complex narrative style of the travel literature of the time and becomes more subjective, personal and simple. Many later travel descriptions follow this

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model. Accordingly, Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ is to be regarded as the earliest Persian writer of memoirs in the modern style, in terms of both linguistic expression and personal and intimate presentation. His observations and reflective comments therefore provide an insight into developments in Muslim perceptions of and attitudes towards religious others, especially Christians. His Safarnāma is an exemplary work of travelogue literature that greatly helps the understanding of relations between Muslims and Christians in the early modern period. Publications MS Tehran, University of Tehran – Adabiyyāt-22-B, 393 MS Tehran, Majlis – 693, 164 MS Tehran, Majlis Bahār – 361 MS London, British Library – Add. 24034, 210 Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī, Safarnāma, ed. Ismāʿīl Rāʾīn, Tehran, 1968 Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī, Guzārish-i safar, ed. Humāyūn Shahīdī, Tehran, 1984, pp. 1-51 Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī, Majmūʿa-yi Safarnāmahā, ed. Ghulām Ḥusayn Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ, Tehran, 1985, 20082 Studies H. Dabashi, Reversing the colonial gaze. Persian travelers abroad, Cambridge, 2020, pp. 131-53 K. Rasekh, ‘Mirza Saleh Shirazi and reflexive traditionalism’, Journal of Iranian Studies 18 (2019) 67-93 Vahdat, Occidentalist perceptions, pp. 21-6 Green, Love of strangers, pp. 16-223 Green, ‘Journeymen’ M.M. Ringer, ‘The quest for the secret of strength in Iranian nin­eteenthcentury travel literature. Rethinking tradition in the Safarnameh’, in N.R. Keddi and R. Matthee (eds), Iran and the surrounding world. Interactions in culture and cultural politics, London, 2002, 146-61 K. Rasekh, Das politische Denken der Reformisten im Iran 1811-1906, Münster, 2000, pp. 95-102 Farman Farmayan, ‘Forces of modernization’ Fragner, Persische Memoirenliteratur, pp. 13-75 H. Nāṭiq, Az māst ki bar māst. Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī va janghā-yi Irān u Rūs, Tehran, 1979, pp. 11-42 Mīnuvī, ‘Avvalīn kārivān-i maʿrifat’ Sara Faridzadeh

Mīrzā ʿĪsā Qāʾim-Maqām Farahānī Mīrzā-yi Buzurg, Mīrzā Muḥammad ʿĪsā ibn Mīrzā Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ḥusaynī Farahānī Date of Birth 1754 Place of Birth Hazāva, Iran Date of Death August 1822 or 1823 Place of Death Tabriz

Biography

Mīrzā ʿĪsā was born in 1754 in the village of Hazāva in Farāhān County (north-east of Arak). His family belonged to the scholarly and literary class that had served the ruling dynasties in Iran for many years. With the support of his uncle, Mīrzā Ḥusayn, who oversaw his upbringing, he entered the Zand dynasty’s employment. After the establishment of the Qajar dynasty during the reign of Āqā Muḥammad Khān (r. 1789-97), Mīrzā ʿĪsā became a secretary of the Qajarian dīvān (Iʿtiḍād al-Salṭana, Iksīr al-tawārikh, p. 396). Following his education in Najaf, he returned to Iran and entered the court of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (r. 1797-1834), the second ruler of the Qajar dynasty. First, he was secretary to Ibrāhīm Khān Iʿtimād al-Dawla (then prime minister) and later a minister of Ḥusayn ʿAlī Mīrzā (son of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah and governor of Tehran) (Iʿtimād al-Salṭana, Ṣadr al-tawārīkh, p. 60). In 1798, after the election of ʿAbbās Mīrzā (d. 1833), the fourth son of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah, as Qajar Crown Prince, Mīrzā ʿĪsā became his minister and was appointed deputy to the prime minister Mīrzā Shafīʿ Māzandarānī. Later, in 1810, he was awarded the courtesy title of ‘Qāʾim-Maqām’ by ʿAbbās Mīrzā, indicating his prominent position as the vizier of the Crown Prince (Khūrmūjī, Ḥaqāʾiq al-akhbār, pp. 11-12). Mīrzā ʿĪsā married twice and had four sons and one daughter. His second son, Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim (1779-1835), succeeded his father and later became the ‘Second Qāʾim-Maqām’. Mīrzā ʿĪsā died of cholera in Tabriz, most likely in August 1822 (Sipihr, Nāsikh al-tawārīkh, vol. 1, p. 335), although some sources state that it was in 1823 (Iʿtimād al-Salṭana, Tārīkh-i muntaẓam, vol. 3, p. 1554).

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Mīrzā ʿĪsā is best known for supporting the initial modernisation steps of the Crown Prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā in Azerbaijan, especially regarding military reforms. For Mīrzā ʿĪsā, the trauma of the drastic losses of the first Russo-Persian War (1804-13) proved the need for a modern army. Influenced by the Ottomans, Mīrzā ʿĪsā and ʿAbbās Mīrzā set out to create a new military force trained in the European style of war (niẓām-i jadīd) and to reduce the Qajars’ dependence on tribal and provincial forces. However, the introduction of a modern army necessitated more fundamental changes, such as administrative and economic reforms, which, in turn, required significant changes in the entire state apparatus. Thus, the military reforms starting from Azerbaijan were a catalyst for the introduction of further reform measures, such as sending students abroad (mostly for military and technical training), the introduction of the printing press, and the translation of books from European languages. Mīrzā ʿĪsā played an essential role in the planning and implementation of these reform measures (Sipihr, Nāsikh al-tawārīkh, vol. 1, pp. 97-8). In addition to his socio-political career, Mīrzā ʿĪsā is also known for his writing activities. Apart from his suviving poetry, anthologies and letters, his main output comprised two important treatises, one on jihād and the other an apologetic treatise in support of Islam. His formal letters to state officials, especially to Ottoman political leaders, also provide a great deal of interesting information on the socio-political circumstances of the time (Naṣīrī, Asnād u mukātibāt-i tārīkhī; Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ, Asnād-i rasmī).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 10, M.ʿĪ. Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī, Ithbāt al-nubuwwa l-khāṣṣa (date unknown, probably shortly after the author’s death in 1822, endowed in 1846) ʿA.Q.M. Iʿtiḍād al-Salṭana, Iksīr al-tavārīkh, ed. J. Kiyānfar, Tehran, 1991 ʿA.R. Dunbulī (Maftūn), Ma‌ʾāthir sulṭāniyya, ed. Gh.Ḥ. Ṣadrī Afshār, Tehran, 1826 A.Q. Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī, Munsha‌ʾāt, ed. F.M. Muʿtamid al-Dawla, Tehran, n.d. M.T. Sipihr, Nāsikh al-tawārīkh, ed. J. Qāʾim-Maqāmī, Tehran, 1958 M.J. Khūrmūjī, Ḥaqāʾiq al-akhbār Nāṣirī, ed. Ḥ. Khadīvjam, Tehran, 1965 M.Ḥ.Kh. Iʿtimād al-Salṭana, Ṣadr al-tawārīkh, ed. M. Mushīrī, Tehran 1970 M.Ḥ.Kh. Iʿtimād al-Salṭana, Tārīkh-i muntaẓam-i Nāṣirī, ed. M.I. Riḍwānī, Tehran, 1984-8 M.ʿĪ. Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī, Aḥkām al-jihād wa-asbāb al-rishād, ed. Gh.Ḥ. Zargarīnizhād, Tehran, 2001

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Secondary S. Cronin (ed.), Iranian-Russian encounters. Empires and revolutions since 1800, London, 2013 S.R. Shahābī, Kārnāma-yi siyāsī-yi Qāʾim-Maqām-i Farāhānī, Tehran, 2006 A. Amanat, ‘Mujtahids and missionaries. Shīʾī responses to Christian polemics in the early Qājār period’, in R. Gleave (ed.), Religion and society in Qajar Iran, London, 2005, 247-69 G.R.G. Hambly, ‘Iran during the reigns of Fath ʿAlī Shāh and Muḥammad Shāh’, in P. Avery, G.R.G. Hambly and C.P. Melville (eds), The Cambridge history of Iran, vol. 7. From Nadir Shah to the Islamic Republic, Cambridge, 1990, 144-73 ʿA.H. Ḥāʾirī, Nukhustīn rūyārūyīhā-yi andīshagarān-i Īrān bā du rūya-yi tamaddun-i burzhuwāzī-i gharb, 1988, esp. chs 6, 11 and 12 M.R. Naṣīrī (ed.), Asnād u mukātibāt-i tārīkhī-yi Īrān. Qājāriyya, Tehran, 1987 Gh.Ḥ. Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ (ed.), Asnād-i rasmī-i rawābiṭ-i siyāsī-yi Īrān u Ingilīs u Rūs u ʿUthmānī, Tehran, 1986 H. Algar, Religion and state in Iran 1785-1906, Berkeley CA, 1969 A.H. Zarrinkoob, art. ‘Ḳāʾim-Maḳām-i Farāhānī’, in EI2

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Aḥkām al-jihād wa-asbāb al-rishād ‘The rules of jihād and the means of guidance’ Date Between 1812 and 1813 Original Language Persian Description This work is an edited and revised collection of fatwās on jihād proclaimed by several Shīʿī scholars during the First Russo-Persian War (1804-13). Based on these fatwās, which were obtained during 1808 and 1809, Mīrzā ʿĪsā tried to compile, categorise and summarise them in Persian and publish them with necessary explanations and preliminaries, together with the opinions of early Shīʿī scholars about jihād. His aim was to make this comprehensible to lay people. After the start of the Russo-Persian War, the Iranian rulers faced serious problems regarding the legitimacy of the war in the minds of the inhabitants of the war zones, especially a few local khans. Mīrzā ʿĪsā decided to give the conflict a religious character to the fight, presumably to resolve the crisis of the legitimacy of the war and gain social support to strengthen the front with popular forces (Dunbulī, Ma‌ʾāthir sulṭāniyya, p. 146). This

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may have led him to ask religious scholars such as Shaykh Jaʿfar Najafī, known as Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ (d. 1812), and Sayyid ʿAlī al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī (d. 1816), who lived in Iraq, as well as some scholars of Qom, Isfahan, Yazd and Kashan to issue fatwās on jihād against the Russians. The ʿulamāʾ actively supported this request (Sipihr, Nāsikh al-tawārīkh, vol. 1, p. 184) by issuing fatwās or publishing their own jihād treatises. In a short time, Mīrzā ʿĪsā was able to gather many fatwās and jihād essays. Some of them, such as the treatises of Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qummī (d. 1816) and Muḥammad Ḥusayn Khātūnābādī (d. 1818), are in the form of questions and answers. In general, jihād treatises discuss the meaning and virtue of jihād, its types and conditions, the necessity of preserving Islam, the virtue of martyrdom, the rulings on booty and the benefits of tribute lands. When he received these fatwās, Mīrzā ʿĪsā started to compile them. First, he prepared a detailed version of the book Jihādiyya-yi kubrā (‘The major treatise on jihād’) for commanders and brigadiers, and a more concise version called Jihādiyya-yi ṣughrā/ṣaghīr (‘The minor treatise on jihād’, also known as Irshād ʿibād bi ḥukm-i jihād) for lay people. The major Jihādiyya, which was compiled in eight chapters, was, in fact, not only a collection of fatwās but a new composition in which Mīrzā ʿĪsā presented his own jurisprudential opinion after each fatwā, along with historical and theological arguments. In addition, he classified the fatwās and made them accessible by thematically categorising, shortening and simplifying them. The exact date of preparation of this work is unclear. Since the author’s reference to Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ follows a prayer for his soul (Aḥkām al-jihād, ed. Zargarīnizhād, p. 109), the work may have been written after the latter’s death in 1812. On the other hand, the text itself contains strong indications, such as the passages in which Mīrzā ʿĪsā expresses himself sharply against the peace treaty (Aḥkām al-jihād, pp. 343-4), that it was most likely written before the Treaty of Gulistān in 1813. Dunbulī’s historical explanations support this assumption (Dunbulī, Ma‌ʾāthir sulṭāniyya, p. 146). Older manuscripts of the work are available in some Iranian libraries. A new edition by Zargarīnizhād is also available, which comprises approximately 280 pages. The work contains a comprehensive introduction (muqaddima), eight chapters (abwāb), and an epilogue (khatima). In the introduction, which constitutes about half of the entire work, Mīrzā ʿĪsā is primarily concerned with legitimising the legal classification of the Russian War as jihād. This legitimation was crucial for the Shīʿī population of Iran, since in practice jihād had not been carried out since the occultation of the Twelfth Imam in the 9th century. According to traditional Shīʿī law, jihād was only

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permitted with the express permission of the faultless Imam. However, later legal books expanded the definition of the term jihād to include selfdefence in the event of an attack on Muslims (so-called defensive jihād versus elementary/proclaimed jihād). Defensive jihād is not linked to the Imam’s permission, since it is about the self-defence and protection of Muslim lives, which is mandatory for every Muslim and does not require permission. In his introduction, Mīrzā ʿĪsā draws on this traditional classification. With reference to earlier and contemporary scholars, Mīrzā ʿĪsā divides jihād into elementary and defensive jihād. Due to the occultation of the Imam, he agrees with earlier scholars that there is no reason for elementary jihād. The situation is different, however, with respect to defensive jihād, which he divides into four categories: 1. Jihād carried out to preserve the sovereignty of Islam during infidel invasion to conquer Islamic lands, dominate Muslims and destroy the essence of Islam. 2. Jihād carried out to repel infidel domination over the lives and honour of Muslims. 3. Jihād to repel a group of infidels who have clashed with Muslims and are likely to dominate them. 4. Jihād that is carried out to expel infidels from Muslim lands and regions after they have occupied them. Mīrzā ʿĪsā then quotes qur’anic verses and Hadiths of the Imams on the virtue of defensive jihād and combatting infidels and oppressors. He concludes that defensive jihād applies precisely during the time of the Imam’s occultation. He then discusses the necessity of jihād according to the Qur’an, the Sunna and the consensus of ʿulamāʾ to emphasise how the Companions of the Prophet and former lawyers specified the need for defensive jihād. For this, he refers to more than twenty Shīʿī legal sources (both earlier and later) that expressly mention this issue. In his view, it is compulsory that, first, those closest to the battle take action, and if they do not conduct jihād it is the duty of the next ranks. Moreover, everyone who knows and is informed about this incitement should support defensive jihād. Here, Mīrzā ʿĪsā speaks about the various forms of collective obligation (wājib-i kifāʾī) regarding the distance or proximity of people and their knowledge and ignorance. Defensive jihād is so important to him that he prefers it over proclaimed jihād, which is only to be conducted in the presence of the Imam. Following these explanations, Mīrzā ʿĪsā dares to take it one step further: he makes it compulsory for everyone to follow Shīʿī military leaders and praises the shah’s efforts to revolt against the infidels. To this end, he

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relies on letters from high-ranking Shīʿī scholars, such as Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ, ʿAlī Ṭabāṭabāʾī, and Hāshim Kaʿbī, in which they, as the Imam’s deputies, declare the legitimacy of defensive jihād and delegate the supervision obligations to the Qajar sultan. The delegation of authority to conduct jihād was, indeed, a historical event in Shīʿī legal history. In the classical Islamic period, Sunnī scholars and rulers excluded Shīʿī scholars from participating in the active shaping of law. On the other hand, Shīʿī law also forbade cooperation with a secular ruler, who, during the time of the Imam’s occultation, was generally referred to as a ‘despot’ ( jāʾir), and it only allowed restricted cooperation under certain conditions. These conditions have been interpreted more restrictively at some times and more broadly at other times. For example, under the Safavids, the scholars’ cooperation with the government was justified in the exercise of legal and administrative offices on the grounds that, through the ensuing Shīʿī rule, the Shīʿī religion could be sustained, the lives of Shīʿī Muslims could be guaranteed, and Shīʿī territories could be saved. Indeed, this was most notably in favour of the Safavid rulers: the assigned authority of some legal scholars, and their changed attitude to the active administration of justice and acceptance of judicial offices, meant that the legitimacy of the political ruler was also, to some extent, secured. Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ and other scholars cited in Aḥkām al-jihād followed a similar tack. Like most Shīʿī scholars, they too believed the legitimate political and legal authority was assigned to the Imams and that, in their absence, this task should be assigned to the mujtahids. However, in the event of an attack, when Muslim lives and Islamic territories and religion must be protected, the mujtahids are empowered to appoint others to lead the defensive jihād. Mīrzā ʿĪsā closes his introduction with a short section on the reprobate practices and attitudes of the Russians, which might be to underpin his call to the defensive jihād also from an ethical point of view. The following chapters address questions from ordinary people about jihād and how it is carried out. The call for defensive jihād and fighting against the foreign enemy confronted the common people, as well as the commanders and soldiers, with many new legal issues and religious questions about which the scholars had to issue fatwās. These issues were very far-reaching and ranged from questions about the performance of religious duties during jihād to how to behave with the enemy or what to do in case of land losses. Mīrzā ʿĪsā categorised these questions and the associated fatwās and discussed them in eight chapters: 1. On the jihād duties of the ruler; 2. On the religious duties of the border guards

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and the major governors; 3. On the jihād duties of the great scholars and the Islamic fuqahāʾ; 4. On the jihād issues related to preachers and clerics; 5. On issues related to ministers and trustees of the government and advisors of the ruler and other officials; 6. On the jihād duties of the commanders and lords of the army and all Muslim soldiers; 7. On issues relevant to all Muslims in the occupied lands of Islam; 8. On religious duties of Muslims living in lands occupied by infidels. Significance Mīrzā ʿĪsā’s Aḥkām al-jihād is one of the most extensive collections of opinions and comments on religious war against non-Muslims from the Shīʿī perspective of the time. It not only serves as a particularly important source for the study of the religious and legal aspects of jihād, but also has a high historical and literary value. In addition to a distinguished style, it provides particularly illuminating information on socio-historical topics of the time, such as the challenges faced by the Iranian people during the war and the difficulties for them that resulted. Therefore, while on the one hand the book reflects the content, scope and subject matter of various aspects of jihād, on the other it reflects the questions, problems and preoccupations of the population on secondary issues related to the war with the Russians. Both jihādiyya tracts (Aḥkām al-jihād as well as its concise version Jihādiyya-yi ṣughrā/ṣaghīr) have survived in numerous copies. This indicates that they aroused substantial interest among the Iranian people. With his call to scholars to write on jihād, Mīrzā ʿĪsā started a series of writings that later became known as jihādiyya literature. His own contribution, Aḥkām al-jihād, is a significant survey of various Shīʿī positions up to its composition date. The publication of the concise version as early as 1818 as one of the first (if not the very first) Persian books ever published in Iran, suggests that its message was felt to be relevant years after the end of the first Russo-Persian War. Publications Aḥkām al-jihād wa-asbāb al-rishād MS Isfahan, Hādī Najafī – 39 (1837) MS Isfahan, Mahdī Najafī – (1837) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 9311/18, 28 pages (1864) MS Qom, Marʿashī – 8398, 96 fols (1866, incomplete copy, comprising only the introduction) MS Qom, Marʿashī – 15982/3, 21 fols (1866, incomplete copy, only part of the introduction)

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MS Tehran, Majlis – 4948/3, 21 fols (1879) MS Tehran, Malik – 4310/5, 19 fols (1894) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 2347, 209 fols (date unknown, endowed in 1845) MS Qom, Gulpāygānī – 1793/1-10/103, 121 fols (19th century, incomplete copy) MS Tehran, Majlis – 835, 211 fols (19th century) MS Tehran, Majlis – 11343/2, 9 folios (19th century, incomplete copy) MS Tehran, Millī – 15464 (19th century) MS Tehran, Millī – 10651-5 (19th century) MS Tehran, Millī – 10720-5 (19th century, incomplete copy, first part missing) MS Tehran, Millī – 720, 46 fols (19th century, incomplete at the end) MS Tehran, Millī – 651, 209 fols (19th century) MS Tehran, Majlis – 18559 (19th century) MS Tehran, Millī – 25279 (1901– 2) M.ʿĪ. Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī, Aḥkām al-jihād wa-asbāb al-rishād, ed. Gh.Ḥ. Zargarīnizhād, Tehran, 2001 Jihādiyya-yi ṣughrā or Jihādiyya-yi ṣaghīr MS Qom, Marʿashī – 6649, 35 fols (1817) MS Tehran, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 2359 (19th century, endowed in 1846) MS Tehran, Majlis – 20940 (19th century) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 2350, 27 fols (19th century) MS Najaf, Amīr al-Muʾminīn – 389 (date unknown) MS Tehran, Majlis – 1346/1 (19th century, incomplete copy, 2 pages) M.ʿĪ. Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī, Jihādiyya, Tabriz: M.ʿA. Āshtiyanī, 1818 M.ʿĪ. Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī, Jihādiyya, ed. J. Qāʾim-Maqāmī, Tehran, 1973 M.ʿĪ. Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī, ‘Irshād ʿibād bi ḥukm-i jihād’, ed. M.R. Hidāyatpanāh Dizfūlī and A. ʿĀbidī Riḍvānshahrī, in Mīrāth-i Islāmī-yi Īrān, ed. R. Jaʿfariyān, Qom, 1994, vol. 1, 84-117 M.ʿĪ. Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī, Irshād ʿibād bi ḥukm-i jihād, ed. M.R. Hidāyatpanāh Dizfūlī and A. ʿĀbidī Riḍvānshahrī, Tehran, 1998 M.ʿĪ. Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī, Risāla-yi jihādiyya, ed. M. Ghulāmī Jalīsa and M.J. Aḥmadīniyā, with an Epigram from Ulrich Marzolph, Qom, 2014

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Studies M. Rabīʿī and F. Saʿīdī, art. ‘Jihādiyya’, Dānishnāma-yi jahān-i Islām, vol. 11, Tehran, 2007, 5256 S.R. Shahābī, Kārnāma-yi siyāsī-i Qāʾim-Maqām-i Farāhānī, Tehran, 2006 Ḥāʾirī, Nukhustīn rūyārūyīhā-yi andīshagarān-i Īrān, esp. chs 6 and 11 Sipihr, Nāsikh al-tawārīkh Dunbulī (Maftūn), Ma‌ʾāthir sulṭāniyya

Ithbāt al-nubuwwa [l-khāṣṣa] ‘Confirmation of [particular] prophethood’ Date Between 1819 and 1822 Original Language Persian Description This work is incomplete and is extant in one single manuscript of 131 folios (MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 10). Its exact date is unknown, but it would seem it was written towards the end of Mīrzā ʿĪsā’s life. Between 1814 and 1817, Mīrzā ʿĪsā invited many scholars to respond to the polemical works of Henry Martyn. These scholars included Ḥusayn ʿAlī Shah Iṣfahānī (d. 1818), Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī (d. 1831), Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī (d. 1831), Mīrzā-yi Qummī (d. 1816), and Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī (d. 182829). But apparently Mīrzā ʿĪsā was not fully satisfied with the apologetic works that were produced, so a few years after the composition of all the responses, he decided to engage the subject himself. However, his intention may not have been to respond to Martyn’s treatises alone. Rather, as the work shows, it was written in a more general manner to defend Islamic belief against Christian and Jewish criticisms. The first few pages (fols 1v-3v) contain a short foreword written by Muḥammad ibn Gurgīn after the author’s death, which states that no earlier defences of Islam had met with Mīrzā ʿĪsā’s satisfaction, so he decided to write a book on this matter himself (fol. 2r). In the last two or three years of his life, Mīrzā ʿĪsā made many efforts in this regard but the work remained incomplete because of his sudden death (fol. 2v). Muḥammad ibn Gurgīn compiled in the manuscript those parts that had been finalised by Mīrzā ʿĪsā (fol. 3r-v).

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The work was meant to have an introduction, eight chapters (abwāb) and an epilogue. However, in the manuscript the text contains a lacuna in the middle and it is incomplete at the end. The end of ch. 4 and the whole of chs 5 and 6 are missing, as is the entire epilogue. A note by the compiler in the margin, where ch. 4 terminates abruptly, indicates that he was unable to find the rest of it or the following two chapters (fol. 84v). He hoped to find this missing part later, so he left 20 folios blank (fols 85r-106v). The text then continues with chs 7 and 8. The introduction (fols 4r-12r) is first on prophethood and the general need for it (ithbāt-i nubuwwat-i ʿāmma) and the prophethood of Muḥammad in particular (fols 12r-17r). The eight chapters aim to establish that Muḥammad’s sharīʿa is the final and everlasting sharīʿa (dar ithbāt-i baqā-yi sharīʿat u khātamiyyat). Each chapter provides a different type of evidence: Muḥammad’s individual characteristics (ch. 1, fols 17r-37v), his wondrous deeds (ch. 2, fols 37v-56v), his everlasting miracle (i.e. the Qur’an) (ch. 3, fols 56v-70v), his revealed religion (ch. 4, fols 70v-84v), the time in which he lived (ch. 7, fols 106r-120r) and his geographical location (ch.8, fols 120r-130v). Mīrzā ʿĪsā’s son, Abū l-Qāsim, later wrote a more detailed introduction to the book, which was published in 1863 in his Munsha‌ʾāt, Abū l-Qāsim’s collection of works (pp. 234-41). In his introduction, Abū l-Qāsim suggests that the book was written to rebut the claims of the Anglican priest and missionary Henry Martyn (1781-1812), referred to as pādrī (Farāhānī, Munsha‌ʾāt, p. 240). However, no explicit reference to Martyn and no quotations from his treatises can be found in the Ithbāt. Instead, Mīrzā ʿĪsā responds generally to the ‘opinions of the repudiators’ (e.g. fols 13v, 14r, 32r). According to ʿAlī Qulī Mīrzā Iʿtiḍād al-Salṭana (d. 1880), Mīrzā ʿĪsā wrote the work with the assistance of Mīrzā Āqāsī (d. 1848; Iksīr al-tawārikh, pp. 539-40), but there is no internal evidence to support this claim. Significance Mīrzā ʿĪsā’s Ithbāt al-nubuwwa was probably one of the first rebuttals of this kind written by a political figure. For this purpose, Mīrzā ʿĪsā apparently called some learned priests to research the Torah and the Bible (Dunbulī, Ma‌ʾāthir Sulṭāniya, pp. 146-7). Although not frequently cited, the work was later followed by many other refutations written primarily by Islamic scholars and less by politicians and statesmen. Henry Martyn’s treatises in particular were repeatedly challenged and refuted by Shīʿī scholars to such an extent that the radd-i pādrī (‘rebuttal of the priest’) became a genre of its own in 19th-century religious literature.

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Publications MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 10 (date unknown, probably shortly after the author’s death in 1822, endowed in 1846) Studies Ḥ. Amīn and A. Thubūt, art. ‘Pādrī’, in Dānishnāma-yi jahān-i Islām, vol. 11, 2000, 2570 Ḥ. Anūsha, art. ‘Pādrī’, Dāʾirat al-maʿārif-i tashayyuʿ, vol. 6, Tehran, 1996 Ṭ. ʿAẓīmzāda, ‘Darāmadī bar raddiyya-nivīsī-i dīnī dar ʿaṣr-i Ṣafaviyya u dawrān-i nakhustīn-i Qājāriyya’, Maqālāt u Barrisīhā 66 (1997) 173-97 Ḥāʾirī, Nakhustīn rūyārūyīhā-yi andīshagarān-i Īrān, esp. chs 6, 11 and 12 Iʿtiḍād al-Salṭana, Iksīr al-tawārikh Dunbulī (Maftūn), Ma‌ʾāthir Sulṭāniya Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī, Munsha‌ʾāt Ghazaleh Faridzadeh

Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī Mullā Riḍā Hamadānī, Kawthar ʿAlī Shah, Mollā Moḥammad Rezā Hamadānī, Kawthar Hamadānī, Kawthar Date of Birth Unknown; probably later 18th century Place of Birth Hamadan Date of Death 1831 Place of Death Kerman

Biography

Muḥammad Riḍā ibn Muḥammad Amīn Hamadānī was born sometime in the latter part of the 18th century, and raised and educated in Hamadan. His main teacher in ‘rational and traditional sciences’ was Shaykh ʿAbd al-Sattār Lāhūrī (d. 1801). Following his schooling, he moved to Isfahan where he was initiated into the Niʿmatullāhī Sufi order by Ḥājj Muḥammad Ḥusayn Iṣfahānī, known as Ḥusayn ʿAlī Shah. The latter gave him the ṭarīqa name of ‘Kawthar ʿAlī Shah’ (Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, pp. 483-4) and Hamadānī further advanced his education in jurisprudence, methodology of jurisprudence, dialectic and philosophy. From his childhood, Hamadānī was a friend of another Niʿmatullāhī scholar, Muḥammad Jaʿfar Kabūdarāhangī, known as Majzhūb ʿAlī Shah (d. 1823). In 1792, they set out on a pilgrimage to Shīʿī holy sites in Iraq, where Hamadānī met the master of the Niʿmatullāhī order, Nūr ʿAlī Shah (d. 1797), and became a devoted disciple. Nūr ʿAlī Shah gave him and Majzhūb ʿAlī Shah a joint ‘mentoring permission’ (irshād-nāma), allowing them, because of their scholastic and spiritual status, to offer spiritual guidance to Sufi novices (Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, p. 484). They also embarked on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1796 (Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, p. 485). Shortly afterwards Hamadānī continued his journey with visits to Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Mashhad, living for a short while in Qom before settling in Tabriz in 1817 (Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, p. 485). In Tabriz, he enjoyed the patronage of the Qajar crown prince, ʿAbbās Mīrzā (d. 1833), his minister Mīrzā ʿĪsā Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī (d. 1822) and his successor Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī (d. 1835). Hamadānī remained there for the rest of his life and only left the city for

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short trips. He died in 1831, while he was accompanying ʿAbbās Mīrzā to Kerman, and was buried there (Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, pp. 485-7). Hamadānī wrote several works on various topics in Persian and Arabic. Apart from his apologetic works against Christian polemicists and his treatise on jihād, which are discussed below, he wrote mystical qur’anic exegesis and some works on jurisprudence, Sufism and rational theology (for a list of his works, see Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, pp. 488-90). He was also a poet, using the pen name Kawthar.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary S. Lee, Controversial tracts on Christianity and Mohammedanism. By the late Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D. of St. John’s College, Cambridge, and some of the eminent writers of Persia translated and explained, Cambridge, 1824 Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī, ‘Dībāja bar Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa’, in Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī, Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa, lithograph edition, Tehran, 1824 or 1825 Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn Shīrvānī, Bustān al-sīyāhah, Tehran, 1959 Muḥammad Maʿṣūm Shīrāzī, Ṭarāʾiq al-ḥaqāʾiq, 3 vols, Tehran, 1960 Riz̤ā Qulī Khān Hidāyat, Tazdhkira-yi riyāḍ al-ʻārifīn, Tehran, 1965 Muḥammad ʿAlī Mudarris, Rayḥānat al-adab fī tarājim al-maʻrūfīn bi-l-kunya va al-laqab, Tabrīz, 1967-70 Secondary S.W. Anthony, ‘Muḥammad, Menaḥem, and the Paraclete. New light on Ibn Isḥāq’s (d. 150/767) Arabic version of John 15:23-16:1’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 79 (2016) 255-78 Rasul Jaʿfariyān and Maryam Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf. Guzārishī az guftugū’hā-yi Masīḥī-Islāmī dar dawra-yi Ṣafavī u Qājārī, Tehran, 2016 N. Green, Terrains of exchange. Religious economies of global Islam, Oxford, 2015 Maḥmūd Riḍa Isfandiyār, ‘Nigāhī bi mujādalāt-i qalamī-i Hinrī Mārtīn u ʿālimān-i ʿaṣr-i Qājār darbāra-yi nubuvvat-i khāṣṣa’, Pajzhūshish-nāma-yi Adyān 8 (2014) 29-58 A. Amanat, ‘Mujtahids and missionaries. Shīʿī responses to Christian polemics in the early Qajar period’, in R. Gleave (ed.), Religion and society in Qajar Iran, London, 2009, 247-69 G.H. Anderson, Biographical dictionary of Christian missions, New York, 1999, p. 532 J. Nurbakhsh, Master of the path. A history of the masters of the Nimatullahi Sufi Order, New York, 1993 N. Pourjavady and P.L. Wilson, Kings of love. The history and poetry of the Ni’matullahi Sufi Order, Tehran, 1978

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Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Irshād al-muḍillīn fī ithbāt nubuwwat Khātam al-nabiyyīn ‘Guide to those who err, on the confirmation of the prophethood of the Seal of the prophets’ Date 1814 Original Language Persian Description This work is a response to the anti-Islamic polemical treatises of Henry Martyn (here the version in MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 44, 108 fols long, is used). In the introduction, Hamadānī explains that he has written it at the request of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, p. 492). During his residence in Shiraz (June 1811-May 1812), Martyn asked a distinguished jurist of the city, Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī (d. 1839), about the miracles of the Prophet Muḥammad. Mīrzā Ibrāhīm composed a treatise arguing that the Qur’an was the Prophet’s miracle. Martyn rejected his argument, though he remained hopeful of continuing the exchange. As Mīrzā Ibrāhīm did not react, Martyn composed two further treatises in which he undermined Muḥammad’s prophethood on the one hand and promoted Christianity as the only true religion on the other. Shortly after this, Mīrzā ʿĪsā Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī, ʿAbbās Mīrzā’s minister, commissioned Shīʿī ʿulamāʾ to produce solid responses in defence of Islam and the honour of the Prophet. Hamadānī’s Irshād al-muḍillīn was one of the earliest of these. In the introduction he explains his purpose as follows: since Martyn requested some solid proofs of Muḥammad’s genuine prophethood, he was writing this treatise in the hope that it would provide evidence of this beyond reasonable doubt that might benefit Martyn, guide him towards the right path, and enlighten him in finding the truth. The work consists of a Preface, an Introduction and three Parts. In the Introduction (fols 3a-4a), Hamadānī considers the necessity of having one’s mind free from doubt and of valuing rectitude and truth. Part One (fols 4a-16a) consists of two sections, called ‘lights’ (maṣābīḥ). The first is on God’s grace (luṭf ) and His doing the thing that is right, and in the second on God creating the best possible world. Part Two (fols 16a-59a) is on Martyn’s response to Mīrzā Ibrāhīm, and Part Three (fols 59a-175a) is a refutation of the principles of Martyn’s second treatise.

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Part Three consists of five sections. The first is on passages relating to Muḥammad in the Pentateuch, the second on passages in Isaiah, the third on passages in Zephaniah, the fourth on a story based on Hebrew tradition in which the child Nahman, son of Phineas and Rachel, prophesies the coming of Jesus and Muḥammad, and the fifth on passages in the Gospel. At the end of the work, Hamadānī refers to Martyn’s third treatise, saying that even though it has nothing to do with Islam, he intends to comment on it in the conclusion. However, this discussion was never added to the work. In Part Two, Hamadānī translates the arguments of Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī one by one and evaluates Martyn’s responses to them. He also makes use of Maḥḍar al-shuhūd fī radd al-Yahūd by Mullā Ḥājjī Bābā Qazvīnī Yazdī (fl. 1797), particularly in the discussion on the revelation of the child (Neuvat ha-yeled). According to Abbas Amanat, Hamadānī puts emphasis on the ‘evolutionary’ (takvīnī) nature of prophethood as a proof of Islam’s validity (‘Mujtahids and missionaries’, p. 256). He refers to the doctrine of divine grace, or the ‘principle of favour’ (qāʿida-yi luṭf ), to argue for the need for continuous prophetic revelations and, in turn, for Muḥammad’s prophethood (Amanat, ‘Mujtahids and missionaries’, p. 258). Referring to the characteristics of ‘grace’, ‘favour’, ‘neglect’ and ‘disregard’ with respect to God, he argues that it is for God to decide whom to guide or allow to be led astray (Hamadānī, ‘Rejoinder’, p. 168). Relying on the Sufi doctrine of ‘sainthood’ (walāya) as the living proof of God’s grace, he asks rhetorically, ‘Should the “Lord of the Cause” (ṣāḥib al-amr [the Twelfth Imām]), who is in “occultation” and inaccessible, be thus considered as an effective source of guidance for humankind, as the Shīʿīs believe?’ (Amanat, ‘Mujtahids and missionaries’, p. 261). By making such a statement, he is dangerously close to disregarding the finality of Muḥammad and the eternal perfection of Islamic orthodoxy. ‘We conclude, therefore, that at all times and everywhere the existence either of a prophet or his vicegerent [Imām] has not only been necessary, but indispensable, and that such a person has, from the very creation to the present moment, either openly or secretly been in existence, as the followers of ʿAlī believe’ (Hamadānī, ‘Rejoinder’, p. 186). These remarks reflect on Hamadānī’s Shīʿī beliefs, according to which he adduces the idea of sainthood (saintly men as vicegerents of the Prophet) as the continuation of prophethood and ʿAlī as the first Imām. For Irshād al-muḍillīn Hamadānī had access to all three treatises by Martyn as well as the treatise by Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī. Most other responses concern the first treatise by Martyn only. In contrast, Hamadānī’s

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treatise relates to the first two treatises by Martyn, and he indicates at the end that he had access to the third treatise as well. Significance Soon after the composition of the work, Sir Gore Ouseley (1770-1844), the British ambassador to Iran, brought a copy to England. In 1824, Samuel Lee (1783-1852), professor at the University of Cambridge, translated it into English as part of his collection of treatises entitled Controversial tracts on Christianity and Mohammedanism. This translation seems to have been noticed by the Qajar state, for which they respected Hamadānī even more (see ‘Dībāja bar Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa’, p. 3). Besides this, Lee’s translation generated a new cycle of competitive exchanges between Christians and Muslims (Green, Terrains of exchange, p. 116). Publications MS Cambridge, University Library – Add. 797, 92 fols (fols 1a-92a formerly belonged to Sir Gore Ouseley) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 44, 108 fols (October-November 1814, copied by Muḥammad Muḥsin Māzandarānī) MS Khoy (north-west Iran), Sharīf – 40, 135 fols (2 February 1815) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 42, 107 fols (1815-16, copied by Muḥammad Muḥsin Māzandarānī) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 43, 101 fols (19th century, copied by Muḥammad Muḥsin Māzandarānī) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 22848, 151 fols (19th century) MS Tehran, Millī – 1285/1, 135 fols (19th century, copied by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Tafrishī and Faraj al-Dīn Muḥammad Sarābī) MS Oxford, Wadham College Library – Minasian 273, 82 fols (copied c. 1838) Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī, ‘The rejoinder of Mohammed Riza of Hamadan in answer to Mr. Martyn’s tracts’, trans S. Lee, in S. Lee, Controversial tracts on Christianity and Mohammedanism. By the late Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D. of St. John’s College, Cambridge, and some of the eminent writers of Persia translated and explained, Cambridge, 1824, pp. 161-450 (English trans.); 006605740 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) Studies Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf Green, Terrains of exchange Amanat, ‘Mujtahids and missionaries’ Farāhānī, ‘Dībāja bar Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa’

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Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa ‘The key to prophethood’ Date 1815 Original Language Persian Description Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa is the second of Hamadānī’s works criticising Christianity that were prompted by Henry Martyn’s treatises on Islam (the lithograph edition of 1824/5, which is used here, is unpaginated). It is a supplement to Irshād al-muḍillīn, and was likewise commissioned by the Qajar state and dedicated to Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah. According to Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī, following the publication of Irshād al-muḍillīn and its reception, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah required Hamadānī to write a supplementary work, establishing even further the Qur’an as miracle and Muḥammad as prophet (Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī, ‘Dībāja bar Miftāḥ alnubuwwa’, p. 3). In his Introduction, Hamadānī explains his intention, which is to make sure that all his reasoning and beliefs are in line with rational principles and traditional evidence. However, due to the shortage of time, his objective is to provide evidence for the prophethood of Muḥammad and respond to the objections and sophistries of Martyn. He argues that in Irshād al-muḍillīn his aim was to refute the sophistries of the Christian missionaries. For that reason, he did not pay much attention to the way his arguments were presented and whether it was possible for everyone to comprehend them fully. Therefore, at the command of the shah, he now aims to address the subject of prophethood in a new way and offer rational arguments more appropriately (Hamadānī, Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa, p. 18). Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa consists of an introduction, three chapters and a conclusion. In the introduction, Hamadānī argues that the worth of our actions, be they good or bad, can be recognised by human reason. He also argues for the necessity of divine grace. The first two chapters are rational discussions about prophethood and miracles in general, presenting various positions about this from kalām literature. It is only in the third chapter that he deals specifically with the prophethood of Muḥammad and argues for the Qur’an being a miracle, responding to Martyn’s arguments against this. He blames Martyn for deceiving ordinary people (gūlzan-i ʿavām gashta) because his denial of the inimitable eloquence of the Qur’an is a clear sign that he is not honest (Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa, p. 97). In the conclusion, Hamadānī summarises his arguments.

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Significance Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa was the best-known of Hamadānī’s apologetic works. The statesman and literary figure Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī’s preface to it, written in 1816-17, which was included in the lithograph edition, gives an indication of its popularity: Hamadānī’s work, through ‘envoys of the Christian nation’, has reached Europe and ‘like fear of majestic splendour’ has spread in all quarters of the land of infidelity, shaken the pillars of idolatry and antagonism, and demonstrated the incapacity of Christian scholars to criticise or refute it. Publications MS Tehran, Dāʾirat al-maʿārif-i Islāmī – 241 pp. (1232, copied by Muḥammad Riḍā Khwānsārī) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 19683 (1244, copied by Muḥammad Taqī Hamadānī) MS Qom, Markaz-i Iḥyāʾ-i Mīrāth-i Islāmī – 466, 241 fols (1255, accompanied by the preface by Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī) MS Yazd, Vazīrī – 109, 147 fols (Rabi II 1260) MS Hamadan, Madrasa-yi Gharb – 408 (16 jumada II 1265, copied by Muḥammad Riḍā Muḥammad-Qulī) MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī – 18453, 624 pp. (accompanied by the preface by Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī) MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī – 16327, 536 pp. MS Tehran, Millī-i Malik – 6094, 373 fols MS Tehran, University of Tehran – 2545, 328 fols MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 40 MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 1650/1 MS Yazd, Jāmiʿ-i kabīr – 202 (Rabi II 1260, containing the epilogue only) MS Qom, Marʿashī – 9799/5, 9 fols, 161r-169r (1271, containing the epilogue only) MS Qom, Masjid-i aʿẓam – 558/8, 8 fols (containing the epilogue only) MS Qom, Gulpāygānī – 57/108-8438/7, 6 fols (fols 290-295, containing the epilogue only) Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī, Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa, Tehran, 1824 or 1825 Studies Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf Isfandiyār, ‘Nigāhī bi mujādalāt-i qalamī-i Hinrī Mārtīn’ Amanat, ‘Mujtahids and missionaries’

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D. Tsadik, ‘Nineteenth century Shi’i anti-Christian polemics and the Jewish Aramaic Nevuat ha-yeled [The prophecy of the child]’, Iranian Studies 37 (2004) 5-15 Hamadānī, Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa, pp. 1-8 (preface by Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī)

Risāla-yi jihādiyya ‘Treatise on jihād’ Date August-September 1823 Original Language Persian Description This work was written in the aftermath of the Russian Empire’s invasion of the Caucasus following the first Russo-Persian war, and in response to the Treaty of Gulistan concluded between the two sides in 1813. It is a legal declaration ( fatwā) by Hamadānī, which states that fighting against the invading Russians is ‘obligatory’ (vājib) (‘Risāla-yi jihādiyya’, p. 173). However, the obligation for some Muslims to fight is greater than for others. Hamadānī argues that the Qajar ruler, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah, and the crown prince, ʿAbbās Mīrzā, have more responsibility in this regard. They should prepare for a jihād and conduct it. Further, it is the duty of government officials to follow their command, while soldiers and religious specialists should obey the commands of the shah and his officials and participate in the jihād (‘Risāla-yi jihādiyya’, pp. 171-2). In this way, Hamadānī implicitly asks Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah to perform his duty to defend his people against Russian invasion. It is the ruler’s duty to protect and honour the lives and property of his people by repelling the invading enemy as commanded by God and His Prophet. It is the ruler’s duty to defend Islam against invasion by infidels, a task which can only be fulfilled by the shah since he is the king of Islam and leader of the jihād in the path of God. The shah must be just in the conduct of all the affairs of the community, be kind to people who are in a weaker position (under his rule), take guardianship over the properties of orphans, show kindness to widows, protect the rights of the working class and poor, choose wisely his officials who govern the people, be righteous towards people and act justly, or else people will not obey his command or participate in jihāḍ against the foreign enemy. (‘Risāla-yi jihādiyya’, pp. 175-6)

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The theme most emphasised in the work is justice, followed by abiding by Islamic law. Justice means the Qajar shah must not participate in or allow the oppression of his subjects but must instead behave towards people as a kind father would to his children. He should not forget that his position and authority depend on his actions and character if he wishes to keep his position as leader of society, for justice leads to economic prosperity, which in turn can be used for greater military might and make the monarchy stronger. Hamadānī argues that, if the shah’s rule is oppressive, ordinary Muslims under his rule will ally with or otherwise accept the infidels and revolt against him, which may in turn facilitate the invasion of Muslim territory and the overthrowing of a legitimate Muslim state and monarchy. Significance Hamadānī’s treatise places him among the authoritative ʿulamāʾ who took a strong stand. His Risāla-yi jihādiyya demonstrates his engagement in advising the shah and his involvement in issuing religious decrees. It also indicates that Hamadānī was among a group of people who, after the first Russo-Persian war, eagerly urged the Qajar state to start a new war with Russia. It is of special importance due to the fact that it was written by a Sufi. A fatwā on jihād was usually given by ʿulamāʾ, yet here is a Sufi-faqīh whose social status has given him extra power, so that he can encourage the shah to start a new war against a threatening Christian neighbour. Publications MS Tehran, Millī Library – 900, 64 fols (1811, copied by Muḥammad Ḥasan Māzandarānī) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī – 15475, 22 fols (19th century) MS Tehran, Majlis Library –7571/12, 5 fols (1919) Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī, ‘Risāla-yi jihādiyya’, in Muḥammad Ḥasan Rajabī (ed.), Rasāʾil u fatāvī jihādī. Shāmil-i risālahā u fatvāhā-yi ʿulamāʾ-i Islāmī dar jihād bā qudrathā-yi istiʿmārī, Tehran, 1999, pp. 171-7

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Ithbāt-i nubuwwat-i khāṣṣa ‘Proof of [Muḥammad’s] particular prophethood’ Date Between 1823 and 1829 Original Language Persian Description Hamadānī wrote this treatise, which is 20 fols long in the Tehran manu­ script, in response to the anti-Islamic polemical work titled Risāla-yi ḥaqīqat-namā (‘Treatise on revealing the truth’, 1823) by the Muslim convert to Christianity Alexander Kazembeg (1802/3-70), which was published anonymously in 1823. Kazembeg sets out his position as follows: ‘Man cannot be guided without a revealed text, and between the religion of Jesus and that of Muḥammad only one is the true path and only the followers of the true path will indeed experience salvation and go to heaven as a deserved reward for a virtuous life.’ He further maintains that, contrary to Muslim belief, there have been no alterations to the Old and New Testaments (Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, pp. 508-9). Hamadānī begins by stating that, since God created humankind, He will protect them and guide them through their worldly lives. As part of His divine grace, God sent a prophet (Muḥammad) who was like other humans so that they could relate to him and connect to God through him (Hamadānī, ‘Risāla’, ed. Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, p. 531; the references that follow are to this edition). Like Moses and Jesus, Muḥammad performed miracles as an attestation to his character. He was the last of the prophets and is known as the seal of the prophets (khātam al-nabiyyīn) (p. 532). The Qur’an is Muḥammad’s miracle, and its eloquence is so unique that no member of the Jewish or Christian communities has ever been able to produce a single verse like it (pp. 532-3). Hamadānī further maintains that followers of Judaism and Christianity merely imitated the beliefs of their ancestors rather than conducting their own research and study, and thus failed to acquire genuine knowledge about which religious leader spoke the truth and which of the religions has not been distorted over time (p. 535). Hamadānī refers to direct and indirect mentions of the Prophet Muḥammad in earlier prophetic texts particularly the New and Old Testaments. Like other Muslim theologians, he argues that Jesus foretold the coming of a future prophet, Aḥmad the ‘Paraclete’ ( fārqilīṭ), remarking that

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indeed in other sacred texts which exist among people of belief we may find signs and remarks on Muḥammad’s prophethood; he will be the seal of prophethood and their texts contain mentions of his attributes and deeds and his jihād (struggle), saying that he is from the descendants of Ismāʿīl, and comes from the mount of Fārān [Genesis 21:21] in Mecca. He will be appointed as a prophet and his tradition will take over the world; people will have high hopes for him and his prophethood and his name is Muḥammad. (quoted in Isfandiyār, ‘Nigāhī bi mujādalāt-i qalamī-i Hinrī Mārtīn’, p. 52)

Hamadānī also quotes Jesus’s words echoing John 16:7: ‘It is better for me to depart this world and join my Father, for my departure is better for you than my staying among you, for if I do not perish, fārqilīṭ will not come’ (p. 536). For further details on and explanations of the signs of the prophethood of Muḥammad and the miracles attributed to him, Hamadānī refers his readers to his other two works, Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa and Irshād al-muḍillīn. In the final remarks in the Risāla, he reviews the process of divergence of opinions among Muslims. He concludes by saying that the only way for deliverance is to follow the Sufis (ahl-i ṭarīqat u arbāb-i ḥāl) for they believe in both the esoteric and exoteric aspects of Islam, meaning that they abide by the sharīʿa and follow the path of spirituality in their daily lives (p. 547). Significance This treatise is the only known response by a Shīʿī scholar to a convert to Christianity. Alexander Kazembeg responded to it in 1825, though his response was not published and seems not to have come to the attention of Hamadānī (see Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, pp. 548-54). Publications MS Tehran, Millī Library – 13636/5, 20 fols (1857-8) Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī, ‘Risāla-yi ithbāt-i nubuwwat-i khāṣṣa’, ed. Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī in Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, pp. 529-48 Studies Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, pp. 515-16, 548-60 Green, Terrains of exchange Isfandiyār, ‘Nigāhī bi mujādalāt-i qalamī-i Hinrī Mārtīn’ Eliza Tasbihi

Alexander Kazembeg Alexander Kasimovich, Muḥammad ʿAlī Kāẓimbey, Mirza Alexander Kazem-Beg, Mīrzā Muḥammad ʿAlī Alexander Kāẓim-Beg Date of Birth 1802 Place of Birth Rasht Date of Death 1870 Place of Death St Petersburg

Biography

Alexander Kazembeg, or Kasimovich, was born Muḥammad ʿAlī Kāẓimbey in Rasht, Iran, in 1802 to a prominent Iranian family from the Caucasus. His grandfather had settled in the Derbent area during the campaigns of Nādir Shah (r. 1736-47) and had become the paymaster general of the Derbent Khanate. His father, the Azerbaijani Muslim cleric Mīrzā Muḥammad Qāsim (Ḥājjī Kāẓim) was born in Derbent, which was then part of the Quba Khanate, but settled in Rasht after marrying the daughter of the local governor on the way back from the ḥajj. Kazembeg’s early years coincided with the first Russo-Persian war (1804-13), during which Derbent had slipped into Russian suzerainty. The family remained in Rasht until 1811, when they moved back to Derbent, where Ḥājjī Kāẓim was appointed chief judge by the Russian authorities before being charged with espionage on behalf of Qajar Persia and sent into exile in Astrakhan. Kazembeg was based in Derbent when he met Scottish Presbyterian missionaries. Scottish craftsmen and artisans had been settling in Russia since the time of Peter the Great, when the Russian imperial court granted concessions to Scottish missionaries near the frontiers of the expanding Russian Empire. Christian missionaries had been active in the Caucasus since 1802. Kazembeg, as a Muslim scholar, entered into debates with the missionaries, especially the Revd William Glen (1779-1849), and studied Hebrew and English in preparation. At the end of the debates, in 1823, he adopted Christianity, evidently of the Presbyterian denomination, and chose the name Alexander. This conversion resulted in a rift between him and his family. Kazembeg entered the Russian civil service in 1825 and was sent to Omsk. On the way, he met the authorities at Kazan Imperial University

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and stayed there, joining the faculty first as a lecturer in 1826. He was promoted to senior lecturer in 1828, and later became head of the newly established faculty of Turkic languages. In 1837, he obtained a PhD at Kazan University under the supervision of Karl Fuchs, and was appointed professor the following year. Later, in 1849, he transferred to the University of St Petersburg as professor of Persian. In 1855, he became Dean of the Faculty of Oriental Studies and in 1863 he established the Department of Oriental History, where, with the exception of short visits to Germany and France, he remained until shortly before his death in 1870. He was buried in Pavlov near St Petersburg but the site of his tomb was later lost in the chaos of the Russian Revolution. Kazembeg was a consummate philologist, fluent in Azeri and proficient in Russian, Persian, Turkish and Arabic. He also learnt English, Hebrew, French and Tatar. He wrote his first book on Arabic grammar in 1819. His other compositions include a treatise in Turkish on the history of the Crimean khans, a book on the ancient Uyghurs, a concordance to the Qur’an (1859) and a history of Islam (1860). His monumental study, Báb and the Bábis. Religious and political unrest in Persia, 1844-1852, was published in Russian in 1865. Over time, he produced in various languages an oeuvre of over 74 titles in various languages on philology, history, religions and religious polemics (for a selected list of his writings, see Bivar, ‘Portraits and career’, pp. 300-1). A full bibliography is yet to be established.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary W. Glen, Journal of a tour from Astrachan to Karass, Edinburgh, 1823 [W. Glen (?)], A brief memoir of the life and conversion of Mahomed Ali Bey, a learned Persian of Darband, Philadelphia PA, 1827 R. Ross, ‘The Persian convert’, in W. Ellis (ed.), The Christian Keepsake and Missionary Annual, 1836, 155-68 W. Brown, History of the propagation of Christianity among the heathen since the Reformation, vol. 2, Edinburgh, 1854, pp. 3, 425-9 H.K. [Herman Kellgren], ‘Mirza Alexander Kazem-Beg’, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 8 (1854) 375-8 Secondary T.S.R. O Flynn, The Western Christian presence in the Russias and Qājār Persia c.1760-c.1870, Leiden, 2017, pp. 442-53 R. Jaʿfariyān and M. Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf. Guzārishī az guftugūhā-yi Masīḥī-Islāmī dar Dawra-yi Ṣafavī u Qājārī, Tehran: Nashr-i ʿIlmī, 2016 N. Green, Terrains of exchange. Religious economies of global Islam, Oxford, 2015

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R.P. Geraci, Window on the East. National and imperial identities in late Tsarist Russia, Ithaca NY, 2001 A.D.H. Bivar, ‘The portraits and career of Mohammed Ali, son of Kazem-Beg. Scottish missionaries and Russian Orientalism’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 57 (1994) 283-302 A.K. Rzaev, Muhammad Ali M. Kazem-Bek, Moscow, 1989 A.K. Rzaev, M. Kazem-Bek. Izbrannye proizvedeniya, Baku, 1985 A.K. Rzaev, Mirza Kazem-Bek, Baku, 1965

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Risāla-yi ḥaqīqat-namā ‘Treatise on revealing the truth’ Date 1823 Original Language Persian Description This treatise of 92 pages comprises an introduction and four chapters. It opens with a call to Muslims: ‘O followers of Muḥammad, I beg you to listen kindly to the words of a friend, and produce answers to the pointers the Christians present to you’ (Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, p. 510) and goes on to claim that ‘Since one, and only one, of the Muslims or the Christians can be right [in their claims] and end up in Paradise, the duty is to find out what is the truth’ (p. 510). Kazembeg then presents arguments to establish that the Old and New Testaments, ‘which are in the hands of the Christians’, are revealed books. The titles of the four chapters are as follows: Enumeration of a few items from the Old and New Testaments that are consistent; Elucidation of the promises in the Old Testament which are expanded in the Gospels; Establishing that the prophecies of the Old Testament are perfected in the New Testament; Enumeration of what was hidden before, but was made clear in the New Testament. Composed in Astrakhan, the treatise belongs together with a group of works composed in the 19th century in Arabic and Persian by Protestant and Catholic missionaries as part of eastern missionary activity. It is one of the first known treatises in Persian written by a Muslim convert to Christianity. Ḥaqīqat-namā defends Christian teachings by undermining Islamic arguments against them. The tone throughout is rather combative and

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uncompromising, which is perhaps why the Risāla was published without attribution. It produced a minor backlash, and a response. Significance It is notable that the Scottish missionaries of Astrakhan also published a work on the same topic in Arabic, titled Miftāḥ al-khazāʾin (Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, p. 508). It might be that these two works were related in terms of their contents. Publications Risāla-yi ḥaqīqat-namā, printed by John Mitchell, Astrakhan, 1823 (at least two copies are preserved in the Library of the Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī and the Library of Madrasa-yi ʿĀlī-yi Muṭahharī [a.k.a. Sipahsālār] in Tehran) Studies Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, pp. 508-26 Green, Terrains of exchange, pp. 103-38

Risāla-yi Muḥammad ʿAlī bi qāḍī-i Khīva ‘The letter of Muḥammad ʿAlī to the judge of Khiva’ Date Between 1823 and 1827 Original Language Persian Description This short letter has survived in English translation only; the original, most likely written in Persian, is lost. According to the Brief memoir, Kazembeg composed it following his encounter with a local Muslim, who attempted to dissuade him from adopting the Christian faith and insisted he should contact the qāḍī of Khiva, a learned theologian, for a strong argument against his intention. Kazembeg asks the qāḍī two questions: whether there is any ‘solid argument’ for Muḥammad being the Prophet he was claimed to be and for the Qur’an being the word of God, and whether the Old Testament and the New Testament of the Jews and Christians came from God (Bivar, ‘Portraits and career’, p. 299).

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Significance This letter is mainly of interest as evidence of epistolary engagement in theological dialogue. It appears that Kazembeg was trying to engage the qāḍī in a disputation exercise. It is unclear, however, whether it ever reached the intended recipient or succeeded in soliciting a response. Publications An English translation of this work can be found in [W. Glen (?),] A brief memoir of the life and conversion of Mahomed Ali Bey, a learned Persian of Darband, Philadelphia PA, 1827, pp. 107-9. The text is reprinted in Bivar, ‘Portraits and career’, pp. 299-300. Studies Bivar, ‘Portraits and career’, pp. 299-300

Risāla dar javāb-i Ithbāt-i nubuwwat-i khāṣṣa-yi Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī ‘Response to Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī’s “Proof of [Muḥammad’s] particular prophethood”’ Date 1830 Original Language Persian Description In 1823, when Ḥaqīqat-namā was published, the Qajar crown prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā (d. 1833) was in charge of the affairs of Azerbaijan and the Caucasus, and was actively involved in producing and publishing Islamic (in particular Shīʿī) polemics in the region. The Iranian scholar Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī (d. 1831), who was residing in Tabriz and accompanying ʿAbbās Mīrzā on his campaigns, was invited by Major William Monteith, on behalf of missionaries in the Caucasus, to produce a response to Kazembeg’s work. Monteith had been in contact with these missionaries, and had assured them he would forward the treatise Ḥaqīqat-namā to Hamadānī (O Flynn, The Western Christian presence, p. 392). In response, Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā authored a refutation of Ḥaqīqat-namā under the title Ithbāt-i nubuwwat-i khāṣṣa (‘Proof of [Muḥammad’s] particular prophethood’). More than being a refutation of Ḥaqīqat-namā though, in the sense of engaging with its arguments and refuting them, the book is focused on a proof to establish the prophethood of Muḥammad.

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This was followed by the publication of a second treatise by Kazembeg, again without attribution, in response to Hamadānī’s refutation. Referring to Hamadānī respectfully as ‘a certain Excellency Ḥājjī Mullā Riḍā, one of the scholars of Persia’, Kazembeg implies in his response that he does not know Hamadānī in person. He engages with several of Hamadānī’s arguments. In response to the claim about the inimitability of the Qur’an, he states that simply taking it as a fact is not acceptable: Even if the majority of the Muslims do believe in it, this on its own is no sufficient proof for the statement, since the truth of every religion must be established according to well researched arguments, not by imitation. [...] In this case, if the one inquiring about the Qur’an is not fully aware of its contents or indeed has no clue about ornaments of speech, such that he is not able to establish the inimitability of the text, his inquiry will be void and invalid. (Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, pp. 549-50)

He adds: We [...] cannot accept the claim that the Qur’an is miraculous, since every claim to the effect that ‘Muḥammad recited the Qur’an to the people and challenged them to produce a chapter, or a line that parallels it, and nobody could’ [Q 2:23-4] was produced by Muslim scholars, not by Christians or Jews. Today, a Christian or a Jew has no way of establishing whether their forefathers did challenge the claim to the inimitability of the Qur’an. Indeed, the same can be said about the pagans. (Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, p. 550)

In response to the claim that the shorter timespan between the present time and the time of Muḥammad would suggest that the Qur’an is less likely to be corrupt than the Bible, he writes: Whether the total number of transmitters is lower or higher is not relevant. If we presuppose that the degree of our knowledge of past events is directly correlated to the length of time since then, [...] it would imply that one can never fully trust any report from the past. So, if it is said that it has been only 1,200 years since Muḥammad, one could add ‘so our knowledge of and faith in the message of Muḥammad should become less and less reliable with every passing year’. However, you do not accept this, and in fact consider anyone who suggests this a non-believer. (Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, pp. 550-1)

Kazembeg adds that ‘Christians are distinguished among other faiths since they have made it their mission to search among all religions to find that which confirms their faith or find a way to its Truth, but the Muslims have not’ (Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, p. 552).

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He objects as follows: […] It is certainly true that the believer should arrive at the station of Faith through his own research, not by way of imitation of parents. Hence, we do not claim that any Christian, whether or not he has researched his beliefs, will enter the divine assembly. However, the Traditions of the people of Islam suggest that any man who utters the words of the shahāda before his death will be automatically saved from hellfire. This is an absurd claim the like of which the Christians would never make. (Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, p. 553)

Significance This work, written by a Christian author, is among the few Persian responses to an apologetic text in defence of Islam. Even though Kazembeg composed it many years after he was associated with the Scottish missionaries in Darbent, it shows that their teachings had a long-lasting influence on his way of thinking about religion. Although he may have hoped that Hamadānī would receive a copy of his response, there is no indication that the latter ever saw this work: only one year after it was written, Hamadānī died on his way to Kerman. Publications MS St Petersburg, State University, Library of Faculty of Oriental Studies – 388 (55 folios) Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, pp. 555-60 (images from the MS) Studies Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, pp. 548-54 Hadi Jorati

Muḥammad Shah Qajar Date of Birth January 1808 Place of Birth Tabriz Date of Death September 1848 Place of Death Tehran

Biography

Muḥammad Shah, known as Ghāzī (‘warrior’), was the third ruler of the Qajar dynasty (1796-1925). He was the eldest son of Crown Prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā (1789-1833) and the grandson of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (r. 1797-1834). He grew up during the First Russo-Iranian War (1804-13) and, along with his father, participated in the second stage of the conflict (1826-8). Following the untimely death of his father, Fatḥ-ʿAlī made him crown prince in 1834, the year he acceded to the throne. Muḥammad Shah was the last Iranian ruler to suffer a succession crisis. However, thanks to the political and military patronage of Russia and Britain, he managed to suppress his rivals and eased his accession to the throne. In the first year of his reign, he appointed as his minister his Sufi mentor Mīrzā Āqāsī, who, in practice, held absolute power throughout his reign. Mīrzā Āqāsī was the main policymaker and chief negotiator with foreign powers. The reign of Muḥammad Shah coincided with the ‘Great Game’, the power struggle and proxy wars between Russia and Britain in Central Asia, which also involved Iran, and which became the primary foreign policy challenge. As a result of the Treaty of Turkmenchay, signed in the aftermath of war with Russia in 1828, Russian interference in Iran’s politics and economy, as well as its court, escalated to an unprecedented degree, and Britain, lagging behind, attempted to keep pace with Russia’s influence. An allegedly Russian-backed Iranian attack on Herat and the subsequent siege (1837-8) to retain Iranian control of the city was interpreted by Britain as a Russo-Iranian threat to British India. This conflict led to a three-year break in Iran’s relations with Britain and the temporary British occupation of the Iranian island of Khark in the Persian Gulf. Eventually, the issue was resolved by the shah’s retreat from Herat, his recognition of its independence and acceptance of all British terms, including a trade agreement in

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1841. The shah’s claim to Herat and the ensuing Anglo-Iranian disagreements prompted Iran to appeal to France as a great power. After more than three decades, France again sent a delegation, followed by an official envoy, Count de Sercey, to Iran in 1839-40. Iran sought to pit France against Britain and Russia to reduce their influence and rivalry in the country. Muḥammad Shah was a traditional and religious person with mystical tendencies, who avoided drinking wine and eschewed luxury. He was a simple man who suffered from developing gout, which finally claimed his life at the age of 40. He was also a man of culture, interested in history and literature. He arranged a survey of the ancient sites and geography of southern Iran, and ordered the compilation of the comprehensive history, Nāsikh al-tawārīkh; the translation of A thousand and one nights into Persian also began during his reign. He learned French, history and geography, and excelled at calligraphy (Calmard, ‘Moḥammad Shah Qājār’). He was passionate about Napoleon Bonaparte, and had Sir Walter Scott’s The life of Napoleon Bonaparte translated (Nāṭiq, Irān dar rāhyābī-yi farhanghī, p. 107). Under Muḥammad Shah, Sayyid ʿAlī Muḥammad Shīrāzī, famously known as the Bāb, established Bābism, an Islamic messianic movement, in Shiraz in 1844. Although he had the Bāb deported to Azerbaijan at the end of his reign, he did not seek to repress or persecute the Bāb’s followers. Throughout Muḥammad Shah’s reign, great numbers of Armenians and Nestorians migrated to the Caucasus (Nāṭiq, Irān dar rāhyābī-yi farhanghī, p. 161) because of religious differences and also exactions by tax collectors and local officials from them as Christians, in addition to their state capitation tax. Mīrzā Āqāsī made an agreement with Russia in 1844 to contain these movements (Hertslet, Treaties, p. 133). The shah’s government treated foreign missionaries well and allowed them to move freely, to establish schools and to preach, though only to their own faithful. Under his rule, many Christian missionaries travelled to Iran, making this a prosperous period for missionary schools, particularly in Tabriz and Urmia. French Lazarists and American Presbyterians mostly settled and practised in Azerbaijan.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Félix Édouard Count de Sercey, Une ambassade extraordinaire. La Perse en 18391840, Paris, 1928 Jahānghīr Mīrzā Qājār, Tārīkh-i naw, ed. ʿA. Iqbāl, Tehran, 1948

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Muḥammad Taqī Sipihr, Nāsikh al-tawārīkh. Tārikh-e Qājāria, ed. Jamshīd Kiyānfar, 3 vols, Tehran, 1998 Rezā-Qulī Hedāyat, Rawżat al-ṣafā, ed. Jamshīd Kiyānfar, 10 vols, Tehran, 1999 Mīrzā Faḍlullāh Khāvarī Shīrāzī, Tārīkh-i Ḍū l-Qarnayn, ed. Nāṣir Afshārfar, 2 vols, Tehran, 2001 Secondary J. Calmard, art. ‘Moḥammad Shah Qājār’, in EIr A. Amanat, Pivot of the universe. Nasir al-Din Shah and the Iranian monarchy, 18311896, Berkeley CA, 1997 G.R.G. Hambly, ‘Iran during the reigns of Fath ʽAli Shah and Muhammad Shah’, in P. Avery, G. Hambly and C. Melville (eds), The Cambridge history of Iran, vol. 7. Cambridge, 20073, 144-74 H. Nāṭiq, Irān dar rāhyābī-yi farhanghī 1834-1848, Paris, 1989 A. Amanat, ‘Āqāsī’, in EIr L. Thornton, Images de Perse. Le voyage du colonel F. Colombari à la cour du chah de Perse de 1833 à 1848, Paris, 1981 M. Bāmdād, Sharḥ-i ḥāl-i rijāl-i Irān dar qurūn-i 12 u 13 u 14 hijrī, vol. 3, Tehran, 1968 E. Hertslet, Treaties, &c. concluded between Great Britain and Persia, and between Persia and other foreign powers, wholly or partially in force on the 1st April, London, 1891

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Farmāns concerning Christian missionaries Date 1834-48 Original Language Persian Description When the French Orientalist Eugène Boré arrived in Tabriz in late 1838 and established a school there, Muḥammad Shah issued a farmān (February 1839) addressed to the Governor of Azerbaijan, Prince Qahramān Mīrzā, in favour of Boré’s educational activities (O Flynn, Western Christian presence, p. 711). Influenced by the French Lazarists, Boré invited them to Iran and, on his initiative, the Lazarists managed to establish schools for Christian and non-Christian boys and girls (Armajani, ‘Christian missions in Persia’). He wanted to implement modern and scientific education in his schools in order to reform the traditional Islamic education system of Iran, although both Muslim and Christian clerics were free to teach their religions there (Boré, Correspondance et mémoires d’un voyageur en Orient, Paris, 1840, vol. 2, p. 109; Nāṭiq, Irān dar rāhyābī-yi farhanghī, p. 190).

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In June 1839, the shah issued a similar farmān to an American Presbyterian missionary, Justin Perkins, who had been sent by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in 1833. In 1836, he, along with the American physician Asahel Grant, had founded schools for boys and girls, a library and a printing house in Urmia. Perkins also gathered information about the Nestorians of Persia (the Church of the East). He criticised Nestorian rituals and principles, and accused them of superstition and ignorance, urging the need for reform of the Nestorian Church (Perkins, Residence, p. 420; S.G. Wilson, Persian life and customs, New York, 1895, p. 299). Horatio Southgate, from the Episcopal Church of America, who settled in Urmia in 1838, went even further, strongly opposing the Nestorian Church. He argued that the reason Iranian Muslims deplored Christianity was that they were only familiar with what he called an ‘impure’ and ‘corrupt’ form of the faith and that it was the duty of the Protestant missionaries to show Nestorians as well as Muslims ‘pure’ Christianity (Southgate, Encouragement to missionary effort among Mohamedans, New York, 1836, pp. 7-8). Therefore, in their schools, Americans taught Nestorians the Protestant teachings, in addition to education (language, history, geography and religion) and local skills, particularly sewing and carpet-making for girls. In 1840, Count de Sercey entered Iran on a diplomatic mission to visit the shah, one of his priorities being to protect French missionaries in Iran. The royal farmān he obtained in April 1840 (O Flynn, Western Christian presence, pp. 715-16) on religious toleration for Catholic Christians, including French Lazarists, is important in two respects. First, the shah renewed the rights and privileges that French Catholics had enjoyed under the Safavids in Isfahan and other parts of Iran, and second, in their religious practices and fulfilment of their duties and traditions the Catholics were given rights equal to those of Muslims. As the farmān illustrates, there was more competition between Christian schools in Iran than between Christians and Muslims and, in the concluding remark of his farmān, the shah forbade Armenians in Isfahan to persecute the French Catholics living there. The Catholics now challenged the American Protestant mission settled in Azerbaijan and accused them of intolerance and of committing improper acts in Iran, including stirring up hostility against both Catholics and Muslims (Nāṭiq, Kārnāma-yi farhanghī, p. 167). French Jesuits also arrived in Azerbaijan and obtained a farmān from the governor to establish a school for Muslim children. Even the pope sent representatives to Iran to attempt to bring Nestorians under his control

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(Perkins, Residence, pp. 347-8). The pope’s efforts were part of a larger project targetting Nestorians in the Middle East. In the early 1840s, this rivalry and dissension also involved the political games between France and Britain, which supported the American missionaries, and neighbouring Russia, which supported the Armenians, creating a difficult situation for the Lazarist missionaries. The rivalry and infighting led to public disorder and continued to escalate until the shah issued a farmān in October-November 1841 banning Christian missionaries from trying to recruit followers from Muslim or other Christian schools. Thus, no Christian was allowed to move from one denomination to another (O Flynn, Western Christian presence, pp. 721-2). The next French ambassador, the Count de Sartiges, who arrived in 1844, was primarily tasked with addressing the issue of the French Lazarists in Azerbaijan, especially, Joseph Darnis and Augustin Cluzel, who had acted contrary to the ban issued by the shah in 1841, with the Russian ambassador and American missionaries based in Urmia demanding their expulsion. As a result of Sartiges’s efforts and the shah’s personal affiliation with France, a farmān was issued in favour of French missionaries in October 1844 (O Flynn, Western Christian presence, p. 733). The internal crises in Iran that occurred following the death of Muḥammad Shah in 1848 and the succession of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah (r. 184896) changed the situation for all missionaries in the country and turned a new page in the history of their presence in Iran. Significance Muḥammad Shah followed his father in Western-style reforms and through his farmāns promoted missionaries’ educational efforts in instructing the Iranian people in new science and knowledge. Christian educational institutions formed by French and American missionaries during his reign spread publications, translations and new ideas – such as revolutionary teachings and thinking about republicanism and nationalism – throughout Iran. Many Iranian elites were trained in these schools, and they became a solid and long-lasting foundation for the advancement of modern knowledge and education in Iran. The presence of numerous Christian missionaries and religious envoys in Muḥammad Shah’s Iran is a sign of relative freedom of religious practice, which was exceptional in the country in the 19th century.

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Publications Muḥammad Shah’s farmāns are published in the following works: J. Perkins, A residence of eight years in Persia, among the Nestorian Christians: with notices of the Muhammedans, Andover MA, 1843, repr. Piscataway NY, 2006, p. 374 (English trans.); 001248720 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) L. de La Rallaye, Eugène Boré, supérieur général de la congrégation de la Mission et des filles de la Charité, Paris, 1894, p. 110 (French trans.); cb31255449j (digitised version available through BNF) M. Fayḍī, ‘Farmān-e Mohammad Shah darbāra-ye nakhostīn amūzeshgāh-e āmrikā-yi dar Īrān’, Waḥīd 107 (1972) 931-3 H. Nāṭiq, Irān dar rāhyābi-ye farhangi, Paris, 1989, pp. 297, 305 Studies T.S.R. O Flynn, The Western Christian presence in the Russias and Qājār Persia c.1760-c.1870, Leiden, 2017 Y. Armajani, ‘Christianity viii. Christian missions in Persia’, in EIr H. Nāṭiq, Kārnāma-yi farhanghī-yi faranghī dar Īrān, Paris, 1996 Nāṭiq, Irān dar rāhyābī-yi farhanghī S. Poole, ‘Eugène Boré and the Vincentian missions in the Near East’, Vincentian Heritage Journal 5 (1984) 59-102 R.E. Waterfield, Christians in Persia. Assyrians, Armenians, Roman Catholics and Protestants, London, 1973 ʿA. Iqbāl, ‘Dāstānī az muballighīn-i ʿīsawī dar Īrān’, Yādeghār 6-7 (1946) 60-6 Mehdi Mousavi

Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī Date of Birth 1810 Place of Birth Kerman Date of Death 1871 Place of Death Tahrūd

Biography

Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī was the founder of the Kirmānī branch of the Shaykhī school after the death of Sayyid Kāẓim Rashtī (d. 1843), himself the main disciple of Shaykh Aḥmad al-Aḥsāʾī (d. 1826). The excommunication of Shaykh Aḥmad al-Aḥsāʾī by a cleric from Qazvin two years before his death in 1824 marks a turning point in the dissemination of his doctrine (Hermann, Le shaykhisme, pp. 49-51). Shaykh Aḥmad al-Aḥsāʾī claimed to be going back to the fundamentals of Shīʿī Islam, that is, the teachings of the Prophet and the Imams contained in the Hadith, and especially the Imam of Time. The most devout of his followers then emerged as a new school establishing itself at Karbala under the authority of Sayyid Kāẓim Rashtī. However, with Sayyid Kāẓim Rashtī’s early death the school was unable to continue in the town, as the dominant clergy had become too hostile towards its presence (Hermann, Le shaykhisme, pp. 53-9). Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī was originally from Kerman, where he was able to benefit from the support of his father Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Khān Ẓahīr al-Dawla (d. 1824), a nephew of the king, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (r. 1797-1834), and governor of the provinces of Kerman and Baluchistan for 22 years (1803-1824) (Bāmdād, Sharḥ-i ḥāl-i rijāl-i Īrān, vol. 1, p. 21). Kirmānī studied at the Ibrāhīmiyya Madrasa, built at his father’s command beside the Kerman bazaar. At the age of 16 or 17, he departed for Karbala, where he stayed for a few years then returned to Kerman as the representative of Sayyid Kāẓim Rashtī, who encouraged him to teach. He is often associated with a lifestyle that was both elitist and ascetic. It seems that he only ever went out in public when accompanied by disciples or students and he led the life of an ascetic, manifested by regular spiritual retreats in the mosque at Langar, a town to the south-east of Kerman (Manoukian, ‘Fatvas as asymmetrical dialogues’, pp. 164-6). He also travelled on some occasions to Tehran, where he engaged in various

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disputes with Āqā ʿAlī Mudarris Ṭihrānī (d. 1888) and the Qajar prince ʿAlī Qulī Mīrzā Iʿtiḍād al-Salṭana (d. 1880) (Kadivar, ‘Āqā ʿAlī Mudarris Ṭihrānī’, p. 234; Hermann, Le shaykhisme, pp. 264-6). As a teacher in the Ibrāhīmiyya Madrasa in Kerman, Kirmānī was able to train a large number of students in religious learning and to host a growing congregation. He also played an important part in the consolidation of Shaykhism in the middle of the 19th century, in particular by initiating numerous ʿulamāʾ into Shaykhī doctrine, thus allowing the relative spread of Shaykhism beyond Kerman and its province (Hermann, Le shaykhisme, pp. 118-20). When he died in 1871, his remains were taken to Karbala, where he was buried in the Imam Ḥusayn Mausoleum. Kirmānī’s works are numerous; 278 books are attributed to him, divided into 15 disciplines in the catalogue by Abū l-Qāsim Khān Ibrāhīmī (d. 1969): metaphysics (ḥikmat-i ilāhiyya); Shīʿī dogmatics and controversies; preaching and sermons; commentaries on the Qur’an; traditions of the Imams (akhbār); principles of law (uṣūl-i fiqh); jurisprudence; treatises on prayer and devotion; medicine; treatises on light, optics, the science of perspective and mirrors; treatises on colours, music; astronomy, mathematics, the science of the astrolabe; alchemy, the interpretation of dreams, geomancy; calligraphy, poetry, grammar; and answers to diverse questions (Ibrāhīmī, Fihrist, pp. 440-577). His writings on spiritual hierarchy constitute one of the major contributions of Kirmānī Shaykhism to Shīʿite doctrine, and especially to the hermeneutics of occultation (ghaybat). The belief in this hierarchy constitutes the fourth principle of religion (uṣūl-i dīn), and hence the name given to this doctrine, the fourth pillar (rukn-i rābi‘) (Hermann, Le shaykhisme, pp. 82-8; Amir-Moezzi, ‘Absence’). This doctrinal issue is the source of the division of the school into various branches in the course of the second half of the 19th century: Kirmānī, Tabrīzī and Hamadānī (or Jandaqī) (Hermann, Le shaykhisme, pp. 61-8; Hermann, ‘Quelques remarques’). Two other elements forming the Kirmānī branch were its refutation of ijtihād and its claimed political quietism, further emphasising its marginality and its rejection by the Uṣūlī clergy (Hermann, Le shaykhisme, pp. 74-82, 95-106; Hermann, Kirmānī Shaykhism; Hermann, ‘Political quietism’). Kirmānī Shaykhism still continues today, principally in Kerman and Basra in Iraq, which are the school’s main centres.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Niʿmatullāh Raḍawī Sharīf, Tadhkirat al-awliyāʾ, Bombay, 1895-6

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Secondary Mohsen Kadivar, ‘Āqā ʿAlī Mudarris Ṭihrānī’, in R. Pourjavady (ed.), Philosophy in Qajar Iran, Leiden, 2019, 231-58 D. Hermann, Le shaykhisme à la période qajare. Histoire sociale et doctrinale d’une École chiite, Turnhout, 2017 D. Hermann, art. ‘Shaykhism’, in EIr; https://referenceworks.brillonline.com /entries/encyclopaedia-iranica-online/*-COM_12163 D. Hermann, Kirmānī Shaykhism and the ijtihād. A study of Abū al-Qāsim Khān Ibrāhīmī’s Ijtihād wa taqlīd, Würzburg, 2015 D. Hermann, ‘Political quietism in contemporary Shiʻism. A study of the Siyāsat-i mudun of the Shaykhī Kirmānī Master ‘Abd al-Riḍā Khān Ibrāhīmī’, Studia Islamica 109 (2014) 274-302 D. Hermann, ‘Quelques remarques à propos de l’interprétation du sens du rokn-e rābe‘ (le quatrième pilier) chez Moḥammad Bāqer Hamadānī, le fondateur de l’école shaykhī hamadānī’, Journal Asiatique 295 (2007) 461-91 Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, ‘An absence filled with presences. Shaykhiyya hermeneutics of the Occultation (Aspects of Twelver Imamology VII)’, in R. Brunner and W. Ende (eds), The Twelver Shia in modern times. Religious culture and political history, Leiden, 2001, 36-57 S. Manoukian, ‘Fatvas as asymmetrical dialogues. Muhammad Karim Khan Kirmani and his questions’, in Muhammad Khalid Masud, B. Messick and D.S. Powers (eds), Islamic legal interpretation. Muftis and their fatwas, Cambridge MA, 1996, 162-72, 351-4 Mahdī Bāmdād, Sharḥ-i ḥāl-i rijāl-i Īrān dar qarn-i 12, 13, 14 hijrī, Tehran, 6 vols, 1968-75 Abū l-Qāsim Khān Ibrāhīmī, Fihrist-i kutub-i mashāyikh-i ‘iẓām, 3rd ed., Kerman: Saʿādat, n.d.

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Nuṣrat al-dīn ‘The victory of religion’ Date 1850 Original Language Persian Description Nuṣrat al-dīn was completed in 1850, seven years after Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī’s accession to the headship of the Shaykhī School and in a period when he was fully engaged in drafting controversial doctrinal literature. In the edition published in Kerman by Chāpkhāna-yi Saʿādat it is 349 pages long. Kirmānī says in the preface that he wrote the work as a response to a book by a British missionary published in 1252 [1836-7]

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that British people had recently brought to Iran. Although he does not name the book or its author, he states that its aim is to guide Iranians to Christian and European religion. He says that it rejects Islam (considering it a false religion with idolatrous practices though this judgement is based on the author’s poor knowledge of Islam), and asserts that Christianity is the one true religion. Many copies are in circulation, for any missionary who comes to Iran brings them and distributes them for free (p. 4). Kirmānī believes that the work and its wide distribution were planned by the British to achieve their political intentions (bi-jahat-i tadbīr-i mulkdārī; p. 5). They hope that less knowledgeable individuals among Iranian Muslims will read it and, being attracted to Christianity, will submit to British authority. For this reason, Kirmānī regards the whole project as a political threat. As he sees it, ‘they (the British) have decided to corrupt the hearts of Iranians with the help of devils (shayāṭīn)’ (p. 6). In his response, Kirmānī expresses his desire for his own book to be sent by the Qajar court to England: If by chance this book at the order of the glorious monarch or his virtuous agents will be sent to England, they will understand that Shīʿa is an unshaken and reliable denomination and the books of the prophets all testify to the truth of this denomination. Moreover, all the matters inserted in the book, sent by British, are false and against the books of the prophets ... (p. 6)

However, even if his desire cannot be fulfilled, at least Kirmānī will, through his book, demonstrate to Iranians how to defend their religion against Christian sophistries (shubahāt). We do know that at least one of the responses to the writings of Henry Martyn (d. 1812), namely the Irshād al-muḍillīn of Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī (d. 1237/1822), was sent to England by courtesy of the Qajar court (Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim QāʾimMaqām Farāhānī, ‘Dībāja bar Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa’, in Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa [lithograph edition], Tehran, 1824/5, pp. 1-8, here p. 3). Kirmānī seems to have some knowledge of the reception of Hamadānī’s work and wished the same for his Nuṣrat al-dīn. Following the preface, Nuṣrat al-dīn continues with the introduction in which Kirmānī provides a summary (pp. 7-16) of the arguments of the Christian book, indicating that its central topic is the question of sin (gunāh). This, and the order of topics as he presents them suggest that Kirmānī’s treatise is in fact an answer to Ṭarīq al-ḥayāt (‘The way of life’) by the German Karl Gottlieb Pfander (d. 1865), a major missionary of the Swiss-German Basel Evangelical Missionary Society and later the English Church Missionary Society. Tarīq al-ḥayāt is mostly an introduction to the

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concepts of sin (gunāh) and salvation (nijāt) in Christianity, set in opposition to their corresponding concepts in Islam. It is not known when it was first published. The best-known edition was published in Calcutta in 1260/1844, though, since Pfander lived in India from 1837, it is not unlikely that he published the first edition shortly after his arrival in India in the same year. Kirmānī did not have any particular knowledge about the author, whom he calls the pādrī. He thinks, wrongly as it happens, that he was an English scholar who had spent all his life in Europe (dar farang nishasta) and never visited a Muslim land. Thus, what he presents in his book is the result of bits and pieces of information about Islam that he was able to gather in Europe (p. 110).

Illustration 8. First page of Risāla-yi nuṣrat al-dīn

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Following the introduction, the work consists of two parts. The first, ‘On refuting the sophistries of the priest’ (Dar radd-i shubahāt-i pādrī), is very long (pp. 16-293); the second, which is shorter (pp. 293-350), is titled ‘Proof of the prophethood of the prophet of the end of the time’ (Dar ithbāt-i nubuwwat-i payghambar ākhar al-zamān). This part comprises two sections: proofs based on the Old and New Testaments (pp. 293-327), and proofs based on rational arguments (pp. 327-50). Given the length of the first part and because it illustrates more Kirmānī’s response to the pādrī’s arguments, this part will be dealt with in more detail here. Kirmānī discusses first the story of the creation of Adam and Eve and then original sin, which the pādrī narrates from the Torah. Kirmānī argues that this story should not be taken literally today, as it is by Jews and Christians. He argues that the materialistic features of this story were appropriate for the childish minds of the followers of Moses (ummati Mūsā), but now that human thought has developed, one should treat this story as having been abrogated (pp. 20-3). In response to the pādrī’s argument that the books of the prophets cannot be abrogated, Kirmānī, following Muslim intellectual tradition, argues that the law of the Torah was observed until the prophethood of Jesus; for example, the Sabbath was abandoned by followers of Jesus (p. 79). Kirmānī also cites the matter of divorce (ṭalāq), which existed in the law of Moses but is no longer in the law of Jesus (pp. 79-80). He thus wishes to demonstrate to the pādrī, and perhaps more to his Muslim and Iranian readers, that Christian arguments regarding Islam appear to be vulnerable. By de facto accepting the principle of abrogation (naskh), Christians should readily be able to recognise that the Prophet Muḥammad abrogated part of the law of Jesus (pp. 79-80). In response to the pādrī’s claim that no one, not even the prophets, is infallible, Kirmānī presents traditional and rational arguments for the infallibility of the prophets and Imāms (pp. 109-25). He indicates that he has elaborated these arguments in a more sophisticated way in his Irshād al-ʿawāmm, though he expresses his doubt that the pādrī, with his poor knowledge of Islamic literature, can benefit from this theological work (pp. 115, 125). Kirmānī then rejects, one by one, examples that the pādrī presents from Islamic akhbār and the Qur’an in support of his argument that the prophets, like other people, committed sin (p. 125). Kirmānī reacts to several criticisms by the pādrī, who asserts that ritual acts in Islam cannot erase sins, whether it be prayer, fasting or visits to tombs (ziyārat) (p. 187). He also devotes a passage in response to the argument that, since Muḥammad was a sinner, he is not eligible to intercede for

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Muslim wrong-doers and rescue them from hellfire (pp. 206-26). Kirmānī also rejects the pādrī’s assertions that nothing can compensate for our sins other than faith in Jesus and his sacrifice (pp. 229-43). In response to the pādrī’s accusation that Muslim practices are influenced by earlier cults – citing ghusl (major ablutions), for instance, as a relic of the baptism rites of the Sabeans – Kirmānī replies that nothing is wrong with that, because each prophet came to complete the previous law but not to abrogate it in its entirety (pp. 186-7). He also replies to the priest’s claim that the practice of taqiyya (dissimulation) is like lying, which indicates a lack of confidence in God, claiming that, on the contrary, taqiyya protects religion and its secrets, and that it was practised by the earlier prophets as well. He illustrates his point by saying that Abraham asked Sarah to pretend to be his sister in order to ward off potential danger (Genesis 20:1-7), asking the pādrī if he considers that Abraham was therefore faithless. Kirmānī also argues that Jesus regularly practised taqiyya (pp. 107-9). Throughout the entire work, Kirmānī does not refer to any Muslim treatise against Christianity. However, it is very likely that he was familiar with the literature as a whole and particularly with some of the responses to Henry Martyn that had been written in Iran a few decades earlier. In this defence of Islam, Kirmānī pays particular attention to Twelver Shīʿī theology. For instance, in his argument for the infallibility of the Prophet Muḥammad he extends this qualification to the Twelve Imāms. In addition, some elements of Shaykhī thought are reflected in his arguments. Interpreting the Torah story of the creation of Eve from one of Adam’s ribs, for instance, he explains that this did not take place literally in the physical world, but rather in the world of hūrqalyā, an intermediary world of subtle matter, space and time (p. 17). The word hūrqalyā is clearly a Shaykhī term developed in the writings of Shaykh Aḥmad al-Aḥsāʾī (Hamid, ‘Shaykh Aḥmad al-Aḥsāʾī’, p. 85). Significance Nuṣrat al-dīn constitutes the most significant, and also the first, refutation of missionaries produced by a Shaykhī scholar. It was produced in a period marked by asymmetrical relationships between Iran, the Islamic world and Europe. As mentioned above, Kirmānī wanted it to be sent by the Qajar court to England so that the people who were involved in the distribution of the anti-Islamic polemical work, and also its author, could read his response. However, there is no evidence that the Qajar court paid any particular attention to Kirmānī’s Nuṣrat al-dīn, though it might be for this

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same purpose that the book was published in Bombay in 1868, still during the lifetime of Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī, by a Kirmānī merchant (possibly Shaykhī) named Ḥājj Mīrzā Muḥammad Ḥusayn Tājir Kirmānī. Publications At least ten manuscripts of Nuṣrat al-dīn are known to be extant, some of them produced shortly after it was written. For a list of these manuscripts, see Dirāyatī, Fihristvāra, vol. 10, p. 711. Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī, Risāla-yi Nuṣrat al-dīn, Bombay, 1868 (this edition was produced at the request of Ḥājj Mīrzā Muḥammad Ḥusayn Tājir Kirmānī; it is a lithograph in the hand of Mīrzā Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad Ismāʿīl Shīrāzī); 32101077100343 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī, Nuṣrat al-dīn, Kerman: Chāpkhāna-yi Saʿādat, n.d. Studies Idris Samawi Hamid, ‘Shaykh Aḥmad al-Aḥsāʾī’, in R. Pourjavady (ed.), Philosophy in Qajar Iran, Leiden, 2018, 66-124 Muṣtafā Dirāyatī, Fihristvāra-yi dastnivisht-hā-yi Īrān (Dinā), Tehran: Kitābkhāna va Markaz-i Asnād-i Majlis-i Shūra-yi Islāmī, 2010

Risāla-yi Nāṣiriyya dar jihād/jihādiyya ‘Treatise on jihād for Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah’ Date 1857 Original Language Persian Description This work was composed following the British occupation of the port of Bushehr in December 1856 after the siege and conquest of Herat by the Qajar armies in October 1856. The first three Qajar rulers tried to extend their sovereignty to Herat and the surrounding region, with the aim of integrating them into Iranian territory. Muḥammad Shah (r. 1834-48) failed after a ten-month siege (1837-8). The new campaign of 1856 was, however, victorious thanks, it seems, to the attitude of the governor who hoped to escape the authority of Dūst Muḥammad Khān (d. 1863). After the signing of the Treaty of Paris (4 March 1857) between Persia and Great Britain, British naval forces occupied the port of Muḥammara (present-day

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Khurramshahr) at the beginning of April 1857. They also used their artillery against the city of Ahvaz, without evoking any reaction from the Qajars. We can assume that these actions were primarily punitive, with the British imposing a new diplomatic order on Iran, revealing the Qajars’ great difficulties in defending Iran’s strategic interests. Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī was not the only scholar of the time to have written a work to support the Qajar government and call the population to war against the British. Some clerics had even encouraged jihād against the Sunnī population of Afghanistan, thus hoping to legitimise the siege of Herat by Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah (r. 1848-96) (see Gleave, ‘Jihād and the religious legitimacy’, p. 63). We know, however, that the call for jihād against the British stationed in Bushehr then in Muḥammara met with few responses (see Arjomand, Shadow of God, pp. 241-2). The work contains an introduction and six chapters. Ch. 1 is on the duty of people to their just Shīʿī king, ch. 2 is on the secret of jihād and ch. 3 is on the virtue of jihād and martyrdom on the path of God. Ch. 4 is on various kinds of jihād, ch. 5 is on defence against a thief or a similar situation. Ch. 6 is on defence against unbelievers (kuffār) who intend to take Islamic lands. In a long concluding section, the treatise also engages in a critique of the West, although the author does not use the terms ‘the West’ or ‘Westerners’, instead referring to ‘unbelievers’ (kuffār). According to Kirmānī, if the British dominated Islamic lands, they would give children a Christian education (p. 129), give all sorts of freedom to Muslim women (pp. 129-30), disrespect the Shīʿī shrines and convert mosques to churches (p. 132). These claims are partly supported by reference to what he calls the vilāyat-i āzādī (‘the rule of freedom’) in European countries (p. 128). Kirmānī maintains that any inclination to the unbelievers’ point of view is equal to an act of idolatry (shirk), and would be equivalent to standing up against all of the truth (kull-i ḥaqq) and the people of the truth (ahl-i ḥaqq) (pp. 122-5). This important conclusion was also published separately under the title Khātima-yi Nāṣiriyya. Significance The Risāla-yi Nāṣiriyya dar jihād not only calls for armed struggle against the British, but also deals more broadly with politics and the West. Kirmānī insists on the duty incumbent upon every Muslim to support the Qajar government, a duty which to him, as mentioned in Sī fasl, is essential for the natural order and the balance of the cosmos (Kirmānī, Sī faṣl dar javāb-i īrādāt-i baʿḍ-i mawridīn bar silsila-yi jalīla-yi Shaykhiyya, Kerman, 1948-9, pp. 110-14). In this specific context, he regards the extension of

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European imperialisms as a threat. He is deeply concerned with the idea that Muslims accept British sovereignty and do not seek to challenge nonMuslim rule. Publications MS Tehran, Madrasa-yi Muṭahharī – Sipahsālār 2534, holograph (1857) MS Tehran, Madrasa-yi Muṭahharī – Sipahsālār 2535, 78 pages (copied in 1882-3) Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī, Jihādiyya, Kerman: Maṭbaʿa-yi Kirmān, 1911 (lithograph with introduction by Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn Khān Kirmānī [son of the author] together with the work of Mīrzā Ḥusayn Khān Ṭihrānī) Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī, Khātima-yi Nāṣiriyya, Kerman: Saʿādat, 1979-80 Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī, ‘Jihādiyya’, in Dāryūsh Raḥmāniyān and Zahrā Ḥātamī (eds), Panj risāla-yi siyāsī az dawra-yi Qājār, Tehran: Nashr-i ʿIlmī, 2007-8, 53-136 Studies Hermann, Le shaykhisme, pp. 260-3 R. Gleave, ‘Jihād and the religious legitimacy of the early Qajar state’, in R. Gleave (ed.), Religion and society in Qajar Iran, London, 2005, 41-70, pp. 55-66 V. Martin, ‘Social networks and border conflicts in the First Herat War 1838-1841’, in R. Farman Farmaian (ed.), War and peace in Qajar Persia. Implications past and present, London, 2008, 110-22 S.A. Arjomand, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam. Religion, political order and societal change in Shiʻite Iran from the beginning to 1890, Chicago IL, 1984 Denis Hermann

Mīrzā Najaf ʿAlī Khān Dānish Tabrīzī Najaf-Qulī Dānish Tabrīzī, Najaf ʿAlī ibn Ḥasan ʿAlī Khuyī, Najaf ʿAlī Khān Tabrīzī Date of Birth Between 1825 and 1835 Place of Birth Khoy Date of Death 1891/2 Place of Death Unknown, probably Tehran

Biography

Little is known about Mīrzā Najaf ʿAlī Khān Tabrīzī. He was a man of letters and a journalist, with a good grasp of Islamic law and tradition. Disappointed with the situation in Tabriz, he migrated to Istanbul in 1856/7 and served in the Iranian Consulate there until 1885/6 (Tarbiyat, Dānishmandān-i Ādharbāyjān, p. 228). In September 1889, together with Mīrzā Muḥsin Khān Tabrīzī, known as Muʿīn al-Mulk (d. 1899/1900), he participated as the representative of Iran at the Eighth International Congress of Orientalists held in Stockholm (Ramaḍānī, ‘Taṣḥīḥ-i ijtihādī-i kitāb al-mawāzīn fī amr al-dīn’, p. 14). He returned to Iran in 1890/91, and continued working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs until his death shortly after. During his time in Istanbul, Mīrzā Najaf ʿAlī Khān collected and edited the poems written by, as well as those dedicated to, his friend Muḥammad ʿAlī Qūchānī, known as Mīrzā Sanglākh (d. 1875), and published them under the title Majmaʿ al-awṣāf (Tarbiyat, Dānishmandān-i Ādharbāyjān, p. 227). He also composed an exegetical work on the figure of Dhū l-Qarnayn in Q 18 titled Mishkāt al-ḥayāt (‘The niche of life’), which he published in Istanbul in 1872/3 (Tarbiyat, Dānishmandān-i Ādharbāyjān, p. 228), and in 1876 founded the weekly Persian newspaper Akhtar, which published articles by major Iranian progressive voices of the Constitutional Era.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary M.Ḥ. Khān Iʿtimād al-Salṭana, Al-ma‌ʾāthir wa-l-āthār, ed. Iraj Afshār, Tehran, 1995, pp. 197-8 M.ʿA. Tarbiyat, Dānishmandān-i Ādharbāyjān, ed. Ghulām-Riḍā Ṭabāṭabāʾī Majd, Tehran, 1999, pp. 143-4, 227-8

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Secondary R. Jaʿfariyān and M. Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf. Guzārishī az goftugūhā-yi MasīhīIslāmī dar dawra-yī Ṣafavī u Qājārī, Tehran, 2016 ʿA. Ramaḍānī, ‘Taṣḥīḥ-i ijtihādī-i Kitāb al-mawāzīn fī amr al-dīn bi hamrāh-i taḥqīq dar mawḍūʿ-i mīzān-i panjum’, Tehran, 2011 (MA Diss. University of Tehran) M.M. Āqā Buzurg al-Ṭihrānī, Al-dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-Shīʿa, 25 vols, Beirut, 1983-6, vol. 9, p. 315; vol. 20, p. 20; vol. 23, pp. 327-8

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Mīzān al-mawāzīn fī amr al-dīn ‘The balance of balances on the matter of religion’ Date 1871 Original Language Persian Description This work is a response to Karl Gottlieb Pfander’s Balance of truth (Waage der Wahrheit, 1829), which was soon translated into Persian under the title Mīzān al-ḥaqq. The book consists of a preface, an introduction and five chapters, each called a mīzān (‘balance’). Each chapter is divided into ten sections, each called a miʿyār (‘criterion’). The preface starts with praise of God and the Prophet. The author then relates that some people who belong to ‘innovative schools’ (madhhāb-i mubtadiʿa) in Christianity have composed a few works against Islam and are making efforts to publish and distribute them. He writes: ‘In an assembly, some friends of mine referred to the arguments of this group included in the book Mīzān al-ḥaqq and despised them. They believed that these arguments might be damaging to shaky Muslims. For this reason, they requested me to write an enlightening piece, which I accepted, despite my other occupations and interests’ (pp. 4-5). Ch. 1 (pp. 8-39) is on God. Mīrzā Najaf ʿAlī Khān laments the fact that, while Christians and the followers of Protestantism agree that God is exempt from any imperfection, they believe that Jesus is the son of God. He holds that it is clear that, first of all, their Bible is distorted, and second, due to the many contradictions in their beliefs they are either unable to understand their own books or they do not really believe in the Unity of God and have been hypocritical in the way they have expressed this. Since He is perfect, God cannot contain something other than divinity within the divine essence, and furthermore God has not abandoned humans without any guides, but has sent God’s own friends and prophets to guide

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people. These all follow the same path, the differences between their proclamations being due to God’s testing of humans. Ch. 2 (pp. 40-84) is about finding the true religion, and knowing the true path of God with understanding and fairness. A very interesting part of this section is the debate between the ‘Muslim’ and the Christian (ʿĪsavī). The many references to Mīzan al-ḥaqq and Mīzān al-mawāzīn orchestrate the debate as one between the two books. At the beginning, in the first meeting the two parties decide to agree on the validity of Moses and the Torah. However, the Muslim takes issue with basing the Jewish predictions of Jesus on the Gospel [sic] rather than the Torah. So the Christian refers him to Mīzān al-ḥaqq. But the Muslim objects that the pieces of evidence there refer to the ‘Prophet of the end time’ (payghambar-i ākhir al-zamān). He also affirms that he believes in Jesus, but not in the same Jesus in whom the Christian believes. For the Muslim, Jesus is only the servant of God, who was raised up for the Children of Israel; he was born, and called others to his religion, and gave the good news of the coming of the Seal of the Prophets. According to the ‘existing Gospel’, certain false teachers changed his religion, distorted his words, and hid his prophecies, while his true followers hid themselves because of the ignorance that prevailed in the world. The difference in these two beliefs may be explained by analogy with mirrors – different groups and denominations reflect the same Jesus with varying degrees of precision. In the second meeting, the Muslim objects that the Christian lacks solid evidence about the Trinity, and presents it as a mystery that cannot be subjected to reason. He refers to George Sale (1697-1736), ‘one of your scholars, who has translated the Qur’an, and tells the Christians not to force anything on Muslims, and not to state anything irrational to them, as they are not fools’ (p. 62). Ch. 3 (pp. 85-137) is dedicated to the distortion of the Bible, which is central to the argument of the whole book. The problem is not only that the words themselves have been altered, but that they have also been translated and interpreted wrongly. One item of evidence to support this is that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew and then translated into Greek (with no identifiable translator). Another is that the Ebionites and Marcionites each had their own authoritative documents. Although Pfander had claimed that the manuscripts of the Bible had existed for a long time, Mīrzā Najaf ʿAlī Khān is not convinced about their location and situation. Even the oldest manuscripts belong to around three hundred years after Jesus. The versions of the Bible that exist today are so different that it is hard to accept they are authentic. Another issue is that the biblical prophets are charged with sins and have dubious stories attached to them. Also, there is a question as to whether or not the earlier

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scriptures have been abrogated. While the author of Mīzān al-ḥaqq had denied the abrogation of the Mosaic law, Mīrzā Najaf ʿAlī Khān brings out several instances of such abrogation. He then shows that the idea of taḥrīf (distortion) did not start with Islam, his evidences being qur’anic verses that challenge the people of the Book to admit this. Ch. 4 (pp. 138-211) discusses the prophecies about the Prophet Muḥammad, starting with evidence from the New Testament on false prophets who hid the truth about him. Here the author refers to the apocalyptic promises in both the New and Old Testaments, which must refer to Muḥammad rather than to Jesus or any other messiah. He also refers to Jesus’s words on the Paraclete, and how the original Greek pīriklutus means ‘Aḥmad’, ‘Muḥammad’, ‘Maḥmoud’ and ‘Muṣtafā’, while the distorted reading paraklītus means ‘comforter’ and ‘helper’. He also elaborates fully on John the Baptist’s promise of a messiah in different Gospels, which according to him is the promise of Muḥammad. Ch. 5 (pp. 212-93) deals with the question of miracles. First, the author tries to show that Jesus’s miracles were performed entirely by God and not by himself. Second, he adduces the Qur’an as the most significant of Muḥammad’s miracles. Every prophet has his own distinctive miracle, suited to the particular situation in which he found himself. Third, he proves the truth of Muḥammad’s other miracles – which are mentioned in the Islamic tradition and refuted by Christians. The materialistic depictions of heaven and hell in the Qur’an are intended to make divine matters accessible to human minds, and they have some esoteric, spiritual meaning. Significance This work is one of many Persian responses to the well-known Mīzān al-ḥaqq. It does not adduce any original arguments, though it reflects Mīrzā Najaf ʿAlī Khān’s learning regarding the text of the Bible and works produced in the West by authors such as George Sale, William Paley and William Smith. Publications Mīrzā Najaf ʿAlī Khān Dānish Tabrīzī, Mīzān al-mawāzīn fī amr al-dīn, Istanbul, 1871, repr. 1986 Studies Ramaḍānī, ‘Taṣḥīḥ-i ijtihādī-i Kitāb al-mawāzīn fī amr al-dīn’ Fatima Tofighi

Mīrzā Malkum Khān Date of Birth 1834 Place of Birth Isfahan Date of Death 1908 Place of Death Lausanne

Biography

Malkum Khān was born to an Armenian merchant family of Isfahan. His father, Hagop (Yaʿqūb) (1815-81/2), was a widely travelled merchant and later, following his (token?) conversion to Islam, a diplomat with a cosmopolitan outlook and an affinity for the French Enlightenment (Keddie, ‘French Revolution’, p. 140). He had an important influence on Malkum’s educational professional and intellectual career (Algar, Mīrzā Malkum Khān, pp. 1-16; Masroori, ‘Mirza Yaʿqub Khan’s call’; Rāʾīn, Mīrzā Malkum Khān, pp. 7-9). While he was still a boy, Malkum was sent by his father to Paris to study at the Mekhitarist Collège Samuel Moorat. After graduation, he attended the Paris Ecole Polytechnique, where he studied science and technology, political science and humanities (Algar, Mīrzā Malkum Khān, pp. 15-16, 20; Jeddi, Politische und kulturelle Auswirkungen, pp. 40-1). On his return to Iran, Malkum first worked at the recently established Dār al-Funūn, the prototype of a university. Together with his father, he set up a kind of gentlemen’s debating club modelled on Freemasonry and called Farāmūshkhāna, where reform-minded individuals from various walks of life used to gather. Suspected of fomenting religious and political dissent, it was closed down and its founders briefly exiled to Iraq (Ādamiyyat, Fikr-i āzādī, pp. 97-112; Algar, Mīrzā Malkum Khān, pp. 36-53). After his exile, Malkum spent nearly all of his adult career in various, ever more high-ranking ambassadorial roles, first in Istanbul until 1872, then from 1874 to 1890 in London and finally, from 1898 until his death in 1908, in Italy (Ādamiyyat, Fikr-i āzādī, pp. 97-112; Algar, Mīrzā Malkum Khān, pp. 127-34, 201-20, 238-77; Jeddi, Politische und kulturelle Auswirkungen, pp. 43-7). The interruption of his career from 1890 to 1898 was caused by his fall from grace with the Qajar monarch Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah (r. 1848-96) for concession fraud (Algar, Mīrzā Malkum Khān, pp. 168-84). During the years of his suspension, when he could no longer champion his vision of reform in treatises and ministerial reports, Malkum anonymously ran a reformist newspaper in London named Qānūn (‘The Law’).

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In addition, from 1896, still based in London, Malkum promoted his reformist ideas by building up an association in Iran apparently inspired by Auguste Comte’s (1798-1857) Positivist Church. Called Jāmiʿ-i Ādamiyyat (‘The mosque of humanity’), it devoted itself, like Comte’s Positivist Church, to the service of a madhhab-i ādamiyyat (‘religion of humanity’) (Ādamiyyat, Fikr-i āzādī, pp. 199-331; Algar, Mīrzā Malkum Khān, pp. 22840; Qāḍī Murādī, Malkum Khān, pp. 127-33; Vahdat, God and Juggernaut, pp. 30, 35-6). In 1908, while on a visit to Switzerland, Malkum died in Lausanne and in accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated in Bern (Ādamiyyat, Fikr-i āzādī, p. 98; Algar, Mīrzā Malkum Khān, pp. 258-9; Rāʾīn, Mīrzā Malkum Khān, p. 167). Cremation, considered unorthodox in both Islam and Armenian Christianity, at the time constituted a method of disposal favoured by persons, such as ‘liberals’ and ‘freethinkers’, who wanted to assert their religious or denominational independence and free will (see Algar, Mīrzā Malkum Khān, p. 259).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Mīrzā Malkum Khān, Kulliyyāt-i Malkum, ed. Hāshim Rabīʿzāda, Tabriz, 1908 Mīrzā Malkum Khān, Majmūʿa-yi āthār-i Mīrzā Malkum Khān, ed. S.M. Muḥīṭ Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Tehran, 1948 R.Q. Hidāyat, Rawḍat al-ṣafāʾ-i Nāṣirī, ed. Jamshīd Kiyānfar, Tehran, 2002 Mīrzā Malkum Khān, Daftar-i tanẓīmāt (Kitābcha-yi ghaybī) va chand risāla-yi dīgar, ed. Dāvūd ʿAlī-Bābāʾī, Tehran, 2021 Secondary Ḥ. Qāḍī Murādī, Malkum Khān. Naẓariyya-pardāz-i naw-sāzī-i siyāsī dar ṣadr-i mashrūṭa, Tehran, 2009 F. Vahdat, God and Juggernaut. Iran’s intellectual encounter with modernity, New York, 2002 C. Masroori, ‘Mirza Yaʿqub Khan’s call for representative government, toleration and Islamic reform in nineteenth-century Iran’, Middle Eastern Studies 37/1 (2001) 89-100 Ḥ. Aṣīl, Zindagānī va andīsha-i Mīrzā Malkum Khān Nāẓim al-Dawla, Tehran, 1998 N.R. Keddie, ‘The French Revolution and the Middle East’, in J. Klaits and M.H. Haltzel (eds), The global ramifications of the French Revolution, Cambridge, 1994, 140-57 F. Jeddi, Politische und kulturelle Auswirkungen des Auslandsstudiums auf die iranische Gesellschaft im 19. Jahrhundert. Unter Berücksichtigung der iranischen Stipendiaten in Westeuropa (1812-1857), Frankfurt a.M., 1992

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H. Algar, Mīrzā Malkum Khān. A study in the history of Iranian modernism, Berkeley CA, 1973 I. Rāʾīn, Mīrzā Malkum Khān. Zindagī u kūshishhā-yi siyāsī-iū, Tehran, 1972 F. Nouraie, ‘A study into the ideas of Mirza Malkam Khan-e Nazem al-Dowleh’, Denver, 1969 (PhD Diss. University of Colorado) J. Qāʾimmaqāmī, ‘Chand sanad-i marbūṭ bi tārīkh-i Farāmushkhāna dar Īrān’, Yaghmā 16 (1963) 404-5 F. Ādamiyyat, Fikr-i āzādī va muqaddima- y i nahḍat-i mashrūṭiyyat-i Īrān, Tehran, 1961

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Risāla-yi Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn ‘Treatise on the Constitution’ Date 1875-8 Original Language Persian Description This brief seven-page treatise known as Risāla-yi Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn does not have any specific title. Malkum describes it vaguely as a ‘draft of a proposal that has to be submitted confidentially to the blessed dust of the [Iranian ruler’s] feet’ (Ṭarḥ-i ʿarīḍa‌ʾī ast ki bi khāk-i pā-yi mubārak maḥramāna bāyad ʿarḍ shavad, in Nāṭiq, ‘Darbāra-yi Risāla-yi Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 45). This description suggests that it was presented as a piece of confidential advice to Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah (r. 1848-96), with its author acting as an anonymous well-wisher whose humble unselfishness forbade him to make his name known (Ādamiyyat, Fikr-i āzādī, pp. 101-4; Algar, Mīrzā Malkum Khān, p. 309-10; Rāʾīn, Mīrzā Malkum Khān, pp. 120-36; Ṭabāṭabāʾī, ‘Introduction’, pp. 41-52). The circumstantial references in it indicate that it must have been written between 1875 and 1878 (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 44), which corresponds to the first Ottoman constitutional period (Aksan, Ottomans, pp. 231-76; Devereux, First Ottoman constitutional period). Ottoman constitutionalism, like reformism in the Ottoman Empire in general, was a potent source of inspiration for Iranian reformers. In the particular case of Malkum, there is an attested influence of the writings of Midḥat Pasha, the author of the Ottoman constitution, especially with regard to the granting of equal rights to all religious communities (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 44; Devereux, First Ottoman constitutional period, pp. 216-26; Koçunyan, Negotiating the Ottoman constitution, pp. 277-9). Moreover, as early as 1876, parts of the Ottoman constitution were made accessible to a wide

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Persian-speaking audience in the Persian-language exile newspaper Akhtar, and it was fully translated by the Iranian court interpreter Mīrzā Hārṭūn (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 44). Thematically, the text pursues the one thought underlying Malkum’s entire career, namely that modern civilisation is predicated on the rule of law (qānūn), which is ideally manifested in a constitution. Accordingly, any country failing to adopt this principle – Iran at the time being a case in point – cannot be expected to ever develop into a viable polity, either domestically or in the international concert of powers (cf. Qāḍī Murādī, Malkum Khān, p. 92). Malkum makes this point in several passages in the treatise, such as where he says: ‘In this age, the preconditions for ruling a kingdom, taking care of the people, extending the borders and securing easy victories depend on the good quality of the laws and on sound regulations, not on the number of the means to kill, plunder, intimidate and attack’ (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 47), and ‘For a king who harbours noble ambitions and strives to make a good name for himself in the world, rule of a country and taking care of the people are ineluctably predicated on instituting a constitution’ (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 49; cf. p. 53). This conviction of Malkum’s owes much to what has been referred to as ‘ethicopolitical positivism’, an intellectual and ideological orientation quite typical of elitist reformers of the time (Özervarlı, ‘Positivism’, p. 86). It makes the case that, since the development of humanity is itself governed by laws, any law qualified to rule over a polity has to conform to the laws in the polity (Heydari, ‘Rezeption der westlichen Philosophie’, p. 101; Jeddi, Politische und kulturelle Auswirkungen, pp. 109-13). Successful statesmanship, in this paradigm, is conceived of as the translation into practice of politics understood as a modern science rather than as a derivative of traditional ethics (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 52). It is on this basis that, in this treatise, as well as in others more extensively, particularly Kitābcha-yi ghaybī (Algar, Mīrzā Malkum Khān, pp. 26-33), Malkum embarks on outlining a representative advisory system (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 47). In order for this to work out, Malkum confidently envisages a constructive role for the Shīʿī religious scholars, because ‘[…] every individual is a follower of a fully qualified religious authority […]’ and, therefore, ‘[…] the existence of the authoritative Shīʿī scholars holds boundless benefits the likes of which other nations and peoples are lacking’ (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, pp. 47-8). In the final analysis, this conviction emanates from his concept of sharīʿa as being implied in qānūn (Qāḍī Murādī, Malkum Khān, p. 157). This is why he positively states ‘with a little prudence, the conflict and disagreement

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between the systems of religious and worldly law can be transformed into harmony and unity of purpose’ (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 48). In addition, Malkum sees in the Iranians’ sense of decency that is manifest in their respect for the unwritten code of honour a hopeful sign of obedience to constitutional law. In fact, the reason why Europeans, as he views it, had to develop constitutional law in the first place is that their attachment to the code of honour had waned (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 47). One of the issues discussed in the work is interreligious coexistence. There was a growing perception at the time that the traditional dhimma system, which had hitherto defined the legal status of non-Muslims, was no longer applicable. On the one hand, certain imperialist powers were challenging the legal sovereignty of Muslim rulers over their Christian subjects and, on the other, several Ottoman sultans themselves, in the wake of 19th-century top-down reform measures, had undertaken to promote legal equality between all religious communities (Faroqhi, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, pp. 91-3). At the same time, given that reformers like Malkum treated constitutionalism as a precondition for modern civilisation, the issue of interreligious coexistence as regulated by constitutional law naturally also became a point in their negotiation of modernity. It is for this reason, then, that we find Malkum addressing this question in several passages of his Treatise on the constitution. Malkum is under no illusion that in the Dār al-Islām discrimination against non-Muslims by both civil and religious authorities has repeatedly occurred, up to his own time. In order to illustrate this, he cites a contemporary case of discrimination against Iranian Zoroastrians (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 50) and also the emigration of Armenians from Isfahan to India (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 51). He attributes much of these ills to the intolerance – including its most extreme form, jihād – on the part of Muslim scholars and common believers, such as where he says: ‘It is mainly due to the intransigence of religious scholars and [ordinary] Muslims that Armenians, Jews and Zoroastrians remain firmly entrenched in their ignorance’ (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 51). In the final instance, however, such intolerance in turn is grounded, as far as Malkum is concerned, in certain Muslims’ ignorance of the ‘true’ meaning of the sharīʿa (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 49). And the ‘true’ meaning of the sharīʿa, as becomes clear from other texts by Malkum, is for him nothing other than what is implied in qānūn as instituted in constitutional rule, just as – on a more general level – positive religion like Islam is, for him, implied in the positivist Religion of Humanity (Qāḍī Murādī, Malkum Khān, pp. 89-90). As

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a case in point, to interpret jihād in the sense of war on non-Muslims is, for Malkum, inappropriate in the modern world. Rather, in conformity with the requirements of modernity, its meaning should be understood to imply commitment to the cause of socio-cultural reform. Indeed, he declares that it is the very purpose of his treatise to correct this untimely understanding of jihād, arguing that in the present age the integrity of Islam no longer depends on waging jihād and that, henceforth, jihād should be practised for the exclusive benefit of worldly issues (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, pp. 50-1). In addition, the ‘wise men of every community’ have in any case come around to acknowledging the superiority of Islam, and so there is no further need for militant jihād as a means to affirm it (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 50). Interestingly, the one ‘wise man’ Malkum refers to by name in the further course of his argument is Charles Mismer (d. 1904) (Algar, Mīrzā Malkum Khān, pp. 7-8), an Islamophile French journalist and collaborator in the Revue de Philosophie Positive, the publication organ of positivism. Mismer’s main informant on things Islamic, who had helped shape his favourable image of that religion, had been none other than Malkum’s father (Algar, Mīrzā Malkum Khān, pp. 7-8). As intolerance in its most extreme form of jihād is condemned as incompatible with modern civilisation, likewise its milder forms of interreligious discrimination are denounced. It is in the light of this consideration that Malkum observes about the persecution of non-Muslims at the instigation of ignorant Muslim authorities that [d]ispersion of a community like the Zoroastrian farmers and craftsmen who nowadays have caused Bombay to prosper, diaspora like the scattering of the Jews of Jerusalem, who once were heirs to the same religious law as that of Islam […], and the dispersal of the Armenians, who, through trade and craftsmanship with foreign countries, have been at the root of the prosperity of each land – all this has no reason other than the unfairness and mercilessness of the noble religious scholars of Iran. (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 49)

It is in the same spirit that he remarks: What harm would be done if we had a few of those wealthy Baghdad Jews in Tehran and in Isfahan or if some of those Armenians who once left Isfahan and now, in India, are at the root of the prestige of the British Empire and of the prosperity of their country […] had remained in Isfahan or if the Zoroastrians who nowadays, in India, contribute to the splendour of that country were living safely in Yazd and Kerman! (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 51)

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But Malkum is hopeful that the present ills, which are in any case only due to ‘wrong’ understanding of Islam, can be overcome ‘if […] [religious scholars and ordinary Muslims] advocated an attitude of accommodation and conciliation, if they kindly admitted them [non-Muslims] to their mosques and places of worship and if the preachers of Islam sometimes attended gatherings of non-Muslims […]’ (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 51). Even the non-Muslims’ habit of wine-drinking, which, according to Malkum, was, like their lack of education, due to their being neglected by the authorities, could be corrected (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 51). And he is looking forward to a time when […] the worthy gentlemen [the Muslim religious authorities], mindful of the truth and of the conditions of being human would socialise with people professing a different religion, join them at table, admit them to their public baths without hesitation and encourage mixed marriages between Muslims and non-Muslims. (Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 51)

Significance The content and line of argument of Malkum’s Risāla-yi Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn can be taken as indicating a paradigm shift affecting the very idea of what a polity – including the issue of coexistence of its members – is about. Statesmanship is no longer conceived of as the translation into practice of theoretical wisdom in the form of philosophical and/or religious ethics, but rather as grounded in modern science. Accordingly, the ideal state is not based on religious law, sharīʿa, but on positive law, qānūn, a kind of law which, rather than drawing legitimacy from revelation, is meant to do justice to the regularities underlying the historical development of humankind towards modern civilisation as formulated by Comtean positivism. Likewise, the ideal official manifestation of law, qānūn, is not autocracy headed by the person of a just ruler by the grace of God, but the impersonal instituting of a constitution that binds ruler and subjects alike. Consistently, in a constitutional polity grounded in qānūn rather than sharīʿa, it is likewise qānūn as formulated in a constitution rather than the concept of dhimma as formulated by the sharīʿa that specifies the legal implications of religious affiliation. Like many reformers of his time, Malkum presents constitutionalism embodied in qānūn as both a precondition and a manifestation of idealised ‘modern civilisation’ as understood in terms of ethico-political positivism. Interreligious coexistence as regulated by qānūn becomes, for him, a civilisational concern rather than a merely legal one. That said, given that Malkum, in the name of his political positivism, regards qānūn not as

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the antithesis of sharīʿa but rather as implying it, he can envisage sharīʿa as transitioning into qānūn rather than being abrogated by it. By the same token, he can envisage Muslim religious scholars developing from guardians of the sharīʿa into guardians of constitutional qānūn. And the ruler would transition from an autocrat by the grace of God to a monarch ruling in the name of a constitution by the grace of God. Malkum, then, like so many contemporary reformers, cannot conceive of constitutionalism other than in terms of constitutional monarchy (Jankowski, ‘Ottomanism and Arabism in Egypt’, pp. 235-9; Schölch, ‘Constitutional development’, pp. 428-9). His very authoring of Risāla-yi Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn is in fact motivated by his concern that the ruler should adopt the constitution, not that the constitution should replace the ruler. This is why, unsurprisingly, the whole thrust of his argumentation is geared towards convincing the ruler that, since the very viability of the Iranian polity is predicated on constitutionalism, so is the ruler’s honour and survival in power. Returning to the particular issue of interreligious coexistence, since Malkum does not regard qānūn as antagonistic to sharīʿa but as implying it, his idea of grounding the respective legal status of religious communities on constitutional qānūn rather than sharīʿa cannot fully be taken as manifesting secularism. It is to be noted that, in his treatise, Malkum upholds the superiority of the Islamic religion, as is evidenced in his condemnation of wine-drinking by non-Muslims. His condemnation of discrimination against non-Muslims, then, is not moved by a theoretical conviction of all religions being equal. Rather, in the light of other texts by him, it would seem that he presents historical religions as so many different manifestations of the positivism-inspired Religion of Humanity, with Islam being the most accomplished of them (cf. Qāḍī Murādī, Malkum Khān, pp. 87, 89-90). Thinking of all religions as sharing common ground in the Religion of Humanity would – theoretically – discourage interreligious discrimination. On the practical level, discrimination on denominational grounds is presented by Malkum as simply detrimental to the polity and to its ruler. Publications MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale – 1996 (see Nāṭiq, ‘Darbāra-yi Risāla-yi Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, p. 41) H. Nāṭiq (ed.), ‘Darbāra-yi Risāla-yi Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, Alifbā 5 (1985) 41-53, pp. 45-53

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Studies V. Aksan, The Ottomans 1700-1923. An empire besieged, London, 2022 S. Faroqhi, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, Munich, 2021 R. Seidel, ‘Anfänge der Rezeption europäischer Philosophie im 19. Jahrhundert’, in A. von Kügelgen (ed.), Philosophie in der islamischen Welt, vol. 4/2. 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Türkei, Iran und Südasien, Basel, 2021, 978-1003 R. Seidel, ‘The reception of European philosophy in Qajar Iran’, in R. Pourjavady (ed.), Philosophy in Qajar Iran, Leiden, 2019, 313-71 A. Koçunyan, Negotiating the Ottoman constitution 1839-1876, Paris, 2018 M.S. Özervarlı, ‘Positivism in the late Ottoman Empire. The “Young Turks” as mediators and multipliers’, in J. Feichtinger et al. (eds), The worlds of positivism. A global intellectual history, 1770-1930, London, 2018, 81-108 Qāḍī Murādī, Malkum Khān A.A. Heydari, ‘Rezeption der westlichen Philosophie durch iranische Denker in der Kadscharenzeit’, Bonn, 2003 (PhD Diss. University of Bonn) Jeddi, Politische und kulturelle Auswirkungen Nāṭiq, ‘Kunsṭīṭūsiyūn’, pp. 41-5 J. Jankowski, ‘Ottomanism and Arabism in Egypt, 1860-1914’, The Muslim World 70 (1980) 226-59 A. Schölch, ‘Constitutional development in nineteenth-century Egypt. A reconsideration’, Middle Eastern Studies 10 (1974) 3-14 Algar, Mīrzā Malkum Khān Rāʾīn, Mīrzā Malkum Khān R. Devereux, The first Ottoman constitutional period. A study of the Midhat constitution and parliament, Baltimore MD, 1963 Ādamiyyat, Fikr-i āzādī S.M. Muḥīṭ Ṭabāṭabāʾī, ‘Introduction’, in Mīrzā Malkum Khān, Majmūʿa-yi āthār-i Mīrzā Malkum Khān, ed. S.M. Muḥīṭ Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Tehran, 1948, pp. a-nǧ Urs Gösken

Āqā Najafī Iṣfahānī Muḥammad Taqī ibn Muḥammad Bāqir Iṣfahānī; Masjid Shāhī Āqā Najafī Date of Birth 19 April 1846 Place of Birth Isfahan Date of Death 5 July 1914 Place of Death Isfahan

Biography

Muḥammad Taqī Iṣfahānī, commonly known as Āqā Najafī, was born in 1846 into a family of prominent clerics and scholars. His father, Muḥammad Bāqir (d. 1883), had studied in Iraq with several distinguished scholars including Murtaḍā Anṣārī (d. 1864), one of the most influential jurisprudents in Shīʿī intellectual history. On his return to Iran, he established himself as the foremost clerical authority in Isfahan and was in charge of the city’s most important religious site, Masjed-e Shah (the King’s Mosque). As a result, he accumulated great political influence and vast wealth. Āqā Najafī began his studies in his hometown of Isfahan under the supervision of his father. Around the age of 20, he moved to Najaf where he received further training under the city’s eminent scholars, including Mahdī Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ (d. 1872), Mīrzā Muḥammad Ḥasan Shīrāzī (d. 1895), and Shaykh Rāḍī Najafī (d. 1873). It is reported that after a five-year stay in Najaf and having reached the level of legal expertise (ijtihād), he returned to Isfahan where he was recognised as a religious authority of high standing (marjaʿ). About a decade later, due to a conflict of interest with Ẓill al-Sulṭān (d. 1918), Isfahan’s governor and the eldest son of the king, Naṣīr al-Dīn Shah (r. 1848-96), Āqā Najafī’s father left Iran for Najaf where he died shortly afterwards. Āqā Najafī, along with his brothers, inherited the custodianship of Masjed-e Shah, maintaining and expanding their sphere of influence. In addition to holding teaching sessions at the mosque and training numerous students, Āqā Najafī also served as a judge and was active in the political affairs of his time. The most pivotal of these was the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1905-11), which he seems to have reluctantly supported. Like his father, Āqā Najafī had a contentious relationship with

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Isfahan’s governor and even at times disobeyed the king’s commands. These disputes chiefly revolved around his opposition to British and Russian imperialist policies in Iran as well as his fierce antagonism to the Bābī and Bahāʾī movements. His confrontations with the ruling authorities eventually led to Āqā Najafī being summoned to the capital; after a few months, however, he was sent back to Isfahan where he remained active in religious and political affairs until his death in 1914. Āqā Najafī is remembered chiefly as a powerful political activist and less as a particularly eminent scholar. According to some accounts, he authored numerous works in several disciplines, including theology, law, jurisprudence and exegesis. He was also active in undertaking and sponsoring Persian translations of many widely-used Shīʿī texts, most notably various books of al-Majlisī’s voluminous Hadith collection Biḥār al-anwār (‘Seas of lights’). According to some sources, many of the books attributed to Āqā Najafī were written by others but published under his name.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary M.M. Āqā Buzurg Ṭihrānī, Al-dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-Shīʿa, Beirut, 1983, vol. 1, p. 24; vol. 2, p. 38, vol. 2, p. 46 M.ʿA. Modarris, Rayḥānat al-adab fī tarājim al-maʿrūfīn bi-l-kunya aw al-laqab, Tehran, 1995, vol. 1, pp. 57-8 Ā.B. al-Ṭihrānī, Ṭabaqāt aʿlām al-Shīʿa, Beirut, 2009, vol. 13, pp. 247-8 Secondary H.A. Walcher, art. ‘Āqā Najafī Iṣfahānī’, in EI3 H.A. Walcher, In the shadow of the king. Zill al-Sultan and Isfahan under the Qajars, London, 2008 A.-H. Hairi, art. ‘Āqā Najafī Eṣfahānī’, in EIr M. Mahdavī, Aʿlām-i Iṣfahān, ed. Gh. Nasrullāhī, Isfahan, 2008, vol. 2, pp. 64-5; vol. 2, pp. 213-15 ʿA. al-Qummī, Al-fawāʾid al-Raḍawiyya fī aḥwāl ʿ ulamāʾ al-madhhab al-Jaʿfariyya, ed. N. Bāqirī Bīdhindī, Qom, 2006, vol. 1, pp. 365-6; vol. 2, pp. 662-4; vol. 2, p. 704 M.A. Mawlavī, art. ‘Āqā Najafī’, in Dāʾirat al-maʿārif-i buzurg-i Islāmī, Tehran, 1995, vol. 1, p. 481 K. Mūsavī Burūjirdī, art. ‘Āqā Najafī Iṣfahānī’, in Dāʾirat al-maʿārif-i buzurg-i Islāmī, Tehran, 1995, vol. 1, pp. 481-2 M. Bamdad (ed.), Sharḥ-i ḥāl-i rijāl-i Īrān. Qarnhā-yi 12 u 13 u 14, Tehran, 1992, vol. 3, p. 326

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M. Mahdavī, Tārīkh-i ʿilmī u ijtimāʿī-i iṣfahān dar du qarn-i akhīr, Qom, 1988, vol. 1, pp. 313-40; vol. 1, pp. 343-509 S.M. al-Amīn, Aʿyān al-Shīʿa, ed. Ḥ. al-Amīn, Beirut, 1983, vol. 9, p. 196 M.M. Chahārdihī, Tārīkh-i ravābiṭ-i Īrān u ʿIrāq, Tehran, 1972, pp. 295-6

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Qiwām al-umma fī radd shayāṭīn al-kufra ‘The strength of the community in refuting the devils of the unbelievers’ Date 1873 Original Language Persian Description Qiwām al-umma fī radd shayāṭīn al-kufra is extant in one complete manuscript; it consists of 149 folios, each running for 23 lines. The only certainty about the date of its composition is contained in a passing remark by the author which suggests he wrote it in or around 1873 (p. 14). Najafī’s decision to write it came from reading Mīzān al-ḥaqq (‘The balance of truth’), originally written in German under the title Waage der Wahrheit in 1829 by Karl Gottlieb Pfander (d. 1865). It was translated into Persian and published in 1835. By the time Najafī wrote his refutation, it had also been translated into Arabic, Urdu and English. He writes in the preface of Qiwām al-umma that, having encountered the misguidance propounded in Mīzān al-ḥaqq, he felt obligated to refute it. He remarks that the arguments presented in Pfander’s book and those written by other Christian missionaries have infiltrated the minds of some of the masses. Faced with this situation, he feels obligated to write a book dispelling their misgivings, saying that in this endeavour he will rely on both rational and scriptural proofs (p. 3). Elsewhere in the text he adds that his criticisms of Judaism and Christianity do not stem from enmity and jealousy; his only aim, he says, is to awaken readers to the truth of Islam. As Matthew 28:18-21 teaches, he states, believers are obligated to spread the truth far and wide (p. 53). Najafī points out that his arguments in Qiwām al-umma will chiefly revolve around ch. 3 of Mīzān al-ḥaqq, since that is where Pfander presents most of his objections to Muḥammad’s prophethood and the divine origin of the Qur’an. Nevertheless, he remarks, his book will also address criticisms discussed elsewhere in Mīzān al-ḥaqq, as well as those raised by other Christian authors.

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Najafī begins by asserting that knowledge of prophethood, like the knowledge of God, is among the foundational doctrines of Islam. He maintains that refusing to believe in one of God’s prophets is akin to doubting them all; a person who does so ceases to be counted among Muslims since to deny prophethood is also to deny God. Najafī notes that his examination of this topic will include proofs presented for the concept of prophethood in general, for the prophethood of Muḥammad in particular, and for establishing the Qur’an as divine revelation. With elaborations that are at times saturated with mystical and philosophical terminology, he explains prophethood in terms of the Divine Names and envisions prophets as manifestations of these Names to varying degrees. For instance, whereas Jesus was the manifestation of the divine name Mercy, Muḥammad was the manifestation of the names Mercy and Wrath. Hence, the reason Muḥammad is the final prophet is that in him all the opposing divine names are gathered together. He also notes that had God intended to send no prophet after Jesus, He would have said so in the Torah and Gospels; the fact that God did not do so further validates the truth of Muḥammad’s claim to prophethood. According to Najafī, the veracity of a person’s claim to prophethood is established by his performance of miracles. He explains that while a minority of people might come to know that someone is a prophet through inspiration or reason, for most people the path to acknowledging prophethood is miracles. Considered in this light, Najafī finds Pfander’s arguments against Muḥammad’s prophethood unpersuasive. In his view, the same arguments that Christians have raised against the validity of reports concerning Muḥammad’s performance of miracles have previously been raised by Jews concerning the validity of Christian accounts of Jesus and his miracles. In addition to Islamic sources, he attempts to provide evidence for the truth of Muḥammad’s prophethood by adducing various passages from previous scriptures. He lists 61 passages from Jewish, Christian and Zoroastrian scriptural sources where he thinks the prophethood of Muḥammad is foretold (pp. 15-43). At various points in the book, Najafī emphasises his familiarity with the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, and at one point he mentions that he studied a number of Hebrew sources with a group of Jewish scholars at the Library of Moshe Halevi in Kashan (p. 31). Najafī dedicates a lengthy portion of the book (pp. 129-49) to a discussion of the biblical passages he considers contradictory and also to the abrogation of earlier scriptures (the Gospel’s abrogation of the Torah and the Qur’an’s of the Gospel). He accuses Jews and Christians of distorting

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their scriptures, rendering the accounts of Moses’ and Jesus’ teachings unreliable. In addition to arguments against Christian theological doctrines such as the Trinity (pp. 55-63), he also criticises the practice of drinking alcohol (which he claims has been made illicit in all religions) as a proof for the invalidity of Christianity (p. 133). Throughout the book, Najafī sets forth the standard arguments elaborated by Muslim theologians against Christian doctrines, as well as their responses to Christian criticisms of Islam. Significance Christian-Muslim intellectual exchange became widespread in Iran from the Safavid period (1501-1722) onwards. This trend continued in the Qajar period (1779-1925), albeit with less scholarly intensity and more polemical fervour. Karl Pfander’s Mīzān al-ḥaqq loomed large in Qajar exchanges and evoked numerous responses from Muslim thinkers. Najafī was not the first Muslim scholar to write a refutation of it. In India in particular, Mīzān al-ḥaqq had prompted a number of responses, the most famous being Raḥmat Allāh al-Kayrānawī’s (d. 1891) Iẓhār al-ḥaqq, written 20 years before Najafī’s book. Persian refutations written by Shīʿī scholars include Mīzān al-mawāzin fī amr al-dīn written in 1870 by Najaf ʿAlī Dānish Tabrīzī (d. 1891), Hidāyat al-mustarshidīn fī radd al-muḍillīn written in 1885 by Muḥammad Taqī Kāshānī (d. 1903), and Anīs al-aʿlām fī nuṣrat al-Islām written in 1894 by Muḥammad Ṣādiq Fakhr al-Islām (d. c. 1911), a Christian convert to Islam. These figures were all Najafī’s contemporaries and his treatment of Pfander’s work has much in common with them. The lithograph’s closing note (p. 148) indicates that the scribe (Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ʿAlī) was personally in contact with the author and that while he was copying this text, Āqā Najafī had started working on a more extensive and elaborate treatment of the topic. The scribe is probably referring to Ḥujjat al-Islām, which is briefly examined below. Publications Āqā Najafī, Qiwām al-umma fī radd shayāṭīn al-kufra, n.p. [probably Isfahan], n.d. [between 1873 and 1879], copied by Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ʿAlī According to R. Jaʿfariyān and M. Siddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf. Gozārishī az guftugūhā-yi Masīḥī-Islāmī dar dawra-yi Ṣafavī u Qājārī, Tehran, 2016, p. 236, a lithographic edition of the book was also published in Bombay.

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Studies Jaʿfariyān and Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, pp. 135-66 Āqā Buzurg al-Ṭihrānī, Al-dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-Shīʿa, vol. 17, p. 197 Walcher, In the shadow of the king

Ḥujjat al-Islām fī radd al-khiṣām min al-Yahūd wa-l-Naṣārā wa-l-Majūs ‘The proof of Islam. A refutation of the opponents, Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians’ Date 1879 Original Language Persian Description Ḥujjat al-Islām fī radd al-khiṣām min al-Yahūd wa-l-Naṣārā wa-l-Majūs is extant in one incomplete manuscript, comprised of 126 folios. A remark in the preface indicates that Najafī completed it in 1879 (fol. 87r in the disorganised manuscript), nearly seven years after Qiwām al-umma, which seems to have been his first major work on the topic of interreligious debates. He notes that he was prompted to write the book as a result of the activities of Christian missionaries in Iran and their attempts to sow religious misgivings among the masses. While such attempts strengthen rather than undermine the faith of informed believers, he explains, they have an adverse effect on the rest of the Muslim community. Hence, he feels obligated to articulate a comprehensive response in order to fend off any lurking doubts among the laity. Najafī remarks that, in pursuing this endeavour, his aim is to address Christian objections to Islam in more detail than many of his predecessors had. He speculates that in previous eras ignorance was perhaps not as prevalent as it is in his day and his predecessors’ refutations, despite their brevity, could fulfil their purpose of nullifying Jewish and Christian objections and safeguarding Muslims against them (fol. 87r). In the preface, Najafī writes that he has organised the book into four chapters (maqṣad), an introduction, and a conclusion. Ch. 1 is on prophethood; ch. 2 is on proofs of Muḥammad’s prophethood as found in scriptures before the Qur’an; ch. 3 contains Najafī’s refutations of objections against Islamic beliefs and practices made by Jewish and Christian thinkers

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in general and Henry Martyn (d. 1812) in particular. Unfortunately, the manuscript is incomplete and the content of ch. 4 remains unknown. Najafī begins Ḥujjat al-Islām by outlining his conception of prophet­ hood and its varieties, and the reasons why various revelations and religious laws disagree. He then provides five proofs for the concept of prophethood per se; this is followed by the presentation and refutation of a number of philosophical ideas concerning prophethood. He next argues that an individual’s claim to prophethood is established through his performance of miracles, and he proceeds to discuss various distinctions between miracle and sorcery, and the manner of performing miracles. He then outlines twelve prophetic characteristics (e.g. infallibility). After discussing prophethood in general, Najafī proceeds to outline what he calls the rational proofs for the prophethood of Muḥammad (fols 18v-19r). This is followed by a discourse on the Qur’an as divine revelation, its inimitability, and the elevated status of its teachings (fols 19v-26v). Next he presents evidence from biblical sources as well as scriptures of other religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism that, in his view, establish Muḥammad as the final prophet and the Qur’an as the final revelation (fols 26v-51r). Najafī also includes a discussion concerning the status of pre-qur’anic scriptures, which chiefly revolves around questions pertaining to their reliability and authority (fols 54v-66r). In his view, the Jewish and Christian scriptures, as they are available today, do not represent the original revelations given to Moses and Jesus; they have been distorted (taḥrīf) and hence are not entirely reliable. He is particularly critical of the reliability of the Gospels, presumably due to the fact that he is writing his book chiefly in response to the objections raised by Christian missionaries. He argues that the existence of four Gospels rather than one, and the numerous disagreements between them, indicate that they do not represent the Gospel revealed to Jesus. In his estimation, the four Gospels are akin to four incomplete historical epistles, written from memory, by four individuals who were not even the apostles of Jesus but rather the apostles of his Apostles (Najafī provides the names of the twelve Apostles as mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew). He notes that this is also indicated by what Luke (whom he calls ‘the most knowledgeable of the four gospel authors’) has stated at the beginning of his Gospel, namely that he is relating to Theophilus what he has heard from others (fol. 68). As for the issue of the authority of the previous scriptures, Najafī reiterates the position of most Muslim theologians according to which each new scripture abrogates the injunctions of its predecessor, either partially or entirely. Hence, he

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remarks, Moses’s law (sharīʿa) was valid for the prophets after him until the time of Jesus, who brought a new revealed book and abrogated a number of Jewish practices such as resting on the Sabbath and certain dietary restrictions. In the same way, the Qur’an has abrogated the Christian scripture (fol. 68). Following a conventional scholastic style, Najafī addresses a long list of criticisms of Muḥammad’s prophethood and the miraculous nature of the Qur’an. His arguments on these two topics closely follow those he had already set out in his previous book, though whereas in Qiwām al-umma fī radd shayāṭīn al-kufra Najafī provides Arabic transliterations of Hebrew biblical passages, in this text he also provides them in Hebrew script. Najafī’s book also addresses other arguments often raised by Christian missionaries, including the claim that Muḥammad spread Islam by the sword or that he engaged in improper sexual practices (fols 82v-84v). Significance The significance of Ḥujjat al-Islām chiefly stems from the prominence of its author rather than its content. It was written by an influential and politically active scholar of the Qajar period who was deeply involved in counter-missionary work against Jewish and Christian groups; his antagonism towards the Bābī and Bahāʾī movements, which he considered heretical, was also well-known. The book itself, however, is not particularly innovative in its treatment of the topic and falls into the tradition of Shīʿī refutations of Henry Martyn’s treatises. Writing refutations against Martyn had, in fact, been an ongoing exercise in the decades before Najafī composed his treatise against him. Notable predecessors include Irshād al-muḍillīn, completed in 1812 by Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī (d. 1831), Ḥujjat al-Islām completed in 1816 by ʿAlī Nūrī (d. 1831), and Sayf al-umma wa-burhān al-milla by Aḥmad Narāqī (d. 1829) completed in 1817. Publications MS Qom, Markaz-i Iḥyāʾ – 2244, 126 fols (1879) Studies Jaʿfariyān and Siddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf, pp. 235-6, 253-357 A. Amanat, ‘Mujtahids and missionaries. Shiʿi responses to Christian polemics in the early Qajar period’, in R. Gleave (ed.), Religion and society in Qajar Iran, London, 2005, 247-69 Amin Ehteshami

Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Marʿashī Shahrastānī Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ḥusaynī Marʿashī Shahrastānī Date of Birth 1840 Place of Birth Kirmanshah, Iran Date of Death 1898 Place of Death Karbala, Iraq

Biography

Muḥammad Ḥusayn Shahrastānī was born in Kirmanshah into a family of established scholars. According to his own remarks in his Zawāʾid al-fawāʾid, he was born on Thursday 10 December 1840. Most biographical entries give 1839 as his year of birth, but this is not correct (Ashkivarī, Al-mufaṣṣal, vol. 1, p. 329). He was known by the nisba ‘Shahrastānī’ on account of his grandfather, Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ḥāʾirī (d. after 1814), who had married the daughter of Muḥammad Mahdī Shahrastānī (d. 1800), one of the highest ranked religious scholars in the city of Karbala. Ḥāʾirī subsequently adopted this nisba for himself (for more on him, see Āqā Buzurg Ṭihrānī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 10, p. 414, and Al-dharīʿa, vol. 21, p. 176). In his childhood, Shahrastānī briefly accompanied his father to Mashhad. There, he undertook some preliminary seminary studies and then, at 13 years of age, he went to Karbala, where, in addition to studying jurisprudence and its principles, he also became acquainted with philosophy, theology, astronomy, geometry and prosody. As well as his own father, his teachers in jurisprudence included Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ardakānī (d. 1884), the notes from whose lessons Shahrastānī compiled into a work titled Ghāyat al-masʾūl wa-nihāyat al-ma‌ʾmūl, which received Ardakānī’s approval. He received licences (ijāzāt) to conduct independent legal reasoning (ijtihād) from both his father and Ardakānī in 1865 and 1870 (Āqā Buzurg Ṭihrānī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 14, p. 628). In addition to holding a teaching post in Karbala, Shahrastānī served as the spiritual leader for a large community of Shīʿī Muslims (Mudarris, Rayḥānat al-adab, vol. 3, p. 272). During the reign of the Qajar monarch Nāsir al-Dīn Shah (r. 1848-96), he twice made pilgrimages to the shrine of

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Imām Riḍā in Mashhad, in the years 1882 and 1888. These took him through the capital, Tehran, where he received a warm welcome from members of the court, the merchant class and the common people. The influential Shīʿī mujtahid, Mullā ʿAlī Kanī (fl. 1889), also made a public show of respect by installing him as prayer leader at the Maravī Mosque for the duration of his stay in May 1889 (Ramaḍān 1306). The courtier Iʿtimād al-Salṭana, a famed author of this period, reproduced Shahrastānī’s family tree and praised him highly. Shahrastānī died on 25 February 1898, and was buried in the Shrine of Imām Ḥusayn in Karbala (Āqā Buzurg Ṭihrānī, Ṭabaqāt, vol. 14, p. 629). More than 80 treatises by Shahrastānī are known. They are written in both Arabic and Persian and cover a variety of topics, ranging from jurisprudence and its principles to mathematics, geometry and astronomy, and also refutations of Christianity and Shaykhism (Ashkivarī, Al-mufaṣṣal, vol. 1, p. 334).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Mīrzā Muḥammmad ʿAlī Mudarris, Rayḥānat al-adab, vol. 3, Tehran, 1990 Muḥammad Ḥasan Khān Iʿtimād al-Salṭana, Al-ma‌ʾāthir wa-l-āthār, vol. 1, ed. Īraj Afshār, Tehran, 1995 Secondary F. Saʿādat, art. ‘Shahrastānī’, in Dānishnāma-yi Jahān-i Islām, vol. 28, Tehran, 2021, pp. 119-26 S.A. Ḥusaynī Ashkivarī, Al-mufaṣṣal fī tarājim al-aʿlām, vol. 1, Qom, 2014 S.H. Āl Ṭuʿma, Turāth Karbalāʾ, Tehran, 2014 M.M. Aqā Buzurg Ṭihrānī, Al-dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-Shīʿa, Beirut, 1983 M.M. Aqā Buzurg Ṭihrānī, Ṭabaqāt aʿlām al-Shīʿa, vol. 14, Beirut, 1971 Khān Bābā Mushār, Muʾallifīn-i kutub chāpī fārsī u ʿarabī az āghāz-i chāp tā kunūn, vols 2 and 4, Tehran, 1971 Muḥammad ʿAlī Ḥabībābādī, Makārim al-āthār dar aḥwāl-i rijāl-i dawra-yi Qājār, Iṣfahan, 1985

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Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Sabīl al-najāt ‘The path of deliverance’ Date 1884 Original Language Persian Description According to what Shahrastānī says in the introduction to this work (fol. 1v; all references are to MS Qom – 5009), he wrote Sabīl al-najāt at the request of ‘a brother in faith’ who had asked him to compose a refutation of Ṭarīq al-ḥayāt (‘The way of life’) by the Christian missionary Karl Gottlieb Pfander (1803-65), which was written in Persian and had first appeared in Calcutta some decades earlier in 1840. Shahrastānī does not provide any further clues to the identity of this petitioner or say whether he lived in India. Nor does he name Pfander but simply refers to ‘a pastor of the Christian religion’ and describes Ṭarīq al-ḥayāt as a ‘book of misguidance’. Just as the central themes of Pfander’s Christian work are sin and its consequences, sacrifice, redemption and the question of salvation, these are the themes of Shahrastānī’s Sabīl al-najāt. However, unlike Ṭarīq al-ḥayāt, which is arranged in three chapters (sin and its consequences, ways to salvation, salvation through the Messiah), each divided into several sections, Sabīl al-najāt lacks any chapter headings (it is 256 pages long). Instead, Shahrastānī quotes passages from Ṭarīq al-ḥayāt and then responds to each. He habitually prefaces his responses with the phrase Qāṣir mī gūyad … (‘This lowly one says …’). All the quotations from Pfander’s work are accompanied by page references, but it is still not known which edition Shahrastānī had access to, though it was definitely not the Agra edition of 1847 because the quotations and page numbers do not match up. In numerous places, Pfander’s arguments are presented in a highly summarised fashion, to the extent that it is necessary to refer to the original in order fully to understand the debate taking place (e.g. fols 12r, 18v). After a short preamble explaining how Shahrastānī chose the name for this work, and dealing with preliminary issues, Sabīl al-najāt introduces the different parts of the Bible and undertakes a linguistic-historical criticism (fols 3r-8v). Shahrastānī devotes about one-third of the treatise to this: he does not directly address the contents of Ṭarīq al-ḥayāt but responds to Pfander’s claim that the only divinely revealed scriptures

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are ‘the Torah, the Psalms, the scrolls of the Prophets, and the Gospels’. On this matter, Pfander had directed readers to his more extensive discussion in his Mīzān al-ḥaqq (‘The balance of truth’). However, this work does not seem to have been available to Shahrastānī. The detailed and technical linguistic discussion, which was largely without precedent in Iran, is grounded in the new discipline of textual criticism. Shahrastānī’s source, by his own acknowledgement, was Iẓhār al-ḥaqq (‘The manifestation of truth’, ed. Muḥammad Aḥmad Muḥammad Malkāwī, Riyadh, 1989) by Raḥmat Allāh Hindī (also known as Raḥmat Allāh Kayrānawī, d. 1891) (fol. 8v). Statements such as: ‘The Torah’s contents clearly show that it was not written by Moses, and that it was not even written during his lifetime, as wherever it distinguishes between the words of God and the words of Moses, it refers to Moses in the third-person and never in the first-person’ (fol. 3v), are translated directly from Iẓhār al-ḥaqq (vol. 1, p. 115). In the same vein, when Shahrastānī prefixes points concerning the validity of the Torah with the phrase ‘some relate that …’ (baʿḍī naql kardand; fol. 4v), he is actually citing Raḥmat Allāh Hindī (Iẓhār al-ḥaqq, vol. 1, pp. 116-17). Equally, when he cites the biblical commentary of the Methodist scholar Adam Clark (d. 1832), this is also possibly via Iẓhār al-ḥaqq (fols 4v, 8r). Throughout Sabīl al-najāt, Shahrastānī employs the approach of quoting statements from Pfander and identifying contradictions between each of them and the Bible or common sense. For example, Pfander advances the following premise to explain human sinfulness: ‘It is self-evident that if you were a sinless human being, you would not have feared God at all. On the contrary, you would have loved Him and longed for death and judgement instead!’ Shahrastānī responds: This lowly one says: It is well-known that even sinless people such as children and the insane are often restless and anxious, so what is the cause of their unhappiness? Conversely, there are many who are extremely sinful and not at all afraid. The cause the pastor posits for human misery is, therefore, not logically co-extensive with the phenomenon it purports to explain. (fol. 12v)

Equally, on the basis of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans Pfander argues that no one is without sin. In response, Shahrastānī says: ‘This would include Jesus too, so this problem applies equally to both sides, and whatever solution you might propose for this, we could propose the same’ (fol. 19v). One more example: On page 45, the pastor talks on the basis of speculation (ẓann) and traditions of the Prophet about whether the punishment and suffering of hell

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Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Marʿashī Shahrastānī are spiritual or physical. This lowly one says: The expressions of the Gospels and other sources he quotes make clear that hellfire is physical, so we do not know on what rational or textual basis the good pastor has concluded that the punishment of hell is not physical but purely spiritual, or that descriptions of hell are all allegorical, or from whence he understood that a person’s spirit returns on the Day of Resurrection without a body, such that it would be impossible to inflict physical punishment on it, or how he has decided that the expressions of the Bible are to be read allegorically while the words of the followers of Muḥammad are not. (fols 12v-13r)

In relation to Jesus’s sacrifice, the crux of Pfander’s argument is that, insofar as all human beings are sinful, and insofar as their faith alone cannot bring about their salvation, their faith in the sacrifice of Jesus is the only way to achieve salvation. Shahrastānī responds by critiquing each of these premises in turn. First, if all human beings are sinful, this would include Jesus as well (fol. 19v). Second, nothing prevents God Himself from forgiving human beings for their sins by the mere fact of their repentance, even to the extent of compensating people for the wrongs that others have done to them, for it would not run contrary to God’s wisdom were He to do this (fol. 19r). Third, if someone really had to sacrifice themselves for humankind’s sins, how is it known that this is meant to be Jesus, especially considering that some believe he ascended to heaven before dying? Furthermore, why could not that sacrifice be ‘the martyrdom of the oppressed imām, the master of martyrs [Imām al-Ḥusayn], for no one has endured more hardships and tribulations for the sake of God’s religion than he in the history of humankind. […] What evidence does the pastor have against this?’ (fol. 19v). Continuing from this, when Pfander explains the reason for Christ’s appearance following his sacrificial death, Shahrastānī’s arguments are based exclusively on evidence drawn from the New Testament. He says that, if what Pfander argues is true, this should have been explicitly stated in the Gospels themselves, but this topic is in fact only discussed in the writings of the Apostles. To demonstrate the dissonance between the teachings of Jesus as reflected in the Gospels and the writings of the Apostles, especially Paul, Shahrastānī cites the famous passage from the Gospel of Matthew (5:17): ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them’ (fol. 21r). In the same vein, Shahrastānī uses concepts from Islamic theology (kalām) and Aristotelian logic to criticise Christian teachings about Jesus being both God and the Son of God:

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These are meaningless contradictions, as how can the Son be identical with the Father in essence? Are not the quality of being a father and that of being a son a pair of complementary opposites and as such impossible to combine? And even if these could be combined, would that not mean that God surrendered Himself to be killed? (fol. 24v)

He also employs rhetorical statements such as: ‘The Messiah still lives and is not troubled in the least!’ (fol. 24v). The closing discussions of the treatise provide an Islamic reading of John 16:13, referring to the coming of ‘the Spirit of truth, who will guide you into all truth’. Shahrastānī argues that the ‘Paraclete’ or ‘Comforter’, whose coming Jesus foretells in the Gospel of John, is none other than the Prophet of Islam (fol. 25r-v). Sabīl al-najāt is one of a number of treatises that make significant use of the Bible in its arguments, particularly the New Testament. While such treatises often paraphrase the meaning of the Bible, where a direct quotation is provided this is usually taken from the Persian translation by the Anglican missionary Henry Martyn (d. 1812), Kitāb-i muqaddas (ʿAhd-i jadīd), London, 1876. Shahrastānī frequently uses Martyn’s translation without modification but, in a handful of instances, some adjustments are made. For example, the words of Jesus, ‘my Father’s will’, are replaced by ‘my Lord’s will’ (fol. 21v, line 3). Significance The approach Shahrastānī adopts throughout Sabīl al-najāt is not to construct a general refutation but rather to discuss particular points and specific passages drawn from Ṭarīq al-ḥayāt. It is clear that he made a careful reading of Pfander’s book. Throughout the treatise, readers are confronted by a text-focused legalist who diverges strongly from an ethics-centred understanding of religion and also from Sufi interpretations of religion. It should be noted that Pfander’s approach in Ṭarīq al-ḥayāt is to offer an ethics-centred understanding of religion, which attracts Shahrastānī’s criticism. For example, when Pfander says: ‘Muslims do not consider ill intent or immoral thoughts to be a sin’, Shahrastānī replies that ‘the essence of sinning is to disobey God, so if God says: “Do not fornicate!” He is disobeyed through the act of fornication, not the thought of it […] and the pastor’s claim that merely imagining a sin is a grievous sin is itself a mere imagination as well as a grievous calumny!’ (fol. 18v). Equally, Shahrastānī gives no credence to Sufi interpretations of Islamic teachings. For example, on the question of whether the punishment of hell is physical or spiritual in nature, he

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criticises the Sufi teaching that hell is spiritual as being without basis: ‘Sometimes such expressions come from partisanship and these interpretations are also widespread amongst Sufi Muslims’ (fol. 13r). In sum, the importance of Sabīl al-najāt lies primarily in what it reveals about the positions adopted by a Shīʿī Muslim jurist when faced with Christian missionary activity. Publications MS Najaf, Maktabat al-Imām Amīr al-Muʾminīn – 1927 (1884) MS Qom, Marʿashī Library – 5845/3, 21 fols (72v–92v) (28 June 1888, naskh script, copied by ʿAbd al-Hādī Ḥusaynī Shahrastānī, nephew of the author) MS Qom, Marʿashī Library – 5009, 27 fols (7 April 1896, nastaʿlīq script, copied by Muḥammad Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad Jaʿfar, with marginal corrections in the copyist’s hand) MS Qom, Marʿashī Library – 3117/2, 14 fols (October 1897, nastaʿlīq script, copied by Muḥammad ibn Ākhūnd Mullā ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm RawḍaKhwān; see Dirāyatī, Fankhā. Fihristgān nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭī-i Īrān, vol. 17, Tehran, 2012, p. 948) MS Khansar (Khwānsār), Kitābkhāna-yi Fāḍil-i Khwānsārī – 480, 323 fols (20th century, some pages missing, written in nastaʿlīq script, scribe unknown) Studies Musṭafā Dirāyatī, Fankhā. Fihristgān nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭī-i Īrān, vol. 17, Tehran, 2012 Heidar Eyvazi

ʿAbbās-Qulī Khān Sipihr Kāshānī Date of Birth 1852 Place of Birth Tehran Date of Death 1924 Place of Death Tehran

Biography

ʿAbbās-Qulī Khān Sipihr Kāshānī was a man of letters and a member of the last generation of traditional bureaucratic elites in Qajar Iran. His father, Muḥammad Taqī Sipihr, known as Lisān al-Mulk (1801-80), was a prominent historian during the reigns of Muḥammad Shah (r. 1834-48) and Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah (r. 1848-96), and is famed for a work of universal history titled Nāsikh al-tawārīkh. Unlike the case of his father, there is relatively little biographical information about ʿAbbās-Qulī Khān. Although he lived during the reigns of the last four Qajar monarchs, he led a quiet and undisturbed life. What most sources have preserved about him are mainly short reports about his rapid and continuous rise through the ranks of the Qajar bureaucracy, accompanied by references to his works. In his own introductions to his writings, he often makes do with the same professional and bibliographical references. With encouragement from his father, who was also his first – and probably his main – teacher, ʿAbbās-Qulī studied the common traditional sciences of his time. In 1870, at the age of 18, he was appointed to the special secretariat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he rose to the rank of prefect (darūghagī) in 1877. His literary abilities and mastery of the various secretarial skills and arts – as demonstrated by his translation of Ibn Khallikān’s (d. 1282) biographical dictionary, Wafayāt al-aʿyān (‘Deaths of eminent men’) – led him to advance rapidly through the bureaucratic hierarchy. After becoming first secretary (munshī-i avval) in the ministry, he advanced to the post of second deputy (niyābat-i duvvum) in 1883. In 1886 or 1887 he received the title of Sipihr-i Thānī (‘the Second Sipihr’) from Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah and became the first deputy (niyābat-i avval) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A short time later, he was transferred to the Ministry of Justice, where he became an adviser (Art. ‘Muʾtamin al-Sulṭān’, p. 73). Probably his last and most prominent government position was as ‘minister for compositions and histories’ (vazīr-i ta‌ʾlīfāt u tavārīkh) in the

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Qajar cultural bureau. In this role, he was responsible for overseeing the works published in official government publications. He remained in this position until his death. Like his father, ʿAbbās-Qulī Khān was a prolific author and, under a contract with the Qajar government, was responsible for writing some 20,000 lines a year (Āl Dāvūd, ‘Az nuskha-yi khaṭṭī’, p. 366). During his lifetime, he wrote 36 works in 50 volumes. In addition to history, he also wrote studies on literature, linguistics and contemporary political issues. His primary role was to complete the voluminous universal history, Nāsikh al-tawārīkh, which had been begun by his father but remained unfinished since his death. Nāsikh al-tawārīkh was a commissioned work, and represents the last prominent example of traditional Iranian history writing, which sought to cover human history from the fall of Adam to the time of its author. ʿAbbās-Qulī’s father had reached the lifetime of Imam Ḥusayn in the late 7th century. After his death, ʿAbbās-Qulī was commissioned by the government to complete the work. He added another 15 sizeable volumes on the lives of the Shīʿī Infallibles, until the end of the life of the tenth Imam, but he did not finish the biographies of the final two Imams. His almost constant occupation with writing this ambitious work meant that he became extremely well-versed in the history of Islam and Shīʿism.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Art. ‘Muʾtamin al-Sulṭān Mīrzā ʿAbbās-Qulī Khān Sipihr’, Rūznāma-yi Sharaf 73 (1890) 5-6 Gh.Ḥ. Afḍal al-Mulk, Afḍal al-tavārīkh, ed. Manṣūra Ittiḥādiyya and Sīrūs Saʿdvandiyān, Tehran, 1982, pp. 101, 200, 365, 368, 421 M.Ḥ. Khān Iʿtimād al-Salṭana, Al-ma‌ʾāthir wa-l-āthār, ed. Iraj Afshār, Tehran, vol. 1, 1995, pp. 254, 258, 314, 381, 413 M.ʿA. Mudarris Tabrīzī, Rayḥānat al-adab fī tarājim al-maʿrūfīn bi-l-kunya wa-llaqab, vol. 5, Tehran, 1995, pp. 131-2 ʿA.Ḥ. Khān Sipihr, Mirʾāt-i Muẓaffarī, ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn Navāʾī, Tehran, vol. 1, 2007, pp. 106, 133, 224, 362, 374, 379, 504 Secondary S.ʿA. Āl Dāvūd, ‘Az nuskha-yi khaṭṭī tā chāp-i sangī. Guzārishī dar khuṣūṣ-i ta‌ʾmīn-i makhārij-i nakhustīn chāp-i Nāsikh al-Tawārīkh, Nāma-yi ʿAbbāsQulī Khān Sipihr Kāshānī bi Nāsir al-Dīn Shāh Qājār’, Nāma-yi Bahāristān 12/18-19 (2011) 365-6 M.ʿA. Muʿallim Ḥabībābādī, Makārim al-āthār dar aḥvāl-i rijāl-i dawra-yi Qājār, vol. 6, Isfahan, 1983, pp. 1901-8

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J. Qāʾim-Maqāmī, ‘Muqaddima’, in Muḥammad Taqī Khān Lisān al-Mulk Sipihr, Nāsikh al-tawārīkh. Dawra-yi kāmil tārīkh-i Qājāriyya, ed. Jahāngīr QāʾimMaqāmī, Tehran, 1958, 21-5

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Burhān al-nubuwwa-yi Nāṣirī ‘Proofs of the prophethood [of Muḥammad] for Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah’ Date 1887 Original Language Persian Description Burhān al-nubuwwa-yi Nāṣirī is a short treatise, 26 pages long, written by ʿAbbās-Qulī Khān Sipihr in Tehran in 1887. It is unusual among works of its kind in being almost entirely devoid of theological or philosophical language derived from the traditions of kalām and falsafa. Equally, while its contents are polemical, it is not harsh in tone. The main motivation for its composition was Sipihr’s own doctrinal doubts and an attempt to achieve personal certainty about the truth of Islam, although the usual motivation for writing such works – ‘answering the denier and silencing the opponent’ (pāsukh-i munkir u iskāt-i khaṣm) – also played a role in its creation (‘Burhān al-nubuwwa’, ed. Ghafoori, p. 491; the references that follow are to this edition). No particular sources are mentioned, and the text appears to be largely composed of the author’s own original thoughts. It has no section or chapter headings to indicate its internal structure. Sipihr says he wrote it in response to two groups, which he introduces at the beginning of the text (p. 492). They are those who deny prophethood and the afterlife, and those who believe in them. Those who believe in prophethood can be divided into those who accept the Prophet of Islam, the Muslims, and those who follow other prophets and await the appearance of a prophet in future who will have the necessary qualities to act as God’s final messenger to humankind (p. 492). Without doubt, Sipihr has in mind here the Christian missionaries in Qajar Iran, whose proselytising activities posed a strong ideological threat to Islam. Sipihr first responds to the ‘problem’ of the group who deny revelation and prophethood as a whole, and sets out to demonstrate that Muḥammad was a prophet of God (pp. 492-3). He argues that the historical superiority of Muḥammad in the face of the challenges of his opponents and the

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spread of his religion across a wide geographical area are two of the main arguments for his legitimacy as a divinely sent messenger. This superiority has its roots in the theological teachings and jurisprudential rulings of Islam, which Sipihr implies are in agreement with modern medical knowledge – possibly with the intent of this knowledge serving as a proxy for modern empirical sciences as a whole. The rationality of Islam not only led to its victory over its early opponents, but also guaranteed its historical continuity. In fact, it meant that ‘most’ of the countries of the world ultimately adopted Islamic laws (p. 493), although Sipihr does not provide any evidence for this second claim. He develops his argument by reviewing the history of religions to compare the historical success of Muḥammad with that of other prophets, and emphasises that revelation underwent a process of gradual perfection before reaching its full and final form in the revelatory teachings of Islam. At various points in this part, he provides several examples of the historical superiority of Islam over other religions. In response to those who deny these facts, he adduces intra-religious arguments, such as the Prophet himself emphasising that he was God’s final prophet to humankind, as well as inviting his opponents to evaluate his religion on rational grounds (pp. 493-4). Sipihr also responds to the claim that Muḥammad merely collected and selected the teachings and ordinances of the religions that came before him. He first invokes the Qur’an’s miraculous inimitability and cites the failure of the Prophet’s opponents to produce anything akin to it. He then points to the fact that history has shown that false prophets are always defeated, both at the time of the Prophet himself and in later periods as well (pp. 496-8). In addition to the above, Sipihr invokes another historical argument to counter critics of the doctrine of prophethood in the modern period. He says that, in the period before Muḥammad, there was always a certain interval between the advent of prophets. The interval between Muḥammad and the present has been long enough for another prophet to appear but this has not happened, confirming the truth and finality of Muḥammad’s mission (pp. 498-9). This first section of the treatise is more detailed than the second, and many of the points Sipihr raises in it are not only addressed to those who deny divine revelation, but also to those who belong to non-Islamic religions. The second part offers a short response to the ‘problem’ of the finality of Muḥammad’s prophethood (p. 500). Here, Sipihr resorts to a sort of comparative theology and uses ‘rational and empirical arguments’ (barāhīn

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ʿaqlī u ḥissī). Without explicitly saying so, he invokes the Shīʿī doctrine of divine grace (luṭf ), according to which God never leaves the earth devoid of divine authority or guidance. This is why, logically, the world could not have existed since the time of Jesus without some kind of divine guide. After contextualising the teachings of various prophets, he invites his readers to make a study of the rules and teachings of the religion of Islam and compare them with those of other religions. After making a rational and fair-minded comparison, he asks them to choose which they deem to be superior. Significance Burhān al-nubuwwa was written by a historian with extensive knowledge of the history of Islam and other religions. Unlike other scholars of his day, who tended to use theological and philosophical arguments to demonstrate the legitimacy of Muḥammad’s prophethood, Sipihr adopts an almost completely historical approach. Of course, this is based on Islamic principles alone. Publications ʿAbbās-Qulī Khān Sipihr, Burhān al-nubuwwa-yi Nāṣirī, Tehran, November 1887 (lithograph edition, copied by Muḥammad ʿAlī Raḍawī and financed by Fayḍullāh Darbandī Shīrvānī, 31 pages) ʿAbbās-Qulī Khān Sipihr, ‘Burhān al-nubuwwa-yi Nāṣirī’, ed. Mohammad Ghafoori, in R. Jaʿfariyān (ed.), Jashn-nāma-yi Āyatullāh Ibrāhīm Amīnī, Qom, 2015, pp. 491-506 Studies M. Ghafoori, ‘Introduction’ to ‘Burhān al-nubuwwa-yi Nāṣirī’, in Jaʿfariyān (ed.), Jashn nāma-i Āyatullāh Ibrāhīm Amīnī, pp. 485-9 Mohammad Ghafoori

Muḥammad Taqī Kāshānī Muḥammad Taqī Kāshānī ibn Ḥājjī Muḥammad Ḥusayn Kāshānī Date of Birth 1821 or 1822 Place of Birth Kashan Date of Death About 1895 Place of Death Probably Tehran

Biography

Muḥammad Taqī Kāshānī was born in the town of Kashan in 1821 or 1822. His father, Ḥājjī Muḥammad Ḥusayn, and one of his uncles were merchants, but another uncle, Mullā Muḥammad Ḥasan, belonged to the ranks of local men of religious learning (Hidāyat al-ṭālibīn, introduction, p. 504). Sources remain silent about the details of the family’s roots and ancestry. After his primary education in Kashan, he went to Najaf, where he studied jurisprudence with Shaykh Muḥammad Ḥasan al-Najafī (d. 1850), the author of Jawāhir al-kalām (Imāmī Khuyī, Mirʾāt al-sharq, vol. 1, pp. 337-8). He then returned to his homeland where he received a licence (ijāza) for ijtihād from some of the jurists of Kashan and Isfahan (Hidāyat al-ṭālibīn, ‘Muqaddima’, p. 505). Around 1847, Kāshānī moved to Tehran, where he spent the rest of his life. He married Khayr al-Nisāʾ, daughter of Shaykh Muḥammad Jaʿfar Sharīʿatmadār (d. 1847-8), one of the most celebrated jurists of the city (Hidāyat al-ṭālibīn, ‘Muqaddima’, pp. 505-6), thus securing high social status in the capital. After the death of his father-in-law, he became the marjaʿ (source of emulation) of Tehran and composed a treatise on practical law entitled Hidāyat al-Shīʿa, for those who emulated him (Hidāyat al-ṭālibīn, p. 506). This work was dedicated to the Qajar monarch, Muḥammad Shah (r. 1834-48) and it must have been composed in the last year of the shah’s reign (Dirāyatī, Fihristwāra, vol. 34, p. 666). He also composed Muʿīn al-ʿawāmm in four volumes for those who sought detailed instructions for the regulations (Dirāyatī, Fihristwāra, vol. 30, pp. 587-8). During the reign of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah (r. 1848-96), Kāshānī gradually secured the patronage and support of the Qajar court. Most of Kāshānī’s works are on jurisprudence, among them an extensive commentary on al-Muḥaqqiq al-Ḥillī’s (d. 1277) Sharāyiʿ al-Islām. He

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also wrote a voluminous book of advice for Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah entitled Jāmiʿ al-mawāʿiẓ (‘The summa of sermons’; for a list of his works, see the introduction by Ḥamīd Riḍā Kiyānī to Hidāyat al-ṭālibīn, 2016, pp. 34-49).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary ‘Muqaddima [Introduction]’, in Hidāyat al-ṭālibīn, lithography edition financed by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Khān Sahām al-Salṭana, Tehran, 1889-90, pp. 504-10 ʿA. Qummī, Fawāʾid Raḍawiyya dar aḥvāl-i ʿulamāʾ-i madhhab-i Jaʿfariyya, Tehran, 1948 M.Ḥ. Iʿtimād al-Salṭana, Ma‌ʾāthir wa-l-āthār, Tehran, 1976, vol. 1, p. 229 M.A. Imāmī Khuyī, Mirʾāt al-sharq, ed. ʿAlī Ṣadrāyī Khuyī, Qom, 2006, vol. 1, pp. 337-8 Secondary Ḥamīd Riḍā Kiyānī, ‘Muqaddima’, in Muḥammad Taqī Kāshānī, Hidāyat al-mustarshidīn fī radd al-muḍillīn, ed. Ḥ.R. Kiyānī, Tehran, 2017, pp. 28-30 Ḥamīd Riḍā Kiyānī, ‘Muqaddima’, in Muḥammad Taqī Kāshānī, Hidāyat al-jāḥidīn, ed. Ḥ.R. Kiyānī, Isfahan, 2016, pp. 34-49 R. Jaʿfariyān and M. Ṣiddīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf. Guzārishī az guftugūhā-yi Masīhī-Islāmī dar dawra-yi Ṣafavī u Qājārī, Tehran, 2016, pp. 138-9 Muṣṭafā Dirāyatī, Fihristwāra-i dastniwishthā-i Īrān, Tehran, 2010

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Hidāyat al-ṭālibīn ‘Guidance for seekers’ Date 1869 Original Language Persian Description Dedicated to the ruling Qajar monarch, Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah (r. 1848-96), this work follows the structure of Twelver Shīʿī credal works. In the lithographic edition of 1889, it is 503 pages long. It consists of an introduction and five chapters (abwāb, sing. bāb) on the Unicity of God (tawḥīd, pp. 5-114), divine justice (ʿadl, pp. 114-24), prophethood (nubuwwat, pp. 124230), Imāmat (pp. 230-449) and resurrection (maʿād, pp. 449-503). In the third chapter, Kāshānī discusses prophethood in general (nubuwwat-i ʿāmma, pp. 124-56) and then Muḥammad’s prophethood in particular (nubuwwat-i khāṣṣa, pp. 156-230). The latter section is particularly

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significant for interreligious discussions. He argues that the Qur’an must be a miracle because of its beauty and eloquence, and that none of the miracles attributed to earlier prophets can rationally be accepted because the accounts of them are not transmitted in a broadly attested manner (tawātur) (pp. 156-84). Kāshānī then presents several reasons for Christianity being abrogated. First, he blames it for being divided into a number of sects, then he blames St Paul for disengaging Christians from the divine law, and finally he argues that the original Gospel is not extant and the four Gospels currently in use were written by the Apostles and cannot be divine (pp. 184-90). The final section of this chapter is about intimations of Muḥammad and the Shīʿī Imāms in the Old Testament. Kāshānī’s main source for this is Maḥḍar al-shuhūd fī radd al-Yahūd (‘The gathering of witnesses in refutation of the Jews’), a polemical work in Persian against Judaism written in 1797 by Ḥājjī Bābā Qazvīnī Yazdī, who was the son of a Jewish convert to Shīʿī Islam (pp. 190-230). Significance Hidāyat al-ṭālibīn is one of the few works on sytematic theology (kalām) written during the reign of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah. Although Kāshānī wrote two polemical works against Christianity in later years, it is in Hidāyat al-ṭālibīn that he presents his most elaborate discussion about the Old Testament’s intimations of Muḥammad and the Shīʿī Imāms, to the extent that in his other works he refers readers to this. The work circulated in two lithograph editions, but the absence of any further editions suggests that it did not exert any widespread influence. Publications No manuscripts of this work are known. M.T. Kāshānī, Hidāyat al-ṭālibīn, lithograph, Tehran, the publishing house of Mīr Muḥammad Bāqir Ṭihrānī, with the efforts of ʿAlī-Qulī Khān, the head of the Telegraph House, 1869 M.T. Kāshānī, Hidāyat al-ṭālibīn, lithograph, Tehran, the publishing house of Mīrzā Ḥabībullāh with the financial support of Mīrzā Muḥammad Ḥusayn Khān Sahām al-Salṭana, 1889 (this includes an epilogue on the life and works of the author)

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Hidāyat al-mustarshidīn, fī radd al-muḍillīn ‘Guidance for those seeking direction, in rebuttal of those who have gone astray’ Date 1885 or 1886 Original Language Persian Description As Kāshānī explains at the beginning, this work is a response to questions posed to him by some learned people (jamʿī az ahl-i ʿilm). It is organised into an introduction and eight chapters. In the introduction (pp. 47-53), he dedicates it to the ruling Qajar monarch, Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah. He then presents the questions. The questioners want to know his views about what they say are arguments presented by the British missionary Henry Martyn (1781-1812), that since Muslims consider Jesus to be a prophet, they should accept Christianity as a true religion unless they can bring sufficiently strong reasons to abrogate it. This argument did not in fact come from Henry Martyn but from the Swiss missionary Karl Gottlieb Pfander (1805-65) in his Mīzān al-ḥaqq, but Kāshānī, like the questioners, accepts this work as being by Martyn (p. 48). In ch. 1 (pp. 55-135), Kāshānī recounts a debate that supposedly took place between the eighth Shīʿī Imām, ʿAlī ibn Mūsā al-Riḍā, and a Christian patriarch in the early 9th century (pp. 84-107; see CMR 2, 515-18). As the editor of the 2017 edition of the work indicates, Kāshānī took this from Mullā Fatḥ Allāh Kāshānī’s Al-iḥtijāj (‘Argumentation’; Hidāyat al-mustarshidīn, p. 107 note). Ch. 2 (pp. 137-72) is on references to the Prophet Muḥammad in the Injīl, citing passages from the Gospel of John in Syriac, and translations in Hebrew, Arabic and Persian. Ch. 3 (pp. 173-212) is on the corruption of the Tawrāt and Injīl, based on Ḥājjī Bābā Yazdī’s Maḥḍar al-shuhūd fī radd al-Yahūd and ʿAlī-Qulī Jadīd al-Islām’s Sayf al-muʾminīn (‘Sword of the believers’). Ch. 4 (pp. 213-50) is on condemning the version of the Tawrāt possessed by the Jews and Christians, again based on Sayf al-muʾminīn. Ch. 5 (pp. 251-73) is on condemning the Jews and their invented rituals, based on Maḥḍar al-shuhūd fī radd al-Yahūd and Muḥammad Riḍā Jadīd al-Islām’s Iqāmat al-shuhūd fī radd al-Yahūd (‘Establishing witnesses in refutation of the Jews’, also known as Manqūl-i Riḍāʾī, ‘Transmissions from Riḍā’). Ch. 6 (pp. 275-94) is on condemning the four Gospels. After

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introducing the major branches of Christianity, Kāshānī exposes the contradictions between the four Gospels and blames St Paul and St Jerome (who was responsible for the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible) for the deviations that have occurred in Christian beliefs. Ch. 7 (pp. 295440) is a condemnation of Christian beliefs and rituals, again based on ʿAlī-Qulī Jadīd al-Islām’s Sayf al-muʾminīn. At one point, Kāshānī quotes an argument from Karl Pfander’s Miftāḥ al-asrār and rejects it. In ch. 8 (pp. 441-53) he offers advice to Jews and Christians. The treatise is Kāshānī’s first attempt to produce a written rejoinder to Pfander’s polemical works, which were in wide circulation in late 19thcentury Iran. He was familiar with both Pfander’s Mīzān al-ḥaqq and his Miftāḥ al-asrār, though his knowledge of Henry Martyn’s polemics seems to be mainly based on Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī’s Sayf al-umma wa-burhān almilla (‘The sword of the community and proof of the religion’). A significant feature of the work is its quotation of verses from the Bible. Kāshānī claims that he possessed a copy of the Gospel of John in Hebrew (p. 164), from which he transcribes some passages (e.g. pp. 151, 152-3). He also transcribes into Persian – more or less correctly – passages from Syriac (e.g. pp. 138-9, 143-4) and Latin (p. 162). But these are probably taken from Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī’s Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa (‘The key of prophethood’; see Hidāyat al-mustarshidīn, 2017 edition, pp. 138-9, n. 3, 142 n. 1, 144, n. 1, 162, n. 1). In addition, he cites biblical translations in Arabic (e.g. pp. 154-6) and Persian (e.g. pp. 156-8). Significance The significance of this treatise lies not in its originality but in the fact that its author was such a senior figure in the religious and political establishment of the country. That Kāshānī thought he should compose it suggests the concern felt at the highest levels about attacks on Islam by Christian authors. But it does not appear to have enjoyed a wide circulation or to have influenced later works. Publications MS Qom, Marʿashī – 2661, 317 fols (1885-6) MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrūyi Islāmī – 15350, 121 fols (1888) M.T. Kāshānī, Hidāyat al-mustarshidīn, lithograph, Tabriz, 1894 Muḥammad Taqī Kāshānī, Hidāyat al-mustarshidīn fī radd al-muḍillīn, ed. Ḥamīd Riḍā Kiyānī, Tehran, 2017 (based on MS Qom, Marʿashī – 2661, collated with the lithography edition)

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Studies Ḥ.R. Kiyānī, ‘Muqaddima’, in Hidāyat al-mustarshidīn fī radd al-muḍillīn, Tehran, 2017, 30-44

Hidāyat al-jāḥidīn ‘Guidance for the disclaimers’ Date 1888 Original Language Persian Description Dedicated to the Qajar ruler Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah like Kāshānī’s other two works on Christianity, Hidāyat al-jāḥidīn is devoted to Muḥammad’s miracle of splitting the moon (see Q 54:1-2) and other miracles recorded in the Islamic tradition. Kāshānī says that he composed it in response to seven questions posed to him by a group of Muslims, and in it he defends the authenticity of this and other miracles against Pfander’s rejection of them in Mīzān al-ḥaqq. It comprises eight chapters, one on each of the seven questions, and a final chapter in which he gives advice to Jews and Christians. In ch. 1 (pp. 91-131), Kāshānī argues against Pfander’s rejection of the moon being split because it is not recorded in European chronicles. Ch. 2 (pp. 133-43) consists of a response to Mīzān al-ḥaqq ch. 3 section 5, in which Pfander denies there is any mention of this miracle in the Qur’an. In ch. 3 (pp. 145-62), Kāshānī defends the miracle against arguments based on Aristotelian-Ptolemaic philosophical thinking, as well as against Pfander. Ch. 4 (pp. 163-78) is a defence of the miracle of radd al-shams, according to which when Muḥammad prayed the setting sun returned to its place so that ʿAlī could say his prayers. In ch. 5 (pp. 179-203), Kāshānī argues in favour of the existence of a succession of heavenly spheres based on biblical and qur’anic indications (see Q 41:12), and in ch. 6 (pp. 205-14) he argues in favour of Noah’s flood, the dam of Ya‌ʾjūj and Ma‌ʾjūj (see Q 18:928) and the fabulous garden of King Shaddād. Ch. 7 (pp. 215-77) is about the corruption of the Tawrāt and Injīl, and ch. 8 (pp. 279-84) offers advice to Jews and Christians. The doubts Kāshānī tries to remove are, he points out, the results of Pfander’s modern scientific outlook.

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Significance This work represents the reaction of Muslim conservative thinkers when faced with Western scientific conceptions of the nature of the universe. There are no signs that it was widely read or that it exerted much influence on later Iranian thought. Publications MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrūyi Islāmī – 1535, 121 fols (1888; holograph) MS Tehran, Millī – 745, 181 fols Muḥammad Taqī Kāshānī, Hidāyat al-jāḥidīn, Tehran, 1891-2, lithograph Muḥammad Taqī Kāshānī, Hidāyat al-jāḥidīn, ed. Ḥamīd Riḍā Kiyānī, Isfahan, 2016 (based on MS Tehran, Majlis-i Shūrūyi Islāmī –1535, collated with the lithograph edition) Studies Ḥ.R. Kiyānī, ‘Muqaddima’, Hidāyat al-jāḥidīn, Isfahan, 2016, 60-5 Hossein Kamaly

Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah Qajar Date of Birth July 1831 Place of Birth Tabriz Date of Death May 1896 Place of Death Tehran

Biography

Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah, the eldest son of Muḥammad Shah (r. 1834-48), had a harsh upbringing, and was physically weak (see Polak, Persien, p. 270). In 1835, at the age of four, he was officially nominated as heir to the throne, although his nomination met with some opposition by his uncles. From his early years, he was interested in arts and literature, learning French with great enthusiasm. He was particularly fascinated by the new artistic medium of photography, learning its techniques and later promoting it in Iran. The college of Dār al-Funūn (a polytechnic) was founded early in his reign in 1851, and in 1859, a group of 42 students, half of whom had graduated from Dār al-Funūn, were sent to France for higher education and to learn new sciences and technologies (Gurney and Nabavi, ‘Dār al-Fonūn’). Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah was also fond of travel and, in addition to many domestic trips, he went to Europe three times (1873, 1878, 1889) and wrote accounts of his travels. The accounts of his first and second trips were translated into English soon after their composition. He was the first ruler of Iran to visit Christian lands, and his travels to Europe led him to relax some restrictions regarding religious minorities (Tsadik, Between foreigners, p. 119). Under pressure from the British diplomats William Taylour Thomson (d. 1883) and Charles Alison (d. 1872), he also made changes in the treatment of religious minorities, including Jews and Zoroastrians. As a result, he issued a farmān in 1882 exempting Zoroastrians from paying the jizya tax, and another in 1865, known as ‘justice and kindness’, regarding the treatment of the Jews (Tsadik, Between foreigners, pp. 56-9). In 1896, while celebrating the 50th anniversary of his reign, he was assassinated at the Shah ʿAbd al-ʿAzīm Shrine in Tehran by Mīrza Rezā Kermānī (d. 1896), an Iranian revolutionary. Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah’s long reign, from 1848 to 1896, was a turning point in Iranian history, when Iran underwent many changes and Iran’s relationship with other countries developed greatly. In the early 1860s, the establishment of telegraph lines connected the country directly to the outside

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Illustration 9. Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah with an attendant

world and brought about an improvement in foreign relations. The rivalry that developed between Russia and Britain after the Crimean War (18536), as a result of the defeat of Russia, took a different form from that of the previous era, although both secured unprecedented concessions from Iran. One of the consequences of this war was that a closer relationship was established between representatives of France and Britain on the Iranian political scene. This led to the formation of friendly relations between French Catholic and British Protestant missionaries in Iran.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary J.E. Polak, Persien. Das Land und seine Bewohner, Leipzig, 1865; Safarnāma-ye Polak. Irān u Irāniān, trans. Keykavus Jahandari, Tehran, 1982 (Persian trans.) Nasir ud-Din Shah, The diary of H.M. the Shah of Persia, trans. J.W. Redhouse, London, 1874 Nasir ud-Din Shah, A diary kept by his majesty the Shah of Persia, during his journey to Europe in 1878, trans. A. Houtum-Schindler and L. de Norman, London, 1879

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J. Bassett, Persia. The land of the Imams. A narrative of travel and residence, 18711885, New York, 1886 Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah Qajar, Rūznāma-y i safar-i Sivum-i Farangistān, Bombay, n.d. [1891] Muḥammad Ḥasan Khān Iʿtimād al-Salṭana, Ruznāma-yi khāṭirāt-i Iʿtimād al-Salṭana, ed. I. Afshār, Tehran, 1976 Secondary M.R. Ṭahmāsbpūr, Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh-i ʿakkās, Tehran, 2008 D. Tsadik, Between foreigners and Shi’is. Nineteenth-century Iran and its Jewish minority, Redwood CA, 2007 A. Amanat, Pivot of the universe. Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar and the Iranian monarchy 1831-1896, Berkeley CA, 1997 K. Bayani, Panjāh sāl tarīkh-i Naṣirī, 5 vols, Tehran 1996 J. Gurney and N. Nabavi, art. ‘Dār al-Fonūn’, in EIr F. Ādamiyyat, Amīr Kabīr u Īrān, 3rd edition, Tehran, 1969

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Farmāns Date 1864-89 Original Language Persian Description Before describing the selection of farmāns below, it is necessary to set them in context. Although most of the missionaries to Qajar Iran had started their activities during the reign of Muḥammad Shah, evangelical missionary activities increased in an unprecedented manner during Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah’s reign. Similarly, although the Armenians of Iran had maintained a strong economic and cultural base since the time of Muḥammad Shah, it was Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah who encouraged them to play a major role in the commercial and cultural life of the country and granted them religious and professional freedom, in addition to the right to establish schools. As a result, a large number of educated Armenians secured senior government positions and played a significant role in running the political life of the country, including most importantly Mīrzā Malkum Khān (d. 1908), Iranian ambassador in London (1872-89) and a highly influential figure in the constitutional movement. Armenians also served as interpreters and translators in the Qajar court and taught foreign languages in aristocratic households.

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However, the British, and even the American missionaries, saw the Armenians as an obstacle to their activities and progress, despite the fact that Armenian children were educated in the American Methodist or Lazarist schools in Salmās and Urmia (Polak, Persien, p. 200). The European missionaries were not happy with them and usually did not employ them but instead approached the Assyrians, who were engaged mostly in agriculture, unlike the Armenians who were proficient in trade and business activities (J. de Rochechouart, Souvenir d’un voyage en Perse, Paris, 1867, pp. 179-80). In 1868, the Protestant Nestorian Church was established in Azerbaijan, Tehran and Hamadan, through initiatives taken by American missionaries (G.N. Curzon, Persia and the Persian question, vol. 1, London, 1892, p. 542). When this happened, French Catholic and Anglican missionaries tried to improve religious conditions for Nestorians (Curzon, Persia, p. 543). In 1886, the Archbishop of Canterbury dispatched a special mission to the Assyrian Christians based at Urmia, to uplift ‘the spiritual morale of a besieged people with their priests and bishops’ (O Flynn, Western Christian presence, p. 943). This was the only official mission sent by the Church of England to Qajar Iran (Dehqani-Tafti, ‘Episcopal (Anglican) Church’). At the same time, a number of Nestorians travelled to Europe, and received funds for their religious activities (J. Bassett, Persia, Eastern mission. A narrative of the founding and fortunes of the Eastern Persia Mission, Philadelphia PA, 1890, p. 50). In contrast, Russia supported the Armenians of Azerbaijan, enabling them to influence the appointment of the head of the Armenian eparchy, whose ties with the Armenian-Gregorian Church in Echmiadzin further increased Russian influence in the Armenian community of Azerbaijan (Deutschmann, Iran and Russian imperialism, p. 69). During the administration of Amīr Kabīr (1848-51), Christians were treated in generally the same liberal manner as in the reign of Muḥammad Shah. However, Amīr Kabīr was more concerned about foreign influence that may be exerted on Iran under the pretext of religious propaganda (Algar, Religion and state, p. 132). In 1851, a royal order was passed to grant a large measure of religious liberty to non-Muslims, including the right to proselytise (Bassett, Persia, Eastern mission, p. 335). However, there was still discrimination between Muslims and non-Muslims with respect to religious liberties. In the absence of any law or regulations protecting Iranian Christians, orders from the central and local governments were considered to be the most effective tools to guarantee rights and freedom to Christians to conduct their activities. However, in most cases it was in practice the local ruler’s personal interests that determined the fate of

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Christian minorities and missionary activity. There was a lot of rivalry between Christians themselves and they were often persecuted by local governments and people, led by the Shīʿī clergy, and regarded as a foreign threat and agents of imperialism (Spellman, Religion and nation, p. 159). During this period, there was serious disagreement between Westerneducated Iranians, who were the harbingers of new civilisational concepts seeking to modernise the country, and traditionalists who rejected the missionaries as agents of imperialism. According to Samuel Greene Wheeler Benjamin, the first American minister in Tehran (1883-5), ‘whether rightly or wrongly, the Persians undoubtedly have little love for the foreign missionaries so long settled among them’ (Persia and the Persians, London, 1887, p. 362). Treaties signed between Iran and other states, which usually included a clause on the religious rights of their respective Christian citizens, could also not practically protect their rights (Bassett, Persia, Eastern mission, p. 337). Farmāns that were issued by Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah or during his time include the following: 1. A farmān of 1864 directing the return of the 17th-century French Carmelite library of Julfa, Isfahan, to the French Lazarist Mission, despite the opposition of other missionaries. In doing this, Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah showed his commitment to Muḥammad Shah’s decision concerning the library (Nāṭiq, Kārnāma-yi farhangī-yi, p. 183). 2. A farmān issued in 1876 by the foreign minister, Mīrzā Ḥusayn Khān Sipahsālār, restricting Robert Bruce’s activities in Julfa, Isfahan. Mīrzā Ḥusayn Khān was a reformist and progressive (he encouraged the shah to travel to Europe in 1873), but he probably had to issue the farmān as the result of a publication by Mīrzā Taqī Khān Ḥakīmbāshī Kāshānī that sharply criticised Bruce’s proselytising activities in Isfahan in 1876. Ẓill al-Sultān, the governor of Isfahan, had informed Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah of this. The shah accordingly instructed him to monitor Bruce’s actions carefully and, whenever possible, to prevent or restrict him from travelling and communicating with tribes and local people. 3. A farmān issued by the minister of finance and de facto prime minister, Mīrzā Yūsuf Mustawfī al-Mamālik, in 1879 in support of Jewish converts to Christianity in Hamadan. Following a request of the American missionary James Bassett, the minister issued the farmān to restrain the persecution of Jewish converts and to confirm the right of Jews who had converted to Christianity to observe Jewish customs and religious practices. The farmān was not actually

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implemented because the Jewish community banned converts from observing Jewish practices and entering Jewish places of worship, baths and markets. 4. A farmān issued by the foreign minister, Mīrzā Saeed Khān, in 1882 regarding a ban on Muslim attendance at Christian assemblies. It was issued to all Christian missions in Iran. 5. A farmān issued by Mīrzā Saeed Khān in 1883 regarding a ban on foreign missionaries to purchase properties and establish churches and schools in Hamadan. It stipulated that no one was permitted to sell land or building materials to foreign missionaries in Hamadan, even though both Protestant and Catholic missionary building projects were underway in Tehran. It was issued following the success of American activities in Hamadan. Since 1877, American Presbyterian missionaries in Hamadan had managed to convert a considerable number of Jews to Christianity, although many of them may have later converted to the Bahāʾī faith. A wave of persecution of Jewish converts occurred around 1881, and the governor of Hamadan detained a number of Christians at the request of conservative Jewish leaders. The authorities put the case on hold until the arrival of the first American minister to Tehran. With the death of Mīrzā Saeed Khān in 1884 and the American minister’s demand for payment of indemnity and dismissal of a number of local officials, the farmān was practically cancelled. 6. A farmān issued by Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah in 1889, banning the opening of new Christian schools in Iran and the printing and distribution in Tehran of books and publications that were contrary to Islamic law. This farmān prevented Christians from continuing their educational activities in the country and warned all foreign missionaries against the influence of Christianity in the Muslim community. However, according to Humā Nāṭiq (Kārnāma-yi farhangī-yi farangī dar Īrān, p. 197) it never came into effect, and the shah’s assassination a few years later in 1896 cancelled its implementation. Under Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah, missionary work flourished in Iran, to the extent that towards the end of the 19th century over 75 missionaries were at work there (I.L. Bird, Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, vol. 2, London, 1891, p. 233). Despite Shīʿī clerical influence in Iranian society, Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah recognised to some extent the cultural achievements of Christian missionaries and promoted the prosperity of Christian schools and institutions in Iran, particularly in medicine and education, as long as it did

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not upset the Shīʿī clerics. He eased the pressure on religious minorities, especially the Christian and Jewish communities, and tried to integrate them into society. Of course, he was in a difficult position in this regard. On the one hand, he was under pressure from influential clerics, including ʿulamāʾ and mujtahids, who opposed religious minority rights, and on the other, he had to deal with foreign governments such as Britain and Russia, who put pressure on him to protect the rights of Jews and Christians. Significance This period could have created an atmosphere for a new approach to religion and religiosity arising from Iran’s relative openness towards Western countries. However, the farmāns regarding Christians and religious minorities indicate restrictions on religious practices, even compared to the period of Muḥammad Shah. The restrictions were imposed under pressure and out of fear of social unrest. They also suggest that the central government, under the influence of the clerics, did not intend to interfere much in the affairs of Christians and other minorities, and left matters mainly to local governors. Publications MS Paris, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Archives (correspondence politique) Rochechouart, ‘Les Catholiques de la Perse’, Téhéran, 20 mars 1864 (Perse, C.P.M.A.E.F) Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah, farmān to return the 17th-century Carmelite library of Julfa, Isfahan, to the French Lazarist mission (1864) MS Tehran, Sāzmān-i Asnād-i Millī-yi Īrān – 7784/295. Mīrzā Taqī Khān Ḥakīm-bāshī Kāshānī, ‘Tafsīr-i ḥālāt-i master Robert Brūs u mafāsid-i afʿāl-i ū’, 36 pages, Ṣadr-i Aʿẓam Mīrzā Ḥusayn Khān Sipahsālār, farmān restricting Robert Bruce’s activities in Julfa, Isfahan (see Bassett, Persia, Eastern mission, p. 173) (1876) James Bassett, Persia, Eastern mission, a narrative of the founding and fortunes of the Eastern Persia mission, with a sketch of the versions of the Bible and Christian literature in the Persian and Persian-Turkish languages, Philadelphia PA, 1890, repr. Norderstedt, 2017 (English trans. of several farmāns listed below); 008917414 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) Mīrzā Yūsuf Mustawfī al-Mamālik, farmān in support of Jewish converts to Christianity in Hamadan, issued at the request of the American missionary James Bassett (see Bassett, Persia, Eastern mission, pp. 176-7, 208)

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Mīrzā Saʿīd Khān, farmān regarding a ban on Muslim attendance at Christian assemblies (see Bassett, Persia, Eastern Mission, pp. 173, 227-31) Mīrzā Saʿīd Khān, farmān regarding a ban on foreign missionaries purchasing properties and establishing churches and schools in Hamadan (see Bassett, Persia, Eastern mission, p. 246) G.N. Curzon, Persia and the Persian question, vol. 1, London, 1892, repr. 1966, Norderstedt, 2016, vol. 1, p. 545 (English trans. of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah, farmān banning the opening of new Christian schools in Iran and the printing and distribution of books and publications contrary to Islamic law in Tehran); 001248706 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) Humā Nāṭiq, Kārnāma-yi farhangī-yi farangī dar Īrān, Paris, 1996, p. 197 (Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah, farmān banning the opening of new Christian schools in Iran and the printing and distribution of books and publications contrary to Islamic law in Tehran) Studies T.S.R. O Flynn, The Western Christian presence in the Russias and Qājār Persia, c. 1760-c. 1870, Leiden, 2017 M. Deutschmann, Iran and Russian Imperialism. The ideal anarchists, 1800-1914, London, 2016 M. Amanat, Jewish identities in Iran. Resistance and conversion to Islam and the Baha’i faith, London, 2011, pp. 107, 114 R.E. Waterfield, Christians in Persia. Assyrians, Armenians, Roman Catholics and Protestants, London, 2011 H.A. Walcher, In the shadow of the king. Zill al-Sultan and Isfahan under the Qajars, London, 2008, pp. 125, 207-8 J. Rostam-Kolayi, ‘From evangelizing to modernizing Iranians. The American Presbyterian Mission and its Iranian students’, Iranian Studies 41 (2008) 213-40 H. Dehqani-Tafti, ‘Episcopal (Anglican) Church in Persia (Kelīsā-ye osqofī-e Īrān)’, in EIr D. Hadidi, ‘France xv. French Schools in Persia’, in EIr D. Tsadik, Between foreigners and Shi’is. Nineteenth-century Iran and its Jewish minority, Redwood CA, 2007 K. Spellman, Religion and nation. Iranian local and transnational networks in Britain, New York, 2004

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M. Zirinsky, ‘Onward Christian soldiers. Presbyterian missionaries and the ambiguous origins of American relations with Iran’, in R.S. Simon and E.H. Tejirian (eds), Altruism and imperialism. Western cultural and religious missions in the Middle East, New York, 2002, 236-52 Ṣafūrā Burūmand, Pazhūhishī bar faʿʿāliyyathā-yi anjuman-i tablīghī-yi kilīsā dar dura-yi Qājāriyya, Tehran, 2000, pp. 277-80 Nāṭiq, Kārnāma-yi farhangī-yi farangī Ḥusayn Maḥbūbī Ardakānī, Tārīkh-e muʾassasāt-i tamaddunī-yi jadīd dar Īrān, vol. 1, Tehran, 1975 H. Algar, Religion and state in Iran 1785-1906. The role of the ulama in the Qajar period, Berkeley CA, 1969 Polak, Persien Mehdi Mousavi

Muḥammad Khān Kirmānī Date of Birth 1846 Place of Birth Kerman Date of Death 1906 Place of Death Langar

Biography

Muḥammad Khān Kirmānī succeeded his father as the master of the Kirmānī branch of the Shaykhī theologico-mystical school. He was a member of the Qajar royal family, the grandson of Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Khān Ẓahīr al-Dawla (d. 1824). Muḥammad Khān started his education with his father. Unlike the first three masters of the Shaykhī school, he did not live in the ʿatabāt. He studied and taught in Kerman at the Ibrāhīmiyya madrasa. Besides his father, he also studied with his brothers Muḥammad Qāsim Khān Kirmānī and Raḥīm Khān Kirmānī. During the time that Muḥammad Khān Kirmānī was the master of the Shaykhiyya, many inhabitants of Kerman were initiated into this sect. Abū l-Qāsim Khān Ibrāhīmī (d. 1969), his nephew and the master of the order from 1942 to 1969, affirmed the highly positive reputation Muḥammad Khān had gained among the people of the city (Ibrāhīmī, Fihrist, p. 57). Two of his disciples, Sayyid Ḥusayn ibn Sayyid Jaʿfar Yazdī (d. c. 1917) and Mīrzā Maḥmud Khafrī (d. after 1885) played significant roles in the expansion of Shaykhism. Muḥammad Khān Kirmānī also supported his younger brother, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn Khān Kirmānī (d. 1942), who succeeded him as the head of the school. The Shaykhīs seem to have been the target of violence and aggression during the period of Muḥammad Khān’s leadership, and persecution intensified in 1878 (Shams al-Dīn Najmī, Gāhshumār-i tārīkh-i Kirmān, Kerman, 2002-3, vol. 1, p. 472). In 1905, Muḥammad Khān Kirmānī was forced to flee to Langar, to the east of Tehran, where his father had regularly isolated himself in order to meditate, pray and write. Several clerics, who were hostile to the Shaykhīs and determined to eradicate their presence from Kerman, launched a violent campaign. Their activities were directed by

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a Turkmen cleric from Khorasan called Shamshīrī, who surrounded himself with armed henchmen (G. Scarcia, ‘Kerman 1905. La “Guerra” tra Seiḫī e Bālāsarī’, Annali del Instituto Orientale Universitario di Napoli 13 (1963) 195-238, pp. 225-6). A notable cleric of Kerman, Mīrzā Muḥammad Riḍā, challenged the right of Muḥammad Khān Kirmānī and the Shaykhīs to use the Ibrāhīmiyya madrasa. He called for jihād against them and against the governor of the city, who was accused of heresy because of his support for them. The violence reached its peak in July 1905. On 2 November 1905, Muḥammad Khān Kirmānī was assaulted in Kerman, after which he returned to Langar (Nāẓim al-Islām Kirmānī, Tārīkh-i bīdarī-i Īrāniyān, Tehran, 1953-4, p. 341). Little attention has been given to the works of Muḥammad Khān Kirmānī in modern scholarship. He focused in particular on further clarifying the status of the nāṭiq-i wāḥid (‘the unique speaker’), the person of highest authority among the companions of the Twelfth Imam at the time of his occultation. Muḥammad Khān was also the author of a monumental compilation of Hadith, titled Kitāb al-mubīn, and of four refutations of Babism.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Abū l-Qāsim Khān Ibrāhīmī, Fihrist-i kutub-i mashāyikh-i ʿiẓām, 3rd edition, Kerman, n.d., pp. 578-670 Secondary D. Hermann, Le shaykhisme à la période qajare. Histoire sociale et doctrinale d’une École chiite, Turnhout, 2017, pp. 82-6 Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, ‘Une absence remplie de présences. Herméneutiques de l’occultation chez les Shaykhiyya (Aspects de l’imamologie duodécimaine VII)’, BSOAS 64 (2001) 1-18 (English version, ‘An absence filled with presences. Shaykhiyya hermeneutics of the Occultation [Aspects of Twelver imamology VII]’, in R. Brunner and W. Ende (eds), The Twelver Shia in modern times. Religious culture and political history, Leiden, 2001, 36-57)

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Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Ḥusām al-dīn dar ithbāt-i taḥrīf-i Tawrāt u Injīl ‘The sword of religion in proof of the corruption of the Torah and the Gospel’ Date 1891 Original Language Persian Description Ḥusām al-dīn is the second known rebuttal of Christian missionaries by a Shaykhī master. Written in 1891, 41 years after Nuṣrat al-dīn by Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī, it is a thematically more restricted work since it focuses on the sole theme of the corruption of the Old and New Testaments. Ch. 3 of the first part of Karl Gottlieb Pfander’s Mīzān al-ḥaqq is on the same subject, and Muḥammad Khān’s arguments can be traced in this work. Pfander’s chapter is entitled: ‘The assertion of Mohammadans, that the writings of the Old and New Testaments have been corrupted and changed, refuted’ (see K.G. Pfander, The Mizan ul haqq; or, balance of truth, English trans. R.H. Weakley, London, 1866). Muḥammad Khān’s treatise is in all likelihood a response to the relevant chapter of Pfander’s Mīzān al-ḥaqq. In the preface, Muḥammad Khān explains that Muʾtamin al-Sulṭān, Ḥājj Mīrzā Ḥusayn Khān, requested him to write a treatise proving that the Old and the New Testaments are distorted. Together with this request, Ḥājj Mīrzā Ḥusayn Khān sent ch. 3 of a polemical work against Islam written by a certain Christian missionary (unidentified, but now known to be Pfander), which refuted Muslim arguments for the distortion of the Old and New Testaments. The missionary’s name was unknown to Muḥammad Khān and he refers to Pfander throughout the treatise as padrī (‘the priest’). He mentions briefly some previous polemical works by Christian missionaries to which Shīʿī scholars had already responded. The only missionary whose name is specified here is Henry Martyn (d. 1812), who had written a polemical work against Islam. Muḥammad Khān names two responses to this work, Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī’s (d. 1829) Sayf al-umma and Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī’s (d. 1831) Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa. He praises both works, though it appears that he was more familiar with the former than the latter.

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Muḥammad Khān also refers to Nuṣrat al-dīn, written by his father, which, as he explains, was a response to a book published in 1252 AH (1836-7), of which his father had a summary at his disposal. According to what he says, both Sayf al-umma and Nuṣrat al-dīn dealt only briefly with the distortion of the Old and New Testaments, so he dedicates his own work to fill a gap. His treatise consists of an introduction and two parts (maqṣad). In the introduction, he explains that, in any discipline, there is a group of experts whom one should consult if there is any problem. This is true in the case of religious ideas. If Jews or Christians raise some sophistries against Islam, ordinary Muslims who are not trained in theology, instead of feeling vulnerable, should consult their religious experts, who would know how to respond. The first part (pp. 12-107) responds to the missionary’s criticisms. The second (pp. 108-241), contains proofs for the distortion of the books of the Jews and the Christians (dar dhikr-i adilla u barāhīnī ki dalālat bar taḥrīf-i kutub-i Yahūd u Nuṣārī mīkunad).

Illustration 10. Opening page of Ḥusām al-dīn

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In the first part, Muḥammad Khān cites the missionary’s arguments one by one and responds to them, beginning with the argument against the Muslim claim that the Old and New Testaments have been distorted. According to the missionary, Muslims do not specify when this was done, who did it, how it was done and which sections are distorted. So, Muslims owe Christians a clarification. In response, he argues that the Gospel in its original form was no longer available after Jesus’s time on earth and, likewise, the original ‘Torah’ was lost after the time of Moses. The Jews altered the text excessively and included in it a fabricated book of law. In his own view, there are several traditions narrated by the Jews themselves in support of this idea and there are many Jews and Christians who admit it. A second phase of distortion occurred when the texts were translated into other languages, and another occurred at the time of the Prophet Muḥammad, when references to the final prophet were omitted from the Christian books. The same happened to the Old Testament with regard to the descriptions of Jesus at the time of Jesus. He argues that Muslims had presented these arguments with specific details 40 years earlier (probably referring here to his father’s Nuṣrat al-dīn). Among the Jews and Christians, there is no scholar who can verify the truth of this matter. Muḥammad Khān further argues that Muḥammad’s prophethood is not entirely dependent on the argument that the biblical texts are distorted, because there are also signs and miracles that support his claim. Therefore, even without accepting the arguments for the distortion of the Old and New Testaments, it is possible to testify to his prophethood. He relates that the missionary cites several qur’anic verses in which the books in the hands of the Jews and Christians are treated as the words of God, and that he also alludes to the distortion of the Qur’an in the canonisation process at the time of the third Caliph, ʿUthmān. On the latter point Muḥammad Khān agrees in part with Pfander. He accepts that ʿUthmān burned several muṣḥafs and, consequently, a portion is missing from the Qur’an in its present form. He also admits that a few words are missing from the verses of the Qur’an and that the sequence of some words is incorrect. Nevertheless, he argues that ʿUthmān did not add anything to the Qur’an and that the few alterations are insignificant. Surprisingly, the Qur’an as it has remained covers all necessary legal matters and is therefore sufficient for religious purposes. In contrast, the earlier sacred (biblical) books are distorted to the extent that nothing substantial remains of their original forms. As he sees it, many Christian intellectuals have realised this fact and have consequently lost their faith,

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so it is surprising that the missionary still insists that the Old and New Testaments have not changed. Muḥammad Khān also rejects the missionary’s argument that the Qur’an refers to the books in the hands of the Jews and Christians as the sacred book. In the second part, Muḥammad Khān argues for the distortion of the Old and New Testaments by drawing on the sayings of the Imāms. This took place between the time of Jesus and that of Muḥammad, although the original version of the Christian scriptures was never lost but was preserved and protected by the awṣiyyāʾ (spiritual heirs) of the prophets. Muḥammad received these scriptures from the awṣiyyāʾ of Jesus and, after Muḥammad, the authentic version was preserved by his awṣiyyāʾ, the Shīʿī Imāms. It is worth noting that in 1875, a few decades before Ḥusām al-dīn was written, Mīrzā Ḥusayn Nūrī Ṭabarsī (d. 1902) composed his Faṣl al-khiṭāb fī taḥrīf kitāb rabb al-arbāb (‘The decisive address on the distortion of the book of the Lord of lords’), in which he maintained that a number of verses had been excluded from the Qur’an during the process of its being canonised. Muḥammad Khān may have been familiar with this work, although he does not refer to it. Significance This work is a further instance of Shīʿī critique of the Christian missionary writing of Karl Pfander. The specific theme of Ḥusām al-dīn is the corruption of the Old and New Testaments, in which the author presents some innovative propositions. The work also deals with the question of the distortion of the Qur’an that had been posed by Christian critiques. In short, it is an example of the genre of Muslim defence of the faith in light of Christian criticism and denial. Publications Muḥammad Khān Kirmānī, Ḥusām al-dīn dar ithbāt-i taḥrīf-i Tawrāt u Injīl, n.p., 1893-4; 009034395 (digitised version available through the Hathi Trust Digital Library) Muḥammad Khān Kirmānī, Ḥusām al-dīn dar ithbāt-i taḥrīf-i Tawrāt u Injīl, Kerman: Saʿādat, 1974; https://www.alabrar.info/library/HOSAM /f0003 Denis Hermann

Mīrzā Āqā Khān Kirmānī Date of Birth 1853 Place of Birth Mashīz, south-west of Kerman Date of Death 1896 Place of Death Tabriz

Biography

Mīrzā Āqā Khān Kirmānī was one of the most important and multifaceted Iranian intellectuals of the late 19th century and one of the intellectual forerunners of the constitutional movement (1905-11) and the discourse on an Iranian nation. He grew up in Kerman, where he studied Persian and Arabic literature, along with mathematics, philosophy and jurisprudence. Beyond that, he is supposed to have acquired some knowledge of Avestan as well as Old and Middle Persian, and learned some English and French. In matters of religion, he was influenced by various currents present in Kerman at the time, such as Zoroastrianism and Christianity, as well as various tendencies from the broader Shīʿī context and the Bābī movement. A sharp conflict with the governor of Kerman compelled him to leave his home town and later Iran. In 1886, he went into exile in the Ottoman Empire. He stayed there for ten years until, in 1896, he was extradited at the request of the Iranian government and charged with being involved in the assassination of Naṣīr al-Dīn Shah. He was executed the same year in Tabriz. Almost the whole of Kirmānī’s oeuvre was written in his ten-year exile. Particularly in his early years in Istanbul, he was influenced by the doctrines and writings of the oppositional socio-religious movement of Bābism, which was on the rise in Iran until its adherents were forced into exile or hiding. The execution of the founder of Bābism in 1850 led to a split of the movement into the Azalī branch, led by Subḥ-i Azal, and another branch, led by Bahāʾullāh, which would later develop into the Bahāʾī religion. Being a follower of Azalī-Bābism, Kirmānī married a daughter of Subḥ-i Azal. He also wrote a voluminous exegetical work on the founding scripture of Bābism, the Bayān-i Fārsī (‘Persian Bayān’), known under the title Hasht bihisht (‘The eight paradises’). Another intellectual context crucial for the shaping of Kirmānī’s thought was the network of mostly Iranian scholars, thinkers and dissidents across the Middle East, South Asia

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and Europe with whose writings he engaged. He was deeply influenced by the writings of Mirzə Fətəli Axundzadə (d. 1878), he corresponded with the London-based Mīrzā Malkum Khān, and he acted as a local agent of his journal Qānūn in Istanbul. Beyond that, he interacted with Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī (1838-97) during his stay in the Ottoman capital in the 1890s and also corresponded with the Cambridge Orientalist E.G. Browne (1862-1926), who had a keen interest in the Bābī movement and collected many of Kirmānī’s writings. At this time, fin de siècle Istanbul was a vibrant hotspot of intellectual currents, with a lively publishing scene. It hosted an Iranian exile community among whom Kirmānī was a columnist at the Persian journal Akhtar, which was published in the city. Against this intellectual backdrop, Kirmānī became a prolific and multifaceted writer who experimented with a variety of literary forms. He was one of the early, most versatile and at the same time most influential Iranian recipients of the European Enlightenment discourse. At the same time, his work reflects his familiarity with classical Islamic philosophy as well as the most diverse theological and religious currents, most notably Bābism. His works may thematically be clustered into writings devoted to Persian poetry, essays, treatises and epic poems dealing with Iranian historiography and the idea of an Iranian nation, social and literary criticism and religion (for a descriptive yet not exhaustive bibliography of his works, see Ādamiyyat, Andishahā-yi Mīrzā Āqā Khān Kirmānī, pp. 49-70).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary A. Kirmānī, ‘Mukhtaṣarī az sharḥ-i aḥwāl-i marḥūm Mīrzā Āqā Khān Kirmānī (1270-1314 qamarī)’, in Mīrzā Āqā Khān Kirmānī, Hasht bihisht, Tehran, 1950, pp. 4-11 M.A.Kh. Kirmānī, Nāmahā-yi tabʿīd, ed. Humā Nāṭiq, Cologne, 1989 Secondary R. Seidel, ‘Decentring the grand narrative of the Enlightenment. The transregional micronarrative of Mīrzā Āqā Khān Kermānī’s writings in global intellectual history’, in K. Kresse and Abdoulaye Sounaye (eds), Thinking the rethinking of the world. Decolonial challenges to the humanities and social sciences from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, Berlin, 2022 (forthcoming) M. Rezaei-Tazik and M. Mäder, ‘Gottvertrauen auf dem Prüfstand. Ein Disput iranischer Intellektueller’, in A. von Kügelgen (ed.), Wissenschaft, Philosophie und Religion, Berlin, 2020, 196-207

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T.E. Lawrence, ‘An age of trans-Imperial vernacularisms. The Iranian dissident community of the late Ottoman empire’, New Haven CT, 2018 (PhD Diss. Yale University, 2018) pp. 46-98 R. Zia-Ebrahimi, ‘Akhundzadeh and Kermani. The emergence of dislocative nationalism’, in R. Zia-Ebrahimi, The emergence of Iranian nationalism. Race and the politics of dislocation, New York, 2016, 41-71 M. Mazinani, ‘Liberty in Akhundzadeh’s and Kermani’s thoughts’, Middle Eastern Studies 51/6 (2015) 883-900 J. Gurney, ‘Mīrzā Āqā Khān Kirmānī, Shaykh Aḥmad Rūḥī u Edward Browne’, Kilk 94 (1998) 158-92 J. Gurney, ‘E.G. Browne and the Iranian community in Istanbul’, in T. Zarcone and F. Zarinebaf-Shahr (eds), Les Iraniens d’Istanbul, Louvain, 1993, 149-75 F. Ādamiyyat, Andishahā-yi Mīrzā Āqā Khān Kirmānī, Tehran, 1978, pp. 13-48 P. Mangol Bayat, ‘Mirza Aqa Khan Kirmani. Nineteenth century Persian revolutionary thinker’, Los Angeles CA, 1971 (PhD Diss. University of California, Los Angeles), pp. 91-140

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Haftād u du millat ‘Seventy-two sects’ Date Between 1885 and 1893 Original Language Persian Description Haftād u du millat is a short story written by Kirmānī during his exile in Istanbul, between 1885 and 1893. It is an adaptation of two stories by the French writer Jacques Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737-1814), Le café de Surate and La chaumière indienne (1790), both of which, and especially Le café du Surate, were in wide circulation in Europe and beyond in the late 19th century, and were translated into various languages. Kirmānī follows the overall plot of both stories. His Haftād u du millat is a hybrid text, in some parts a translation following the wording of the original stories, whereas other parts are entirely his own additions. In the standard edition of 1984 edited by Muḥammad Jawād Mashkūr (the edition cited here), the story comes to 54 pages (pp. 68-122) and is hence considerably longer than the original version of Bernardin’s Le café de Surate, which nevertheless functions as the general narrative frame of Kirmānī’s adaptation. The title alludes to a saying attributed to the Prophet Muḥammad that the Jews

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would split into 70 sects, the Christians into 71 sects and the Muslims into 72 sects (in many versions these numbers are increased by one). Kirmānī’s story can be divided into the following parts: 1. The opening (pp. 68-9): Introduction of the initial protagonist of the story, a Shīʿī theologian, who after lifelong philosophical reflections on the nature of God and the First Cause ends up questioning God’s existence and after travelling to India, finds himself in a coffee house in the city of Surat. 2. A heated dispute between the proponents of various religious tradititons (pp. 69-86): The theologian’s black slave, who comes from an animistic pagan religion, when he is asked by his master whether he believes in God, presents a wooden figure as his god. This initiates a chain of reactions among the visitors to the cafe, who belong to various religious currents. They engage in a heated debate over the true concept of God and the noblest religion. This part can be further divided into two sections, one shorter than the other. The shorter section mainly follows Bernardin, while the other section, which is composed by Mīrzā Āqā Khān, adds some further aspects to the debate. The first section briefly presents the perspectives of a Brahman, a Zoroastrian of the Parsi community (not present in the French original), a Jew, an Italian Catholic, a Protestant and a Turk (pp. 69-74). As in Bernadin’s original story, the Christian-Muslim controversy is embedded here in a chain of statements by followers of different religious traditions taking the floor roughly in the order of their historical emergence, each rejecting the preceding faith as being either wrong or abrogated by the new faith, sometimes adding that later religious currents are aberrations of the true religion. In this dispute, the Jew’s statement that God prefers the people of Israel to any other people is rejected by the Roman Catholic, who insists that God invited all humankind to recognise the Church and the pope as the representative of Jesus. He further adds some general remarks (absent from the French original) on the meaning of the Eucharist, forgiveness of sins and baptism. His account is followed by the Protestant, who accuses him of restricting righteousness to adherents of the Catholic Church, whom he calls idolaters (but parast), and criticises his ignorance of true Christian doctrine, which must be based on the rational biblical exegesis of Martin Luther. The Protestant also mentions some doctrinal details (absent from the French original) that point to both the Muslim and Near Eastern context from which Kirmānī comes and his relationship to the

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Christian-Muslim debates. The next speaker, the Sunnī Muslim, directs his statement towards the two Christians (du tarsā) and reminds them that the ‘Law of Christ’ (qānūn-i Masīḥ) was replaced by Islam after the advent of the Prophet Muḥammad, whose arrival was foretold by Jesus himself. He further asks how, since the message of Islam has spread rapidly over large parts of Europe, Asia and Africa, the Christian speakers could criticise the Jews for not revising their faith, while they themselves remain ignorant of the true religion represented by Muḥammad and the righteous caliphs. Stating that all currents other than the Sunnīs are deviant from true Islam, he even argues that the fourth caliph, ʿAlī, cannot really be regarded as a true Sunnī because he initiated the split within the Muslim community. In the second section of the dispute, Kirmānī adds some additional figures to those in the French original: a Shīʿī jurist from Najaf, an educated Shaykhī from Kerman, a Niʿmatullāhī Sufi and a Bābī of the Bahāʾī branch of the sect. This section also differs in length and style from the previous one. Whereas there the proponents of the various religious currents merely make a single statement, which is picked up and critiqued by the next speaker, the second section is more dialogical in nature, with the Shaykhī and the Niʿmatullāhī in particular entering into a conversation. Furthermore, in this section, Kirmānī lets his protagonists cite passages from the Qur’an, Hadith and exegetical literature in Arabic. The doctrinal opinions presented in this section are mainly concerned with the issue of the legitimate succession of religious authorities and their claim to represent the authoritative interpretation of Shīʿī doctrines. The Twelver Shīʿī jurist from Najaf harshly attacks the Sunnī who has spoken before him, accusing him and his community of denying ʿAlī the status of true successor (khalīfa) to the Prophet and chosen by him, and hence disregarding the will of God (pp. 74-6). Following this comes the dialogue between the Shaykhī and the Niʿmatullāhī, both representing religious communities belonging to the broader Twelver Shīʿī discursive context in Qajar Iran (pp. 77-81). The Shaykhī insists on the principle that there always has to be a ‘perfect Shīʿī authority’ (al-Shīʿī l-kāmil) on earth who is in spiritual contact with the Hidden Imam, and he accuses the Twelver Shīʿīs of not accepting this doctrine of the Shaykhīs, known as the rukn-i rābiʿ (fourth pillar). He explicitly identifies his teacher, Mīrzā Muḥammad Khān Kirmānī, as the current ‘perfect Shīʿī’. The Niʿmatullāhī Sufi questions the legitimacy of the Shaykhī lineage and traces the lineage of his community back to early Sufis in the 9th century. At the end of this section, the Bābī of the Bahāʾī community intervenes and – causing great uproar among the people in

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the coffee house – criticises both the Niʿmatullāhī Sufi and the Shaykhī for being ignorant of the fact that the new inspired spiritual leader, Jamāl-i Mubārak (a title given to Bahāʾullāh, the founder of Bahāʾism) has already emerged and proclaimed his ultimate and true teaching as they talk and, hence, there is no need to await the Mahdī further. 3. The statement of the Confucian and his parable of the blinded seaman (pp. 86-93): At this point Kirmānī takes up the last section of Bernardin’s Le café de Surate and introduces the Confucian and his parable of a seaman who wishes to explore the true nature of the sun and is blinded in his attempt to observe it closely, as he gazes at it too intently. The Confucian concludes that only those who can see the light of God in the world as it is (dar hama-yi kiyhān), and not in a symbol, single item or concept, can understand it. 4. The appearance and characterisation of the Iranian expert Mīrzā Jawād Shīrāzī (pp. 93-102): Here Kirmānī introduces his main character, who will reconcile all the religious and ideological parties: Mīrzā Jawād, an Iranian expert whose sharp criticism of the Bahāʾī scholars suggests his affiliation to the Azalī Bābīs. As he enters the scene, he immediately draws the attention of everyone in the coffee house. In the debate, he does not openly advocate Azalī doctrines, but instead cites a well-known poem by the poet Saʿdī that talks about the common bond of all humanity without preferring any one particular religion. He even praises materialists, atheists and socialists for critiquing religious superstition. 5. The story of the English scientist searching for wisdom, narrated by Mīrzā Jawād (pp. 102-21): In a creative narrative move, Kirmānī lets the new character narrate Bernardin’s short story La chaumière indienne, producing a story within a story. Roughly following the original, it tells of an English scientist sent on an expedition with a list of questions to explore the knowledge of the world. After visiting institutions and libraries across Europe and the Middle East, he arrives in India, though his arranged visit to the most respected Indian Brahman proves unsatisfactory. He gets caught in a storm in a forest towards the end of his journey and finds shelter in the hut of an untouchable, and it is here that he finds the example of an uneducated man and his family’s simple life and comes to see what he has always been looking for. Departing from the original story by Bernardin, Kirmānī makes the simple man praise reason. 6. Mīrzā Jawād’s statement about the nature of true Islam (pp. 221-2): At the end of the story, Mīrzā Jawād praises reason as the principle of first importance among the prophets of God (nakhustīn peyghambar), and explains the meaning of true Islam as inclusive and the single basis of all

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religions while it respects the different traditions. He concludes that this understanding of Islam has been abandoned by most Muslims, while it has been embraced by Europeans in their understanding of Christianity. Kirmānī’s Haftād u du millat treats the issue of Christian-Muslim relations not as a discrete topic but as part of a broader discourse on the idea of religious pluralism and a shared, and hence universal, basis of all religions. By choosing Le café de Surate as his frame story, he situates his narrative in a discourse of Enlightenment criticism of religious dogmatism. But he does not follow the original. In his story, Bernardin makes the Confucian in his final and compelling statement emphasise the importance of acknowledging the priority and magnificence of nature as the way to peace and truth. Kirmānī, however, introduces a protagonist who seems to stand above the various religious sects. This character ends the cacophony of the heated debate between the religious representatives by stressing the timeless validity of reason as the supreme means of achieving progress and universal peace. Kirmānī links Mīrzā Jawād to the Azalīs, though he does not make him advocate Azalī Bābism as yet another religious sect that claims to be closer to the truth than the others. Rather, he sets this belief apart from other historical religious traditions and their perennial struggle for religious truth. He thus implicitly presents Azalī doctrine as the single universal persuasion that is directed towards progress and the peaceful coexistence of all humankind. By implication, he acknowledges the validity of both Christianity and Islam, though both must abandon the dogmatism that has characterised them in their historical forms and instead strive to find their basis in pure reason. Significance This story takes elements of Islamic thinking and uses them in a remarkably original way to produce a sort of universalism that is virtually unprecedented in Islam. The tradition of sequential development in religious communities goes back to the early centuries of Islam, even as far as the weakly attested Hadith alluded to in the title, and exemplified in works that demonstrate increasing completeness until the coming of Islam and the fullness of truth in the revelation of Muḥammad. Kirmānī follows this but goes well beyond it in identifying individuals connected with the Shīʿī tradition and even outside Islam as continuators of divine truth. His most startling innovation is to argue that the fullest exemplar of this truth is the follower of pure reason. Here he acknowledges and builds on European Enlightenment principles together with ideas in the contemporary Iranian

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milieu of truth being freed from the restraints of religious tradition and transcending every localised expression of faith. He points towards a form of universalism that was highly unusual up to and within his time. The number of extant manuscript copies of the work, and the two early editions of it (though both published some years after it was written and outside Iran) attest to the interest it attracted soon after it was written among Iranian Muslims and others. Publications MS Tehran, Malik – 6172/2, fols 80v-109v (1902) MS Tehran, Majlis-i shūrā-yi Islāmī – 14581, 37 fols (1902) MS Tehran, University of Tehran – 3606, 37 fols (1902) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī – 5669, 32 fols (1903) MS Tehran, Malik – 2500, 61 fols (1905) MS Tehran, Millī – 2423, 36 fols (1908) MS Cambridge, University Library – E.G. Browne Collection, F. 54.1, pp. 1-24 (1913) MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī – 1602 (1913) MS Tehran, University of Tehran – 4979, 104 fols (1916) MS Tehran, Markaz-i Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif-i Islāmī – 872, 28 fols (1916) MS Tehran, University of Tehran – 5675, 23 fols (1917) MS Qom, Masjid-i Aʿẓam – 3496, 25 fols (1917) MS Yazd, Vazīrī – 3230, 58 fols (1919) MS Qom, Maʿṣūmiyya – 656/2, fols 29r-47v MS Tehran, Majlis-i shūrā-yi Islāmī – 8751, 33 fols MS Tehran, Majlis-i shūrā-yi Islāmī – 8174, pp. 143-201 MS Maragha, ʿUmūmī – 105, 55 fols MS Tehran, Majlis-i shūrā-yi Islāmī – 1174/9, fols 64v-93v Mīrzā Āqā Khān Kirmānī, Haftād u du millat, Bombay, 1894 Mīrzā Āqā Khān Kirmānī, Haftād u du millat, ed. Mīrzā Muhammad Khān Bahādur, Berlin, 1924, repr. Tehran, 1969, Tehran, 1978; 003519845 (digitised copy of the 1969 printing available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) Mīrzā Āqā Khān Kirmānī, Haftād u du millat, ed. Muḥammad Jawād Mashkūr, Tehran, 1984, pp. 68-122 Mīrzā Āqā Khān Kirmānī, Haftād u du millat, ed. Mīrzā Muhammad Khān Bahādur and Kāẓim Īrānshahr, Tehran, 2008, repr. 2020

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Studies Seidel, ‘Decentring the grand narrative’ C. Masroori. ‘French Romanticism and Persian liberalism in nineteenth-century Iran. Mirza Aqa Khan Kirmani and Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, History of Political Thought 28 (2007) 542-56 Sh. Sarrāj, ‘Haftād u du millat dar Muqāyasa bā ‘Kāfi-yi Sūrat’ u ‘Kulba-yi Hindī’. Du Dāstān az Bernarden Dūsanpiyer’, Kilk 94 (1997) 193-209 Roman Seidel

William St Clair Tisdall Date of Birth 19 February 1859 Place of Birth Milford Haven, west Wales Date of Death 1 December 1928 Place of Death Walmer, Kent

Biography

William St Clair Tisdall was a Christian missionary and scholar of languages and religions. He was best known for his work in India and Persia and for his many writings related to Christian-Muslim relations that came out of those experiences. He was born in 1859 in Milford Haven, west Wales. In 1862, his family moved to New Zealand, where he earned BA and MA degrees in Classics at the University of New Zealand (1878-9). In 1881, he married Bertha Maclean, and he was ordained deacon in 1882 and priest in 1883 in Nelson, New Zealand. He was vicar of Wakefield, New Zealand, from 1882 to 1884 and taught Hebrew and Classics at Bishopdale Theological College in Nelson from 1883 to 1884. In 1884, he was accepted by the Church Missionary Society (CMS) for service in India, and he worked as vice-principal of the Lahore Divinity School for a year from 1884. His wife died in Lahore in 1885. In 1886, he became principal of the CMS Training College in Amritsar and married Marian Gray there in 1887. The CMS appointed him to head their Bombay Mohammedan Mission between 1887 and 1890, and he first began to write about Islam in an 1888 article entitled ‘Messiah versus Muhammad in Bombay’, which was on the prospects of the Christian mission in the city. While in England in 1891, Tisdall wrote an appeal for an increase in Christian missionaries to Muslim contexts entitled Diex li vuelt! (‘It is the will of God’). In this booklet, as in ‘Messiah versus Muhammad’, he describes his Bombay work of reading the Bible with Muslim friends and also baptising Muslim converts of diverse backgrounds (Diex li veult!, pp. 16-17). Public preaching in Urdu and Persian, and also in Marathi and Arabic by his assisting catechists, made up a major part of the work there. Tisdall writes of giving an address to a group of Persians, after which ‘we had an argument conducted with great friendliness and politeness and at the same time with earnestness’ (‘Messiah versus Muhammad’, p. 36).

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Illustration 11. William St Clair Tisdall and family with other missionaries

He was invited to present the James Long Lectures on Islam (1890-2) in a number of places in the British Isles, and they were later published in 1895 as The religion of the crescent, his most popular work (Bennett, Victorian images, p. 129). He then went to Persia, serving as secretary of the Persia Mission (1892-4) and then became primarily involved in translation work in Isfahan (1884-1900). He wrote his Persian Yanābīʿ al-Islām (‘The sources of Islam’) in 1899, later expanded and published as The original sources of the Qur’ân (1905). A gifted linguist, he also published grammars of Punjabi (1889), Gujarati (1892), Persian (1902) and Hindustani (1911). He received an honorary DD from Edinburgh University in 1903. Tisdall’s other notable publication on Islam is A manual of the leading Muhammadan objections to Christianity (1904). He expanded the scope of his religious studies with The noble eightfold path (1903), Comparative religion (1909) and Christianity and other faiths (1912). In 1910, he was the Hebrew lecturer at Church Missionary College, Islington. He retired from work with the CMS in 1912 and served as associate editor of the new journal The Moslem World from 1912 to 1925. From 1913 to 1926, he also served as vicar of St George’s, Deal, in Kent. He died in 1928 in Walmer, Kent.

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MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary William St Clair Tisdall, ‘Messiah versus Muhammad in Bombay. An account of the position and prospects of the C.M.S. Muhammadan mission in that city, Church Missionary Intelligencer and Record 13 (1888) 33-40 William St Clair Tisdall, Diex li vuelt! (‘It is the will of God’!) A plea for a great extension of mission work in Muhammadan lands, London, 1891 CMS, ‘997, Tisdall, William St. Clair’, A register of missionaries and native clergy, 1804-1904, London, 1896, p. 207 E. Stock, The history of the Church Missionary Society. Its environment, its men and its work, 4 vols, London, 1899-1916, vol. 3: pp. 358, 480, 512, 523, 530, 535, 7534, 798; vol. 4: pp. 115-18, 132, 333, 507, 509, 537, 544, 582-3 ‘The Rev. Dr. St. Clair Tisdall’, The Times 45067 (4 December 1928) p. 21 (obituary) H.F. Ault, The Nelson narrative. The story of the Church of England in the Diocese of Nelson, New Zealand, 1858-1958 (with an account of the years 1842-1857), Nelson, 1958 M. Blain, art. ‘Tisdall, William St Clair’, Blain biographical directory of Anglican clergy in the South Pacific ordained before 1932, [np], 2022, 1808-10; http:// anglicanhistory.org/nz/blain_directory/directory.pdf Secondary C. Bennett, Victorian images of Islam, London, 1992

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Appeals for Christian mission among Muslims Date 1891 (1888, 1898) Original Language English Description Tisdall wrote three short works over the span of a decade near the end of the 19th century calling for men and women who would dedicate themselves to mission among Muslims. ‘Messiah versus Muhammad in Bombay’ In this seven-page article, Tisdall reports about his work, though he begins and ends with calls to what he describes as a very difficult but possible task. He wrote the article during the first year of a three-year placement in Bombay (1887-90), suggesting that no region makes a stronger claim to

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missionary concern than India, and of India ‘the city of Bombay stands first’ (p. 34). Giving an account of the various areas of his work, Tisdall writes that the Muslim population in the Bombay Presidency at the time was some five million. He works together with two Indian Christians. As far as he knows, only one other European missionary in the city speaks Hindustani, and that worker has chosen to work among Hindus. To consider expanding witness among Muslims into areas outside the Presidency is hardly conceivable, he writes, considering the paucity of resources within. He emphasises his feelings of being overwhelmed, as follows: ‘What are two catechists and one European clergy of our Society among so many?’ (p. 39). He appeals for more workers from England and for finances to support Indian workers. Diex li vuelt! (‘It is the will of God!’) The second work is a booklet of 22 pages that has at its heart an appeal for mission among Muslims. Tisdall wrote the piece in 1891 while in England, where his profile was growing with the invitation to deliver the James Long lectures on Islam in 1891-2. He opens his appeal with the cry that urged Europeans to the crusades (p. 4). Tisdall notes that the error of the crusaders was great and their failure fearful, but he holds up their zeal for admiration and motivation. The goal of the mission that he advocates is the conversion of Muslims and their deliverance from the power of the Devil and from the defilement of sin (p. 6). Tisdall describes the geographical ‘sway’ of Islam, then quickly sketches a very negative picture of Islam and Muḥammad and their relationship to the Christian message (pp. 7-10). On this basis, he writes, it is ‘incumbent’ on Christians to take the gospel to Muslims (p. 11). He follows this with a survey of where Christian missions were working among Muslims in 1891. The striking statistic he mentions here, if it is accurate, is that only 100-150 missionaries were working among some 150 million global Muslims – less than one missionary per million Muslims (p. 12). For Tisdall, the example of a dedicated and effective missionary was Thomas Valpy French (1825-91), who had preceded Tisdall in India and died in the year his pamphlet was published. Tisdall’s measure of the level of zeal for mission work in England is that no one has stepped forward to take French’s place (p. 13). Tisdall is hopeful about the kind of witness that French modelled, and his own experiences in Bombay have taught him

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that there are conversions among Muslims ‘wherever the Gospel has been faithfully presented for their acceptance’ (p. 15), though he also acknowledges the tremendous challenges to converts trying to hold on to their Christian faith in a Muslim environment. ‘[I]f we will only nerve ourselves for the effort, and, at whatever cost, determine to give them the Gospel of Christ ...’ (p. 20) is typical of his rhetoric in this pamphlet. He appeals for a kind of ‘Crusaders’ Union’ of Christians who will work for the conversion of Muslims, providing backup to the missionaries and also supplying fresh workers to the CMS, etc. ‘[W]e Englishmen pride ourselves’, he writes, ‘in doing our duty. Let us rouse ourselves to action ere it is too late’ (pp. 21-2). ‘A task for the Church of the twentieth century’ Tisdall wrote this third text in 1898 after six years’ work in Persia. He addresses prospects for the new century in terms of mission among Muslims. On the one hand, he claims that more has been accomplished for the spread of the Gospel in the 19th century than in the first three Christian centuries (p. 567). On the other hand, he writes that the Church has never realised its responsibility towards Muslims. Tisdall then turns to a related subject, the ‘want of method’ in Christian evangelistic work among Muslims (p. 568). His appeal is for special preparation for men and women sent to Muslim contexts in languages and in knowledge of Islam, including training in the ‘Muḥammadan controversy’ (p. 572). Medical missionaries are not sent out to complete their medical studies on the field, he argues, so why should missionaries to Muslims be sent out without advanced training in languages and Islam? (p. 573). Of course, he writes, there are not enough evangelists in England and America to do the task of evangelisation among the world’s Muslims. There is a need for ‘fellow labourers’ in Asia and Africa. He therefore argues that missionaries should devote their efforts to ‘strong races’ that show ability to do the work of evangelism in their nations (p. 571; this is also a theme in Diex li vuelt, pp. 19-20). He also urges that national churches should be fully indigenous and independent, ‘not merely feeble imitations of English congregations, bound to use, e.g., a translation of a Prayer-book which, however well adapted to English requirements, does not necessarily embody the very best possible form of worship’ (p. 571).

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Significance Diex li vuelt! and its flanking articles represent a genre of appeal to Christians for participation in global mission that famously began in England with William Carey’s Enquiry into the obligations of Christians, to use means for the conversion of the heathens (1792). For Christian mission to Muslims, this sort of call goes back much further to the work of Ramon Llull (1232-1316; see H. Hames, ‘Ramon Llull’, in CMR 4, 703-17). Its style of address is familiar in many Protestant denominations, especially among evangelicals, who in turn take it from their understanding of Jesus’s command to his followers to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:16-20; cf. Diex li vuelt!, p. 11), and therefore it is a call that is still heard frequently in churches around the world. Tisdall makes the argument that of all religions, the responsibility Christians bear to take the gospel to Islam is heaviest because, he claims, Islam is the consequence of the ‘almost universal corruption of Christianity’ in the 7th century and its subsequent falsification by Islam (‘Task for the Church’, pp. 567-8). He celebrates the freedom in India to preach the gospel (‘Messiah versus Muhammad’, p. 34), and writes happily about the large global ‘Muḥammadan population’ living ‘under the sway of Christian sceptres’ (‘Task for the Church’, p. 570). On this point, however, Tisdall seems ambivalent, also writing that it cannot be ‘justly said that the governments of Christian countries, England among the number, have done anything to encourage the preaching of the Gospel in Muhammadan lands’ (‘Task for the Church’, p. 570). The three short works feature metaphors of crusade and battle (cf. Diex li vuelt!, pp. 3-6, 20-2) and contain a great deal of negative language about Islam (cf. Diex li vuelt!, pp. 8-10, 15, 19-20; ‘Task for the Church’, pp. 568, 570, 574). Tisdall acknowledges that the historical crusades were wrong and a fearful failure, and quotes 2 Corinthians 10:4, ‘the weapons of our warfare are not carnal’ (Diex li vuelt!, pp. 4-5), but seems willing to accept the disastrous shadow of the crusades in order to make a point about zeal and devotion. Expressions such as hope for the ‘disintegration of Islam’, ‘spiritual subjugation of the Muhammadan world’ and ‘debasing parody of revealed religion’ (Diex li vuelt!, pp. 15, 19; ‘Task for the Church’, p. 574) are sure to alienate Muslim readers and to put off many Christians as well. Tisdall is clear about the need for workers and ‘means’, but not at all clear about the need for love and concern for Muslims. This is quite different from how he describes the positive characteristics of Islam and Muslims in the first section of his Religion of the crescent (1895, pp. 1-47),

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and falls well short of his counsel of love in A manual of the leading Muḥammadan objections to Christianity (1904, p. 23). The language in these writings may perhaps be understood as rhetoric in the service of Tisdall’s appeal to England for workers and other support. There were 100-150 missionaries spread throughout the vast Muslim world in 1891, if Tisdall’s estimate is correct, less than one dedicated Christian worker per million Muslims (Diex li vuelt!, p. 12). Tisdall describes his own work as conversation with Muslim friends carried out in considerable human weakness (Diex li vuelt!, pp. 16-17; cf. ‘Messiah versus Muhammad’, pp. 35-6). The characterisation of Tisdall’s work in some portrayals as ‘confrontational’ is hardly accurate. His pearls from 19th-century witness among Muslims were the books of K.G. Pfander (‘Task for the Church’, p. 569, which Tisdall revised and published), the converts from Islam ʿImād ud-Dīn and Safdar ʿAlī (Diex li vuelt!, p. 16), and the ministry of Thomas Valpy French (Diex li vuelt!, p. 13). He participated strongly in the defence of Christianity, which he called the ‘Muhammadan controversy’, with the style of French as a guide. A significant aspect of these writings is what they indicate about the perception of Islam that came from daily interaction with Muslims in India and Persia. Tisdall placed great emphasis on missionaries learning the languages used by Muslims well (‘Task for the Church’, pp. 572-3), and himself showed unusual brilliance in Urdu, Persian and many local languages beyond his classical training in Greek, Hebrew and Latin (‘Messiah versus Muhammad’, p. 35). As a result, his interaction with ‘ordinary’ Muslims was authentic, introducing many insights about grassroots Islam, which he presents in Religion of the crescent. He was familiar with the writings of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, and suggests that they showed the influence of Christianity, but he also described Sir Sayyid’s Islam as ‘a new sect which is quite alien to orthodox Muhammadanism’ (Diex li vuelt!, p. 14). Non-Muslims who have preferred Sir Sayyid’s Islam may not appreciate the distinctions that Tisdall drew, but subsequent scholarship has largely been content to call the Islam of Sir Sayyid ‘Modernism’ or even ‘liberal or rationalist Reformism’ (see Rippin, Muslims, p. 195; Ramadan, Western Muslims, p. 27).

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Publications W. St Clair Tisdall, ‘Messiah versus Muhammad in Bombay. An account of the position and prospects of the C.M.S. Muhammadan mission in that city’, Church Missionary Intelligencer and Record 13 (1888) 33-40; 1888_The_Church_Missionary_Intelligencer.pdf (digitised version available through Internet Archive) W. St Clair Tisdall, Diex li vuelt! (‘It is the will of God’!) A plea for a great extension of mission work in Muhammadan lands, London, 1891; 101788960 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) W. St Clair Tisdall, ‘A task for the Church of the twentieth century’, Church Missionary Intelligencer 49 (1898) 567-74; 1898_The_Church_ Missionary_Intelligencer.pdf (digitised version available through Internet Archive) Studies A. Rippin, Muslims. Their religious beliefs and practices, London, 20053 T. Ramadan, Western Muslims and the future of Islam, Oxford, 2004 Bennett, Victorian images of Islam

The religion of the crescent Date 1895 Original Language English Description The religion of the crescent (in full, The religion of the crescent, or Islâm, its strength, its weakness, its origin, its influence. Being the James Long Lectures on Muḥammadanism for the years 1891-1892) presents Tisdall’s views on the strength, weakness, origin and influence of Islam. The four sections of the book come from the text of the four lectures that he delivered in England in 1891-2. In a total of 233 pages, Tisdall offers 47 pages on the strength of Islam, 73 pages on its weakness, 69 pages on its origin, and 42 pages on its influence. Three appendices, Muḥammadan accounts of Christ’s death (4 pages), ‘The spirit of Islâm’ by Sayyid Amīr ʿAlī (4 pages) and ‘The treatment of Abraham and Muḥammadan traditions’ (10 pages), are attached at the end. Tisdall writes that Christians seek truth wherever they can find it (p. 8) and that, though falsehoods are often mixed in with the truths of Islam,

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he can certainly affirm Islamic teaching on the unity of God (p. 9). Other truths he seeks to approve in the book’s first section are Islam’s confession of God as Creator and the distinction between the Creator and His creatures (p. 20); the necessity of divine revelation, prophets and the preIslamic scriptures (p. 24); Islam’s teaching about Adam and Eve (p. 31); the importance of prayer (p. 35); and belief in the afterlife (p. 43). Here and throughout the book, Tisdall refers to primary Islamic sources and contemporary European scholarship on the one hand, and on the other mentions how the topics covered play out in everyday conversations with Muslims. In the longer second section of the book, on ‘the weakness of Islam’ (pp. 49-122), Tisdall likens falsehood mixed in with truth to poison hidden in good food. Islam teaches errors about the divine nature, he argues, minimising holiness and love and portraying God as a despot exercising capricious power (pp. 58-60). He particularly questions Islamic teachings on sin and salvation (pp. 63-106). Islamic ritual prayer and piety is formal, he writes, but ‘in fairness’ there are exceptions in the Qur’an (p. 77). The concept of sin and human nature is shallow, and there is no understanding of original sin (pp. 82-4). Tisdall suggests that orthodox Muslim ways of dealing with sin are therefore inadequate, with no atonement (pp. 79, 91, 94). Here he draws on his interactions with South Asian Muslims to point out that, whatever the orthodox approach may be, many individual Muslims feel the weight of sin deeply, sense a need for atonement and may impute propitiatory power to the deaths of Islamic figures (pp. 92-104). Two other main topics in this section are the Islamic concepts of paradise and hell (pp. 106-18). The third lecture, entitled ‘The origin of Islam’ (pp. 123-90), is Tisdall’s treatment of how Islam arose in history. He writes that the Islamic belief that the Qur’an ‘is entirely of Divine and not of human authorship – is erroneous’ (p. 126). He presents five sources from which Islam sprang, each with specific examples: pre-Islamic Arab beliefs, Talmudic Judaism, apocryphal or heretical Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Muḥammad’s character and personality (p. 190). The first four show that the ‘main features [of Islam were] borrowed […] to a great extent from pre-existing systems’ (p. 126) while the final source shows how Muḥammad combined them into ‘a more or less harmonious structure’ (p. 127). The main features of Islam that were borrowed include monotheism (pp. 128-39), the pilgrimage to Mecca with its attendant rites (pp. 140-2), the rejection of idolatry (pp. 143-7), the introduction of Scripture revealing heavy reliance on the Talmud and other Rabbinic materials (pp. 148-61), apocryphal legends and

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other beliefs among professing Christians (pp. 162-9), and a number of elements from Zoroastrianism, especially its beliefs in angels and evil spirits (pp. 169-75). Tisdall’s verdict is that ‘nearly every leading doctrine of Islam can be traced with perfect certainty to some pre-Islamic creed’ (p. 175). One of the distinguishing features of the section on the Qur’an worth noting is Tisdall’s use of primary source quotations in original Arabic, Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Latin and even Avestic scripts (pp. 1714). This content would go on to form the nucleus for two of his bestknown works, The sources of Islam and The original sources of the Qur’ân. Regarding the fifth source, Tisdall writes that Muḥammad was ‘at one time earnest in his search for the truth […] as a Reformer’ (p. 176) but ‘at Medina he seems to have cast off all shame’ (p. 177), implying that this was due to ‘shameless hypocrisy’ if not ‘the direct inspiration of the Devil’ (p. 178, referencing William Muir, The life of Mahomet, London, 1861, vol. 2, pp. 90-6). It was this combination of ‘mixed motives’ (p. 178) that has resulted in ‘a system of religion which has for many ages exercised an unmeasured influence upon a very large and important section of the human race’ (p. 190). At the end of the lecture, Tisdall provides some additional material on the compilation of the Qur’an according to Islamic belief (pp. 17984), the importance of the Hadith collections in Islam (pp. 184-6), and ‘the charge of intolerance, and of permitting Islâm to be spread by the sword’ (pp. 186-90). In the fourth lecture, on the influence of Islam on Muslims and on the world (pp. 191-233), Tisdall surveys teachings and practices related to family life, political life and religious and intellectual life (pp. 194-206). He disagrees with the claim of great contributions from Islam to learning and science, arguing that the most promising activity was during the period of rationalist Muʿtazilī influence in the reigns of ʿAbbasid caliphs such as al-Ma‌ʾmūn, when Islam ‘was virtually set aside’ (p. 204, Tisdall’s italics). To support his case, he quotes from Sayyid Amīr ʿAlī’s The spirit of Islam of 1891 (pp. 204-5; he adds a response to this book in Appendix B, pp. 239-42). Other concerns in this section are the attitude of Islam to Christianity and a comparison of Islamic teaching with Christian doctrines. Tisdall suggests that, as well as denying the divinity of Jesus, Muslims have exalted Muḥammad far above Christ (pp. 217-20). The final pages of the book develop a kind of missionary call to the audience, assuming an understanding of ‘our duty to Muslims’ to make them disciples of Jesus (pp. 221-3). In this call, Tisdall commends the missionaries K.G. Pfander and T.V. French and the Indian converts ʿImād ud-Dīn and Safdar ʿAlī (pp. 225-6; on ʿImād see also pp. 100-4), and characterises the

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reform work of Sayyid Aḥmad Khan as ‘an evidence of the unsatisfying nature of Islâm as a religion’ (p. 227). The rhetorical climax of this section echoes Tisdall’s use of crusade language in Diex li vuelt! (1891). Significance The limits that Tisdall set for himself in his choice of themes for four lectures (p. viii) mean that the book does not deserve its title (see Sell, ‘Review’, p. 536). The book does not treat the history and spread of Islam, the Muslim sects and their tenets, Sufi practices and beliefs, or many other important aspects of ‘the religion of the crescent’. Furthermore, it is not a straightforward description of Islam in its own terms but is rather largely set in a context of vigorous evaluation. The Islam that Tisdall evaluates is the Islam he understands from the Qur’an and the early Muslim narratives of Islamic origins, tempered with the beliefs and practices of Muslims with whom he conversed in India. He does not interrogate the early narratives for historical reliability, but accepts the story as related by Muslims. This is a common scholarly approach up to the present day. The more notable scholarly achievement of The religion of the crescent is its discussion of pre-Islamic sources for the contents of the Qur’an (third lecture), especially the linguistic sophistication displayed in the notes. Even 10 years later, Tisdall claimed that he was not taking his material from other studies apart from Abraham Geiger’s Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen? (The original sources of the Qur’ân, p. 7). His several considerations of this theme turned out to be the most controversial of all his writings. The book seems to indicate a situation near the end of the 19th century in England when Christian faith was widespread and generally robust, in which a scholar such as Tisdall could freely and publicly subject the beliefs and practices of Islam to the criteria of Christianity (see e.g. responses in Tisdall, ‘Islam. Its origin, its strength, and its weakness’, Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute 25 (1891/2) 143-94, pp. 177-94). Tisdall goes as far as to say that to depict Islam as simply worthy of admiration, even given the aspects he describes as its strengths, would not be truthful or even fair to the reader (pp. 46-7, x-xi). He had been active in meaningful conversation with Muslims in Lahore, Amritsar and Bombay during the six years before his lectures, and he often qualifies his descriptions of Islam with the realism of local grassroots belief. From this, he may have felt a responsibility to reveal the other ‘side of the shield’ (p. 47). At the same time, his references to other writers who portrayed Islam ‘in glowing colours as a noble, spiritual, and almost God-given faith’ (p. 46), or to

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a desire among writers to be seen as ‘extremely liberal’ in their views on religions (p. xi), likely signals a developing change in approach. If a change was in the air, the particular integration that the book represents near the end of the 19th century is significant for Christian-Muslim engagement: a familiarity with the primary sources of Islam in their original languages, ‘drawn from Oriental authorities at first hand’ (p. x); personal knowledge of Muslims and their beliefs and practices from living among them and conversing with them in their own languages; academic interaction with the most recent writings on Islam from European scholars; a deep knowledge of the text of the Bible in Hebrew and Greek; and a lively commitment to the Christian faith and that Christian commitment was expressed openly and confidently, and judgements on Islam according to that standard were straightforward and unflinching. Many evaluations of Islam in The religion of the crescent are extremely negative (e.g. pp. 1212, 220-1). When Tisdall refers to the messenger of Islam as the ‘Prophet’, he consistently sets the word in quotation marks (e.g. p. 53), indicating that the question of Muḥammad’s prophethood remained open. He also registers his disagreement with Western non-Muslim authors who gave a positive answer to this question (Tisdall mentions R.B. Smith’s evaluation of Islam in particular on pp. 53 n. 2, 61-2 n. 2, 74 n. 1, and 80-1 n. 7). Publications W. St Clair Tisdall, The religion of the crescent, or Islâm, its strength, its weakness, its origin, its influence. Being the James Long Lectures on Muḥammadanism for the years 1891-1892, London, 1895; 001928929 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) W. St Clair Tisdall, The religion of the crescent, London, 19062; 100332388 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) W. St Clair Tisdall, The religion of the crescent, London, 19103; 001928938 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) W. St Clair Tisdall, The religion of the crescent, London, 19164 Studies Yasaman Yari and Alimohammad Valavi, ‘The effect of evangelism on the imagination of English-speaking Islamic scholars of the Prophet of Islam’, Historical Perspective and Historiography 29/24 (2020) 281-306 (Persian with English abstract); https://hph.alzahra.ac.ir /article_4681_0.html?lang=en Bennett, Victorian images of Islam, pp. 128-49 E. Sell, ‘Review of The religion of the crescent’, Church Missionary Intelligencer (1895) 536-8

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A manual of the leading Muhammadan objections to Christianity Date 1904 Original Language English and other languages Description A manual of the leading Muhammadan objections to Christianity is a collection of Muslim statements and questions about the Christian faith accompanied by suggested Christian responses to each (226 pages and four appendices). The questions and answers are presented in the form of a conversation between a Christian and a Muslim interlocutor. Tisdall writes in the preface and introduction that these are the most characteristic questions that have come up in ordinary peaceful discourse in his own experience, as well as in that of many other Christians in Persia and South Asia with whom he was in contact. He names some 27 correspondents, citing most frequently G.A. Lefroy (the Anglican bishop of Lahore), W.A. Rice and H. Martyn Clark, and also Ahmed Shah, E.M. Wherry, and S.M. Zwemer. The ‘objections’ to which the book’s title refers are all concerned with the Muslim interlocutor’s refusal to read the Bible. Therefore, the first large section of the book (chs 2-3) is made up of reasons the Muslim gives for declining to read the Bible at all: first, arguments against its genuineness and, second, doubts about its authority. This is followed by another long section of challenges to biblical beliefs such as the divinity of Jesus and his atoning death (chs 4-6). Chapter 7 then lists objections to Christianity ‘on the ground of Muhammad’s divine mission’, and a final chapter covers a few miscellaneous questions. Muslim arguments against the authenticity of the Bible listed in ch. 2 follow the pattern of Muslim-Christian dialogue going back a thousand years, and the Christian responses are also familiar from an earlier era. On the other hand, when shifting from so-called ʿaqlī (based on reason) proofs to naqlī (based on revelation) proofs, Tisdall offers new material about biblical manuscripts, early translations of the Bible, ancient lists of biblical books, variant readings and textual criticism, quotations from the Bible in other early works, and discussion of European academic writing on the Bible known as ‘higher criticism’ (pp. 46-63). He is also straightforward about New Testament texts with a disputed history (p. 55), leading the Muslim interlocutor to exclaim, ‘You Christians seem to have taken a lot of trouble in order to refute our objections’ (p. 53). This section also

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makes a first attempt to place the discussion on a level playing field by indicating Muslim tradition about textual uncertainties and variant readings related to the Qur’an (pp. 57-62). Tisdall characterises the Muslim participant as not showing interest in this theme and instead turning the conversation to higher criticism of the Pentateuch. The Christian replies that these European writers deny ‘both miracle and prophecy’, and that accepting their premises would destroy Muslim faith as well (pp. 63-4). Ch. 2 also includes a series of alleged ‘contradictions’ within the Bible, along with Christian responses (pp. 68-77). The Muslim interlocutor finally says that, however sound the arguments for the genuineness of the Bible may be, ‘We know that it is corrupt’ because it contradicts the Qur’an in many places (p. 86). In spite of this accusation, trusting that he has established the case for the authority of the Bible, Tisdall moves on to the biblical doctrines that have provoked the strongest denials from Islam. These are the divinity of Jesus, his identity as the Son of God and as one of three Persons in the Trinity along with the Father and the Holy Spirit (chs 4-5), and his atoning death (ch. 6). The answers from the Christian aim to correct qur’anic and Islamic misunderstandings, to explain Christian beliefs with extensive biblical citations, and sometimes to agree with qur’anic statements in order to distinguish ‘true doctrine’ (p. 149) from false perceptions. Some of the answers even seek to reinterpret the qur’anic material so that it does not deny what it clearly seems to deny. The Muslim supports his denials with key verses from Q 4, 5 and 9 (pp. 146-50). The Christian presses on with the affirmation in Q 4:171 that ʿĪsā is the Word of God (pp. 162-4). Woven into this long section of 88 pages, and sometimes appearing explicitly (e.g. p. 129), is the question: ‘Who is superior – Jesus or Muhammad?’ The book then touches on qur’anic suggestions concerning the sinfulness of Muḥammad (pp. 108-9), his miracles (pp. 136-7) and his intercession (p. 184). Christian answers to the Muslim denial of the death of Jesus and its redemptive impact (ch. 6) seem to show the best organised and most sustained development of any theme in the book, ready with relevant material from the Hebrew Bible and New Testament and also making use of the Qur’an and Muslim tradition. Tisdall indicates the key terms of the discussions in Hebrew, Greek and Arabic scripts. In ch. 7, Tisdall gathers objections to Christian teaching about Jesus based on the Muslim belief that Muḥammad succeeded and therefore superseded Jesus. The principal proofs for Muḥammad’s prophethood are Muslim beliefs in his miracles, the style of the Qur’an, the spread of

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Islam and prophecies of Muḥammad ‘still contained in the Bible’ (p. 190). In response to the claim of such prophecies, the Christian first asks the Muslim to choose one or the other: if you treat the Bible as uncorrupted regarding prophecies of Muḥammad, then follow through with its other content; if you say the Bible is corrupt, then you cannot look to it as a source of proof about Muḥammad. The conversation moves forward with a long discussion about Deuteronomy 18:15 and 18 (pp. 193-9); then Deuteronomy 32:21 and 33:2; Psalm 45:3-5 and Psalm 149; the Song of Solomon 5:16; Isaiah 21:7, 42:10 and 11, 53:2, 9, 10 and 12, 54:1, 65:1-6; Daniel 2:45; Haggai 2:7; and Jeremiah 46:10 (pp. 199-209). From the New Testament, the Muslim claims that John chs 14-16 contain the prophecy of Aḥmad referred to in Q 61.6 (pp. 209-13) and, in the final section of the chapter, he cites Matthew 3:2, 4:17, 13:31 and 32, 17:11, 20:1-16, 21:33-45; Mark 1:7; John 1:21, 4:21; 1 John 4:2 and 3; Jude 14 and 15; and Revelation 2:26-9. In each case, the Christian responds with a mix of arguments derived from the Bible, the Qur’an, theology, history, etymology, and works such as the Jewish Talmud, to assert that the Bible offers no proof ‘that Muḥammad was from God’ (p. 217). In addition to the subject matter of Christian-Muslim encounter as Tisdall and other Christian evangelists in Persia and India experienced it at the beginning of the 20th century, the book also offers an explanation of why and how Christians would enter into discussion of controversial topics with Muslims (pp. 13-23). ‘A missionary will never seek controversy merely for its own sake’, writes Tisdall, but experience shows that the Muslim interlocutor will likely soon raise controversial questions, ‘and it is absolutely necessary to be ready with a suitable reply to each and every one of these’ (p. 13). Among his ‘rules’ for discussion are fairness and courtesy in argument, a refusal to become angry, complete avoidance of giving an opinion about Muḥammad, using the theological terms of the interlocutor in his language, and ready and clear acceptance of ‘all the truth that is in any way common to Christianity and Islâm’ (p. 19). Tisdall sums up his counsel with the expression, ‘Never enter upon controversy without knowledge, without love, without necessity’ (p. 23). Significance This book represents – indeed may be one of the most characteristic elements of – an important kind of Christian-Muslim interaction in which committed participants take very seriously the questions of truth between them. This type of engagement was often called ‘controversy’ in the 19th century, but not because Christian participants desired to provoke or quarrel. Rather, it described a close and largely friendly Christian-Muslim

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discussion in which there was earnest disagreement about fundamental religious truth claims and an effort to persuade the other. Tisdall and a broad selection of Christian correspondents seek to report the actual words and arguments used by Muslim and Christian participants in interfaith encounter in Asia around the beginning of the 20th century. The arguments range from the colloquial to the highly sophisticated, and at times the discussions resemble a kind of dance in which each participant relies on the authority of his own scripture while citing material from the other’s scripture and traditions to make his argument. Tisdall writes, ‘The authority of the Bible is the great question upon which turns the whole Muḥammadan controversy’ (p. 7, his italics). This explains the earnestness with which he makes his case, and perhaps intimates a tinge of anxiety that Muslims are not taking the argument seriously. Much of the Muslim material in the book goes back perhaps as far as the 9th century and certainly the polemic of Ibn Ḥazm (d. 1064) in the 11th century. Some of the Christian responses echo the first part of Karl Pfander’s Mīzān al-ḥaqq (1839) and William Muir’s Testimony borne by the Corân to the Jewish and Christian scriptures (1855). Tisdall also mentions the writings of ʿImād ud-Dīn (1830-1900) and Safdar ʿAlī (1830-99), two converts to Christianity following Pfander’s work in India (p. 29). In turn, many Muslim statements and questions bring to mind Raḥmat Allāh Kayrānawī’s Iẓhār al-ḥaqq (Arabic, 1867-8), particularly allegations of contradictions in the biblical text. As presented, many of these arguments seem to be retailed ‘blind’ – that is, used without first actually checking scriptural passages or their contexts. Other Muslim arguments, however, include considerable detail. Tisdall gives a kind of caveat in his preface that Christian answers will mainly use Muslim sources, because Muslims will only give credence to their own traditions. But the ‘controversy’ in India had jumped beyond traditional materials almost 40 years earlier when Kayrānawī referred to writings from early 19th-century European ‘higher criticism’ in his Iẓhār al-ḥaqq (and also in his earlier Iʿjāz e ʿĪswī of 1854). It seems curious, therefore, that the book does not interact more extensively with European academic writing on the Bible from more recent scholarly discussion, or raise similar questions from comparable academic study of the Qur’an, Hadith and sīra. Tisdall mentions, but does not describe, Theodore Nöldeke’s Geschichte des Qorâns (Göttingen, 1860, p. 139, n. 1), but otherwise does not make use of the academic studies of other 19th-century scholars such as Weil, Sprenger and Goldziher.

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Publications W. St Clair Tisdall, A manual of the leading Muḥammadan objections to Christianity, London, 1904; amanualofthelead00tisduoft (digitised version available through Scholars Portal) W. St Clair Tisdall, A manual of the leading Muḥammadan objections to Christianity, London, 19092, repr. 1911, 1912; 006016442 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) W. St Clair Tisdall, A manual of the leading Muḥammadan objections to Christianity, London, 19153, repr. Charleston SC, 2010 W. St Clair Tisdall, Christian reply to Muslim objections, Villach, Austria, 1980 Studies Yari and Valavi, ‘Effect of evangelism’ Bennett, Victorian images of Islam, pp. 128-49

The original sources of the Qur’ân Date 1905 Original Language English and other languages Description The original sources of the Qur’ân (287 pages) is a scholarly attempt to offer literary evidence of non-Islamic materials that bear similarities to narratives, ideas, wordings, vocabulary and other details in the Qur’an, along with the thesis that these non-Islamic materials were in fact the sources of qur’anic content. Tisdall had discussed this evidence for almost 15 years prior to the publication of Original sources, first in an address to the Victoria Institute (‘Islam. Its origin, its strength, and its weakness’, Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute 25 [1891/2] 143-94) and in the James Long Lectures (1891-2), then in written form in the third section of The religion of the crescent (1895, pp. 123-92) and in the Persian Yanābīʿ al-Islām (The sources of Islam, 1900). Since the earlier Persian Sources of Islam contains the same basic thesis and content as Original sources, this earlier work is included in ‘Significance’, ‘Publications’ and ‘Studies’ below. Tisdall wrote in Original sources, ‘The present work is the result of further study’ (p. 8). The non-Islamic materials cited by Tisdall in Original sources came to be widely discussed by Western academic scholars in the 20th century, but in 1905 Tisdall’s thesis was relatively new and drew some spirited responses from Muslims.

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Tisdall writes that he had not seen these materials discussed elsewhere outside Abraham Geiger’s Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen? (1833, see Original sources, p. 7), and that all translations in the book are his own. He gives a survey of Muslim tradition on the history of the text of the Qur’an (pp. 15-22) and then explains what Muslim scholars have written about the Qur’an’s origin (pp. 22-6). In response to the latter, he states that Europeans cannot accept these claims and poses the question, ‘Whence did Muḥammad borrow the ideas, the narratives, the precepts, which he has incorporated into the religion which he founded?’ (pp. 27-8). He seeks to answer this question in the following 250 pages. Some of the materials, he asserts, come from pre-Islamic Arabian beliefs and practices, including the divine name Allah and the belief in monotheism (pp. 29-50). But his main examples in the book come from Judaism and Christianity, especially Rabbinical writings and apocryphal Christian or heretical writings (pp. 51-211). Following historical surveys of the presence of Jews and Christians in Arabia in the 7th century, and mention in the Qur’an and early Muslim accounts of Muslim contact with Jews and Christians, Tisdall presents a series of comparisons of largely narrative materials in Islamic and non-Islamic sources. Key examples compared with Jewish sources are the story of Cain and Abel (pp. 62-6), Abraham’s deliverance from the fire (pp. 66-80) and the Queen of Sheba story (pp. 80-92). From Christian apocryphal sources, he compares the story of the companions of the cave (pp. 143-9), narrative details about Mary (pp. 149-68) and stories from the childhood of Jesus (pp. 168-76) with what is found in qur’anic narratives. Tisdall asserts that borrowing from Jewish and Christian sources is ‘perfectly clear’ (pp. 75-6), and criticises Muḥammad for his alleged familiarity with legends but ignorance of the Bible (p. 113). In many cases, he treats narrative details that may be considered inconsequential, but with regard to the misunderstanding of the Trinity, the denial of the crucifixion of Christ, and Jesus’s supposed prediction of Muḥammad, Tisdall engages more vigorously (pp. 179-92). Original sources also includes a chapter on Zoroastrian elements in the Qur’an and Muslim tradition, suggesting influence on accounts of ‘the night journey’ (pp. 218-35), scenarios of paradise with its ‘Ḥûrȋs’ (pp. 235-9), and the legend of the ‘light of Muhammad’ (pp. 246-51). Tisdall adds a consideration of the possible influence of ‘Ḥanȋfism, the Religion of Abraham’ (pp. 264-5), quoting a long passage from Ibn Hishām and suggesting the derivation of the word ḥanīf from Hebrew and Syriac (p. 272). Throughout the book, Tisdall translates and presents substantial passages from a wide variety of languages, evidently not finding translations

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of the material available in any European language. He makes extensive use of the Talmud, Targums and Midrash, apocryphal gospels and Syriac and Coptic histories, and also the Buddhist Pali Canon, Sanskrit Shastras and Pahlavi works. He uses as the basis for his descriptions of the story of Muḥammad the early Muslim details from Ibn Isḥāq’s Al-sīra l-nabawiyya (in Ibn Hishām’s early 9th-century recension) and al-Wāqidī’s Kitāb al-maghāzī (also from the early 9th century) as well as the Western scholarly accounts of Sprenger, Weil and Muir. To qualify his quotations from the Qur’an, he consults popular Muslim commentators such as al-Bayḍāwī and the Jalālayn. Tisdall acknowledges Muslim arguments that nothing in the Qur’an could have been copied from other sources (pp. 77-8, 130-5) and responds that Muḥammad received his information orally (p. 133). The difficulty that Muslims have with the evidence he offers, he suggests, stems from orthodox Muslim claims about the origin of the Qur’an (pp. 22-7), including the belief that it was written down on the Preserved Tablet from before the creation of the universe (pp. 114-16). Alas, asserts Tisdall, even that concept is borrowed from the Jews (pp. 116-19). In the book’s first chapter, Tisdall mentions the use of this material by Christian missionaries, but says that he will set this aside in order to investigate the questions surrounding his subject in a way that can serve students of comparative religion and even Muslims (p. 28). In the end, however, he closes his study with a series of very negative judgements on the life of Muḥammad and his influence according to Muslim tradition (pp. 274-80). Significance The original sources of the Qur’ân and its earlier versions drew both positive and negative responses in a quantity perhaps without equal related to scholarship written by a missionary, including the use to which they had been put in the conversion of several Muslims, in the steady stream of antimissionary literature against them, and in their continued use to this day. Tisdall’s basic thesis on pre-Islamic sources came to be widely accepted among scholars, especially but not only with regard to Rabbinic Jewish and apocryphal Christian materials (Andrae, Bell, Speyer, Sidersky, Torrey, Reynolds, 2010, Reynolds, 2018, Amir-Moezzi and Dye). Controversy came rather with the clash between that thesis and traditional Muslim claims regarding the Qur’an. Since Original sources is an expansion of The sources of Islam (Original sources, p. 8), a chronological overview of the response to both form a continuum that is essential to appreciating the impact of Tisdall’s thesis. The

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Persian Sources of Islam received almost immediate recognition through William Muir’s glowing review of it in the December 1900 issue of The Nineteenth Century. In his opening paragraph he praised Tisdall’s book as ‘remarkable’, as ‘it takes up a subject never as yet brought properly under discussion’, with the verdict that ‘the Author proves with marvelous power and erudition’ that the Qur’an ‘can be traced to human and unworthy sources’ by which ‘Islam falls to the ground’ (Muir, p. 1001). In the postscript, Muir makes an earnest appeal for the book to be translated into ‘Arabic and all the languages of the East’ in addition to a version in English (Muir, ‘Sources of Islam’, p. 1004). Edward Sell, a CMS colleague of Tisdall in India, wrote that the Persian original was ‘a book of the highest value’ because it provided ‘actual facts and proofs’ showing Islam’s dependence on multiple religions that preceded it by giving [original] quotations in ‘some eighteen languages’ along with their translations into Persian. He also noted that it was ‘written in a courteous and conciliatory tone and in excellent Persian’ (Sell, ‘Yanābiʿ ul Islām’, p. 63). E.M. Wherry, a Presbyterian missionary in India, commented that Tisdall’s book ‘is the most profound discussion on the fundamental question of the sources whence were gathered the materials for the compiling of the Qurān, that has been published since the days of Sprenger and Noeldeke’ (Wherry, Muslim controversy, p. 119). Muir was quite eager to fulfil at least one part of his appeal for the book to be translated by himself translating an abbreviated version of the Persian original into English. This was published less than a full year after his review. He made a significant decision to omit the numerous citations in their native languages, evidently not realising until later that Tisdall was ‘not of this opinion’ (Sources, p. xiii n. 1) as the author did not want to be accused of having fabricated them. By 1905, translations were made into both Arabic and Urdu. References to Sources are mentioned by former Muslims as playing an important role in their conversion, such as ‘an Indian convert’ (‘How Christ won my heart’, p. 79) and a ‘young Moulvie’ from the Indian frontier (Lankester, ‘Medical work’, p. 659). Because of these and similar experiences, H.U. Weitbrecht Stanton, another CMS colleague of Tisdall, commended Christian ‘controversial’ literature for Muslims because ‘there is rarely a case of conversion from Islam in which some of this literature or the Bible has not played an important part’ (Stanton, ‘Notes on Africa’, p. 174). Other Muslims, however, reacted quite negatively to this kind of literature. J. Christy Wilson quotes Dr Sa’eed Khan Kurdistani, recalling how

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he faced persecution when he gave a Persian copy of the book to a mujtahid (Wilson, ‘Persian apostle’, p. 137). Herrick Black Young, who served for a time as the executive secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, after naming six missionaries – including Tisdall – correctly observed that this kind of literature ‘has not been without its unhappy consequences’ and was the cause of ‘much of the bitter anti-Christian literature of recent years which has been issued by Moslems’ (Young, ‘Future missionary’, p. 237). In January 1901, the month following Muir’s review, The Nineteenth Century and After printed what would be the first of many vehement responses to Tisdall’s book, ‘“The sources of Islam”. A reply’, in which (Moulvi) Rafiuddin Ahmad, a Muslim barrister from India, took both Muir and Tisdall to task. He disputed Muir’s claim that Islam would fall as a result of Tisdall’s book, and stated that it was essentially a reprint of the third chapter of The religion of the crescent ‘with a few additions … [but] Islam has not fallen yet’ (‘“Sources of Islam”’, p. 78). He also protested against the charge that Muḥammad borrowed ‘his ideas directly from any man or any book’ (‘“Sources of Islam”’, p. 79) and warned that the ‘hostility […] of Muir and other missionaries’ would result in India in ‘the establishment of a society to be called the Society for the Promotion of Islamic Knowledge [… and] in independent Mohammedan countries … produce serious political and administrative troubles’ (‘“Sources of Islam”’, p. 82). In response to Ahmad’s article, Tisdall wrote a letter to the editor of the journal, which was published the following month (‘Moulvie Rafiuddin Ahmad and “The sources of Islam”’, The Nineteenth Century and After 49 (1901) 364-6). The publication of the Arabic translation of The sources of Islam resulted in quite a backlash in the Egyptian press, especially from Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā, the leader of the early Salafiyya movement and founder and editor of the Arabic journal Al-Manār (Ryad, Islamic reformism, pp. 119-20). Two other notable Muslim responses were ‘The divine origin of the Holy Quran: a reply to The sources of Islam’ by Moulvi Muhammad Ali, published in ten parts between 1909-11 in the Ahmadiyya journal, The Review of Religions and later as a book; and Bayān al-ḥaqq wa-l-ṣidq al-muṭlaq (‘The statement of the truth and absolute veracity’) by [Muḥammad Ṣadiq] Fakhr al-Islām, a Persian Nestorian Assyrian priest who had converted to Shīʿa Islam. In 1912, Tisdall’s response to both of these books was published in a short monograph, A word to the wise (London). Although The original sources of the Qur’an was technically not published as part of Muslim ‘controversial’ literature but rather for ‘the

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student of Comparative Religion’ (Original sources, p. 7), reactions to it were nevertheless identical to those provoked by The sources of Islam. Samuel Zwemer wrote, ‘as a handbook on the sources of Islam there is nothing better’ (Zwemer, ‘Working library’, p. 34). A positive reception was also given by other scholars, including Charles D. Matthews, Alphonse Mingana, Miguel Asin Palacios, Wilhelm Rudolph and Charles Cutler Torrey (Matthews, ‘Palestine, Holy Land of Islam’, pp. 174-5; Mingana, ‘Transmission of the Koran’, p. 223; Palacios, La escatologia musulmana, p. 96; Anonymous, ‘Review, Die Abhingigkeit des Qorans’, p. 421; Torrey, Jewish foundation, pp. 4, 56). Others such as Arthur Jeffery and David Sidersky acknowledged its usefulness as well as Tisdall’s scholarship, yet freely criticised him when he failed to provide correct citations (Jeffery, ‘Review’, p. 413; Sidersky, Origines des légendes musulmanes, p. 2). Between 1909 and 1911, Al-ʿaqāʾid al-wathaniyya fī l-diyāna l-Naṣrāniyya (‘Pagan doctrines in the Christian religion’) by Muḥammad Ṭāhir al-Tannīr was published in Arabic. It is one of the most enduring anti-missionary publications, as evidenced by its later revision and expansion in 1988 and numerous reprints. According to Ryad, it was ‘a reply to some of the contemporary Christian apologetic and polemic literature on Islam [which included] the works of St. Clair Tisdall’ (Islamic reformism, p. 47, including n. 171). In 1913, Tisdall wrote a response to Tannīr’s book (‘The latest Muhammadan mare’s nest’, The Moslem World 3 [1913] 407-15), which precipitated an exchange between John Parkinson and Tisdall the following year (Parkinson, ‘“Mare’s nest”’; Tisdall, ‘The mare’s nest again’, The Moslem World 4 [1914] 295-302; Parkinson, ‘Another “mare’s nest”’). In 1924, the first edition of The sources of Christianity by Khwaja Kamalud-Din was published. The author was an Ahmadi who founded the Woking Muslim Mission in England and was the editor of The Islamic Review journal. A second edition appeared three years later. Arthur Jeffery wrote that the book ‘is obviously an imitation of Dr. Tisdall’s Yanabi‘ alIslam’ (Jeffery, ‘Review’, p. 95). All of these responses to Tisdall’s works more or less attempted to use against Christianity the line of argument he had adopted with respect to Islam, rather than disproving his claims about Islam. We also see in Tisdall a readiness to defend himself, if not a perceived need to respond to his critics. In more recent times, the Arabic translation of The sources of Islam has been reprinted by Call of Hope (c. 1990s), and Muir’s English translation by the Message for Muslims Trust (c. 1980s) and Ibn Warraq in The origins of the Koran. Classic essays on Islam’s Holy Book (1998). Along with these other related publications, the book itself is also available on a number of

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different websites. As in the past, the re-emergence of this literature continues to elicit sharp, conflicting responses. For instance, Ibn Warraq was severely criticised in several reviews for including Tisdall’s work. Herbert Berg wrote, ‘It is not a particularly scholarly essay’ (Berg, ‘Review’, p. 558); François de Blois referred to it as a ‘decidedly shoddy piece of missionary propaganda’ (de Blois, ‘Review’, p. 88); and Christopher Melchert stated, ‘Except for St. Clair-Tisdall’s inter-religious polemic, these are all pieces of good scholarship […] St. Clair-Tisdall does not belong in this company’ (Melchert, ‘Review’, p. 74). In stark contrast, a number of their contemporaries have recognised Tisdall – if not in whole, at least in part – as a credible authority (Rippin, ‘Review’, p. 141; Reynolds, The Qurʾān, p. 251; Buckley, ‘The “Burāq”’, pp. 599-600; Gasimova, ‘Models, portraits, and signs’, p. 320; Amir-Moezzi and Dye, Coran des historiens, vol. 1, III, passim). Publications W. St Clair Tisdall, Kitab musammā bih yanābīʿ al-Islām, Lahore, 1900 (Persian) W. St Clair Tisdall, The sources of Islam, trans. William Muir, Edinburgh, 1901, New Delhi, 1972, 1980 (English trans. of Yanābīʿ al-Islām); Tisdall/ sources0 (digitised version available through Answering-Islam.org) W. St Clair Tisdall, Tanwīr al-afhām fī maṣādir al-Islām, Cairo, c. 1904, repr. Villach, Austria, 1995 (Arabic trans. of The sources of Islam) W. St Clair Tisdall, Yanābīʿ al-Islām, Lahore, c. 1904 (Urdu trans. of The sources of Islam) W. St Clair Tisdall, The original sources of the Qur’ân, London, 1905, repr. 1911, Charleston SC, 2016; Tisdall/Sources (digitised version available through Answering-Islam.org) Studies M.A. Amir-Moezzi and G. Dye, Le Coran des historiens, vol. 1. Études sur le contexte et la genèse du texte coranique, Paris, 2019 Mohammad Sadegh Heidari, A. Rabinattaj and H. Halimi, ‘A survey of Tisdall’s view on the relation between the concept of Mīzān in Quran and the religion of Ancient Egypt’, Journal of Religious Studies 12/24 (2019) 15-46 (Persian with English abstract); https://jrs.srbiau .ac.ir/article_14596_en.html?lang=en A. Gasimova, ‘Models, portraits, and signs of fate in ancient Arabian tradition’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 73 (2014) 319-40 R. Buckley, ‘The “Burāq”. Views from the East and West’, Arabica 60 (2013) 569-601

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G.S. Reynolds, The Qurʾān and the Bible. Text and commentary, New Haven CT, 2018 A. Bannister, An oral-formulaic study of the Qur’an, Lanham MD, 2014 G.S. Reynolds, The Qurʾān and its biblical subtext, London, 2010 U. Ryad, Islamic reformism and Christianity. A critical reading of the works of Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā and his associates (1898-1935), Leiden, 2009 G.S. Reynolds, ‘The Muslim Jesus: Dead or alive?’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 72 (2009) 237-58 A. Rippin, ‘Review, The Koran. Critical concepts in Islamic studies by Colin Turner’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 69 (2006) 141-2 C. Melchert, ‘Review, The Origins of the Koran. Classic essays on Islam’s holy book, ed. Ibn Warraq’, Middle East Studies Association Bulletin 35 (2001) 74-5 F. de Blois, ‘Review, The origins of the Koran. Classic essays on Islam’s holy book, ed. Ibn Warraq’, Journal of The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 10 (2000) 88 H. Berg, ‘Review, The origins of the Koran. Classic essays on Islam’s holy book, ed. Ibn Warraq’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 62 (1999) 557-8 Ibn Warraq, The origins of the Koran. Classic essays on Islam’s holy book, Amherst NY, 1998, pp. 227-91 Bennett, Victorian images of Islam, pp. 128-49 J. Christy Wilson, ‘A Persian apostle. Dr. Sa’eed Kurdistani’, The Moslem World 33 (N.S. 2) (1943) 129-39 H.B. Young, ‘The future missionary to Moslems’, The Moslem World 31 (N.S. 3) (1941) 235-40 A. Jeffery, ‘Review, Les origines des legendes musulmanes dans le Coran et dans les vies des Prophetes by D. Sidersky’, The Moslem World 23 (1933) 412-5 C.C. Torrey, The Jewish foundation of Islam, New York, 1933 D. Sidersky, Les origines des légendes musulmanes dans le Coran et dans les vies des prophètes, Paris, 1933 C.D. Matthews, ‘Palestine, Holy Land of Islam’, Journal of Biblical Literature 51 (1932) 171-8 H. Speyer, Die biblischen Erzählungen im Qoran, Gräfenhainichen, 1931 A. Jeffery, ‘Review, Yanabiʿ al Masih. The sources of Christianity, by Kamalud-Din’, The Moslem World 17 (1927) 95-6 R. Bell, The origin of Islam in its Christian environment, London, 1926

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T. Andrae, ‘Der Ursprung des Islams und das Christentum’, Kyrkshistorisk Årsskrift 23 (1923) 149-206; 24 (1924) 213-25; 25 (1925) 45-112 Anonymous, ‘Review, Die Abhingigkeit des Qorans von Judentum und Christentum by Wilhelm Rudolph’, The Moslem World 13 (1923) 421 H.U. Weitbrecht Stanton, ‘Notes on Africa and the Mohammedan world’, Church Missionary Review 71 (1920) 167-74 M. Asin Palacios, La escatologia musulmana en la Divina comedia, Madrid, 1919 A. Mingana, ‘The transmission of the Koran’, The Moslem World 7 (1917) 223-32 S. Zwemer, ‘A working library on Islam’, The Moslem World 2 (1916) 32-6 An Indian convert, ‘How Christ won my heart’, The Moslem World 6 (1916) 79-81 J. Parkinson, ‘The “mare’s nest’, Muslim India and Islamic Review 2 (1914) 402-10 J. Parkinson, ‘Another “mare’s nest”’, Muslim India and Islamic Review 1 (1914) 453-9 Muḥammad Ṭāhir al-Tannīr, Al-ʿaqāʼid al-wathaniyya fī l-diyāna alNaṣrāniyya (‘Pagan doctrines in the Christian religion’), Beirut, c. 1912 [Moulvi] Muhammad Ali, The divine origin of the Holy Quran. A reply to the sources of Islam, Lahore, c. 1911 Muḥammad Ṣadiq Fakhr al-Islām, Bayān al-ḥaqq wa-l-ṣidq al-muṭlaq (‘The statement of absolute truth and honesty’), [n.p.], c. 1906 E.M. Wherry, The Muslim controversy, London, 1905 A.C. Lankester, ‘Medical work on the Indian frontier’, Church Missionary Intelligencer 55/29 (1904) 659-60 [Moulvi] Rafiuddin Ahmad, ‘“The sources of Islam”. A reply’, The Nineteenth Century and After 49 (1901) 77-83 E. Sell, ‘Yanābiʿ ul Islām’, Church Missionary Intelligencer 52/26 (1901) 62-3 E. Sell, The sources of Islam’, Church Missionary Intelligencer 52/26 (1901) 588-93 W. Muir, ‘The sources of Islam’, The Nineteenth Century 48 (1900) 1001-4 Adam Simnowitz and Gordon Nickel

Iran’s first Constitution and the Supplement to it Date First Constitution, 20 December 1906; Supplement, 7 October 1907 Original Language Persian Description The idea of economic and socio-political reforms in Iran first appeared in the time of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah (r. 1848-96), and developed further under his son Muẓaffar al-Dīn Shah (r. 1896-1906) and his grandson Muḥammad ʿAlī Shah (r. 1907-9). It matured into the idea of establishing a constitutional monarchy. The quest for justice that moved in this direction originated among the intelligentsia, clerics and people who were suffering from the tyranny of local governors. When protests turned into a full revolution in 1905, the religious minorities, especially the Armenians and Assyrians, joined Muslims to demand release from their inferior status. Some reports indicate that Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians and Azalīs participated in the uprisings in Tehran, Isfahan, Tabriz, Urūmya and Shiraz (Waterfield, Christians in Persia, p. 140; Netzer, ‘Naqsh-i Yahūdīyān Irānī’). Under the pressure of the political situation, Muẓaffar al-Dīn Shah agreed to a constitutional monarchy in August 1906. This led to the formation of a committee that would compose a draft of the requisite electoral law (niẓāmnāmi-yi intikhābāt) and then of a Constitution. The committee was anxious lest the shah change his mind and cancel the edict he had issued, so, only 36 days later, on 8 September 1906, the electoral law was drafted and ratified by the shah. In accordance with this, 60 representatives from Tehran and another 60 from other cities representing the various elements of society (princes, the Qajar tribe, religious scholars and their students, nobles and notables, tradesmen, landowners and peasants and trade guilds) were to be elected to a parliament for two years. Each representative had a single vote and could only vote for his own class, and women were not allowed to participate either as candidates or as voters (Electoral Law 1906, Articles 3 and 5). While there was no indication of how the religious minorities could elect their representatives, there was an oral agreement: the Zoroastrians were entitled to choose a coreligionist who was already in the Parliament, Arbāb Jamshīd, and it is claimed that the Jews and Christians agreed to be represented by two clerical members of the Parliament, Sayyid ʿAbd Allāh Bihbahānī and Sayyid Muḥammad

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Ṭabāṭabā’ī (Kirmānī, Tārīkh-i bīdārī-yi Īrāniyyān, vol. 1, pp. 583-4). The Parliament was inaugurated on 7 October 1906. The Constitution was drafted in a matter of months and was ratified by Muẓaffar al-Dīn Shah only ten days before his death on 30 December 1906. It comprised 51 articles that mostly explained the duties and functions of the new Parliament and the Senate, with no article on the rights of the people or of non-Muslims. This was its great deficiency. With the help of some parliamentary deputies, the committee presented a draft of the Supplementary Law in August 1907. This was approved by the Parliament and ratified by the new monarch, Muḥammad ʿAlī Shah, on 7 October 1907. Despite its name, the Supplement was the Constitution proper. Consisting of 107 articles, it is divided into ten parts. As they prepared the Supplement, the committee drafted some articles that referred to equal rights for all. Thus, the draft of Article 8 states, ‘The people of the Persian Empire are to enjoy equal rights before the law.’ Shaykh Faḍl Allāh Nūrī (1843-1909), a strong opponent of constitutionalism, complained that the phrase ‘before the law’ here, which treats all without distinction, contradicted Islamic teachings, which makes a clear differentiation between punishments for Muslims and non-Muslims and for men and women. Other clerics, including revolutionaries, did not disagree with him in this regard, but they accepted the notion of equality on the grounds of public interest (maṣlaḥa) and with respect to the revolutionary climate that had united the people. Nurī and some radical Muslim groups proposed two changes to the wording. The first was to insert the term ‘governmental’ into Article 8 so that it read ‘all people are to enjoy equal rights before the governmental law’, indicating that, while all people may be equal in the courts, they were not equal in rulings derived from fiqhī opinions. The other alteration was to add a new Article 2 to the Supplement, which directed Parliament to set up a committee composed of no fewer than five jurists (mujtahids) who would decide whether laws proposed were in conformity with the rulings of Islam. No article was to be ratified until it had gone through the process of confirmation by this committee. The result was that the Supplement could no longer be seen to reflect the rights of the people alone. But most representatives were not familiar with the legal implications of constitutional theory, and so both proposals were accepted without hindrance. In response to the articles in the Supplement denoting equal rights for all, religious minorities celebrated the enactment of the new law and prominent figures among them, including Christians, sent telegrams to the Parliament applauding the representatives’ endeavours in

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confirming their rights (see Mudhākarāt-i majlis-i awwal, pp. 272, 273, 316, 449). However, the ʿulamāʾ were confident that no alteration would be made because Article 2 ensured that religious principles would take priority over articles implying equality. As soon as Muḥammad ʿAlī Shah was crowned on 19 January 1907, he showed his opposition to the Parliament in a number of ways. He was able to obtain the support of clerics such as Shaykh Nūrī, who wrote and spoke against the articles that introduced equality for all before the law. He remarked: The rulings of Islam are based on inequality among mankind, so you took an oath to agree with equality! The Qur’an states that there should be no retaliation against a Muslim for a non-Muslim, and then you took an oath to agree to the right of retaliation for non-Muslims! Whatever sounds contrary to Islam will never have any legality whatsoever. […] The Initiator of the sharīʿa gives you dignity and superiority, then you yourself give it up and say you should be brothers with and equal to Armenians, Zoroastrians, and Jews! (Zargarīnizhād, Rasāʾil mashrūṭiyyat, pp. 161-2).

In the early days of 1907, it was reported that the Parliament had secretly dismissed the shah from office. Conflict between the two reached a climax in June 1908, when the shah, backed by the Russian army and Cossack Brigade, arrested some constitutionalists, executed two revolutionaries and bombarded the Parliament with cannon fire. After Tehran fell under the shah’s control, the centre of opposition was shifted to Tabriz and two revolutionaries, Sattār Khān (d. 1914) and Bāqir Khān (d. 1911), continued to head the struggle with support from mainly Armenians led by Yeprem Khān (d. 1912). The revolutionaries (mujāhidīn) finally captured Tehran on 13 July 1909, forcing the shah to take refuge in the Russian embassy. The revolutionaries dismissed some of his courtiers and executed others of his supporters, including Shaykh Faḍl Allāh Nūrī by special tribunal. In the period from the second to the fifth Parliaments, between 1909 and 1921, the great modification regarding the legal status of Iranian religious minorities was the alteration to the electoral law, which, in October 1909, allowed four groups, the Armenians in the northern and southern regions of the country, the Assyrians, the Jews and the Zoroastrians, each to have one representative in the Parliament. This regulation became an enduring feature of electoral law in subsequent Parliaments and even in the Islamic Republic. This right had two aspects, one positive and one negative: on the one hand, they had their own representatives who could pursue their concerns and this would be in their favour, but, on the other,

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since they were Iranians, it was expected that they could, like others, elect more representatives. Accordingly, one Muslim from Tehran, for example, could choose 15 candidates but a Christian could choose only one. Another shortcoming was that Muslims could not vote for a member of a religious minority. In practice, the Assyrians had no representative in eight successive Parliaments (1909-35), while the Zoroastrians had representatives in all 24 Parliaments (1906-79) and were the most active of the religious minorities. After the revolution, religious minorities had equal status with Muslims and were not viewed as dhimmīs, but old stereotypes, traditional viewpoints and fiqhī opinions retained their power. The opinions of Nūrī and his followers about the rights of religious minorities remained, reflecting the general belief of Shīʿī jurists that non-Muslims were not equal to Muslims. There was no disagreement over this, as is attested by Muḥammad Ismāʿīl Maḥallātī (d. 1924), a clerical constitutionalist: We do not by freedom and equality mean that Muslims, Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians are equal in their rights. […] Yes, they are equal to Muslims with respect to the implementation of the law. Moreover, we mean that they are equal to Muslims in acquiring national benefits ( fawāʾid-i waṭaniyya) provided that their efforts are not contrary to the conditions of dhimma. But accepting a constitutional system does not mean that the Islamic prerogatives will be cancelled and the Qur’an will be equal to the abrogated Old and New Testaments. (see Zargarīnizhād, Rasāʾil mashrūṭiyyat, pp. 519, 546, also p. 330)

At the same time, these clerical constitutionalists did not allow radical groups to attack religious minorities and issued decrees (    fatāwā) that made it obligatory to treat them well (see a fatwā by Ākhūnd Khurāsānī in Browne, Persian revolution, pp. 421-2). To understand better the status of non-Muslims under the first Iranian Constitution, it is useful to examine articles in two parts of the Supplement. In Article 1, the official religion of Iran is referred to as Twelver Shīʿī Islam. This makes the legal status of non-Twelver Shīʿīs and non-Muslims ambiguous. The question remains as to what the legislators intended by the term ‘official religion’ and what its function was in the text. Was it included just to describe the religion of the majority? Or was it included as a basis of the codification of laws and regulations that would be needed later? Or did it indicate that religious traditions other than Twelver Shīʿism were not legal or recognised? There is no answer to these questions in the records of the constitutional discussions.

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Article 2 confirms the legality of the laws codified by the Parliament as long as ‘they are not at variance with the sacred rules of Islam and the positive laws established by the Prophet Muḥammad’. This was implemented by granting some jurists who were members of the Parliament power to veto (ṭarḥ wa radd) any laws that might contradict sacred teachings. This gave great legal power to the clerics involved, centralised fiqhī opinions and limited the power of influential jurists and sources of imitation (marājiʿ-i taqlīd) outside Parliament. It meant that no jurist could declare a given event or case unlawful merely on the basis of his own opinion, and it had the consequence of bringing about immunity for non-Shīʿī Muslims and non-Muslims from actions by radical Muslim groups and their clerical supporters. It is significant that, once the first Parliament was constituted, it received many complaints from religious minorities of oppression by local governors and radical Muslim groups. The representatives felt that they had a responsibility to consider these petitions and followed them up by using the power of the Parliament (see e.g. Mudhākarāt-i majlis awwal, p. 216, for complaints from Jews living in Kashan in 1907, and p. 246 for complaints from Zoroastrians living in Yazd in 1907). At the same time, Article 2 produced an internal contradiction in the Supplement by gathering together legal opinions that emphasised the superiority of Muslims over non-Muslims and standing against the approval of any laws and regulations that recognised equality between Muslims and non-Muslims. Regardless of Article 2, other parts of the Supplement that stressed people’s rights could abrogate traditional fiqhī opinions. Some examples will help illustrate this. In the sharīʿa, the levying of jizya (poll tax) and kharāj (land tax) on non-Muslims was intended to protect the lives and lands of religious minorities, but according to Articles 9 and 13, ‘all individuals are protected and safeguarded with respect to their lives, property, homes and honour from every kind of interference […] save in such cases and in such ways as the laws shall determine’. In religious law, protection is given on condition of payment of taxes, but in the Supplement protection is absolute and unconditional. This understanding is confirmed by Article 97, which states: ‘On the matter of taxes there shall be no distinction or difference amongst the individuals who comprise the nation.’ This obviates the imposition of jizya and kharāj. But this is potentially contradicted by Article 94: ‘No tax shall be established save in accordance with the Law.’ In accordance with Article 2, this can be interpreted in a way that makes jizya legitimate on the basis of Article 2, according to which it could

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be understood as included in ‘the Law’. This interpretation could also be extended to other fiqhī opinions on different forms of retaliation and punishment for Muslims and non-Muslims. The word ‘nation’ normally means all people or citizens, and has precedent in 19th-century nationalism. However, the committee that prepared the draft of the Supplement translated the term as ‘the Persian nation’, millat-i Īrān. This and similar phrases such as ‘no one … save’, ‘no Persian … save’, and ‘all individuals’ that occur in Articles 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 of the Supplement were appearing for the first time in the Iranian milieu, and they played a major role in establishing a new identity and new rights for Persians. There is one explicit exception in the Constitution, in Article 58, which states: ‘No one can attain the rank of minister unless he is a Muslim by religion, a Persian by birth, and a Persian subject.’ In spite of the prevailing theory at the time that linked the legitimacy of government to its subservience to religion, it was clear that it was the new concept of the ‘nation’ that legitimised the power of the shah. The concept might be supported by Article 26, which states: ‘The powers of the realm are all derived from the people; and the Fundamental Law regulates the employment of those powers.’ The new concept, however, produced a paradox in the content of the Constitution, as follows: the law asserts that all powers are derived from the will of the nation but it also states that the legitimacy of the shah’s sovereignty comes from God or from his subservience to religion. This can be seen in Article 35, which ironically states: ‘… sovereignty is a trust bestowed as a divine gift by the nation upon the person of the king’. The phrase ‘as a divine gift’ does not make any sense in the context of constitutionalism. Articles such as 15, 16 and 17 help explain the ambiguous structure of the Supplement. According to Article 15, ‘No property shall be removed from the control of its owner save by legal sanction, and then only after its fair value has been determined and paid.’ What is ambiguous concerning the rights of non-Muslims is the condition ‘by legal sanction’, for it is not clear whether the term includes legal opinions in fiqh or not. For instance, in Shīʿī fiqh, the crimes of blasphemy (kufr) and apostasy (irtidād) can debar relatives from inheriting from a dead Muslim. Thus, Article 15, which appears to recognise and protect the rights of religious minorities, remains without effect. Similar analysis might be offered concerning Articles 13, 16 and 17, in which the term ‘the Law’ is applied absolutely but also ambiguously. Article 20 is also worth discussing with regard to people’s rights:

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Mahdī-Qulī Hidāyat translated the French Press Law into Persian and then, after discussions and modifications, it was approved in this form (cf. Mudhākarāt-i majlis awwal, pp. 437, 521, 569.) The analysis of it here centres on the definition of the phrase ‘heretical books (kutub-i ḍālla) and matters hurtful to Islam’, which was of central importance to the ruling class and clergy. The question is whether printing the Bible and the Zoroastrian sacred texts fell under the description ‘heretical books and matters hurtful to Islam’. There is no definition of the concept in the Press Law but what can be understood from the discussions in the first Parliament is that exclusivist attitudes were expressed about the meaning of the notion. Some deputies even believed that printing works of the Sunnī Ashʿarī school of theology and mystical orders should be forbidden (Mudhākarāt-i majlis-i awwal, p. 302), and non-Muslim scriptures were even more problematic since they were regarded as having been distorted by their possessors and abrogated by the Qur’an. This is why most Iranian Muslims avoid reading scriptures from other religions. It is worth mentioning that during the Pahlavi era, at the shah’s suggestion and with the ratification of the Parliament and the Senate, some articles of the Constitution were revised five times, in 1925, 1939, 1949, 1957 and 1965. All these modifications were intended to establish and consolidate the new dynasty, and none had anything to do with the rights of the people, including non-Muslims, or with the development of democracy or progress towards a modern society. Significance The Constitutional Revolution of 1905-11 represents the first direct encounter between Shīʿī Islam and elements of modernity. The first Constitution and the Supplement were among the great achievements of the Revolution, not least in addressing the legal status of religious minorities. The appearance of the term ‘the Persian nation’ referring to all Iranians irrespective of religion or tribe prepared the groundwork for equal rights and freedom for religious minorities, who were rarely faced with violence or forced conversion after the Revolution. The content and structure of the Supplement of 1907, before the addition of Article 2, was closer to delivering justice and fulfilling the rights of all Iranians, non-Muslims included.

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Publications E.G. Browne, A brief narrative of recent events in Persia: followed by a translation of the four pillars of the Persian Constitution, London, 1909 (contains the 1906 Electoral Law, the 1906 Constitution, and the Supplement); see the Persian text in Amir Qurbani (ed.), Qānūn asāsī Iran 1324/1906 wa mutamim an 1325/1907, Tehran, 1394/2016; see also the full text on the official site of the Iranian Presidency: https://qavanin.ir/Law/TreeText/39466; https://qavanin.ir/Law /TreeText/174525 Nāẓim al-Islām Kirmānī, Tārīkh-i bīdārī-yi Īrāniyyān [The history of Iranians awaking], ed. ʿAlī Akbar Saʿīdī Sīrjānī, Tehran, 1983 Ghulām Hussein Zargarīnizhād (ed.), Rasāʾil mashrūṭiyyat [Monographs on constitutionalism], Tehran, 1374/1995 Mudhākirāt-i majlis-i awwal (1384/2005) [Proceedings of the First Parliament], ed. Ghulām Hussein Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ, Tehran, 2004 Studies Saeid Edalatnejad, The legal status of non-Muslims in the Shiite fiqh and Iranian laws (1906-2020), Leiden, 2023, esp. chs 2 and 3 J. Barry, Armenian Christians in Iran. Ethnicity, religion, and identity in the Islamic Republic, New York, 2019 Said Amir Arjomand, art. ‘Constitutional revolution, iii. The Consti­ tution’, in EIr E.G. Browne, The Persian revolution of 1905-1909, Cambridge, 1910 Saeid Edalatnejad

Muḥammad ʿAlī Dāʿī l-Islām Muḥammad ʿAlī Ḥasanī Date of Birth 1878 Place of Birth Niyāk village, Amol County, Iran Date of Death 1954 Place of Death Hyderabad, Deccan, India

Biography

Muḥammad ʿAlī, son of Faḍlullāh Ḥasanī, known by the title Dāʿī l-Islām (‘caller of Islam’), was born in the village of Niyāk, a dependency of Amol, north-east of Tehran, in the year 1878. At five years of age, he came to Amol and, after learning to read the Qur’an and completing the usual programme of studies in the local maktab, he travelled to the capital, where he lodged first in the Madrasa-yi Qājār and then the Madrasa-yi Sipahsālār. His autobiography includes a family tree (shajara-nāma) (Dāʿī l-Islām, ‘Savāniḥ-i zindagānī-i Sayyid Muḥammad’, pp. 23-6) and details the most important stages of his life. According to this autobiography, he was induced to move from Tehran to Isfahan by the reputation of the Madrasa-yi Ṣadr and renowned teachers such as Ākhund Mullā Muḥammad Kāshī (18331914) and Mīrzā Jahāngīr Qashqāʾī (1827-1906). Once in Isfahan, he studied advanced texts of jurisprudence ( fiqh) with the two well-known scholars Shaykh Muḥammad Taqī, known as Āqā Najafī Iṣfahānī (1846-1914), and his brother Āqā Nūrullāh Iṣfahānī (1859-1927). Dāʿī l-Islām says that most of his fellow students had ambitions to attain the rank of mujtahid (a scholar who can independently derive legal rulings from their sources) and seek employment in Iran’s judiciary, but he felt that he had another mission (Dāʿī l-Islām, ‘Savāniḥ-i zindagānī-i Sayyid Muḥammad’, p. 24). His interest in literature and poetry brought him into contact with the literary circle of Mīrzā Sulaymān Khān Shīrāzī (1838-1913), governor of Isfahan and known as Rukn al-Mulk. This marked the beginning of an ongoing relationship between them, such that, in 1906 Dāʿī l-Islām performed the ḥajj pilgrimage on behalf of Rukn al-Mulk (Al-Islām, year 3, issue 9, pp. 15-16; for an account of this journal, see below). According to his autobiography, after performing the pilgrimage Dāʿī l-Islām travelled to Egypt, where he was well-received by Iranian merchants

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living there. On his return journey to Iran, as there were no ships headed for the Persian Gulf, he sailed to Bombay instead, where the local Muslims asked him to debate with Christian preachers who were active in the city. It was at this point that he began to learn Urdu. Our knowledge about his activities to defend Islam against Christian preachers is limited to a biweekly periodical called Daʿwat al-Islām, which was published in two languages between December 1906 and September 1907 (see below). After about a year of activity in Bombay, Dāʿī l-Islām travelled to southern India to be a professor at Hyderabad Deccan University, where he taught Persian language and literature for the next 25 years. He also studied Pahlavi and Sanskrit, which he put to use in etymological studies of Persian words in his voluminous Farhang-i niẓām (1926). He died at the age of 75 in 1954 in Hyderabad, Deccan, and is buried in the Mīr Muʾmin cemetery there (Majd, Zindagī afkār, p. 59). In his youth, Dāʿī l-Islām showed a special interest in interfaith issues but this faded during the later decades of his life as his interests became focused on Persian literature, Sanskrit language and the Zoroastrian faith (for a bibliography of his writings, see ʿIywaḍī, Safākhāna-yi Islām, pp. 93-4, 97-9).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary W. Dastgirdī, ‘Dāʿī l-Islām. Muʾallaf-i Farhang-i niẓām’, Majalla-i Armaghān 10 (1929) 398-402 M.ʿA. Ḥasanī Dāʿī l-Islām, ‘Savāniḥ-i zindagānī-i Sayyid Muḥammad ʿAlī Dāʿī l-Islām’, Hafta-nāma-yi Āyīn-i Islām 3/117 (July 1946) 23-6 Secondary Ḥaydar ʿIywaḍī, Safākhāna-yi Islām dar guftugū-yi Islām u Masīḥiyyat. Māhnāma-yi l-Islām, Muḥammad ʿAlī Ḥasanī Dāʿī l-Islām, Qom, 2014, p. 99 R. Sarlak, ‘Madkhal Dāʿī l-Islām Muḥammad ʿAlī’, Dānishnāma-i Jahān-i Islām 17 (2014) 3-5 M. Majd, Zindagī afkār u āthār-i muʾallif-i Farhang-i niẓām, Bandar ʿAbbās, 2011 M. Saleem Akhtar, art. ‘Dāʿī-al-Eslām, Sayyed Moḥammad ʿAlī’, in EIr

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Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Al-Islām ‘Islam’ Date December 1902–February 1906 Original Language Persian Description Al-Islām was a monthly periodical that was printed lithographically in Isfahan in the years 1902-6. The main part of the magazine includes 23 conversations between Muslim and Christian representatives, mostly in the Julfa neighbourhood of Isfahan, although two of these conversations (21 and 22) took place in Shiraz. The Muslim representative was Muḥammad ʿAlī Ḥasanī Dāʿī l-Islām himself, except in conversations 10 and 23, when the Muslim interlocutors were a certain Sayyid Muḥammad Javād and ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn Mūsavī (the Friday prayer leader of Ḥusaynābād). Unfortunately, there is little exact information about the identities of the Christian participants. In conversations 10, 13 and 16, the Christian side is represented by someone called Benjamin, who apparently later converted to Islam and was given the name Mīrzā ʿAbdullāh Jadīd al-Islām. In conversations 1-9 it is very likely that the Christian side was represented by the clergyman William St Clair Tisdall (1859-1929). Sometimes Jewish representatives were also present in these discussions (see year 3, no. 9, p. 16), though their identities are not specified. These conversations were held on Fridays and Sundays and, as is noted in the periodical itself, the content of the sessions was often far more extensive than the published text (see below, and year 3, no. 10, p. 1). In addition to the details of these interfaith conversations, Al-Islām also included audience feedback on the content of the conversations, articles dealing with current affairs, notices titled ‘hidden leaders’ (surur-i ghaybī) which introduced political and scholarly figures, and announcements of miscellaneous books and articles. The first issue was published in December 1902, though no copy of this appears to have survived. After the first issue, there was a six-month pause before the publication of further issues, the explanation being given in the second issue of 1903 that this was to allow time to ensure that the contents of the periodical were in keeping with the national interest. This announcement also praised the good governance and peerless supervision of the Prime Minister, Mīrzā ʿAlī Aṣghar Atābak (d. 1907), although his possible involvement in the continued

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publication of the magazine is not explicitly mentioned. Fortunately, the first issue was republished and it appeared side-by-side with the second issue in January 1903. The announcement also said that interfaith conversations had continued during this period, producing so much content that it could fill five years’ worth of issues of a daily newspaper. According to the details given in the first issue, the magazine had two main goals: first, to counter Christian missionary activities in Iran, especially in Isfahan, and, second, to train Muslim preachers and prepare them to travel to foreign countries to invite people there to Islam (Al-Islām, year 1, no. 1, pp. 4-5). In addition to Muḥammad ʿAlī Dāʿī l-Islām, two other key figures were involved in the publication of Al-Islām: Rukn al-Mulk, the governor of Isfahan and the primary financial sponsor for the magazine, and Āqā Nūrullāh Iṣfahānī (1859-1927), one of the leading religious scholars of Isfahan. The Ṣafākhāna of Isfahan had been founded on his instructions, and he can be seen as the spiritual patron of the periodical (see Al-Islām, year 1, no. 1, p. 4; no. 7, p. 8). The 23 interfaith conversations reported in the magazine focussed on five core issues: 1. The divinity of Christ; 2. The Trinity; 3. attributing sins to the prophets of the Old Testament; 4. the prophethood of Muḥammad; 5. the possibility of abrogation in religions. Of these, it was probably arguments for the divinity of Christ based on passages of the Old Testament that took up the most space. The Christian missionary pursues this topic intensely in a number of issues of the periodical and, in response, Dāʿī l-Islām critiques the Christian’s views, sometimes using lexical analysis and sometimes relying on historical evidence. In their exchanges, both parties adopt a completely polemical and dialectical approach so, although there are frequent references to the Old and New Testaments and to the Qur’an, these are usually presented to refute the view of the other party. Despite the polemical character of the exchanges, both the Christian and Muslim sides address each other respectfully and politely throughout. In addition, the editorial policy of the magazine appears to have been to avoid printing anything that might cause offence. In this regard, an announcement contained in the fourth issue of the second year is of interest. In short, in the second issue of the same year, a letter was published from one of the magazine’s readers that encouraged the idea of sending Shīʿī missionaries to the United States. In the course of the letter, its writer describes the people of the United States as ‘naïve’ (sāda-lawḥ). A note appeared in the following issue of the magazine that sought to excuse this choice of language:

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Muḥammad ʿAlī Dāʿī l-Islām The expression sāda-lawḥ that appeared in the second issue of the magazine in a letter from Tehran refers to a blank slate (lawḥ) that is free from deception and hypocrisy, and was not intended to give any offence to the people of America. However, the objections some dignitaries have lodged in this regard are valid, namely that, in accordance with the art of rhetoric, we should avoid printing words open to misinterpretation, and we apologise for this. (Year 2, no. 4, p. 16)

Significance Al-Islām was the Isfahan seminary’s first systematic effort and publishing initiative to focus on dialogue between Islam and Christianity during the late Qajar period. The reported presence of St Clair Tisdall in some of the conversations represents a major strength of the publication. In addition, the periodical contains some important clues regarding the nature and identity of anti-missionary activities outside Iran and even in Britain. For example, issue 16 (1904) refers to the activities of the English convert to Islam Abdullah Quilliam (1856-1932), who promoted Islam by writing books in English and publishing the weekly magazine Al-Hilāl (‘The Crescent’) and his own monthly journal Al-Islām. Publications A total of 38 issues of Al-Islām were published over the course of 34 months. As has been mentioned, the first issue was published in December 1902, after which publication was put on hold until May 1903. It resumed in 1903, and two issues appeared in each of September, November and December. From January 1904 onwards, it continued to be printed as a monthly periodical, with the exception of January 1905, which also saw the publication of two issues. It continued to be printed until February 1906. Copies of the magazine can be found in the following libraries: University of Tehran Library (all 38 issues) Library of Masjid-i Aʿẓam, Qom (the first 24 issues) Library of Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī, Tehran (complete save for issue no. 5 of year 3) Library of Āstān Quds-i Raḍawī (some issues) Studies Ḥaydar ʿIywaḍī, Ṣafākhāna-yi Iṣfahān dar guftugū-yi Islām u Masīḥiyyat M.K. Najafī et al. (eds), Al-Islām: Anjuman-i Ṣafākhāna-yi Iṣfahān. Markaz-i guftugū-yi adyān-i Islām u Masīḥiyyat, Taṣḥīh-i Māhnāma-yi Islām, Isfahan, 2014 Ḥaydar ʿIywaḍī, ‘Nimūna-yī az guftugū-yi Islām u Masīḥiyyat. Māhnāma-yi Islām’, Majalla-i Haft Āsimān 14/54 (2012) 49-72

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Majd, Zindagī afkār u āthār-i muʾallif-i Farhang-i niẓām S.F. Qāsimī, ‘Nakhustīn nashriyya-yi Islāmī-i Īrān’, Majalla-yi Kilk 84 (March 1997) 165-72 M. Ṣadr Hāshimī, Tārīkh-i jarāyid u majallāt-i Īrān, Isfahan, 1985, vol. 1, pp. 233-41

Daʿwat al-Islām ‘The call of Islam’ Date Possibly October 1906–September 1907 Original Language Persian and Urdu Description The biweekly periodical Daʿwat al-Islām represented the continuation of the religious activism of Dāʿī l-Islām after his arrival in Bombay, where the scope for interreligious dialogue was much broader than in Iran, including not only Christians, but sometimes Hindus as well. The magazine’s first issue was published in October 1906. It is not known exactly how long it continued, though the latest issue to which we have access is dated September 1907, published with moveable type. The first issue of the magazine was a bilingual Persian and Urdu publication. However, from the second issue onwards, it was entirely written in Persian with an Urdu translation offered as a supplement at an additional cost. The magazine had two main sections. First, the text of discussions held by Muslims with Christians and Hindus, which took place regularly on Friday afternoons; second, reports of preaching assemblies (majālis) on Tuesday evenings that focused on the merits of Islam. The venue for both events in Bombay was the Bhendi Bazaar, opposite Masjid-i Navvāb (issue no. 1, p. 9). Only three discussions between a Muslim and a Christian missionary are reported in the magazine. In the first, the Muslim side is represented by Muḥammad ʿAlī Ḥasanī Dāʿī l-Islām (issue no. 2, p. 2 et passim). The second is a report of a debate between Mīrzā Abū Ṭālib Shīrāzī (d. 1927) and a Christian missionary in Shiraz, which was serialised across three issues (no. 5, p. 2; no. 6, pp. 4-5; no. 7, pp. 2-4). The third discussion was published in issue no. 10 (p. 2). In another discussion the Muslim representative speaks with a number of Hindus (no. 3, p. 2). The Muslim’s interlocutor is not specifically identified in any of the discussions.

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Illustration 12. Front page of the first issue of Daʿwat al-Islām

Muḥammad ʿAlī Dāʿī l-Islām is listed at the end of the biweekly as editor-inchief, along with details of the place of publication, Maṭbaʿa-i Muẓaffarī. The most important sponsor of the magazine was Mīrzā Muḥammad Amīn al-Tujjār, though later the names of five other individuals are listed as the magazine’s founders (issue no. 3, p. 4). Attendance at the interreligious meetings was subject to five conditions, repeatedly mentioned in various issues. Chief amongst these were the stipulation that dialogues should be purely religious and not political, and that the parties should avoid insults and showing any disrespect (issue no. 1, p. 10; no. 2, p. 6; no. 8, p. 2). The approach taken by both parties in these discussions is that of a polemical debate. For example, in the first, when the Christian preacher says: ‘Why is there any need for the Qur’an, when God has already explained everything necessary for salvation in the New Testament?’, the Muslim representative responds: ‘The Jews say the same thing about your scripture, the New Testament!’ (issue no. 2, p. 3). Equally, in a debate with a Hindu, the Muslim, in response to the claim that God’s creation of human beings with innate differences is incompatible with His justice, says: ‘These objections are not only directed towards Muslims; Jews

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and Christians must also have an answer to them’ (issue no. 3, p. 2). He then responds by drawing an analogy between the differences between people and the differences between the letters of the alphabet. He points out that the shapes of letters are different and a scribe cannot be blamed for writing the letter dāl in a curved way, because, if he were to write it upright it would become an alif. In other words, just as a language needs a diversity of letters, so too are the elements of nature created differently (issue no. 3, pp. 2-3). In Mīrzā Abū Ṭālib’s debate, he discusses in detail the differences between the Gospels in the details they give of Christ’s life in general, and their differing accounts of the Passion and crucifixion in particular, and argues that these show that the scripture has been corrupted. The Christian preacher insists on one answer, which is that all these texts require interpretation (issue no. 5, p. 2; no. 6, pp. 4-5). Announcements contained in the magazine provide a good deal of useful information on historical topics and Muslim religious activities in various parts of the world. For example: the Anjuman-i Muqaddas (‘Holy Association’) of Ḍiyāʾ l-Islām in Bombay (issue no. 8, p. 8); the Anjuman-i Jaʿariyya in Muzaffarnagar (issue no. 6, p. 1) – the speech Dāʿī l-Islām delivered to this association was published in the magazine (issue no. 7, p. 4); efforts to set up a religious research association in Japan – Dāʿī l-Islām tried to send ʿAlī Akbar Ḥakīm Shīrāzī as a representative of Islam to Japan (issue no. 4, p. 1; no. 7, p. 8; no. 23, p. 4), and the last issue promises that a discussion with someone called Goldsmith will be published in the next issue (no. 23, p. 4), but this never came to pass; a report titled Ittiḥād-i Musalmānān-i Shanghāʾī (‘The Muslim Union of Shanghai’) presents the Muslim Union of Shanghhai in China as a model for global Muslim unity. It says that the union numbered some 3,500 people and consisted of Twelver Shīʿīs, Sunnīs, Khojas and Bohras (issue no. 10, p. 7). Significance The magazine was the first outcome of the Christian-Muslim exchanges of ideas that had taken place in Ṣafākhāna of Isfahan that was realised beyond the borders of Iran. Muḥammad ʿAlī Dāʿī l-Islām adopted the activities of the Christian missionaries of Isfahan to propagate Islam in a global context. This unprecedented development can be traced through the interreligious dialogues recorded in the various parts of the magazine, as well as the announcements made in it, and in the books reviewed. Evidently, Dāʿī l-Islām tried to create a wide network to achieve his goal. It was a significant effort, though our knowledge of this network remains limited.

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Publications Daʿwat al-Islām, Maṭbaʿa-i Muẓafarī (October 1906-September 1907); issues are held in the following libraries: Library of Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī, Mashhad: nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 (incomplete), 13, 17, 23, 24 Library of Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī, Tehran: nos 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24 Studies Ḥaydar ʿIywaḍī, Safākhāna-yi Islām dar guftugū-yi Islām u Masīḥiyyat, p. 99 N. Parvin, art. ‘Daʿwat al-Eslām’, in EIr Ṣadr Hāshimī, Tārīkh-i jarāyid u majallāt-i Īrān, vol. 2, pp. 290-2 Heidar Eyvazi

Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn Khān Kirmānī Date of Birth 1860 Place of Birth Kerman Date of Death 1942 Place of Death Kerman

Biography

Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn Khān Kirmānī became the master of the Kirmānī branch of the Shaykhī School following the death of his elder brother Muḥammad Khān Kirmānī in 1906. He succeeded his brother at a time of profound political upheaval, the advent of the Iranian constitutional revolution (1906-11), preceded in Kerman by significant violence against the Shaykhī community. His 36 years as leader of the school were also marked by the First World War, the 1921 coup d’état, the advent of the Pahlavi dynasty (1925-79) and the abdication of the sovereign in 1941. Although research on relations between religion and society during the reign of Riḍā Shah (r. 1925-41) has been limited, certain aspects are clear, including the acceleration of the secularisation process desired and promoted by the Pahlavi state, and the relocation of Uṣūlī clergy in Iran following the emergence of Qom as a new major Shīʿī education centre. In this new context, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn appears in a number of ways in the public sphere, though without becoming an activist. He was committed to defending the traditional education system and the teaching of Arabic, which were contested by the secularist intellectual perspective during the constitutional revolution. Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn also intervened from the pulpit to oppose the law of 19 December 1935 aimed at banning the wearing of ḥijāb (on this see Chehabi, ‘Banning of the veil’, and ‘Staging the emperor’s new clothes’). If the emergence of a new political culture in the 1920-30s was relatively conducive to the protection and rights of religious minorities, including the various Shīʿī communities in their diversity, tensions and ostracism nevertheless remained strong. Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn was only 12 years old when his father Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī died (1871), and he was educated by his elder brother Muḥammad Khān Kirmānī. He thus received education and initiation into the Islamic sciences from an early age. All of his known ijāzas come from the Shaykhī ʿulamāʾ of Kerman: Muḥammad Khān Kirmānī, Sayyid Ḥusayn Yazdī (d. c. 1917) and Shaykh ʿAlī Baḥrānī (d. 1899 or 1900).

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Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn wrote 153 treatises, mostly during his first 20 years as the master of the Shaykhī School. He was seriously ill for the last seven years of his life. The majority of his treatises are short, answering questions asked by disciples of the school. They have been brought together in collections (Majmaʿ al-rasāʾil). The Hadith collection Kitāb al-mubīn seems to be a work largely co-produced with his brother.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Abū l-Qāsim Khān Ibrāhīmī, Fihrist-i kutub-i mashāyikh-i ʿiẓām, Kerman, 3rd edition, n.d. Secondary D. Hermann, ‘La défense de l’enseignement de l’arabe au cours du mouvement constitutionnel iranien (1906-1911)’, in D. Hermann and F. Speziale (eds), Muslim cultures in the Indo-Iranian world during the early-modern and modern periods, Berlin, 2010, 301-21 H.E. Chehabi, ‘The banning of the veil and its consequences’, in S. Cronin (ed.), The making of modern Iran. State and society under Riza Shah, 1921-1941, London, 2003, 193-210 H.E. Chehabi, ‘Staging the emperor’s new clothes. Dress codes and nation-building under Reza Shah’, Iranian Studies 26 (1993) 209-29 M.H. Faghfoory, ‘The impact of modernization on the ulama in Iran, 1925-1940’, Iranian Studies 26 (1993) 277-312 M.H. Faghfoory, ‘The ulama-state relations in Iran. 1921-1941’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 19 (1987) 413-32 S. Akhavi, Religion and politics in contemporary Iran. Clergy-state relations in the Pahlavi period, New York, 1980 H. Corbin, En islam iranien. Aspects spirituels et philosophiques, vol. 4, Paris, 1972 G. Scarcia, ‘Kerman 1905. La “Guerra” tra Seiḫī e Bālāsarī’, Annali del Instituto Orientale Universitario di Napoli 13 (1963) 195-238

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Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Risāla dar radd-i baʿḍ-i shubuhāt-i Naṣrāniyya dar javāb-i marḥūm Āqā Mīr Muḥammad Davānī ‘Refutation of some Christian sophistries in response to the deceased Āqā Mīr Muḥammad Davānī’ Date 23 October 1909 Original Language Persian Description This modestly-sized treatise of 67 pages was completed on 23 October 1909, three years after Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn assumed the leadership of the Shaykhī School. He wrote it in response to a letter by a certain Āqā Mīr Muḥammad Davānī, who lived in the city of Rafsanjan. Davānī explained that some Europeans (baʿḍī az farangān) in Rafsanjan had conversed with some Muslims on topics related to Islam, and in consequence some doubts had arisen in the minds of the Muslims. Davānī mentions three topics, and requests Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn to remove doubts on those matters, using traditions and reports (akhbār u āthār). In the introductory section, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn recommends his Muslim interlocutors as well as the Europeans responsible for sowing the doubts first to scrutinise their religion by the application of reason (ʿaql) so that they can be certain of the foundation of their religion and its main principles; second, to pay attention to particular rulings and, if possible, apprehend the rational grounds for them. If they cannot do this, they should follow the advice and instructions of the prophets and the saints. The Europeans had argued that Muḥammad must have spoken only Arabic, since all the traditions surviving from him are in Arabic. Based on a tradition from the sixth Shīʿī Imām, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn replies that Muḥammad used to speak in Arabic with non-Arabs but that they could hear it in their own language, and when they spoke to Muḥammad in their own language the angel Gabriel used to translate their words for him. As with several other traditions, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn argues that not only Muḥammad but also the Shīʿī Imāms could speak with people, no matter what their mother tongue, and that these people would understand, though, unlike Muḥammad, the Imāms could also comprehend and speak other languages directly (pp. 5-22).

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The second matter is about Muḥammad’s all-encompassing knowledge, belief in which was undermined by the advent of modern technology such as the telegraph. According to the Europeans, Muḥammad did not have knowledge of modern technology, or he would have taught it to people. So, his knowledge was not all-encompassing. In response, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn argues that not only Muḥammad but also Jesus and Moses had foreknowledge of these matters, though they deliberately refrained from teaching matters related to earthly concerns. For them, human efforts should be aimed at the non-material world, and minimum security in this life is enough to enable a person to devote his time to other worldly matters, because paying too much attention to the affairs of this world can distract from significant things. There were only a few occasions when the prophets engaged with matters of this world, such as Solomon applying advanced sciences and technology. Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn adds further explanation about the nature of modern technology and provides two examples, the knitting machine and the train (kāliska-yi bukhār). He argues that previously many people were occupied in fabric production but their number had now decreased dramatically because of the machine. The same applies to the transport of goods. The advent of the train has resulted in many people losing their jobs while only relatively few profit from it. This kind of technology does not follow the path of the prophets, and this is the reason why they did not teach about it (pp. 22-46). The third issue is jinn. The Christian European interlocutors denied the existence of jinn, and one of them, a telegraph operator (tiligrāf-chī), boasted that if someone introduced a jinn into his body and then removed it, he would convert to Islam and would write to tell his people at home and convert them to Islam too, but nothing happened. In reply, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn cites several indications of the existence of jinn and demons in the New Testament (he possessed a copy of the Persian edition published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1895). Referring to these verses, he argues that Christians should not doubt the existence of jinn and demons. Jinn are a type of spirit without a body. They sometimes enter the bodies of people who have a certain temperament, and this results in epilepsy. Muslim exorcists (muʿazzamīn) can remove them with the help of magical words and invocations (pp. 46-67). Significance The treatise shows that by 1909 religious exchanges were occurring in the south of Iran between native Muslims and foreigners. Feeling vulnerable

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about their beliefs, the Muslims needed some support. The Shaykhīs consulted their leading figure on these matters and Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn Khān’s thorough explanation and his numerous citations from the New Testament and Shīʿī Hadith sources indicate that he responded with great care and attention. He offered Muslims a methodology by which to arm themselves against the doubts that might possibly assail them, either from exchanges with Western Christians or from other intellectual traditions in the context of the development of secularist ideas during the Iranian constitutional revolution. Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn’s criticism of modern technology for causing job losses and social inequality is especially significant for being one of the earliest records of such criticisms in Iran. Publications Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn Khān Kirmānī, ‘Risāla dar radd-i baʿd-i shubuhāt-i Naṣrāniyya dar javāb-i marḥūm Āqā Mīr Muḥammad Davānī’, in Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn Khān Kirmānī, Majmaʿ al-rasāʾil-i fārsī dar javāb-i suʾālāt, Kerman, 1973, 131-98 Denis Hermann

Mīrzā Muḥammad Ṣādiq Fakhr al-Islām Mīrzā Muḥammad Ṣādiq Urūmī Date of Birth Between 1844 and 1857 Place of Birth Urmia Date of Death In or after 1914 Place of Death Tehran

Biography

By his own account, Mīrzā Muḥammad Ṣādiq Urūmī was born in the north-western Iranian city of Urmia into a family of Assyrian Christians that had produced Assyrian priests over successive generations (Fakhr al-Islām, Anīs al-aʿlām, vol. 1, p. 7; references that follow are to this work, unless otherwise stated). In his home town, he most probably studied in one of the schools founded by American Presbyterian missionaries, as well as receiving religious instruction from Assyrian religious scholars. He says that he studied religious texts and the sciences of Christianity with leading Assyrian scholars and Protestant and Catholic teachers, ‘male and female’ (vol. 1, p. 7). It appears it was through these studies that, in addition to Persian and Syriac, he became acquainted with French and Hebrew. With regard to his conversion to Islam, his own account of this should not be taken as strictly factual. According to what he says, when he was 12 years old, he travelled far in search of knowledge and ended up ‘in the service of one of the great priests of the Catholic sect and joined the ranks of his four or five hundred disciples’. In the course of his studies, he so far outstripped his fellow students that, by the time he was 17 or 18 years of age, he was sufficiently qualified to stand in for his teacher when the latter was absent. This prodigious aptitude prompted his teacher to reveal a ‘great secret’ to him and admit to him that the ‘Paraclete’ mentioned in John 14:16 is none other than ‘the prophet of the Muslims, as this word means “Aḥmad” or “Muḥammad” …’ (vol. 1, pp. 7-9). In response to his favourite pupil’s questions, the teacher told him the truth about the Christian faith: ‘O my spiritual child! The faith of the Christians is abrogated because of the appearance of the noble religion of the Prophet Muḥammad!’, which he repeated three times (vol. 1, pp. 7-9). He then urged his student to convert to Islam. From there, Mīrzā Muḥammad Ṣādiq left for Iran, arriving in

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his home town, Urmia, in the middle of the night. There, he immediately went to the house of a local mujtahid, recited the two parts of the testimony of faith and thereby entered the fold of Islam (vol. 1, pp. 20-1; see also vol. 5, pp. 176-86). However, this story is clearly derived from the conversion story of ʿAbdullāh al-Turjumān al-Mayūrqī, also known as Anselmo Turmeda (1355-1423) recounted in the book Tuḥfat al-arīb fī radd ahl al-ṣalīb (for more on this, see Tawfīqī, ‘Fakhr al-Islām’; Monferrer Sala, ‘Fra Anselmo Turmeda’, in CMR 5, 326-9). For this reason, it cannot be taken as an accurate account of Fakhr al-Islām’s actual route to conversion. From the abundant indications found in Fakhr al-Islām’s own works (e.g. vol. 5, p. 197) and the reports of some of those who sponsored the publications of his works (Darjazīnī, Muʾakhkhira-yi burhān al-Muslimīn, p. 63), it appears that he became a Shīʿa Muslim around the year 1875, taking the name Mīrzā Muḥammad Ṣādiq. His former Christian name is unknown. He then went to Najaf to study Islamic sciences. It is said that he studied in the city’s seminaries for 16 years and reached such a level that he was able to obtain licences (ijāzāt) to carry out independent legal reasoning (ijtihād) from the scholars there (Khayābānī, ʿUlamāʾ-i muʿāṣirīn, p. 98). After studying religious sciences, he was appointed to lead prayers, preach and deliver the Friday sermon in Urmia and Tabriz. In 1887, he left Urmia to perform a ziyārat pilgrimage to the shrine of the Eighth Imām, ʿAlī l-Riḍā, in Mashhad (vol. 1, p. 27; Khayābānī, ʿUlamāʾ-i muʿāṣirīn, p. 101). On his way there, he visited various cities in Azerbaijan and the Caucasus. On the return journey, in November 1887, he stopped in Tehran and remained there for the rest of his life. In that same year, he was admitted to the court of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah (r. 1848-96) and, upon hearing the story of his life and conversion to Islam, the shah bestowed upon him the title Fakhr al-Islām (‘the Pride of Islam’, Khayābānī, ʿUlamāʾ-i muʿāṣirīn, p. 98). It appears that Fakhr al-Islām did not write anything until the year 1893, and his writings contain a number of interesting details about the last years of his life. For example, they say that on 19 April 1894, he met the French ambassador René de Balva in the residence of Tehran’s Friday prayer leader and discussed with him the crucifixion and death of Jesus (vol. 2, p. 176). In addition to his preaching, proselytising and religious debates, Fakhr al-Islām also became involved in political and social matters, attaching himself to the cause of Iran’s constitutional movement (mashrūṭa), which enjoyed the backing of two major Shīʿī religious authorities, Mīrzā Sayyid Muḥammad Ṭabāṭabāʾī (d. 1920) and Sayyid ʿAbd Allāh Bihbahānī

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(d. 1910). In this regard, he also produced a weekly periodical called Tadayyun (‘Religiosity’; see below) and delivered lectures to the constitutionalists who had sought shelter in the grounds of the British legation in Tehran (Kirmānī, Ta‌ʾrīkh, vol. 3, pp. 512, 532). Because of his religious and social activism and writing, Fakhr al-Islām became increasingly popular amongst the ordinary folk. This is clearly visible in accounts of people coming in droves to his house to show their support when word spread in Tehran that he was being summoned by the courts for speaking out against the Bābī faith. However, when these reports turned out to be nothing more than rumour, Fakhr al-Islām sent the crowds away (Tadayyun, year 1, no. 4, p. 4). He also practised law, which he says he did in order to restore the rights of the oppressed and downtrodden. We do not know the precise date of Fakhr al-Islām’s death. Āqā Buzurg Tihrānī says that he died before 1911-12 (Al-dharīʿa, vol. 2, p. 452). However, it can be concluded from a document written by Fakhr al-Islām himself that is preserved in the National Library of Iran (no. 289/45342), dated 1913-14, in which he presents a complaint to the law courts on behalf of a client, that he was alive into the second decade of the 20th century. As far as we know, all Fakhr al-Islām’s written works are in Persian. They were written in order to defend Islam from the criticisms of Christian polemicists and atheist critics. In addition to the works examined individually below, Fakhr al-Islām also produced a collection of speeches and notes for preaching and sermonising, titled Al-siyāsa l-Islāmiyya yā siyāsī-i Islāmī. He also wrote two other treatises titled Fāraqlīṭā (‘The Paraclete’) and Kasb al-athar fī ithbāt shaqq al-qamar (‘On the Prophet Muḥammad splitting the moon’), manuscripts of which have yet to be found (Jaʿfariyān, ‘Kashfiyyāt-i ʿilmī-i jadīd’, p. 9). In addition to this, he mentions two further treatises in his works, one entitled Taʿyīn al-ḥudūd ʿalā l-Naṣārā wa-l-Yahūd (‘Identification of the limitations on the Christians and Jews’, vol. 8, p. 127), and the other Ḥujjat al-ilāhiyyīn fī radd al-ṭabīʿiyyīn, the contents of which are still unknown (Fakhr al-Islām, Khulāṣat al-kalām, p. 39; see below).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary MS Tehran, Millī – 16625/2, M.Ṣ. Fakhr al-Islām, Al-siyāsa l-islāmiyya M.B. Ḥusaynī Darjazīnī, Muʾakhkhira-yi burhān al-Muslimīn, by Muḥammad Ṣādiq Fakhr al-Islām, lithograph, Tehran, 1895, pp. 63-4 M.ʿA. Dāʿī al-Islām, Al-Islām 1/3 (1903) 40; 1/4 (1903) 46-54; 1/5 (1903) 62-8; 1/6 (1903), 81-5; 1/7 (1903) 97-101

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M.Ṣ. Fakhr al-Islām, Bayān al-ḥaqq wa-l-ṣidq al-muṭlaq, lithograph, Tehran, 1906, 4:1 M.Ṣ. Fakhr al-Islām, Anīs al-aʿlām fī nuṣrat al-Islām, ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Khalkhālī, 8 vols, Tehran, 1972, repr. 1983 ʿA. Wāʿiẓ Khayābānī, ʿUlamāʾ-i muʿāṣirīn, lithograph, Tehran, 1947 M. Nāẓim al-Islām Kirmānī, Ta‌ʾrīkh bīdārī-yi Īrāniyān, ed. ʿAlī Akbar Saʿīdī Sīrjānī, 3 vols, Tehran, 1998 Secondary R. Jaʿfarīyān, ‘Kashfiyyāt-i ʿilmī-i jadīd u qavānīn-i ḥuqūqī-i gharbī dar Qurʾān (!). Murūrī bar navishtahā-yi Mullā Muḥammad Ṣādiq Fakhr al-Islām’, Ayīna-yi Pazhūhish 188 (2021) 5-45 Ḥ. Amīnīfar, ‘Muʿarrifī u barrasī-i radiyyahā-yi Musalmānān bar Masīḥiyyat dar shibha qārra-yi Hind u Īrān dar ṭayy-i 150 sāl akhīr’, Mashhad, 2011 (MA Diss. Firdawsī University) Ḥ. Tawfīqī, ‘Fakhr al-Islām’, Haft Āsimān 5/19 (2003) 26-37 M.Ḥ. Āqā Buzurg Tihrānī, Al- dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-Shīʿa, Beirut, 1983-6, vol. 2, p. 452

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Anīs al-aʿlām fī nuṣrat al-Islām ‘The companion for leading figures in supporting Islam’ Date 1894 Original Language Persian Description Anīs al-aʿlām is a polemical work written to refute Christianity and defend Islam against the criticisms of Christian missionaries. As Fakhr al-Islām records in numerous places, he finished writing it in 1894 and so it should be considered his first work. The book is divided into a foreword, introduction, eight chapters, and a conclusion. References here are to the Khalkhālī edition of 1972. The introduction consists of seven parts, each of which the author refers to as a hidāya (‘guidance’). The last two sections of the introduction, the sixth (vol. 1, pp. 74-86) and seventh (vol. 1, pp. 87-407) hidāyats are a response to the tract Ṭarīq al-ḥayāt by the Christian missionary Karl Gottlieb Pfander (1803-65). The titles of the book’s core chapters are as follows:

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Dar bayān kitābhā-yi ʿahd-i ʿatīq u jadīd (‘On the books of the Old and New Testaments’, taking up the remainder of vol. 1 and vol. 2). 2. Dar ithbāt wuqūʿ-i taḥrīf dar kutub-i ʿahdayn (‘On establishing that the books of the two Testaments have fallen prey to distortion’, vol. 3, pp. 1-183). 3. Dar ithbāt-i tawḥīd u ibṭāl-i tathlīth (‘On establishing monotheism and demonstrating the falsity of Trinitarianism’, vol. 3, pp. 184-333). 4. Dar ithbāt-i naskh va rafʿ-i shubahāt-i qassīsīn (‘On establishing abrogation and repelling the doubts of the Christian priests’, vol. 3, pp. 334-72). 5. Dar ithbāt-i Ṣāniʿ va nubuwwat-i ʿāmma va nabuwwat-i kḥāṣṣa-i Muḥammad va difāʿ az ādāb-i Islāmī va aḥādīth-i nabavī (‘On establishing the existence of the Creator, general prophethood, and the particular prophethood of Muḥammad, and defending the Islamic ethos and the traditions of the Prophet’, vols. 4, 5, and vol. 6, pp. 1-215). 6. Dar bayān-i īnkih Qurʾān kalām Allāh va muʿjiza-i Rasūl Allāh ast (‘On the Qur’an as God’s speech and the miracle of God’s Messenger’, vol. 6, pp. 216-405). 7. Dar Imāmat (‘On the Imamate’, vol. 7). 8. Dar maʿād (‘On the afterlife’, vol. 8, pp. 1-87). The book’s conclusion (vol. 8, pp. 87-166) is divided into two parts. The first concerns the Prophet’s method of preaching to humankind, while the second concerns the qualities of the ‘messengers’ who should go to Europe to call the people who live there to Islam. The first six chapters of the work are taken from Iẓhār al-ḥaqq of the Indian Sunnī Muslim scholar Raḥmat Allāh Kayrānawī (1818-91) and are mostly a word-for-word translation of it from Arabic to Persian. The exception is the beginning of vol. 4, ch. 6, ‘On establishing the existence of the Creator’, (vol. 4, pp. 1-247) and the beginning of vol. 6, ch. 5 (‘Dar bayān-i muḥassanāt u ādāb-i Islām’, or ‘On the positive qualities and ethos of Islam’, vol. 6, pp. 1-127). Notably, Fakhr al-Islām does not mention this source or its author in either his Anīs or any of his other works. It is possible that it this was due to the fact that, even though Raḥmat Allāh belonged to a different branch of Islam, Fakhr al-Islām was nevertheless content to use his arguments and evidence. The changes to the original Arabic work that Fakhr al-Islām makes in the first six chapters of the book can be summarised as follows. First, he has tried to expunge the work’s broadly Sunnī character and give it a Shīʿī character (e.g. vol. 2, p. 306, where the discussion of the Umayyad caliph Muʿāwiya is removed, cf. Kayrānawī, Iẓhār al-ḥaqq,

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Istanbul, 1887, vol. 1, p. 144). Second, he has removed all trace of the original author from the book (e.g. vol. 2, p. 307; Iẓhār al-ḥaqq, vol. 1, p. 144). Third, he cites the verses of the Bible in Syriac written in Arabic/Persian script. Fourth, he replaces Kayrānawī’s polite and gentle tone with a harsh and sometimes abusive one (see e.g. vol. 2, p. 254). Fifth, while Kayrānawī addresses his work to both Muslims and Christians, Fakhr al-Islām’s primary audience are his fellow Shīʿīs, Christians and ‘materialists’ (aṣḥab al-mādda; see vol. 4, pp. 1-246). Seventh, Fakhr al-Islām often addresses social and political issues in Iran and enters into discussions about modernisation and the relative scientific advancement of Europe contrasted with the backwardness of the Muslims. On a number of occasions, he also mentions important scientific subjects of his day, such as evolution and geology, and uses them in his arguments (e.g. vol. 4, p. 192 onwards). Significance Anīs al-aʿlām is the most extensive of Fakhr al-Islām’s published works and, given the references to it in his other works, in his own mind it was arguably his most important work. It continues to serve as a major source for Shīʿī scholars engaging in polemical and apologetic debates with Christians. The endorsements written by major Shīʿī religious authorities at the beginning of the book reflect the high status it has enjoyed in the circles of Shīʿī religious scholarship. Publications Muḥammad Ṣādiq Fakhr al-Islām, Anīs al-aʿlām fī nuṣrat al-Islām, lithograph, vol. 1, Tehran, 1898; vol. 2, Tehran, 1902; 009030395 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library, North America only) Muḥammad Ṣādiq Fakhr al-Islām, Anīs al-aʿlām fī nuṣrat al-Islām, lead print, Isfahan, 1950 Muḥammad Ṣādiq Fakhr al-Islām, Anīs al-aʿlām fī nuṣrat al-Islām, ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Khalkhālī, 8 vols, Tehran, 1972, repr. 1983 Studies R. Jaʿfariyān and M. Ṣadīqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf. Guzārishī az guftagūhā-yi Masīḥī-Islāmī dar dawra-yi Ṣafavī u Qājārī, Tehran, 2016, pp. 164-6 Ḥ. Amīnīfar, ‘Muʿarrifī u barrasī-i radiyyahā-yi Musalmānān bar Masīḥiyyat dar shibha qārra-yi Hind u Īrān dar ṭayy-i 150 sāl-i akhīr’, Mashhad, 2011 (MA Diss. Firdawsī University) Tawfīqī, ‘Fakhr al-Islām’

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Burhān al-Muslimīn ‘The proof of Muslims’ Date 1895 Original Language Persian Description Burhān al-Muslimīn is a short (62 pages) treatise in which Fakhr al-Islām recounts a debate between himself and two Presbyterian missionaries. This took place on 13 March 1895 and Fakhr al-Islām wrote his account a few weeks later, on 13 April (see pp. 60, 62). Fakhr al-Islām’s opponents were Samuel Lawrence Ward (1850-1944) and Joseph Lewis Potter (18481919). Ward was an American Presbyterian missionary who had come to Iran in 1877, spending 20 years there engaging in missionary work, preaching and running the Dabīristān-i Alburz secondary school. The debate took place at Ward’s house and Fakhr al-Islām brought a group of Muslims with him, probably to act as witnesses to the discussion. The names of 21 of these individuals are mentioned at the end of the treatise (p. 60). However, Fakhr al-Islām says other individuals were also present who were unknown to him. The other participant in the debate, Joseph Lewis Potter, was not present in the gathering at the beginning of the debate, and only arrived and joined in later. According to Fakhr al-Islām, when Ward found himself unable to match his opponent’s deft arguments and realised there was no one capable of lending him support, he sent someone to bring Potter to assist him (p. 11). Fakhr al-Islām refers to Potter as ‘Fāṭir Ṣāḥib’ or ‘Pāṭir Ṣāḥib’ (p. 11). Potter was an American Presbyterian missionary who had come to Iran in 1874 and remained active preaching there until 1914. He also ran training centres for Christian preachers. He was an able scholar who produced works in both English and Persian, and he was also competent in Hebrew. Of all of the American missionaries in Tehran, Potter was arguably the most learned and well-educated. Fakhr al-Islām claims that he had previously debated with and triumphed over Potter and Lewis Esselstyn (1863-1916) (p. 3). Unfortunately, the only known account of this debate is the version offered by Fakhr al-Islām, so it is impossible to ascertain the extent to which his description of events corresponds to the reality of what happened that night. At one point in the treatise, he says that they agreed that someone on the Christian side would be responsible for keeping a written record of the exchange. However, when the Christian side saw that

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they were unable to best Fakhr al-Islām, they prevented this person from continuing to write (p. 11). This is why, several weeks later, Fakhr al-Islām wrote his own account of the exchange. At its heart, the debate revolved around the question of whether the Bible had been altered or falsified. Throughout his account, Fakhr al-Islām strives to demonstrate the appropriateness and superiority of his arguments to his Christian interlocutors and their audience. In the beginning, full of confidence in his abilities, he turns to Ward and asks him to set out the topics he would like to debate. Ward suggests two, one related to the Islamic teaching that Jesus spoke while he was still a baby and how this differed from Christian teachings, and the second Christianity’s view that Jesus was crucified and how this differed from Islamic teachings. Fakhr al-Islām responds that these are of little importance, being ‘secondary issues’ (juzʾiyyāt), and instead asks his interlocutor to focus on matters of primary importance. However, he does not leave these points unanswered, and instead directs Ward to the Infancy Gospel and the Gospel of Barnabas. It is very likely that Fakhr al-Islām owed his awareness of these two texts to Raḥmat Allāh Kayrānawī’s Iẓhār al-ḥaqq. Fakhr al-Islām claimed that, when Ward heard this response, ‘he fell silent’ (sākit shud). If this was the case, it would appear that Ward was unaware of the historicalcritical research into these two gospels. Fakhr al-Islām then takes the initiative and sets out what he believes to be the primary topics of importance for their debate. He identifies six: 1. Muslims say that the books of the Old and New Testaments have been subject to alteration and distortion (taḥrīf ); 2. The Bible does not have an uninterrupted chain of narration (sanad); 3. The Bible is abrogated (mansūkh); 4. Muslims believe in monotheism, while Christians believe in Trinitarianism; 5. Muslims and Christians differ about whether or not Muḥammad was a prophet; 6. Muslims say that the Qur’an is the word of God, while Christians say it is the words of Muḥammad (pp. 4-5). In delineating and explaining these six topics, Fakhr al-Islām makes extensive use of the six chapters of Iẓhār al-ḥaqq. In addition to this, he also lays down four conditions for debating: 1. The questions and responses of both sides should be written down; 2. The Christian interlocutor must undertake to refer respectfully to the Prophet Muḥammad, the Imams and other prophets; 3. No discussion must be left unfinished; 4. If either party avoids a topic of discussion, it should be assumed that ‘they are unable to support their claims and that these are, therefore, false’ (pp. 5-6).

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Ward accepts all Fakhr al-Islām’s conditions and only sets one of his own: that Fakhr al-Islām must rely on the Bible and, in response to his Muslim opponent’s request, they will discuss the topic of distortion and fabrication within it. It is at this point that Ward points out that he has extensive experience in debates between Muslims and People of the Book and asks how – if, as Muslims assert, the Bible has been altered – they can then rely upon it in debates (p. 7). Fakhr al-Islām says that the Bible has not been fabricated in its entirety but still contains many truths, and it is the parts of the Bible that have not been fabricated or corrupted that Muslims use in their arguments. He then presents six arguments of how the Bible has been distorted. He also raises other points and questions, which are for the most part identical with those contained in Iẓhār al-ḥaqq. In the end, Fakhr al-Islām says that he triumphed in the debate: ‘All of the Muslims in attendance were so overjoyed that they let out a great cry that the religion of Islam is true and all other religions are false. Then we got up and the gathering dispersed’ (pp. 59-60). Significance This treatise is one of the few debates that took place between Christian missionaries and Muslim scholars in Iran during the Qajar period and were recorded. In addition to providing information about the presence of American Presbyterian missionaries in Tehran and the nature of their relationship with Muslims, the treatise also reveals some aspects of Fakhr al-Islām’s own character and his arrogant stance when inviting Christians to come and debate with him (pp. 60-1). The scene of the debate is such that it calls to mind many similarities to Raḥmat Allāh Kayrānawī’s debate with Pfander. The presence of Fakhr al-Islām’s Muslim companions in the gathering also suggests that there was an interest in inter-religious debates, at least among better-educated Iranians, and reveals something about their level of religious awareness. In Fakhr al-Islām’s list of witnesses to the debate, which he appended to the treatise, most individuals bear the title of mīrzā, which indicates that they were literate and educated. At some points in the debate, a member of the audience occasionally addresses one of the priests and ask them a question. For example, a wellknown doctor by the name of ʿAbd al-Karīm Naẓam al-Aṭibbāʾ (1864-1927) asked Ward why he did not accept the prophethood of Muḥammad as true (p. 56). The presence and participation of such persons in the debate shows the religious concerns of at least some educated laymen.

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Publications Fakhr al-Islām, Burhān al-Muslimīn, Tehran, 1895, 62 pages, lithograph edition

Taʿjīz al-Masīḥiyyīn fī ta‌ʾyīd Burhān al-Muslimīn ‘Exposing the impotence of the Christians and affirming The proof of Muslims’ Date 1899 Original Language Persian Description At the beginning of this treatise, the author writes that, five years after the publication of Burhān al-Muslimīn, a Protestant priest from Julfā, Isfahan, by the name of ʿAbd al-Masīḥ – most likely the Revd William St Clair Tisdall (1859-1928) – wrote a rebuttal tract titled Burhān-i buṭlān Fakhr-i nādān (‘A demonstration of the falsity of Fakhr the ignorant’). The scholars of Madrasa-i Ṣadr in Isfahan obtained an original copy of this tract and sent it to Fakhr al-Islām so that he could respond to its polemic. Fakhr al-Islām first wrote a brief reply in the form of a letter (MS Tehran, Malik Library – 953, pp. 663-4). However, when the priest published his polemic, Fakhr al-Islām wrote a detailed refutation of it (p. 910). As Fakhr al-Islām says at the end of his treatise (p. 926), this response was the first volume of Taʿjīz al-Masīḥiyyīn, for which he had also written a second volume. However, no copy of the second volume appears to have survived. In his response, Fakhr al-Islām says Burhān-i buṭlān was the same length as Burhān al-Muslimīn and consisted of 48 articles. At the beginning of each article, an individual by the name of Ḥājjī (‘Meccan pilgrim’) poses a question based on Fakhr al-Islām’s arguments in Burhān al-Muslimīn and the priest responds to this question with an answer that is one or two pages in length. Taʿjīz al-Masīḥiyyīn consists of three main parts: 1. The story of how the treatise came to be written, a censure of ʿAbd al-Masīḥ and other Christian priests, and a refutation of some Christian doctrines (pp. 1-88); 2. a detailed discussion of distortions and fabrications in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible (pp. 88-184); 3. a response to the tract Burhān-i buṭlān (pp. 184-926). The structure of this third part follows that of the

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Burhān. First, it repeats the Ḥājjī’s question and the priest’s answer, then Fakhr al-Islām – whom the priest refers to as Mubāriz-i Islām (‘warrior of Islam’) – offers a detailed response to the priest. At the end of some of these responses, especially the earlier ones, are verses of poetry, some composed by Fakhr al-Islām and others quoted from other poets, that support his claims and ridicule the priest. Most of the poems quoted are taken from the Mathnawī maʿnawī of Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, and Fakhr al-Islām’s own poems are composed in the mathnawī style of rhyming couplets. However, Fakhr al-Islām’s use of poetry in the Taʿjīz may be in response to the quoting or composition of poems in the Burhān-i buṭlān, as poetry is not a particularly noticeable feature of Fakhr al-Islām’s other works. At the beginning of the treatise (pp. 5-7) and at its end (pp. 935-6), Fakhr al-Islām insists that ʿAbd al-Masīḥ is a layperson rather than a member of the clergy. However, in fairness, it must be said that the author of Burhān-i buṭlān appears to be better informed than most of his fellow missionaries, as he is aware of both the Gospel of Barnabas and the British Orientalist and translator of the Qur’an George Sale (1697-1736) and his works (pp. 500-28). He is also aware of the theories of the German astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) and their application to the sighting of the star in the biblical story of the three Magi. In addition, he is familiar with the grammatical criticisms of some of the verses of the Qur’an that Fakhr al-Islām can only respond to by drawing on works of qur’anic exegesis (tafsīr) and Arabic lexicons (pp. 577-80). In response to the priest’s claim that Islam is a violent religion, Fakhr al-Islām points to Christianity’s own history, its bloody treatment of Jews and followers of other faiths, and the wars between Protestants and Catholics, countering that it is the religion of the priest that is violent rather than the religion of Islam. Significance This work is distinct from Fakhr al-Islām’s other writings in that its quotations from the Old Testament are written in Hebrew script (e.g. pp. 133-4). He does not use the Hebrew language or script in any of his other works, although perhaps this is because there was no facility for printing in Hebrew at the time he wrote them. Perhaps the reason he opted to quote Hebrew texts in Hebrew script here was in response to the criticism made by the author of Burhān-i buṭlān that he did not know the scriptures in any of their original languages, but could only read the Bible ‘in Syriac, of the modern variety, mixed with Turkish, as is used in Urūmiyeh’ (pp. 427-8). While Fakhr al-Dīn concedes that he does not use ancient Syriac in his writings, he says that this is because he wants ordinary Christians to be able to understand the passages (pp. 428-30).

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The subjects in Taʿjīz al-Masīḥiyyīn are mostly identical to those found in the Burhān but they are dealt with in greater depth, taking into account the superior grasp ʿAbd al-Masīḥ demonstrates regarding both the religion of Islam and the Arabic and Persian languages, compared with Potter and Ward. This meant that Fakhr al-Islām was forced to draw on additional sources to respond to his criticisms and to go into greater detail in his rebuttals. However, much of what he writes is still a recapitulation of his earlier work. Publications MS Tehran, Malik Library – 953, 461 fols (1899; in the author’s own handwriting, vol. 1 of an intended two)

Khulāṣat al-kalām fī iftikhār al-Islām ‘The epitome of speech on the superiority of Islam’ Date 1904 Original Language Persian Description Fakhr al-Islām completed Khulāṣat al-kalām on 10 August 1904. It was published the same year. He explains his motivations for writing it at the outset, saying that ‘one of the respected brothers’ from Safā-khāna-yi Iṣfahān wrote a letter requesting him to write a short treatise demonstrating Islam’s superiority over all other religions. This treatise is his response. The religions Fakhr al-Islām chooses to compare with Islam are primarily Judaism and Christianity, and the majority of the book (214 pages) is concerned with these three faiths, while the rest – ch. 5 and the appendices (34 pages) – is dedicated to other faiths. The author’s benchmark for comparison is the core doctrines of Islam, namely monotheism (tawḥīd), prophethood (nubuwwa), and the afterlife (maʿād). The book is divided into five chapters, each containing further sub-divisions and sections. In the first chapter, Fakhr al-Islām lays down some preliminaries for the discussion that is to follow. He says that all the people of the world are followers of culture and customs (payrau-i ʿādat u ahl-i taqlīd, pp. 3-10) but that, just because something is part of one’s culture, this should not be taken as evidence of the legitimacy or correctness of the religions of one’s parents and forefathers. Therefore, everyone should attempt to search for the true religion, and this requires an understanding of different faiths.

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In the second chapter, he explains that the goal of all religions is to guide people to salvation (najāt). However, he believes that, of all the religions that can be mentioned, only the three monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are worthy of consideration. The reason is that ‘other religions, such as the dualists, the eternalists, the materialists, the Buddhists, the Confucians, and the like are more akin to animal instincts than faith because they either deny the existence of God altogether or they associate partners with Him in His essence, attributes, actions, or worship’ (pp. 21-3). By contrast, the cornerstone of the religion of Islam is knowing the difference between truth (ḥaqq) and falsehood (bāṭil). Hence, Fakhr al-Islām introduces the first principal doctrine of Islam as monotheism (tawḥīd) and knowing God, and quotes Islamic supplications and invocations that address God in sublime terms. He then examines and criticises Christian beliefs about God and the Trinity, calling Christians ‘Marians’ (Maryamiyyūn) for substituting Mary for the Holy Spirit as, according to him, Catholics consider Mary to be a component of the Trinity and the Mother of God. Fakhr al-Islām presents evidence that no Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant, are true monotheists as they call Mary God and also call communion wafers God. It was also part of the Church’s established rites that objects, statues and the pope himself are venerated and worshipped in place of God. Fakhr al-Islām then presents 20 items of evidence from the Old Testament that he claims conclusively prove the Jewish and Christian scriptures have been corrupted and changed (pp. 77-177). In the third chapter, after explaining the Muslim belief about prophethood and the infallibility of past prophets, Fakhr al-Islām proposes four ranks: prophethood (nubuwwa), messengership (risāla), having perseverance and a strong will (ulu l-ʿazm), and being the seal of the prophets (khātimiyya). In his view, the superior and final religion is none other than Islam, and the prophets of the Old Testament all foretold the coming of the Prophet of Islam. He argues that the Old Testament has been corrupted and distorted, and contains ‘falsehoods’ (turrahāt), but at the same time he relies on the Old Testament in order to calculate the age of all the prophets from Adam to Muḥammad (pp. 125-7). Stranger still, he also claims to extract prophecies about the Twelve Shīʿa Imams from the Old and New Testaments. Following these discussions, Fakhr al-Islām explains the Christian and Jewish views regarding prophethood and identifies the most important as being that prophets are not infallible. The fourth chapter treats the topic of the resurrection and the afterlife (maʿād). First, Fakhr al-Islām explains Muslim doctrines on the subject

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but says that there is no difference between Christians and Muslims except that the Christians consider the rewards and punishments of the Hereafter to be spiritual rather than physical. Fakhr al-Islām presents an interesting argument against this Christian thesis. He says that if, as Christians say, God eats and drinks after His incarnation, why can man not experience physical enjoyment and pain after death? (pp. 191-3). At the same time, he points to the similarities between the views of Christians and Sufis about being able to see God directly on the Day of Judgement. After revealing the ‘mysteries’ of the Christians and ridiculing them, he considers his own writings to be ‘a valuable jewel’ and gives permission to anyone who wishes to do so to translate them into English in order to guide humankind (pp. 202-3). He then turns to the resurrection as understood in Judaism. In the course of this discussion, he introduces eight branches of Judaism and, with the exception of the Pharisees, states that the majority deny the existence of the resurrection and affirm the transmigration of souls instead, or entertain doubts about the resurrection (pp. 203-14). As has already been mentioned, the bulk of this book focuses on the beliefs of the three monotheistic religions. However, Fakhr al-Islām includes an addendum at the request of ‘a learned person’ (baʿḍ-i afāḍil) in which he discusses Hinduism along with the religions of China and ancient Persia, and identifies similarities and differences between them and the Islamic faith. He expresses his regret that Muslims do not send messengers to them ‘out of care for their fellow man’ to call them to Islam and asks why they ‘never think of expanding their faith and their domains’ (p. 223). He also discusses two other schools of thought, namely Sufism, whose teachings he compares to those of Hindus, especially in their belief in the possibility of union with God (pp. 223-8), and Bābism, with its belief in reincarnation (pp. 232-4). Significance The discourse of this work is to some extent different from Fakhr al-Islām’s previous works. While elsewhere he tries to defend Islam against the arguments of Christian missionaries, in this work he argues for the superiority of Islam to other religions. It is known that Muḥammad ʿAlī Dāʿī l-Islām (d. 1954) and other members of Safā-khāna-yi Iṣfahān made some efforts to propagate Islam on a global scale. Khulāṣat al-kalām appears to be Fakhr al-Islām’s contribution to this collective effort. Publications Muḥammad Ṣādiq Fakhr al-Islām, Iftikhār-i Islām bar sāʾir-i adyān, 1904, 260 pages, lithograph

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Muḥammad Ṣādiq Fakhr al-Islām, Khulāṣat al-kalām fī iftikhār al-Islām, Qom, 1951 (with two introductions by Abū l-Faḍl Zāhidī Qumī) Muḥammad Ṣādiq Fakhr al-Islām, Iftikhār-i Islām bar sāʾir-i adyān, ed. Ghafūr Āqāzāda Sulṭānī, Tehran, 1982

Bayān al-ḥaqq wa-l-ṣidq al-muṭlaq ‘Exposition of the truth and absolute veracity’ Date 1904-6 Original Language Persian Description At numerous points throughout this work (e.g. vol. 1, p. 5) and also in his other works, Fakhr al-Islām says that he originally wrote it in ten volumes and that his goal was to respond to Christian polemical works. In particular, he was prompted by the polemics and insults of the four-volume Al-hidāya (‘Guidance’, published in Cairo, 1899-1902). Of the ten volumes, only the first and fourth were published and, even though he says that the first four volumes concern the Qur’an and the Prophet Muḥammad, there is no mention of why the second and third volumes were not published. From a general point of view, it can be said that the main concern of the two published volumes is to demonstrate the truth of Muḥammad’s claim to prophethood and to support this by appealing to numerous pieces of rational, textual and scientific evidence, particularly the inimitability of the Qur’an (iʿjāz) and other miracles of the Prophet. Meanwhile, the fifth and sixth volumes in particular were supposed to be dedicated to rebutting the arguments of the Christian Al-hidāya. It seems that, despite his best efforts, Fakhr al-Islām was not able to find a publisher for these volumes. That is why he says in his introduction to the fourth volume that printing these works ‘is one of the most important religious duties of all Muslims’. Aside from the two published volumes, a manuscript of the second volume also survives (MS Tehran, Malik Library – 636). Unfortunately, no manuscripts of the remaining volumes appear to be extant. Given that the original text of the first volume begins on page 54 of the print edition, it seems that, once he had finished composing this volume, Fakhr al-Islām wrote a 53-page introduction, which he added to the beginning of the print version. The reason for this was that, in order to enter the discussion of the prophethood of Muḥammad, he saw it as necessary

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to discuss the monotheistic and religious beliefs of the Prophet’s uncle and relatives, using a variety of evidence to respond to the claims made in Al-hidāya in this regard (vol. 1, pp. 13-53). Here, Fakhr al-Islām says that not only was the Prophet the Seal of the Prophets (khātam al-anbiyāʾ), but he was also superior to all the others and his religion abrogated all their earlier teachings (vol. 1, pp. 67-97). He says that miracles such as the Night Journey or Miʿrāj, the splitting of the moon, and seven other miraculous deeds performed by the Prophet all show the truth of his claim to prophethood. He presents biblical evidence for the Night Journey having taken place (vol. 1, pp. 94-8), criticises the Christian belief that Jesus entered hell, and rejects the scepticism of Christian priests about the Night Journey (vol. 1, pp. 98-102). He also presents scientific evidence for this event and how it was possible for the Prophet to leave the earth’s atmosphere (vol. 1, pp. 111-12). Regarding the Prophet’s miracle of splitting the moon and seven other miracles ascribed to him, in addition to the Qur’an, the corpus of Islamic traditions and examples of similar miracles from the Old and New Testaments, Fakhr al-Islām also provides scientific and rational evidence for these miracles (vol. 1, pp. 117-45). The Christians’ and unbelievers’ acknowledgement of the Prophet’s wisdom and intelligence, and their inability to produce anything similar to the Qur’an, constitute two further pieces of evidence that Fakhr al-Islām presents for his case (vol. 1, pp. 145-78). In this arena in particular, he quotes the words of the British Orientalist and well-known Qur’an translator George Sale (1697-1736), whom he describes as a fair-minded ‘priest’ (although Sale was not ordained). Continuing from this, he calls attention to other aspects of the Qur’an’s miraculous inimitability (vol. 1, pp. 178-216), its presentation of information about the unseen (vol. 1 pp. 216-62), and the fact it contains scientific and technical knowledge as well as multiple languages. In order to demonstrate that even individual words and letters in the Qur’an have deep meanings, Fakhr al-Islām provides a detailed interpretation of the whole of Sūrat al-Ḥamd (also known as al-Fātiḥa) the Qur’an’s first chapter, and the first few verses of Sūrat al-Baqara, its second (vol. 1, pp. 262-94). He also emphasises the challenge posed by the Qur’an to unbelievers to produce something like it and the fact that this has yet to be achieved (vol. 1, pp. 294-323). The final section of this part focuses on the life and high status of the Prophet Muḥammad. In the fourth volume, Fakhr al-Islām presents in detail the miracles performed and predictions made by the Prophet Muḥammad. He claims that he has seen approximately 2,000 reports about the miracles performed by the Prophet and, if the reader counts the number of reports

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Fakhr al-Islām details in the two volumes, there are probably about 2,000 different accounts of miracles, despite his claim that he is being brief. Compared with the 129 miracles he mentions that are attributed to the prophets in the Old and New Testaments, this large number demonstrates, for him, the pre-eminence of the Prophet of Islam over all other prophets (vol. 4, pp. 31-8). In addition to the Qur’an and Shīʿī Hadith collections, Fakhr al-Islām also cites reports and accounts of the Prophet’s miracles from Sunnī sources, various works of history, biographies of the Prophet, and even works of Islamic mysticism. Maybe the most interesting part of the first volume of this work is Fakhr al-Islām’s account of the prophecies he identifies in the Qur’an about future inventions and discoveries. The author points to 17 advancements of the modern period and presents verses that he says relate to them. Examples of these inventions and discoveries include: vehicles (including hot air balloons and automobiles); photography; the movement of the sun and the earth; the fact that the moon came from the earth and the earth came from the sun; the theory of evolution; the role of wind in plant fertilisation; the phonograph; and the telegraph. So, for example, Fakhr al-Islām considers that Q 16:8 (‘And horses, mules and asses, for you to ride them, and for adornment, and He creates what you do not know’) and Q 36:41-2 (‘A sign for them is that We carried their progeny in the laden ship, and We have created for them what is similar to it, which they ride’) foretell ‘the invention of new forms of transportation driven by the power of electricity, steam and petrol’ (p. 246); he also says that Q 25:45 and Q 41:21 refer to the invention of photography (p. 259), that the Qur’an announced that the sun was moving centuries before this was discovered (Q 36:40), and predicted the theory of evolution (Q 30:20; pp. 253, 256). In the fourth volume, ch. 29 is dedicated to ‘explaining the miracles that even the fanatical trinitarians and Christian scholars acknowledge in their own books and writings to have been performed by the Prophet’ (pp. 487513). Most of the information here is quoted from Sale, though two arguments that are Fakhr al-Islām’s own are particularly interesting and show his awareness of developments of the day. One is that the miracle of the Prophet’s victories with small armies over enemies with large armies is likened to the victory of the Japanese forces over Russia in the RussoJapanese War of 1904-5 (p. 493). Perhaps the most fascinating part of the book is the extended argument on the basis of textual and rational evidence that all the civil law codes of civilised people in the modern age are taken from the Qur’an, including French law in its entirety. He attempts to prove this by showing that verses of the Qur’an and Prophetic traditions

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are the basis of these laws (pp. 629-62; for further research on this, see Jaʿfarīyān, ‘Kashfiyyāt-i ʿilmī-i jadīd’). Significance This book includes the earliest Shīʿī response to Kitāb al-hidāya, which had been published between 1898 and 1902 in Cairo in 4 volumes as a Christian response to Raḥmat Allāh Kayrānawī’s Iẓhār al-ḥaqq. Being well versed in the Muslim work, Fakhr al-Islam defended its positions against the arguments presented in Al-hidāya. At least two Shīʿī scholars later responded to Al-hidāya: Sayyid Asadullāh Kharaqānī (d. 1936) in his Kashf al-ghawāya and Muḥammad Jawād Balāghī (1933) in his Al-hudā ilā dīn al-Muṣṭafā. It is yet to be investigated whether or not they consulted Bayān al-ḥaqq. Publications MS Tehran, Malik Library – 635, 201 fols (1901, vol. 1, holograph) MS Tehran, Malik Library – 636, 446 fols (1903, vol. 2, holograph) MS Tehran, Malik Library – 1102, 445 fols (1905, vol. 4, holograph) MS Tehran, Majlis Library – 18872, vol. 4, fols. 74-247 (date unknown, incomplete at the end) Fakhr al-Islām, Bayān al-ḥaqq wa-ṣidq al-muṭlaq, Tehran, vol. 1 (346 pages) 1904; vol. 4 (670 pages) 1906 (lithograph); 009032891 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library, North America only) Studies Jaʿfarīyān, ‘Kashfiyyāt-i ʿilmī-i jadīd’

Tadayyun ‘Religiosity’ Date July 1907–July 1910 Original Language Persian Description Tadayyun was a weekly periodical authored and published by Fakhr al-Islām from Jumādā I 1325 (July 1907) for approximately three years. In it, he sought to express how to combine religion (tadayyun) with civilisation (tamaddun) and the development of both the religious community (millat) and the state (dawlat), and to respond to the objections of deniers, especially Christians. He invited every religious community (meaning the

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followers of different religions) to debate with him according to ‘the language of the Torah and the Bible […] and the laws of debate’, in person, three days a week. This section leans more towards religious subjects in earlier issues, while in subsequent issues the focus gradually shifts from religion to civilisational matters. According to Fakhr al-Islām, writing in the first issue, this weekly journal was intended to serve as an organ for the ‘seminary of Islamic development’ (hawza-yi taraqqī-i Islām), which had been established by Sayyid Muḥammad Mujtahid Ṭabāṭabāʾī (1842-1921) some five years earlier, and of which Fakhr al-Islām says he was a member. He says that, whereas in the days of autocracy, ‘we did not reach our desired goals’, after the constitutional movement and ‘from the special sovereign blessings’ of the Qajar monarch and ‘the blessings of the honourable existence of the scholars of Islam, freedom was won, and they ordered and permitted the creation and establishment of the newspaper Tadayyun to present the services performed by the parliament’ (p. 1). In this first issue, Fakhr al-Islām introduces and defines the ten principles that underpin the publication’s approach. These can be summarised under five categories as: 1. religious, that is, disseminating religious knowledge and responding to criticisms of the religion of Islam; 2. politicoreligious, that is, supporting the expansion of the religious community and the development of the state, opposing autocracy as contrary to both religion and the constitution, and explaining that the 19 laws of constitutional authority and parliamentary rule are derived from the Qur’an, Islam and modern thinkers; 3. social, namely standing with ‘all of the oppressed’ (muṭlaq-i maẓlūmīn), showing appreciation for the work of servants of the nation, and exposing traitors; 4. proving that all modern sciences are derived from the Qur’an; 5. discussing natural history so that people can learn about mineral exploration and agricultural development. He then discusses the need to form a parliament (majlis-i shūrā-i millī) and quotes a tract in support of this by ‘the patriotic and learned scholar, the honourable Ḥājjī Sayyid Muḥammad ʿAlī Dāʿī l-Islām’, which about a month earlier had been published in the journal ‘Daʿwat al-Islām in Bombay.’ It seems that Fakhr al-Dīn intended to convey something with this reference to Dāʿī l-Islām. We know that, five years earlier in the year 1902, he had published Al-Islām, which was the organ of the Ṣafākhāna-i Iṣfahān. Then, after relocating to Bombay, he resumed publication in 1906 under the name Daʿwat al-Islām, with the same basic objective, namely, to report debates with Christianity (Ṣadr Hāshimī, Tārīkh-i jarāyid,

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vol. 1, pp. 233-41; vol. 2, pp. 290-2). Therefore, it is likely that Fakhr al-Islām wanted to show that, while in publishing Tadayyun he had not retreated from his primary purpose, which was to refute Christianity, he nevertheless also wanted to give attention to political issues and current affairs in Iran and, in this regard, his fellow polemicist Muḥammad ʿAlī Dāʿī l-Islām agreed with him and was doing the same. An examination of the surviving issues of Tadayyun shows that it largely adhered to the core principles laid out in its initial publication. However, as time passed, social issues and the difficulties people were facing in various parts of the country, and especially the unsettled conditions in the northwest – meaning Urmia, the border regions and Ardabil – grew in importance for Fakhr al-Islām. People’s lack of awareness about the harms of autocratic government and the benefits of a constitution, as well as their general ignorance of and disregard for the study of the new sciences are some of the topics that Fakhr al-Islām addresses in most of the issues of Tadayyun, sometimes through the use of allegorical stories. For example, in issue 6 he begins a story about knowledge (ʿilm) and ignorance ( jahl) in which knowledge comes to Iran from Europe at the invitation of two of the leading intellectuals of the constitutional movement, Sayyid ʿAbd Allāh Bihbahānī and Sayyid Muḥammad Ṭabāṭabāʾī. Meanwhile, ignorance and its supporters in Iran say: ‘What a waste. We will not accept it! We will not allow it! Knowledge belongs in Europe, not in Iran. Go back to where you came from! We do not want you! Ourselves and our forefathers never had any knowledge’ (Year 1, issue 6, p. 2). In Tadayyun, Fakhr al-Islām mostly wrote polemical tracts against three religions, Christianity, Bābism and Bahāʾism. In some issues, he also wrote refutations of Zoroastrianism. He also reported on his own debates with Christians, including one he held with three Catholic priests (year 1, issues 5, 11, 12). Virtually all of the issues discuss books refuting Christianity and defending Islam, and he thanks government officials and religious authorities, many of whom purchased these books and made them available to others not only in the Islamic world but also in Europe, including London and Liverpool (year 1, issue 4, pp. 3-4). Significance Tadayyun was not widely circulated and only appeared in a limited number of copies. Its significance lies in the fact that it reflects some aspects of Christian-Muslim relations in Iran during the constitutional revolution (1905-11).

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Publications The first issue of this weekly periodical was published in Jumādā I 1325/ June-July 1907. This issue does not have a day or month printed on it but, given that the second issue was published on 28 Jumādā I / 9 July 1907, the first issue was most likely published on 21 Jumādā I. From the issues kept in Āstān-i Quds-i Riḍawī library, it appears that publication continued for approximately three years, until 20 Rajab 1328/28 July 1910. Studies M. Ṣadr Hāshimī, Tārīkh-i jarāyid u majallāt-i Īrān, 4 vols, Isfahan, 194853, vol. 1, pp. 233-41; vol. 2, pp. 290-2

Risāla dar wujūb-i niqāb u ḥurmat-i sharāb ‘A treatise on the obligation of the veil and the prohibition of wine’ Date 1911 Original Language Persian Description This treatise of 96 pages consists of two parts on two unrelated subjects. What originally motivated Fakhr al-Islām to pen the first part was the fact that a ‘person with a turban’ (a religious scholar) had spoken out against women veiling in a gathering and argued for Muslim women to remove their head coverings, pointing to the freedom of dress enjoyed by ‘Christian women’. Fakhr al-Islām, who was always keen to demonstrate the truthfulness of Islam and its rulings, responded to these criticisms. His own explanation of why he wrote the treatise reads as follows. A few Turkish people came to Ẓāhir al-Ṣalāḥ and said: ‘We have just come from a gathering (majlis) in which a turbaned person said that veiling was a form of covering specific to Zoroastrian women (zanān-i gabr), and that no such ordinance existed in Islam or previous divine revelations. Therefore, he said, women should go around with their faces uncovered and be free like Christian women, in accordance with the teachings of earlier divine revelations, such as the Torah and the Gospels. We recited the verse of veiling to him, but he rejected this and offered a different interpretation of it. Now, you are a scholar well-versed in all divine religions, what do you say about this?’ (pp. 2-3)

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In response, Fakhr al-Islām says: Veiling for women (ḥijāb-i zanān) was taught by all divine religions and still is. Christian women who uncover themselves are acting against the teachings of the Torah, the Gospels and their own divine scriptures. This issue is an essential doctrine of Islam that has been explicitly mentioned in the Qur’an and the Prophetic tradition, supported by the dictates of reason (ʿaql) and juristic consensus (ijmāʿ). Whoever denies it denies all the divine religions and is a slave to his passions, a prisoner of his ego, a sower of disruption and disorder, an enemy of civilisation and prosperity, a violator of the cosmic order and basic humanity, and a promoter of promiscuity amongst the faithful. […] This person is no better than a beast wearing a turban, and his beliefs are no doubt taken from one of the new sects. (p. 3)

At the beginning of the treatise, he claims that veiling and covering is something ‘explicitly advocated by the Torah, the Gospels and the Qur’an’, and that there is so much evidence for this that he has to summarise it for the sake of brevity (p. 4). Following this, he seeks carefully to present and explain this evidence. The first six pieces of evidence are taken from the Bible, four from the New Testament and two from the Old Testament. The first is 1 Corinthians 11:3-17, on which he mentions the names of several ‘Biblical exegetes, old and new, from Europe and Asia, East and West’ who interpret it as enjoining women to cover their head (pp. 4-9). The second is 1 Corinthians 14:345, which emphasises that women should be silent and obedient, and that they should remain at home and avoid going outside, even for education or study. He then launches into a harsh diatribe against Christian scholars, priests and missionaries for disregarding the teachings of their own scripture (p. 219). The third piece of evidence is Matthew 5:27-8, and the fourth is 1 Timothy 2:9-15, which Fakhr al-Islām uses to point out the reprehensibility of women’s adornment and make-up. He provides seven interpretations of this verse and in addition quotes verses from the Qur’an (pp. 13-15). The fifth and sixth pieces of evidence are taken from the Old Testament. One is Genesis 20:16. Quoting an American commentator, Fakhr al-Islām says that Abimalech gave Abraham the sum of a thousand shekels so that he could buy a veil for his wife Sarah. This, he says, shows the prevalence and desirability of veiling, even among tribes that still worshipped idols. The other is Genesis 24:64-5, which extols the veiling and modesty of Rebekah, as before marriage she even turned away from her fiancé and wore a veil over her face (pp. 15-19).

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Fakhr al-Islām then presents evidence from the Qur’an, beginning with Sūrat al-Nūr (Q 24:30-1), which he interprets in six parts in accordance with the Khulāṣat al-manhaj of Mullā Fatḥ Allāh Kāshānī (d. 1580), discussing the topics of veiling, modesty and chastity. He argues that even the voice of a woman is part of her ʿawra (‘private parts’). On the one hand, he argues that all his Christian contemporaries have unanimously rejected both Jesus and the Bible, and, on the other, he believes that those who encourage women to remove their face veils have political agendas in mind. He says that his compatriots who follow this ‘unbelief and profligacy’ also desire to promote this reprehensible custom amongst the Muslims and tell women to remove their face veils so that their lusts and Satan will be satisfied. They say that this is the outcome of the constitution and parliament. As a result, they turn the public against these sacred institutions and hinder their progress and do not allow civilisation to enter the country of Islam. (pp. 36-7)

The second part of this treatise – or, as Fakhr al-Islām refers to it, faṣl-i duvum (ch. 2, p. 41 to the end) – concerns intoxicants, their prohibition and the spiritual and financial harms they cause according not only to the religion of Islam but also to reason and modern science (pp. 60-71, 86-96). Insofar as this discussion concerns both Muslims and Christians, it is noteworthy that he dedicates an excursion of about 15 pages (pp. 71-86) to a study of the prohibition of wine according to the Bible and scholars of Christianity. Before looking at these pages, it is perhaps worthwhile to examine Fakhr al-Islām’s views about the economic impact of wine and the tremendous profits made by Jewish and Christian winemakers, who bought grapes cheaply and then sold wine to Muslims at a high price, which also calls attention to the role of Christians and Jews in providing intoxicants to Muslims. To persuade those wanting social change and looking to more developed countries for guidance, Fakhr al-Islām points to the laws and policies of the American government (‘which is more advanced than any other in the world’), northern Europe and Japan to curb the production and sale of alcohol (pp. 68-71). He first stresses that the Qur’an and the Prophetic traditions are more than sufficient to establish this prohibition, but he goes on to say that, because the main producers of these intoxicants are Jews and Christians, people tend to believe that the moral codes of their religions permit the consumption of intoxicants. Hence, like Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiya, the second

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Umayyad caliph – arguably the most hated figure in Islamic history to the Shīʿa – some think that if they cannot drink wine according to the religion of Islam, they are allowed to drink wine according to Christianity and other faiths. To dispel this notion, Fakhr al-Islām tries to prove to Muslims, and even to the Jews and Christians themselves, that the Bible forbids the consumption of intoxicants. He then presents 11 pieces of evidence from the Bible – the Old Testament and the New – that he says show that the consumption of alcohol is prohibited and emphasise its harmfulness. He also presents the views of Christian exegetes and theologians on the matter. Significance Risāla dar wujūb-i niqāb (pp. 1-41) was the first treatise to be written in Iran dedicated to the obligation of observing religious veiling for women (Jaʿfariyān, Rasāʾil, p. 61). It was written two years after the establishment of the constitutional movement. Constitutionalism was the result of Iranians’ efforts to modernise their country and meant that intellectuals, modernisers and reformers were able to speak more openly about the achievements of developed nations and call their compatriots’ attention to the causes and features of development in the modern world. In this context, they came to see traditional Islam and some of its manifestations as impediments to their programme, and were concerned about the position of women in society, particularly the clothes they wore. These modernists, with their gaze fixed on the lifestyle and attitudes of people in developed countries that were, in their mind, the source of modernity, tried to encourage people to adopt some changes in lifestyle alongside spearheading political changes (Jaʿfariyān, Dāstān-i ḥijāb, p. 32). So influential was this movement, in fact, that even religious types and clergymen jumped on board (Jaʿfariyān, Rasāʾil, pp. 61-2). Here, unlike in his other works, Fakhr al-Islām does not criticise Christianity and Judaism as religions, and in fact argues that veiling is advocated not only in Islam but also in Christianity and Judaism and that wine was also prohibited in these prophetic religions. It is Christian women he blames for the way they dress, and the economic policies of Christian countries that are responsible for spreading the habit of wine drinking among Muslims. Later Iranian criticisms of modernity targeted ‘the West’ as the threat to their religious conformity. At the time of Fakhr al-Islām, the concept of ‘the West’ had not yet been conceived or fully comprehended in Iran, but he clearly identifies some of its features in this work.

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Publications Fakhr al-Islām, Risāla dar wujūb-i niqāb u ḥurmat-i sharāb, Tehran, 1911 (lithograph) R. Jaʿfarīyān, Rasāʾil-i ḥijābiyya. Shaṣt sāl talāsh-i ʿilmī dar barābar-i bidʿat-i kashf-i ḥijāb, Qom, 2001, repr. 2007, pp. 65-79 Studies Jaʿfarīyān, Rasāʾil, pp. 59-64 R. Jaʿfariyān, Dāstān-i ḥijāb dar Īrān-i pīsh az inqilāb, Tehran, 2004, pp. 71-7 Mansour Motamedi

Church Missionary Society – Persian Mission The Society for Missions to Africa and the East was established on 12 April 1799 by a group of evangelical ministers and laymen in the Anglican Church. In 1812, it changed its name to the Church Missionary Society and its abbreviation CMS and it is best known by this later name. By the middle of the 19th century, missionaries from the United Kingdom were active in many parts of Africa and Asia. In 1869, Robert Bruce (18331915), an ordained CMS missionary who had worked in India since 1858, was returning there after home leave (Register, no. 551, p. 111). He was given permission to visit Iran for six months in order to improve his Persian for use in his work in India. He settled in New Julfa (called Julfa by the missionaries), an Armenian suburb of Isfahan, and initially stayed for two years. As he prepared to depart for India in May 1871, some Muslims asked for baptism. ‘Bruce took this as a sign from God that he should remain in Iran’ (Francis-Dehqani, ‘CMS women missionaries’, p. 92). He then negotiated with the CMS to allow him to stay, saying that Iran was a fertile field for mission. Eventually, in June 1875, his work was given official recognition (CMS 257/34 ‘Mission in Persia’; Francis-Dehqani, ‘CMS women missionaries’, p. 92). Bruce saw the work of the mission station as needing three missionaries, one for work amongst the Armenians in Julfa, one to carry out translation and evangelistic work amongst the Iranians, and another to carry out medical work in Isfahan (CMS 257/34 ‘Mission in Persia’, p. 6). Initially, Bruce and his wife Emily were alone in Julfa, but in 1879 they were joined by Edward Hoernle (1836-1913), an ordained medical doctor (Register, no. 895, p. 188). In 1882, Isabella Read of the Society for Promoting Female Education in the East arrived to work in a school for Armenian girls that Bruce had established in 1871. She married one of the Armenian teachers and, as Mrs Aidinyantz, taught there for many years. Medical work and education were the two ways by which the mission was able to reach the community. Dispensaries were established and patients would receive an evangelistic talk as they waited to be treated. The school curriculum included Bible classes. Part of the translation work was to revise the Persian New Testament that Henry Martyn had prepared when he was in Shiraz in 1811-12. This work

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occupied Bruce for many years and the revised New Testament was eventually published in 1895. Translation work continued with William St Clair Tisdall (1859-1928, Register, no. 997, p. 207; see G. Nickel and A. Simnowitz, ‘William St Clair Tisdall’, in CMR 20, 285-309). The establishment of the Henry Martyn Memorial Press meant that the less controversial material could be printed in Julfa. The number of missionaries steadily increased, including several female missionaries who taught in the schools, spoke at the dispensaries and carried out home visits to contacts that were made. One such was Mary Bird (1860-1914), who arrived in 1891 and remained until she died during an outbreak of typhoid in 1914 (Register, no. 170, p. 281; Rice, Mary Bird; Francis-Dehqani, ‘CMS women missionaries’, p. 98). Several were doctors, such as Emmeline Stuart (1867-1946), who worked in Iran from 1897 to 1934 (Register, no. 411, p. 439; Francis-Dehqani, ‘CMS women missionaries’, pp. 98-9). The female doctors in the mission were amongst the first women doctors to be trained in Britain. Whilst the work was based in Julfa, permission was given to have a residence in Isfahan, where Edward Stuart (1822-1911; Register, no. 417, pp. 79-80) and his daughter Anne (1858-1949; Register, no. 653, p. 468), were based. Stuart had been a CMS missionary in India (1853-76) before becoming a bishop in New Zealand (1877-94); he then offered to work in the Persia Mission (1894-1910), where he was ‘a missionary in episcopal orders’ (Stock, History, vol. 4, p. 136). As well as work amongst Armenians and ‘Persians’, that is Shīʿa Muslims, CMS missionaries also worked amongst the remnant Zoroastrian community and amongst followers of Seyyid Ali Mohammad, who founded Bābism and Mirza Hossein Ali, who founded Bahāʾism. CMS missionaries cooperated with the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS), which had been involved in Iran from 1837, with a base in Julfa from 1878. Their material was distributed by a network of colporteurs. They also cooperated with the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews, which arrived in 1888. Other Protestant missions were also present in Iran, including the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), which worked in Urumia from 1835 and transferred its work to the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions in 1870 (Hewitt, Problems of success, vol. 1, pp. 380-1). Services were held in missionary compounds on Sundays; as the numbers increased, they took place in different languages. Those interested in learning more about Christianity were referred to as ‘inquirers’, whom

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missionaries would meet individually or in small groups. The female missionaries carried out many home visits (because they were able to meet Persian women in private), when they would read from the Bible and explain the passage to groups of women, who might also request tracts. One tract that is often mentioned is William St Clair Tisdall’s Persian translation of Sweet first-fruits, printed in Lahore in 1896. The ‘Report of the Persia and Baghdad Mission for the year 1898’ states that it ‘is read with much interest in Persia, being the story of a Moslem in Syria who sealed his testimony in blood’ (p. 4). Very few of the missionaries had much knowledge of Islam, the exceptions being Robert Bruce, Edward Stuart and William St Clair Tisdall, who had all previously worked in India and had experience of Islam there, as well as becoming proficient in Persian before arriving to work in Iran. CMS missionaries were very aware of the personal danger to Muslims who asked for baptism, risking beatings and imprisonment. Missionaries carried out ‘itinerations’ to villages near their base, and in time they also travelled to more distant towns, giving evangelistic addresses and often dispensing medicine. In 1895, a missionary conference was held in Baghdad, at which respective spheres of work for Protestant missions were agreed. The CMS sphere was set as being south of a line from Khorramabad (Luristan) to Kashan, then along latitude 34o to the Afghan frontier (Hewitt, Problems of success, vol. 1, p. 383). Muslim religious leaders often protested at the presence of the CMS and would incite trouble against the missionaries. This was especially true once the numbers of people seen attending schools and dispensaries increased. In order to be protected, CMS missionaries would inform the Prince Governor and the British Consul about the harassment. When the Persia Mission began, it was regarded as part of the TurkishArabia Mission, with a mission station in Baghdad. This link ceased in 1897, when it was decided that the distances and differences in strategy needed for the work meant that it was impractical (Francis-Dehqani, ‘CMS women missionaries’, p. 112). In 1898, permission was given by the government for new mission stations to be opened in Yazd (1897), Kerman (1898) and Shiraz (1900-10). Despite the political turmoil following the assassination of Naṣir al-Dīn Shah Qajar in 1896 and the Constitutional Revolution (1905-11), the work increased rapidly. More hospitals and schools were opened, an Anglican church was built in Isfahan and, by 1910, there were 45 missionaries (Hewitt, Problems of success, vol. 1, p. 383).

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Following the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, all missionaries were ordered to leave, though most returned in 1916. The Anglican Church in Iran continued with CMS support, appointing its first Iranian bishop in 1961. Following the 1979 revolution, all remaining CMS missionaries were deported in 1980, leaving a small Iranian Anglican Church (Dehqani-Tafti, ‘Episcopal (Anglican) Church in Persia’, Murray, Proclaim the Good News, pp. 290-2).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Archives, Birmingham, University of Birmingham, Cadbury Research Library Special Collections – Church Missionary Society: CMS III Part 13 Reel 167, vol. 4 CMS 257/34 ‘Mission in Persia’ [Robert Bruce and the start of the Persia Mission], (1875) CMS III Part 1 Reel 1, CMS Register of missionaries and native clergy 1804-1904, London, 1905, printed for private circulation CMS OX Register 03, ‘CMS Register, Men A-K, 1905-18’ CMS OX Register 04, ‘CMS Register, Men L-Z, 1905-18’ CMS OX Register 08, ‘CMS Register, Women A-K, 1905-18’ CMS OX Register 09, ‘CMS Register, Women L-Z, 1905-18’ CMS III Part 4 Reels 33-44 Extracts from the annual letters of the missionaries for the years 1887-1910 CMS III Part 4 Reel 45 Letters from the front, 1911-14 E. Stock, History of the Church Missionary Society, vol. 3, London, 1899, pp. 123-5, 516-17 N. Malcolm, Five years in a Persian town, London, 1905 E. Stock, History of the Church Missionary Society, vol. 4, London, 1916, pp. 131-6, 593-3 C.C. Rice, Mary Bird in Persia, London, 1916 Secondary D.A. Miller, ‘Anglican Mission in the Middle East up to 1910’, in R. Strong (ed.), The Oxford history of Anglicanism, vol. 3, Partisan Anglicanism and its global expansion 1829-c.1914, Oxford, 2017, 276-95, pp. 281-3 T.S.R. O Flynn, The Western Christian presence in the Russias and Qājār Persia, c. 1760-c. 1870, Leiden, 2016, pp. 144, 943-4 D. Wright, ‘Missionaries and doctors’, in D. Wright, The English amongst the Persians. Imperial lives in nineteenth century Iran, London, 2001, 113-27 J. Murray, ‘The role of women in the Church Missionary Society, 1799-1917’, in K. Ward and B. Stanley (eds), The Church Mission Society and world Christianity 1799-1999, Grand Rapids MI, 1999, 66-92

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G. Francis-Dehqani, ‘CMS women missionaries in Persia. Perceptions of Muslim women and Islam, 1884-1934’, in K. Ward and B. Stanley (eds), The Church Mission Society and World Christianity 1799-1999, Grand Rapids MI, 1999, 91-119 G. Francis-Dehqani, ‘Religious feminism in an age of empire. CMS women missionaries in Iran, 1869-1934’, Bristol, 1999 (PhD Diss. University of Bristol) H.B. Dehqani-Tafti, ‘Episcopal (Anglican) Church in Persia (Kelīsā-ye osqofī-e Īrān)’, in EIr Y. Armajani, ‘Christianity viii. Christian missions in Persia’, in EIr J. Murray, Proclaim the Good News. A short history of the Church Missionary Society, London, 1985, pp. 137, 290-2 L. Vander Werff, ‘An era of achievement. Persia 1869-1910’, in L. Vander Werff, Christian mission to Muslims: the record. Anglican and Reformed approaches in India and the Near East, 1800-1938, South Pasadena CA, 1977, 164-7 G. Hewitt, The problems of success. A history of the Church Missionary Society 19101942, vol. 1, London, 1971, pp. 375-400

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Annual letters of CMS missionaries Date 1887-1914 Original Language English Description In addition to regular reports from the mission in Persia to CMS, missionaries also wrote an ‘annual letter’, usually in November. These were distributed to supporters in the following year. From 1886 to 1910, the letters were published together in Extracts from the annual letters of the missionaries; from 1911, an edited selection was published as Letters from the front. They reveal the relationship missionaries had with the various communities in which they lived in Iran, with references to their reception by Muslims together with their own understanding of Islam and attitudes towards it. The missionaries were involved in education, medical work, outreach and translation work, all with the purpose of ‘saving’ people by leading them to Christ. The letters show some awareness of Islam and of its important festivals, especially in relation to how the ‘mullahs’ were more active in condemning the mission and forbidding the people to attend the dispensaries or to send their children to the mission schools during Ramaḍān and Muḥarram.

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When Ramaḍān is mentioned, it is usually to report a reduction in attendance at the hospitals or schools (Anne Isabella Stuart, Isphahan, 30 November 1903, Annual letter, 1904, p. 129), whilst the ‘passion play’ on 10 Muḥarram, commemorating and re-enacting in dramatic form the martyrdom of Imām Ḥusayn (the grandson of the Prophet Muḥammad) at Karbala, southern Iraq, in 680, rarely has its significance explained. Writing from Yazd in 1904, Dr Henry White (1867-1950, Register no. 1423, p. 378) reports about a cholera outbreak, when It was most pathetic night by night to hear their dismal chanting of their “Passion Play”, and then their frantic calling upon God and their Prophet. Charms had a ready sale and a prayer was printed by the mullahs and sold at a cheap rate. This prayer […] consisted principally of the different names of God in Arabic, and was used, I think, as a kind of charm. (Yazd, 12 November 1904, Annual letter, 1905, p. 128)

Writing in 1910, Dr Donald William Carr (1865-1952, Register, no. 1302, p. 254) reports that, during the month of Muḥarram, ‘the first ten days being a special time – in which they commemorate the death of Imam

Illustration 13. A performance of the ‘Passion Play’ at the home of the Governor of Kerman

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Husein on the Plains of Kerbalah. It is always a specially bigoted and fanatical time’ (Carr, Isfahan 30 November 1910, Annual letter, 1911, p. 67). Emmeline Stuart wrote about a Muslim revival that took place during 1911: During the summer an attempt was made by the mullahs to revive the people’s interest in their religion. An old shrine was chosen and reports were issued of miraculous cures to be obtained there. The town went mad for a few weeks, and thousands flocked to the shrine. Those who could get near enough to touch it did so, and others attached themselves to it by pieces of twine in hopes of the miraculous current passing to them in this way. Needless to say not one authentic cure was recorded. A few were faked by the mullahs. (Isfahan, Letters from the front, 1911, pp. 227-8)

The idea of the return of the Mahdī is only mentioned in one letter, written by Harold Marrable (1881-1965, ‘Register, Men L-Z, 1905-18’, no. 1753), who wrote: Many of the Persians who are versed in ancient Persian and Arabic prophecy are looking for the speedy return of their twelfth Imam whose name is Mahdi; and they say that signs point to his coming accompanied by Jesus Christ! They are most interested to know that we are expecting the return of Jesus Christ very soon, though not as they think in an inferior position to their Imam. It has opened the way to many a good talk. (Isfahan, Letters from the front, 1912, p. 42)

There are many references to Muslims in Iran being ‘bigoted’, but with a gradual change in attitudes over time. Mary Bird (1860-1914) wrote in 1893 of a visit to a mullā’s house ‘where they are so bigoted that the glass I drank out of was considered defiled and must be broken’ (Julfa, 30 November 1893, Annual letter, 1894, p. 9). Writing in 1899, Gertrude Ethel Stuart (18731944, Register, no. 468, p. 446), Emmeline Stuart’s sister, describes Iran as ‘a dark Mohammedan land, so full of ignorance and superstition and bigotry and untruthfulness and all manner of evil’ (Julfa, 21 December 1899, Annual letter, 1900, p. 81). Writing in 1902, Henrietta Dora McKim (b. 1868, Register, no. 592, p. 461), a nurse from the Canadian CMS, reports as follows: ‘In some ways they [Iranian Muslims] are less bigoted than they were for it is seldom now that any one objects to eating our food […] while the carrying of water from the Mohammedan houses near is much less often done’ (Julfa, 27 December 1902, Annual letter, 1903, p. 206). Sunday services attracted various groups of people. Writing from the newly opened mission station in Yazd in 1899, Henry White says that the

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area for worship is divided by a curtain, allowing women to attend, and that the congregation in summer is around 150, and between 60 and 100 in winter. His letter lists the groups who attend as including: Mullahs with their large white turbans; Mohammedan students, eager to hear, and sometimes to dispute; Merchants; Sayyids, with their green turbans and self-satisfied attitude; Dervishes with skin and bowl; Poorer people and patients from the hospital. (Yazd, 23 December 1899, Annual letter, 1900, p. 84)

This is entirely descriptive and gives little sense of the role that mullās had in Iran, or who Sayyids were. In some letters, mullās were referred to as priests. Henry Carless (1860-98, Register, no. 1089, p. 223) wrote in 1889 of an ‘itineration’ to Shiraz, where he had received an initial welcome but the ‘manifest blessing attending us roused the opposition of the Evil One, who stirring up the fanaticism of his agents caused such a commotion and peril, that we had in haste to flee’, adding that the ‘Mullahs hold as much power as the Shah’ (Carless, Julfa, November 1889, Annual letter, 1890, p. 299). In his first annual letter, William St Clair Tisdall (1859-1928) writes that ‘a certain Persian Mulla went to the Prince Governor [of Isfahan] and induced him to threaten the British Consul with unpleasant consequences if he did not compel us to close the dispensary and Bible shop’ (Julfa, 23 November 1893, Annual letter, 1894, p. 3). The following year, the mission report by Tisdall and Mary Bird states that the dispensaries had been forcibly closed after a mob of students from the Muslim theological college, stirred up by the mullās, prevented Mary Bird’s access. To circumvent the guards, women seeking treatment then arrived before dawn or came in over the roofs (‘Report of the Persia and Baghdad Mission for the year 1894’, 1-4, p. 2, prefacing Annual letters). Following his arrival in 1894, Edward Stuart (1822-1911), a missionary in episcopal orders, visited six of the principal mullās in Isfahan and reported that: All received me courteously; but in almost every instance a plunge was made by them into unprofitable controversy; the arguments all being the old stock objections that had been answered abundantly in many works of controversy, from the time of Henry Martyn to our own day. Pfander’s [see G. Nickel, ‘Karl Gottlieb Pfander’, in CMR 23, forthcoming] writings I find are not unknown; and the Bible in Arabic or in Persian had sometimes been read, but probably more in search of supposed arguments against the truths held by Christians. (Julfa, 20 November 1895, Annual letter, 1896, p. 4)

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Sayyids were seen as proud because of their descent from Muḥammad. William Carr, writing about those he met in 1910 whilst returning from the coast, wrote: ‘We found [the Sayyids], on the whole, very indifferent and unwilling to listen to the Word of God, intensely self-satisfied and inclined to be cynical’ (Isfahan, 30 November 1910, Annual letter, 1911, p. 67). As the main purpose of the mission was to convert people to Christianity, there are reports on the methods used and encounters with ‘inquirers’ and those wanting to contest the truth. Henry Carless writes, ‘Intelligent, earnest inquirers come to us […] the great obstacle is the fear of man […] when we consider the sword of Islam, and the fanatical prejudice of the Persian Shiahs’ (written from Baghdad, December 1892, Annual letter, 1893, p. 121). He then raises the question of what happens to converts: ‘What is to be done with converts? Cast out by their own people, refused all work, and generally in danger of their lives’ (p. 121). In the same year, Mary Bird wrote about the response of Muslim women, who had told her: ‘Our husbands say we have no souls.’ One said, ‘You Christians do not pray.’ I replied, Yes we do; but we don’t repeat our prayers publicly, we pray to God in our houses, and in our hearts as we go about our work. She at once called her friends and told them and added, ‘that is good’. Their prayers being in Arabic they often do not know what they mean. (Julfa, 24 November, Annual letter, 1893, p. 122)

In 1897, Walter Ayscoughe Rice (1861-1948, Register, no. 1088, p. 223) accompanied Dr Carr and his Armenian medical assistants on an itineration to Khonsar, which he saw as an effective method of outreach. The patients would listen to passages of the Bible read aloud and hear prayers whilst waiting for treatment. Rice writes, They showed a reluctance to have anything to do with a Christian priest (kashish, as they call him). A favourite trick of some of them whom I met is to ask for arguments for the truth of the Christian religion, and then refuse to accept anything brought forward from the Christian Scriptures. (Isfahan, 30 November, 2 December 1897, Annual letter, 1898, 11-15, p. 11)

In the same letter he sets out the reasons why Islam continues: 1) 2) 3) 4)

submissive character of the people; union of Church [sic] and State in Islam; fear of death, poverty, disgrace if one becomes a Christian; the convenient doctrine of taqiyeh [taqiyya, ‘dissimulation’], by which they maintain wide divergencies of private belief, and orthodox Islam tacitly tolerates it, if there is outward conformity to Islam.

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Annie Gauntlett (b. 1874, ‘Register, Women A-K, 1905-18’) refers to taqiyya in her 1911 letter: ‘Truthfulness appears to be a rare virtue amongst Mohammedan women – the crooked ways of their religion and domestic despotism have driven the defenceless to a refuge of lies. Dissembling has become a fine art’ (Isfahan, Letters from the front, 1912, p. 230). One reason that ‘inquirers’ give for wanting to learn is that they have had a dream in which they are told to find out more about Jesus. Charles Stileman (1864-1925, Register, no. 1109, p. 226) gives this account of one such incident: Only one Mohammedan convert has been baptised during the year, a welleducated and middle-aged man, who had for many years been inclined towards Christianity, the consequence of a remarkable dream he had many years ago, in which it seems that Christ appeared to him. He had, however, never seen the Christian Scriptures till about a year ago, when his wife obtained a copy of the Persian New Testament. (‘Report of the Persia and Baghdad Missions for 1896’, 1897, 1-7, pp. 5-6, prefacing Annual letters)

There are also reports of organised religious discussions where both Muslims and Christians were able to speak. One example is given by Napier Malcolm (1871-1921, Register, no. 1494, p. 390) in Shiraz in 1906. When the Moslem missionary who preaches in Julfa spent some time in Shiraz last winter, he arranged for religious discussions between me and himself. They were held in this and other houses, and were attended by a largish number of clerical students and others. The meetings were orderly and helpful. They were begun and ended with prayer, the Sayyid leading one time and I the other. But it must be remembered that the Sayyid is a missionary, and therefore unconsciously stepped out of the almost impregnable position of ordinary Mussulman thought. (Shiraz, 14 December 1906, Annual letter, 1907, p. 97)

The growth of the mission had been rapid but by 1910 there were fears that the work would stall for lack of missionaries. Emmeline Stuart challenged readers of her letter with the following observation: ‘Our medical missions have removed Mohammedan prejudices and opened the doors to let educational missionaries in, but unless these come – and come soon – the doors will again be closed’ (Isfahan, 30 November 1910, Annual letter, 1911, p. 71).

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The letters reveal that the missionaries were very aware of the risks that converts faced in asking for baptism and they often anonymised the names of individuals. Writing in 1899, Edward Stuart explains: To write an annual letter from Persia such as may interest friends at home is not an easy task. There are no stirring incidents to relate, and few details of work that it would be expedient or safe to describe. We are still jealously watched, and in these days of wide circulation of papers and magazines much circumspection is needed. The work in this, and I imagine, in all other Moslem lands under Mohammedan rule is only carried on in sufferance. Our very presence and continuance in the country is under the same limitation. (Isfahan, 15 December 1899, Annual letter, 1900, p. 70)

Significance The attitudes towards Islam and Muslims shown by CMS missionaries in Iran during this period reveal a certain amount of knowledge about Islam, but with many preconceptions. When considering the published material, it is necessary to bear in mind the reasons why editorial decisions were made, as it is apparent that the published reports were modified in order to promote the work of the mission, and ‘difficult’ views and opinions were often struck out with a blue pencil. Emma Wild-Wood addresses these issues further, albeit from the context of Africa (‘The interpretations, problems and possibilities of missionary sources in the history of Christianity in Africa’, in M. Frederiks and D. Nagya (eds), World Christianity. Methodological considerations, Leiden, 2021, 92-112). Edward Stuart’s remark that missionaries needed to be circumspect in what they wrote makes it apparent that copies of the Annual letters reached members of the Iranian Muslim community, and could therefore endanger the lives of named inquirers and converts (Isfahan, 15 December 1899, Annual letter, 1900, p. 70). From 1893 to 1898, as the work grew, the annual letters from the Persian Mission were published, together with a report about the mission, as separate pamphlets, an indication of widespread interest in the work in Iran. The letters, edited by CMS, of necessity presented the work of the missionaries in ways intended to encourage readers to increase their support, both through prayer and financially. Reticence to report events in full, as well as the editing, meant there was a distinct possibility that a distorted view was given of Islam in Iran. The depiction of Islam in the letters can be regarded as part of this, with its emphasis on the challenges of ‘bringing

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light’ into what is portrayed as a ‘dark Mohammedan land’ (Gertrude Stuart, Julfa, 21 December 1899, Annual letter, 1900, p. 81). Publications A large part of the CMS archival materials has been digitised by Adam Matthew Publications and is available on-line; they can also be consulted at the Crowther Library of the CMS in Oxford, as well as at the Cadbury Research Library. For more details on the archival corpus, see: https:// churchmissionsociety.org/about/our-history/archives/. Archives, Birmingham, University of Birmingham, Cadbury Research Library Special Collections – Church Missionary Society: CMS III Part 4 Reels 33-44 Extracts from the annual letters of the missionaries for the years 1887-1910 CMS III Part 4 Reel 45 Letters from the front, 1911-14 CMS III Part 1 Reel 1 CMS Register of missionaries and native clergy 18041904, London, 1905, printed for private circulation CMS OX Register 03, ‘CMS Register, Men A-K, 1905-18’ CMS OX Register 04, ‘CMS Register, Men L-Z, 1905-18’ CMS OX Register 08, ‘CMS Register, Women A-K, 1905-18’ CMS OX Register 09, ‘CMS Register, Women L-Z, 1905-18’ Studies Francis-Dehqani, ‘CMS women missionaries’ Francis-Dehqani, ‘Religious feminism’ Hewitt, Problems of success, vol. 1 John Chesworth

Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia

Mik‘ayēl Ch‘amch‘eants‘ Mik‘ayēl Chamchean Date of Birth 1738 Place of Birth Istanbul Date of Death 1823 Place of Death Istanbul

Biography

Mik‘ayēl Ch‘amch‘eants‘, or Chamchean, was born in Istanbul in 1738. He was raised and trained to become a goldsmith, but chose a completely different path and in 1757 he entered the Mekhit‘arist College of St Lazar in Venice, joining the brotherhood in 1762. In 1769, he was ordained vardapet as Father Mik‘ayēl. After 1770, he was often sent abroad to take up administrative, teaching and pastoral positions in Paris, Istanbul, Baghdad, Basra, Aleppo, Damascus, Beirut and elsewhere. He was preoccupied with the idea of a ‘universal’ history of the Armenians and his travels gave him opportunities to locate and collect manuscripts for his research. Completed by the early 1780s, the three volumes of Patmut‘iwn hayots‘ i skzbanē ashkharhi minch‘ew ts‘am 1784 Deaṛn (‘History of the Armenians from the beginning of the world to the year 1784 of the Lord’) were published in Venice between 1786 and 1788. This work led him to be considered the father of modern Armenian historiography. A dedicated researcher, popular lecturer and prolific author, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ wrote monumental works of grammar, history and theo­ logy. In his K‘erakanut‘iwn haigazean lezowi (‘Grammar of the Armenian language’, Venice, 1779), which was the first work of its kind, his objective was to fix the grammar of Classical Armenian and filter out vernacular and Latinised forms. This book was printed 15 times and remained the authoritative textbook of Classical Armenian for over a century. His most significant yet least familiar work is Vahan hawatoy (‘Shield of faith’, Venice, 1815). Written over four decades, this is an analysis and refutation of traditional points of divergence between the Catholic and Armenian Churches. Labelled by the Catholics as the ‘errors’ or ‘heresies’ of the Armenians, these differences were debated in Cilicia and

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the homeland for centuries, both during the lifetime of Ch‘amch‘eants‘ and after. All copies of the book were confiscated and destroyed by the Vatican in 1819, but one copy found its way to Calcutta and was published in a shortened version in 1873 as Vahan hawatoy ughghap‘aṛowt‘ean hayastaneats‘ ekeghets‘woy (‘Shield of the orthodox faith of the Armenian Apostolic Church’). In 1795, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ returned to Istanbul as the director of the Mekhit‘arist school he had helped to establish. He remained there until his death in 1823.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION K. Bardakjian, A reference guide to modern Armenian literature, 1500-1920, Detroit MI, 2000, pp. 92-4, 309-10 (includes list of publications and studies up to 2000) A.A. Ut‘ujean, ‘Mik‘ayēl Ch‘amch‘eants‘. Keank‘i ew gortsunēut‘ean hamaṛōt urwagits’, [Mik‘ayēl Ch‘amch‘eants‘. A brief account of his life and career], Lraber Hasarakakan Gitut‘iwnneri 9 (1988) 71-85 Sahak Chemchemean, Hayr Mik‘ayēl Ch‘amch‘eants‘ ew ir hayots‘ patmut‘iwnĕ [Father Mik‘ayēl Ch‘amch‘eants‘ and his History of the Armenians], Venice, 1983 A.A. Ut‘ujean, ‘Mik‘ayēl Ch‘amch‘eants‘i patmagitakan hayeats’k’neri gnahatman harts‘i shurjĕ’ [Concerning the evaluation of the historiographical views of Mik‘ayēl Ch‘amch‘eants‘], Bamber Erewani Hamalsrani 2 (1981) 144-51 Ashot Gasparean, Hay dēmkʻer [Armenian figures], Tehran, 1961

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Patmut‘iwn hayots‘ ‘History of the Armenians’ Date 1786-8 Original Language Classical Armenian Description Patmut‘iwn hayots‘ i skzbanē ashkharhi minch‘ew ts‘am 1784 Diaṛn (‘History of the Armenians from the beginning of the world to the year 1784 of the Lord’) is a comprehensive history of the Armenian people comprising six books in three volumes, totalling 3,200 pages. It was published in Venice between 1786 and 1788. In form and intention it is a continuation of medieval universal histories, the first of which was by Movsēs

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Khorenats‘i (currently thought to date from the 8th century). Following this tradition, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ starts at the creation with the premise that God is the ultimate Creator and Mover of all things and that human history is the unfolding and revelation of His will, hence the significance of the Bible as a primary source of information (Patmut‘iwn hayots‘, 1784 edition, vol. 1, pp. 42-4). With Khorenats‘i as his model and main source for the early medieval period, he explains that the latter’s writings were more ‘trustworthy than others’ and were also ‘established by the most ancient testimonies and verified by classical authors’ (vol. 1, p. 608). The work was published in an abridged edition entitled Khrakhchan patmut‘ean hayots‘ (‘Feast/Enjoyment of the history of the Armenians’), and probably at the request of non-Armenian-speaking Armenians, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ also made a Turkish summary of 495 pages in Armenian script entitled Gulzari tevarikh. Hay millet‘inē dayir hik‘ayēler ilē dōnanmish (‘Historical garden. Stories about the Armenian nation’), published in Venice in 1812. Even though he studied in Europe and was fluent in a number of European languages, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ chose an approach different from that of 18th-century European historiography (Ashot Gasparean, Hay dēmk‘er, p. 46). Considering his work as a continuation of medieval histories in every respect, more explicitly than Khorenats‘i he attached moral significance to both the discipline and the knowledge of history. Historical knowledge had to have a role in the orientation and the improvement of the future of the nation in the context of a spiritual universe under divine providence. This history was never translated into Modern Armenian (though there are photostatic reprints). But despite the inaccessibility of Classical Armenian to most Armenians, it became a reference and dominated the Armenian social sciences in some academic circles for a long time, even to the present. The book is written in the style of earlier chronologies, with dates recorded in the margins following both the Gregorian and Armenian calendars (the Armenian calendar starts at the Gregorian year 552). References to primary sources also appear on the margins, often as simply the names of authors. Throughout the text, large sections entitled ‘notes’ (tsanōt‘agrut‘iwnk‘) are inserted to give additional information and personal perspectives. Otherwise, as Ch‘amch‘eants‘ often claims, his accounts are ‘objective’, taken from ‘established’ sources with attention to accurate chronology and dates. Great amounts of space are devoted to the history of the Armenian Church, doctrinal matters, clergy, succession of catholicoi, sees, debates with the Byzantine and Catholic Churches,

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Illustration 14. Patmut‘iwn hayots‘, title page

political pressures for church union from both, church councils and heterodox doctrines and practices. Vol. 1 (806 pages) consists of Books I and II. Book I covers the creation, the ‘division of nations’ and the appearance of Hayk, the legendary ancestor of the Armenians, and ends at Macedonian rule over Armenia. Book II starts at the Persian Artaxiad dynasty and ends with the second dynasty, the Arsacids, and the deaths of St Mesrop, Catholicos St Sahak and King Vṛamshapuh in the middle of the 5th century. These three figures realised the project of a national script, the aybubēn (alphabet). Vol. 2 (1,060 pages) comprises Books III and IV. Book III, covering the period 441-856, is entitled ‘The period of the rule of the marzpans (Persian commissioners) and ostikans (Arab commissioners)’. It starts at the period of the Persian marzpanate, which followed the fall of the Arsacids. The early Arab invasions into Armenia and eastern Asia Minor are first mentioned in Book III, ch. 55. Book IV is devoted to the Bagratuni period,

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and is entitled ‘The reign of the Bagratunis from 856 to 1079/80’ (in fact 884/5-1045). Vol. 3 (1,090 pages) contains Books V and VI. Book V, entitled ‘The period of Rubinian rule’, is devoted to the history of Cilicia from 1080 to 1375, and Book VI, entitled ‘Concerning the stateless condition of the Armenians’, starts with the loss of national sovereignty as the arrival of Tamerlane introduces centuries of suffering under the Mongols, Tartars, Safavids, Ottomans and other aylazgis (Muslims) to the year 1784, the date of the completion of the work. At the end, there is a 200-page collection of appendices with their own pagination. The task of extracting the views of Ch‘amch‘eants‘ about Islam, Muslims and Christian-Muslim relations and, more importantly, of defining his understanding and depiction of the condition of Armenia in the Islamic world, is like trying to put together a large jigsaw puzzle with many essential pieces missing. The analysis has to be carried out ‘inductively’, so to speak, by deriving his attitudes from his narratives of individual cases. Unlike medieval Armenian historians, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ avoided making direct references, or even mentioning terms related to Islam and Muslims. Nowhere do we find the words Islam, margarē (prophet), p‘eghambar (prophet in Persian, also used in Armenian), Mahmēt (Muḥammad) or Ghuran (Qur’an), or terms related to feasts, prayer, fasting and the like. Muslim peoples are referred to as the hagarats‘ik‘ or the Hagarenes (descendants of Hagar, a term that had more or less fallen out of usage in Armenian literature long before the time of Ch‘amch‘eants‘), never as Ishmaēlats‘ik‘ (Ishmaelites) or mahmētakank‘ or (Muḥammadans). He often refers to the Muslims as aylazgik‘ (literally, peoples-of-other-nations), a term that is still used in western colloquial Armenian. One of the reasons for this obviously intentional avoidance is probably lack of information; he does not seem to have any knowledge of the history of Islam, the Prophet Muḥammad, the Qur’an or Arab religious culture and sources. Another reason may be that he was a Turkish citizen and a native of Istanbul with no dislike for the Muslim Turks and no wish to offend them. Furthermore, as a Catholic priest, he frequently visited Armenian communities in Muslim countries. So he may have preferred caution and wanted to avoid censorship and bans. Whatever the reason, the book greatly suffers because of this choice. The Armenians in Patmut‘iwn hayots‘ are a small, internally divided, but ancient and heroic Christian nation surrounded by powerful Muslim neighbours and invaders. This is a simple paradigm, which inevitably generates a narrow, fragmented and unstable vantage point. Christian-Muslim relations are restricted to individual cases of oppression, discrimination,

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forced conversions, torture, high taxation, evacuations, anarchistic rulers and the like. A more serious problem is that Patmut‘iwn hayots‘ lacks political and geographical maps of Armenia and the region, so major political and military developments are sometimes mentioned in a vacuum and with inaccuracies. For example, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ describes the fall of the Umayyads and the rise of the ʿAbbasids – without referring to them by name at all – simply as the ‘transfer’ of the ‘throne of the Hagarenes to Baghdad in the year 755’ (vol. 2, Book III, p. 398). ʿAbbasid administration and policies, at least in Armenia, were very different from those of the Umayyads, but the narratives in Patmut‘iwn hayots‘ do not reflect the differences or specify what these policies were. In the end, all analysis of the work has to be carried out indirectly through the author’s periodisation and contextualisation of events, his formulation of issues and characterisation of figures and phenomena. The hagarats‘ik‘, or Muslims, are mentioned for the first time over a decade after their first arrival in Armenia in the context of the rivalry between them and the ‘Greeks’ in the year 648. The latter are presented as the masters of the region and the hagarats‘ik‘ as the intruders. The title of ch. 55 is: ‘The submission of the Armenians to the domination of the Hagarenes and the Greeks’ (vol. 2, Book III, p. 354). Strangely, instead of using the Patmut‘iwn i Heraclē (‘History of Heraclius’), attributed to Sebēos, who was the only author contemporary with the early Arab campaigns to the year 661, or Ghewond’s history about the Arab invasions, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ refers to the 10th- and 13th-century authors Draskhanakertt‘i, Asoghik and Vardan. The following episode gives an idea of how Ch‘amch‘eants‘ understands the dimensions of Islamic penetration into the region. He explains that the duty of the governors of the western parts of historical Armenia under Byzantine control was to defend the borders of the empire and fight its enemies, in this case the Arabs. With the arrival of the Hagarenes, shifts in alliances naturally happened. In his view, the reason for the swift and easy occupation of Armenia by the Arabs was no more than a personal grudge. Dismissed by the Emperor Constans II (r. 641-68), Vasak, one of the governors or ‘patricians’, ‘surrendered’ to Muʿāwiya (r. 661-80), the first Umayyad caliph. He even sent his son to Damascus as a ‘hostage’ and became an ally of the ‘enemy’, driving away the Byzantine armies in Cappadocia. Ch‘amch‘eants‘ concludes that ‘because of Vasak’s betrayal of the Byzantines, the Hagarenes began arriving in Armenia in great numbers, and with no bloodshed captured the country’ (vol. 2, Book III, p. 354). ‘In order to ensure the permanent cooperation of the Armenians, the

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Hagarenes broke their promise [which is not explained] and took 1,750 hostages to Damascus.’ Then they ‘imposed’ a ‘peace treaty’ (dashn) in order to keep the Armenians ‘away from the Greeks for a year’. The unnamed treaty was renewed two years later in 654 at Dwin as just a ceasefire agreement. Only remotely related to the actual events, this story is partial and inaccurate, differing greatly from the much more detailed and accurate account in Sebēos (see Patmut‘iwn i Heraclē, St Petersburg, 1879, p. 136). This treaty was allegedly granted by the Prophet Muḥammad – although he had passed away two decades earlier – and reconfirmed by ʿAlī and ʿUmar. But Ch‘amch‘eants‘ simply bypasses it, and applies the following motif to all the agreements he mentions: Caught between powerful rivals and faced with difficult choices, and always being the weaker and vulnerable side, the Armenians chose the lesser evil. While alliance with Byzantium was impossible, any alliance or agreement with the Muslims was inconsequential. In his narratives of the events of the 650s, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ introduces the subject of the Paulician sect (Pawghikeank‘), known to be sympathisers and ‘satellites of the oppressors’ (the Muslims), as is attested by the 8th-century – Catholicos Yovhannēs III Ōdznets‘i (r. 717-28) and others (Dadoyan, Armenians, vol. 1, pp. 75-6). As adoptionists and enemies of the institution of the church and its teachings, the Paulicians had doctrinal affinities with the Muslims. Ch‘amch‘eants‘ suggests that this sect surfaced because they were empowered by the incoming Arabs. In the early 8th-century, Catholicos Yovhannēs III, who was on good terms with the Umayyads, drove these heretics onto the Byzantine side with the consent and support of the caliphate. Chapter 55 ends with a very intriguing discussion about the choices made by the Armenians between the Hagarenes and their heavy taxation policies on the one hand, and the oppressive and arrogant Chalcedonian Byzantine Greeks on the other. He praises the first Umayyad caliph or ‘amirapet’ (equivalent of amīr al-umarāʾ), Muʿāwiya, and relates that the governor of Armenia, Vard Ṛshtuni, was his ally against the Greeks. Around the year 660, Vard destroyed an entire Greek battalion in an ambush and caused the loss of ‘innocent Christians’. He then realised that his ‘victory’ was simply a moral failure and withdrew to a monastery on the Island of Aght‘amar (in his native Vaspurakan), spending his days in seclusion, repentance and prayer (Patmut‘iwn hayots‘, vol. 2, Book III, pp. 358-9). The 652 treaty (between Muʿāwiya and Theodoros Ṛshtuni) gave the Armenians internal freedom and safety but, before the end of the 7th century, the Umayyads changed their policy and ruled the country through

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their ostikans. Ch‘amch‘eants‘ devotes chapters 58-70 of Book III to the ‘Period of the domination of ostikans’. These are the commissioners, or military governors, who ruled directly and collected taxes for the caliphate. Centred at Dwin, or Dābil (just south-east of present-day Yerevan), as their headquarters, Umayyad and ʿAbbasid commissioners are presented as greedy, violent and fanatical (vol. 2, Book III, p. 376). Dwin or Dābil remained an Arab administrative centre for centuries. The Arabs always preferred the cities, while historically the nakharars (traditional aristocratic families, patricians) settled in their fortified locations in the countryside. This was a practice that proved to be a great disadvantage for all concerned, including the nakharars themselves. According to Ch‘amch‘eants‘, all attempts by the Armenians to resort to Byzantine assistance and their sporadic uprisings led to more violence and the destruction of churches. In order to get rid of the pro-Byzantine figures, he says, the commissioner ‘Abdella’ (?) tricked the nakharars into gathering in a church and set fire to it. Others were captured and sent in chains to Damascus, including the Catholicos Sahak III Dzorap‘orets‘i (r. 677-703) and the army general Smbat Bagratuni (vol. 2, Book III, p. 376). At the request of the nakharars and the general populace, the exiled and ailing Catholicos Sahak III wrote a plea to the ostikan ‘Mohmat’ (Muḥammad) at Ḥarrān in northern Syria, but died on his way to bring it to him. The letter reached Mohmat in Sahak’s hand, in accordance with his last wish. The commissioner agreed to bring peace to Armenia and a third pact was made (vol. 2, Book III, pp. 376-80). This turns out to be the ‘Small manshūr of Mahmet’, which is mentioned frequently in medieval Armenian histories. The ‘Great manshūr’, or decree, was the alleged ‘Oath of the Prophet to the Armenians’. It was a prototype and a permanent reference for all subsequent agreements, which were considered and labelled as ‘renewals’ and ‘reconfirmations’ of it. The most prominent recorded case (supported by a reliable copy at the Monastery of St James of Jerusalem) is the oath of Salāḥ al-Dīn from 1287. Dozens of copies of oaths in different versions and languages and with different signatures exist (see Dadoyan, Armenians, vol. 1, pp. 43-80; Dadoyan, Islam in Armenian literary culture, pp. 185-8). While the subject of these oaths, also called decrees and compacts, is a familiar and recurring theme in Armenian literature, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ is silent about it and prefers to mention only individual short-term agreements. In order to show the links between the Armenian heterodox sects and the Muslims in the early 8th century and also the undesirability of proArab policies, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ blames the pro-Arab Catholicos Eghia I

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Archishets‘i (r. 703-17) for his negligence and permissiveness towards the Arewordik‘ (Armenian sun worshippers). In his eyes, they were the same as the Manichaeans and the Paulicians (vol. 2, Book III, pp. 386-7). Despite the good relations of Eghia’s successor Ōdznets‘i with the caliphate, the commissioner ‘Vlit‘’ (Walīd) seems to have been as oppressive as his predecessors. In 727, he was replaced by a certain ‘Mahmēt’, who became an admirer of the catholicos (said to have been an exceptionally handsome and respectable man) and praised him in the Umayyad Caliph Hishām’s (r. 724-43) court. The latter sent an invitation to the pontiff, who arrived in Damascus with great ceremony. The so-called ‘Prophet’s oath’ was renewed and reconfirmed in 727, in fact for the fourth time (the first three in 652, 654 and 703). The encounter between the caliph and catholicos is told in epic terms by Armenian historians. ‘With many gifts and much honour,’ says Ch‘amch‘eants‘, the caliph ‘sent away the catholicos with a peace pact by which terms he governed his people, and passed away after a year’ (vol. 2, Book III, p. 398). Ch‘amch‘eants‘ says that ‘in the year 755 [the accepted date for the overthrow of the Umayyads by the ʿAbbasids is 755] the throne of the Hagarenes was transferred to Baghdad’ (vol. 2, Book III, p. 408). The ʿAbbasids, whom he never labels as such, imposed excessively high taxes and prohibitions against Christian symbols and practices, such as crosses on the outside of churches, church bells and evening prayers. Christians were required to wear distinctive lead pendants and special headgear and to shave their beards. While commissioners were appointed, recalled and replaced, the nakharars, the clergy, the churches and their treasures continued to be targets (vol. 2, Book III, pp. 410-26). Ch‘amch‘eants’, focuses on specifically negative practices such as these, but sometimes he inserts a bright image against this dark background. He relates that, around the year 798, ‘a certain ostikan called Khuzima, was sent by the amirapet’ [he does not give a name but this must be the Caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd, r. 786-809] to punish all those Hagarenes who tortured Armenians against his will.’ Clearly, the implication is that the caliph was a just and compassionate ruler and did not hesitate to punish his own officers. Soon, however, he relates, Khuzima too was seduced by the luxury of church treasures and followed the path of his predecessors (vol. 2, Book III, p. 427). Afshīn and Būghaʿa, two generals of the Caliph al-Mutawakkil (r. 84761), are depicted as the protagonists of the darkest period of Arab rule in Armenia. Book III ends at a very sombre point. The country was devastated, and almost all the nakharars were taken to Baghdad, imprisoned and forced to convert. Many faked conversions and were released, while

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a few refused and became martyrs with the result that the Hellenophile Mamikoneans and some of the other noble families became almost extinct and never recovered (vol. 2, Book III, pp. 446-53). But Smbat Bagratuni managed to return from exile, found terms of reconciliation with the Arabs and took control in Armenia. This move marked a turning point in Armenian internal politics, and Ch‘amch‘eants‘ seems to be in favour of more flexible ways of dealing with the Arabs at all times. This time, in particular, it eventually led to the establishment of a monarchy and a certain amount of internal autonomy. Smbat’s son Ashot in turn improved relations with a certain ‘Mahmat’, the ‘shaykh of Dwin’, who ‘treated him as a son’. Ch‘amch‘eants‘ says that, on hearing of the amicable relations between Ashot and the Muslims, his generosity, tolerance and looks, the Caliph Maksama-Jap‘r (this must be al-Mutawakkil, whose personal name was Jaʿfar ibn al-Muʿtaṣim) in 859 sent an Armenian general as the new ostikan, ʿAli Armēni son of Vahē’ (vol. 2, Book IV, pp. 676-7). This was ʿAlī ibn Yaḥyā l-Armanī, a well-known general in the ʿAbbasid armies on the western frontiers. It was in 862, not 859, that ʿAlī was appointed governor over Armīnya by Caliph al-Mustanṣir bi-llāh (r. 862-6) (Dadoyan, Armenians, vol. 2, pp. 168-72). Within the year, and probably through his good offices, Ashot I Bagratuni the Martyr was granted the title of ‘prince of princes’ (ishkhanats‘ ishkhan). The next year, in 863, ʿAlī was killed by some Greeks in an ambush near Mayyafāriqīn. A supporter of the pro-Arab Bagratuni family, whom he considered ‘direct descendants of Abraham’ (vol. 2, Book IV, p. 674), Ch‘amch‘eants‘ devotes Book IV to them. It is entitled simply ‘Concerning the Bagratuni reign’, ‘which lasted 224 years’, from 855 to 1079 (in fact 160 years, from 884/5 to 1045). The Bagratuni dynasty of Shirak lasted 160 years, from the coronation of the first king, Ashot I (r. 884/5-90), to the annexation of Ani by Byzantium in 1045. In 855, at least nominally, the Bagratuni princes became the tax-collectors of the caliphate in place of Arab commissioners. In 1079, the last ruler of the dynasty, Gagik II (r. 1042-5), was assassinated while in exile. The main source used by Ch‘amch‘eants‘ here is Catholicos Yovhannēs V Draskhanakertts‘i-Patmaban (r. 898-929), the author of Patmut‘iwn hayots‘, a ‘universal’ history of the Armenians which is considered to be a continuation of the history of Movsēs Khorenats‘i. The circumstances of the coronation of Ashot Bagratuni, as told by Ch‘amch‘eants‘, reveal the status of Armenia and Armenians in relation to the ʿAbbasid and Byzantine worlds. The few surviving nakharars (from mass executions and captivity), he says, ‘unanimously decided to have Ashot as their king’, of which the caliph was informed through the ostikan Yisē (or ʿĪsā), son

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of the ‘shaykh of Dwin’. In their plea, the nakharars promised a thousand times to remain much more loyal than previously, and never to reduce the taxes to the caliphal court’. The caliph (who must be al-Muʿtamid, r. 87092) sent a crown, a royal robe and other precious gifts. Emperor Basil I (r. 867-86) too was ‘delighted’ and sent another crown (vol. 2, Book IV, p. 703). Obviously, even as a kingdom, Armenia was still part of the ʿAbbasid caliphate and was simultaneously under the political shadow of Byzantium. Eventually, all three dynastic families (Bagratuni, Artsruni, Siwni) rose through ʿAbbasid support, initiative and consent, and they all fell as a consequence of Seljuk penetration and Byzantine policies. They were vassals of sorts with little sovereignty and centralised power, even in their own territories. This condition of the kingdoms is not analysed and presented clearly in Patmut‘iwn hayots‘, so a good amount of prior knowledge of Armenian and Near Eastern histories is necessary to identify names, dates and changes and to follow the narratives. After Ashot’s death in 890, his son Smbat had in turn to obtain the consent of the Caliph al-Muʿtamid (r. 870-92) to succeed his father. On the latter’s approval and when a crown was sent to him, he became King Smbat I (r. 890-914) (vol. 2, Book IV, p. 711). From this point on, Book IV, ch. 6, the main source used by Ch‘amch‘eants‘ is Draskhanakertts‘i. Everywhere and always, the nakharars and the commissioners refused to tolerate centralised power within Armenia, and Ch‘amch‘eants‘ repeatedly makes this clear. A few years after Smbat’s accession to the throne, Afshīn, the Persian commissioner of Aterpatakan (Persian Azerbaijan), invaded his territories with a large army and was met by a bigger Bagratuni force. According to Ch‘amch‘eants‘, a ‘peace treaty’ was signed between the two sides. In order to show that Afshīn did not treat Smbat as a sovereign monarch, he relates that, before Smbat reached home, Afshīn incited the Christian and Muslim inhabitants against him. They closed the city gates before Smbat, and in his fury he set the fields around the city on fire (vol. 2, Book IV, pp. 712-13). In Patmut‘iwn hayots‘, Afshīn and most subsequent commissioners and governors are depicted as warlords engaged in perpetual wars punctuated by peace accords (vol. 2, Book IV, p. 716). Ch‘amch‘eants‘ believed that the rise of the Artsrunis in Vaspurakan and the Siwnis in Siwnik‘ was planned and executed by these commissioners, supported by the caliphate, in order to create rival dynasties and prevent the consolidation of a single power in Armenia. According to his narrative, around the year 896, Ashot Artsruni, who was the son of King Smbat’s sister, and Vasak Siwni were reluctant to accept Smbat as their sovereign and offered Afshīn their absolute loyalty, in return for which they hoped to be ‘granted the honour of kingship’

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(vol. 2, Book IV, pp. 717-18). Afshīn did not respond but, after his death, his brother Yūsuf, the next commissioner of Azerbaijan did so. In the year 902, a delegation from Smbat and the nakharars went to the caliph (either al-Muʿtaḍid, r. 892-902, or his successor al-Muktafi, r. 902-8) to ask him to withdraw the commissioners and allow the Armenian king to take charge of collecting the taxes. A similar agreement had been made in 855 but was evidently not implemented. The caliph responded favourably to the request and renewed his support of the Bagratuni king by sending a crown (vol. 2, Book IV, p. 732). As a result, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ concludes, the country enjoyed a period of prosperity and peace (vol. 2, Book IV, p. 735). In 908, Gagik Artsruni of Vaspurakan offered his allegiance and total loyalty to the commissioner Yūsuf in Azerbaijan, instead of King Smbat, in return for which he obtained a crown as King Gagik I Artsruni. Yūsuf’s intention, says Ch‘amch‘eants‘, was to have two kings at war and thereby control a divided nation. The disloyalty of several nakharars, as well as relatives of Smbat, worked in Yūsuf’s favour as well (vol. 2, Book IV, pp. 741-2). In 914, Yūsuf’s and Gagik’s two armies defeated Smbat, who withdrew to the Blue Fortress (Kapoyt Berd). Then, after he gave himself up to spare the country more bloodshed, he was killed with extreme brutality (vol. 2, Book IV, pp. 747-52). These kingdoms were in constant conflict and became symptoms of the divided condition of the Armenians in this period. Centred in Dwin, rather than Azerbaijan, where he should have been, Yūsuf continued his invasions and predictably turned on the Artsrunis, whose ally he was supposed to be, and invaded their territories. He even set up another Bagratuni as a counter-king at Dwin. The Armenians turned to Byzantium for assistance, but as usual there was no response. In his narratives of this period, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ is at his best in providing grounds for his hypothesis about the role of the ʿAbbasids in the rise of the separate Armenian kingdoms. Furthermore, he sees religious persecutions at all times as the results of political greed and military aggression. Practically, as he also observes, conversions did not resolve conflicts anywhere or at any time and, in any case, the aggressors did not seek converts. As the narratives show, the policies of the caliphs were not clear or constant, and Ch‘amch‘eants‘ makes no effort to understand or explain them. At no point does he hold any caliph responsible for the random violence against Armenians, and in fact the commissioners seem to have had the caliphs’ tacit consent. Thus, when the news of Yūsuf’s adventures reached Caliph al-Muqtadir (r. 908-29) in 922, he was called to Baghdad, but the caliph’s response was surprising: he sent a crown to Gagik Artsuni of Vaspurakan to confirm his position as another king in Armenia. At the

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same time, he signed a new pact with Ashot II ‘Erkat’ (‘iron’, r. 914-28), the son of Smbat, and granted him the title of shahanshāh, recognising him as superior to Gagik. Yūsuf was reported leading an uprising against the caliphate (vol. 2, Book IV, pp. 792-3), but unexpectedly was also restored to his position in Armenia, only to leave very soon and settle in his native Persia (vol. 2, Book IV, p. 805). This, and most narratives related to the caliphate, are incoherent, though they are valuable for this study because they reflect the author’s attitude towards and level of understanding of Islamic-Armenian politics. The next commissioner, Naṣr, ‘was known for his hatred of Christians’, explains Ch‘amch‘eants‘ and caused more devastation and death. ‘He even wanted to capture and kill the catholicos’ (Draskhanakertts‘i). Driven away from his seat in Dwin, the catholicos withdrew to Aght‘amar on Lake Van in the Artsruni kingdom, where he wrote his famous universal history (Patmut‘iwn hayots‘; vol. 2, Book IV, p. 815). This specific episode is told very differently in other histories. Even though the successor of Ashot II, Abas I (r. 928-52), took Dwin back, the catholicoi no longer resided there. From the beginning, political and security reasons compelled them to move to different locations. The situation during the early 920s was a ‘shipwreck’, concludes Ch‘amch‘eants‘: the ‘Armenians were left on their own’, ‘the country was emptied of its wealth and all that was cause for its greatness and dignity’ (vol. 2, Book IV, pp. 808-9). For him, the condition and power of the kingdom was the measure of its prosperity and wellbeing. He does not see that the 10th century was also an age of extremes, not only in Armenia but also in the Islamic world in general. In Armenia, it was the age of a new and glorious style in architecture, the building of the city of Ani and its churches, the founding of the great monasteries and the monastic schools, and a revival of literature. It was also the age of reformist movements. The same is true of this century in the ʿAbbasid world: it was an age of extremes. Concerning the caliphate, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ says that the ‘the commissioners and other officials revolted against the caliph in Upper Mesopotamia. They separated and became independent […] each decided their own policy toward Abas [the ʿAbbasids?], some were friendly others not’ (vol. 2, Book IV, p. 831). As with the previous kings, the position of Ashot III, ‘the compassionate’ (r. 952-77), as shahanshāh had to be ratified by receiving a crown from the ʿAbbasid caliph. During the 9th and 10th centuries, Byzantine-ʿAbbasid rivalry and conflict were much more complicated than previously. On the frontiers between the two empires, a unique and fascinating world of eclectic cultures and ethnicities had developed. There is an unwritten

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history of Armenian political careers between the two empires from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, in al-Shām and Egypt. But Ch‘amch‘eants‘ saw the borderlands as a permanent battleground between the Christians and the aylazgis. He seems to connect the wrong episodes together, as in the following. He recounts that, after the assassination of a Greek general called Mleh in the region of Diār Bakr in the early 970s, the Byzantine emperor, the Armenian John Tzimiskes (r. 969-76), arrived there in 973 almost unexpectedly. A ‘brave’ and ‘pious’ man, Tzimiskes even threatened Armenians who were among the Muslims and their allies. Most probably, these Armenian culprits were heterodox militant factions, who from the 8th century had been allies of the Muslims on the borderlands. With the intervention of King Ashot III, the nakharars and the clergy, a compromise was made. Ch‘amch‘eants‘ also describes how the emperor was given an army of 10,000 warriors for his crusader-style campaign into Syria and Jerusalem (vol. 2, Book IV, pp. 845-7). This is a strange story. Why would the elite of the country intervene in favour of dissident and heterodox factions? It is also inaccurate for the most part, although the portrayal of the emperor as a warrior in the cause of the Christians of the east is significant (see Dadoyan, Armenians, vol. 1, pp. 81-145). Gradually, the motif of kingmonk, or warrior-monk became part of Cilician political culture. Ch‘amch‘eants‘ describes how King Smbat II (r. 977-89), the son of Ashot III, was called Shahinshaharmēn, Tiezerakal (‘world-conqueror’) and Shinogh (‘builder’) for his role in the building of the walls, palaces and cathedral of Ani, which was completed after his death by the famous architect Trdat (vol. 2, Book IV, pp. 852-8). In the same narrative, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ has a chapter on the greatest and most controversial figure of medieval Armenian culture, Grigor Narekats‘i (c. 951-1003), who was accused of being a tsayt‘ (heretic). In order to maintain some peace, Smbat II was said to have signed a treaty with a certain ‘Abuldalf’ (?), the ʿAbbasid commissioner at Dwin, though, in view of the king’s officially recognised role as tax-collector in Armenia, this is surprising. At several junctures, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ mentions that the post of commissioner had been cancelled, but he then surprises the reader with a reference to a Muslim commissioner (aylazgi ostikan). The commissioners in Azerbaijan were always part of the political landscape, and were constantly busy collecting taxes and waging wars (vol. 2, Book IV, pp. 868-70). Before the 990s, Armenians were again faced with the return of Byzantium, an old and persistent foe. At the same time, popular reformist uprisings were raging in most parts of Armenia and the upper Euphrates. The broad title in medieval histories for these moments is sectarian or

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T‘ondrakian unrest. On this subject, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ shares and reproduces the views of medieval historians such as Aristakēs and Magistros, linking these factions and the events in which they were involved with the early Christian sects of Arians and Manichaeans, and also Muslims (vol. 2, Book IV, pp. 884-95). The Emperor Basil II (r. 976-1025) had by the time of his death completely altered the situation to the east of the empire, though not in favour of the Armenian kings and kingdoms. By the 1030s, when the Oghuz Turks, identified as ‘Scythians’ (skiwt‘ats‘ik‘), and the Seljuks, identified as ‘Persians’, began arriving in the eastern parts of Asia Minor and spread to the west and south, some local leaders and several Armenian clans allied with them. The first casualty of the Seljuk onslaught, in 1021, was the Artsruni kingdom of Vaspurakan, to the east and south of Lake Van. Ch‘amch‘eants‘ describes the local Christians as the victims of assaults by the aylazgis, about which Byzantium was always indifferent (vol. 2, Book IV, p. 949) because the priorities of its politics were to spread Chalcedonian belief and to impose church union. A very intriguing story is told in the context of an expedition by the Emperor Romanos III (r. 1028-34) into Antioch and Aleppo against the aylazgis in the year 1028. On his way, says Ch‘amch‘eants‘ (deriving his information from Aristakēs Lastivertts‘i), Romanos met Armenian monastics in animal skins and rags living in huts near the Black Mountain in seclusion and prayer. When he asked, ‘Who are these multitudes of heretics?’, his companions replied, ‘These are flocks of constant wishers of your health.’ He gave the order to recruit them into his force and moved on. This is the only reference to extreme ascetics – who were obviously not Apostolic Armenians – in these parts of northern Syria at this time (vol. 2, Book IV, pp. 910-11). Following the periodisation given by Ch‘amch‘eants‘, the end of the Bagratuni dynasty is marked by the assassination of King Gagik II by the three Armenian-Greek Mandalē brothers in 1079, though ‘The period of Rubinian reign’ (the title of vol. 3, Book V) is presented as a direct continuation of it. ‘If not more than the Bagratunis,’ he says, the Rubinian period ‘was not less, and lasted 300 years’, that is 1080-1375 (vol. 3, Book V, p. 5). He presents Cilicia, where the dynasty was established, as a Christian land in the midst of a mostly Islamic world. According to what he says, at the time of the arrival of Ruben, the founder of the dynasty, and his followers (from the freemen of King Gagik II) in eastern Cilicia, the Taurus and Amanus mountain ranges were already populated by Armenians (vol. 3, Book V, p. 6). This is vital information for regional history and the Armenian habitat. In this context, and much earlier than the official division in the 17th century between the Ottomans and the Safavids, he already uses the

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terms ‘eastern Armenia’ and ‘western Armenia’ and distinguishes between their histories. During the 12th and 13th centuries, what can be called a ‘dynastic triangle’ developed in three locations: the Rubenids in Cilicia, the Zak‘arids in the homeland, and the city-state of Erzinjān on the upper Euphrates. Between 1060 and 1080, there were five Muslim-Armenian powers in the region (see Dadoyan, Armenians, vol. 2, pp. 43-64). With the exception of Cilicia, and only fragments of information about the Zak‘arids and Erzinjān, this uncommon phenomenon is almost lost in Patmut‘iwn hayots‘. Ch‘amch‘eants‘ does not seem to be aware that the 11th and 12th centuries were primarily a period of Armenian realpolitik with the Muslims through extra-establishment and heterodox paramilitary factions outside the historic land in Cappadocia, the Euphrates, Syria, Palestine and Egypt. Cilicia was part of these developments, and not a continuation of the legacy of the Bagratunis or a ‘gift of God’ (as contemporary historians and some Syriac Christians believed). This is a nationalistic interpretation, which still persists. By sheer coincidence, the arrival of the Crusaders before the end of the 11th century, the assistance they received from the Cilicians, and the alliance between the latter and the Latins shaped the political status of Cilicia in the region as an unfriendly, even an enemy state. Ch‘amcheants‘ presents Melikshāh, sultan of the Seljuk Empire (r. 107292), as ‘king of Persia’ and ‘a friend of the Armenians’ (vol. 3, Book V, p. 11). On the other hand, the Armenian allies of the ‘Persians’, such as the Georgian-Armenian Dānishmandids of Cappadocia, are labelled ‘traitors’, and ‘converts’ (vol. 3, Book V, p. 48), though he speaks very positively of Gogh Vasil, the lord of Kaysūm/K‘esun, a son of T‘ondrakian ‘red haired dog Ghazar’, an associate and inheritor of the state of Philaretus the ‘renegade’ (vol. 3, Book V, p. 25), who was on good terms with the local Muslims, the Latins and the Armenians of Cilicia. These unlikely alliances reflect the realpolitik of most Armenian figures of the period, a fascinating complexity which is lost in Patmut‘iwn hayots‘. Ch‘amcheants‘ points out that, a decade after the arrival of the crusaders and the rise of their Latin kingdoms and principalities, the ‘Persians’ spread like a ‘black cloud’ over the entire region from Cappadocia to Egypt. Christians were vulnerable, and many fell victim while some converted to Islam, were spared and remained on their land. Cilicia became a safe haven for Armenians fleeing from many places (vol. 3, Book V, pp. 30-1). The Seljuks fought on all fronts, the Greeks, Latins, Arabs, Armenians and Georgians, and were not on friendly terms with the rising Cilician principality (vol. 3, Book V, pp. 42-3). In the 1130s, Byzantium was back

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in Cilicia and at the same time there was a revival of heresies in Cilicia, Constantinople and Rome (vol. 3, Book V, p. 55). Ch‘amcheants‘ describes the fall of Edessa to the Seljuks in 1144 and the slaughter of Armenian and other Christians in apocalyptic terms, and quotes the prophesy of a certain monk about the eventual fall of Jerusalem (vol. 3, Book V, pp. 64-6). On his part, the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143-80) threatened to wipe Cilicia from the face of the earth (vol. 3, Book V, p. 68). The crusaders had already taken, or were given, Armenian city states, and the Armenians were like David facing Goliaths, he says. He has his own peculiar version of the rise of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn in Egypt during these years, his invasions into Palestine, his capture of Jerusalem in 1187, the calamities that followed, and his well-known oath to the Armenians of Jerusalem concerning their security and church properties. He also attaches great significance to the reactions in the West, papal correspondence with the Armenians and the sending of the Third, failed, Crusade (vol. 3, Book V, pp. 154-9). The coronation of King Lewon I (r. 1187-98, 1198-1219) was delayed until 1198 and, almost at the same time, in 1201, the Georgian-Armenian Zak‘arids established their ‘kingdom’ on the homeland with Ani as their capital. After 1236, like Armenian Erzinjān, they were vassals to the Mongols. King Het‘um I (r. 1226-69, husband of Queen Zabēl, the heir of Lewon I), managed to find means of coexistence with the Mongols, Mamlūks, Seljuks and Latins. He was able to maintain his position and the integrity of his territories, and he even travelled, or ‘was invited’, to the Mongol capital Karakorum in 1254-5 to meet the ruler Manku Khan. In return for his promise to assist the Mongols in military campaigns, he obtained a commitment from them to spare Cilicia and the Christians of the Near East. Ch‘amch‘eants‘ calls the fall of Muslim Baghdad to the Mongol ‘Hulawu’ (Hulaku) a ‘victory’ for the Christians (vol. 3, Book V, p. 256), who all mourned Hulawu’s death in 1265 (vol. 3, Book V, p. 263). According to Ch‘amch‘eants‘, the cause of Mamlūk anger and their repeated invasions into Cilicia after the 1260s was the alliance of the Armenians with the Latins. Whenever the Cilicians made contact with the Latins, or held councils to discuss the union of churches, the ‘Egyptians’ cancelled their peace agreements and returned to Cilicia to punish it. In 1293, Hṛomklay, the last Christian stronghold in Muslim territory, fell to them, and the capital Sis was captured in 1375. The last king, Lewon V Lusignan (r. 1374-5), was taken in chains to Cairo and eventually died in Paris. Previously, Catholicos Step‘anos IV (r. 1290-3), the last to rule from Hṛomklay, had also been taken to Cairo (vol. 3, Book V, p. 289). In this

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account, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ does not see that the Cilician rulers were not in a position to detach themselves from their unwelcome alliances with the Latins and the Mongols, while on their part the Muslims could not tolerate a Latin-Armenian state in their midst. The sixth book of Patmut‘iwn hayots, entitled ‘Concerning the statelessness (anishkhanut‘iwn) of the Armenians’, covers the period 1380-1784. The universal misery of the people meant the ‘end of historiography’, says Ch‘amch‘eants‘, and he apologises for gaps and inaccuracies in his accounts. In the introduction, he emphasises that the history of the Armenian Church will be a significant part of his narrative (vol. 3, Book VI, pp. 417-18). A great number of groups of different origins arrived in Armenian territory and contributed to creating chaos, he says. These were, in the terms he uses, Turks, Mars (Kurds), Turkmens, Mongols, ‘Tartars’ led by Tamerlane (1336-1405), Ottomans and Persians, though there is some confusion about their ethnic identification and names. To show the mixed nature of early Timurid rule in Armenia, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ contrasts two governors around the year 1395, one called ‘Shekh Ahmēt’, a relative of Tamerlane who was a benevolent protector of Christians against aylazgi trespassers, and another called ‘Melik Omar’, who was ‘a hater of Christians’ and killed the catholicos, who was most probably Zak‘aria II Nahatak of Aght‘amar (r. 1369-93) (vol. 3, Book VI, pp. 427-8). Ch. 2 of this Book is devoted to detailed and dramatic stories of Christian martyrs (vol. 3, Book VI, pp. 431-44). It includes stories of the missionarypolitical activities of the Latin Church, the pro-Latin ‘Unit‘oṛs’ (Unitarians) in Armenian communities, and their rivalry with the Armenian Church. The ‘Unit‘oṛs’, says Ch‘amch‘eants‘, ‘rejected all the canons and doctrines of the Armenian Church’. During Cilician and Timurid times as well, in many communities ‘arguments intensified and subsided’ between the two camps (vol. 3, Book VI, pp. 444-5). Ch‘amch‘eants‘ has often been criticised for his Catholic sympathies and even prejudice towards them, which in his critics’ eyes distort his accounts. Ch‘amch‘eants‘ describes the Turkmen period of the Qara Qoyunlu and Aq Qoyunlu, from the end of the 14th century to the end of the 15th, as the most violent in Christian-Muslim relations. In addition, he says, corruption infected the Church. Holy relics were stolen by clergy, and positions and ordinations were purchased from the aylazgi rulers. Organised Latin missionary work and competition to attract converts and churches divided the communities. Often, catholicoi, prelates and priests were the tax-collectors of the Turkmens, the Ottomans and the Safavids. These are

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favourite themes for Ch‘amch‘eants‘ and he devotes long sections and tedious chapters to them. Ch‘amch‘eants‘ does not depict the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 as a disaster for Christendom, and describes the first sultans as ‘brave’ and civilised monarchs, who were sympathetic toward the Armenians. Sultan ‘Mēhēmmēt’ (Mehmed al-Fātiḥ, r. 1451-81), while he was in Bursa before moving against the Byzantine capital, had compassion on the Armenians and Bishop Yovakim. He told the latter, ‘If I succeed in conquering Constantinople, I will take you and the Armenian dignitaries there and make you head of the Armenians.’ In 1461, he fulfilled his promise and, by a royal decree, Yovakim was appointed patriarch over the Armenians of Greece and Anatolia. At the time, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ adds, there were already many Armenians in the district of Ghalat‘ia, and many more settled there with the bishop (vol. 3, Book VI, p. 500). After the 15th century, Armenian territory and the homeland were battlefields where Ottomans, Turkmens and Persians fought one another. The people and the land, says Ch‘amch‘eants‘, were ‘stampeded’. ‘Armenians were subject to high taxes and assaults by aylazgis and many left their homeland for other places’ (vol. 3, Book VI, p. 533). In 1601, Cilicia was a target for ‘bandits’ (probably the Kurdish overlords) (vol. 3, Book VI, p. 536). The Ottomans periodically collected the young boys of Christian families for conversion and military service (vol. 3, Book VI, pp. 512-13), while their Persian rivals were equally ruthless. In 1604-5, in order to create a ‘burnt’ and deserted land before the invading Turks, the Safavid Shah ʿAbbās (r. 1588-1629), who is depicted as a deceitful, cunning and greedy man (vol. 3, Book VI, p. 545) ordered an extensive and cruel programme of massacres and forced evacuations of Armenians from the homeland, and also from Van, Julfa and other locations. Hundreds of thousands crossed the River Araxes in winter, and most perished. Shah ʿAbbās allowed the survivors to settle near Isfahan in what came to be called New Julfa (Nor Jugha) after the city of Julfa that had been torched by the Safavids (vol. 3, Book VI, pp. 555-6). The people were soon reduced to poverty, relates Ch‘amch‘eants‘ with obvious exaggeration, because of high taxes and debts (vol. 3, Book VI, pp. 580-1). In the north, where the Ottomans were in control, high taxes and assaults created similar conditions. The catholicoi at Ējmiatsin had no resources to pay their taxes (vol. 3, Book VI, pp. 594-8). At this point, Ch‘amch‘eants‘ briefly mentions the Treaty of Zuhab in 1639, which was intended to end hostilities between the two empires

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(vol. 3, Book VI, p. 618). The relatively peaceful period that ensued allowed three catholicoi in particular to reconstruct and expand Ējmiatsin, P‘ilibbos Aghbakets‘i (r. 1632-55), Yakob Jughayets‘i (r. 1655-80), and Eghiazar Aynt‘apts‘i (1680-91), and the relic of the right hand of Grigor the Illuminator was returned from Isfahan (vol. 3, Book VI, p. 613), where it had been taken by the Safavids in order to deprive the see of Ējmiatsin of legitimacy. Literature and translations were revived. Interior decorations and mural paintings were done in strikingly Persian-Islamic style. Ch‘amch‘eants‘ mentions Step‘anos Lehats‘i and Aṛak‘ēl Dawrizhetsi among the ‘enlightened’ figures of the period. The latter’s history is a major source for this section (vol. 3, Book VI, pp. 618-20). Ch‘amch‘eants‘ explains that the election of catholicoi and the renovation of churches depended on the approval of local Persian governors and sometimes the sultan in Istanbul. For example, in 1682 Catholicos Eghiazar Aynt‘apts‘i (r. 1680-91) was elected to the see of Ējmiatsin with the consent of the Persian governor at Yerevan. The cathedral of Van was renovated in 1648 by permission of the Ottoman Sultan Ibrahim I (r. 161648). There are many similar cases, the key, as Ch‘amch‘eants‘ reminds the reader, always being ‘precious gifts and gold’ (vol. 3, Book VI, p. 627). In the 17th century and later, religious persecution, looting and confiscation of churches and their conversion into mosques were common practices in both western (Turkish) Armenia and eastern (Persian) Armenia under the Qizilbāshī Persians. Ch. 30 is a collection of stories of martyrs from various places in the 1650s, and the period from the 1740s to 1784 is covered in chs 56-60. The running theme throughout is the stateless and tragic condition of the Armenians under the aylazgis. Religious persecution and randomly imposed high taxes are at the centre of all narratives. The book ends abruptly with a single sentence: ‘At this point ends the history of the Armenians to the year 1784’ (vol. 3, Book VI, p. 878). Significance As the first extensive history of the Armenians and the continuation of a long medieval tradition, Patmut‘iwn hayots‘ is one of the most important works in the intellectual culture of the 19th-century Armenian Awakening. One way of defining its significance is through the identification of the particular perspectives and traditions that it generated as a model and a prototype. Some historians of the 19th century followed the approach it took, though others, including the Catholics, who might have been

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expected to follow in Ch‘amch‘eants‘’s footsteps, were much more critical. Nevertheless, it seems that the focus on primarily Armenian narratives, which was the legacy of Ch‘amch‘eants‘, became a rule of sorts. Very few historians, even those who used both eastern and western non-Armenian sources, tried to look at things Armenian in their interactive aspects with the Islamic environment. Ch‘amch‘eants‘ did not and would not see that, from the 7th century, Armenia and Armenians gradually became organic and interactive parts of the wider Islamic world. Instead, he distinguished and drew two worlds in conflict, a central Armenian world, and a blurry, peripheral Islamic world. The images and the so-called ‘facts’ about Armenian-Islamic encounters on the vast stage of a rambling Armenian story are selected and placed in order to highlight the author’s message, which was the impossibility of coexistence with Muslims or submission to them, hence the importance of national progress, unity and the struggle for sovereignty. During the latter part of the 19th century and to the end of the First World War, Ottoman policies and successive catastrophic events ethnified Islam in the images of the Turks and Kurds (the terms ‘Turk’ and ‘Kurd’ were synonymous with ‘Muslim’, and still are for some Armenians). Already an underrated and barely visited area in social sciences, IslamicArmenian interactive history was almost eclipsed. After the First World War, Armenian historiography became even more utilitarian, in the sense that, as in the Awakening, and as Ch‘amcheants‘ demanded, a knowledge of history had to have a role in the orientation and deliverance of the Armenian nation in its perpetual distress. It is clear that historians of the past two centuries and more have corrected his errors and shortcomings and have written more accurate and critical histories. Some have radically questioned both the medieval and modern ‘fathers’ of Armenian history, Khorenats‘i and Ch‘amch‘eants‘. But the initial paradigm Ch‘amch‘eants‘ constructed about the nation has not been expanded or replaced. In the present too, few in the social sciences appreciate the value of knowledge of the ‘Muslim other’, the Islamic environment and the significance of interactive history for the improvement of the study of Armenian history and even for national objectives. This brief analysis and evaluation of Patmut‘iwn hayots‘ with respect to the content and scope of its depiction of things Armenian in their Islamic environment and in relation to it, must be continued. Using Arab and generally non-Armenian sources, also focusing on specific themes such as Armenian knowledge of and references to the Qur’an and the political

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geography of the Islamic world, this type of analysis should be applicable to the entire discipline of Armenian historiography. Whatever the outcomes, this task is overdue, the effort is immense but worthwhile. In the same spirit and less than a century after Patmut‘iwn hayots‘, Awetis Pērpērean (1802-70) published a continuation of it titled Patmut‘iwn Hayots‘ Skseal i 1772 Amē P‘rkch‘in minch‘ew Ts‘amn 1860 Zhamankagrut‘eamb Ereweli Irats‘ [History of the Armenians from the year 1772 of the Saviour to the year 1860 with a chronology of significant events], Istanbul, 1871; Anton Matat‘ia Garagashean (1818-1903), wrote K‘nnakan patmut‘iwn hayots‘ ěst noraguyn patmakan, lezuabanakan ew banasirakan teghekut‘eants‘ [Critical history of the Armenians in accordance with the latest historical, linguistic, and philological information], 4 vols, Tbilisi, 1895; Yovsēp‘ H. Gat‘rjean, (1820-82), wrote Tiezerakan patmut‘iwn i skzbanē minch‘ew ts‘mer zhjamanaks [Universal history from the beginning to our time], 2 vols, Vienna, 1849; Istanbul, 1851, 1852 (publication of this work was halted after the first two volumes because of its critical nature); Ghewond K‘erovp‘ē Alishan (1820-1901), a prolific author of historical and literary works; Patriarch Maghak‘ia Poghos Ōrmanean (1841-1918), a major historian of the Armenian Church. Publications Mik‘ayēl Ch‘amch‘eants‘, Patmut‘iwn hayots‘ i skzbanē ashkharhi minch‘ew ts‘am 1784 Deaṛn [History of the Armenians from the beginning of the world to the year 1784 of the Lord], vol. 1, Venice, 1784 (actual 1786); vol. 2, Venice, 1785 (actual 1787); vol. 3, Venice, 1786 (actual 1788), repr. Yerevan, 1985; 001078279 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) Mik‘ayēl Ch‘amch‘eants‘ts‘, Khrakhjan patmut‘ean hayots‘ [Feast/Enjoyment of the history of the Armenians], Venice, 1811; 008434690 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) Mik‘ayēl Ch‘amch‘eants‘ts‘, Gulzari tevarikh. Hay millet‘inē dayir hik‘ayēler ilē dōnanmish [Historical garden. Stories about the Armenian nation], Venice, 1812 Johannes Avdall (trans.), History of Armenia by Father Michael Chamich, 2 vols, Calcutta, 1827, repr. Whitefish MT, 2009; 001248105 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) Studies S.B. Dadoyan, Islam in Armenian literary culture. Texts, contexts, dynamics, Leuven, 2021

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S.B. Dadoyan (ed.), The Catholicosate of Cilicia. History, mission, treasures, Antelias, 2015 S.B. Dadoyan, The Armenians in the medieval Islamic world – fourthfourteenth centuries. Paradigms of cultural-political interactions, vol. 3. Medieval cosmopolitanism and images of Islam. Thirteenth to fourteenth centuries, New Brunswick NJ, 2013 S.B. Dadoyan, The Armenians in the medieval Islamic world – fourthfourteenth centuries. Paradigms of cultural-political interactions, vol. 2. Armenian realpolitik in the Islamic world and diverging paradigms. The case of Cilicia, eleventh to fourteenth centuries, New Brunswick NJ, 2012 S.B. Dadoyan, The Armenians in the medieval Islamic world – fourthfourteenth centuries. Paradigms of cultural-political interactions, vol. 1. The Arab period in Armīnyah. Seventh to eleventh centuries, New Brunswick NJ, 2011 Bardakjian, Reference guide to modern Armenian literature, pp. 92-4, 309-10 (includes a list of publications and studies up to 2000) M. Chanashean, Patmut‘iwn ardi hay grakanut‘ean [History of modern Armenian literature], vol. 1, Venice, 1953 B. Sargisean, Erkuhariwrameay krt‘akan gortsunēut‘iwn Venetkoy Mkhit‘arean miabanut‘ean [Two hundred years of educational activity of the Mkit‘arist order of Venice], vol. 1, Venice, 1936 Gh. Tayan, Mayr diwan Mkhit‘areants‘ i Venetkoy i Surb Ghazar. 17071772 [Main record-book of the Mkhit‘arists of Venice at St. Lazar. 1707-1772], Venice, 1930 M. Maghak-T‘eop‘ileants‘, Kensagrut‘iwn ereweli arants‘ [Biographies of prominent persons], 2 vols, Venice, 1839, vol. 1, pp. 811-14 Seta B. Dadoyan

Joseph Emin Yovšep‘ Emin, Hovsēpʻ Ēmin, Hovsep Emin, Joseph Émïn, Joseph Emïn, Joseph Ameen, Jo. Ameen, J. Emin, Iosif Emin Date of Birth 1726 Place of Birth Hamadan, Ottoman Empire Date of Death 2 August 1809 Place of Death Calcutta

Biography

Joseph Emin was a traveller and prominent figure in the history of efforts to liberate Armenia. He was born in 1726 to a Christian family in Hamadan (in present-day western Iran), then part of the Ottoman Empire, where previous generations of his Armenian family had settled (Emin, Life and adventures, ed. Amy Apcar (Emin’s great-great-granddaughter, with additional biographical material), 1918, pp. 2-5). In the early 1730s, his family moved to Baghdad, but violence and dangers there forced them to move to different locations, with Emin himself going to Calcutta (Emin, Life and adventures, pp. 5-16; Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin). In Calcutta, Emin studied English briefly at St Anne’s Charity School before departing for the United Kingdom on 14 February 1751 (Emin, Life and adventures, pp. 19, 23, 27; Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin). He lived in London, where he undertook various forms of work and study (Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin). Through a friendship he brokered with Edmund Burke (1729-97), he became acquainted with contemporary learning and the ideas of the Enlightenment, and was introduced to British high society (Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin). In 1755, Emin came under the patronage of the Earl of Northumberland, Hugh Smithson (also known as Hugh Percy; 1714-86), and Prince William, Duke of Cumberland (1721-65), the latter arranging for him to enter the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich (Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin; Emin, Life and adventures, pp. 54-64). Although this helped to further integrate him into high society (Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin), he was primarily motivated by the idea that he needed ‘to obtain military experience before pursuing his plans to free his country’ (Nalbandian, Armenian revolutionary movement, p. 23). After studying at the Academy for 13 months, Emin left for Prussia,

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where William was heading the Hanoverian Army of Observation as part of the invasion of Hanover (Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin). He was assigned to the Jäger battalion, fighting during the summer campaigns of 1557 in what would become known as the Seven Years’ War (1756-63) (Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin; Emin, Life and adventures, pp. 75-6). He was then assigned to General Guy Carlton (1724-1808) before being sent back to London (Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin; Emin, Life and adventures, pp. 75-6). In 1758, Emin decided to go back to the continent to volunteer for the Prussian Army but he returned to England shortly after (Emin, Life and adventures, pp. 115-21; Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin). Having obtained the military experience and connections he felt he required, Emin ventured to Turkey the following year. There, he attempted to stir up support for Armenian liberation before returning to England in 1761 (Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin; Nalbandian, Armenian revolutionary movement, p. 23). That year, he travelled to Russia, where he met with the Russian chancellor, Count Mikhail Illarionovich Voronstov (1714-67), and King Tʻeimuraz II (1680-1762) of Kʻartʻli (Nalbandian, Armenian revolutionary movement, pp. 172-6). He travelled within Russia and Caucasia before going to Georgia in 1763 (Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin). There, he entered the service of Heraclius (Erekle) II of Kakhetʻi (r. 1744-62) then Kʻartʻli and Kakhetʻi (r. 1762-98), whom he tried to persuade to invade neighbouring provinces in order to liberate Armenia. He was ordered to return to Russia by Heraclius in 1764 (Emin, Life and adventures, p. 248). He spent several years travelling within the Caucasus seeking to gain support for the liberation of Armenia and engaging in various military campaigns and exploits, before moving to Basra in the Ottoman Empire (Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin). In January 1770, Emin returned to Calcutta, where he joined the army of the East India Company. He served until the end of 1772, when he was granted leave to return to Basra (Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin; Emin, Life and adventures, pp. 429, 442-3). Whilst in India, he tried to gain financial assistance to organise a small army (Nalbandian, Armenian revolutionary movement, p. 24). In 1775, he joined East Indian Company forces under the command of Henry Moore during the siege of Basra (Emin, Life and adventures, pp. 450-3). He then travelled to Isfahan in Persia (Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin), where he married and became the father of two sons and two daughters (Emin, Life and adventures, pp. 457-8). Emin received permission to travel in 1783, when he and his eldest son left for Bombay (Emin, Life and adventures, pp. 468-73; Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin). In late 1784, he proceeded to Calcutta, where he rejoined the military despite his age

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(Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin). Around the same time, he began to pen his memoirs, which were completed in 1788 and first published in 1792 (Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin). His wife and family eventually joined him (Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin). Emin retired from the military and received a pension, but little is known about his later life (Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin). He died on 2 August 1809 and was buried in Calcutta (Emin, Life and adventures, p. 518).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Joseph Emin, The life and adventures of Joseph Émïn, an Armenian, London, 1792 Joseph Emin, The life and adventures of Emin Joseph Emin, ed. A. Apcar, Calcutta, 1918 (all references are taken from this edition) Secondary A.H. Tonoyan, ‘Religion and the conflict over Nagorno Karabakh’, Waco TX, 2012 (PhD diss. Baylor University), pp. 86, 92-3 M.H. Fisher, art. ‘Emin, Emin Joseph (1726-1809)’, in ODNB K. Bardakjian, A reference guide to modern Armenian literature, 1500-1920, Detroit MI, 2000, pp. 75-6 A.R. Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin, Yerevan, 1989 L. Nalbandian, The Armenian revolutionary movement. The development of Armenian political parties through the nineteenth century, Berkeley CA, 1963 R.C.T., review of ‘Life and adventures of Emin Joseph Emin, 1726-1809, written by himself. Second edition. Edited by his great-great-granddaughter, Amy Apcar. 4to, pp. xxxii, 532. Calcutta, 1918’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 53 (1921) 283-6

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations The life and adventures of Joseph Émïn Date 1792 Original Language English Description Emin began to write his memoirs, which he called The life and adventures of Joseph Émïn, after returning to India in 1784, at the behest of his friend William Jones (1746-94), who checked the grammar of the text and wrote its preface (Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin). A.R. Ioannisyan suggests that it

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took him around two-and-a-half years to complete the book, which was ready in mid-1788. Jones mentions that subscriptions for it had begun to be secured by early 1789 (Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin). It was printed and published in London in 1792. The first edition is not widely available, although a copy has been digitised by Bayerische StaatsBibliothek. It is 640 pages long. A second edition (used for all the references below), edited and supplemented by Emin’s great-great-granddaughter, Amy Apcar (also known as Ēmi Abgar), was published in 1918 by the Baptist Mission Press in Calcutta. The preface to this edition is 32 pages long, with the rest of the text coming to 532 pages. It includes letters and historical notes that are not present in the first edition. Throughout the work, there are frequent mentions of Muslims, Emin’s interactions with them, and the interactions between other Christians and Muslims. Indeed, since much of Emin’s life was spent travelling around and staying in various parts of the Caucasus and the Middle East, many of the people he encountered, befriended and lived alongside were Muslims. The Muslims who feature in his narrative are usually identifiable by the descriptors Mahomedan, Mahometan, Mohamedan, Musulman and related words, and national or ethnic categories such as Arab, Turk and Persian, or their names. These terms, as well as the spelling of personal and place names, vary radically in form throughout the book, though it does not appear that Emin used different renderings with any definite purpose. Muslims feature both as individuals with whom Emin interacts directly or observes and also as characters in his descriptions of historical and contemporary events. Emin’s descriptions of historical and contemporary Caucasian and Muslim events feature throughout the book, which comprises 31 chapters in three parts, totalling 485 pages. For example, the first chapter, which explores Emin’s family history, includes detailed historical descriptions of Ottoman-Persian conflicts in the early 18th century (pp. 2-15), along with Emin’s commentary. In one instance, Emin notes the differences between present-day Turks and those of old, writing that the ancient Turks penetrated as far as Europe, and possessed the august throne of Constantine, to the inexpressible disgrace of Christians, whose horrible ecclesiastical quarrel alone, made them subservient, even to the meanest and most despicable Turks; whose piratical diabolical law never would suffer them to execute or punish a Mahomedan for shedding Christian blood. A dog has more humanity shewn to him than the first class of men, the fathers of the church; who nevertheless, are their chief advocates, praying day and night to prolong the sovereignty of the Mahomedans. (pp. 156-7)

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This instance is particularly interesting since the historical domination of Christians by Muslims and ecclesiastical support for Muslim rule is used as a means of criticising the Church and the practices of Christians. Another instance is Emin’s description of the legal situation of Armenians in Persia. He writes that, under the law of Shah ʿAbbās I (r. 1587-1629), which was still active during the 18th century when Emin was writing, Armenians are able to hold events such as weddings and baptisms in public. He argues that this law is a means of attracting unmarried Armenian merchants to settle in the area and tax them (they are not afforded the same good treatment in Turkey), because it is after these merchants marry that officers come to demand the payment of extortionate taxes (p. 466). Emin’s first record of his direct interactions with Muslims appears in the first chapter. He records that, during his journey to Kashan with a Muslim caravan at the age of 16, his Muslim counterparts attempted to convert him and verbally abused him (p. 8). Adding a level of subtlety to the portrayal of his interactions with Muslims on the journey, he writes that, at Kashan, his Turkish charvadar (mule driver) took care of him when he was sick and defended him from his Persian fellow travellers who wanted to throw him into a pit (p. 9). Many of Emin’s records of interactions with Muslims refer to periods of joint travel such as this. Towards the end of his narrative, he records events that took place in 1768, when he joined a zavar (which he defines it as an ‘assembly of pilgrims’) that was heading to Baghdad (p. 413). He writes that the members of the zavar, the ‘abominable people of the Shia sect began to grumble at him for being a Caffer (kāfir, ‘unbeliever’); saying he was not worthy to travel with that holy zavar of Husein the martyred son of Ali’ (p. 413), and Emin therefore resolved to leave the group. Nevertheless, when he led a charge against a group of Kurds who were seeking to extort a toll from the zavar, he became so popular amongst his fellow travellers that he was elected as the zavar’s commander (p. 413). Members of the zavar, who he describes as fools but did not contradict through fear of ill treatment, told him that he was ‘an angel ordained to come down and take care of the most pious zavar of Hazrat Imam Husein’ (p. 414). Following a brief stay in Baghdad, Emin joined another Muslim caravan, during which time an Arab named Malalah offered to become his servant (p. 414). Emin refused his services because he was unable to pay him and because he himself was a Christian, but said that he would accept him as a comrade (p. 414). Malalah thanked Emin and stated: ‘Since you are so good and considerate as to know the difference between Christians

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and Musulmans, I will serve you like a slave, without any wages’ (p. 414). Members of the caravan were surprised, since the man was not Emin’s countryman, and exclaimed that Malalah had offered his services because of the goodness in Emin’s heart (p. 414). Emin and Malalah’s friendship flourished (p. 416). Near a location that Emin calls Sagshuff, Malalah hailed a boat, begging the owner to take them as passengers (p. 418). Those on the boat asked who Emin was and Malalah told them he was ‘an Ajam Shiah Musulman and warrior, belonging to Carim Khan, Sultan of Persia’ (p. 419). When Emin objected to this, Malalah reminded him that, should these men find out he was a Christian, they would kill the whole party (p. 419). He said, ‘You are not compelled to renounce your religion:- be patient only for a couple of days, when you will come into Sunni government, and then you may publicly profess your faith’ (p. 419). Malalah also said that, although he himself was a Shīʿī, he would not inform on Emin (p. 419). The Janissaries in their party (who were also pretending to be Shīʿī Muslims) also begged Emin (in the name of Christ) to say nothing (p. 419). Quoting from 1 Corinthians 9:22, Emin notes that he remained silent for the sake of his fellow travellers, but states that, if he had been alone, he would have declared his faith in order to ‘preserve his honour or fall a sacrifice for his faith’ (p. 419). Arriving at Sagshuff, the crew performed their prayers and Emin joined them, getting ‘up with open hands, prostrating himself on the turf five or six times as they did, till the prayers were over’ (p. 420). These episodes not only illustrate Emin’s personal friendship with Muslims, but also suggest a willingness on his part to partake in Muslim religious practices in order to avoid persecution. Other stories of Emin’s interactions with Muslims contain much greater detail. During his trip to Turkey at the end of the 1750s, a man whom Emin describes as a Janissary was sent to test him. Emin showed the man extraordinary politeness, and so the soldier declared that none of the Turks would harm him during his stay despite initial plans to the contrary (p. 146). In fact, the Janissary was so impressed by Emin that he noted his desire for Emin to be successful in his goal of liberating the Armenians (p. 146). Emin explains the favour shown to his cause by noting that the local Janissaries were often in revolt (p. 147), though this story, like some others in the text, seems somewhat fantastic. The majority of Emin’s records of personal or observed interactions with Muslims appear after his arrival in the Caucasus. In 1763, when he was counselling King Heraclius II, he argued that they should resist the demands of Muḥammad Karīm Khān Zand (r. 1751-79) of Persia (p. 210). In

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the event, Karim Khan was unable to act on his threats to invade Georgia because of a rebellion at home, and although Emin praises Heraclius’s decision to heed his advice, he also records his disappointment that the invasion had not taken place because he had hoped it would form the impetus for a Georgian-Armenian alliance and Armenia becoming a tributary to a Christian (as opposed to a Muslim) power (p. 211). In his account of his time in Heraclius’s service, Emin describes the king’s execution of a Muslim bandit leader, whom he names as Chouchol Mussa. This man had spat at the king and accused him of the contradiction of selling Christians into slavery whilst parading himself as a defender of Christians (p. 214). Mussa was captured whilst ‘mounted on a mule like Mahomed’ (p. 214) and, although he was not directly identified as a Muslim, the text notes that before his execution he began to say ‘La ilaha illallah’ and similar phrases (p. 214). Emin also records the building up of tension in response to the application to himself of the title ‘prince’. A Persian Turk named Secander Aga actually sought to persuade Heraclius that Emin should be killed for his military prowess and popularity (pp. 219-20). Armenian Christians also spoke against him, though Heraclius defended him (p. 221). As a military specialist, Emin was also involved in military conflict in his time in Georgia. During a battle with Muslim Lazguis (Lezgins, from the northern Caucasus), Emin called to his enemies: ‘You, Mahometans, why do you stand asking questions? This is neither a hummum [ḥammām, ‘public baths’] to wash, nor mejid [masjid, ‘mosque’] to pray in; fight away till you bleed’ (p. 224). Emin shot one of the Lazguis, forcing them to retreat, but later the Muslims charged at them shouting ‘Glory to Mahomet, and destruction to the Christians’ (p. 224). The account of the conflict continues for several pages, but with little religious content beyond these references. Emin was dismissed from Heraclius’s service in 1763. He went to Kizlyar in Dagestan, where he remained for a while due to illness. He met a mountain man named Atchakhan and gave him gifts of arrack and salt. Atchakhan asked to be taken into Emin’s service with 40 of his relatives (p. 253) and, when Emin refused this, citing his lack of funds, Atchakhan said that they did not seek payment but as Muslims they ‘only want your sense and management to rule over us, and give a disposition in battle like the Russians; by which we shall have all the money in the world’ (p. 254). Emin refused again on the basis that Christianity and Islam were in conflict, but Atchakhan replied:

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A soldier’s religion is his sword, once eating bread and salt makes them all brothers to eternity as if they had been born of one father and one mother. Let the Mulas and priests differ […] our business is fidelity and friendship; so God preserve you! (p. 254)

Atchakhan came back after two days with a gift of walnuts from his wife, and again two days later to receive Emin’s blessing with his 40 battleready family members (p. 254). When this number grew to around 12,000 (pp. 257, 259), Emin made plans to attack Georgia. He assured his forces that he ‘would not be reconciled to Heraclius […] though, in truth, he would not have changed one Georgian Christian for all the Mahometans in Asia’ (p. 260). Seemingly predicting the reader’s doubt about the truth of his tale, Emin notes that, although his story of amassing a force of 12,000 Muslims seems far-fetched, especially since he lacked money and was not a Muslim, the practice of Georgian leaders being selected by Muslims to attack Georgia was common (p. 264). After arriving in Khunzakh, Emin was received by Mahomed Khan (of the Avar Khanate) (p. 267). He records that, other than at times of prayer, Mahomed Khan never behaved like other Muslims, and notes the extraordinary care and hospitality he received from Mahomed Khan’s wife (p. 268). He also writes about her caring character, giving an account of her sorrow at the death of a disabled Georgian (thus Christian) slave (p. 268). Emin asked her whether the kind treatment she showed him was permitted under Muslim law (p. 268), and she replied that ‘humanity was the law of Nature, and greater than any law made by men in power’ (pp. 268-9). Emin refused an offer to marry one of the Khan’s daughters because of an oath he had made to a monk named Suciaz, which he records in an earlier passage (p. 269). Nevertheless, he declares that such was the good impression left on him by Mahomed Khan and his family that, had they been Christians, he would have been willing to stay with them indefinitely (p. 270). Mahomed Khan supplied Emin with a passport and 25 men to escort him to the village of Catukh (p. 270). Two days into their journey, he was captured by a Lazgui named Mahomed, who wanted to sell him into slavery (p. 271), but when he was confronted by Emin’s escort, the Lazgui begged Emin to ‘save [his] house, by saying that he was brought in as a guest, not as a slave’ (p. 272), to which Emin agreed. In Catukh, the letter (passport) written on behalf of Emin by Mohamed Khan was read by the mullah in the mosque during Friday prayers (p. 272).

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In Catukh, Emin stayed with a man called Haji Mustapha, who offered to take him to Talla so that he could meet with Armenian merchants he might join to reach Armenia (pp. 272-3). The merchants would not accept him into their caravan so he returned to stay with Mustapha but, while Mustapha was absent, the insults of some Armenian merchants who were lodging there compelled Mustapha’s wife to ask him to leave (pp. 274-5). The conflict was eventually resolved and Emin, who managed to persuade Mustapha not to kill his wife or the Armenians for their behaviour, then moved to the home of Mustapha’s second wife (p. 275). There, he was among people (from the Lazgui tribe) against whom he had previously fought, but ‘instead of revenging themselves, like other Mahomedans, they respected and loved him, expressing wonder how his few lads could stand so many hours against so many veterans’ (p. 275). A conflict initiated by Shahverdi Khan of Ganja broke out in 1766 and Emin, in charge of 40 Turks belonging to Mustapha, joined the Lazguis (on the side of Shahverdi Khan) to persecute the Shīʿa Muslims (p. 278; since Shahverdi Khan is known to have died in 1760, the reliability of this account is brought into question). He had thus made ‘Mahomedans a prey to Mahomedans […] to save some thousands of helpless Christians’ (p. 280). During one skirmish, a mullah came forward holding the Qur’an and begging for mercy (p. 281). In response, Emin attempted to calm his men, but before he was able to persuade them, ‘the Mulah and his Koran were cut to pieces’ (p. 281). During this conflict, Emin began to put into action his plan to humiliate the Muslim forces he was fighting alongside. He persuaded the commander of the Lazguis, Husein (whom he refers to as stupid), to set up camp in an open place and he began to free Kurdish prisoners, ordering them to organise an attack on the Lazguis during the night (pp. 285-6). Emin later left the company of the Lazguis, ‘who being Mahometans, and thirsty for the blood of Christians, could not very well agree with Emin’s disposition and principles, since he would always rather chuse to die than see a Christian enslaved’ (p. 291), and rejoined Mustapha (whom he describes as a friend) and his family. Emin records that his expedition with the Lazguis had the positive effect of instigating the desertion of Shahverdi Khan’s army, conflict between Sunnīs and Shīʿīs, and the enslavement of Kurds by the Lazguis (p. 291). Emin records Shahverdi’s death much later in the text, attributing his assassination to an Armenian convert to Islam who, ‘not contented with his new religion […] shot the khan to death’ (p. 387). The reason the assassin gave, Emin explains, is so that he could be killed for his apostasy (p. 388).

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Emin provides an account of a battle near Getashen between the local chief, Melech Yusup, and Mohammed Hassan Khan (d. 1785) (pp. 295-6). Emin persuaded the chief’s forces not to flee, reminding them that if they did this their wives and children would be made Muslim slaves, pointing to his own readiness to die as a Christian, and telling them of a vision of John the Baptist, who had roused him from his sleep to help them and who would fight alongside them (pp. 296-7). Mohammed Hassan Khan’s second in command, Ballah Mahomed, prepared for a counter-attack and, coming towards the Armenian forces, he insulted the chief by saying that his forces would violate the clan’s women and sell those who were captured into slavery (p. 298). He said he had dreamt ‘that he was amusing himself with the Armenian young married women; and that the virgins were sent by Mahomed the great prophet to his seraglio’ (p. 298). Emin records that this angered both God and the chief’s men (p. 299). One of Yusup’s soldiers fired at Ballah Mahomed and he fell from his horse, causing his men to flee and leading to the victory of the Armenians (p. 299). Mohammed Hassan Khan returned with new troops, and several Armenian Christians, including Melech Hatham and Johannes the Catholicos, came to Yusup’s camp with some of Hassan’s officers to try to broker peace (pp. 302-3). Yusup stated that God would give him victory and entreated Hatham to leave Hassan’s service (p. 303), but Hatham declined saying that he had sworn on scripture to either broker peace or return to Hassan’s service (p. 303). Meanwhile, as part of a plan hatched with Emin, a Turkish Muslim named Babba, who was in Yusup’s service, shot a bird of prey and presented it to Yusup to bring luck in battle (p. 304). Yusup gave him only a tiny reward, but Emin paid the man with a Venetian half-zeckin (p. 304). Yusup told Hatham that Emin was very wealthy, and had offered to pay five zeckins for every Muslim captured or killed during the battle (pp. 304-5). This act of deception proved effective, and Hatham was immediately sent again by Hassan to Yusup to beg for peace (p. 305). Among the events of 1771-5, Emin describes the defeat of Karim Khan and the ensuing conflict during which he volunteered to fight against the Persian-Arab forces of Suduk Khan on the side of the English and Turks in Basra (pp. 450-1). He provides a detailed description of Persia following the death of Karim Khan (pp. 458-60), when Emin was initially put in charge of Julpha (Julfa) with the job of raising taxes and employing Armenian soldiers (pp. 462-3). Describing events in Julpha, Emin records that during the 40-day reign of Ali Naqi Khan, which was full of violence (particularly against women) and extortion, the khan’s Muslim officers did

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not enter the street where he lived (p. 465). Emin had threatened to kill any Muslim officers who came near his house, and was thus able to save himself and his family from the thievery of Ali Naqi Khan’s forces (p. 466). Emin’s treatment of Muslims in his Life and adventures is complex. On the one hand, it is grounded firmly in the context of ongoing conflict between Christians and Muslims. In the first chapter, he records the origins of his name and predictions made about his life by his great-greatgrandfather, who said that by God’s assistance, [he] will lift up the sword of defence to revenge the cause of his country and the blood of his ancestors, that was shed for the truth, and in the most sacred path of Christianity. Never despair, Mahometanism shall fail, and will be subdued under us true believers in God. (p. 4)

He thus establishes himself as an anti-Muslim hero from the outset. On the other hand, alongside his antagonistic and conflictual interactions with Muslims, the text also records amicable relations. Despite Emin’s generally anti-Muslim stance, the book, through its image of Muslims as both enemies and friends (and sometimes simultaneously both), offers a multifaceted vision of Christian-Muslim relations. Emin’s efforts to portray himself as an anti-Muslim hero are often coupled with a narrative that betrays his reliance on Muslim friendship and charity, and his fondness for his counterparts. The text also illustrates different assessments about different types of Muslims. It is clear, for example, that, with the exception of Malalah, Emin dislikes Shīʿīs. Ethno-national elements are also at play, and Emin seems for the most part to prefer Turkish Muslims to Arabs or Persians. Significance The extensive and multidimensional image of both experienced and observed Christian-Muslim relations presented in Emin’s book is a highly important testimony to the historical realities of interreligious dialogue and interactions in the Caucasus, despite the occasional appearance of elements that seem to be exaggerated or fantastic. Nevertheless, the work has had very little scholarly or religious influence, and Emin’s works and life have not been the subject of in-depth study by Western scholars. Therefore, although the book represents an important historical document for those who wish to understand Christian-Muslim relations in the Caucasus during the 18th century, it has had little influence either during the 18th century or beyond.

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Publications Joseph Emin, The life and adventures of Joseph Émïn, an Armenian, London, 1792, repr. Whitefish MT, 2009; bsb10062960 (digitised version available through MDZ) Joseph Emin, The life and adventures of Emin Joseph Emin 1726-1809, ed. A. Apcar, Calcutta, 19182, repr. London, 2012; lifeadventuresof00eminuoft (digitised version available through Internet Archive) Hovsēpʻ Ēmin, Hovsēpʻ Ēmini keankʻn u arkatsnerě, trans. H. Khash­ manean, Beirut, 1958 (Armenian trans.) Hovsēpʻ Ēmin, Hovsepʻ Ēmini kyankʻn u arkatsnerě, trans. Gohar Murad­ yani and Aram Tʻopʻchʻyani, Yerevan, 2018 (Armenian trans.) Studies H. Garcia, ‘Re-orienting the Bluestockings. Chivalric romance, manliness, and empire in Joseph Emin’s letters’, Huntington Library Quarterly 81/2 (2018) 227-55 R. Żerelik, ‘Hovsep Emin i jego wydana w Londynie w 1792 r. autobiografia “The life and adventures of Joseph Émïn, an Armenian, written in English by himself, London 1792”’, in E. Kościk, F. Wolański and R. Żerelik (eds), Staropolski ogląd świata, Toruń, 2017, 413-26 D. Fittante, ‘Broadening the discourse. A critical assessment of traditional accounts of The life and adventures of Joseph Emin’, Armenian Review 55/3-4 (2017) 1-18 B. Braude, ‘Introduction’, in B. Braude (ed.), Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire, Boulder CO, 2014, 1-50 Ioannisyan, Iosif Emin James Harry Morris

Yovhannēs Karnec‘i Date of Birth About 1750 Place of Birth Karin (Erzurum) Date of Death Mid-1820s Place of Death Karin

Biography

Yovhannēs Karnec‘i was a poet, scribe and teacher who spent his whole life in Karin (the Armenian name for Erzurum), apart from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem that permitted him to use the honorific epithet  mahtesi. His approximate lifespan may be deduced from the dates of his works, the earliest of which were penned in the early 1770s, while his last dated composition appeared in 1819. Biographical evidence is provided almost exclusively from data he discloses in his verses and the colophons of manuscripts he copied, of which ten are extant in the collection of the Maštoc‘ Matenadaran Institute in Yerevan (8422, 9039, 9005). He also describes himself as a deacon (tirac‘u) and seems to have practised as a notary (nōtar).  He began his literary and scribal pursuits as a teenager and sometimes revisited his earlier compositions, in some cases to elaborate and embellish while in others to abbreviate his treatment. He also showed skill in the scribal arts, executing complex headpieces and initials and perhaps engaging in the fuller illumination of some of his commissions.  Karnec‘i left five extensive narratives in elevated verse, four of which constitute the martyrologies examined here, while the final example documents a famine that struck his home region in 1813, affecting both the Christian and Muslim populations. His oeuvre also embraces about 130 shorter poems, mostly on the theme of secular love, the majority of which still await publication. That they were intended for performance is indicated by references to the names of the well-known melodies to which they were meant to be sung. A smaller number of poems are devoted to religious subjects, while Karnec‘i also experimented with the quatrain form. The final aspects of his literary activity involve poems in Armeno-Turkish and translations of original works of Armenian verse into Armeno-Turkish for the growing numbers of Armenians who had lost currency in Armenian. These include translations of the liturgical output of

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the eloquent Armenian poet-catholicos Komitas (7th century) and works of Nersēs Šnorhali (d. 1173). 

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Source Yerevan, Maštoc‘ Matenadaran Institute  – M9652 (1776); M3017 (1777); M8422 (1778); M9039 (1779); M9917 (1788); M8801 (1798-1813); M8733 (18th century) M7672 (1800); M3227 (1801-13); M6797 (1802); M8742 (1802); M9957 (1806); M9959 (1806); M9958 (1809); M4580 (1811); M9005 (1811); M10475 (1811); M2597(1813); M6534 (1813); M9925 (1813); M9926 (1813); M9953 (1813); M9956 (1813); M9949 (1813-15); M8781 (1819); M9383 (1819); M9955 (1819); M6682 (1820); M6601 (1822); M6694 (19th century); M8868 (19th century); M9950 (19th century); M9951 (19th century); M9952 (19th century); M9954 (19th century)   Secondary Source K.B. Bardakjian,  A reference guide to modern Armenian literature, 1500-1920, Detroit MI, 2000, pp. 111, 568 Š. Nazaryan, Hovhannes Karnec‘i Tałaran, Yerevan, 1962, pp. 5-21 Y. Manandean and H. Ač‘aṙean, Hayoc‘ nor vkanerə (1155-1843), Vałarshapat, 1903, pp. 601, 673 H. Ačaṙyan, Hayoc‘ anjnanunneri baṙaran, Yerevan, 1946, vol. 3, p. 703 

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Four martyrologies Date 1778-1810 Original Language Armenian Description The first narrative, entitled Yałags umemn Msər koč‘ec‘eal Sahak mankan, ‘On a certain youth Sahak called Msər’ (in full,  Yałags umemn Msər koč‘ec‘eal Sahak mankan, or i č‘ar ew yangut‘ mōrēn zrparteal matnec‘aw i jeṙs anōrinac‘ ... šaradreal i nōtar Yohannisē Karnec‘woy ... i ṘMIĒ t‘woǰ, ‘On a certain youth Sahak called Msər who was traduced by his wicked unaffectionate mother and was entrusted into the hands of the Muslims ... composed by the notary Yovhannēs Karnec‘i ... in the year 1227 [of the Armenian era = 1778]’), focuses on a virtuous, diligent 20-year-old youth named Sahak, also known as Msər, whose father dies, leaving him and his two brothers. Their mother is harsh and neglectful and spends their

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inheritance on a loose and indulgent lifestyle. Sahak especially reacts so deeply to her behaviour that he determines to leave home and try his luck as an economic migrant in the Ottoman capital. However, he falls ill there and so, disillusioned, he returns home with his paternal uncle’s assistance. During his stay in Constantinople, he incurred certain debts, and soon after his return his creditor appears to claim repayment of the loan, renewing the dispute between mother and son. Sahak pleads with her to give him his father’s belt, only to learn that she had already sold it along with other possessions. Losing his temper, he accuses her of caring more for her lovers than her family, arguing she does not love him. She retorts by cursing him and writing a petition to the pasha in which she ironically disparages him as a brawler, frittering away her resources, and begs him for swift recourse. Accordingly, officers quickly apprehend the youth and lead him to the tribunal for the pasha’s interrogation.  Sahak is put in prison, where is approached by the pasha’s son with an appeal to convert to Islam. This is repeated by the pasha during his next review of Sahak’s case, and when Sahak rejects the invitation, he is sent to the qadi to be sentenced to death. When the sentence is pronounced, the scene turns to Sahak’s prayers of thanksgiving as he goes to the gallows. As the youth meets his death, groups of women vilify his mother for her lack of parental affection, driving her from the square by cursing and throwing stones. That night a light illumines the youth’s dead body as an indication that he is a true martyr, striking awe into both Christians and Muslims, while the pasha experiences a terrible dream, as a result of which he commands the corpse to be taken down from the gallows. The burial then proceeds with sober ceremony, the light reappearing that night.  The martyrdom occurred on 23 June 1778 and Karnec‘i’s original version of the text was drafted the same year. However, a decade later, he was persuaded by some friends to elaborate it. His prose preface to the revision also details the martyrdom of Pali Karnec‘i in the early 1780s.  In the second poem, entitled  Karnec‘i omn Yarut‘iwn anun eritasard nahatakeal, ‘A youth named Yarut‘iwn Karnec‘i was martyred’ (in full, Karnec‘i omn Yarut‘iwn anun eritasard nahatakeal i jIzmir k‘ałak‘ i 1255 t‘uoǰ ew p‘etrvar 26: ełelut‘ean lurn haseal i Karin əst aynm lroy šaradreal ełew yumemnē nōtarē, ‘A youth named Yarut‘iwn Karnec‘i was martyred in the city of Smyrna on 26 February 1255. News of the event reached Erzurum, on the basis of which it was composed by a certain notary’), the protagonist is Yarut‘iwn, the tall, sturdy son of a pious maker of leather sandals named Ałek‘sandr from the city of Erzurum. Yarut‘iwn was victorious in feats of strength but not so successful in financial affairs, despite

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his training and hard work at his craft. As his brother Karapet had moved to Smyrna at an earlier point to ply his trade, Yarut‘iwn decided to pay him a visit, encountering difficulties on his way to Constantinople overland but continuing thereafter by ship. Delighted to be with his brother after such an interval, he celebrated at an inn, where they drank with a group of Muslims who egged him on until he became drunk. At this juncture they invited him to join their religion, and it appears he accepted their overture. Sobered up by morning, he asked at his lodgings why he was wearing green clothes and, on being informed it was in token of his acceptance of Islam, he became enraged and entered into denial. His brother suggested that he should go to the residence of the foreign delegation in Smyrna, who arranged for him to gain passage on a ship to Europe. However, the youth later repented and wished to return to the place of his renunciation to face death if need be.  Returning to the main square, he was surrounded by a throng who took him to court and queried his hesitation to confess the new faith he had accepted. When he avowed that he remained firm in his original Christian faith, he was subjected to various kinds of torture, having his nails pulled out, being made to sit on a burning frying pan, having a heated metal cup placed on his head and thereafter suspended from it, and undergoing prolonged bastinado. Nevertheless, despite the Muslims’ repeated demands, he refused to yield over twelve days of torture in prison, leaving the jailers amazed at his fortitude, while his brother and the Armenian community kept abreast of developments at a distance.  After the death penalty was pronounced, Yarut‘iwn made a stalwart confession at the place of execution and was swiftly decapitated. The Christians offered a large sum to secure his burial. When they obtained his body, the bishop and all the clergy escorted it to the church of St Step‘anos, where he was laid to rest in a tomb, before which they set a large standing lamp. Subsequently, news was brought to his family in Erzurum who lamented their loss.  Karnec‘i concludes by commending his parents for having a martyr as a son, stating he should now be the boast of his home city. His martyrdom occurred on 26 February 1806.  At the centre of the third martyrology, entitled  Yałags Vaṙvaṙ anun umemn ariasirt ałǰkan, ‘On a certain brave-hearted girl named Vaṙvaṙ’ (in full,  Yałags Vaṙvaṙ anun umemn ariasirt ałǰkan tełoyn snndean ew azgi norin ew pataheal dipvacoc‘n, or krelov zbazum višts nahatakec‘aw vasn anuan Yisusi K‘ristosi Astucoy meroy ṘMCT‘ t‘vin i mankavarž nōtar mahtesi Yōhannisē Karnec‘woy yarmari i ṘMK t‘vin otanavor ut‘otaneay,

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‘On a certain brave-hearted girl called Vaṙvaṙ, her place, upbringing and extended family and the events that happened to her, who having borne many sorrows was martyred for the name of Jesus Christ our God in the year 1259 [of the Armenian era = 1810] composed by the teacher, notary, pilgrim Yovhannēs Karnec‘i in the year 1260 [of the Armenian era = 1811] in octosyllabic verse’), is a girl named Vaṙvaṙ, was from the village of Dvnik in the vicinity of Erzurum. In the 19th century, the village consisted of 505 Armenian and 103 Turkish households.  Vaṙvaṙ’s parents have arranged for her to marry a youth from the smaller village of Łušč‘i. When the wedding party from there arrives in Vaṙvaṙ’s village with great celebration, the village agha is not in their number as her parents have omitted to invite him. He is annoyed at this oversight and resolves to take revenge by spreading malicious rumours about her to Bahram, the pasha, to the effect that she  loved a Turkish youth and that accordingly the law demands that she should marry him and thereby fulfil her ‘promise’. The pasha approves this plan to take her from her husband, convert her to Islam and give her as a wife to a Turkish youth. Thus, the imam, Išil, takes Vaṙvaṙ to his home to oversee her conversion. When she stubbornly rejects his counsels, he subjects her to various types of torture for several days, including bastinado and lowering her body into icy water. Finally, when these efforts prove futile, the pasha is compelled to draw up a document allowing the girl to keep her faith when she marries the Turkish youth, an agreement to which Vaṙvaṙ gives her apparent assent. Nevertheless, the girl finds this option equally unacceptable and she laments her fate.  Subsequently, her resolve hardens and, rejecting her new husband’s affection, she plans to escape from his house by night. This stirs up the anger of the local Muslim population who compile a petition for the new pasha, Ibrahim. On his arrival, he personally assumes responsibility for the case, initially imprisoning some Turkish villagers before fining and releasing them, while shackling and imprisoning some of their Armenian counterparts. When Vaṙvaṙ’s brother Gaspar refuses to disclose her whereabouts, the pasha applies pressure to make him convert to Islam and when he refuses, he puts him to death. Finally, intelligence from some Turkish women reveals where the Armenian girl is, which speedily leads to the trial and hanging of both Vaṙvaṙ and the Armenian woman who was giving her protection. After their bodies are brought down from the gallows and given burial, various miracles begin to occur. 

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The work concludes with five ‘appendices, a panegyric of Erzurum for bearing such martyrs, a song in honour of the martyrs of Dvnik, and three eulogistic grave inscriptions for the wider martyrs, for Vaṙvaṙ, and for Mariam. The martyrdoms occurred in 1810.  The fourth poem, Babert‘ kałakoǰ Łazar anun omn eritasard nahatakeal, ‘A youth named Łazar was martyred in the city of Babert‘’ (in full, I Babert‘ kałakoǰ Łazar anun omn eritasard nahatakeal 1258 t‘uoǰ, lurn haseal ast i Karin ew jomanc‘ nahatakasēr anjanc‘ harkadrec‘eal ew əst aynm lroy harmareal ełew bans yumemnē nōtarē, ‘A youth named Łazar was martyred in the city of Babert‘ in the year 1258 [of the Armenian era = 1809]. The news reached here in Erzurum and under the constraint of certain martyr-loving persons and on the basis of this news, this narrative was composed by a certain notary’), which narrates the martyrdom of a certain Łazar in the year 1809, remains unpublished. In the manuscripts, this 100-line poem is followed by another of 16 lines by the author on the same subject. Significance Karnec‘i’s work represents the transition from the late medieval to a more modern perspective in terms of versification, literary sensibilities and the characteristics of the genre of martyrology. His penchant for acrostic and application of verse in eight-syllable lines, the traditional vehicle for long narrative poems, aligns him with the past, while his use of the ten-syllable line positions him in what was to become the 19th-century mainstream. Similarly, his developed treatment of the tales of Sahak and Vaṙvaṙ leaves behind the norms of medieval poetry in terms of presenting the narrative in a single seamless form in favour of the conventions of the romance (vipasanut‘iwn), incorporating several sections with subheadings and opening with a preface to readers. Karnec‘i is also very conversant with the tropes of martyrology, underscoring his sense of the rarity of Yarut‘iwn’s confession by means of the metaphor of the ‘rose blooming in winter’, while Yarut‘iwn’s executioners are portrayed in the Gospel pose of ‘grinding their teeth’ and most of the martyrdoms and burials are accompanied by the confirmatory appearance of light to vindicate the reality of their Christian faith. At the same time, while medieval martyrology can appear highly formulaic and deploy rather stock characters, this author is at pains to create vivid vignettes of social life with animated dialogue and interchange peopled with fairly individualised actors.  Some of the works also manifest significant variations from the parallel narratives that were available. This is particularly noticeable in the case of the martyr Yarut‘iwn, about whom a concise prose account is

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extant that claims to rest on the recollections of aged residents of Smyrna (Manandean and Ač‘aṙean,  Hayoc‘ nor vkanerə, pp. 627-8). There, for example, the incident of the youth’s acceptance of Islam is handled differently. Instead of carousing with Muslims who persuade him to take that step, after leaving an inn with some friends he encounters a group of Janissaries with their banner unfolded who take him with them to a khan to spend the night in what appears to be a recruiting mission. Realising his situation, he runs away at dawn to the Odun Pazar market to the shop of the barber Hajji Gēorg, a Christian. Gēorg introduces him to the influential Aprōean family, who make arrangements for him to sail on a French ship, where he undergoes the qualms of conscience Karnec‘i rehearses. It is therefore, according to this account, the Janissaries who oversee his execution in front of the Hisar mosque . Also striking is the protagonist’s desire to send his parents a bone from one of his thumbs as a memorial, an undertaking his brother accepts. Publications Yałags umemn Msər koč‘ec‘eal Sahak mankann MS Yerevan, Maštoc‘ Matenadaran Institute  – M3227 (fols 41r-62v); M4596 (fols 11v-20r); M8020 (fols 2r-18r); M8021 (fols 1r-19r); M8733 (fols 1r-20r); M9917 (fols 2r-17r); M9917 (fols 2r-17r); M9929 (fols 1r-4v); M8868 (fols 1r-16v)    Y. Manandean and H. Ač‘aṙean,  Hayoc‘ nor vkanerə (1155-1843), Vałarshapat, 1903, pp. 572-604  Yałags Vaṙvaṙ anun umemn ariasirt ałǰkan MS Yerevan, Maštoc‘ Matenadaran Institute – M4596 (fols 25r-33v)  ‘Patmut‘iwn Dēvnēkc‘i nahatakac‘n’ [History of the martyrs of Dēvnēk], Ararat (1895) 445-52 (incomplete, lacking 24 lines) Manandean and Ač‘aṙean, Hayoc‘ nor vkanerə, pp. 647-74  Karnec‘i omn Yarut‘iwn anun eritasard nahatakeal MS Yerevan, Maštoc‘ Matenadaran Institute  – M3227 (fols 64r-69r); M4596 (fols 20v-25r); M9957 (fols 15-16r); M9959 (fols 1r-6r)  Manandean and Ač‘aṙean, Hayoc‘ nor vkanerə, pp. 620-30  I Babert‘ kałakoǰ Łazar anun omn eritasard nahatakeal MS Yerevan, Maštoc‘ Matenadaran Institute  – M4580 (fols 2r-24r); M4596 (fols 25r-33r); M9005 (fols 1r-20r); 4540 (fols 1r-11r)  Studies Nazaryan, Hovhannes Karnec‘i Tałaran, pp. 5-21  S. Peter Cowe

Tʻeimuraz Bagrationi Tʻeimuraz Batonishvili, Tʻeimuraz Batonišvili Date of Birth 23 April 1782 Place of Birth Tbilisi Date of Death 25 October 1846 Place of Death St Petersburg

Biography

Prince Tʻeimuraz Bagrationi, the son of Giorgi XII (r. 1798-1800), the last king of Kʻartʻli and Kakhetʻi in central Georgia, was born in 1782. Following the death of his mother, he was brought up under the supervision of his grandfather, Erekle II (r. 1744-98), and his father. He was taught by the best scholars and tutors of the day at Tʻelavi Seminary, where he studied philosophy, history, logic, rhetoric and geography, among other subjects. In 1801, the Russian Tsar Alexander I abolished the Kingdom of Kʻartʻli and Kakhetʻi, and ordered the representatives of the Georgian royal dynasty into exile in Russia. In 1803, Tʻeimuraz fled to Iran, where he joined his uncle, Prince Alekʻsandre, leader of the struggle against Russia, and he remained there from 1803 to 1810, together with the other princes, Alekʻsandre, Iulon, Pʻarnaoz, seeking the help of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (r. 17971834) to liberate Georgia. In 1809, during the negotiations leading up to the Russo-Iranian peace treaty, the Russians tried but failed to win him over, though he gradually became convinced that the Georgian princes’ antiRussian activities were to no avail and he was forced to leave for Russia. Tʻeimuraz described this period in Iran in his Sparsuli Dġiurebi (‘Persian diaries’). During this period, he familiarised himself with the history and literature of Persia, read Persian historical sources, and wrote a number of works, including Aġcera mokled acindelisa sparsetʻis mpqrobeltʻa šahtʻa gvareulobisa qajartʻasa, tʻu sadidgan carmoeben… (‘A brief description of the present rulers of Persia, shahs of the Qajar House, and whence they originate…’) and Samocʻeuli (‘Sixty poems’) in praise of the Virgin, with acrostics devoted to Jesus Christ, St George and other saints. He also studied Persian, Turkish, French and Italian, and compiled Italiur-sparsultʻurkʻuli lekʻsikoni (‘Italian-Persian-Turkish dictionary’). Later, in 1818, he

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translated the Psalter and the Acts of the Apostles from Georgian into Turkish and Persian. From 1811, Tʻeimuraz lived in St Petersburg, where he gathered around him Georgian poets, translators and scholars. From 1830, he began a scholarly cooperation with the French Orientalist M.-F. Brosset, who regarded himself as Tʻeimuraz’s pupil. Together with Brosset and D. Chubinashvili, he laid the foundations of the St Petersburg Kartvelological School, and determined the direction of its future activities. Among his works, Istoria dacqebitʻgan iveriisa (‘History of Iveria from the beginning’) traces the history of Georgia from ancient times, and Ganmarteba poema vepʻxistqaosanisa (‘Commentary on the poem “The knight in the panther’s skin”’) is a study of the famous poem by Shotʻa Rustʻaveli. Tʻeimuraz died in 1846 and was buried in St Petersburg in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary M.-F. Brosset, Histoire et littérature de la Georgie, St Petersburg, 1838, p. 37 A. Xaxanašvili, ‘Tʻeimuraz Batonišvilis sabiograpʻio masalad’ [Prince Tʻeimuraz Batonišvili: biographical material], Savačro Gza 17 (1908) 3 P. Karbelašvil, ‘Tʻeimuraz Batonišvili’ [Prince Teimuraz Batonišvili], Sakʻartʻvelo 144 (1916) p. 2; 146 (1916) pp. 2-3; 148 (1916) pp. 2-3 Š. Mesxia, Tʻeimuraz Batonišvilis cʻxovreba da moġvaceoba. // Masalebi Sakʻartʻve­ losa da Kavkasiis istoriisatʻvis [Life and deeds of Prince Tʻeimuraz Batonišvili. // Materials for the history of Georgia and Caucasia], Tbilisi, 1939, vol. 1, pp. 18-78 S. Iordanašvili, Masalebi Tʻeimuraz Batonišvilis cignsacʻavis katalogi [Material for the biography of Prince Tʻeimuraz Batonišvili], Tbilisi, 1948, pp. 67-87 G. Imedašvili, ‘Tʻeimuraz Batonišvilis Rustʻvelologiuri cʻdani’ [The Rustvelological attempts of Prince Tʻeimuraz Batonišvili], Literaturuli Dziebani 5 (1949) 175-99 Secondary D. Rayfield, The literature of Georgia. A history, London, 2010, p. 148 L. Menabde, Dzveli Kʻartʻuli literaturis šescavlis istoria da tʻanamedrove mdgomareoba [History of the study of old Georgian literature and the contemporary situation], Tbilisi, 2005, pp. 15-17 D. Menabde, ‘Dzveli Kʻartʻuli samogzauro-memuaruli mcerlobis istoriidan (Pʻavlenišvili, I. Gedevanišvili, Tʻ. Bagrationi)’ [From the history of old Georgian travel-memoir literature (Pavlenishvili, I. Gedevanishvili, T. Bagrationi)], Mcignobari 98 (1998) 89-101

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Ar. Baramidze and G. Šaradze, art. ‘Tʻeimuraz Batonišvili’, in Kʻartʻuli sabčotʻa encʻiklopedia, Tbilisi, 1979, vol. 4, p. 642 G. Šaradze, Tʻeimuraz Bagrationi, 2 vols, Tbilisi, 1972, 1974 I. Megrelidze, ‘Pirveli Kʻartʻveli akademikosi’ [The first Georgian academician], Samšoblo (26 September 1969) 4 V. Parkadze, ‘Tʻeimuraz Bagrationi’, Mecʻniereba da Tekʻnika 3 (1968) 19-22 A. Abramišvili, ‘Tʻeimuraz Batonišvilis biograpʻiistʻvis. Rusetʻis pirveli kʻartʻveli akademikosi’ [‘Biography of Prince Tʻeimuraz Batonišvili. The first Georgian Academician of Russia], Literaturuli Cerilebi [Literary essays], Tbilisi, 1968, 64-85 T. Ruxadze, ‘Tʻeimuraz Batonišvili’, Dzveli Kʻartʻuli lirikis istoriidan [From the history of old Georgian lyric poetry], Tbilisi, 1954, 121-32

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Sparsuli dġiurebi ‘Persian diaries’ Date 1803-10 Original Language Georgian Description Tʻeimuraz Bagrationi wrote Sparsuli dġiurebi (‘Persian diaries’) during his time in Iran. It recounts the events of 1803-4, though as G. Sharadze, its editor, points out, Tʻeimuraz must have continued working on it up to 1810, throughout his stay in the country. The circumstances of Bagrationi’s flight to Iran and his life there are set out in Axali motʻxroba (‘New narrative’) by his contemporary, the historian Prince Bagrat (1776-1841). Two copies of Sparsuli dġiurebi are preserved in the K. Kekelidze National Centre of Manuscripts: A-1764-a, an autograph text with narration in the first person, and A-1764-b, written in the third person by an unknown hand (presumably in 1811), though the two texts are almost identical. The work remained unpublished until 1972, when Sharadze included it in Tʻeimuraz Bagrationi, where it is 28 pages long (vol. 1, pp. 183-211). All references here are to this edition. The title Sparsuli dġiurebi is not used by T‘eimuraz, but is supplied by the editor. The text is written in the traditional form of a diary, and it lacks the beginning and end. It consists mainly of daily notes. During his stay in Iran, T‘eimuraz studied Persian, familiarised himself with the history and culture of the country, and read relevant books. He describes with rare precision the military campaign of the Russian troops

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to Char-Belakʻan, the Navruz feast, the shah’s court in Tehran, the capture of Ganja, and so on. A number of historical persons and places are mentioned, as are incidents such as Tʻeimuraz’s capture by robbers, and the capture of his uncle, Prince Iulon, by Russians. In the Persian diaries, it is especially noteworthy that Bagrationi, a prince brought up on the Christian tradition, shows tolerance and love towards Muslims in the north Caucasus and Iran. It is understandable that he and his companions should mention good relations with the shah and high-ranking state officials, since they had sought refuge with them. But in the diary there are also numerous details of goodwill, mutual assistance and respect between Christians and Muslims, including common people, which Tʻeimuraz always describes without bias: All the men of the land came and presented themselves to us, as if they were honouring patrons. If we were not guests, they would be interrogating us, but they were submissively obedient to our commands, and one by one happily gave faithful service. I thanked every one of them. (p. 191)

It is also noteworthy that the relationships are mutual – followers of both religions are ready to lend a helping hand to persons of the other religion, as though the realities of human relations are more important than religious differences. The beginning of the text recounts an episode when a Muslim from the Caucasus named Ali rescues Tʻeimuraz, not at all thinking about the religious difference between them and opposing his compatriots in doing this. The Muslim Ali says to T‘eimuraz: Son of the King! I’m afraid of these foolish men, lest they attempt to rob you. Give me what you have to bury it, and in the next hour you will arrive safely. As though he was saying to me: My Lord! I serve you, not for things, but for love. (pp. 188-9)

Tʻeimuraz greatly appreciates Ali’s action and comments: ‘I will not be able to pay my debt to him in my lifetime, related to his kindness shown towards me and my ruined family. The more so, as he was not obliged either by religion or anything else’ (p. 191). The diary describes a number of other examples of joint military advances of the Christian Georgians and Muslim Lezgins against Orthodox Christian Russian troops as they fought together against their common enemy’s pursuit of colonialist ambitions regarding Georgia: ‘On Monday 9 March 1803, the Russians came upon us fiercely, and with the help of the Lezgins, we struggled for a few hours and succeeded’ (p. 193). The kindness of the Muslim Iranians towards the Christian Georgians is evident from events described in the diary, such as the reception and hosting of the Georgians at the shah’s court in Tehran:

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Mola, one of the elders, came and stood before the governor and said something about his day, in Arabic. Then came Vizier Mirza Riza Kuli and Nazir Ismail-Beg. Two servants took a container full of gold and silver and Ismail Begman dropped it at our side, giving us all a handful of gold and silver. Then came certain of the servants, and gave us wine, all that were present, […] we went to the house every month. (p. 197)

The giving of generous presents, Shirin-Beg sending food for the Georgians (p. 194) and Mahmad Asan Aga receiving and hosting them (p. 196) are further examples of Muslim generosity. Tʻeimuraz also describes how the shah, the Iranians and the Lezgins assisted them in liberating Prince Iulon and others from Russian captivity (pp. 206-7). When he describes their reception at the court of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (r. 1797-1834), Tʻeimuraz notes that before the shah appeared, ‘one of the senior mullahs’ performed a religious ritual and uttered a prayer in Arabic (p. 197). Tʻeimuraz evidently feels free to celebrate Christian feasts, including Palm Sunday (p. 196) and Easter (p. 203), and makes no comparison between these and Muslim feasts. Tʻeimuraz’s detailed report of the Navruz feast in Tehran is particularly interesting. He describes the entertainments in a square in the centre of the city: tightrope-walking, contests between bare-chested wrestlers with the shah rewarding the winner, a display of a lion, a tiger, a monkey and other animals in the arena, horse racing, and other circus shows. They continued for a week, and the shah himself joined in and gave away gold and silver generously (pp. 197-8). Significance The references to Georgian-Iranian relations in the diary depict relations between Christians and Muslims not only in the form of state and political assistance, but also in the form of individual human gestures in which values common to all humankind are displayed. Tʻeimuraz himself shows religious tolerance, and supports respect between the different religions. Publications MS Tbilisi, K. Kekelidze National Centre of Manuscripts – A-1764-a 29 pages (1803-10; autograph) MS Tbilisi, K. Kekelidze National Centre of Manuscripts – A-1764-b 15 pages (1811) Tʻeimuraz Bagrationi, ‘Sparsuli dġiurebi’ [Persian diaries], in G. Šaradze (ed.), Tʻeimuraz Bagrationi, Tbilisi, 1972, vol. 1, pp. 183-211 Tʻeimuraz Bagrationi, ‘Sparsuli dġiurebi’, ed. Tʻ. Jolo­gua, XIX saukunis kʻartʻvel moġvacetʻa dġiurebi [Diaries of Georgian figures of the 19th century], Tbilisi, 2012, 9-45

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Studies Baramidze and Šaradze, art. ‘Tʻeimuraz Batonišvili’ Šaradze, Tʻeimuraz Bagrationi, vol. 1 Bagrat Batonišvili (Prince Bagrat), Axali motʻxroba [New narrative], ed. Tʻ. Lomouri, Tbilisi, 1941 Š. Mesxia, ‘Tʻeimuraz Batonišvilis cʻxovreba da moġvaceoba’ [Life and deeds of Prince Tʻeimuraz Batonišvili], Masalebi Sakʻartʻvelosa da Kavkasiis Istoriisatʻvis [Materials for the history of Georgia and Caucasia] (1939) 18-78 Darejan Menabde

Giorgi Avalishvili Date of Birth 27 April 1769 Place of Birth Tbilisi Date of Death 1850 Place of Death Moscow

Biography

Giorgi Avalishvili was a descendant of an old feudal family and a godson of King Giorgi XII. Little is known of his childhood. In 1784, he left for St Petersburg together with Garsevan Chavchavadze [Garsevan Čavčavaże], resident Minister of Kʻartʻli and Kakhetʻi at the Russian Imperial Court and husband of Giorgi’s sister, and continued his education there. He was taught Russian, Turkish, Armenian and a little French. In 1787, he and Chavchavadze moved to Moscow but, in 1788, he returned to Georgia and served as the secretary and the chief falconer at the court of King Erekle II (r. 1762-98) until 1794. In 1791 he was commissioned by the king to visit Iranian Azerbaijan (presumably on a diplomatic mission). From 1794 to 1799, instructed by Erekle II and subsequently by Giorgi XII (r. 1798-1800) and Prince David (heir to the throne), Avalishvili was engaged in settling diplomatic and state affairs at the Russian imperial court. He played an important role in the preparation of the treaty on Georgian-Russian cooperation (in particular, regarding the protectorate of Kʻartʻli and Kakhetʻi by the Russian Empire and maintaining the rights of the Bagrationi royal house). The Georgian ambassadors, of whom Avalishvili was one, unhappy with the Treaty of Georgievsk (1783), chose to play a ‘double game’ – they ‘obeyed’ Russia, but were secretly mobilising people against the Russian regime. Russian officials decided that Prince David, Garsevan Chʻoloqashvili, another of the ambassadors, and Giorgi Avalishvili should go to live permanently in Russia. From 1803 to 1818, Avalishvili lived in Moscow and St Petersburg. During that time, he participated in the Battle of Ganja (1804). Between 1811 and 1817, he worked as a translator and police officer at the court of the Princess of Samegrelo and in 1818 he was given permission to return

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to Georgia. From 1819 to 1820, he travelled in Turkey, Greece, Egypt and Palestine. Upon his return to Tbilisi, he left for St Petersburg and from then on he was not allowed to travel outside Russia or live in his homeland. In 1822, Avalishvili married Elisabed Bagrationi (daughter of émigré poet Dimitri Bagrationi) and settled in Moscow. He died in 1850 and is buried at the Vsesviatskoe Church, Moscow (though the location of his grave is not currently known). Avalishvili was a Georgian writer and translator, political and public figure, bibliographer, collector, calligrapher and traveller. He compiled an anthology of Georgian literature and wrote poems and plays. He is regarded as the father of Georgian dramatic literature and a founder of Georgian theatre. His most important work, which is of relevance to ChristianMuslim relations, is a travelogue, Mgzavroba Tʻbilisidan Ierusalimamde (‘Journey from Tbilisi to Jerusalem’).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary MS Tbilisi, Korneli Kekelidze Institute of Manuscripts of the Georgian Academy of Sciences – Ioane Batonišvilis avtograp‘uli krebuli [Autograph collection of Prince Ioane Batonišvili] – S 3729, 16v-17r, 33r, 78v; S 2684, marginal note, p. 144; S 1731, fol. 15r-16r; Hd 10535; Hd 7193; A 1418, fol. 95r MS Moscow, TSntral‘nyǐ gosudarsctvennyǐ Arkhiv Rossii ([Central State Archives of Russia] TSGIA) – fond 1284, opis 4a, kn.32. delo 308; opis 4b, kn.32, 1816, delo 305 MS Moscow, TSntral‘nyǐ gosudarsctvennyǐ Arkhiv Rossii ([Central State Archives of Russia] TSGIA) – fond VUA, 1807, delo 389; opis 4b, kn. 32, 1816, delo 305; fond 1284, opis 3, kn. 28, 1806, delo 36; I kniga 29, 1806, delo 42; opis 4, kn. 51, 1812, delo 301; fond 1349, opis 6, 1822, delo 739; fond 1284, opis 4a, kn. 32, 1811, delo 308; kn. 76, 1813, delo 258; kn. 77, 1813, delo 265; kn. 51, 1812, delo 301 MS Moscow, Arkhiv Vneshneǐ Politiki Rossii Ministerstva Inostrannykh del ([Archives of Foreign Policy of Russia of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs] AVPR MID) – fond, Snoshenie Rossii c Gruzieǐ, opis 110/3, 1798-1799, delo 39r, 124r, 454r MS Moscow, Arkhiv Vneshneǐ Politiki Rossii Ministerstva Inostrannykh del ([Archives of Foreign Policy of Russia of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs] AVPR MID) – Gl. Arkhiv, IV-1, 1812, delo 1; 1813, delo 3; IV, 14, 1817, delo 27, 21r; IV-14, 1817, delo 27, s. 8r; IV-1, 1825, delo 4; IV-13, 1826, delo 8 MS Moscow, Tsentral‘nyǐ gosudarsctvennyǐ Arkhiv drevnix aktov Rossii ([Central State Archives of Old Acts of Russia] TSGADA) – fotofiry, delo 689, 721, 749, 751

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Akty, cobrannye Kavkazskoǐ arxeograficheskoǐ Komiccieiu ([Acts collected by the Caucasian Archaeological Commission] AKAK), II, s. 11, 51, 142, 175, 303 M. Brosset, ‘Recueil des Actes da la séance publique’, Academie 1 (1838) 119-78 Z. Mt‘acmindeli, ‘K‘art‘uli carmodgenebi met‘vramete saukuneši’ [Georgian plays of the eighteenth century], Droeba 236-7 (1879) 236-7 A. Tsagareli, Svedeniia o pamiatnikax gruzinskoǐ pismennosti [Evidence on specimens of Georgian literature], vol. 2, St Petersburg, 1889, pp. XXI-XXVIII A. Tsagareli, Gramoty i drugie ictoricheskie dokumenty, otnosyashchiyesya do Gruzii [Charters and other historical documents related to Georgia], vol. 1, pt 1, St Petersburg, 1898, sections 118, 168; vol. 1, pt 2, 1902, sections 185, 1978, 301 Secondary N. Javaxišvili, Avališvilt‘a sagvareulo da misi gamoč‘enili carmomadgenlebi [The house of Avališvili and its famous representatives], Tbilisi, 2013, pp. 227-36 T’. C‘eradze, ‘Sankt-peterburgis aġmosavlur xelnacert‘a institutis k‘art‘uli xelnacerebi’ [Georgian manuscripts of the St Petersburg Institute of Oriental Manuscripts], Żveli Xelovneba Dġes 4 (2013) 31-80 N. Giginašvili, ‘Bagrationi up‘lisculebis brżola k‘art‘l-kaxet‘is samep‘os šenarč‘u­ nebisat‘vis 1801-1802 clebši’ [The struggle of the Bagrationi princes to retain the Kingdom of Kʻartʻli and Kakhetʻi in 1801-1802], Sak‘art‘velos Istoriis Axali Sakit‘xebi [New issues in the history of Georgia] 5 (2012) 38-60 D. Rayfield, The literature of Georgia. A history, London, 2010, pp. 150-2 L. Menabde, XVII-XVIII saukuneebis k‘art‘uli literatura [Georgian literature of the 17th-18th centuries], Tbilisi, 1997, p. 282-95 L. Kiknadze, Giorgi Avališvilis c‘xovreba da šemoq’medeba [Life and work of Giorgi Avalishvili], Tbilisi, 1993 Z. C‘k‘itišvili, Garsevan Č‘avč‘avażis saxelmcip‘oebrivi moġvaceoba [State activity of Garsevan Chavchavadze], Tbilisi, 1982 E. Metreveli, ‘Foreword’, in G. Avališvili, Mgzavroba t‘bilisidan ierusalimamde [G. Avalishvili, Journey from Tbilisi to Jerusalem], Tbilisi, 1967, pp. 5-52 K. Kekelidze, ‘Giorgi Avališvili’, in K‘art‘uli literaturis istoria [History of Georgian literature], vol. 1, Tbilisi, 1960, pp. 687-90 T. Ruxadze, K‘art‘ul-rusuli literaturuli urt‘iert‘obis istoriidan XVI-XVIII ss. [History of Georgian-Russian literary relations in the 16th-18th cc.], Tbilisi, 1960, pp. 148, 200, 222, 234, 275, 310 E. Metreveli, ‘G. Avališvili. Bibliograp‘i da koleqcioneri’ [G. Avalishvili. Bibliographer and collector], in A. Baramidze (ed.), Korneli Kekeliżis cʻxovreba da samecʻniero moġvaceoba: dabadebis 80 clistʻavis gamo [The life and intellectual activity of Korneli Kekelidze], Tbilisi, 1959, 247-61 T. Ruxadze, Żveli k‘artuli t‘eatri da dramaturgia [Old Georgian theatre and dramaturgy], Tbilisi, 1949

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Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Mgzavroba ‘Journey’ Date 6 July 1819-17 July 1820 Original Language Georgian Description Mgzavroba (‘Journey’, in full, Mgzavroba T‘bilisit‘ Ierusalimisadmi Saberżnet‘sa zeda da ukunkʻcʻevai Ierusalimitʻ Tʻbilisisadmive Kipriis čalakisa, mcʻirisa Aziisa da Anatoliisa żlit, ‘Journey from Tbilisi to Jerusalem through Greece and back from Jerusalem to Tbilisi through the island of Cyprus, Asia Minor and Anatolia’) is an account of Georgi Avalishvili’s journey through countries of the eastern Mediterranean. In the Foreword, he says that he made the journey simply out of a desire to visit foreign countries, especially the holy places of Jerusalem, though in his application for permission to travel he also mentions his hope to inherit the fortune of his former serf, the late Suleiman Aġa Anapʻi, in Egypt. The work is written in the form of a diary covering the 12 months from 6 July 1819 to 17 July 1820. It is divided into two parts: the journey from Tbilisi to Jerusalem, then the return from Jerusalem to Tbilisi. A 353page manuscript (Korneli Kekelidze Institute of Manuscripts S 450), in Avalishvili’s own hand and accompanied by a travel map, plans of buildings, and colour copies of engravings and drawings, was discovered in 1888 by A. Cʻagareli, who was the first to appreciate its value. It was published in 1967, edited by E. Metreveli (386 pages; references below are to this edition). Avalishvili was greeted everywhere as a Russian general (though this was not the case), and he was received and welcomed with great honour and joy by both Christian and Muslim rulers, ambassadors of various countries, clergy of all jurisdictions, and representatives of the lower social strata – the Tatars called him a ‘Moscow nobleman’ (Moskovli begzada). He notes that Muslims feared the Russians and treated them with great respect and politeness (p. 67). From the viewpoint of Christian-Muslim relations, pertinent issues include: descriptions of settlements and the make-up of their populations; relations between Christians and Muslim rulers, officials and people in general; stories that interested him concerning Islam and Muslims

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(mentioning facts that he found unacceptable and unpleasant); relations with Georgians who had converted to Islam. In detailed accounts of the various places he visited on his journey, he gives the numbers of Muslim households and the number of mosques and minarets in each settlement. Examples are Simferopol, where there were up to 200 Muslim households, with three mosques and three minarets (p. 41), and Eupatoria, where there were 1,000 Muslims with 25 mosques, each with a minaret (p. 44). Collating these details may have been part of his mission for the Russians. Avalishvili records his interaction with Muslim officials. As a high official of the Russian Empire, he was greeted with great respect everywhere. In Egypt, the governor Muḥammad ʿAlī Pasha (r. 1805-48) offered him his summer palace as a residence (pp. 108-9) and held a feast in his honour in Cairo (pp. 123-4). In fact, throughout his journey Muḥammad ʿAlī offered him ample protection and assistance (pp. 120-3, 170), which indicates the pasha’s awareness of the need to maintain good relations with Russia. Avalishvili notes that Muḥammad ʿAlī loved Christians and patronised them both openly and secretly (p. 187). The ruler of the Island of Cyprus, Aḥmad Rashīd, also offered him assistance of many kinds (p. 269). Avalishvili relates many stories about Islam and Muslims and their attitudes and actions towards Christians. He notes that a son, Aḥmad, was born to the Ottoman sultan Maḥmūd II (r. 1809-39) and his birth was celebrated for seven days (p. 65). In Alexandria, he saw Sultan Maḥmūd going to the mosque together with his retinue and describes this procession (pp. 79-80). Whilst on board ship on his way to Alexandria, he saw Sultan Maḥmūd sailing with his attendants (p. 83). On the road to Cairo, he encountered a funeral procession, which he describes in detail (pp. 11819). He notes that in Kars he was greeted with great honour by Haji Aḥmad Beg’s Ottomans (p. 338). He writes about those wishing to become dervishes, noting that a piece of marble was hung on their necks (pp. 166-7). He is amazed at the lifestyle of the rulers of Roshet, and in particular their idleness. They spend the whole day sitting in a coffee shop at leisure, some of them pray while others drink coffee or smoke a pipe, and meanwhile seekers of justice stand waiting inside or outside the shop (pp. 11617). For him, the behaviour of the rulers of the city during the holidays is unusual, in that during Ramaḍān it is impossible to see them because they are either sleeping or making merry (p. 329). He mentions that ordinary Muslims are indifferent to those of noble birth (princes, noblemen), and respect only officials (p. 95).

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Avalishvili notes that Muslim seafarers bribe customs officers (pp. 84, 89). He is indignant that in one of the customs houses a large emerald and 124 gold coins were stolen from him, but the local governor did not believe this (p. 330-1). He repeatedly mentions instances of extortion and bribery and the rule of giving gifts as a necessary component of hospitality (p. 125). Avalishvili describes the decision of Sultan Maḥmūd Sulaymān, the local governor, regarding the desire of the Latins to have the same access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem as the Greeks (p. 217), and the subsequent satisfaction of the Latins after their request is agreed by order of the governor (p. 238). With reference to the Church of the Source of the Life-giving Spring in Constantinople, Avalishvili notes that in addition to Christians followers of other religions also prayed before its icon of the Virgin Mary, asking for healing. He learned from Archimandrite Benedict that the local Muslim rulers allowed them to do so. At the same time, this enabled Muslims who secretly believed in Christ to visit the church (p. 74). Archimandrite Benedict tells Avalishvili the story of the preservation of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at the time of the conquest of Jerusalem, which was associated with Sultan Omar Pekhambar (the second caliph, ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, r. 634-44). This episode is narrated at the point when Muslim guards prevented Avalishvili and Benedict from visiting the church. The archimandrite showed them a round silver case just larger than the barrel of a gun, and the Tatars bowed before the two men in token of veneration while others stood up and offered them free passage. This silver case contained a copy of the letter given by the Caliph ʿUmar to Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, guaranteeing the church’s protection (p. 73). Avalishvili also repeats the well-known story of the descent of the holy fire at Easter in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and mentions an emir who witnessed the miracle; he asked for baptism and was immediately killed by Muslims (p. 228). He also repeats the fiction of the Caliph ʿUmar ordering the destruction of the Library of Alexandria and of the public baths being heated for six months by burning the rarest books (pp. 111-12). Avalishvili notes his disappointment when, in the city of Kars, he saw that the Church of the Twelve Apostles, which had been built by the Armenian King Arshrot [Ashot], had been transformed into a mosque (p. 338). He also sorrowfully notes that, in Aslankhonai, the site of the Church of St John the Evangelist was now the sultan’s ‘house of beasts’ (p. 69), and he is indignant that Muslims kept their cattle in the ruined Church of St George in Emmaus, thus ‘proving their barbarity and cruelty’ (p. 184).

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Avalishvili witnessed the horrific execution of Stephan Duz-Oġli, an Armenian Christian who was once the favourite of Sultan Maḥmūd (pp. 66, 69), an instance of the ‘barbaric justice of the Ottomans’ (p. 68), and tells the story of a new martyr, Panagiotis, who was tortured by Sulaymān Pasha of Damascus for refusing to convert to Islam (p. 216). Elsewhere, he indignantly recounts the persecution of Christians by Muslims (p. 333). He tells of Sulaymān Pasha and his retinue of 2,000 horsemen with four cannons approaching Christian monasteries and demanding money from the monks, who could not refuse the ‘barbarians’ (pp. 211-12). Arriving in Greece, Avalishvili meets members of the Greek movement for liberation from the Turks, and Patriarch Gregory of Constantinople, a sympathiser of the movement. The severe attitude of the Greeks, especially clergy, towards Muslims is apparent. Thus, when the Archpriest Kyriake of the Church of St Nicholas learns that Avalishvili is on his way to Constantinople, he condemns the Muslim rulers there, as well as Muslims in general, as people who act like barbarians, fight against Christianity and turn churches into mosques. He expresses the hope that the Greeks will take revenge on them and will be assisted in this by the Russians (pp. 43-4). Elsewhere, Avalishvili himself expresses the same sentiment, saying that, because Sultan Maḥmūd is harsh towards Christians, powerful Russia will restore the glory of Constantinople and expel Muslims from the city (pp. 85-7). In various places during the journey, Avalishvili meets Georgians who have converted to Islam. These include the former Imereti prince Giorgi Abashidze, who dresses as a Tatar (pp. 95-9), Usain Agha, an Islamised Georgian who serves in Muḥammad ʿAlī Pasha’s bodyguard (p. 125), whom Avalishvili had met in Cairo, his former serf, Martkopeli Knotishvili, who has converted to Islam in Cairo and is called Muḥammad Agha Muṣṭafā Kaya Raz (p. 128), in a mosque near Eski Cair (al-Qaṣr al-ʿAynī in Kasrulein, Cairo) the dervish Salīm Baba, a Georgian who does not know his exact origin because, in his own words, captives brought to Constantinople to be sold as slaves were passed off as Georgians because they sold well (pp. 1656), and Aḥmad Rashīd, who, contrary to the Muslim custom, stood up to greet him, attributing this to his Georgian origin (p. 271). In only one instance in his journey, in Georgia, did he meet an Abkhazi Muslim who had converted to Christianity, though this man continued to abstain from wine (p. 30). G. Javakhishvili has suggested that the reason for Avalishvili’s trip was to prepare the ground for the restoration of Georgia’s independence with the assistance of Turkey. However, L. Kiknadze has rejected this view on the grounds that Mgzavroba reveals anti-Turkish sentiment. Avalishvili

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appears to have been on a special assignment because, prior to his departure, the Russian Foreign Ministry gave him the title ‘Foreign State Counsellor’, which helped him establish contacts in the highest circles. This is supported by the fact that, after returning from the trip, Avalishvili continued to be referred as ‘State Counsellor’. Significance Mgzavroba reveals varied attitudes about Muslims’ beliefs and behaviour towards Christians. It can have had little influence in contemporary Georgia, though its contents and the collections of drawings and maps are a useful source of information about the places visited and ChristianMuslim relations in the early 19th century. Publications MS Tbilisi, K. Kekelidzis Saxelobis Xelnacert‘a Instituti – S-450 (1819-20) MS Tbilisi, G. Leonidze Tbilisi State Museum of Georgian Literature (incomplete 20th-century MS copied from S 450) Giorgi Avalishvili, Mgzavroba t‘bilisidan ierusalimamde, ed. E. Metreveli, Tbilisi, 1967 (annotated edition of the whole work) Studies Kiknadze, Giorgi Avalishvilis c‘xovreba da šemok‘medeba L. Menabde, Żveli k‘arťuli mcerlobis kerebi [Centres of old Georgian literature], Tbilisi, 1980 P. Chobaniian, Armi͡ane v puteshestvii Georgiia Avalishvili [The Armenians in the journey of Giorgi Avalishvili], collected papers Kavkaz i Vizantiia, Yerevan, 1979 K. Xaradze, ‘Giorgi Avalishvilis mogzaurobis zogi sakiťxisat‘vis’ [On some issues of the journey of Giorgi Avalishvili], in Sak‘art‘velosa da misi mosazġvre olk‘ebis bunebrivi t‘aviseburebani [Natural peculiarities of Georgia and its bordering regions], Tbilisi, 1975, 153-61 Metreveli, ‘Foreword’ MS Tbilisi, Xelnac‘ert‘a instituti [Institute of manuscripts] - I. Javaxišvilis ark‘ivi [archives of I. Javakhishvili], 144 G. Javaxišvili, Avališvilt‘a sagvareulo da misi gamoč‘enili carmomadgenlebi Tsagareli, Svedeniia o pamiatnikax gruzinskoǐ pismennosti Nana Gonjilashvili

Ioane Batonishvili Ioane Batonišvili, Prince Ioane, Ioane Bagrationi Date of Birth Uncertain; probably between 1766 and 1772 Place of Birth Tbilisi Date of Death 1830 Place of Death St Petersburg

Biography

Ioane Batonishvili, or Prince Ioane, from the centuries-old dynasty of Bagrationis in Georgia, was the son of Giorgi XII (r. 1798-1800), the last king of Kʻartʻli and Kakhetʻi (also referred to as Giorgi XIII). He was a statesman and military figure, initiator and developer of reforms, scientist, writer, translator and lexicographer. There is some discussion as to the year of his birth, with dates ranging from 1766 to 1772. He was actively engaged in ruling the Kingdom of Kʻartʻli and Kakhetʻi during the reigns of his grandfather, Erekle II (r. 1762-98), and his father, Giorgi XII. He participated in several wars, most memorably the Battle of Krtsanisi against the Persian Qajars in 1895, during which he courageously saved King Erekle from capture. In 1799, Prince Ioane drafted a broad set of reforms, which included the reorganisation of military, economic, administrative, financial and cultural life. He also intended to establish a deliberative assembly to take military-related decisions. According to his draft, the assembly should have twelve members, three from Kʻartʻli, three from Kakhetʻi, three from the Tatars (Muslims living in the kingdom), and three from the citizens. The implementation of his reforming ideas was thwarted by the death of his father, and the abolition of the Kingdom of Kʻartʻli and Kakhetʻi by the Russian Empire and his exile to Russia in 1801. Exiled from his homeland, Prince Ioane engaged in extensive scientific and literary work, which continued throughout his life. He compiled books on grammar, mathematics and natural sciences. He made a great contribution in supporting Georgian students arriving in St Petersburg from Georgia, one of the most outstanding among them being the philosopher Solomon Dodashvili. He died in St Petersburg in 1830.

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MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary P. Ioseliani, Cʻxovreba Giorgi mecʻametisa [Life of Giorgi XIII], Tbilisi, 1893 Secondary D. Rayfield, The literature of Georgia. A history, London, 20102, pp. 148-51 G. Mikʻadze, ‘Ioane Bagrationis natʻargmni šromebis sia’ [List of translated works by Ioane Bagrationi], Sakʻartʻvelos Ilia Čavčavadzis saxelobis mcignobartʻa asocʻiacʻiis qovelcuri almanaxi [Annual almanack of the Ilia Chavchavadze Literary Association of Georgia], Tbilisi, 1999, p. 100 G. Kʻikʻodze, Etiudebi da portretebi [Essays and portraits], Tbilisi, 1958 A. Baramidze, Narkvevebi kʻartʻuli literaturis istoriidan [Researches in the history of Georgian literature], vol. 3, Tʻbilisi, 1952 D.M. Lang, ‘Prince Ioann of Georgia and his “Kalmasoba”’, American Slavic and East European Review 11/4 (1952) 274-87, pp. 274-8

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Khumarscavla or Kalmasoba Date 1813-28 Original Language Georgian Description Khumarscavla (‘Teaching through games or alms-gathering’) or Kalmasoba (‘Journey for the collection of supplies’) is regarded as Ioane Batonishvili’s major work. He referred to it as Khumarscavla, though tradition has it that the title page bore Kalmasoba with details that it was sub-deacon Iona Khelashvili, from the village of Vakʻiri in Kʻisiqi, who collected the supplies (Lang, ‘Prince Ioann of Georgia’, p. 278 n. 16). In Geronti Kʻikʻodze’s evaluation it ‘is a kind of encyclopedia, in which the author is trying to make available to Georgian readers the achievements of science in his time’ (Kʻikʻodze, Etiudebi da portretebi, pp. 76-7). It gives information about almost every field known at the time of writing – the sciences, humanities, technology and the arts. It was written between 1813 and 1828, whilst Prince Ioane was in exile in Russia. The main character in the work, the sub-deacon Ioane (Iona) Khelashvili, was a historical figure, whose patron was the royal family and who received his education in Tbilisi with royal support. On Batonishvili’s death, the manuscript of the work was divided into two parts. One went to his brother-in-law, Grigol Tseret‘eli; it was

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eventually edited by Dimitri Bakʻradze (475 pages) and published in 1862. The other was given to Ioane’s grandson, Ivan Gruzinskij, and was placed in the public library in St Petersburg until it was transferred to the new University of Tbilisi in 1917. K. Kekelidze and A. Baramidze published an abbreviated version of both parts in two volumes in 1936 and 1945. A critical edition of the second part, edited by Sargis Tsaishvili (574 pages), was published in 1991. There are two opinions regarding the title of the book, one favouring the literal action of seeking alms to support a monastery, the other that the quest motif is allegorical, referring to an intellectual and spiritual search. Prince Ioane sends the sub-deacon Ioane to travel to various parts of Georgia, accompanied by Zurab Ghambarashvili, ‘a certain Sancho Panza’ figure, like Don Quixote’s companion (Kʻikʻodze, Etiudebi da portretebi, pp. 76-7), who performs the function of ‘alleviating’ the ‘burden’ of Ioane’s Enlightenment reasoning by introducing folk humour at the end of the conversations the sub-deacon holds. In the course of the work, Ioane engages in conversations with groups and individuals (these are referred to in the second part, edited by Tsaishvili). For example, he visits the church of the ‘Frenchmen’ (Roman Catholics) and attends mass. He likes the priest’s sermon and admires the fact that he was able to learn Georgian in three years. The priest invites Ioane to his home and discusses philosophical and ecclesiastical topics with him (Khumarscavla. Kalmasoba, ed. Tsaishvili, p. 5). The priest is interested in how much Ioane knows about history and geography, and enquires in detail concerning geography and in which countries educational studies and arts flourish best. Ioane is also examined by Čqondideli in an extensive chapter on theology (Khumarscavla. Kalmasoba, p. 420). Along with its ‘encyclopaedic’ character, Kalmasoba is also polemical. The polemic is mostly related to the Islamic world and concerns education and religion. Regarding education, Christian, and more precisely Orthodox, theology and European traditions of the classical as well as of the Enlightenment period are favoured. Geronti Kʻikʻodze notes that ‘Kalmasoba is based on a certain philosophical worldview. The author agrees with the sensualists. […] In the field of ethics, he supports the eudaemonistic opinion, i.e. he thinks that the objective of the moral activity of a human being is to achieve happiness’ (Etiudebi da portretebi, p. 77). According to Mikheil Gogatishvili: The philosophical truths set out by Ioane Bagrationi (in the form of logical, metaphysical and ethical problems), which are based on the European

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Batonishvili demonstrates the backwardness of the Islamic world through the prism of the European Enlightenment and science. A noteworthy example involves Ioane’s visit to a certain Mullah Mirza in Tbilisi. The mullah is interested to know whether Ioane is educated ‘in the European manner or Asian manner’. Ioane replies: ‘We mostly follow the manner of the Greeks and the Europeans in our studies’ (Khumarscavla. Kalmasoba, p. 441), after which a conversation about science begins between them. In this, the mullah is shown up by the poverty of his reasoning. His views not only ignore well-known medieval Muslim scientists, theologians and philosophers, but he presents everything he refers to in a distorted manner. He is doomed to defeat from the very beginning of the exchange. The mullah ascribes the origin of each species of animal to a particular sin in human beings, and regards the planets as determining the fates of human beings. To this Ioane replies: True, in the past people believed in the way you have said, but now I and others, the Orthodox, believe they are less than our poor donkeys. […] Our donkeys have more respect than those planets. […] The planets are inanimate, […] while our donkeys are animate and also have feeling. (Khumarscavla. Kalmasoba, p. 268)

In the end, the conversation about science turns into a debate about religion in which the mullah is defeated. This exchange is typical of the approach intimated by the whole work. It is against the old ways that are accepted without question, especially in the Islamic world, and favours the use of reason in all aspects of determining thought and action. Significance Kalmasoba is an ‘ironic portrait of the Georgian society of that time, according to which the high level of illiteracy and ignorance predominating in Georgia […] is named as one of the major reasons for the decline of Georgian statehood’. So notes Mikheil Gogatishvili, who continues, ‘Khumarscavla is a Georgian interpretation of Socratic irony, but the difference here is that the interlocutors of Socrates are always oriented towards reflection and dialogue, whereas Ioane and Zuraba in most cases encounter impenetrable ignorance’ (‘Ioane Bagrationi’, pp. 83-4).

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At the same time, the Islamic world is contrasted unfavourably with the European and Orthodox world. Georgian society may have failings, but the Islamic world is backward. The mullah has only weak arguments to defend Islamic thought, and his inability to draw on classical Arab works to defend his position is a failure of rigorous education in the AsianMuslim tradition. Publications Ioane Batonishvili, Kalmasoba, part 1, ed. D. Bakʻradze, Tbilisi, 1862 Ioane Batonishvili, Kalmasoba, part 1, ed. Z. Tchitchinadze, Tbilisi, 1895 Ioane Batonishvili, Kalmasoba, ed. K. Kekelidze and A. Baramidze, 2 vols, Tbilisi, 1936, 1945 (abbreviated edition of both parts) Ioane Batonishvili, Kalmasoba, part 1, trans. V. Dondua, Tbilisi, 1945 (Russian trans.) Ioane Batonishvili, Kalmasoba, part 1, trans. V. Dondua, Tbilisi, 1949 (abbreviated Russian trans. with sections in Georgian) Ioane Batonishvili, Kalmasoba, ed. Grigol Abašije and Nodar Ebralije, Tbilisi, 1984 (bound with Giorgi Avalishvili, Mgzavroba) Ioane Batonishvili, Khumarscavla. Kalmasoba, part 2, ed. S. Tsaishvili, Tbilisi, 1991 Studies M. Gogatishvili, ‘Ioane Bagrationi (1768-1830). Sokratuli sibrdznismetqveleba’ [Ioane Bagrationi (1768-1830). Socratic philosophy], in T. Iremadze (ed.), Axali drois pʻilosopʻia da misi mtʻavari carmomadgenlebi [Early modern Georgian philosophy and its major representatives], Tbilisi, 2014, 81-90 G. Berbichashvili, ‘Iona Xelašvilis biograpʻiis rekonstruirebisatʻvis’ [On reconstruction of the biography of Iona Khelashvili], in Iremadze, Axali drois pʻilosopʻia, 101-16 L. Zakʻaradze, ‘Iona Khelashvili (1778-1838). Didi kʻarʻtveli pʻilosopʻosi da and ġvtʻismetqveli epokʻatʻa gzagasaqarze’ [Great Georgian philosopher and theologian at the crossroads of the epochs], in Iremadze, Axali drois pʻilosopʻia Rayfield, Literature of Georgia, pp. 148-51 G. Dedabrishvilma, Ioane Bagrationis ‘Kalmasobis’ pʻilosopʻiuri nacilis gamokvleva da lekʻsikoni, Tbilisi, 1974 Kʻikʻodze, Etiudebi da portretebi Lang, ‘Prince Ioann of Georgia’ G. Javakhishvili, Kalmasoba, Tbilisi, 1933

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D. Karitchashvili, ‘Vin aris Kalmasobis avtori?’, Sak’art’velos Ark’ivi 2 (1927) A. Khakhanashvili, K’art’uli sitqvierebis istoria, me-XVIII sauk. Gasulamde, Tbilisi, 19193, pp. 447-9 A. Tsagareli, Svedeniia o pamiatnikax gruzinskoǐ pismennosti [Evidence about specimens of Georgian literature], St Petersburg, 1886, vol. 1, pp. viii-xi D. Bakʻradze, ‘Cinatʻkʻma’ [Preface], in Ioane Batonishvili, Kalmasobaze, Tbilisi, 1862 Oktai Kazumov

Aleksandre Chavchavadze Date of Birth 1786 Place of Birth St Petersburg Date of Death 6 November 1846 Place of Death Tbilisi

Biography

Aleksandre Chavchavadze was born in 1786, when his father, Garsevan Chavchavadze, was ambassador of the Kingdom of Kʻartʻli-Kakhetʻi to the Russian imperial court at St Petersburg. Between 1795 and 1799, he studied in St Petersburg and then, after the abolition of the Kingdom of KʻartʻliKakhetʻi in 1801, his family returned to Tbilisi, where he was brought up under the supervision of a French tutor. In addition to his native Georgian, he became fluent in French, German, Persian, Russian and Turkish. In 1804, Aleksandre participated in the rebellion of Mtiuletia (one of Georgia’s mountainous regions) against the Russian Empire. The Russian government adopted strict sanctions against the rebels when they were captured and eighteen-year-old Aleksandre was exiled to the Russian city of Tambov for a year. He was soon pardoned and freed, however, and was admitted to the St Petersburg military cadet college in 1807. After graduation, he served from 1811 as an adjutant to the commander of the Russian army in the Caucasus and participated in the suppression of a Kakhetʻian peasants’ revolt in 1812. He found this difficult and tried everything possible to avoid heavy casualties. Also in 1812, he fought with the Russian army against Napoleon. That same year, he married Salome Orbeliani, also a member of an aristocratic family, and with her had four children. From 1826, now with the rank of major-general, Chavchavadze fought in the Russia-Iran and Russia-Ottoman wars, and participated in the 1832 conspiracy aimed at ending Russian rule in Georgia. The conspiracy was swiftly discovered, and Aleksandre was sentenced to four years’ exile in Tambov, although he was pardoned after two. In 1841, he was promoted to lieutenant-general and, in 1842, was made head of the postal unit in the South Caucasus. On 6 November 1846, he died when he fell from his carriage and hit his head on the pavement. He is buried in Kakhetʻi, at the Shuamta Monastery, in his family tomb.

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Aleksandre Chavchavadze introduced romanticism into Georgian literature. His lyrics describe the social and political conditions in his country. Thus, he called the period of Russian domination a ‘merciless disease’; he considered his homeland to be in ‘captivity’ and tried to maintain a strong position, as can be seen in his poems Visats gsurt (‘Whoever you want’), Vah, droni, droni (‘Woe, time, time’) and Uts‘q‘alo senman (‘Merciless disease’).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary A. Chavchavadze, Lek‘sebi, Tbilisi, 1881, pp. I-IV Z. Mt‘acmindeli (Z. Chichinadze), Besiki, t‘. Alek‘sandre Chavchavadze da t‘. Grigol Orbeliani, Tbilisi, 1886, pp. 17-39 I. Meunargia, Alek‘sandre Chavchavadze (biograp‘iuli c‘nobebi), Tbilisi, 1937, pp. 3-67 A. Chavchavadze, Rch‘euli lek‘sebi, Tbilisi, 1940 Secondary Z. Andronikashvili, ‘Georgian political romanticism in the Caucasus’, in H. Jahn (ed.), Identities and representations in Georgia from the 19th century to the present, Berlin, 2020, 137-49 National Parliamentary Library of Georgia and Smithsonian Institution, art. ‘Prince Aleksandre Chavchavdze (1786-1846)’, Washington DC, 2013; http:// www.nplg.gov.ge/chavchavadze/en/alexandrechav.html D. Rayfield, The literature of Georgia. A history, London, 2010, pp. 152-9 H. Ram and Z. Shatirishvili, ‘Romantic topography and the dilemma of empire. The Caucasus in the dialogue of Georgian and Russian poetry’, Russian Review 63 (2004) 1-25 G. Asat‘iani, Saukunis poetebi, Tbilisi, 1988, pp. 34-8 Art. ‘Aleksandre Chavchavadze’, in I.V. Abashidze (ed.), K‘art‘uli sabčot‘a enc‘iklopedia, vol. 11, Tbilisi, 1987, 376-7 A. Chavchavadze, T‘xzulebani (Lek‘sebi, narkvevebi, dramebi, t‘argmanebi), Tbilisi, 1996, pp. 5-7 G. K‘ik‘odze, Rch‘euli t‘xzulebani, vol. 3, Tbilisi, 1965, pp. 308-9 K. Abashidze, Etiudebi, Tbilisi, 1962, p. 32 D. Gamezardashvili, Axali k‘art‘uli literaturis istoria, vol. 1, Tbilisi, 1956, pp. 67-70

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Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Sakartvelos mok‘le ist‘oriuli nark‘vevi 1801-dan 1831 ts‘lamde ‘Short essay on the history of Georgia from 1801 to 1831’ Date 1832 Original Language Georgian Description Despite its title Aleksandre Chavchavadze’s Sakartvelos mok‘le ist‘oriuli nark‘vevi 1801-dan 1831 ts‘lamde (‘Short essay on the history of Georgia from 1801 to 1831’) is a lengthy letter of 25 pages, addressed to Tsar Nicholas I of Russia (r. 1825-55), describing the hard truths about relations between Christians and Muslims in Georgia. At the end of January and the beginning of February 1833, Chavchavadze was imprisoned after being convicted of participating in a conspiracy to gain Georgian independence from Russia. In April that year, he was summoned to St Petersburg, and he took this opportunity to present his ‘Short essay’ to the tsar. The essay describes the proud history of the culture and politics of his nation, making clear that Georgia, like many other states, has experienced its share of greatness in the past and has had heroes, poets and writers. Georgians defended their independence, suffered the hatred of barbarians (a reference to invading Iranian Muslims) and retained their faith, their fighting spirit and their love of their homeland. Chavchavadze displays his deep knowledge of the history of his country and boldly reminds the tsar that Georgia has never been a burden to Russia. On the contrary, it has been useful on countless occasions, first and foremost serving as a major military bridgehead against Iran and the Ottoman Empire. He also reminds the tsar of his country’s tragic fate. After adopting Christianity in the 4th century, it was ravaged by Muslims through the protracted domination of the Muslim Arabs from the 7th century, and the later invasions of the Seljuk Turks. He recalls King David IV, ‘the Builder’ (r. 1089-1125), liberating his country from its enemies, and reminds the tsar that Georgia experienced a ‘golden age’, the celebrated era of Queen Tamar (r. 1184-1213). But the history of wars continued with Seljuk attacks on its southern borders (1223), the Mongol invasion and their pillaging with fire and sword, the

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never-ending warfare with its powerful neighbours, Iran and the Ottoman Empire, and the onslaughts of Tamerlane in 1386, who attacked six times but met resistance that he had not known before. Chavchavadze describes in great detail the history of the centuries that followed: the attempted conquests of Georgia by the Ottoman Sultan Murad (Murad III, r. 1574-95 or Murad IV, r. 1623-40), the Iranian Shahs Ismail, Mahmoud and Abbas the Great (Ismāʿīl, r. 1501-24, ? Muḥammad Khudābandah, r. 1578-87, ʿAbbās I, r. 1587-1629). He does not forget the north-east, where there were constant attacks from mountain-people, the invasion of the Iranian ruler Āqā Muḥammad Khān (r. 1789-97) and his final defeat of King Erekle II (r. 1744-98) in 1795, which defined the later fate of Georgia. The ‘Short essay’ includes not only such tragic recollections from history as these, but also implies that one misery in the form of constant attacks by Muslims has been replaced by another, the dominance of Russia. From the ‘Short essay’ flows one distinct thought. Georgians hate their sworn enemies, the Iranians and other Muslim nations, but only because they are the country’s adversaries and seek to enslave it. In contrast, Chavchavadze does not mention the way Georgia is treated by its fellowChristian Russia, even though it regards Georgia as a ‘wild country’. In the end, he sees the repeated raids and invasions of the Iranians and other Muslims as having stripped Georgia of many of its qualities, though it is still intent on rebuilding what was destroyed. Chavchavadze’s depiction of never-ending attacks on Georgia by Islamic nations reflects the tropes of understanding and perception that were evident at the time he was writing. It shows that the animosity people expressed towards invading Mongols, Turk-Seljuks, Arabs, Persians and others was not without foundation. Significance Although the letter did not contribute significantly to the improvement of Russian attitudes towards Georgia, it serves to recount what Georgia had been through and that attempts to subjugate it would prove ineffective for any conquerors, whether fellow-Christian or Muslim ‘other’. Publications Luka Isarlov, Pis‘ma o Gruzii, Tbilisi, 1899, pp. 297-323 Aleksandre Chavchavadze, ‘Kratkii istoricheskii ocherk Gruzii i ee polozheniia s 1801 po 1831 gg’, Kavkazskii Sbornik 23 (1902) 1-25 V. Shaduri and G. Bebutov (eds), Letopis‘ druzhby gruzinskogo i russkogo narodov s drevnikh vremen do nashikh dnei, vol. 1, Tbilisi, 1961, pp. 126-9 (short extracts in Russian)

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Aleksandre Chavchavadze, ‘Sakartvelos mok‘le ist‘oriuli nark‘vevi 1801 -dan 1831 ts‘lamde’, in Chavchavadze, T’xzulebebi, Tbilisi, 1996 Studies Andronikashvili, ‘Georgian political romanticism’ Z. Andronikashvili, E. Jgerenaia and F. Thun-Hohenstein, Landna(h)me Georgien. Studien zur kulturellen Semantik, Berlin, 2018 Z. C‘xadaia and T‘. C‘ic‘ihvili, Ashugur-k‘alak‘uri tek‘stis reprezentac‘ia k‘art‘ul romantizmshi, Romantizmi literaturaši. epok‘at‘a da kulturat‘a gzajvaredinze, vol. 1, Tbilisi, 2017 Ram and Shatirishvili, ‘Romantic topography’, pp. 12-13 G. Asat‘iani, Saukunis poetebi, Tbilisi, 1988, pp. 38-47 Chavchavadze, T‘xzulebani, pp. 7-24 G. Abzianije, K‘art‘uli literaturis istoria, vol. 3, Tbilisi, 1969, pp. 61-7 K‘ik‘odze, Rch‘euli t‘xzulebani, vol. 3, pp. 308-9 V. Shaduri, Dekabristskaia literatura i gruzinskaia obshchestvennost’, Tbilisi, 1958, pp. 504-15 (extensive description of the ‘Essay’ and its political context) Axali k‘art‘uli literaturis istoria, vol. 1, Tbilisi, 1956, pp. 71-95 A. Kenchoshvili, Alek‘sandre Chavchavadze, Tbilisi, 1953, pp. 9-126 Zoia Tskhadaia

Gēorg Axverdean Gevorg Axverdyan Date of Birth 1818 Place of Birth Tbilisi Date of Death 1861 Place of Death Tbilisi

Biography

Gēorg Axverdean was born into an Armenian military family in Tbilisi, which had recently come under Russian rule. After education at the Tbilisi Gymnasium he went to the Lazarian Academy in Moscow, a school founded some 15 years earlier by the illustrious Armenian merchant family of the same name. Following his school education, Axverdean undertook medical studies at the University of Moscow. He was one of the first generation of Transcaucasians to receive a university education. On graduation, he accepted a post as military physician in Transcaucasia and was then appointed as personal physician to the minister of defence in St Petersburg. Thereafter, he returned to Tbilisi, where he assumed employment in the recently established office of Viceroy of Transcaucasia, under the direction of Count Vorontsov. He was subsequently elevated to a senior post in the customs office with the title of general. In that capacity, he drew up the initial draft of the concession for gold mining in the Caucasus and was active in protecting the artisan guilds of Tbilisi. Nothing appears to be recorded of his death and, presumably, burial other than the year, 1861. Outside his professional career, Axverdean’s personal interests included philology, linguistics and history. His attention was particularly attracted by relatively unknown texts, which he introduced into the scholarly mainstream for the first time. These include, Sayat‘-Nova’s Gahnamak or protocol of precedence of nobles at the Armenian court, the Chronicle of Petros di Sargis Gilanenc‘, the work of an early 18th-century spy for the Russians who raised an Armenian squadron to facilitate their campaign in north-west Iran, and two volumes of compositions by Armenian ašułs (bards), the second published posthumously by his sister Manē in 1903. Here, his research was primarily informed by the influence of Romantic

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nationalism, focusing on the significance of the vernacular as a vehicle for the creation and development of national identity. In addition, he produced a sourcebook of Armenian materials pertaining to the history of Georgia, the unpublished manuscript of which is kept in the Museum of Literature and Art in Yerevan.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Gevorg Axverdyan, Namakner, Yerevan, 1964 Secondary Arp‘ik Avetisyan, ‘Aṙaǰin sayat‘novagetə’, Sovetakan Grakanut‘yun 10 (1987) 101-4 G. Madoyan, ‘Axverdyanə sayat‘novagitut‘yan himnadir’, Tełekagir 10 (1963) 59-68 Arp‘ik Avetisyan, Gevorg Axverdyan, Yerevan, 1963

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Ašuł Arut‘iwn Tp‘łisec‘i (Sayeat‘ Nova) ‘Ašuł Arut‘iwn of Tbilisi (Sayat‘ Nova)’ ‘Martyrology of Sayat‘ Nova’ Date 1852 Original Language Armenian Description The first volume of Axverdean’s Gusank‘ (‘Bards’) presents readers for the first time with the major part of the oeuvre of the 18th-century trilingual Armenian ašuł (minstrel / troubadour) of Tbilisi, Sayat‘-Nova. It emerges from his davt‘ar or songbook, which Axverdean found in the possession of the physician Yovhannēs P‘andayean (Zoia Tskhadaia, ‘Sayatnova’, in CMR 12, 459-64) and contains 114 songs in Azeri written in Armenian characters, 46 Armenian songs in Georgian characters, and a few songs in Georgian. His edition of 1852 transliterates all the songs into Armenian script and accompanies the text with annotations explaining foreign loanwords and incomprehensible morphemes, appending a study of the prime features of the Armenian dialect of Tbilisi. Meanwhile, his introduction affords the first attempt to construct the bard’s biography (pp. i-xxv), which culminates in his martyrdom, based largely on oral tradition about the poet and his songs that was still circulating among the older generation of Tbilisi residents.

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According to those accounts, Arut‘in (later known as Sayat‘-Nova) was born in Tbilisi, then capital of the Georgian kingdom of Kʻartʻli, in the early 18th century to a father who had moved from Aleppo and a mother from the Havlabar quarter of Tbilisi, who had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem (confirmed by the poet’s Azeri song no. 65). In his youth he was apprenticed to a weaver and quickly learned the trade before commencing his training as an ašuł, a process that may have taken eight years according to one interpretation of Azeri song no. 81 written in the vuǰut‘lama or pseudoautobiographical genre. During that time, Azeri song no. 1 refers to his mastering various musical instruments (k‘ananč‘a, č‘ongur, and tambur) with which to accompany himself as a bard. It is likely that he received his makhlaṣ or professional name Sayat‘-Nova, from his master at this point. From evidence in the songbook, Axverdean concludes that Sayat‘-Nova began his career performing in Turkish, since the oldest dated materials in that idiom are from 1742, whereas the earliest Armenian composition is only recorded from a decade later. It is presumed that his Georgian output was mainly associated with his role as court poet under King Erekle II of Kʻartʻli (r. 1744-62), a position he had subsequently to vacate according to tradition because of a love affair with the king’s sister Anna. The songbook contains a colophon of 1765; his wife died in 1768, and so it is assumed that the last quarter century of his life as a monk in the monastery of Hałpat in Loṙi must have started around 1770. The folk tradition that Axverdean relates, but whose veracity he discounts, suggests that Sayat‘-Nova returned to Tbilisi at the news of the arrival there of a renowned foreign bard, concerned that his compatriots might be worsted in a competition. Braving the harsh winter weather, he came to the city and the Armenian bishop Dawit‘, hearing of his journey, wished to see him and bade his servants find him. Eventually, they discovered him sitting on the frozen River Kura dressed in lay garb provided by his old friends and intently engaged in a duel with the foreign bard, which he was about to win. The editor continues that, on learning of the invasion of Agha Mohammad Khan (Āqā Muḥammad Khān, r. 1789-97), founder of the Qajar dynasty in Iran, to re-establish Iranian suzerainty over the Georgian kingdom of Kʻartʻli-Kakhetʻi, the poet quickly made arrangements to send his four children, Melik‘sed, Ōhan, Saṙa, and Mariam, out of harm’s way across the border to the southern Russian outpost of Mozdok. Meanwhile, Iranian troops entered Tbilisi and soon reached the residence of the Armenian bishop below the fortress. Storming into the narthex, they approached Sayat‘-Nova, who was praying in the main church, and demanded him to

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come out and renounce his faith. They received the reply, ‘I will not leave the church. Nor will I deny Jesus’ (p. xii). As a result, they summarily put him to death by the sword. A few days after the Iranian army had withdrawn from the city, the Armenian community gathered up the martyr’s remains and buried them in the church, near the small north door. At that time, his grave was not marked by a gravestone. Axverdean concludes by stating that the event occurred in September 1795 and by affirming that his narrative is founded on eyewitness testimony. As is clear from the above, many aspects of Sayat‘-Nova’s life remain obscure (many of the issues are summarised in Baxč‘inyan, Sayat‘-Nova, and Dowsett, Sayat‘-Nova). Estimates of his date of birth, for example, vary from 1712 to 1722, while Georgian scholarship tends to place his death in 1801. Similarly, Armenian researchers consider his teacher to have been a certain Dosti, who, they argue, was a Christian Armenian. However, Azerbaijani writers regard him as being Muslim. Unfortunately, it appears there are no extant sources to help clarify the matter. It is noteworthy that the bard’s adamant defence of his Christian faith, which caused his martyrdom, is also reflected in his poetic oeuvre. The ašık (court poet) movement in Anatolia and southern Caucasia largely employed a Turkic medium, regardless of the practitioners’ ethnic identity, and Armenian bards were integrated into its norms with regard not only to language but also to themes and stylistic treatment. Their output also often included a few works that highlighted religious distinctions. Thus, in Azeri song no. 69, probably composed for a competition with a Muslim rival, Sayat‘-Nova proudly acknowledges his Armenian Christian identity and maintains that his ‘religion is correct’. Moreover, he possesses a few other compositions probably intended for a Christian audience, one of which (Azeri song no. 11) is devoted to the martyrdom of St John the Precursor, while another contains the affirmation that ‘Jesus is God’ (Azeri song no. 84). However, it is more striking to observe that alone among Armenian ašułs, Sayat‘-Nova employs the šahxat‘ayi genre that was normally used solely by Iranian Shīʿīs, and originated as a eulogy of Shah Ismāʿīl (r. 1501-24). Likewise, in a work with a powerful Sufi ambience (Azeri song no. 27), he alludes to the Qur’an as one of the three havens of the dervish, while in a typical treatment of the transience of the world, together with the figures of Rustam, Shirin and Farhad from the Shāhnāmā, he cites as examples also the Prophet Muḥammad, the Qur’an and the Twelve Imams of Shīʿism (Azeri song no. 101). On occasion, he also deploys Muslim terminology to refer to Christian clergy, as in presenting the Armenian catholicos as an imam in Azeri song no. 5 and in another

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poem as a caliph. The conclusion is clearly that, as Xi Yang states, the bard deals with Muslims’ beliefs ‘in a serious, respectful way’ and displays significant broadmindedness in matters of religion (‘Sayat‘-Nova within the Near Eastern bardic tradition’, p. 179). The last phase of Sayat‘-Nova’s biography raises broader issues germane to Christian-Muslim interchange associated with the integrity of the Iranian state and the character of Iranian rule. The abeyance of strong central government after the demise of the Afsharid dynasty in mid-century had the effect of strengthening the autonomy of Iran’s main administrative components, such as the Georgian kingdom of Kʻartʻli-Kakhetʻi. As the culmination of increasing Russian involvement in Caucasia and Georgian diplomatic initiatives at the Russian court, King Erekle II, though nominally an Iranian vassal at that point, signed the Treaty of Georgievsk in 1783, which transferred suzerainty to its northern neighbour, thereby taking the first step towards substituting Christian for Islamic oversight. Meanwhile, the settlement of Mozdok, where the bard sent his children for protection, had been established in 1763 as a bridgehead for further Russian advance, half the population at this juncture being Armenian and Georgian. Thus, when Agha Mohammad Khan demanded that Erekle should renounce his treaty with Russia, the latter contacted the Empress Catherine to send troop support, though this overture met with no response. As a result, since the Georgians ignored the final Iranian ultimatum in September 1795, after he had subdued Shiraz, Isfahan and Tabriz, Agha Mohammad Khan set his sights on Tbilisi. When Erekle withdrew from the city, the Iranians entered and sacked it, and massacred the population except for some 15,000 who were transported to Iran. On their part, the Russians invaded in 1801 and annexed Georgia to their empire to the chagrin of various factions among the indigenous nobility. Significance In addition to Axverdean’s account of the events surrounding the bard’s martyrdom, several other Armenian narratives illuminate Agha Mohammad Khan’s sack of Tbilisi. These include the laments of the ašułs Šamč‘i Melk‘ō, Bałer Ōłli, and K‘ič‘ik-Ōłlan, prose descriptions by the learned priest Serovbē Patkanean and the catholicos Lukas Karnec‘i, and epistolary correspondence. In addition to impacting the scholarly study of Sayat‘-Nova and his verse over the next century and a half, Axverdean’s work also formed the basis for a series of artistic treatments of the bard and his biography. These include a two-volume novel by Zarzand Daryan (1960, 1963) that portrays

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the protagonist from a pronouncedly Soviet perspective as engaging in class warfare to protect the downtrodden from the oppression of the aristocracy and clergy, while making common cause with Muslims. Similarly, Agha Mohammad Khan’s personal requirement that he should convert is the prelude to an offer of employment at his court. The subject is also the theme of an opera by Alek‘sandr Harut‘yunyan of 1969 as well as of three films. The first, directed by Kim Arzumanyan for television in 1960, develops the motif of the bardic contest versus a Muslim ašık, here called Fat‘ullah. Here, too, the poet is accorded a series of harangues against the nobility and is depicted standing side by side with the defenders of the city during the Iranian onslaught, performing to raise the citizens’ morale. The second was a documentary produced for the Sayat‘-Nova jubilee in 1963 by Gurgen Balasanyan from a script by the acclaimed poet and philologist Paruyr Sevak. The third, Nṛan guyně (‘Colour of pomegranates’, 1966), was a largely symbolic evocation of the poet’s aesthetic development in a painterly, visual style by Sergei Parajanov that ostentatiously contradicts the imperatives of Socialist Realism. Its tableauesque form embodies religious and ethnographic details of the life of the three major peoples of Transcaucasia, in whose languages the bard had composed. Publications Gēorg Axverdean, ‘Ašuł Arut‘iwn Tp‘łisec‘i’, in Sayat-Nōvay. Lus gc‘ac ašxatasirut‘ēnov Gēorgeay Axverdean, Gusank‘, vol. 1, Moscow: Vladimir Got‘ine Press, 1852, pp. 6-13 (first edition); AA0014395552 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) Y. Manandean and H. Ač‘aṙean, Hayoc‘ nor vkanerə (1155-1843), Vałaršapat, 1903, pp. 609-19 (critical edition) K. Ter-Davtyan, Novie armyanskie mucheniki (1155-1843), perevod, predislovie i primechaniya, Yerevan: Nairi Publications, 1998, pp. 239-43 (Russian trans. of the martyrology) Studies Xi Yang, ‘Sayat‘-Nova within the Near Eastern bardic tradition’, Los Angeles CA, 2016 (PhD Diss. UCLA) H. Baxč‘inyan (ed.), Sayat‘-Nova, Davt‘ar: nmanahanut‘yun, Yerevan: Yełiše Č‘arenc‘ Museum of Literature and Art, 2005 C.J.F. Dowsett, Sayat‘-Nova. An 18th century troubadour, Leuven, 1997 H. Sevoyan, Nor ēǰer Sayat‘-Novayi kyank‘ic‘, Yerevan, 1989 H. Baxč‘inyan, Sayat‘-Nova. Kyank‘ə ev gorcə, Yerevan: Yerevan Univer­ sity Press, 1987

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Ṙ.T. Titanyan, Haykakan ałbyurnerə Ała Muhammad Xani andrkovkasyan aršavank‘neri masin (1795-1797 t‘t‘.), Yerevan: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1981 H. Baxč‘inyan, ‘Sayat‘-Novayi kensagrut‘yan erku harc‘i šurǰə’, Banber Erevani Hamalsarani 2 (1977) 162-75 K‘. Gevorgyan, ‘Sayat‘-Novayi kensagrut‘yunə’, Ēǰmiacin 9-10 (1961) 51-60 S. Peter Cowe

Daniel Chonkadze Daniel Čonkʻaże Date of Birth 18 March 1830 Place of Birth Kvavili, Georgia Date of Death 16 July 1860 Place of Death Tbilisi, Georgia

Biography

The Georgian author Daniel Chonkadze was born in the village of Kvavili in Dushetʻi district in 1830. In 1838, his family moved to Vladikavkaz, where Daniel’s mother guided her children’s education. Daniel received primary education at Vladikavkaz Theological College (1839-45) and continued his studies at Tbilisi Theological Seminary. After graduation in 1851, he was appointed a teacher of the Ossetic language at Stavropol Caucasian Theological Seminary. His father, Giorgi, and grandfather, Shio, were priests. Shio participated in the struggle against the Lezghians, and Giorgi was invited by Vladikavkaz Theological Commission to work as a missionary among the Muslim Ossetians, who hated him so much that in 1845 they killed him. In 1855, Daniel and his wife Ana Fiodorova moved to Tbilisi, where he started to work at the Theological Seminary as a teacher. His wife died in childbirth, and Daniel was left in charge of his only son. His health deteriorated, so that he could not finish the already well-advanced scholarly work entrusted to him by the Imperial Russian Academy on the compilation of a Russian-Ossetic dictionary. In January 1856, at his own request, he was excluded from the clerical rank to which he had belonged by a resolution of the Synod. However, in 1858 he received the rank of collegium registrar. In 1859, he was invited to head the Synod Office, in addition to which he continued to teach. He was given the task of translating the Bible and church books into Ossetic and his excellent translations won prizes. Daniel Chonkadze is best known for one work, Suramis cʻixe (‘The fortress of Surami’), which caused great public excitement when it was published. He was very pleased with this, and said that he intended to compose other novellas as well, but tuberculosis prevented him from working. He

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died on 16 July 1860 at the age of 30, and is buried together with his wife at Vera cemetery in Tbilisi. Unfortunately, his records have not survived, as the manuscripts of his works were destroyed by his relatives who were afraid of catching the infection that killed him.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Archives Tbilisi, Osetinskie teksti sobrannie, Korneli Kekelidze Georgian National Centre of Manuscripts – Archive fund S 1641 ‘Osetinskie teksti sobrannie D. Čonkʻaże i V. Cʻorevim’ [Ossetian texts collected by D. Čonkʻaże and V. Tsorev], Zapiski Akademii Nauk 5/14 (1868) 404-5 (in Russian) Secondary D. Rayfield, The literature of Georgia. A history, London, 2010, pp. 168-71 Art. ‘Daniel Čonk’aże’, in Ir. Abašije (ed.), Kʻartʻuli sabčotʻa encʻiklopedia [Georgian Soviet encyclopedia], vol. 11, Tbilisi, 1987 Art. ‘Daniel Čonk’aże’, in G. Abzianidze (ed.), K’art’uli literaturis istoria, vol. 3. XIX saukunis [History of Georgian literature, vol. 3. 19th century], Tbilisi, 1969, 363-77 A. Xundaże, Daniel Čonkʻaże. Gana tʻleba [Daniel Čonkʻaże. Education], Tbilisi, 1966, pp. 1-108

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Suramis cʻixe ‘The fortress of Surami’ Date 1859-60 Original Language Georgian Description The novella Suramis cʻixe was first published in the journal Cʻiskari, the first part appearing in 1859 and the second in 1860. The 1924 edition is 24 pages long. Published in the years preceding the abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861, the work reflects class conflict. To divert the attention of the censors, Chonkadze based it on a legend associated with the fortress of Surami in eastern Georgia, and set it in the Middle Ages. It brings together the two stories of Nodar, who converts to Islam in order to escape an injustice and takes the name Osman-Agha, and Durmishxan, a fellow-Georgian whom Nodar helps.

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Durmishxan is taken away from his mother as a child and offered as a gift to Muxrantʻbatoni, prince of Muxrani. His mother cannot bear her grief and dies. When he grows up and becomes a servant of the prince, he falls in love with Gulisvardi, servant to the prince’s wife, and she with him. Durmishxan convinces her that, as long as they remain serfs deprived of freedom, their marriage and a happy life are impossible, and he persuades her to ask their masters to release him so that he can earn money for their future marriage. He gets away from the city. He meets three Ottoman Turks and tells them his story. When one of them, Osman-Agha, who was originally a Christian named Nodar, hears it, he tells the story of his own tragic life. He was himself the son of a peasant serf and, when his father died, he and his mother and sister were taken by his master. His master intended to sell him and his sister to a priest from Kakhetʻi, but his mother fled from the palace with her children and went to Tbilisi, where they assumed Armenian names and lived in dire poverty. For fear of being betrayed they attended an Armenian church, though without being able to receive the sacrament. In her anxiety over this, Nodar’s mother made her confession to a priest, but he told the authorities about the family and they were sent back to their master. The cruelty the master then meted out to them resulted in the mother’s death and Nodar being left as a serf in the palace. Years passed, and he fell in love with Nato, a maidservant of the master’s wife, and resolved to marry her. However, the master sent Nodar on an errand and raped Nato while he was away. She could not endure the shame and drowned herself. At all this injustice, grief and humiliation Nodar was unable to control himself. He killed his master and his wife and child, and fled. He moved to Axalcʻixe, where he met a mufti and converted to Islam. This caused him great turmoil but the only way he could escape punishment was to renounce his Christian religion. He was enrolled in the Janissary corps in Istanbul and, when his bravery was noted, he was made an officer. However, his murder of his master’s innocent child and his renunciation of Christianity were poisoning his life. To lighten his guilt and anxiety, he threw himself into commercial activity in Istanbul. He was very successful and became a rich man. Osman-Agha is moved by the similarity of Durmishxan’s story to his own, and he treats Durmishxan like a son. He takes him to Istanbul, gives him half of his fortune and marries him to a relative. But when Durmishxan becomes rich, he forgets about Osman-Agha and also about his former fellow-servant Gulisvardi. Osman-Agha now returns to Christianity, with the blessing of the patriarch, but the Muslim mullahs seize him and torture

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him to make him to return to Islam. They finally cut his body up and throw it into the sea. Durmishxan, however, does not think of him at all; he is too busy with his business affairs to go to church to pray for his repose and does not even ask for permission to bury his body. All this time, Gulisvardi is patiently waiting for her beloved Durmishxan but, when she learns of his unfaithfulness, her love is extinguished and she is consumed with desire for revenge. She turns away from God and asks a fortune-teller to teach her witchcraft. She declares that she and God have nothing in common and seeks to use the power of the devil. As a fortuneteller calling herself Vardua, she then becomes famous all over the city. Durmishxan eventually returns to Georgia and continues his commercial activities. He is a happy and rich man and has a very handsome son, Zurab. But later, when he leaves for Istanbul on business, his family is struck by tragedy. The Ottomans threaten to attack, forcing the Georgians to build the fortress of Surami. But it keeps collapsing and, in despair, the vizier seeks advice from the fortune-teller Vardua. She tells him that the fortress can only be completed if Zurab, Durmishxan’s only son, is closed up within its walls. This is done and, when Durmishxan returns, he finds his wife out of her mind and his son buried alive. He goes to find Vardua, his former love Gulisvardi and, soon after, their dead bodies are found in his room. Once betrothed, but now driven by feelings of revenge, they have killed each other. A significant element in the novella is its treatment of religious differences through the experiences of its characters rather than in broad statements about the nature of Christianity and Islam. This dramatic treatment teases out the intricate and sometimes confused nature of religious reality, clouding the simple judgement that one faith is right and good while the other is wrong and bad. Thus, while the patriarch, who compassionately receives Osman-Agha back to Christianity as Nodar, and the mullahs, who subject him to sadistic torture and death, are evidently representatives of their respective faiths, at the same time individual Christian priests own serfs and unscrupulously trade in whatever brings them wealth, while Nodar knows that his conversion to Islam as OsmanAgha will bring great spiritual distress, but he realistically recognises that this is his only means of staying alive and he finds that he not only survives but thrives as a Muslim. All the time, in the background, trade between Christians and Muslims continues without hindrance despite their hostility to one another as confirmed enemies.

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Significance Some Georgians were offended by Suramis cʻixe. Among them, Aleksandre Orbeliani (1802-69) denounced it as no more than a melodrama and was shocked by the intransigent denunciation of serfdom made by Chonkadze (Rayfield, Literature of Georgia, p. 170). Nevertheless, the work has remained in print in a succession of editions to the present day and has been translated into a variety of languages. Publications Daniel Chonkadze, ‘Suramis cʻixe’, Cʻiskari 12 (1859) part 1; 13 (1860) part 2 Daniel Chonkadze, Suramis cʻixe, Tbilisi, 1924 Daniel Chonkadze, Suramis cʻixe, ed. M. Zandukeli, Tbilisi, 1932 Daniel Chonkadze, Die Burg von Surami, trans. R. Bleichsteiner, Vienna, 1940 (German trans.) Daniel Chonkadze, Suramskaia krepost, trans. E. Ananiashvili, Tbilisi, 1952 (Russian trans.) Daniel Chonkadze, Pevnost Surami, trans. J. Jedlička. Prague, 1958 (Czech trans.) Daniel Chonkadze, ‘Suramis cʻixe’, in K. Lort’k’ip’anije (ed.), Kʻartʻuli motʻxroba [Georgian novellas], vol. 1, Tbilisi, 1963, 3-46 Daniel Chonkadze, Suramis cʻixe, Tbilisi, 1982 Daniel Chonkadze, ‘Suramis cʻixe’, in Kʻartʻuli Proza [Georgian prose] 7 (1984) 245-303 Sergei Parajanov, Ambavi Suramis cʻixisa [The legend of the fortress of Surami], New York, 1985 (film) Daniel Chonkadze, Suramis cʻixe, in Kʻartʻuli Mcerloba [Georgian literature] 10 (1992) 583-638 Daniel Chonkadze, Suramis cʻixe, Tbilisi, 2008 Studies G. Zedania, Suramis cʻixe. Interpretacʻiisatʻvis [The fortress of Surami. An interpretation], 2010; https://burusi.wordpress.com/2010/03/13/giga -zedania-5/ Rayfield, Literature of Georgia, pp. 168-71 D. Gamezardashvili, ‘Daniel Chonkadze’, in D. Gamezardashvili, Kʻartʻuli literaturis da kritikis istoriidan [From the history of Georgian literature and criticism], vol. 1, Tbilisi, 1974, 546-55 G. Kikʻodze (ed.), Daniel Chonkadze. Rchʻeuli tʻxzulebani [Daniel Chonkadze. Selected works], vol. 3, Tbilisi, 1965, pp. 229-32

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V. Kotetishvili, ‘Daniel Chonkadze’, Kʻartʻuli Literaturis Istoria [History of Georgian literature], vol. 2, Tbilisi, 1965, 200-12 M. Zandukeli (ed.), Daniel Chonkadze. Txzulebani [Daniel Chonkadze. Works], vol. 2, Tbilisi, 1962, pp. 146-63 Tamar Tsitsishvili

Mgrdič‘ Bešigt‘ašlian Mkrtich Peshikt‘ashlean Date of Birth 18 August 1828 Place of Birth Ortaköy, Constantinople (Istanbul since 1928) Date of Death 29 November 1868 Place of Death Constantinople (Istanbul)

Biography

Poet, playwright, pedagogue, prominent intellectual and social activist, Mgrdič‘ Bešigt‘ašlian is a remarkable representative of several of the major transitions experienced by Ottoman-Armenian society in the mid-19th century. During this period, the Armenian community was administered as a millet, a confessional community under the immediate oversight of the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople. However, the creation of the Catholic millet in 1834 as a result of pressure from the French government and the papal Propaganda Fide, and the institution of a Protestant counterpart on British and American initiative in 1846, left the community religiously fragmented. Further socio-economic and educational and cultural developments, both externally in the Ottoman realm under the rubric of the Tanzimat Reforms (1839-78) and internally in Ottoman-Armenian society, assisted in advancing the pace of change that ushered in a significant administrative reorganisation codified in the Armenian Constitution of 1863, in all of which spheres Bešigt‘ašlian played an active part. Born into a Catholic Armenian family in the Ortaköy district of the Ottoman capital, his mother, and later his father and sisters, died when he was very young so his education was wholly entrusted to the Armenian Catholic monastic order of the Mkhitarists. Beginning in their school in the upper-class European quarter of Pera (1834-9), he continued to their Muradian School in Padua, Italy (1839-45), where he studied with the dramatist Fr Bedros Minasian and the epic author Arsēn Pakraduni, imbibing their Classical poetics with its predilection for verse composed in the Classical Armenian register, which employed themes drawn from GraecoRoman and ancient Armenian history. After graduating, he also worked with the illustrious historian Fr Łevont Ališan in the order’s mother house in Venice.

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Returning to Constantinople, he implemented his training in the Mkhitarist version of Jesuit school drama to create a series of nine plays on patriotic subjects featuring great figures of Armenian history, as well as the lighter Erek‘ K‘ač‘er ('Comedy of the three braves') and Gadagerkut‘iun Avazagac‘ ('Comedy of the robbers'). He also produced Armenian versions of Voltaire’s Death of Caesar and Vittorio Alfieri’s Saul and Bruto Primo, which were performed in the hall of the Lusavorč‘agan Varžaran (Armenian Apostolic Academy) in Ortaköy. Thus, together with Bedros Turian and T‘ovma T‘erzian, he facilitated the establishment of West Armenian theatre in the capital, which in turn exerted a seminal influence on the development of Turkish theatre. A similar ethos marks Bešigt‘ašlian’s early poetic output. Beginning in his school days, he started publishing from 1849 onwards. Composed in Classical Armenian and focusing on the heroism of Armenian religious history, poems such as I nahadagut‘iun Vartananc‘ ('On the martyrdom of the Vartanank‘') and Tiuc‘azunk‘ Hayoc‘ ('Armenian champions'), treating the defence of Armenian Christianity, and the activities of ancient kings, such as Zposank‘ Artašēsi Aṙaǰnoy ('The pursuits of Artašēs I'), they sought to inculcate cultural nationalism in the Mkhitarist mould. At the same time, he made a living by teaching Armenian and French in various Armenian schools and as a private tutor, in which capacity he assisted in the formation of the iconoclastic woman novelist of the 1880s Srpuhi Diwsab (Vahanian), for whom he developed a particular fondness. Most provision of education at the time was under the supervision of the Armenian millet, but largely remained at a very elementary level and primarily served the urban communities of the west. Consequently, one of Bešigt‘ašlian’s farsighted projects was to organise voluntary societies such as the Hamazkeac‘ əngerut‘iwn (Pan-national Society) and Parekordz‘agan əngerut‘iwn Hayoc‘ (Benevolent Society of Armenia), which augmented the current provision by opening schools in the eastern provinces, engaging instructors and providing modern textbooks to improve standards. A number of his published speeches were devoted to such concerns. He also furthered such causes through his membership of other institutions such as the Murad-Ṙap‘ayēlian Alumni Association and the recently established Armenian Sēr Masonic lodge, which served as a centre for Armenian intellectuals in the capital. Responding to the religious and social ferment of the 1850s, the poet threw himself into the central debates of the time, seeking to maintain collective unity under the ideology of Romantic Nationalism,

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reconceptualising corporate identity in terms of the Armenian ethnos. He expressed this principle in his popular work We are brothers, in which he argues that the generic bonds of consanguinity and culture that bind Armenians together under the symbol of ‘Mother Armenia’ representing the homeland are so potent because they derive from nature itself. As a result, he played a crucial role in compiling drafts of the document that became ratified as the National Constitution, which radically expanded the franchise and ensured most of the decision-making process resided with the laity under the patriarch’s aegis as collective figurehead. Around this time, tensions arose in the Zēyt‘un (present-day Süleymanlı) district in the Taurus mountains between Armenian townsmen and neighbouring Turkish villages, which ended in hostilities. The Armenian community there had enjoyed a semi-autonomous status ratified by Sultan Murad IV (r. 1623-40) in 1627 exempting them from the poll-tax in appreciation for the assistance they had given during the Jalali Revolt. The events of the Zēyt‘un affair led to several imprisonments and the intervention of two pashas and a number of investigatory commissions. Ultimately, the district was incorporated into the Ottoman provincial administration in 1865. Over its three-year course, the affair generated a great deal of coverage in the Armenian press in both the Ottoman and Russian sectors, where reporting was now in modern language to appeal to a wider audience. The periodical press provided not only information regarding events but also interpretation, presenting the rather localised matters as meriting the attention of the whole polity from a contemporary nationalist standpoint, which now accorded value not only to community population issues but also territorial matters. Bešigt‘ašlian contributed to the process of making these events known nationally by composing a series of poems for dissemination in the press that mark his transition to writing in Modern Western Armenian. There, he portrays the heroism of the Armenian population in victoriously defending this portion of their traditional homeland from attack, extending it as a patriotic model for emulation by the largely urban middle-class readership. In order to inform himself about the details as accurately as possible, he made contact with delegates from Zēyt‘un who came to Constantinople, and also conferred with a Polish prince about the possibility of joint activity between the two peoples. His last years saw the composition of a number of romantic and elegiac works, such as To the zephyr of Alemt‘ał, A walk on the giant mountain, Autumn and The lyre and the grave. These rounded out his oeuvre of 60

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poems, whose primary characteristics are taut construction, concise compass, a tone of gentle restraint and tasteful musicality. His complete works were published posthumously by the Murad-Ṙap‘ayēlian Society in 1870. Bešigt‘ašlian died in 1868 of tuberculosis, the widespread 19th-century urban disease, which had already borne off other family members.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Source A. Č‘obanian (ed.), Mgrdi č‘ Bešigt‘ašliani geank‘n u kordz‘ə [Mgrdič‘ Bešigt‘ašlian’s life and work], Paris, 1907 A. Bibeṙčean, Yušardz‘an M. Bešigt‘ašliani [Memorial to M. Bešigt‘ašlian], Constantinople, 1914 Secondary Source A.J. Hacikyan et al., The heritage of Armenian literature, vol. 3, Detroit MI, 2005, pp. 286-8 K.B. Bardakjian, A reference guide to modern Armenian literature, 1500-1920, Detroit MI, 2000, pp. 118-19, 464 L. Nalbandian, The Armenian revolutionary movement, Berkeley CA, 1975, pp. 71-5

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Zeytun poem cycle A cycle of four poems devoted to the Zēyt‘un Affair Date 1862 Original Language Armenian Description As is clear from the titles, the first three poems, entitled Hay k‘aǰortin (‘The brave Armenian son’), Mah k‘aǰortwoyn (‘Death of the brave son’), T‘ałumn k‘aǰortwoyn (‘Burial of the brave son’), present connected tableaus from the patriotic activities of an Armenian youth who fights, dies and is laid to rest in service of his native land, while the fourth, Hay k‘aǰuhin (‘The brave Armenian woman’), represents a paean to the female embodiment of the qualities of liberty and victory. Beyond the conceptual level, internal unity is achieved by parallels in metre and prosody, three poems being composed in four-line stanzas of eight-syllable lines with abab rhyme scheme, and the fourth in hendecasyllabic lines. Moreover, the first and second

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feature a recurring refrain, while the second and third are monologues couched in the first-person singular and plural, respectively. Hay k‘aǰortin, based on Victor Hugo’s L’enfant from his collection Les orientales (Paris, 1829, pp. 121-2), which is devoted to the Greek War of Independence, contrasts the freedom-loving aspirations of the Greek community with the Ottomans’ imperialist ambitions. Hugo’s poem, which forms the 18th unit in the series, is set during the Chios massacre of 1822, perpetrated by the Ottomans on the island of Chios in response to a revolt by the local Greek population. It zooms in on a blue-eyed Greek boy who sits disconsolately, shedding tears of mourning amid the ruins, his bare feet lacerated by the sharp rocks. The poet seeks to wipe away his tears by various stratagems, proposing to bring him a flower, a pretty piece of fruit or a wondrous singing bird, items a child might find of interest or that would pique his curiosity. In the sting in the tail in the final couplet, the boy retorts with a maturity beyond his years that what he really desires is powder and cannonballs. While maintaining a certain parallelism with Hugo’s poem, Bešigt‘ašlian significantly changes the setting, transporting it to the mountains of Armenia, where the protagonist emerges as a child of this environment. Moreover, he is no longer a teary-eyed boy, but a youth who, in the continuation, soothes his aching heart by taking up the arms he alludes to here to join the fray against the enemy, thus preparing the transition to the second poem. Commensurate with the youth’s age and Bešigt‘ašlian’s Romantic fascination with the countryside, two of the three suggestions the latter makes to defuse the sombre mood are to look at the elemental force of the sea or the firmament of the sky and the natural realm. The third proposal evokes the Romantic theme of love in finding comfort from the two most important female figures in his life, his mother and his sweetheart. However, as already indicated, the youth’s ultimate goal remains unchanged, to take revenge for what the Ottomans have done. In the second poem, Mah k‘aǰortwoyn, which is 42 lines long, the youth is defined more distinctly as having taken part in battle for Zēyt‘un. Now mortally wounded, in a dramatic monologue he conveys his last wishes to his mother, who has come looking for him on the battlefield. He recalls the lullabies she would sing him in infancy as she caressed him to sleep and now indicates it is time to lay him to rest once more. He bids her consider not only the wounds he has sustained but those of the enemy strewn around. They attacked, but the Armenians mounted a vigorous defence

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of their homeland. Their ancestors’ bones rejoiced that the Armenians’ fire had not been extinguished and that their death had not been left unavenged. He then gives his mother a final kiss and asks her to pass it on to his sweetheart, while he embraces their soil one last time before descending into its bosom. In keeping with the restrained tone throughout, the recurring refrain emphasises that she should bring the ‘joyful news’ of victory to the town. The third poem, T‘ałumn k‘aǰortwoyn, which is 32 lines long, was influenced by Charles Wolfe’s work The burial of Sir John Moore, which had established itself as a favourite in contemporary collections of English poetry (The poems of Charles Wolfe with an introductory memoir by C. Litton Falkiner, London, 1903, pp. 1-2). Moore was a Lieutenant-General in the British army and commander of the forces in the north of Spain during the Peninsular War against Napoleon. The French army under General Soult drove the British to retreat to the coast, where they were forced to fight a rear-guard action at the Battle of Corunna (Elviña) to support troop embarkation on 16 January 1809. During the hostilities, Moore was mortally wounded by a cannonball and was subsequently laid to rest in the San Carlos Garden at A Coruña. The process described in this poem finds certain parallels in Bešigt‘ašlian’s piece, especially the silence, the dark of night, the simple grave carved out of the sod, the lack of a coffin or shroud, and the powerful conclusion, where the warrior is left alone with his glory. But Bešigt‘ašlian’s poem completely retools the context and thereby the significance of these features. Whereas in the original silence is crucial in order to avoid attracting the attention of the French troops through military salutes and fanfares on the bugle, here it forms part of the wider tranquility of the natural scene. Similarly, Moore’s shallow grave is of necessity a makeshift affair to allow the soldiers to return to their pressing evacuation activities, while that of the Brave Youth is precisely appropriate to such a child of nature now returning to his native soil. Likewise, while the British officer remains alone on foreign soil, the Armenian youth is interred in his ancestral homeland, where it is imagined he will commune with the souls of the departed to assure them of a vibrant community still dwelling on the land. The last poem, Hay k‘aǰuhin, which is 80 lines long, depicts the figure of an Armenian girl skipping jauntily, her hair cascading over her shoulders, as she ascends the mountains. She first emerges as an embodiment of the spirit of Liberty, spreading her wings over the valleys as the enemy forces approach. Then she assumes the characteristics of Nike, the Greek

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goddess of victory. Armed with breastplate and helmet, she inspires the menfolk with courage and commands them to repel the foe. Finally, she returns from battle with the wreath of victory glistening in her hair. Significance This sequence of poems powerfully illustrates the transition in character within the Armenian millet from one of a purely religious, confessional identity typified by the designation ‘Armenian Christian’ to one highlighting the agency of the lay polity that was increasingly pivoting towards a nationalist self-conception. This is manifest in a number of ways. In the third poem, the priest who administers the burial is portrayed as straddling both domains as a ‘brave soldier of God and the Armenians’, suggesting that he was an active participant in the armed conflict. Similarly, the one distinguishing mark left at the youth’s grave is a simple cross that his mother had requested, implying that such tender sensibilities as affection and piety are more appropriate to women than the male combatants, whose imperatives are more dictated by ethnic ideals and community maintenance. These developments signal the greater secularisation of the polity through the constitutional movement of the Tanzimat period under exposure to French thought, which was disseminated by the intelligentsia and artistic community that now through education, expanded literacy and print media were beginning to assume more of a leadership position in opinion formation, thereby replacing the dominant role of the clergy. The new nationalist categories employed to distinguish Armenians from other collectives are especially evident in the second poem, where the primary contrast the poet creates is between the ethnonyms ‘Armenian’ and ‘Turk’ rather than the religious terms ‘Christian’ and ‘Muslim’. This variation is pursued in the psychological realm in his construction of Armenian femininity, for example, as being tougher, more restrained and less emotionally effusive than that of Turkish women, who are depicted as openly weeping at losses in the hostilities. Similarly, whereas the clergy had consistently preached to their flock a message of willing submission to Muslim authorities, sometimes within an eschatological framework that perceived a new age of righteousness as being introduced by Christ at the eschaton, the final poem appeals to the watchwords of liberty and self-defence, heralding a new era of agency marked by the Rousseauesque ideals of the ‘free man’. There, too, the foes’ imperialist perspective is clear in their portrayal using the bodily image of a huge monster, implying their aggressive stance

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and vast numerical superiority. Moreover, despite his youth, the group of men who bury him affirm that the hero in the third poem has lived a full life, in that his raison d’ être has been defined by commitment to such communal goals. This, then, becomes the culmination of the discussion in the preceding work, where the youth reveals his willingness to forego his individual fulfilment in love and family life in order to secure the community’s future. Thus, we observe the degree to which a secular nationalist ideology can demand the ultimate sacrifice that had once only been the preserve of religion. The concern for the welfare of the Armenian community of Zēyt‘un evinced in these poems typifies a broadening of the view of Armenian intellectual circles in the capital regarding life in the eastern provinces in general from their previously rather narrow centralist approach, informed in part by both French and Ottoman models. This new-found focus on territoriality contrasted both with the Mkhitarist emphasis on cultural nationalism and with religious perspectives that lauded the great acts of Salvation History (e.g. Paradise and the resting of Noah’s Ark) that God had wrought in Armenia in the distant past. In contrast, Bešigt‘ašlian intrudes Mount Ararat into the second poem not as part of a sacralised landscape, but by using its internal Armenian name of Masis, as being the most prominent feature on the Armenian Plateau and therefore a potent symbol of national pride. The region’s salience for the present clearly points to the gradual development of a modernist narrative of creating a future Golden Age through the investment of purely human resources. A core facet of Romantic nationalism was the idealisation of the beauty of the natural environment of the native land. This is a feature which the poet displays throughout his work and is manifestly on display in these compositions, extolling Zēyt‘un’s rugged mountainous countryside as on the canvases of the artist Yovhannēs Aivazovsky later in the decade, which inaugurated the tradition of Armenian landscape painting. At the same time, the synergy between the rough grandeur of the setting and the ethos of the population is also unmistakable. The impression is clearly conveyed in the third poem that the local population are truly children of nature, who live in close harmony with their surroundings and therefore have maintained a pristine purity and sense of freedom that has been dissipated in the urban maelstrom of modern life. A final point worthy of note relates to the poet’s foregrounding of youth, young men and women, as the central focus. This, too, was a feature of the Armenian nationalist movement from its inception in the publications

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of the Madras Group in the 1770s out of the conviction that youth possessed not only a greater openness to innovation, but also a nobility, ethical aspiration and wholeheartedness of devotion to such a cause, which were comparatively absent from an adult readership compromised by their earlier formation and accumulated life experience. The elision of the father in the third poem is allusive of the youth’s transition into manhood, his rite of passage being determined by participation in the homeland’s armed defence. It is significant that many of the most momentous developments of the next decades were pioneered by young people. Publications Mgrdič‘ Bešigt‘ašlian, Matenagrut‘iwnk‘ Mkrtič‘ Pešikt‘ašleani [Mgrdič‘ Bešigt‘ašlian’s complete works], Constantinople, 1870 Mgrdič‘ Bešigt‘ašlian, Mkrti č‘ Pešikt‘ašleani Tałer Lēoyi aṙaǰabanov [Mgrdič‘ Bešigt‘ašlian’s poems with a preface by Lēo], Tbilisi, 1903 A. Č‘obanian (ed.), Mgrdi č‘ Bešigt‘ašliani k‘ert‘uadz‘nern u čaṙerə dz‘anōt‘akrut‘iwnnerov [Mgrdič‘ Bešigt‘ašlian’s poems and speeches with notes], Paris, 1904 Mgrdič‘ Bešigt‘ašlian, Tałk‘ ew t‘atergut‘iwnk‘ Mkrtič‘ Pešikt‘ašleani [Mgrdič‘ Bešigt‘ašlian’s poems and plays], New York, 1917 (especially pp. 101-8); 002616240 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) A.S. Blackwell, Armenian poems rendered into English Verse, Boston MA, 1896, repr. 1917, pp. 60-1, 63 (English trans.); 008602208 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library) A.M. Inčikyan, Mkrtič‘ Pešikt‘ašlyan Tałer [Mkrtič‘ Pešikt‘ašlean poems] Yerevan, 1947 Mgrdič‘ Bešigt‘ašlian, Mgrdič‘ Bešigt‘ašlian Panastedz‘ut‘i‘wnnner, čaṙer: haduadz‘ner [Mgrdič‘ Bešigt‘ašlian poems, speeches: sections], Venice, 1956 A. Manukyan, Mkrtič‘ Pešikt‘ašlean Erkeri liakatar žołovacu [Mkrtič‘ Pešikt‘ašlian collection of his complete works], Yerevan, 1987 Studies V.H. Sarafyan, ‘Mkrtič‘ Pešikt‘ašlyan (Mahvan 100-amyaki aṙt‘iv) [Mkrtič‘ Pešikt‘ašlyan on the centenary of his death]’, Patmabanasirakan Handes 4 (2021) 185-92 A. Ghoogasian, ‘The Zēyt‘un Affair and the transimperial press’, Chicago IL, 2019 (MA Diss. Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago, 2019)

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Bardakjian, Reference guide, pp. 118-19, 464-6 A.M. Inčikyan, ‘Mkrtič‘ Pešikt‘ašlyan’, in A.M. Inčikyan, Hay nor grakanut‘yan patmut‘yun [History of modern Armenian literature], vol. 2, Yerevan, 1962, pp. 322-56 S. Peter Cowe

Mirzə Fətəli Axundzadə Mīrzā Fatḥ-ʿAlī Ākhūndzāda, Mirzə Fətəli Axundov Date of Birth 12 July 1812 Place of Birth Nukha (present-day Shaki), Qajar Iran (now Azerbaijan) Date of Death 9 March 1878 Place of Death Tbilisi

Biography

Mirzə Fətəli Axundzadə was an Azerbaijani modernist intellectual, dramatist, writer and poet. His father, Mirzə Məhəmmədtağı, was the headman of Khāmina, a town near Tabriz. His grandfather Hacı Əhməd had moved from Rasht to Azerbaijan, and in consequence Axundzadə considered himself originally from Iran (Alif-bā-yi jadīd u maktūbāt, pp. 249-50). In 1811, his father fled to the city of Nukha (from 1968 renamed Shaki), leaving his wife and child behind. There he married for a second time, and in 1812 Fətəli was born of this marriage. Two years later, Məhəmmədtağı returned to Khāmina with his second wife and son. In 1818, Fətəli’s mother, who could no longer bear living with her husband’s first wife, left her husband and returned to her uncle, Axund Hacı Ələsgər, taking Fətəli with her. Axund Hacı Ələsgər adopted Fətəli as his son. From that time, he became known as Axundzadə or Axundov. When Fətəli turned seven, Hacı Ələsgər started teaching him the Qur’an, Persian and Arabic. In 1832, Axundzadə was entrusted to a mullah in Ganja to be taught jurisprudence (fiqh) and its methodology (uṣūl al-fiqh). A teacher who profoundly influenced Axundzadə was Mirzə Şəfi Vazeh (1794-1852). He taught him calligraphy (Nastaʿlīq script) and discussed with him matters such as philosophy, instilling in him an aversion towards the clergy. In his autobiography, Axundzadə later admitted, ‘The veil of ignorance was lifted from my eyes, and I began to detest the clergy and subsequently changed my intention [of becoming a mullah]’ (Collected dramatic works, p. 311). In 1833, Axundzadə returned to Nukha, where he learnt Russian for a year at the newly opened state primary school.

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In 1834, Hacı Ələsgər asked the Russian general in Tbilisi, Baron Georg Andreas von Rosen (1781-1841), the Viceroy of the Caucasus from 1831 to 1837, to give Fətəli employment. Baron Rosen immediately took him on as an assistant interpreter of Oriental languages and assigned the Azerbaijani writer and translator, Abbasqulu ağa Bakıxanov (1794-1847), to help him improve his Russian. Bakıxanov, who knew Russian literati and was an ardent propagator of European philosophy and sciences, introduced Axundzadə to the intellectual and literary circles of Tbilisi. Axundzadə also befriended the Russian writer and Decembrist Alexander Bestuzhev (1797-1837). With him he studied Russian literature, including the works of Pushkin and Gogol, in exchange for teaching him Azerbaijani. From December 1836 to 1840, Axundzadə also taught Azerbaijani and Persian in the newly established state secular school Qəza məktəbi. Later, Baron Rosen’s successor, General Mikhail Vorontsov (1782-1856), became Axundzadə’s second benefactor, encouraging him to write.

Illustration 15. Mirzə Fətəli Axundzadə

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In 1852, Axundzadə was appointed head translator to the Caucasus viceroy. During his 43 years of service under the Russian government, he was promoted from sergeant major to colonel and became a member of various political and research boards. He continued his close relationship with his former teacher, Mirzə Şəfi Vazeh, when the latter came to live in Tbilisi. When in 1844 Mirzə Şəfi founded the Divan-i ʿaql or Divan-i hikmət (‘The court of intellect’), which promoted intellectual enquiry and criticism of the clergy and government, Axundzadə was among other Muslim and Christian poets and intellectuals who attended his sessions. Axundzadə died from a heart ailment in Tbilisi on 9 March 1878. He was buried next to Mirzə Şəfi in the Muslim cemetery of the city. Axundzadə composed poetry, six satirical comedies and a novella (povest). In his poems, he sometimes adopted the penname Səbūhi (‘the one belonging to the morning’, also ‘early morning wine’). His comedies, written between 1850 and 1855, were intended for performance in the newly established theatre in Tbilisi. They were written as experiments, ‘to present the Muslim nation with this strange phenomenon’ (Təmsilat, Tbilisi, 1860, p. II), and ‘are the first written in any Turkic language’ (Heß, ‘Axundzadə, Mirzə Fətəli’). In his works, Axundzadə ridicules ignorance, corruption, social backwardness, hackneyed traditions and superstitions with the aim of inciting the desire for freedom and progress. He firmly believed that the Arabic alphabet was the main hindrance to public literacy and modernism, and in 1857 he wrote a pamphlet on the need to change the ‘alphabet of Islam’, making the proposal to write Persian and Turkish in a modified Latin alphabet (Axundzadə, ‘Autobiography’, p. 312). He was one of the first intellectuals in the world of Islam to do this. He adamantly pursued this reform proposition as an absolute prerequisite for progress and civilisation until the end of his life.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Axundzadə’s short autobiography and letters remain the most reliable source for his life and thought. His autobiography was originally written in Persian and published in the periodical Kəşkül 43, 44 and 45 (1887) (see Köçərli, Mirzə Fətəli Axundov, p. 8). It has been translated into English by Hasan Javadi (see below). F. Köçərli, Mirzə Fətəli Axundov həzrətlərinin təvəllüdindən yüz il mürur etmək münasibəti ilə yazılmış risaleyi-yadigaranədir, Tbilisi, 1911 (Azerbaijani in Arabic script)

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H.H. Araslı, Mirzə Fətəli Axundov, Baku, 1938 (Azerbaijani in Latin script) A. Vahap Yurtsever, Mirza Fethali Ahunt zadenin hayatı ve eserleri, Ankara, 1950 M.F. Axundzadə, Fars dilində yazılmış məktubların mətni, ed. Həmid Məmmədzadə, Baku, 1963 M.F. Axundzadə, Maqālāt, ed. Bāqir Muʾminī, Tehran, 1972, pp. 8-17 M.F. Axundzadə, ‘An autobiography of Akhundzadeh’, trans. H. Javadi, in Collected dramatic works of Mirza Fath-ʿAli Akhundzadeh and the Story of Yusuf Shah, ed. H. Javadi, Costa Mesa CA, 2019, pp. 309-14 Secondary R. Seidel, ‘Anfänge der Rezeption europäischer Philosophie im 19. Jahrhundert [in Iran], 2.1. Mīrzā Fatḥ ʿAlī Āḫūndzāde’, in A. von Kügelgen (ed.), Philosophie in der islamischen Welt: 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Türkei, Iran und Südasien, vol. 4/2, Basel, 2021, 986-8 M. Rezaei-Tazik and M. Mäder, ‘Religionskritik als Bedingung für Fortschritt. Mīrzā Fath ʿAlī-ye Ākhūndzāde’, in A. von Kügelgen (ed.), Wissenschaft, Philosophie und Religion. Religionskritische Positionen um 1900, Berlin, 2017, 121-7 Ş. Şahbaz, Mirzə Fətəli Axundzadə. Dövrü, elmi bioqrafiyası və müasirləşmə konsepsiyası, Baku, 2016 M.R. Heß, art. ‘Axundzadə, Mirzə Fətəli’, in EI3 H. Tanik, ‘Der aserbaidschanische Autor M.F. Achundov. Leben, Weltbild, Werk. Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner Theaterstücke’, Vienna, 2012 (MA Diss. University of Vienna), pp. 9-27 N. Cəfərova, Mirzə Fətəli Axundzadə. 200 Bütün zamanların dramaturqu. Biblio­ qrafik göstərici, Sumqayıt, 2012; https://azkurs.org/pars_docs/refs/8/7203 /7203.pdf M.F. Axundzadə, Mirza Fethali Ahundof. Sanatı, yaşamı, tüm oyunları, ed. S. Bozkurt, Ankara, 2000 H. Algar, art, ‘Āḵūndzāda’, in EIr M.H. Rəfili, Mirzə Fətəli Axundov. Həyatı, mühiti və yaradıcılığı, Baku, 1990 (Azerbaijani in Cyrillic script) H. Algar, art. ‘Ahundzâde, Mirza Feth Ali’, in Türkiye diyanet vakfı İslâm ansiklopedisi, vol. 2, 1989, 186-90 M.F. Axundzadə, Alifbā-yi jadīd u maktūbāt, ed. H. Muḥammadzāda, Tabriz, 1978

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Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Kəmalüddövlə məktubları Maktūbāt-i Kamāl al-Dawla ‘The letters of Kamāl al-Dawla’ Date 1863/4 Original Language Azerbaijani (Arabic script) Description Mirzə Fətəli Axundzadə originally wrote his Kəmalüddövlə məktubları (‘‘The letters of Kamāl al-Dawla’) in Azerbaijani (Arabic script) between 1863 and 1864 (the longer titles of the work are: Hindistan şahzadəsi Kamal əd-Dövlənin öz dostu İran şahzadəsi Cəlal əd-Dövləyə üç məktubu və Cəlal əl-Dövlənin ona cavabı, ‘Three letters of the Indian Prince Kamāl al-Dawla to his friend, the prince of Iran, Jalāl al-Dawla, and Jalāl al-Dawla’s reply to him’, and Maktūbāt-i shāhzādi-yi Hindūstān Kamāl al-Dawla farzandi Awrangzīb ki bi dūst-i khud shāhzādi-yi Irānī Jamāl al-Dawla sākin-i Miṣr nivishta ast wa jawāb-i Jalāl al-Dawla bi ū bi tārīkh-i hizār u divīst u hashtād-i hijrī, ‘The letters that the Indian Prince Kamāl al-Dawla, the son of Aurangzeb, wrote to his friend, the Iranian prince residing in Egypt, Jalāl al-Dawla, and Jalāl al-Dawla’s reply to him dated 1280’). In 1866 he translated the text into Persian with the assistance of the Iranian diplomat and writer Mīrzā Yūsuf Mustashār al-Dawla (1823-95), who at the time was consul general of Iran in Tbilisi, and later expanded the Persian version by adding notes, with the result that the Persian version became the standard version for later publications and translations (Axundzadə, Alifbā-yi jadīd u maktūbāt, ed. H. Muḥammadzāda, Tabriz, 1978, p. 90). Maktūbāt is written in the form of epistolary essays from a fictional prince of India, Kamāl al-Dawla (also referred to as Iqbāl al-Dawla), to his friend, the fictional Iranian prince, Jalāl al-Dawla (also Shujāʿ al-Dawla). Kamāl al-Dawla is introduced as a descendant of the Indian Mughal Emperors Bābur (r. 1526-30) and Aurangzeb (d. 1707) (pp. 194, 199), and Jalāl al-Dawla, the son of the Qajar prince ʿAlī-Shah Ẓill al-Sulṭān (d. 1885). Axundzadə puts his own thoughts, criticisms and insights, as well as his reformist idea of ‘Protestantism in Islam’, into the mouth of Kamāl alDawla. The work starts with a glossary of terms in ‘European languages’ for which it proved difficult to find equivalents in Islamic languages. This glossary reveals Axundzadə’s influences, mental engagement and perception

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of philosophical terms (Maktūbāt, ed. Muʾminī, pp. 9-14; references are to this Persian edition). Axundzadə himself divides his work into two parts: metaphysical reflections and the domestic and inner secrets of the nation of Islam, though it is not easy to distinguish them because Axundzadə oscilliates between them and they are often intertwined. Elsewhere he explains that the metaphysical ideas are already well-known to Europeans, and that the inner secrets of Islam are not original (though no one has ever dared to unveil them with such clarity, simplicity and reasoning as he did). He expects the work to shine in the eyes of European philosophers and scholars (Letter to Jean Baptiste Nicolas, March 1874, Alifbā, p. 322; ‘Biographia’, Alifbā, p. 354). Further, he categorises Maktūbāt as criticism, explaining that this is the most effective and beneficial means for the education of the nation and for reform, and also to polish the morals of his co-religionists and for the discipline of government (Letter to Muḥammad Jaʿfar, the translator of his comedies, dated 25 March 1871, Alifbā, p. 206). In the first letter (pp. 15-60), Kamāl al-Dawla informs Jalāl al-Dawla that he has finally followed his suggestion and, after travelling to England, France and America, has come to Iran (thereby indicating Axundzadə’s sources of influence and the comparative nature of his thought from the beginning of the work). However, he is sorry he has done this, wishing he had not seen the people of this land or observed their state, even though they are adherents of the same religion as he is himself. Kamāl al-Dawla’s heart burns with longing for the lost prosperity, felicity and glory of the country under its pre-Islamic kings. Addressing Iran, he feels sorry for how ‘the barefoot, hungry Arabs have made you miserable for a thousand, two hundred and eighty years’, and have left no hope for prosperity or civilisation in the coming centuries (pp. 20-1). In support of this view, he quotes at length anti-Arab verses from the Shāhnāma of the Persian poet Firdausi about the glory and dignity of the Iranians that was lost after the Arab invasion (pp. 23-31). Kamāl al-Dawla offers the archaic nationalism in place of the Islam that was imposed by the Arabs, and further criticises ‘the prophet of the Arabs’ for using religion as a means to plunder and pillage (p. 24), suggesting that Islam is a foreign phenomenon in Iran and the cause of all its poverty, backwardness and ignorance. But he warns Jalāl al-Dawla not to misunderstand his words. He is not saying that he prefers other religions over Islam. It is the most acceptable and desirable of religions, but in his estimation all religions are absurd (bī maʿnī) and based on myth (afsāna) (p. 32; cf. Letter to ʿAlī Khān, Alifbā, p. 178, where Axundzadə asserts he does not rank other religions over Islam).

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Kamāl al-Dawla further criticises aspects of Iranian culture and the country’s system of government, and calls for freedom and human rights (ḥuqūq-i insāniyya), and the opening up of society. But he acknowledges that the ʿulamāʾ will never allow liberals and free thinkers to express their ideas (pp. 55-6). In the second letter (pp. 61-157), Kamāl al-Dawla describes the sermon preached by a certain Ākhūnd Mullā Ṣādiq in the congregational mosque of Tabriz. He further comments that his letters are pointless because they will never be published because of the religious fanaticism, mental backwardness and the spread of illiteracy he has witnessed in the mosque, both in the preacher’s sermon and among the congregation. ‘Iranians are mostly illiterate. Because of the negligence and indifference of the despot, the unfairness of the ʿulamāʾ and the deficiencies of the letters from the time of barbarity, only one in a thousand is able to read’ (p. 61). By ‘the letters from the time of barbarity’, Axundzadə means the Arabic alphabet. He expands on the deficiencies of this alphabet and the difficulties of teaching and learning it, arguing that it is the main obstacle to literacy and public education and a barrier to progress, civilisation and liberty in his nation. He goes on to set out his suggestions for reform (p. 62). Axundzadə touches on Freemasonry, which he has mentioned in his first letter, linking it with politics, progress and patriotism. He proposes that the king should open lodges (p. 63) because the continuation of the kingdom and the survival of the dynasty depend on the sciences and the nation’s emancipation from absurd beliefs (pp. 63-4). Alongside his call for this, Axundzadə introduces his idea of liberal Protestantism in Islam. In Christianity, ‘the one rests on the other as on its foundation and [...] Freemasonry is inconceivable without Protestantism’ (see Hamburger Fremdenblatt, 13 June 1917, quoted in G. Liagre, ‘Protestantism and Freemasonry’, in Handbook of Freemasonry, Leiden, 2014, 162-87, p. 163). Axundzadə, too, proposes his idea of Protestantism in connection with Freemasonry. He repeatedly uses the two terms in close association). Moreover, he censures the clergy for not letting the people establish contacts and exchanges with other nations in order to learn from them about sciences and industry (p. 71). The second letter harshly censures sermons, the Qur’an, commentaries on it, Shīʿī doctrines and the line of Imams. Axundzadə argues for the necessity of reform, which he calls Protestantism in Islam, clarifying that what he means by this is a reduction of the power of religion:

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Mirzə Fətəli Axundzadə The survival of the religion of Islam is only possible when you understand its essence through common sense and knowledge, while remaining Muslim so that the nation should be distinct from other nations. [...] You should liberate yourself from all of [Islam’s] austere duties, called God’s rights (ḥaqq Allāh), like the English and Americans and some other European people who are Protestant. That is, they are Christians on the surface, but inwardly they are followers of the intellect. (p. 115)

This further reveals Axundzadə’s understanding of Christian Protestantism. If Muslims become Protestants, they will follow reason and implement human rights and become like Christians. They can keep their Islam as no more than a marker of their nation. Further, he believes that Protestantism is necessary if the king is to survive and reign justly and for humankind to be liberated from the chains of superstition and illusion. It is only through Protestantism that liberalism, progress and civilisation can prevail. Axundzadə’s form of Protestantism comes hand in hand with revolution. In the glossary at the start of the work, revolution is defined as ‘a state in which people […] realise the absurdity of religious beliefs, rise against religious scholars, and choose a new form of guidance according to the prescription of the philosophers and the intellect’ (pp. 10-11). To illustrate this concept of Protestantism, Axundzadə draws on the example of the Nizārī Ismāʿīlī leader ʿAlā Dhikrihi al-Salām (1126-66), who, he believed, established a short-lived Protestantism among his followers. He makes Kamāl al-Dawla narrate the story of how ʿAlā Dhikrihi al-Salām refutes an interpretation of a qur’anic verse offered by an Ismāʿīlī scholar (pp. 117-34), and goes on to outline ʿAlā Dhikrihi al-Salām’s understanding of the qiyāma (usually understood as ‘resurrection’) as the abrogation of some Islamic laws and rituals. By freeing his disciples from burdensome religious obligations, he enabled them to make the most of their lives by acquiring wealth, property and secular knowledge (p. 135). In addition, he prohibited polygamy and the ḥijāb, regarding them as a huge injustice for women and injurious to men, and pleaded for education for girls and women (pp. 135-6). For Axundzadə, ʿAlā Dhikrihi al-Salām could have led Iran to civilisation if he had not been murdered. Then, the English and Americans would have been followers of the Iranians, because you [ʿAlā Dhikrihi al-Salām] established the religion of Protestantism at a time when they [the Europeans] were still being burned in the fireplaces of the Inquisition courts. They understood the religion whose creator you were, that is Protestantism, long after you stirred up a revolution and adopted the Protestant religion. (p. 138)

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Kamāl al-Dawla then argues that ʿAlā Dhikrihi al-Salām’s form of religion is similar to the beliefs of the ancient Indian school Charvak, referring readers to Dabistān-i madhāhib, a 17th-century work on various religions and sects composed in India (p. 139). He commends Charvak philosophy for its rejection of supernaturalism, and asks why anyone should serve something that is uncertain, fictitious or even non-existent. No one should sacrifice the blessings and comforts of this world for the hope of heaven and promises of pleasure (pp. 139-43). After these arguments and examples, Kamāl al-Dawla once again emphasises the desirability of Protestantism in Islam (pp. 147-8). In this second letter, Axundzadə harshly criticises the treatment of women and gender relations in Islam, discussing qur’anic verses, sayings of the Prophet and accounts of his wives and his relationship with women. He blames the Prophet for making the ḥijāb mandatory for women (pp. 126-7), and argues against the obligatory ḥajj (pp. 144-7). But above all, he criticises the Prophet for barring all the paths to change and progress by calling himself the most intelligent of all time (aʿqal-i awwalīn u ākharīn) and superior to all in the past and the future (afḍal-i gudhashtagān u āyandagān) (pp. 148-9). Kamāl al-Dawla opens his third letter (pp. 158-84) by telling how he attended a session of mourning conducted by a professional narrator of the tragedy of Karbala (the massacre in which the Imam Ḥusayn was killed) in the congregational mosque in Tabriz. This offers an opportunity to expound on the history of the Shīʿīs, their narratives of sufferings and the spread of the passion plays of Ḥusayn (taʿziya) since the time of the Safavids. He confesses to Jalāl al-Dawla that he is a Shīʿī Muslim (p. 160), and emphasises that these criticisms are made by an insider. He goes on to recount the absurd stories that had been narrated by the man in the mourning session about the Shīʿī Imams, and the next day he attends a sermon by a follower of Shaykh Aḥmad al-Aḥsāʾī (1753-1826) in the mosque. Jalāl al-Dawla replies to Kamāl al-Dawla’s three letters in a letter dated April-May 1864 (pp. 185-200). He refutes Kamal al-Dawla’s arguments by showing that the examples he has given can be parelleled by others that contain different morals, and that the individuals he has praised were atheists, just like Kamāl al-Dawla himself. In the supplement, which contains three letters dated 1864, supposedly written by a friend of Kamāl al-Dawla to a confidant (pp. 203-28), Axundzadə explains how arguments by the English historian Henry Thomas Buckle (1821-62) have contributed to shaping his idea of Protestantism in Islam. According to Axundzadə, Buckle argues that Spain, Switzerland

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and Rome, who obey the pope and are bound by religious beliefs, are in continual decline in the sciences and industry, whereas other European nations, particularly England, France and America, who have liberated themselves from the domination of religious beliefs and prize intellect and wisdom, make continual progress in sciences and industry. Buckle believes that the true scholar should search for truth and struggle against superstition, demonstrating the uncertainties surrounding religion so that intellects gradually arrive at truth (pp. 204-5). Axundzadə also refers to the works of Buckle and Ernest Renan (1823-92) in his letters to Shaykh Muḥsin Khān, Mīrzā Yūsuf Khān and a Jean Baptiste Nicolas (Alifbā, pp. 138, 184-5, 307). Axundzadə concludes the third letter of the supplement as follows: The author does not want the people to become atheistic and have no religion or belief; however, he means that, according to the demands of the century and circumstances of the time the religion of Islam is in need of Protestantism; a complete Protestantism according to the conditions of progress and civilisation, guaranteeing both freedom and equality of human rights, weakening the despotism of oriental kings with wise scholarly regulations, and establishing the necessity of literacy for all individuals in Islam, male and female. (p. 228)

He argues that even the Prophet Muḥammad changed orders he had given and verses that had been revealed to him in response to different situations and needs. So Muslims should be able to tolerate changes to their religious practice in the centuries since Muḥammad. Significance Despite Axundzadə’s efforts to get his work published by sending many copies to his friends in Bombay and Gujarat (see letters to Maneckji Limji Hataria and to Mīrzā Yūsuf Khān, Alifbā, pp. 250-1, 183-5), Iran (see letter to Mīrzā Yūsuf Khān, Alifbā, p. 213), Istanbul (see ‘Letter of bondability’ between the author and Mīrzā Yūsuf Khān, Alifbā, p. 90, letters to Mīrzā Malkum Khān, p. 281), St Petersburg (letter to Yakov Alekseevich Isakov; see A.Ə. İbrahimov, M.F. Axundov arxivinin təsviri, Baku, 1955, p. 52), and even Paris (see letters to Mīrzā Yūsuf Khān and Louis Jean Baptiste Nicolas, Alifbā, pp. 121-3, 299-300, 307-8, 319-23), Maktūbāt was not published during his lifetime. Axundzadə initially assigned the task of translating the work into French, German and English to the Russian Orientalist Adolph Bergé (1828-86) and gave him permission to publish the work in Russia. Together with Bergé, he translated the work into Russian in 1874 but this translation

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was apparently not published. Maneckji Limji Hataria (1813-90) wrote to inform Axundzadə of the impossibility of publishing Maktūbāt in India because only Muslims in India could scribe the text of the book and they would refuse because of its content (letter dated 25 April 1876, Alifbā, p. 430). Later, Axundzadə gave full translation and publication rights for the work in Europe to Jean Baptiste Nicolas (see letter dated December 1872, Alifbā, pp. 299-300). The first publication of Maktūbāt appeared in Azerbaijani in 1924 in Baku, 46 years after Axundzadə’s death. It was a translation of the Persian version in two volumes, one in Roman and the other in Arabic script. In 1938, an improved and scholarly edition was published in Baku, and the first Russian translation and the first Persian version were published in 1940 and 1971 respectively. Later editions and translations followed. Axundzadə’s letters to his friends reveal much about his anxiety over being identified as the author of Maktūbāt. In two letters giving power of attorney to Mīrzā Yūsuf Khān, he requests that the owner of any publishing house that issued the work should be a French citizen and emphasises that the author’s name should not be revealed (Alifbā, pp. 91-2; also letter to Malkum Khān, Alifbā, p. 168). Elsewhere, he introduces himself as the translator of the work and claims that he has translated it with the sole purpose of writing a refutation (letter to deputy minister Mīrzā ʿAbdulwahhāb Khān dated June 1866, Alifbā, pp. 88-9). He even promises that he is going to write a full refutation of ‘the decadent thoughts of Kamāl al-Dawla with undoubtable rational and traditional proofs’ (Maktūbāt, p. 10). In his letters to Jean Baptiste Nicolas, Axundzadə justifies his attempts to hide his identity: ‘I am not safe from the hostility of my co-religionists who have not yet realised my purpose’ (Alifbā, p. 300). He also explains: ‘In our nation, there is still no freedom of thought, and if the people in my religion know that I have written such a work, they will definitely show strong hostility towards me’ (Alifbā, p. 323). He writes with similar sentiments to a friend in Tabriz: ‘In the land of your government I am not safe from life threats’ (Alifbā, p. 313). He introduces himself as a friend of Kamāl al-Dawla at one point, and takes pains to emphasise his protagonist’s nationalist intentions in writing Maktūbāt, presenting Kamāl alDawla as a lover of the fatherland and nation. He also makes clear that the author’s purpose in writing Maktūbāt was not for personal gain and that he was not against Iran, which was his homeland, or against the Muslim nations because he shared their religion (Alifbā, pp. 138, 204). Despite his extreme eagerness to publish Maktūbāt and spread his ideas about liberal Protestantism in Islam, and despite his fears and anxieties

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concerning the incitement to hostility, Axundzadə would not allow his work to be published as a justification for promoting non-Islamic religions, nor was he willing to make the slightest modification to his text to soften the sharpness of its criticism in order to render it publishable (Alifbā, pp. 184-5, 218-19, 300). Jean Baptiste Nicolas suggested that fanatical Christians involved in refuting other religions and spreading their own might be interested in publishing the work, but Axundzadə strongly rejected the suggestion. He asserted: ‘The Kamāl al-Dawla manuscript is not among the works that would be liked by some kinds of fanatics. In this regard, it is not even permissible to talk to the people mentioned’ (letter dated 15 June 1873, Alifbā, p. 307). Despite the incendiary nature of its contents, the number of manuscripts and publications of Maktūbāt confirm that it enjoyed a broad readership and influenced later generations of modernist intellectuals, both those who rejected Islam entirely as the source of backwardness, illiteracy and a barrier to liberation, emancipation and civilisation, and also those who looked for some partial reforms within Islam. Among the intellectuals whose works show its influence was Mīrzā Āqā Khān Kirmānī (1854-96), who adopted its style and contents in his Si maktūb (‘Three letters’) and Ṣad khaṭābi (‘A hundred lectures’), both unfinished. Both of these start like Maktūbāt but then give more elaborate descriptions and criticisms of Iran’s intellectual and social backwardness (for a comparison of the three works, see Ādamiyyat, ‘Si maktūb-i Mīrzā Fatḥ-ʿAlī’). In his denunciation of Muslim institutions, Kirmānī also called for an Islamic Protestantism (see Bayat, ‘Āqā Khan Kermānī’). Like Axundzadə, the revolutionary intellectual ʿAlī Sharīʿatī (1933-77) called his idea of religious reform ‘Protestantism in Islam’ (Az kujā āghāz konim?, [n.p.], 1972, pp. 54-5). Although he did not credit Axundzadə for either this idea or expression, the possibility cannot be ruled out that he had read Maktūbāt and was inspired by it. Publications Azerbaijani

MS Baku, Fuzuli Institute of Manuscripts, Archive of Axundzadə – 178, holograph, 48 fols (A.Ə. İbrahimov, M.F. Axundov arxivinin təsviri, Baku, 1955, pp. 46, 51) MS Baku, Fuzuli Institute of Manuscripts, Archive of Axundzadə – 96, 119 fols (İbrahimov, M.F. Axundov arxivinin təsviri, pp. 46-7)

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M.F. Axundzadə, Hindistan şahzadəsi Kəmalüddövlənin öz dostu İran şahzadəsi Cəlalüddövləyə fars dilində yazdığı üç məktubun və Cəlalüddövlənin ona göndərdiyi cavabın türk dilində tərcüməsidir, intr. S. Ağamalıoğlu, Baku, 1924 (Roman script) M.F. Axundzadə, Hindistan şahzadəsi Kəmalüddövlənin İran şahzadəsi Cəlalüddövləyə fars dilində yazdığı üç məktubun və Cəlalüddövlənin ona göndərdiyi cavabın türk dilində tərcüməsidir, intr. S. Ağamalıoğlu, Baku, 1924 (Arabic script) M.F. Axundzadə, ‘Hindistan şahzadəsi Kəmalüddövlənin öz dostu İran şahzadəsi Cəlalüddövləyə yazdığı üç məktubu və Cəlalüddövlənin ona göndərdiyi cavabı’, in Əsərləri, ed. M. Rəfili, Baku, 1938, vol. 3, pp. 45-191 (Roman script) M.F. Axundzadə, ‘Hindistan şahzadəsi Kəmalüddövlənin öz dostu İran şahzadəsi Cəlalüddövləyə yazdığı üç məktubu və Cəlalüddövlənin ona göndərdiyi cavabı’, Əsərləri, ed. Ə. Mir Əhməd, Baku, 1951, vol. 2, pp. 1-31 (Cyrillic script) M.F. Axundzadə, Kəmalüddövlə məktubları, Baku, 1955 M.F. Axundzadə, Kəmalüddövlə məktubları, trans. M. Əlizadə, Baku, 1959 (trans. from Persian to Azerbaijani Cyrillic script) M.F. Axundzadə, Kəmalüddövlə məktubları, trans. M. Əlizadə, Baku, 1969 (trans. from Persian to Azerbaijani Cyrillic script) M.F. Axundzadə, Aldanmış kəvakib, Kəmalüddövlə məktubları, ed. H. Məmmədzadə, Baku, 1985 (Cyrillic script) M.F. Axundzadə, ‘Hindistan şahzadəsi Kəmalüddövlənin öz dostu İran şahzadəsi Cəmalüddövləyə farsi dilində yazdığı üç məktubu və Cəmalüddövlənin ona göndərdiyi cavabı türki dilində tərcüməsidir’, Əsərləri, ed. H. Məmmədzadə, Baku, 1988, vol. 2, 39-161 M.F. Axundzadə, ‘Hindistan şahzadəsi Kəmalüddövlənin öz dostu İran şahzadəsi Cəmalüddövləyə farsi dilində yazdığı üç məktubun və Cəmalüddövlənin ona göndərdyi cavabın türki dilində tərcüməsidir’, Əsərləri, ed. H. Məmmədzadə, Baku, 2005, vol. 2, pp. 20-136 (Roman script) M.F. Axundzadə, Kəmalüddövlə məktubları, Baku, 2012 (Roman script) M.F. Axundzadə, ‘Hindistan şahzadəsi Kəmalüddövlənin öz dostu İran şahzadəsi Cəlalüddövləyə farsi dilində yazdığı üç məktubun və Cəlalüddövlənin ona göndərdiyi cavabın türk dilində tərcüməsidir’, Əsərləri, ed. S. Bektaşi, Baku, 2013, vol. 2, pp. 5-94 M.F. Axundzadə, Kamāl al-Dawla maktūblārī, ed. ʿA. Ḥaqdār, Istanbul, 2019 (Arabic script)

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Persian

MS Baku, Fuzuli Institute of Manuscripts, Archive of Axundzadə – 493, 164 fols, containing notes added by the author (İbrahimov, M.F. Axundov arxivinin təsviri, pp. 46, 48) MS Baku, Fuzuli Institute of Manuscripts, Archive of Axundzadə – 99, 122 fols, containing notes added by the author (İbrahimov, M.F. Axundov arxivinin təsviri, p. 48) MS Baku, Fuzuli Institute of Manuscripts, Archive of Axundzadə – 98, 160 fols, containing notes added by the author (İbrahimov, M.F. Axundov arxivinin təsviri, p. 48) MS Baku, Fuzuli Institute of Manuscripts, Archive of Axundzadə – 97, 295 fols, containing notes added by the author (İbrahimov, M.F. Axundov arxivinin təsviri, p. 50) MS Baku, Fuzuli Institute of Manuscripts, Archive of Axundzadə – 607, 122 fols, containing notes added by the author and his letter to Haci Shayx Möhsün Xan (İbrahimov, M.F. Axundov arxivinin təsviri, p. 50) MS Tehran, Millī – 6239, 115 fols, copied by A. Sipihrī (1889) MS Tehran, Millī – 5-15258, fols 1v-165v, copied by Abū l-Ḥasan Nayrīzī (1908) MS Tehran, Millī – 5-40072 (1910) MS Qom, Marʿashī – 10237, 101 fols, copied by Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn (1913) MS Tehran, Millī – 5-32770, fols 1r-186r, copied by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Sharīf Shīrāzī on one side of the leaves only (1920) MS Qom, Marʿashī – 4227, 84 fols, copied by Yūsuf (1920) MS Tehran, Millī – 5-31510, 53 fols, copied from the holograph MS Tehran, Millī – 5-15168, 145 fols MS Tehran, Millī – 5-38553, 162 fols, incomplete at the beginning MS Tehran, Millī – 5-18012, 5 fols, a fragment MS Tehran, Millī – 5-15411, fols numbered 128v-132 MS Tehran, Mīnuvī – 175/3 MS Tehran, McGill University Institute of Islamic Studies, Tehran Branch – 31, 86 fols MS Tehran, Millī – 5-11123, 108 fols MS Mashhad, Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī – 925, 92 fols M.F. Axundzadə, Alifbā-yi jadīd u maktūbāt, ed. H. Muḥammadzāda, Tabriz, 1978 M.F. Axundzadə, Maktūbāt, ed. B. Muʾminī, Tabriz, 1971 M.F. Axundzadə, Maktūbāt, ed. M. Ṣubḥdam (M.J. Maḥjūb), Dusseldorf, 1985, 19912

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M.F. Axundzadə, Maktūbāt-i Kamāl al-Dawla, ed. Ḥ. Maḥmudzada, Baku, 1986 M.F. Axundzadə, Maktūbāt-i Kamāl al-Dawla u mulḥaqāt-i ān, ed. ʿA. Ḥaqdār, Istanbul, 2016, 20222 (based on MS Tehran, Millī – 5-11123) M.F. Axundzadə, Maktūbāt, ed. M. Maqṣūd, Tehran: Bāshgāh-i ada­ biyyāt, 2021 (digitised version https://www.bashgaheadabiyat.com /product/maktubat-maghsud/) M.F. Axundzadə, ‘Maktūbāt-i Kamāl al-Dawla’. Majmū’a āthār, ed. ʿA.A. Ḥaqdār, 2 vols, Tehran: Bāshgāh-i adabiyyāt, 2021, vol. 1, pp. 377-540 Russian

MS Baku, Fuzuli Institute of Manuscripts, Archive of Axundzadə – 101, 118 fols (Russian trans. from Persian, with notes added by the author; it contains a copy of Axundzadə’s 14-page letter to a publisher in St Petersburg, Yakov Alekseevich Isakov, discussing the publication of Maktūbāt in Russian; see İbrahimov, M.F. Axundov arxivinin təsviri, pp. 49, 50, 52)

M.F. Axundzadə, ‘Tri pis’ma’, in Filosofsko-politicheskiye proizvedeniya, ed. A.A. Klimov and H. Hüseynov, Baku, 1940 (Russian trans.) M.F. Axundzadə, ‘Tri pis’ma indiyskogo princa Kemal-ud-dovle k persidskomy princu Djelal-ud-dovle i otvet na nix sego poslednogo’, in Izbrannye filosofskiye proizvedeniya, ed. M. Kasumov, Baku, 1953, and Izbrannoe, Moscow, ed. Aziz Sharif, 1956, pp. 53-180 (Russian trans.) M.F. Axundzadə, ‘Tri pis’ma indiyskogo princa Kemal-ud-dovle k persidskomy princu Djelal-ud-dovle i otvet na nix sego poslednogo’, in Izbrannye filosofskiye proizvedeniya [Selected philosophical works], ed. Sh.F. Mammadov, Moscow, 1962 (Russian trans.) M.F. Axundzadə, ‘Tri pis’ma indiyskogo princa Kemal-ud-dovle k persidskomy princu Djelal-ud-dovle i otvet na nix sego poslednogo’, in Izbrannye filosofskiye proizvedeniya, ed. Sh. F. Mamedova, Baku, 1982, 31-159 (Russian trans.) Turkish

M.F. Axundzadə, Felsefi ve politik düşünceler, trans. A. Berberoğlu, Ankara, 2010, pp. 43-175; also published under the title Aklın iflası, Istanbul, 2014, 20192 (Turkish trans. of the Russian trans. in Filosofskopoliticheskiye proizvedeniya, ed. A.A. Klimov and H. Hüseynov, Baku, 1940)

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German

M. Rezaei-Tazik and M. Mäder (trans), ‘Maktūbāt’, in Wissenschaft, Philosophie und Religion. Religionskritische Positionen um 1900, ed. A. von Kügelgen, Berlin, 2017, 141-95 (German trans.)

Studies M. Rezaei-Tazik and M. Mäder, ‘Die “Maktūbāt”. EntestehungsgeschichteAufbau-Lehre’, in Wissenschaft, Philosophie und Religion. Religions­ kritische Positionen um 1900, ed. A. von Kügelgen, Berlin, 2017, 128-40 A. Tahmasb and M. Zarvani, ‘Enlightenment and Islam in Iran. The case of Mirza Fath Ali Akhundzadeh’, Religious Inquiries 6/12 (2017) 103-22 R.R. Gould, ‘The critique of religion as political critique. Mīrzā Fatḥ ʿAlī Ākhūndzāda’s pre-Islamic xenology’, Intellectual History Review 2 (2016) 171-84 M. Kia, ‘Women, Islam and modernity in Akhundzade’s plays and unpublished writings’, Middle Eastern Studies 34/3 (1998) 1-33 M. Kia, ‘Mirza Fath Ali Akhundzade and the call for modernization of the Islamic world’, Middle Eastern Studies 31/3 (1995) 422-48 M.B. Sanjabi, ‘Rereading the Enlightenment. Akhundzada and his Voltaire’, Iranian Studies 28/1-2 (1995) 39-60 F. Ādamiyyat, Andīshahā-yi Mīrzā Fatḥ-ʿAlī Ākhūndzāda, Tehran, 1970 F. Ādamiyyat, ‘Si maktūb-i Mīrzā Fatḥ-ʿAlī, si maktūb u ṣad khaṭāba-yi Mīrzā Āqā Khān Kirmānī’, Yaḡmā 19 (1966) 362-7, 425-8 M. Qasımov, M.F. Axundov və XIX əsrin inqilabi-demokratik estetikası, Baku, 1954 (Cyrillic script) H. Hüseynov, Mübariz ateist. M. F. Axundovun ateizmi haqqında, Baku, 1941 (Cyrillic script) H. Hüseynov, M.F. Axundovun fəlsəfi görüşləri, Baku, 1938 (old Roman script) Leila Rahimi Bahmany

Grigol Orbeliani Date of Birth About 1800 Place of Birth Tbilisi Date of Death 2 April 1883 Place of Death Tbilisi

Biography

Some records say Grigol Orbeliani was born on 2 October 1804, though other early sources list the date as 7 July 1800, and D. Chiabrov (Voijna i Gurziny) considers 1799 to be the correct year. In any event, he was born around the beginning of the 19th century in Tbilisi. His father was Zurab (Dimitri) Orbeliani, and his mother was a granddaughter of King Erekle II (r. 1762-98). Grigol received his elementary education from Aleksi-Meskhishvili, the dean of the Church of Anchiskhati. In 1810, he was sent to the School of Nobility in Tbilisi from where he proceeded to the artillery institute. Between 1816 and 1820, he served first in the 21st Junkers Artillery brigade and later in the Portupei-Junker Georgian Grenadier regiment. In the early stages of his military career, he participated in numerous battles. After 1832, he was reassigned to Novgorod, where he was immediately arrested on charges of being complicit in an uprising of the nobility. However, because his role in the uprising was trivial, he was simply sent as a punishment to fight on the ‘Caucasian front’. From 1843, he was governor of Avar, Dagestan (North Caucasus), for 15 years. He was a general of the Russian Empire (because Georgia was already a colony of the Empire) and carried out the commands of the tsar. His control over the Caucasus region was twofold, military-political and religious. In 1858, Orbeliani was relocated to Tbilisi, thus ending his active military career. In 1860, he became governor-general of Tbilisi and served as the viceroy of the tsar in the Caucasus (in 1859, 1860-3 and 1865). In 1871, Tsar Alexander II (r. 1855-81) awarded him the Order of St Andrew the Apostle, the highest imperial accolade, to mark his 50 years of distinguished military service. From the 1860s, Orbeliani was actively engaged in social and literary activities, participating in the polemic that came to be known as the

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‘generational battle’. He died on 21 March 1883, and is buried in Tbilisi, in the Kashveti Church. He never married and left no descendants. Orbeliani’s creative works include poetry, fiction, documentary texts and various translations. His poems were first published in the magazine Tsiskari in 1852. His collected works were published in 1873 by Petre Umikashvili.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Z. Mt‘acmindeli (Z. Čičinadze), Besiki, t‘. Alek‘sandre Čavčavadze da t‘. Grigol Orbeliani, Tbilisi, 1886, pp. 40-54 I. Meunargia, C‘xovreba da ghvacli t‘. Grigol Orbelianisa, Tbilisi, 1905, pp. 1-106 D. Chiabrov, Voῐna i gruziny, Petrograd, 1915, pp. 21-2 S. Chundadze, K‘art‘uli literaturis saxelmdzġvaneloebi, Tbilisi, 1917, pp. 3-10 G. Orbeliani, Cerilebi, ed. Akaki Gacerelias, 2 vols, Tbilisi, 1936, 1937, vol. 1, pp. 1-214, vol. 2, pp. 1-387 (personal letters) L. Asat‘iani, Grigol Orbeliani, Tbilisi, 1946, pp. 3-48 Secondary D. Rayfield, The literature of Georgia. A history, London, 2010, pp. 158-60 I. Evgenidze, Grigol Orbeliani, Tbilisi, 1995, pp. 8-15 I. Abashidze, (ed.), K‘art‘uli sabčot‘a enc‘iklopedia, vol. 7, Tbilisi, 1984, p. 556 G. Orbeliani, T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli, Tbilisi, 1959, pp. 5-11, 68-72 A. Gacerelia, Grigol Orbeliani, Tbilisi, 1950, pp. 3-9

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations References to Islam in Orbeliani’s poetry and correspondence Date 1827-70 Original Language Georgian Description There are several editions of Grigol Orbeliani’s Sadghegrdzelo (‘A toast’). He started writing it in 1827, following a battle near Yerevan, and completed the final version in 1870. The first autograph version, Sadghegrdzelo anu omis shemdgom ghame lkhini, erevnis siakhloves (‘A toastmaster or a feast and a toast after the war in 1827’, 1827-32), is quite short. The second version, T’olubashi anu omis shemdeg lkhini da sadghegrdzelo 1827 ts’elsa

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t’olubashi [mibadzva zhuk’ovsk’isa] (‘A toastmaster or a feast and a toast after the war in 1827 [in imitation of Zhukovski]’) is similar to the first version in length, but is not signed by the author and is undated. The final version of the work, first published in 1871 in the first volume of the magazine Krebuli (‘Collection’), is 38 pages long. Various versions signed by the author are preserved in the Georgian National Museum (HistoricalEthnographic Society script no. 312), National Archives of Georgia (script no. 171), G. Leonidze Museum of Georgian Literature (script no. 84) and the Society for the Spreading of Literacy (script no. 3723). Removed from active military duty, Grigol started working on Sadghegrdzelo intensively. From his personal letters it becomes clear that his uncle, Alexander Orbeliani, was assisting him. Grigol would send his preliminary texts to Alexander, and would then edit his work taking account of his uncle’s comments. On 5 January 1869, Grigol sent the first chapter along with a letter asking Alexander to delete anything he deemed unworthy, and a month later, on 25 February 1869, Grigol sent his uncle an edited version asking for final review. Grigol finished the vast majority of the work in that year, but decided to continue working on it in the next. Sadghegrdzelo does not follow a single plot line. Rather, it is a collection of toasts by commanders and soldiers. The first part of the poem comprises toasts by Georgian war heroes who heap praise on their leaders, starting with King Parnavaz and ending with King Erekle II. It also mentions Georgia’s historical enemies – mainly Muslim conquerors: Iranians, the sultan of Shamakhi, Dagestani natives and so on – and portrays them in a negative light. For example, Iranians are tormentors, because they executed the organisers of an anti-Iranian uprising in 1660 (Orbeliani, T‘xzulebat‘a, Tbilisi, 1959, p. 94; this is the edition used here). Orbeliani’s religious views were mainly derived from the political and cultural climate of the Russian Empire, though he was also influenced by the history of his homeland, Georgia. His negative attitudes towards certain nations, such as Iranians and Arabs, were conditioned not so much by their religion as by their historical regard for Georgia as a potential land for conquest. This tendency is vividly depicted in one of his poems, Aġsareba (‘Conquest’, 1831), which itself was an imitation of Kondraty Ryleyev’s Nalevaiko’s confession: ‘Laks, Ottomans, Persians are tearing up our homeland like voracious wolves, our faith has become enfeebled, the nation seeks help, but no saviour is anywhere to be found. That is why I am eager to spill the blood of my enemies’ (T‘xzulebat‘a, p. 112). At the end, he asks a question of the priest: How can one help his homeland, if one does

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not destroy its enemies? (p. 112). The poet understands that his quest for destruction of others is a sin, but he is ready to carry it out if it proves to be the only way left for his homeland to be saved. For Orbeliani personally, his service in Dagestan among the ranks of the Russian army was the most important period in his career, as he was tasked with conquering the North Caucasus region. For the Russian Empire, the conflict included not only political but also religious dimensions. During Aleksei Petrovich Yermolov’s command of the Caucasus (1816-27), all major tribes inhabiting the North Caucasus took part in military opposition to Russian militarisation in the region. This marked the revival in Dagestan of Muridism, a Sufi-based anti-Russian nationalist movement. The mountainous region, with its majority Muslim population, saw a proliferation of hatred towards the conquerors, facilitated by religious fanaticism calling for a holy war. Gazivat, a Muslim secular and spiritual leader, led the military campaign. Unsurprisingly, Orbeliani was vicious in battle against religious fanatics from the Caucasian mountains. He mostly dealt with Imam Shamil (1797-1871), who was elected third leader of the Caucasian Imamate in 1834, and he played a huge role in Shamil’s defeat. The fact that conflicts were exacerbated by religious confrontation is explicitly depicted in Orbeliani’s personal letters. On 30 June 1852, he wrote to Major-General Alexander Suslov: ‘Shamil, returning from Gamasha to Dargho, has retreated in peace and prayers, but his agents are dispersed all over Tabasaran and are actively spreading fear among the population, claiming that Murid mobs will invade them after Ramadan’ (XIX-XX saukunis, 2013, pp. 98-9). Grigol mentions the same subject in his letter to the Adjutant-General Moisey Argutinsky-Dolgorukov, dated 21 August 1852: ‘Nothing of importance is happening in Qaitaghi and Tabasaran, but Iagia is currently there with his 12-20 accomplices and actively promotes Muridism’ (XIX-XX saukunis, 2013, p. 125). In the same letter, Grigol mentions General Daniel Bey, who at the time was siding with Shamil: ‘That Daniel Bey was planning to attack a village, Kakh, rob their market and slaughter the Ingiloy People, who had accepted Christianity as their faith the previous autumn’ (XIX-XX saukunis, 2013, p. 116). It was no surprise that the Russian Empire was ruthless against Muridism and its followers. However, from Grigol Orbeliani’s private letters it becomes clear that Christian Russia was waging a war against Islam in general. This further exacerbated protest among Muslim mountainpeople of the North Caucasus, who were simply yearning for freedom and had nothing to do with Muridism. Regarding Grigol Orbeliani’s personal

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attitude towards Muslims of the North Caucasus, it can be inferred that his ruthessness towards these people was driven by the cultural and political history of his homeland. Muslim Laks had constantly raided Georgia from the 16th to the 18th centuries, robbing and kidnapping people and selling them into slavery. There was even a time when Georgia was compelled to pay a tax to the lord of Khunzakh, Umma-Khan. In a letter to his uncle, Kaplan Orbeliani, dated 10 September 1857, Grigol writes: ‘On 24 June, I filled up a huge ravine with their corpses; I also had two of their naibs (governor) and multiple cadis (judge) strung on bayonets. I made them scream like bears and avenged blood for Kakhetʻi!’ (XIX-XX saukunis, vol. 4, part 5, pp. 86-7). Regarding Grigol’s attitude towards Islam in general, he never used derogatory terms, or was scornful of others on the grounds of religious differences. On the contrary, in one of his letters, sent to Imam Shamil, he addresses him as a truly faithful person and calls upon his mercifulness: We are all in the hands of God and nothing in this world happens without His consent. Therefore, a faithful man does not brag about his success and does not fall into despair when misfortune strikes. Everything is temporary in this earthly life. Only kind deeds remain, according to which a faithful man will be judged by God in the end. Shame on those who knew all this, but have knowingly decided not to obey God’s commandments. Eternal praise to those who have never succumbed and stayed on his faithful road. […] In the words of God, only through good deeds can one open up a door to salvation, everything else is in vain. (XIX-XX saukunis, vol. 4, part 4, pp. 125-7)

Significance As becomes clear from his works, including his private letters, Grigol Orbeliani does not display open hatred towards others based solely on religious grounds. He fights against Muslim tribes of the North Caucasus as a general of the Russian Empire, or expresses his negative attitude towards them because of historical animosity. In Georgian literature, the attitude towards Mongols, Iranians and Arabs is generally influenced by their perception as historical enemies, and Grigol Orbeliani is no exception to that. Orbeliani’s works are connected with the beginnings of Romanticism in Georgian literature, making him one of the prominent pioneers in this regard. His significance as a poet was celebrated during his own lifetime not only by his peers, but also by later generations. Even Ilia Chavchavadze, who was a strong ideological opponent of Orbeliani, considered him to be one of the most significant lyricists of the 19th century, calling him ‘a bridge connecting the old and the new’ (Orbeliani, T‘xzulebat‘a, p. 134).

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From the middle of the 19th century, Georgian literature adopted a form of fictional realism completely eradicating Romanticism, so Orbeliani’s influence on later works is limited. Apart from Romanticism, some of his poems exhibit the influence of Eastern poetry. They are outstanding for their rich language characteristic of Persian poetry, which Orbeliani adopted from the works of previous centuries. Publications G. Orbeliani, ‘Sadghegrdzelo anu omis šemdgom ghame lxini Erevnis siaxloves’, Krebuli 1 (1871) 1-38 G. Orbeliani, Sadghegrdzelo, Tbilisi, 1871, pp. 1-17 MS Oxford, Bodleian Library – MS Wardr. d. 22 (English trans. by Marjory Wardrop of Georgian poems by Orbeliani) G. Orbeliani, Lek‘sebisa da cerilebis sruli krebuli, Tbilisi, 1928, pp. 81-103, 112-32 G. Orbeliani, Stikhotvoreniia, Tbilisi, 1939, pp. 103-41 (Russian trans.) L.N. Asatinani (ed. and trans.), Antologiia gruzinskoῐ patrioticheskoῐ poėziῐ, Tbilisi, 1945, pp. 33-8 (Russian trans.) G. Orbeliani, Poeturi nacerebis sruli krebuli, Tbilisi, 1951, pp. 89-106, 11112, 128-47 N. Zabolotskii (ed. and trans.), Gruzinskaia klassicheskaia poėziia v perevodakh N. Zabolotskogo, vol. 2, Tbilisi, 1958, pp. 66-88 (Russian trans.) G. Orbeliani, T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli, Tbilisi, 1959, pp. 89-106, 112-13, 128-47 G. Orbeliani, Sadghegrdzelo anu omis šemdgomi ghame lxini Erevnis siaxloves, Tbilisi, 1972, pp. 1-18 K‘art‘uli mcerloba, vol. 9, Tbilisi, 1992, pp. 354-71 K. Gigashvili and M. Ninidze (eds), XIX-XX saukunis k‘art‘vel mceralt‘a epistoluri memkvidreoba, vol. 4, part 3, Tbilisi, 2013 K. Gigashvili and M. Ninidze, XIX-XX saukunis k‘art‘vel mceralt‘a epistoluri memkvidreoba, vol. 4, part 4, Tbilisi, 2014 K. Gigashvili and M. Ninidze (eds), XIX-XX saukunis k‘art‘vel mceralt‘a epistoluri memkvidreoba, vol. 4, part 5, Tbilisi, 2015 Studies A. Nikoleishvili, ‘Grigol Orbeliani da samuslimano sak‘art‘velo’, K‘art‘veluri Memkvidreoba 16 (2013) 150-64 D. Chumburidze, Istoriuli portretebi, Tbilisi, 2012, pp. 203-16 I. Ratiani, ‘“Kavkasiisa” da “kavkasielis” literaturuli rep‘lek‘siebi k‘art‘ul mcerlobaši’, Kadmosi 2 (2010) 165-71

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Rayfield, Literature of Georgia, pp. 159-60 T‘. Sharabidze, ‘Literaturul-rcmenit‘i orientac‘iis sakit‘xi Grigol Orbelianis šemok‘medebaši’, K‘ristianobis Kvlevebi 2 (2009) 186-91 S. Sigua, Devnili triump‘atori, Tbilisi, 2009, pp. 478-80 Sh. Anjap‘aridze, ‘K‘ristianul-sarcmunoebrivi motivebi Grigol Orbelianis šemok‘medebaši’, Tbilisi, 2000 (PhD Diss. Georgian Academy of Sciences, Shota Rustaveli Institute of Georgian Literature), pp. 76-80 Evgenidze, Grigol Orbeliani, pp. 251-6, 271-4 Ada Nemsadze

Akaki Tsereteli Date of Birth 21 June 1840 Place of Birth Skhvitori village, Georgia Date of Death 8 February 1915 Place of Death Skhvitori village

Biography

Akaki Tsereteli was a poet, playwright, publicist and translator, as well as a prominent member of the Georgian school of literary realism and a founder of modern Georgian literature. He was a reformer of the literary language and his work had an enormous impact on the future development of Georgian writing. Akaki Tsereteli was born in 1840, the son of Rostom Tsereteli, in Skhvitori, Upper Imereti, Georgia. In his autobiographical work, Chemi tavgadasavali (‘My adventure’), he states that, although his ‘baptism certificate says 1841’, he was born in 1840. He attended the Kutaisi Classical Gymnasium from 1852 and went on to study at the University of St Petersburg in 1859, returning to his homeland in the summer of 1862. In the early 1860s, while still a student, he became involved in the literary debate known as the ‘Struggle of Fathers and Children’. Along with others of the same age, he took a stance against the older conservative-minded group of writers. Akaki started writing early in his childhood. His first poems were published in 1859-69. In 1870, he moved to Tbilisi to take up a permanent position at the newspaper Droeba (‘Times’), which regularly published his topical satires. In 1875, Akaki published the poem Bagrat Didi (‘Bagrat the Great’), which was about the battle (1386) between Georgians, led by King Bagrat V (r. 1360-93), and the hordes of Tamerlane. In 1884, he published Tornike Eristavi (‘Grand Duke Tornike’), which related how the Georgian King David III Kuropalates (r. 961-1000) provided military assistance to the Byzantine Emperor Basil II (r. 976-1025) in the second half of the 10th century. In 1885, he wrote Tamar tsbieri (‘Tamar the sly’), a poem set in the Kingdom of Imereti in the 17th century. This depicts how the top

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level of society was devoid of morality. In Natela, a poem published in 1897, Akaki worked on the idea of a unified Georgia. Its plot is based on the heroic adventure of Tsotne Dadiani, the story that was preserved in Kakhetʻis tskhovreba (‘Georgian chronicles’). Akaki’s fictional works are based on both his own times and historical narratives. In 1894, he published the first parts of his memoirs, Chemi tavgadasavali (‘My adventure’), in the magazine Kvali (‘Traces’). Subsequent chapters were published in Akakis krebuli (‘Akaki’s collection’), in 1897-9. The second part of the work was published in 1908-9. He worked on Chemi tavgadasavali for a total of 15 years, but was not able to finish it. He died in 1915 in Skhvitori and is buried in Tbilisi, in the Mtatsminda Pantheon of Writers and Public Figures.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Xelnacʻertʻa erovnuli cʻentri, Akaki Ceretʻlis pʻondi – K-227, KK-84 A. Ceretʻeli, Chemi tavgadasavali, Tbilisi, 1903 K. Abashidze, Akaki Ceretʻeli (saliriko poezia), Kʻutʻaisi, 1908 Akaki Ceretʻlis saiubileo krebuli, Tbilisi, 1908 K. Abashidze, Etiudebi XIX saukunis kʻartʻuli literaturis šesaxeb, vol. 1, Kʻutʻaisi, 1911 G. Robakʻidze, Akakis kʻnari, Tbilisi, 1916 A. Tsereteli, The story of my life, trans. D. Rayfield, Tbilisi, 2012 (English trans. of Chemi tavgadasavali) Secondary D. Rayfield, The literature of Georgia. A history, Richmond, 2010, pp. 181-8 G. Sharadze, Akaki Ceretʻeli, 4 vols, Tbilisi, 2006-7 I. Evgenidze, Narkvevebi kʻartʻuli literaturis istoriidan, 2000 A. Bakʻradze, Ilia da Akaki, Tbilisi, 1992 N. Gurgenidze, Akaki Ceretʻeli (1840-1915), Cʻxovrebisa da šemokʻmedebis matiane, Tbilisi, 1989 P. Ingoroqva, Axali kʻartʻuli literaturis pʻudzemdebelni, Tbilisi, 1975 Kʻartʻuli literaturis istoria 6 tomad, vol. 4. XIX saukunis II naxevari, Tbilisi, 1974 L. Asatʻiani, Cʻxovreba Akaki Ceretʻlisa, Tbilisi, 1953 A. Maxaradze, Akaki Ceretʻeli (biograpʻiuli narkvevi), Tbilisi, 1940

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Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Bashi-Achuk ‘Bare-headed’ Date 1895-6 Original Language Georgian Description The historical novel Bashi-Achuk (Baši-Ačʻuk, ‘Bare-headed’) was first published in 1895 in the magazine Kvali (‘Traces’) and later in Akakis krebuli (‘Akaki’s collection’), and was twice published as a book during Akaki’s lifetime, in 1900 and 1913. In the latter edition, it is 95 pages long. In writing it, Akaki drew upon both written sources and stories from oral tradition. The title refers to the hero of the novel, Glakhuna Bakradze, who was called Bashi-Achuk (‘bare-headed’), because he did not wear a head covering. The plot of the novel is based on events during the 1659 Kakhetʻi rebellion, when the Georgian kingdoms of Kʻartʻli and Kakhetʻi rose up against their Iranian overlords’ attempt to deport Georgians and settle Qizilbāshī Turcomans, which led to the destruction of the Safavid fortress of Bakhtrioni and the exile of the leaders of the rebellion to Iran. Historical characters, including Vakhtang V (r. 1658-75), Shah ʿAbbās II (r. 1642-66) and the leaders of the rebellion, Elizbar and Shalva, eristavis (dukes) of Ksani, and Bidzina Cholokashvili, all appear in the novel. Donald Rayfield describes it as ‘an edifying historical tale of defiance of Persia in the seventeenth century. … [showing] Kakhet‘ian popular resistance to their Islamicized rulers’ (Literature of Georgia, p. 84). The story of Bashi-Achuk and his interaction with the leader of the Iranian forces, Abdushahil, is framed by a dream that the monk Cyril has in which the sacred monastery of Alaverdi (representing Georgia) is surrounded by an evil dragon (Iran), but a knight mounted on a white steed (St George) appears and destroys this threat. The story itself starts with a messenger crossing the River Aragvi, which was a raging torrent, carrying a letter from Bidzina Cholokashvili to Zaal, eristavi of Aragvi, which details the plans for a rebellion against the Iranian oppressors. It mentions that the liturgy can no longer be heard in Georgia, nor the ringing of church bells, and that the Iranians deface icons and desecrate monasteries. In all, it seems that the day of judgement is at hand. As the story progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that the interaction between the Georgian Christian Bashi-Achuk and the Iranian

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Muslim Abdushahil is one of its main themes, giving an example of selfless behaviour leading to friendship even between sworn enemies. They first meet at the celebration of the accession of Keeni to the throne. A mysterious figure (who is really Bashi-Achuk) appears on the Alvani field where the celebrations are being held. There is a wrestling match and he defeats Abdushahil, the commander of the governor Feykar Khan’s cavalry. He wins again in the equestrian competition and beheads Makashvili, the traitor of the nation, and then disappears. He is given the nick-name Bashi-Achuk and Feykar Khan offers a reward of a thousand gold coins for his capture. Abdushahil goes in search of Bashi-Achuk in order to avenge the humiliation of his defeat. Timsal-Mako, a widow, also looks for him in order to obtain the promised reward. She finds him in the hut of Melano on the edge of the forest and informs the Iranian ruler of Kakhetʻi, Ali-QuliKhan. He summons Abdushahil and orders him to seize Bashi-Achuk, but Abdushahil does not want to defeat his opponent in this way and tells Melano to warn Bashi-Achuk about the danger he is in. Abdushahil wounds a deer with an arrow in the Shuamta forest, and the animal runs to a girl who bandages its wound. Abdushahil falls in love with this unknown girl, who is Pirimzisa, Bashi-Achuk’s sister. She leads Abdushahil to Melano’s hut and Bashi-Achuk. When Bashi Achuk and Abdushahil meet, the Muslim is welcomed into the camp of the Georgians as they are making their plans. It turns out that he is Georgian by birth and a Christian. He remembers from his childhood that his village was attacked by Muslim Leks, his family was killed, and he and his mother were taken prisoner, leaving his older sister, who had gone to a priest in another village and had escaped the attack. When Melano hears this story he realises that Abdushahil is his long-lost brother, which is confirmed by the fact that he has six toes on each foot. ‘God does not want us to lose each other,’ Melano tells his brother, and Abdushahil joins the team of Georgians and converts to Christianity in their conspiracy. Soon after, he leads the Iranian cavalry into an ambush. They are defeated and Feykar Khan flees to Iran. When Shah ʿAbbās learns of this, he tells Ganja Khan: ‘Kakhetʻi has been given to you; go and destroy it.’ The king of Kʻartʻli, Vakhtang V, writes to inform Shah ʿAbbās that the nobles of Kʻartʻli no longer accept his rule but have turned to support the Kakhetʻians. The shah threatens reprisals and the leaders of the uprising, Elizbar, Shalva and Bidzina Cholokashvili, decide they must travel to Iran and ask the shah’s forgiveness. They are tortured and killed by the shah, and are proclaimed martyrs and canonised by the Georgian church.

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At the same time as this, three riders are heading towards western Georgia. They are Abdushahil, Pirimzisa and Bashi-Achuk. Bashi-Achuk returns to his home, and Abdushahil marries his sister and becomes his brother-in-law. The leitmotif of Bashi-Achuk is the selfless struggle of the Georgians against the Iranian invaders, but at the same time Akaki Tsereteli is tolerant of Muslims as individuals, as is evidenced by the example of Abdushahil. The Georgian Christian woman Pirimzisa is attracted to the Muslim Abdushahil because of his humility and humane nature, regardless of his religion, resulting in their mutual love. For the same reason, Georgian rebels grant Abdushahil their trust and accept him among their ranks. After he finds out his own true origin, Abdushahil decides to convert back to Christianity. The truth and sincerity of character trump religious identities, even though such identities are fundamental to both the historical context and the plot of the work. The concept of religious tolerance is also clear in Akaki Tsereteli’s other writings. In particular, in his letter to the ‘Ottoman Georgians’ (1875-6) he refers to his Muslim compatriots who returned to Georgia following the Russo-Turkish war as ‘one tribe and one settler brother’. For Akaki Tsereteli, it is completely unthinkable for Christian Georgians to attack Muslim compatriots and cut them off: ‘God is the same for all [...] let us expect common prosperity,’ he writes. Further, in a speech in 1907 in honour of the descendants of Georgians taken prisoner in Iran by Shah ʿAbbās, he notes that the Muslim Fereydanians (ethnic Georgians living in the Fereydun region of Iran) ‘did not dislike Georgianness in their hearts. The writer hopes that the time for “brotherhood, unity, love” will soon come for Christian and Muslim Georgians.’ The Bashi-Achuk story is based on the historical struggle of the Georgians against Iranian aggression in the 17th century. While the context is polemical, something of the author’s tolerance, or at least not total rejection of other religions, and general openness can be seen, as can Georgian tolerance of religious difference, looking rather to underlying human authenticity. Bashi-Achuk sits within a centuries-old Georgian tradition of literature that contributed to the development of this humane social consciousness as something of a national trait. Significance Bashi-Achuk has been repeatedly published as a separate book, as well as in various collections, culminating in a new scholarly edition in 2015. The story has been translated into several languages, among them Turkish,

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Russian and Czech, and in 1956 it was made into a popular film. It remains an important piece of fiction, particularly for children. Publications Akaki Tsereteli, ‘Baši-Ačʻuki’, Kvali (1895) nos 38, 40, 41, 47, 48, 50; (1896) nos 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22 Akaki Tsereteli, ‘Baši-Ačʻuki’, in Akakis krebuli, Kʻutʻaisi, 1897, pp. 1-70 Akaki Tsereteli, Baši-Ačʻuki (avtoris gamocʻema), Kʻutʻaisi, 1900 Akaki Tsereteli, Baši-Ačuk, trans. A. Koudelka, Prague [?], 1911 (Czech trans.) Akaki Tsereteli, Baši-Ačʻuki, Kʻutʻaisi, 1913 A. Ceretʻeli, Baši-Ačuk. Historická povíd, trans. O.S. Vetti, Prague, 1916 (Czech trans.) A. Ceretʻeli, Bashi-Achuk. Istoriia moeĭ zhizni, trans. L. Natroshvili, Tbilisi, 1938 (Russian trans.) A. Ceretʻeli, Baši-Ačʻuki, Tbilisi, 1958 A. Ceretʻeli, Baši-Ačʻuki, Tbilisi, 1982 A. Ceretʻeli, Rčʻeuli nacarmoebebi 5 tomad, vol. 3, Tbilisi, 1989 A. Ceretʻeli, Baši-Ačʻuki, Tbilisi, 2008 Akaki Tsereteli, Baši-Ačuk, trans. M. Tsiklauri, A. Japaridze and G, Mukerre, 2014 (Turkish trans.) A. Ceretʻeli, Tʻxzulebatʻa sruli krebuli 20 tomad, vol. 6, Tbilisi, 2015, pp. 184-240 Studies Rayfield, The literature of Georgia, p. 184 J. Gaboże, Akakis tʻxzulebatʻa gamocʻemebi, Tbilisi, 2009 I. Evgeniże, Narkvevebi kʻartuli literaturis istoriidan, Tbilisi, 2000 A. Bakʻraże, Ilia da Akaki, Tbilisi, 1992 D. Čʻakvetaże, Akaki Ceretʻeli da sakʻartvelos istoriis sakitxebi, Tbilisi, 1978 P. Ingoroqva, Axali kʻartʻuli literaturis pʻużemdebelni, Tbilisi, 1975 Kʻartʻuli literaturis istoria 6 tomad, vol. 4. XIX saukunis II naxevari, Tbilisi, 1974 A. Gačʻečʻilaże, Akaki Ceretʻeli, Tbilisi, 1966 Š. Ratiani, Akaki Ceretʻeli da realizmis sakitʻxebi, Tbilisi, 1963 K. Abašiże, Etiudebi XIX saukunis kʻartʻuli literaturis šesaxeb, vol. 1, Kʻutʻaisi, 1911 Manana Kvataia

Ełia Dēmirč‘ibašian Ełia Tēmirčipašean; Eghia Demirdjibashian Date of Birth 1851 Place of Birth Constantinople (Istanbul from 1928) Date of Death 1908 Place of Death Constantinople (Istanbul)

Biography

Ełia Dēmirč‘ibašian was born in Bešikt‘aš, one of the upper-class quarters of Constantinople. His father’s family had come from Georgia, where his forebears had worked in the royal shipyard. In his childhood, he spent time with his maternal grandfather, who was a priest and often took him to church, introducing him to religion and the dichotomy between the physical and spiritual aspects of human life. Thereafter, be began his education at the Nersisian School, where one of his teachers was the celebrated poet and dramatist T‘ovma T‘erzian. Subsequently, he attended the Šahnazarian School, where he wrote his first poem. A melancholy, highly-strung youth, who sought solitude, he would read Romantic novels instead of attending to classwork. His exposure to Goethe’s character Werther was to exert an especially deep influence on him in opening his awareness to the cultivation of the individual’s inner world, the ego, and its analysis in art. Meanwhile, his experience of love convinced him that its essence subsisted not in happiness but in pain, having no one intimate with whom to share. It was unrequited love that provoked the first of his three attempts to commit suicide by throwing himself in the river in 1874. Later that year, as was the norm for his time and socio-economic class, Dēmirč‘ibašian was sent to France to receive his tertiary education, studying economics at a commercial college in Marseilles. This was to inaugurate a period that would provide him with opportunities for fulfilment in various roles in society. He initially secured a position in the Armenian Ministry of Education thanks to his knowledge of Turkish and French, but he soon left to assume the editorship of two Armenian newspapers, Nor Geank‘ and Dndes, later undertaking editorial responsibilities at the Ergrakunt after Hagop Baronian in 1884. He was also elected to the

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Armenian Assembly as representative for his quarter of the capital, but subsequently resigned. In part, this was due to the early onset of consumption (tuberculosis), which he probed in a series of articles in the paper Masis under the title ‘Diary of a consumptive youth’. Already conversant with the tenets of religion and art through the lens of Romanticism and later Symbolism, Dēmirč‘ibašian now pursued philosophy more seriously, presenting his insights in his Philosophical dictionary of 1879 and the periodical Kragan ev Imasdasiragan Šaržumə (‘Literary and philosophical movement’, 1883-8), after which he taught the subject for some years, along with history, pedagogy and literature, at the Getronagan Varžaran until his illness worsened. Having read widely among the different contemporary trends, he came to appreciate the relative value of Herbert Spencer’s (1820-1903) positivist approach to the societal and intellectual aspects of human integration into a Darwinian system of evolution in which knowledge of the environment was mediated through scientific inquiry within a materialist framework. Nevertheless, he acknowledged the potency of the human desire to go beyond materialism, the realm of experiment and sense perception, to query the unknown. However, he maintained that our understanding of that dimension is also subject to evolution and therefore censured the church’s precipitate condemnation of Darwin. At the same time, he also found himself drawn to the thoroughgoing pessimism of Arthur Schopenhauer’s thought, which afforded him an entrée into Buddhism and the concept of Nirvana that was to occupy a central place in his later reflections. Recognising the limitations of all the above in the final analysis and being unable to form a synthesis, Dēmirč‘ibašian was caught in a dilemma. This manifested itself in two ways, first in inconsistencies of approach to various subjects such as suffering. While constructing a positive role for suffering as in the pain the philosopher feels for humanity, which elevates the bearer to the level of divinity, he was also well aware of its negative connotations. Second, the pressure of holding in tension competing truth-claims plunged him into a continual state of existential angst that received powerful expression in his celebrated poem Angełn erg (‘Song of the vulture’). As he was to say later, he loved two things, poetry and philosophy, but they gave him no peace of mind. The next few years were to witness his exploration of some of these psychological situations in a series of whimsical sketches such as Ałjgan mə ōrakirə (‘A girl’s diary’) and Gadui mə yišagirk‘ə (‘Memoirs of a cat’). Dēmirč‘ibašian’s final period was marked by two further suicide attempts. In 1893, he jumped from a bridge, only to be rescued by a

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fisherman. In great financial difficulty some two years later, he visited a certain Mrs Ellen Nissen in Pera and initiated a nurturing relationship with her that sustained him for the rest of his life. In 1897, he embarked on a European tour but cut it short when a persecution complex gripped his sensitive, vulnerable psyche. Thereafter, he checked himself into the Armenian National Hospital in Constantinople, where he remained for a year. Returning to Mrs Nissen’s home, he spent his last six years in great anguish until, unable to bear it any longer, he hanged himself there. He was interred in the Armenian graveyard of Šišli. An idiosyncratic and controversial figure to the last, he nevertheless won respect as a spokesman for the philosophical positions he held and exerted a considerable influence on some of the next generation of Armenian poets such as Indra and Taniēl Varužan.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Source Ł. Dayian, ‘Ełia Dēmirč‘ibašian’, Bazmav ēp 66 (1908) 57-73 L. Ēsačanian, Ełia Dēmirč‘ibašian, Constantinople, 1909 Ṙ. Samikian, E łia Dēmirč‘ibašian, 1880-1908, Constantinople, 1909 H. Nazariants‘, Namakk‘ sirayin Ełia Tēmirč‘ibašeani, 1886-1889 [Ełia Dēmirč‘ibašian’s love letters, 1886-1889], Constantinople, 1910 G. Fēnērčian and H. Bedrosian, Ełia Dēmirč‘ibašian, ir geank‘ ə ew ir kordz‘ə [Ełia Dēmirč‘ibašian, his life and work], Constantinople, 1921 Secondary Source A.J. Hacikyan et al., The heritage of Armenian literature, vol. 3, Detroit MI, 2005, pp. 447-9 K.B. Bardakjian, A reference guide to modern Armenian literature, 1500-1920, Detroit MI, 2000, pp. 132-3, 529-30 M. Barsamian, ‘Ełia Dēmirč‘ibašian’, Andastan 14 (1963) 65-81 Z. Kalēmk‘earian, ‘Ełia Dēmirč‘ibašian’, Anahit 2/5-6 (1931) 17-112

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Works on Christian-Muslim Relations T‘rk‘uhi ‘The Turkish woman’ Date 1880s-1890s Original Language Armenian Description This poem consists of ten traditional four-line stanzas in octosyllabic verse with a rhyme scheme in abab deriving from Turkish folk metres that had been common in Armenian poetry from the 13th century. It is written in a highly conservative form of modern western Armenian and, like most of the poet’s works, is heavily influenced in grammar and lexicon by classical Armenian. Composed in a spare, laconic style embellished with a few arresting compound adjectives and two striking metrical jolts, the work is set in one of the largely Muslim residential quarters of Constantinople, where the narrator (with a presumably substantial autobiographical investment) states he was wont to stroll to escape the throng and tumult of the centre. It narrates his fascination with a young Turkish woman he encounters there. He relates how he had imagined a particular house as a perfect refuge until, when he was passing by, he saw the woman run out of it. Over the next six stanzas, he builds an empathetic image of her in relation to a group of pigeons housed in a dovecote at the top of the building. They, rather than he, are portrayed as interacting with the woman, who resembles them in various ways. They marvel at her white skin and thick black eyebrows, described as ‘the dowry of daughters of the Prophet’. She is also slender and seems to flit about airily like them in the chiaroscuro of the narrow street where the semi-dark is pierced by shafts of light that evoke for them the slats of their dovecote, though for the poet it gives the impression of a cage, a place of confinement. The beauty and nobility with which her figure is endowed contrast radically with her physical condition: her clothing is her long hair and her walking on rose petals suggests her barefoot existence. The mystery behind the figure and the grounds for the fascination she exerts upon the poet-observer emerge over the three middle verses, where we learn that she has an incurable disease from which she is wasting away. Her low sighing under the effect of the illness blends with the cooing of

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the doves and the gurgling of the fountains in the courtyards of the houses to disturb the deathly silence of their surroundings. Into this scene, the narrator finally intrudes himself. He, too, is gaunt, almost incorporeal, and finds himself fixed in a cycle, strolling through these quarters as his vital fluids continually ebb from him and his heart is emptied of vigour. With every passing month, her life is also being consumed as her ‘wound’ grows deeper. His empathetic commiseration is conveyed by his saying that he is there to hear her, to receive her tears. Suddenly, the end of the penultimate verse breaks the atmosphere of quiet, inevitable decrepitude at the caesura. The procession of verbs in continuous tenses is interrupted by a series of aorists implying single, selfcontained action, ushering in a reprise of the opening of the second verse. The woman leaves the sombre, joyless house and makes her way with calm, measured steps towards the seashore. Clearly, the narrator completely identifies with her mindset, in which she has come to terms with the constraints of her illness and refuses to be a prisoner to its debilitating effects any longer, but summons up the will to find a solution of her own devising, which is spelled out in the penultimate line. Rather than her current state, where her life is being extinguished by inertia, she decides to extinguish her own ‘dream, passion, fire’, the mental, emotional and physical aspects of her being. The final jolt then follows in the last line: people intervene to pull her from the water. Naturally, conventional wisdom would argue in keeping with the verb employed that they ‘freed’ her, and yet the irony inherent in the poet’s understanding of the situation emerges in the final word ‘alas’. Unwittingly, her rescuers have thwarted the free exercise of her choice and its implementation, representing a societal restraint on individual liberties, a sentiment with which the author himself was in full accord. Significance In the first instance, the poem is noteworthy for the various stereotypes that are subverted in it. The narrator is older, male, Armenian by birth and Christian by religion (albeit in adult life his metaphysical and ethical views had developed beyond the conventional norms), whereas the protagonist who gives her name to the piece is young, female, Turkish and Muslim, the last element implied by the image of the ‘dowry of daughters of the Prophet’ referred to above. Thus, the rapport he feels with her undermines many of the societally constructed boundaries which were being exacerbated at this time, especially in the political sphere by the propagation of nationalism and the involvement of European powers

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in the Ottoman state. However, here, as in many areas, Dēmirč‘ibašian’s perspective appears sui generis. As he notes in his writings, he believes the artist should occupy a sphere above ordinary humanity. Moreover, he reveals that, as his thinking developed, he was not drawn to nationalism, but conceived a concern for humanity as a whole, though he confesses that this remained largely unimplemented at the level of dream. The above societal distinctions were also facilitated by the residential demographics of urban design in Middle-Eastern cities, contrasting the open interchange of the public space of the city with the relative seclusion of quarters marked by narrow lanes branching out from central arteries, which tended to separate the various communities. Here, this feature also seems to be contrasted with the wide European-style grid structure that was characteristic of some of the upscale western quarters like Pera, which the poem alludes to in connection with the medical profession, since the area was favoured by physicians from Western Europe or those who had received their training there. The Turkish quarters, in contrast, are conducive to the poet because of his idiosyncratic approach to society, preferring the quiet solitude of that largely deserted space to the distracting activities of everyday life, where he often felt misunderstood and persecuted. The extended simile he elaborates between the young woman and the doves displays his interest in the unusual trend towards pantheism, together with the free association of his inventive imagination that saw both external and more profound parallels between their realities, which he subsequently unites with his own. This becomes all the more incisive as he suggests the limited round they all inhabit, subject to the strictures of their environment and situation, and the primarily static nature of their existence. But at the same time an inner sense of dynamism is apparent that ultimately expresses itself in action to manifest the internal aspiration to rise above one’s circumstances and take responsibility for one’s fate. A third feature that permeates the work on multiple levels is irony, which also calls into question the grounds on which established opinion rests. The narrator had considered the house from which the young woman exited as being an Eden because of its peaceful setting, but in that moment it became a hellhole for him, indicating how appearances can be deceptive. The former impression the author categorises as a dream, now contrasted with real life. Although the woman moved around her immediate environment, she remained, like the doves, as if in a cage, as she had been earlier in the house. Her movements were aimless and

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inconsequential, like the narrator’s perpetual round, strolling through that part of the city without an express aim. In certain quarters it might have been hardly conceivable that any sort of fellow-feeling or sympathy might arise between such outwardly different persons, but broader facets of the human condition and issues of agency and deeper purpose in life create powerful conditions for such rapport to blossom. Of course, the ultimate irony surfaces at the conclusion of the poem regarding the action of the woman’s ‘rescuers’ who save her from drowning, but leave her in an even more vulnerable situation to struggle with an adversary she had no means of defeating, now with depleted forces. This was a quandary the author knew only too well from personal experience. In his poem Nirvana, he indicates his early puzzlement about what happens after death. Here, too, he voices contradictory perspectives on the subject. In one of his essays, the retiring hero, who embodies key aspects of Dēmirč‘ibašian’s worldview, prefers death when called to life and work. However, in other writings the poet expresses shame and doubt about suicide. His Schopenhauerian introduction to Buddhist thought led him to an individual understanding of the state of Nirvana in terms of a cherished release from the agonising mental, emotional and physical struggles of this existence. In this work, from that viewpoint he challenges the moral norms of both Christian and Muslim society on the subject of suicide and euthanasia, at least condoning, if not actively supporting the action, raising the issue of the individual’s right to determine their own fate. Publications Ṙ. Sargsyan (ed.), Ełia Dēmirč‘ibašian Erker [Ełia Dēmirč‘ibašian Works], Yerevan, 1986, pp. 54-5 Studies Bardakjian, Reference guide, pp. 111, 568 S.B. Dadoyian, Ēǰer arewmdahay mdadz‘umēn [Pages from Western Armenian thought], Beirut, 1987, pp. 20-52 S. Peter Cowe

Vazha-Pshavela Luka Razikashvili Date of Birth 14 July 1861 Place of Birth Chargali, Georgia Date of Death 30 August 1915 Place of Death Tbilisi, Georgia

Biography

Vazha-pshavela, ‘a lad from Pshavi’, the pseudonym of Luka Razikashvili, was born in Chargali, a village in Pshavi, in the mountainous region of eastern Georgia on 14 July 1861. His birthplace is of crucial importance for understanding his personality. The mountainous regions of Georgia were never subject to serfdom, and the social order of Pshavi itself was communal and tribal. His ancestors had regularly to defend their native lands from marauding clans, mostly the Leki of Dagestan. But his father, Pavle Razikashvili, chose a different way of life. Against the wishes of his parents, he received a religious education and was ordained a priest. He and his wife had six children, among whom Luka, Niko (Bachana) and Tedo became famous writers. In 1871, the ten year-old Luka was enrolled in a religious school in Telavi. From 1879, he attended the Craftsmen’s Seminary of Gori, from which he graduated in 1882 and became a teacher in Tolatsopheli. Around the same time, he started working intensively on his creative literature and collaborating with various magazines and newspapers. In 1883-4, Luka attended classes in the law school of the University of St Petersburg, but lack of funds forced him to return to his homeland. At one point, he worked as a private tutor in the village of Otarsheni, where he met Ekaterine (Keke) Nebieridze, whom he married in 1886. That same year, he was appointed as a teacher in the village of Didi Toneti, where he spent two years. A complaint by the local village priest led to his dismissal from his post and he was offered a position in the editorial office of the newspaper Iveria. However, Luka only remained at the newspaper for a few days because he could not cope with the enclosed office space and he returned to Chargali.

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Illustration 16. Vazha-Pshavela

Luka and Keke had four children: Gulqan, Mariam, Tamar and Levan (Levan was executed by the Bolsheviks in 1923). In 1902, Luka’s wife died and in 1904 he married his second wife, Tamar Didebashvili, and had his fifth child, Vakhtang. He supported his family by working as a labourer, which gravely affected his general health. In 1915, he fell ill with pneumonia. After his condition improved slightly, he travelled to Tbilisi, where his fellow young writers arranged celebrations for his birthday. In the evening at the Ortatchala Garden, a table was set for dinner, but Vazha-pshavela was not fully recovered from his illness. On 14 June 1915, he was admitted to the infirmary in the Gymnasium building (now the State University). He was diagnosed with pleurisy and his condition deteriorated. On 27 July 1915 (in the old style calendar), he died at the age of 54. He was buried in the Didube Pantheon by the Georgian Society. On the 20th anniversary of his death, in 1935, his remains were transferred and reburied in the Mtatsminda Pantheon. During the last years of his life, at the request of his friends, Vazhapshavela wrote an autobiographical piece entitled Chemi Tsutisopeli (‘My transient world’). He was not able to finish it, though it is a primary source for his biography. Almost every major piece of Vazha-pshavela’s work reflects Christian-Muslim relations. The most prominent and suitable

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depictions of the relations between the representatives of two religions are presented in the poems Aluda Ketelauri (the name of its hero) and St‘umar-masp‘indzeli (‘Host and guest’). Vazha-pshavela’s works stand out for their distinctive style. He introduced into the Georgian literary language words and idioms characteristic of the dialect of Pshavi, which are found in his poetry but not in his prose works. His use of this dialect was the reason why some discredited him both before and after his death.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary MS Tbilisi, Korneli Kekelidze Georgian National Centre of Manuscripts – Vazhapshavela reserves no. 1, Vazha-pshavela, ‘Pikrebi vepkhist’q’aosnis shesakheb’’ [Thoughts about ‘The knight in the panther’s skin’], 1911, pp. 1-11 MS Tbilisi, Korneli Kekelidze Georgian National Centre of Manuscripts – Vazhapshavela reserves no. 23, Vazha-pshavela, ‘Chemi Tsutisopeli’ [My transient world], 1915, pp. 1-8 MS Tbilisi, Korneli Kekelidze Georgian National Centre of Manuscripts – Vazhapshavela reserves no. 42, Vazha-pshavela, ‘Chveni dalachreba’ [Turning cowardly], p. 1 MS Tbilisi, Giorgi Leonidze State Museum of Literature – 18167-18168-181669, N. Kurdghelashvili, Mogonebani [Memoirs], 1925 Secondary M. Antelidze et al., Unveiling Vazha Pshavela. A dozen poems by Vazha, with stories and artworks inspired by him, trans. D. Rayfield, London, 2018 D. Rayfield, ‘An introduction to Vazha’, in M. Antelidze et al., Unveiling Vazha Pshavela, London, 2018, 8-12 D. Rayfield, The literature of Georgia. A history, London, 2010, pp. 207-27 E. Tataraidze, ‘Mamama ghmerts chamahq’ara sakheli’ (Gulkan razikashvilis naambobi), Tbilisi, 2008 I. Evgenidze, Vazha-pshavela (tskhovrebisa da shemokmedebiti istoriis sakitkhebi), Tbilisi, 1989 G. Khornauli, ‘Tskhovreba Vazha-pshavelasi’, Tbilisi, 1987 S. Tsaishvili and G. Gverdtsiteli (eds) ‘Kai q’ma’ (mogonebebi Vazha-pshavelaze), Tbilisi, 1986 E. Lundberg, E. Ghoghoberidze and S. Khutsishvili, Vazha-pshavela, tskhovrebisa da shemokmedebis gza, Tbilisi, 1974 V. Razikashvili, Mamachemi Vazha-pshavela, Tbilisi, 1972 V. Kotetishvili, ‘Vazha pshavela’, Qartuli Literaturis Istoria (XIXs.) (1959) 581-614 G. Kiknadze, Vazha-pshavelas shemokmedeba, Tbilisi, 1957 S. Kubaneishvili, Vazha-pshavela, dokumentebi da masalebi, Tbilisi, 1937

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Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Poems, short stories and journalism Date 1880-1914 Original Language Georgian Description Before discussing the various works of Vazha-pshavela, a brief contextualising comment will be helpful. The mountainous region of eastern Georgia is part of the Caucasus mountains. Inhabitants of eastern Georgia thus developed close relationships with the people of the North Caucasus, who are predominantly Muslim. Christian Georgian highlanders established relationships varying from friendship to enmity with neighbouring groups of Ossetians, Circassians, Dagestanis and Kists or Chechens. Raids were common, and these occasionally turned into skirmishes that sometimes ended in bloody vendettas. The highlanders, along with the rest of country, were also fighting against the state’s common enemies, who were predominantly Muslim. The names they used for their enemies of different ethnicity and creed generally included the words Tatar, urjulo (‘lawless’) and tarakama, a term of mockery. Christian-Muslim relations are portrayed in almost every genre of Vazha-pshavela’s works. In his poems, which are patriotic in spirit, he generally describes fight scenes: either Georgians destroying their enemies, or invaders attacking and ravaging Georgian villages. His view about fighting is: ‘We do not threaten anyone’s homeland and others should not threaten ours, but if they do we will show no mercy’, as in Mkhedarta dzveli simghera (‘The knights’ old song’, 1904). Battles between Christians and Muslims are described in the following poems: Kʻartʻli (1886); Mtsʻqʻemsis simghera (‘The shepherd’s song’, 1887); Gigi (1888); Galashkreba Lasharis jvris droshit (‘Going to war with the cross of Lashar’, 1889); Vis emukreba (simghera)? (‘Who is threatened?’, a song, 1889); Imedi Razikauli (1890); Bakuri (1899); and Sikʻvdili gmirisa (‘Death of a hero’, 1899). Vazha-pshavela also wrote poems about King Erekle (Heraclius II, r. 1740-98), whom he considered the greatest leader of his country. These include 1795 tsʻlis sakhsovrad (‘In memory of 1795’, 1895); Danabarebi (‘Entrusted message’, 1900); Khatʻma gvibrdzana (‘The icon commanded us’, 1901); Erekʻles sizmari (‘Erekle’s dream’, 1909); and Irakʻli brdzolis tsʻin (‘Irakli before the battle’, 1911).

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Vazha-pshavela’s poems include portrayals of Christian-Muslim relations from many perspectives. They generally depict battles against enemies of the homeland, referred to mainly as the Tatreban (Tatars), and also as the Sp‘arselebtan (Persians) and the Turkebtan (Turks), and with the neighbouring Dagestani and Kist peoples, all of them Muslims. Poems describing battles against merciless enemies include Mokhutsis natkvami (‘An old man spoke’, 1883); Sula da k‘urdghela (‘Sula and the rabbit’, 1888); Bakhtrioni (1892); Nangrevta shoris (‘Among the ruins’, 1900); and Dzaghlika Khimikauri (1902). Skirmishes between neighbouring tribes, and the highlanders’ destructive tradition of raiding, are dealt with in Giglia (1886); Tetro giorgi, shvili ra miq‘av? (‘White [St] George, where have you taken my child?’, 1893); Ivane K‘ot‘orashvilis ambavi (‘The story of Ivane Kotorashvili’, 1896); Aluda Ketelauri (the name of the protagonist, 1888); and St‘umar-masp‘indzeli (‘Host and guest’, 1893). Vazha-pshavela’s poems also deal with the vexed issue of conversion. In Uighblo ighbliani (‘Unlucky lucky’, 1889), he writes about a red lake, where, according to a legend, the Tatars would ask Georgian prisoners to convert to Islam. Those who refused were beheaded, and the lake was turned red by their blood. All year round, flowers would bloom around it – the souls of the martyrs. The poem asks whether the sins of those Georgians who converted could be ever forgiven, but it does not give a clear answer. In addition to describing the heroism of Georgian warriors and their victories over their enemies, several of Vazha-pshavela’s poems also portray deeper relationships between the adversaries. They describe characters who possess the ability to recognise humanity even in stubborn enemies and are able to appreciate them and even be charmed by them. This interest in depicting respect and liking for an enemy is what sets Vazha-pshavela apart from his contemporaries. In the narrative poem Aluda Ketelauri (1888), which is 18 pages long in the 2018 English translation (Unveiling Vazha Pshavela, pp. 59-76; references are to this edition), a battle takes place between the Kists and Khevsurs. During the battle, Aluda Ketelauri, a Khevsur, and Mutsali, a Kist, call each other ‘heathen dog’ (pp. 60-1). Then, when he is mortally wounded by Aluda Ketelauri, Mutsali takes off his sword and throws it to Aluda in a gesture that shows he regards it as important for his weapon to be held by a man of valour, no matter who this man is or his background. Aluda is deeply affected (p. 62), seeing not an enemy but a human being not unlike himself, and he comes to know the cost of valour and dignity. Here, Vazha-pshavela portrays a situation that brings people together,

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despite their different creeds. Aluda mourns his victim and buries him with reverence, ignoring his own traditions and not cutting off Mutsali’s right hand (p. 62), indicating that he considers Mutsali as his equal even in the afterlife, even though he was from a different tribe and faith. Mutsali’s death affects Aluda so much that his attitude changes altogether. Instead of feeling proud of killing his foe, he feels sorrow and is forced to reflect on the bloody vendetta that has caused a life and death struggle between two neighbouring tribes. He starts to doubt the faith and customs of his own tribe, which believes that only Christians can rest eternally in heaven and that others will burn in hellfire. This kind of a question is the best example of Vazha-pshavela’s openness and tolerance. The tribe does not believe Aluda when he tells them what happened, thinking that Mutsali managed to escape, and they do not accept that an enemy could have been spared because a man only kills his enemies in order to cut off their right hands (pp. 64-7). The change that has come over Aluda is re-enforced by a dream he has in which the Khevsurs were feasting on their dead enemies. This makes Aluda realise that the tradition of vendettas is inhumane because in Khevsur beliefs only giants, which are evil creatures of fantasy, consume human flesh. Aluda’s sympathy for Mutsali gradually turns into brotherly and selfless affection, and he decides to make a sacrifice for Mutsali’s soul. The chief of his tribe refuses to make this sacrifice, so he himself slaughters a bullock (pp. 70-2), but this is seen as defiling a sacred site and Aluda and his family are expelled from his tribe. So, for the sake of his dead friend he is prepared for his family to suffer (pp. 74-6). The point of the poem is that the Christian Aluda is able to accept the Muslim Mutsali as his brother and even sacrifice himself for his sake. In another poem, St‘umar-masp‘indzeli (‘Host and guest’, 1893), 31 pages long in the 2018 English translation (Unveiling Vazha Pshavela, pp. 81-112; references are to this edition), similar feelings are exhibited by Muslims towards Christians. As in Aluda Ketelauri, there is a war between the Khevsurs and the Kists. Zviadauri, a leading Khevsur warrior who has killed numerous Kists, is out hunting at night when he meets the Kist Joqola, who has killed an animal. Zviadauri looks on him as a man who is caring for his family and decides not to shoot him, though at the same time he conceals his own identity because he is well-known to the Kists. Joqola offers to give this stranger half his animal and then invites him to his home because the night is so dark (pp. 82-6). Here, both characters are following their feelings, because a pragmatic man would not invite an enemy to his home, and Zviadauri should not have accepted the invitation

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because many people would recognise him in the Kist village. But each man sees the other simply as a human being and this overrides their hostility. One of the Kists in Joqola’s house recognises Zviadauri and tells the village. The Kists decide to murder him by finding out where he is to sleep and attacking him during the night (pp. 86-9). In Muslim villages, as in Christian settlements, there is a tradition of hospitality that accepts any guest as coming from God, which makes guests entirely immune from harm. If a guest goes beyond what is decent, the host can only seek revenge when the guest has left the host’s family. In this poem, the Kists ignore their own tradition and attack an unarmed guest, justifying their action by claiming that the custom of vendetta is stronger than that of hospitality, and also that the tribe’s decision is paramount (pp. 89-92). They also condemn Joqola and his family to public shame, because the family will lose trust and respect by sacrificing their guest. Joqola does not accept his tribe’s decision and decides to defend his guest even though, when the Kists attack, he discovers that it is Zviadauri who killed his brother. Joqola kills Musa, who threatened him because he was defying the tribe’s decision (pp. 91-2), so the Kists tie him up and leave him, taking Zviadauri to the burial ground to sacrifice him to their ancestors. They torture Zviadauri by slitting his throat slowly and demanding that he should offer himself willingly as a sacrifice for the Kists who have been killed by the Khevsurs. Zviadauri refuses to give them satisfaction, and for a moment they recognise his courage and regret what they are doing, though this is only temporary (p. 95). They justify their action by referring to the custom of vendetta: ‘But “show the enemy no mercy” the Lord himself has commanded us’ (p. 96). Vazha-pshavela demonstrates that only an individual can rise above a tribe that is constrained by strict rules and laws. Such individuals are Zviadauri and Joqola, and also his wife Aghaza, who has sided with her husband. All three die because no matter how right an individual is, one cannot win against the tribe or society in general. The poem has an unexpected ending. In the afterlife, where tribal rules no longer hold, the characters talk about bravery, showing liking for one another and getting to know one another. Vazha-pshavela paints a form of friendship that can connect people of different faiths if society does not constrain them with its rules. He intimates that religious rules are less important than human relationships – to recognise, forgive and love one another. The poem Bakhtrioni, which Vazha-pshavela wrote in 1892, traces the historical events of 1659, when Georgians united against the invading Persians and captured the castle of Bakhtrioni. In this battle, Georgian

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plainsmen and highlanders fought side by side – the Khevsurs, the Pshavs and the Tushs. The poem relates how the Iranians ravaged and desecrated the land of Kakhetʻi, and how the highlanders came to the rescue of the rest of Georgia. Vazha-pshavela depicts an unusual scene in the town of Pshavi resulting from the invasion. There are no men left, and Kviria, who is attending celebrations being held in Pshavi, is met by a woman alone at the shrine performing actions usually reserved for men: she has lit the candles and slaughtered a sacrificial animal to the sacred icon. This woman, Sanata, says that she lost her husband and their seven sons in a single battle and took two weeks to dig their graves. But despite her sorrow, she is excited by the idea of the war. She herself goes to summon the Pshavs and sends Kviria to Khevsureti to do the same. The united forces of Pshavi and Khevsureti gather on Lashari Hill. This army is followed by Lela Bachleli, a woman whose brothers have been killed by the Iranians; her mother is imprisoned in Bakhtrioni castle, and her father is too weak even to ride a horse to the battle. Lela wants to avenge her family or else to die at the hands of her enemies. Both Lela and Kviria are killed in the battle that is fought at the gates of Bakhtrioni castle and it is through their self-sacrifice that the Georgian army is able to enter the castle and take it. The poem addresses a number of topics such as patriotism, the uniting of highlanders and plainsmen and the heroism of women, though these are secondary to Vazha-pshavela’s main idea of love for one’s enemy. In the course of the poem, two other characters also appear, Pshav Lukhumi and Tush Zezva Gaphrindauli, who have fought numerous battles together. Zezva is merciless towards his enemies, but Lukhumi becomes tearful whenever he has to kill infidels. The poem ends unusually, like a fable. The Pshavs cannot find Lukhumi on the battlefield and are forced to return without him. Meanwhile, he lies wounded in a dense forest, being taken care of by a snake. Though this is an enemy of humankind, its evil nature is changed by Lukhumi’s saintliness and Lukhumi recovers. As Vazhapshavela sees it, to love your enemies and recognise their human nature, even if they are foreign invaders of a different faith, is a divine idea that can solve any conflict without fighting. Christian-Muslim relations are also addressed in some of Vazhapshavela’s short stories, which also depict the Georgians’ struggle against Muslim invaders and neighbouring Caucasian tribes. These include Chveni sopeli (‘Our village’, 1889), Ertguli megobari (‘Loyal friend’, 1890), Shalvas nanakhi khat‘i (‘The icon seen by Shalva’, 1890) and Ori ambavi mepe erek‘lesi mtashi darchenili (‘Two stories about King Erekle in the mountains’, 1902).

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Deep relationships are examined in the short story P’ap’as msoplio pikrebi (‘Grandpa’s thoughts about the world’, 1903), which is about an old man’s uncertain reflections on kindness and evil. In his mind, valour should be used to convert one’s enemies into friends, while murder is the greatest sin. He pays particular attention to the matter of killing your enemies, including Tatars. ‘Isn’t a Tatar a man, a human being as well?’ asks the old man, adding that ‘everyone is a child of God, everyone prays and pleads to God: Lord, let me live and rest in peace.’ Another important question is posed by a character nearby: ‘What should I do if they steal from me? What if thugs kill me?’ Grandpa answers: ‘Let them. Is it so much if they take a portion of your meal? Don’t kill, work hard and ask for God’s help.’ The speaker of these words is an old man who appears to have limited intellectual capacity and believes that the world is carried on the back of a giant whale, but in reality he is a deep thinker who is tolerant towards people of different beliefs from himself and does not automatically look on them as enemies. Christian-Muslim relations are also depicted in the drama Mokvetili (‘Excommunicated’, 1894). At the beginning of the play, Vazha-pshavela describes an ongoing conflict between the Kists and the Pshavs, who are constantly raiding and pillaging each other, creating an endless saga of revenge with both sides dreaming of bloody vendettas and killing and cutting off the right arm of dead warriors. The drama focuses on the warriors Chonta and Bakha, both Christians. Chonta has stolen Bakha’s fiancée and the two are locked in life and death hostility. Bakha conspires with the Muslim Kists and leads them into the Pshavi village to massacre Chonta’s family. For this he is cast out by his tribe and in retaliation he kills Chonta with his sword. He and his mother, Javara, move to the Kist village, where they are treated with compassion and respect. Bakha wants to start a new life there, develops friendships with the locals and even falls in love with a girl and wants to marry her. But his mother has a completely different attitude. She does not respect Kist men and women, and regards them as evil spirits. She is also anxious because she knows she will have to be buried in the village. Here, Vazha-pshavela portrays two radically different attitudes towards a foreign tribe and religion. Another interesting point in the play arises from Bakha’s relationship with the Kist girl Gulsunda. They are in love with each other, but Gulsunda fears that her father will be against their marriage. Bakha tries to explain to her that, even though Georgians and Kists call one another faithless infidels, both tribes were created by the one God. But Bakha refuses to become a Muslim (‘rom mahmadianurad moinatlos’), arguing that, if he

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sees no difficulty in marrying Gulsunda who is Muslim, it should not be difficult for her to marry him as a Christian, because they are in love. The dialogue between the two lovers shows that love is the force that can overcome religious differences. Vazha-pshavela also touches upon the topic of Christian-Muslim relations in his journalism. The article ‘Pshavelebi’ (‘The Pshavs’), published in Iveria (1886, nos 34, 35, 36, 39), includes geographical, historical, cultural and ethnographic facts about Pshav-Khevsureti, making it very rich and interesting material. In the third part, he discusses perceptions of the afterlife among people of different faiths according to the works of Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). He compares different views and expresses his preference for the Christian interpretation, arguing that it is less focused on mundane and materialistic aspects. Nevertheless, he goes on to assert that the relative lack of carnal features in Christian teachings about the afterlife is mainly due to geography. Christians, he says, have historically inhabited the best parts of the globe, while people of other creeds look in the afterlife for all the things they lack in this life because of the poverty of the places where they live. Christian-Muslim relations are explored in the following articles: ‘Pshavelebi’; ‘Aphkhushooba’, Iveria, 1886, nos 141, 142; ‘Khevsurebi’, Iveria, 1886, nos 199, 200; ‘Bibliograpiuli shenishvna’ (‘Bibliographical note’) on Pshav poems compiled by D. Khizanashvili, Lit‘erat‘uruli Sakartvel, 1887, no. 15 (repr. 1941); ‘Lasharoba’, Iveria, 1888, no. 174; ‘Pshavlebis dzveli samartali da saojakho ts‘esebi’ (‘The ancient justice and family customs of the Pshavs’), Iveria, 1888, no. 243; ‘Gmiris ideali pshaur p‘oeziis gamokhat‘ulobit’ (‘The ideal of the hero in Pshav poetry’), Iveria, 1889, no. 74; Khevsuruli korts‘ili (‘Khevsur’s wedding’), Iveria, 1889, no. 81; ‘Pshaveli dedak‘atsis mdgomareoba da ideali pshauris p‘oeziis gamokhat‘ulobit’ (‘The status of the Pshav woman and the ideal in Pshav poetry’), Iveria, 1889, no. 201; ‘Dzveli da akhali Pshavelebis p‘oezia’ (‘Ancient and modern Pshav poetry’), Iveria, 1896, no. 6; ‘Tianeturi pelet‘oni’ (‘Tianeti satire’), Iveria, 1901, no. 263; ‘Lasharis jvaris dgheoba anu lasharoba’ (‘The day of the Lashar cross, or Lasharoba’), Tsnobis Purtseli, 1903, no. 2165; ‘Pshav-khevsuretis av-k‘argi’ (‘The good and bad sides of Pshav-Khevsureti’), Tsnobis Purtseli, 1906, no, 3012; ‘Khevsuris tavi’ (‘Khevsur’s head’), Sakhalkho Purtseli, 1910, no. 138; ‘Pikrebi vepkhist‘q‘aosnis shesakheb’ (‘Thoughts about “The knight in the panther’s skin”’), Ganatleba, 1911, no. 8; and ‘K‘rit‘ik’a b.ip‘. vartagvasi’ (‘Critique of B. Ip. Vartagva’), Sakhalkho Purtseli, 1914, nos 21, 22, 23). In his articles Vazha-pshavela stresses the ideal of a ‘good serf’, by which he means a brave man who fights against the enemies of the tribe

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(neighbouring Muslims, mainly Dagestani people) and defends it from raids. He singles out a poem from Georgian folklore about Giglia, a Pshav serf who promises a Georgian woman that he will rescue her from captivity in Dagestan. The poet describes a man named Ghatchaura, who, when he learns about the pillaging of the Pshavs, assembles a group of people and goes after the enemy. He kills the ‘damned’ Khan, seizes the defeated enemy’s loot and returns their captives. Vazha-pshavela is entranced by the man’s bravery and forgets about his faith. He praises the Tatar Taghriverdi with the same admiration that he has for a good Georgian serf. The poet is hypnotised by his swiftness and fearlessness. The article ‘Lasharoba’ stands out from other publications in portraying a time of peace in the mountains of Georgia. In particular, Vazha-pshavela describes how the holiday of Lasharoba unites people from everywhere, when festivities are attended by the Pshavs, Khevsurs, Kists and Tushs. They trade with one another, the Kists bringing their famous felt cloaks, hats and other goods, though Vazha-pshavela implies that, if the Muslim Kist traders are given a chance, they will probably deceive their customers. In ‘The day of the Lashar Cross, or Lasharoba’, Vazha-pshavela focuses on the differences between worship in the Christian Georgian and Muslim traditions. He observes that Georgians are not religious divide at: fana­ tics in public, keeping their prayers simple, unlike Muslims in their worship. But while Muslims mutilate their bodies and faces in rituals about the Imam Ḥusayn (a reference to the commemorations each year on 10 Muḥarram of Ḥusayn’s suffering as he was being killed by his Umayyad enemies), Christian Georgians numb their minds and sap their spiritual strength with endless feasts and excessive alcohol. In this instance, Vazhapshavela’s satire is directed towards Georgians themselves. In ‘The good and the bad sides of Pshav-Khevsureti’, he argues that the state should take responsibility for normalising relations between the tribes, which would eradicate personal conflicts between them and limit the causes of future conflicts. In his articles ‘Thoughts about “The knight in the panther’s skin”’ and ‘Critique of B. Ip. Vartagva’, Vazha-pshavela explains the origins of his inspiration, detailing what he has taken from Georgian folklore for his poems. In these works, he also sets down his thoughts about ChristianMuslim relations. For example, St‘umar-masp‘indzeli (‘Host and guest’), as is shown above, is inspired by the well-known legend of the Christian Khevsur warrior Zviadauri, who is accidentally captured by the Muslim Kists and murdered by the grave of a newly deceased Kist warrior. His poem Aluda Ketelauri incorporates the folktale about two Kists stealing

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Aluda’s horse. Aluda goes after the thieves and kills them. These tales referencing elements of Christian-Muslim relations became the basis of Vazha-pshavela’s poems. Significance All through Vazha-pshavela’s works Christian Georgians fight against invading Muslims, and highland Christians such as the Khevsurs fight against their Muslim neighbours. At the same time, individuals, both Muslims and Christians, are capable of recognising, admiring and befriending one another for the qualities they display, even though this is hard because of the differences between their societies and moral codes, which make them faithless infidels in each other’s eyes. In his best works, he manages to distinguish the individual from the group and show how he sees the human in individuals of different faith and customs. This moral, which is found in the folk history upon which Vazhapshavela draws, was repeated and publicised throughout his writings, militating against the received view that Muslims were always the enemy of Christians and never good or trustworthy. It even enforces the principle that while religion maintains intolerance between groups, individual human relationships transcend the barriers of religion. Publications MS Tbilisi, Korneli Kekelidze Georgian National Centre of Manuscripts – Vazha-pshavela reserves, autographs: nos 1, 4, 5, 18, 19, 21, 40, 52, 57, 100, 107, 118, 121, 123, 127, 151 MS Tbilisi, Giorgi Leonidze State Museum of Literature – 15622, 15623, 15633, 15652, 15662 Newspaper articles Iveria, 1886, nos 34, 35, 36, 39, 72, 89, 141, 142, 190, 191, 198, 199, 200; 1887, no. 23; 1888, nos 174, 237, 243, 247, 262, 263; 1889, nos 45, 74, 81, 134, 201; 1890, nos 16, 115, 120; 1892, nos 29, 30, 32, 34, 35, 36; 1893, nos 7, 146, 149, 152; 1895, nos 197, 198; 1900, nos 108, 141; 1902, nos 74, 87-91, 196 Moambe, 1894, no. 4; 1896, no. 6; 1899, nos 3 and 5 Tsnobis Purtseli, 1903, no. 2323; 1904, no. 274; 1906, no. 3012 Tsremlebi, 1909 Sakhalkho Purtseli, 1910, no. 138; 1914, nos 21, 22, 23 Sakhalkho Gazeti, 1911, no. 253

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Vazha-pshavela, St‘umar-masp‘indzeli [Host and guest], 1893; http:// www.nplg.gov.ge/ebooks/authors/vaja_pshavela/Poemebi/stumar -maspindzeli.pdf Vazha-pshavela, T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli at‘ tomad, Tbilisi, 1964, vol. 1, Leksebi [Short verses], pp. 22, 36, 43, 61, 70, 81, 84, 205, 246, 248, 269, 294; vol. 2, Leksebi [Short verses], pp. 18, 148; vol. 3, Poemebi [Poems], pp. 7, 16, 50, 58, 140, 202, 207, 255, 331; vol. 4, Poemebi [Poems], p. 47; vol. 5, Mot’xrobebi [Short stories], pp. 75, 140, 155; vol. 6, Mot’xrobebi [Short stories], pp. 56, 71; vol. 8, Mot’xrobebi, dramatuli nacarmoebebi, [Short stories, dramatic works], p. 26; vol. 9, Public’isturi da et’nograp’iuli cerilebi [Works of ethnography and journalism], pp. 7, 34, 45, 53, 55, 71, 82, 88, 98, 162, 219, 265, 284, 319, 361 M. Antelidze et al., Unveiling Vazha Pshavela. A dozen poems by Vazha, with stories and artworks inspired by him, trans. D. Rayfield, London, 2018 (English trans. of ‘Aluda Ketelauri’, pp. 59-76, ‘Host and guest’, pp. 81-112) Studies Rayfield, ‘Introduction to Vazha’ V. Kotetishvili, Tserilebi [Letters], Tbilisi, 2016 Rayfield, Literature of Georgia, pp. 207-27 T. Chkhenkeli, Tragikuli niġbebi [Tragic masks], Tbilisi, 2009 S. Danelia, Vazha-pshavela da kartveli eri [Vazha-pshavela and the Georgian people], Tbilisi, 2008 A. Bakradze, Rtsmena[Faith], Tbilisi, 1990 G. Kiknadze, Vazha-pshavelas shemokmedeba [The literary works of Vazha-pshavela], Tbilisi, 1989 I. Evgendze, Vazha-pshavela, Tbilisi, 1989 K. Abashidze, Etiudebi [Essays], Tbilisi, 1962 G. Asatiani, Saukunis poetebi [Poets of the century], Tbilisi, 1962 Tamar Sharabidze

Ilia Chavchavadze Saint Ilia the Righteous Date of Birth 1837 Place of Birth Qvareli, Georgia Date of Death 30 August 1907 Place of Death Tsitsamuri, Georgia

Biography

According to church records, the Georgian writer and public figure Ilia Chavchavadze was born on 20 January 1837, though his date of birth is given in his autobiography as 27 October 1837. He began his studies at a private school run by the Archdeacon of Qvareli before moving on to boarding and then grammar school in Tbilisi. Between 1857 and 1861 he studied law at the University of St Petersburg, where he founded a Georgian students’ association that engaged in cultural and educational activities. In 1857, he began publishing his own works and translations. In 1861, in an essay in the journal Tsiskari [C‘iskari] (‘Dawn’), he set out the aims and principles of a new generation of young Georgians educated in Russia and Europe, who came to be known as the T‘ergdaleulebi (‘those who have drunk from [i.e. crossed] the Terek River’). In 1861, Chavchavadze returned to Georgia and two years later founded the journal Sak‘art‘velos Moambe (‘The herald of Georgia’). In 1864, he was appointed Officer for Special Assignments to the Governor-General of Kutaisi, then District Arbitrator in Tbilisi and Justice of the Peace for the Dusheti district. In 1867-8, his play Glext‘a gant‘avisup‘lebis pirvel-droebis sc‘enebi (‘Scenes from the initial period of the emancipation of the peasants’) and the story Kacia-adamiani? (‘Is the man a human?’) were published as independent works. In 1871, Chavchavadze led a group of young people seeking to found a university in Tbilisi, and the following year he was appointed director of the Nobility and Land Bank. For 33 years, he headed this institution which, alongside its financial and credit activities, also sponsored the development of Georgian culture, financing theatre, magazines and newspapers, printing books, funding schools and other forms of education. In 1877, Chavchavadze founded the weekly periodical Iveria and also took an active role in drafting the charter of the Society for the Dissemination

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of Literacy among Georgians. In 1879, he became Deputy Chairman of the society and was its chairman from 1885 until his death. In 1886, Iveria was published as a daily newspaper for the first time. Chavchavadze served as its editor for 16 years, during which time he published enough articles to fill 11 volumes. Chavchavadze was involved in every important event in Georgian history in the second half of the 19th century, as either an active participant or a commentator. He defended the interests of every ethnic and social group in equal measure, and because of this became known as the Father of the Nation. In 1906, he was elected member of the Russian State Council, where he actively supported the federalisation of the Russian Empire and the abolition of the death penalty. From 1905 onwards, anti-nationalist forces tried to undermine Chavchavadze’s authority and, on 30 August 1907, he was shot and killed. Five of the men who took part were sentenced to death by firing squad and three of them were executed shortly afterwards. To this day it has never been fully established who ordered Chavchavadze’s murder, the Russian okhranka secret police or the Georgian Social Democrats. He was canonised by the Georgian Orthodox Church on 2 August 1987.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary MS Tbilisi, Giorgi Leonidze State Museum of Georgian Literature – 8590/49-50 MS Tbilisi, National Archives of Georgia – Fund 36, no. 160, p. 43 MS Tbilisi, National Archives of Georgia – Fund 214-1-2734 MS Tbilisi, National Archives of Georgia – Fund 17, 3455 I. Chavchavadze, art. ‘Avtobiograpia’, in T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad [‘Complete works in twenty volumes’], vol. 14, ed. I. Ratiani, Tbilisi, 2007 Secondary M. Ninidze and G. Rukhadze (eds), Ilia Chavchavadze chronicles of life and work, trans. N. Kankia, Tbilisi, 2017 (detailed chronology of his life, also published in Georgian) M. Ninidze and G. Rukhadze (eds), Ilia Čavčavażis c‘xovrebisada šemok‘medebis matiane, Tbilisi, 2017 M. Ninidze (ed.), Tek‘stologiuri kvlevebi Ilia Čavčavażis c‘xovrebisa da šemok‘medebis matianest‘vis [‘Textual sources for the chronicles of the life and work of Ilia Chavchavadze’], Tbilisi, 2016 D. Rayfield, The literature of Georgia. A history, Richmond, 2000, pp. 177-88 G. Sharadze, Ilia Čavč’avaże – cxovreba, moġvaceoba, šemok‘medeba – p‘otomatiane [‘Ilia Chavchavadze – life, civic engagement, works – a photographic history’], 2 vols, Tbilisi, 1987, 1990

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Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Ilia Chavchavadze on Christian-Muslim relations Date 1881-1905 Original Language Georgian Description Ilia Chavchavadze was a man of deep conviction and devotion to his Christian faith though at the same time he was tolerant, even respectful, of those who followed a different belief system. His entire body of work is steeped in Christian belief and he wrote on Christianity’s teachings, traditions, festivals and saints. He did not consider himself unique in this, but rather saw this attitude of acceptance and tolerance as a characteristic of Georgians in general. He wrote, Georgians, so often persecuted for their faith, know to respect the faith of others. That is why in our history there is no example of a Georgian ever seeking to oppress or persecute another for his faith. [...] People persecuted and oppressed in their own countries have found freedom of conscience here in Georgia. (Iveria, 28 April 1877, pp. 1-3)

With particular pride and respect Chavchavadze cites the example of the Georgian King Davit’ Aġmašenebeli (St King David the Builder): ‘Selfless in his defence of the nation and its Orthodox faith, he was also deeply respectful of other nations and faiths’ (Iveria, 24 January 1888, pp. 1-2). King David extended this magnanimous altruism to Muslims, which is all the more admirable as at the time Muslims were trying to eradicate the religion of King David and his people. The Muslim writer Al-Ain noted: The Muslims asked David to forbid Christians from going to the baths with them and to ban non-Muslims from speaking badly of Muslims. David did so. Every day, David went to the main mosques with his son Dimitri to listen to the prayers for the kingdom and to the recitation of the Qur’an. David showed more respect for the Muslims than did the Muslims’ own leaders. (Sasuliero poezia da public‘istika, pp. 99-100)

On the feast day of St Luarsab in 1886, Chavchavadze published an article entitled Luarsab the martyr (Iveria, 22 June 1886, pp. 1-2), which describes the imprisonment and execution of King Luarsab II of Georgia (r. 1606-15) at the hands of Shah ʿAbbās I of Iran (r. 1587-1629). When the vast Persian armies invaded Georgia, the king realised he would not be able to drive them back and retreated to Imereti. Shah ʿAbbās decided to lure him to

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Iran under false pretences and invited him to come hunting. Luarsab guessed that to accept this gesture of apparent hospitality would put him in danger, but also knew that to refuse the invitation would be to imperil his country, so he accepted. When they reached Mazandara, ʿAbbās asked him to renounce his Christian faith and return to Georgia under the flag of the Persian Empire, but Luarsab refused. He was imprisoned for seven years but never capitulated, and in 1622 ʿAbbās ordered him to be put to death. Chavchavadze’s article describes the king’s final prayer to the Virgin Mary before his executioners strangled him with a bow string. The article ends with Chavchavadze evaluating Luarsab’s actions: ‘Of those men filled with conviction and devoted to their faith, only the most magnanimous possess the ability to imbue their deaths with meaning, to sacrifice themselves as a sign that the truth is worth more than their lives’ (Sasuliero poezia da public‘istika, p. 70). In his articles, Chavchavadze pays respect not only to those Christians who sacrificed themselves for their faith, but also to Muslims who did the same. In one publication, he uses the example of the Algerian Muslims to illustrate fierce commitment to Islam, noting that for 70 years French missionaries tried and failed to convert them to Christianity (Iveria, 25 June 1902, pp. 1-2; see also T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad, vol. 15, p. 474). It is not only in his journalism that Chavchavadze explores the idea of laying down one’s life for one’s faith, but also in his literary works. His poem ‘King Dimitri the self-sacrificer’ (1880) is the best example of this; it tells of the torture and execution of the Georgian King Dimitri II (r. 1270-89) at the hands of the Mongols. Arghun Khan thought the Georgian king was guilty of supporting a plot against him, largely because Dimitri’s daughter had married the son of the plot leader. Arghun summoned Dimitri to the Mongol capital. The king went of his own volition in an attempt to prevent another Mongol invasion, and was imprisoned, tortured and ultimately beheaded in Movakan on 12 March 1289. It should be noted that, unlike his son Ghazan and other descendants, Arghun was actually a follower of Buddhism rather than Islam or other religions. However, there is not a single instance of the word ‘Mongol’ in Chavchavadze’s poem; he refers to the Mongols five times using the word ‘Tatar’, which in Georgian is synonymous with Muslim. The poem’s message is summed up by the aphorism: ‘A man must burn like a candle, so as to light the way for others’. Although King Dimitri was punished because of his alleged participation in a plot rather than for a refusal to abandon his faith, there was in fact no clear evidence of his guilt, and there was undoubtedly a religious dimension to Arghun Khan’s distrust. That may be why the poem focuses on religion

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when portraying the conflict between the Georgians, who refer to themselves as ‘protectors of the faith’, and the Mongols, who are repeatedly called the ‘infidels’. The best example of ethnic and religious tolerance in Chavchavadze’s writings is the short story Nikolooz Gostašabišvili (Iveria, 1 January 1890, pp. 2-3). It is based on a story from the oral tradition and tells of the Georgians’ fight to defend themselves against the Iranians during the reign of Sulṭān Ḥusayn (r. 1694-1722). In the midst of a fierce battle, a young horseman emerges from the Iranian ranks and gallops up and down in front of the Georgian warriors as if to invite one of their men to single combat. One after another, Georgian soldiers ride out to fight him but each is run through with a spear and killed. After five of their best warriors have been defeated, the Georgians realise that only one man, Nikolooz Gostashabishvili, can possibly take on the Iranian. Already advanced in years, Gostashabishvili knows that defeating the man he describes as ‘lionlike’ will be difficult but he tries nonetheless, rushing towards the Iranian on horseback, brandishing his spear and skilfully parrying, before reaching over and throwing the man from his horse. As the Persian warrior struggles to his feet, Gostashabishvili jumps down from his mount, pulls the man up and tells him: ‘Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to behead you. Because of your courage I am sparing your life. Not for you such a pitiful death. Go, and may God grant you an easy path.’ The Iranian replies: ‘I would only allow my life to be spared by a man of honour and courage like you’, bids him farewell and goes on his way. Here, Nikolooz Gostashabishvili fights mercilessly, but as soon as the enemy is disarmed he shows mercy even though the enemy come from a different country, practise a different religion and are trying to conquer his land. It is important to note that Gostashabishvili not only trusts the enemy soldier, but also recognises his inherent worth and refrains from insulting him. The incident acquires even more importance from the context in which it occurs in the story; it is presented by a Georgian father to his young children as a valuable lesson from the past, one which should instil the same sense of honour in them. Chavchavadze thought it ill-advised to be too self-congratulatory about Georgians and the Orthodox faith, because good and evil are found everywhere. The old peasant in the story Sarč‘obelazed (‘On the gallows’) consoles some hungry young boys he finds wandering alone on the road, saying: ‘Whatever are you frightened for? You’re not in the land of the Muslims! You’re in Georgia, a Christian country!’ (T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad, vol. 2, p. 136). The reader, though, knows that in this same

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Christian country people will later flock to watch one of these boys being hanged, and that the old man now boasting about Christianity will be among the crowd. This small detail shows Chavchavadze’s unusually objective attitude to other peoples and religions and his self-critical attitude towards his own. In 19th-century Georgia, the majority of those accused of plunder and murder during armed robberies were not Georgians, and a particularly large number of them were Muslims. This led some to believe that the crime had its roots in ethnicity and to claim that such crimes were not considered a sin in Islam. In one of his articles Chavchavadze writes: ‘Such wrongful conduct, the stealing of other people’s possessions, is considered sinful and shameful everywhere and by everyone. It is said of the Tatars (Muslims) that their faith and fanaticism inspire banditry. Such a fanciful notion does not deserve a response’ (Iveria, 14 September 1897, p. 1; see also T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad, vol. 13, p. 419). He then examines the lives of the Muslim inhabitants of Georgia in an attempt to find in their economic situation the root cause of increasingly frequent episodes of banditry: ‘Our Tatars, for different reasons, earn their living only by ploughing and sowing, and this is the root of their economic problems.’ Ilia explains that wheat production was not profitable in the region and people could not earn their living only by ploughing and sowing. That is why they leave their homes to find a livelihood elsewhere. In 1886, Chavchavadze wrote editorials that examine the aspiration of the world’s Muslims to unite (Iveria, 16 September, p. 1; 17 September, p. 1). He writes that the entire Muslim world looks on the largest Muslim countries, Ottoman Turkey and Iran, as defenders of Muḥammad’s teachings and as bearing the banner of Islam, but then mentions the destructive effect that differences in religious doctrine and the Sunnī-Shīʿī schism are having on the strength of the broader Muslim community. He writes: ‘This division has caused great damage to the Muslims. Internal disputes along the lines of “My doctrine is true!” and “No, mine is!” besmirch the name of Islam even more as neither side trusts – and each maligns – the other’ (16 September, p. 1). Chavchavadze briefly inquires when this desire for unity between the Muslims first appeared, which leaders are working towards this goal and what the state of play is. The article states: ‘Neither Sultan Selim, Sokollu Mehmed Pasha nor Nader Shah managed to make this idea a reality, but now … He has as many supporters in Ottoman Turkey as in Persia, and is trying to realise this goal’ (16 September, p. 1). In Chavchavadze’s opinion, the emergence of authoritative individuals would give some hope in this

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regard, individuals such as Mīrzā Abū l-Ḥasan Khān, grandson of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah Qajar (r. 1848-96), on the Iranian side and Sultan ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd (r. 1876-1909) on the Ottoman side. Chavchavadze analyses the unsuccessful visit to Tehran of Nusret Pasha on the orders of ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, and writes that Muslim unity will be difficult to achieve unless religious discord is overcome. He judges as a positive step towards unification Sulṭān ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd’s respect for the Iranians, along with his knowledge and love of their literature and culture, including Hafiz, Saadi, Ferdowsi and contemporary poets. In addition, he notes that the Shīʿī clergy are not as anti-Sunnī as they used to be and that the two populations are generally more tolerant towards each other. During a meeting in 1886, Mīrzā Abū l-Ḥasan Khān and the Ottoman sultan decided to begin drafting a politico-religious treaty to be discussed and ratified by religious figures and the governments of both countries. Chavchavadze writes that the working group had held several meetings and, whilst there had been no results as yet, if the proposal came to fruition it would be a huge accomplishment for the Muslims (Iveria, 16 September 1886, p. 1). In his opinion, unification would raise the Muslims’ status, restore their authority and greatly increase their strength, but he doubts that hostility between the Shīʿīs and Sunnīs will be easily overcome by religious figures and governments. In fact, he thinks the treaty might even lead to new discord, dividing the Muslim community into unionists and anti-unionists. At the end of the article, Chavchavadze makes some general points about the situation, writing: In matters of religion, creed and faith, the clergy and the government can do a lot, of course, but they cannot do everything. It is the people themselves, in particular the followers of Muḥammad, who must act. Muslims are so dedicated to their religion that everything, state order, politics and everything is subordinated to it. (Iveria, 16 September 1886, p. 1)

Thanks to his reputation as a public benefactor and authoritative figure, Chavchavadze was regularly asked to join commissions, including one that aimed to settle the ethno-religious conflict between the Armenians and Azeris. In 1905, he took part in an extraordinary meeting of city council representatives, where the topic of discussion was the Armenian-Azeri confrontations in Baku; at the same meeting, Iakob Malama, who at the time was the Governor-General, was chosen to be part of a deputation. Chavchavadze did not want a conflict between two nations that had been subsumed into the Russian Empire to be decided by a third party – representatives of that empire – and he demanded that Armenian and Azeri representatives should also be included in the commission.

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In the same year, Chavchavadze chaired a meeting of Muslim and Orthodox Christian Georgians at the Tbilisi Nobility and Land Bank. They discussed issues relating to the discord between Armenians and Muslims, and proposed ways towards reconciliation and peaceful coexistence. Because he was neutral and objective, the Armenians, as fellow Christians, complained that he was effectively biased against them. Of course, a man cannot be objective and biased at the same time, so he paid little heed to these accusations, but he did not overlook cases where the Armenians themselves suffered persecution. For example, in 1895 he wrote an editorial addressing the genocide of Armenians living in Ottoman Turkey (T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad, vol. 13, p. 145). In the summer of 1878, after the end of the Russo-Turkish War, the Congress of Berlin officially recognised territories that Georgia had lost to Turkey two centuries before – Batumi, Qarsi and Artaani – as part of the Russian Empire. Georgians had lived there from the earliest times but, after the Ottomans seized the land, the population had converted to Islam. They remembered their historical roots, had not forgotten their language and felt they had much in common with Georgians. But they had adapted to their new religion so fully that they feared any attempts by the Russian Empire, of which Georgia was a part at the time, to make them change their faith. As he left Batumi central mosque, the Caucasian viceregent Mikheil Nikolozisdze Romanov calmed the local population by pointing out that many millions of Muslims lived in the various parts of the Russian Empire and that nobody was preventing them from practising their faith (referring to events that took place in 1879, but were published in Iveria only on 25 June 1902, pp. 1-2; also see T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad, vol. 15, p. 474). In 1880, the Governor of Batumi promised the Muslim population that no one was preventing them from practising their faith. Chavchavadze examined both these incidents (Droeba, 6 August 1880, p. 1; see also T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad, vol. 15, p. 145). Although the rulers preached religious tolerance, certain particularly zealous bureaucrats and journalists still discussed converting the newly incorporated population to Christianity; they used this threat to scare them and induce them to move to Turkey. Chavchavadze dismissed the idea that only Orthodox Christians could be considered Georgians, calling it a ‘wrong view’ (T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad, vol. 15, p. 473). Matters of faith, he thought, were inherently noble, and he urgently reiterated that there was nothing to be gained from considering the opinion of local people regarding the conversion of Muslims in the Akhaltsike and

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Batumi districts to Christianity. On the contrary, it was actually harmful as it scared the population and drove them to self-exile in Turkey. In January 1880, prompted by correspondence he had received from Batumi, Chavchavadze wrote an editorial about a group of politicians beating an innocent Georgian Muslim. He knew that such incidents occurred in other towns as well, but he considered this case to be particularly alarming because: ‘We must desire and work towards this goal: to earn the understanding of these people, instil so much love that they do not give self-exile a second thought, and if this is what we want then we need to manage the situation in such a way that uneducated officials and petty bureaucrats cannot sabotage the state’s decision’ (Droeba, 16 January 1880, p. 1). In October of the same year, Chavchavadze reviewed and strongly criticised P‘olemik‘uri saubari ghvdlisa ingilot ependistan (‘A polemical discussion between the priest and the Ingilo effendi’) by the priest Simeon Begievi (Tbilisi, 1880), and aimed at Georgian Muslims in Ingilo and Batumi. Chavchavadze considered that the aim of the book was to prove that Christianity is superior to Islam, that the Gospels are better than the Qur’an and that anyone who desires a good life in this world and eternal rest in the next must necessarily be a Christian. His outrage at such religious coercion is plain to see: We cannot grasp why some people should worry so senselessly and misguidedly that they concern themselves first and foremost with someone’s religion and seek to convert the Muslims. Surely a man, or even a people, can be neither Christian nor Muslim nor pagan but still be a good man or a good people, well-educated and successful in all areas of life? (Droeba, 17 October 1880, p. 1).

In Chavchavadze’s opinion such coercive preaching could only be damaging; the population of the newly incorporated territories needed moral and economic support rather than the imposition of a new religion. He goes on to identify the path to proper and peaceful coexistence: ‘We need to improve economic conditions, reduce poverty, eliminate ignorance, build schools, cultivate amity and cooperation, appoint good judges and administrators, and so on’ (Droeba, 17 October 1880, p. 1). Chavchavadze gives his opinion regarding religious coercion: ‘Faith is a matter of conscience. It is not their business to ask another what faith or creed he follows. Let him follow whatever creed he wishes: so long as he is a good, honourable man, hard-working and of benefit to himself and his country’ (Droeba, 17 October 1880, p. 1). For those who interfere, holding forth about not only the incorporation of territories populated

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by Muslims but also about converting these populations, he has this to say: ‘Jesus Christ himself said: Man is justified by works and not by faith alone’, adding: ‘It would be fitting for anyone who has had dealings with the Georgian Muslims in the Batumi region to let themselves be guided by the words of Christ and the attitude expressed above’ (Droeba, 17 October 1880, p. 1). Chavchavadze recognises that it is not just the Russians who are using religion for political ends, but also the Ottomans. Russia sought to convert the Muslim inhabitants of the newly integrated lands to Christianity, so that they would have nothing in common with the Turks, and in order to gain total influence over them. Meanwhile, the Ottomans sought just as keenly to convince them that subservience to the Russian power would deny them eternal rest in the afterlife and called on them to move to Turkey. To illustrate this, Chavchavadze discussed in his article Mahmadian kartvelta bedi (‘The fate of the Georgian Muslims’; Droeba, 13 May 1880, p. 1; see also T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad, vol. 15, p. 116) a brochure printed in Istanbul which the Ottomans distributed among the Muslim population of the new Russian territories. He did not believe that religious homogeneity would lead to peaceful cohabitation; that would be achieved through education and increased civic self-awareness, which would in turn all but guarantee tolerance. He writes: ‘There are other civic initiatives apart from education that will bring us closer to our brothers’, and expresses the wish that such a ‘civic relationship’ might develop between them. In the 19th century, the press exerted a considerable influence on both public opinion and political decision-making. This explains Chavchavadze’s harsh criticism of an article published by a Russian journalist in the newspaper Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti, which discussed the wish of some of the 57,000 Georgian Muslims exiled in Turkey from territories within the newly incorporated countries to return to their homeland. The journalist argued against the government granting them the right to return, stating that these territories should instead be settled by Russians, who would introduce a culture of hard work and order. Chavchavadze is strongly critical of the author’s position. The journalist, he writes, does not have the brains, wits or humanity to understand the torment and misery felt by a people exiled from their homeland (T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad, vol. 15, p. 60). The Society for the Dissemination of Literacy among Georgians, and Chavchavadze as an individual, put a great deal of effort into setting up a school for the Muslim population of Adjara in south-western Georgia. They chose teachers who knew the customs and mentality of the local

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population and spoke fluent Turkish. To make the school acceptable to Muslim Georgians, attention was given to religious education. In an article about the school in Batumi, Chavchavadze writes: ‘The faith of the children at the Georgian school in Batumi is of no concern to anyone. [...] The Muslim pupils in the school will have a special teacher, a mullah, to teach them the Qur’an and the rules of the Muslim faith’ (Droeba, 24 December 1880, p. 1; also see T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad, vol. 15, p. 192). Chavchavadze is proud of his nation’s religious tolerance, stating: ‘We Georgians fully understood that faith is a matter of conscience; in that regard every man answers to God alone. We fully understand that we can be Orthodox and they Muslim, and each a brother to the other’ (T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad, vol. 15, p. 192). In relation to the school, he has words of reassurance for Georgian Muslims: ‘Let nobody fear or suspect that anyone will try to convert Muslim children to Christianity, to make them abandon their faith. The school will only try to educate them, open their minds, set them on the right path and raise them to be upright men’ (T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad, vol. 15, p. 192). Since, in Chavchavadze’s opinion, both Christians and Muslims could be upright, honourable and patriotic men, faith and creed would be irrelevant within the school. Significance Chavchavadze was always objective and fair towards people of different nationalities and beliefs from his own. In the texts discussed above, he presents a wide range of information about the Islamic world, along with analysis of the Islamic way of life, historical facts and contemporary developments. This helped the Georgian reader form an accurate picture of people who follow different faiths from their own. The articles dealing with the problems of Georgian Muslims are also interesting and important on several levels. In them, Chavchavadze sets out his position towards countrymen of different faiths and his respect for their religion. His position of authority in society meant that he exerted significant influence on public opinion. By holding an open conversation in the press about the problems of Georgian Muslims, he also reminded the authorities of their obligations and the promises they had made, and prevailed on them to do what they could to resolve the issues in question. Classic literary works such as King Dimitri the self-sacrificer, Nikolooz Gostashabishvili and On the gallows, written by such a literary giant, always encourage discussion. Many pieces of literary criticism and scholarly articles have been – and are still being – written about them. The nature of

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the relationship between each critic and the work on which he is writing varies, but this is precisely what gives the works their force and relevance. It would appear – and this is confirmed beyond doubt by the works discussed above – that freedom of conscience and religious tolerance were always important to Georgians and that, in spite of the fact that, historically, Islam for them was mainly associated with various invading forces, the Georgian ethos was still one of forgiveness and mercy rather than vengeance. Georgians could both overcome their passions and be roused by them, but by communicating and analysing information properly and objectively, people like Chavchavadze helped them develop the most positive aspects of their moral character. Publications Iveria (newspaper occasional editorials), 1877, 1879, 1886, 1888, 1890, 1895, 1902 & 1905 Droeba (newspaper occasional editorials), 1880 Ilia Chavchavadze, Mep‘e Dimitri t‘avdadebuli, poema Ilia Čavčavażisa [‘King Dimitri the self-sacrificer, a poem by Ilia Chavchavadze’], Tbilisi, 1880 Ilia Chavchavadze, Works, trans. M. Wardrop and O. Wardrop, Tbilisi, 1987 (English trans. of selected works); http://dspace.nplg.gov.ge /bitstream/1234/3771/1/Works.pdf Ilia Chavchavadze, ‘Mep’e Dimitri t’avdadebuli’ [‘King Dimitri the selfsacrificer’], in T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad [‘Complete works in twenty volumes’], vol. 1, ed. G. Abashidze, Tbilisi, 1987, p. 228 Ilia Chavchavadze, ‘Sarč‘obelazed’ [‘On the gallows’], in T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad [‘Complete works in twenty volumes’], vol. 2, ed. G. Tsitsishvili, Tbilisi, 1988, p. 136 Ilia Chavchavadze, in T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad, vol. 6, ed. G. Tsitsishvili, Tbilisi, 1997, p. 60 Ilia Chavchavadze, Dimitri t’avdadebuli [‘King Dimitri’s sacrifice’], trans. D. Rayfield, Tbilisi, 1998 (English trans.); http://dspace.nplg .gov.ge/bitstream/1234/3494/1/DimitriTavdadebuli.pdf Ilia Chavchavadze, in T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad, vol. 8, ed. Z. Chumburidze, Tbilisi, 2007, pp. 139, 365 Ilia Chavchavadze, in T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad, vol. 13, ed. I. Ratiani, Tbilisi, 2007, pp. 419, 437 Ilia Chavchavadze, in T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad, vol. 14, ed. I. Ratiani, Tbilisi, 2007, p. 279

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Ilia Chavchavadze, in T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad, vol. 15, ed. I. Ratiani, Tbilisi, 2007, pp. 38, 57, 116, 138, 145, 167, 190, 473 Ilia Chavchavadze, Sasuliero poezia da public‘istika [‘Ecclesiastical poetry and journalism’], ed. M. Ninidze, Tbilisi, 2015 Studies Sharadze, Ilia Čavčavaże M. Ninidze, Madlis cqaro. Ilia Čavčavażis mrcamsi da misi šemok’medeba [‘The source of virtue. Ilia Chavchavadze’s faith and works’], Tbilisi, 1997 Maia Ninidze

Mir Möhsün Nəvvab Mīr Muḥsin ibn Ḥājjī Sayyid Aḥmad Navvāb Qarabāghī, Mir Möhsün Hacı Mir Əhməd oğlu Nəvvab Qarabaği, Mir Mohsun Navvab Date of Birth 1833 Place of Birth Shusha, Russian Empire (present-day Republic of Azerbaijan) Date of Death 1919 Place of Death Shusha, Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (present-day Republic of Azerbaijan)

Biography

Mir Möhsün Nəvvab Qarabaği was a versatile Azerbaijani polymath with scholarly involvement in various fields of learning. He belonged to the last generation of old-school traditionalists, though he also contributed to the transition to modernity in his own way. Nəvvab was born in 1833 in Shusha, and lived there all his life. His father, Hacı Seyid Əhməd, was an accountant at the silk factory where Nəvvab himself worked later as an accountant for a while. He started his early education at the age of seven in the religious school (ruhani məktəbi), where he mastered Arabic, Persian and Turkish and acquired some knowledge of literary, religious and rational sciences. At the age of 34, he became the student of Abbas Cavanşir Sarıcalı (d. 1870), from whom he learned astronomy, astrology, and occult sciences (see M.M. Nəvvab, Tadhkira, pp. 61-2). Later, he also learnt Russian. Apart from authoring scholarly works and teaching, Nəvvab actively contributed to Shusha’s cultural and social liveliness. In 1872, he established a literary society called Məclisi fəramuşan (‘The society of the forgotten’) or Məclisi xamuşan (‘The society of the silent’), thought to be only the second literary society founded in Azerbaijan. He also participated in establishing the first music society called Məclisi xanəndə (‘The society of the singers’) in the eighties. The sessions of these societies, held until 1910 in Nəvvab’s home, were frequented by many prominent Azerbaijani literary figures, poets and musicians. In addition, they were closely connected with other societies in Azerbaijan, such as Məclisi üns (‘The society of fondness’, established 1864) in Shusha, Beyt üs-səfa (‘The house of

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purity’, established in 1867) in Shamakhi and Məcmə üş-şüəra (‘The assembly of poets’, established in 1880) in Baku, through exchanges of poetry and literary debates. Through his efforts, a school called Nəşri maarif was established in Shusha, and he worked there as a teacher. In 1890, Nəvvab opened a modern school (üsuli cədid) in Shusha called Gövhəriyyə, where he taught using his own textbooks. In addition, he also established a lithographic publishing house in Shusha, where he published some of his own works. He also contributed to opening a reading hall (qiraətxana) in 1903 in Shusha and provided it with periodicals in Azerbaijani and Persian. Nəvvab died in Shusha at the age of 85 on 2 January 1919. Nəvvab authored many works in different fields such as Islamic jurisprudence, Shīʿa theology, geography, occult sciences, astrology, pedagogy, ethics, musicology, literary history and poetry, in Persian and Azerbaijani (for lists of his works, see M.M. Nəvvab, Dīvan-i Fārsī, pp. 8-9; M.M. Nəvvab, Tadhkira-yi Nəvvab, pp. 120-2; for an inventory of his works see G. İsmayıl qızı, Mir Möhsün Nəvvab: Biblioqrafik Vəsait). Among his writings, Nəvvab mentions an interreligious polemical essay, Risāli-ya shams al-hidāya (‘The sun of guidance treaties’), which is a response to the Lutherans who were attacking Islam. Unfortunately, the essay is not known to be extant (see Nəvvab, Dīvan-i Fārsī, p. 9).

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Source M.M. Nəvvab Qarabaği, Dīvan-i Fārsī, Shusha, 1898, pp. 5-10 M.M. Nəvvab Qarabaği, Tadhkira-yi Navvāb, Baku, 1913, pp. 120-89 Secondary Source G. İsmayıl qızı, Mir Möhsün Nəvvab. Biblioqrafik vəsait, Baku, 2001 (in Cyrillic characters) A. Hacıyeva, Mir Möhsün Nəvvabın ədəbi-bədii irsi, Baku, 2004, pp. 38-44 Ə.U. Əliyev, Qarabağ ədəbi mühiti və Mir Möhsün Nəvvab, Baku, 2016 Ə. Məmmədbağıroğlu, ‘Mir Möhsün Nevvab və onun Türkce Divanı’, in M.M. Nevvab, Seçilmiş Əsərləri, ed. Ə. Məmmədbağıroğlu and A. Ramazanov, Baku, 2006, 4-8 Z.Y. Səfərova, Mir Möhsün Nəvvab: Ko vtoromu mezhdunarodnomu muzykovedcheskomu simpoziumu po mugamu, Baku, 1983, particularly pp. 3-20 (in Russian)

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Works on Christian-Muslim Relations 1905-1906-cı illərdə erməni-müsəlman davası ‘The Armenian-Muslim war of 1905-1906’ Tavārīkh-i razm u shūrish-i ṭāʾifa-yi arāmana bā musalmānān-i Qafqāz ‘The chronicle of battles and riots of the Armenian people against the Muslims of the Caucasus’ Date About 1906 Original Language Azerbaijani (Persian script) Description In this work, Mir Möhsün Nəvvab describes the conflicts that occurred between Armenian Christians and Muslims in Azerbaijan and Iran in the years 1905 and 1906. The 1993 edition, the first published in Azerbaijan, is 128 pages long. It is divided into 49 short sections on various towns, regions and villages such as Baku, Yerevan, Nakhchivan, Tabriz, Khorasan, Shusha, Karabakh, Tbilisi, Ganja, and many villages with Turkish, Armenian and Kurdish populations. The sections are arranged in chronological order of the unrest that took place in them and geographically. The work was mainly written at the time the incidents it records were taking place. Nəvvab either narrates events as he himself witnessed them or writes down the accounts of other eyewitnesses or of those involved in the clashes as they told them to him. Many accounts are entered in the form of postscripts (əlavə). All this makes 1905-1906-cı illərdə erməni-müsəlman davası (‘The Armenian-Muslim War of 1905-1906’) a significant historical text that presents authentic information found in no other historical account. Written in lucid Azerbaijani, it fills some of the gaps in the history of Armenian Christian-Muslim relations in the Caucasus. Nəvvab clearly had future readers in mind when he wrote. He opens the work with a statement of intention to record the incidents ‘so that they are long remembered’ (p. 10). He starts with a concise history of the Caucasus region, particularly of Shusha, from the year 1748, when Panāh-ʿAlī Khān Javānshīr (r. 1748-60), the founder of the Karabakh Khanate, built a fortress in Bayat. Next, he outlines the historical and political relations of Shusha with Iran and Russia and refers his readers to sources in which the region’s history is dealt with in detail. In the section entitled ‘The Armenian-Muslim war in old times’ (pp. 14-17) he then narrows his focus to the clashes that took place in the years 1844, 1877 and 1903.

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Nəvvab addresses Armenian nationalists or the members of the Social Democratic Hunchakian Party (SDHP, established in 1887) as the qımdats and their centres as qımdatxanas (rare terms that appear repeatedly in his text). He identifies the nationalists as the main source of conflict and the cause of suffering to Muslims as well as Armenians. He explains how they initially established their qımdatxanas in the Ottoman Empire and then in Russia, and attracted Armenians of different ages and social status. They used violence to extract money from Armenians, making them destitute, and used this to buy weapons and ammunition and to bribe Tsarist officials and military officers to support them or join them in their attacks against Muslim Turks in Azerbaijan. If an Armenian failed to pay, he would be hunted down and killed. Furthermore, the Armenian nationalists in Azerbaijan spread propaganda leaflets and newspapers they received from Ottoman Armenians to sow hatred against Muslims and Russians (p. 62). Their aim was to wipe out the Muslim population in these areas and establish an independent Armenian state. Muslims are mainly identified as victims. The role of church leaders in the conflicts is fully highlighted. They not only sanctioned the ideology and crimes of the qımdats but also allowed their churches to be used as armouries where all kinds of weaponry and explosives were stored. Further, the qımdats used the churches as vantage points from which they could shoot Muslims or innocent passers-by during clashes (e.g. p. 54). When these activities were disclosed to Russian officials, some priests were removed from their churches. Throughout the work, Armenians are consistently characterised as guileful, treacherous, malicious with intrigue, and perpetrators of hideous and inhuman actions against Muslims, whereas native Muslims are presented as guileless, courageous and honourable (e.g. pp. 34, 35, 79). Nəvvab emphasises that Armenians from Yerevan were particularly known as vicious, inimical, mischievous and full of intrigue, and blames them for ‘all the disturbance and conflicts in the Caucasian provinces’ (p. 17). He invariably calls all the Muslims killed in clashes şəhid (‘martyrs’), and he points out that, for all the preparations made by the Armenians, the number of their slaughtered was higher than that of Muslims (p. 21). The work shows how the clashes in areas within the Russian Empire had repercussions in neighbouring regions, particularly Iran. For instance, when the news of the riots and the crimes against the Muslims, particularly the death of some Iranians, reached Tabriz, the people closed the shops and bazaars and angrily moved against the Armenian quarters. The judge was informed by the Armenians and he sent in troops to stop the mob murdering and looting, and he also confiscated the Armenians’ weapons.

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The Armenians of Tabriz pleaded with the Patriarch and other religious figures in the northern areas to help maintain peace, ‘For otherwise we will be murdered here by the Muslim population’ (p. 23). A similar incident happened in the area that Nəvvab vaguely refers to as Khorasan, where when the Muslims learnt about the atrocities perpetrated by the Armenians they rushed to loot Armenian shops and murdered some individuals. The work also refers to the conduct of Russian officials and the actions of the Cossacks. When Russian rule began, Armenians and Muslims were living peacefully together (p. 13). However, during the Russo-Japanese War (February 1904-September 1905) the Russian state was too preoccupied elsewhere to do anything about the riots that took place in Karabakh (p. 26). In general, it maintained its control by weakening its subject people through constant conflicts: ‘The nation’s being weak and poor was the state’s weapon’ (p. 89). In 1905, tired of war and massacres, the Armenians pleaded with the Russian state to send the Sheikhulislam of the Caucasus (who can be identified as Əbdüssəlam Axundzadə, 1843-1907) to restore peace. He arrived in Shusha three days later (pp. 39-40) and reproached both sides for their enmity, bloodshed and pillaging and appealed for peace, reminding them that they had no identifiable reason to fight: ‘There is no war of religion or faith, no matter of honour between you’ (p. 41). In addition, a new military governor was appointed. In the days that followed, the shaykh went to both the mosque and the Armenian church and, together with the Armenian chief, the governor and religious representatives, he invited the two sides to peace talks. The result was that both took oaths that they would not join those who engaged in war between the two nations (pp. 39-4, 43). In one demonstration of reconciliation, priests with crosses, a Bible and banners entered the yard of a mosque (probably Yukhari Govhar Agha Mosque where Nəvvab used to work) to ask for pardon and peace (pp. 39-40). Again, in November 1905 on ʿĪd al-fitr, the Armenian headman, some priests and representatives of the people came to the mosque in Shusha to congratulate them on the Muslim holiday and affirm peace (p. 53). In July 1906, eight mujtahids issued a fatwā against the sale of anything to the Armenians, particularly military supplies and items that could be used for defence during time of fighting. Following this ruling, the Muslims of Gala and other areas refrained from selling food, wheat and other goods to the Armenians, causing grave difficulties for them (see, p. 89). In the section ‘Admonitions to the Armenian tribe’ (pp. 46-8), Nəvvab addresses the Armenians directly, pleading with them to give up their

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deceptions, ruthlessness, brutal attitude and mercilessness (p. 46). He warns them that all their injustices will be avenged and affirms that they will not succeed in what they are attempting: ‘With all this tyranny, despotism, ruthlessness and outrage you want to hoist your banner in this province. But you will not attain this’ (p. 48). Significance According to the preface added to the English translation of the work, many manuscript copies were destroyed during the Soviet period (p. 6). Owing to its inflammatory nature that conflicted with Soviet ideology, it was not until 1993, 88 years after its composition, that the book was finally published in Baku, in both Cyrillic and Latin characters. The English translation of the work is based on this publication. Along with the other accounts of the Armenian-Muslim conflicts written by Muslim authors, such as Məmməd Səid Ordubadi’s (1872-1950) Qanlı sənələr (‘Years of blood’, 1911), Nəvvab’s 1905-1906-cı illərdə erməni-müsəlman davası remains a primary source for understanding the early 20th-century ArmenianMuslim clashes in the Caucasus and their roots. Publications MS Baku, Fuzuli Institute of Manuscripts – B-7974/11810, 312 pages, holograph (A. Musabəyli, Əlyazmalar İnstitutundakı türkdilli əlyazmaların toplu kataloqu, Baku, 2018, vol. 1, p. 187, vol. 4, p. 208) Mir Möhsün Nəvvab, 1905-1906-cı Illərdə Erməni-Müsəlman Davası, ed. Vasif Guliyev, Baku, 1993, 128 pages (Cyrillic) Mir Möhsün Nəvvab, 1905-1906-cı Illərdə Erməni-Müsəlman Davası, ed. Kamandar Şərifli and Arif Ramazanzadə, Baku, 1993, repr. 2014, 89 pages (Roman) Mir Mohsun Navvab, The Armenian-Muslim war of 1905-1906, trans. Fiala Abdullayeva, ed. Wesley Lummus, Baku, 2015 (English trans.) Mir Möhsön Năvvab, 1905-1906-cı İllərdə Erməni-Müsəlman Davası, Baku: Mücrü Nəşriyyatı, 2020 (Roman) Studies A. Musabəyli, Əlyazmalar İnstitutundakı türkdilli əlyazmaların toplu kataloqu, 4 vols, Baku, 2018 Ali Asker and Serap Bozpolatayan, ‘Tarihe tanıklık: Mir Möhsün Nevvab ve 1905-1906 yıllarında Ermeni-Müslüman çatışması’, in Gürsoy Akça and İkbal Vurucu (eds), Savaş ve toplum: Savaş üzerine yazılar, Konya, 2016, 381-400 Zemfira Səfərova, ‘Mir Möhsün Nəvvab və onun ‘Vüzuhül-ərqam’ risaləsi’, in Z. Səfərova (ed.), Vüzuhül-ərqam, Mir Möhsün Nəvvab Qarabaği, Baku, 1989, 3-24 Leila Rahimi Bahm

Siamant‘ō Adom Earčanian Date of Birth 15 August 1878 Place of Birth Agn, Central Anatolia Date of Death August 1915 Place of Death undetermined location in Anatolia

Biography

As a child born into the family of a diamond merchant in a small town on the Euphrates, the poet Adom Earčanian enjoyed the natural environment of the river’s alluvial plain, about which he reminisces in his work Hayreni ałpiwr (‘Homeland spring’). He was baptised Asduadz‘adur, but was later called Adom. He began his education in 1891 at the local Nersisian School, where he developed an interest in poetry. This was fostered by the local bishop and headmaster of the school, Karekin Srvandz‘deanc‘, who bestowed on him the penname Siamant‘ō, modelled on the hero in one of his stories. When his family moved to Constantinople, he continued his education at the Miričanian School in the Kum Kapı quarter, later progressing to the Berberian Academy in Üsküdar in 1894. In advance of the Hamidian massacres of the Armenian population in various parts of Anatolia, his family left before his graduation for the relative security of Egypt, where he stayed with his uncle for a time before travelling to Europe, where he would stay for the next decade. He made contact with the Armenian Students’ Union of Europe and the recently established Armenian political parties, joining the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) in Geneva in 1897, a step that was to exercise a major impact on moulding his mature worldview. Settling in Paris, for the next three years he audited classes in literature at the Sorbonne at the suggestion of the author and entrepreneur Aršag Č‘obanian, and devoted himself to philosophy, taking advantage of the opportunity to acquaint himself with prominent figures in the local Armenian community. This period was also to witness the publication of his first poem in the Manchester newspaper Vałuan Dz‘aynə, while others were accepted in the periodicals Anahid, Panper and Azadamard, an ARF organ. His first complete book of poems entitled Tiwts‘aznōrēn (‘Heroically’), a call to Armenian youth to rise in defence of their homeland, appeared in 1902.

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Earčanian spent 1904-8 in various European cities, such as Paris, Zurich and Geneva, working on his next collection, entitled Hayortiner (‘Armenian sons’), which appeared in three volumes in the primary ARF organ Trošag. Meanwhile, his collections Hokevark‘i ew hoysi čaher (‘Torches of death throes and hope’) and Asbedi erkə (‘Knight’s song’) appeared in Paris in 1907. Other significant events of this period included his first encounter with the rising talent of Taniēl Varužan, a poet some years his senior. The same period also witnessed his father’s suicide on news of his bankruptcy. The Young Turk revolution and the promulgation of the Ottoman Constitution in 1908 ushered in a new era of personal and corporate liberties and greater toleration for freedom of expression, which persuaded Earčanian together with many Armenian intellectuals to return to Constantinople. However, tensions between the government and the Armenian community continued, resulting in a series of massacres in Cilicia in April the following year, which the poet reflected in a new collection, Garmir lurer paregamēs (‘Red news from my friend’), giving voice to his intense reaction to the bloodshed. Multiple factors led to the Armenian community in the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire experiencing a noticeable exodus, particularly of its young men with the greatest potential, many of whom were moving to the USA for higher education, after which they would determine to stay and build a future for themselves in their new environment. Convinced that the time was right to liberate the Armenian homeland, Earčanian set sail for Boston later that year to initiate a movement of repatriation in order to repopulate the territory. However, despite his warm reception in America, during which he was offered but declined the editorship of the ARF newspaper Hayrenik‘, his efforts did not persuade many to return. His mission was expressed in a collection of twelve letters in verse to youth under the title Hayreni hraver (‘The fatherland’s invitation’) published the following year, in which he urged them to develop the land through hard work and creative engagement. The same year his complete works up to that time were also published in Boston. Returning to Constantinople in 1911, he participated in the literary revival for a time before undertaking an assignment to provide safe passage for the body of Simon Zavarian, one of the three founders of the ARF, which was being transported to Tbilisi for burial after the politician’s recent death in the Ottoman capital. During his three-year visit to Transcaucasia, he travelled to the Armenian communities in Tbilisi and Baku and availed himself of the opportunity to meet Eastern Armenian writers like Yovhannēs T‘umanian and Alek‘sandr Širvanzadē and visit

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historic sites such as Ēǰmiacin and the medieval capital of Ani. Another location on his itinerary was Ōšakan, the final resting place of St Mesrop, the creator of the Armenian alphabet, in connection with the 1500th anniversary of which in 1913 he composed a work of praise. In addition to reflections of the neo-paganist movement that was pre-eminently associated with the poet Taniēl Varužan, Earčanian’s output from this period focused on the Armenian people’s continuing existence and saw plans for a new series entitled Gamk‘i irigunnerə (‘Evenings of the will’) exalting their great spiritual past. In 1914, he returned to Constantinople via Geneva at the outbreak of World War I and succeeded in buying himself out of being drafted into the army for 43 pounds. The last information about him indicates that he was arrested on the night of 24 April 1915 along with about 250 Armenian intellectuals of the capital on the order of Talaat Pasha, Minister of the Interior, and transported to a holding centre near Ankara. Thereafter, in May the group was deported towards Ottoman Syria, where Earčanian was killed along with many of his counterparts. This event is commemorated annually by Armenians worldwide as the initial act in a process that escalated into the Armenian Genocide of 1915-23, which resulted in the annihilation of about one and a half million Armenians and the deportation of most of the remaining Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Source T. V[aružan], Kragan asulisner. Adom Earčanian [Literary discussions. Adom Earčanian], Constantinople, 1913 V. Aharonian, ‘Hantibumner Siamant‘ōyi hed’ [Meetings with Siamant‘ō], Hayrenik‘ 20/2 (1942) 55-61 G. Aznavuryan, ‘Anhayt ēǰer hay nahatakneri grakan žaṙangut‘yunic‘’ [Unknown pages from the literary legacy of Armenian Martyrs], Ēǰmiacin 2-4 (1965) 43-57 Secondary Source A.J. Hacikyan et al., The heritage of Armenian literature, vol. 3, Detroit MI, 2005, pp. 774-6 K.B. Bardakjian, A reference guide to modern Armenian literature, 1500-1920, Detroit MI, 2000, pp. 154-6, 500-2 G. Sargsyan, ‘Azgayin taṙapank‘i mak‘aṙman ev huysi ergič‘ə’ [The singer of the nation’s struggle and hope in suffering], Patmabanasirakan Handes 2 (1978) 45-54

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H. Ṙštuni, Siamant‘o, Yerevan, 1970 H. T‘amrazyan, ‘Siamant‘o’, Sovetakan Grakanut‘yun 6 (1964) 109-42 K. Sasuni, ‘Siamant‘ō’, Hayrenik‘ 33/4 (1955) 11-23

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Garmir lurer paregamēs ‘Red news from my friend’ Date 1909 Original Language Armenian Description This collection of twelve poems presents a range of vignettes associated with the Cilician Massacres of April 1909 that began in the city of Adana and quickly spread to other parts of the Adana Vilayet, in which local Muslim groups attacked the Christian communities, primarily Armenian, but also Assyrian, and Greek, killing the population and pillaging and destroying their homes and property. The opening work is dated 10 July and the complete set was published later in the same year. They all feature free verse, a form Siamant‘ō introduced after his exposure to French literature, but they vary considerably in form, some representing thirdperson narrative, others dramatic monologue, which was especially characteristic of the poet, while yet others include elements of dialogue. In subject matter, all focus on scenes of deep human concern, highlighting the life situation and activities of one central figure through whose eyes we observe events. The images underscore the contrast between authority figures in the Muslim community, who appear devoid of scruples or compunction, and representatives of the Armenian underclass struggling to save what they can from the destruction, and the dichotomy between the Great Powers’ verbal condemnation of the atrocities and relative failure to engage in effective intervention. The following are a sample of these themes. K‘awut‘iwnə (‘Atonement’) with heavy irony pictures an old man in his orchard reflecting upon a sin he committed in his youth that has resurfaced in his memory as he plans to commit a new one. Overcome with passion for a beautiful Armenian woman, he had raped her, then dug a ditch for her corpse to conceal the last trace of the act. Now, he was responsible for an extensive family in a large mansion. Two servants from Tarsus have taken the life of a young Armenian with a sword downstairs. A maid

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Illustration 17. Artwork accompanying Garmir lurer barekamēs, Siamant‘ō’s poem cycle in memory of the 1909 massacres

enters to indicate the old man’s command has been executed. Thereafter, his grandson brings a liquid in a gold cup set on a silver tray. The old man drinks it to the full, then falls dead with hopes of paradise. Indirectly, it is suggested the cup was filled with the youth’s blood. Goyrə (‘The blind man’) centres on an 80-year-old man clothed in white, who walks into the midst of a crowd, guided by his staff, and addresses the multitude. He is not a foreigner but a believer like them. Ironically, he states they can do whatever they wish to him, flay him alive, if need be, whatever the law demands in this new era of justice. He does not know what the infidels look like, but he has smelled the ashes and has been informed that all their houses were destroyed and for eight days he has heard the groaning and wailing of those near death. He asks if there is a spring where he can wash his eyes, eyes of wrath. He wishes to see the corpses. He has armed his son and sent him off to the Holy War. In a change of tone, desiring to participate directly, the blind man asks them for a young fair-haired girl and a dagger, at which a youth approaches dragging a young Armenian woman by the hair. Addressing the elder respectfully, he queries whether the other will recognise his voice as he has read to him previously from Scripture (the Qur’an). He mentions that he chose the girl for himself, but since she has not accepted

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Islam and refuses to be his wife, he suspects that she might try to strangle him in his bed. She is now naked in front of him in the meadow. He should bend down and take the dagger. The girl tries to wriggle free, but is held and muzzled. When ready, the old man asks where her heart is. His hand is directed to the spot, and at his blow her blood spurts onto the old man’s face. Suddenly, he gets to his feet and utters he may have seen the light. Asking whether the girl has died, he continues that the hardened membrane over his eye has become diaphanous. Could it be he has seen the light? Zawagə (‘The offspring’) opens with an Armenian peasant, who has been alerted to a Muslim attack, galloping through the fields to save his village. He finds his house a pile of rubble, his wife dead, struck in the chest by a dagger, and his son dazed beside her. Embracing his wife, he carries her body to the river bank, bearing his child in his other arm. He consigns his wife to the current which carries her away. Meanwhile, he himself descends into the river, and makes his way downstream overnight to avoid leaving any scent by which he might be traced, cradling his child above the water level with his hand. By dawn, he has arrived at a point of safety with his child intact. Looking around him, he sees the current has brought his wife’s body to the same place. Yałt‘anag mə (‘A victory’) presents an Armenian commander’s speech to his troops as they defend a town from Muslim attack. They have fought off an onslaught non-stop for seven days, after which the enemy have pulled back to regroup. This allows the townspeople a respite to open the gates to receive villagers from the environs of Marzuan coming for protection, armed with their agricultural implements as weapons. Reviewing the previous attack, the leader comments that they have not for centuries seen such carnage, resulting in rivers of Armenian blood. Regarding the enemy’s motivation, he notes they are not impelled by ideas or beauty, but are prompted by their religion or the expectation of plunder. He has heard that their forces number 50,000. As the offensive gets underway, the commander harangues his men, reminding them of their homeland and spirit of revolt. Striking at the enemy standard-bearer, they are to drive the attackers back to the sea to stir the Great Powers from their ’righteous’ slumber. Parə (‘The dance’) depicts the reaction of a German woman to a scene of atrocity that has been played out below her window one Sunday; before her eyes, fire turns a green swathe into a field of ashes, with some of the victims still in excruciating pain.

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The woman’s eyewitness account begins with an oxymoron: it is impossible to relate what happened. Her eyes have no mercy, or they would have spared her the awful sight. All the Armenian houses in the town of Bardez had been reduced to rubble and the bloodstained waterways seemed to cry for revenge for the massacre. It seemed to her all the more heinous for having occurred on a Sunday, though that fact had no meaning for the corpses. She is tending to a neighbour woman, now half-dead, whom she has taken in, when suddenly a band of ruffians came on the scene, singing bawdy songs and lashing a group of Armenian women with whips. These young women are compelled to dance for their fiendish pleasure, though they yearn to die. In the same way, the German woman envies her neighbour, who was now taking leave of this world. The ringleader insists that the women dance until they drop dead. When some begin falling from exhaustion, this triggers one of the hooligans to start dowsing them with paraffin, calling the act one of ‘anointing’, with connotations of baptismal chrismation and transference from spiritual death to life, while here the opposite is in store. With sadistic irony, the band compare the fuel to the ‘fragrances of Arabia’, exhibiting their total lack of human feeling. As they dance, the women are transformed into charred remains. Surrounded by death, but unable to escape the horrors of life, the German woman addresses her neighbour’s lifeless corpse. How can she pluck out her eyes for being a party to that horrendous scene? How will she bear that awful memory indelibly imprinted in her being for the rest of her life? Significance In his collections Hayortiner and Hogevark‘i ew yoysi ǰaher, Siamant‘ō captures aspects of the anti-Armenian and anti-Christian massacres that were unleashed by Sultan Abdül Hamid II between 1894 and 1897 in various parts of eastern Anatolia, perpetrated by the Hamidiye Alayari Kurdish irregular troops. The measures were implemented as part of the sultan’s ideology of pan-Islamism in response to calls enshrined in Article 61 of the Treaty of Berlin for reform and improved treatment of Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire. The process resulted in the pillaging of Christian property, the desecration of shrines and monasteries, some of which were transformed into mosques, and the forcible conversion to Islam of much of the Christian population. The re-establishment of the Ottoman constitution by the revolution of 1908 (already mentioned) was temporarily overturned at the end of March of the following year when the sultan regained power and sought to

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re-institute Islamic law. In the turmoil of that period, skirmishes between the Muslim and Armenian communities in the city of Adana on 13 April escalated into a concerted Muslim attack on the Armenian bazaars and residential quarters. These spread over the following days to the cities of Tarsus, Alexandretta, Hacin and Maraš, creating widespread mayhem that resulted in the death of thousands of Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek Christians. In Goyrə, Siamant‘ō employs the character of the blind man to detail many of the Muslim acts of violence perpetrated against the Christian community over a period of eight days, emphasising the tensions between Muslim believers and the ‘infidel’ involving the Qur’an and the concept of holy war. The religious character of the conflict is also underlined in Yałt‘anag mə, where the commander contrasts the traditional Islamic focus on issues of faith and praxis with the ideological commitment of various Armenian elements, like the poet himself, who were motivated by the ideals of gaining liberty through Socialist revolution. The commander also lists the attraction of spoils as a factor for Muslim participation in the massacres, and indeed the Christian communities tended to belong to a higher economic class than their Muslim counterparts. Spoliation was not restricted to property, but also included wives and children, as also noted in Goyrə, where a young Muslim had seized a young Armenian woman as his wife. In this case, he states that she resisted not only him but also conversion to Islam. However, many were prevailed upon to accept their position, in part because of the stigma they would endure on returning to Armenian society. Yałt‘anag mə alludes to the inconsistent position of the Great Powers regarding Ottoman massacres against their Christian minorities. Those were frequently roundly condemned formally, both at the individual level and at that of joint communiqués, but were not normally followed by practical steps to enforce compliance by the Sublime Porte. In contrast, like the German woman in Parə, there were many foreign nationals in various roles as missionaries, entrepreneurs, local consuls and so on, who were witnesses to diverse atrocities and documented them in diaries, diplomatic dispatches and letters to the international press. Publications Siamant‘ō, Garmir lurer barekamēs, Constantinople, 1909, repr. Beirut, 1969 Siamant‘ō, Ampołǰagan kordz‘ə [Complete works], Boston MA, 1910, repr. Delmar NY, 1979, pp. 137-96; 008401090 (digitised version available through Hathi Trust Digital Library)

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A. Blackwell (trans.), ‘The dance’, The New Armenia 8/24 (1916) 373-4 (English trans.) Siamant‘ō, Amboġǰakan gorçer [Complete works], Cairo, 1954, repr. 1989, pp. 140-67 Siamant‘ō, Əntir erker [Selected works], Yerevan, 1957, repr. Sasan, Tehran, 1983, pp. 149-85 Siamant‘ō, Ampołǰagan erger [Complete works], Beirut, 1974, pp. 271-329 D. Der Hovanessian, ‘The dance’, Ararat 4 (1976) 8 (English trans.) Siamant‘ō, Daniel Varužan, Erker [Works], Yerevan, 1979 Siamant‘ō, Ampołǰagan erger [Complete works], Antelyas, 1989 Siamant‘ō, Bloody news from my friend, ed. and trans. P. Balakian and N. Yaghlian, Detroit MI, 1996 (English trans.) Siamant‘ō, ‘The dance’, in A.J. Hacikyan et al., The heritage of Armenian literature, vol. 3, Detroit MI, 2005, 780-2 (English trans.) Siamant‘ō, Blutige Briefe einer Freundin, ed. and trans. W. Bartsch, Oschersleben, Saxony-Anhalt, 2015 (Armenian with German trans.) Studies Bardakjian, Reference guide, pp. 154-6, 500-2 S. Sarinyan, ‘Atom Yarčanyan (Siamant‘ō)’, in Hay nor grakanut‘yan patmut‘yun [History of modern Armenian literature], vol. 5, Yerevan, 1979, pp. 471-501 S. Peter Cowe

Məmməd Səid Ordubadi Muḥammad Saʿīd Urdūbādī Date of Birth 24 March 1872 Place of Birth Ordubad, south-east of Nakhchivan (present-day Azerbaijan) Date of Death 1 May 1950 Place of Death Baku

Biography

Məmməd Səid Hacı Fəqir oğlu Ordubadi was an Azerbaijani journalist, novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, translator, publicist and publisher. He received his primary education from his father, Hacı Ağa Fəqir Ordubadi (1836-86), a teacher, poet and member of the Ordubad Poets’ Council. He then attended a religious madrasa and moved to a secular school which had been founded by the well-known intellectual and pedagogue, Məhəmməd Tağı Sidqi Səfərov (1854-1903). The school played a significant role in Ordubadi’s later career. On his father’s death, he started working in silk production while continuing his education. In 1906, Ordubadi published his first works and translations in the Tbilisi newspaper Şərqi-i Rus (‘Russian East’) (30 June, no. 13), continuing with two books of poetry, Qəflət (‘Negligence’) in 1906, and Vətən və hürriyyət (‘Fatherland and freedom’) in 1907. He contributed to several Azerbaijani periodicals in Baku and the popular Molla Nəsrəddin in Tbilisi. In these works he exposed and criticised superstition, ignorance and backwardness, particularly among Muslims, and propagated modernity and enlightenment ideas. He soon became the target of abuse and the accusations of being an unbeliever or a Bahāʾī (Sadıkov, ‘Mehmet Sait Ordubadi’, p. 37). Around 1908, he was forced to move from Ordubad to Jolfa (in Azerbaijan), where he stayed until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. In Jolfa, Ordubadi became intimately involved in the movements that developed in Iranian Azerbaijan during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1905-11), which provided him with subject-matter for his later historical novels. He also produced three works, Qanlı sənələr (‘Years of blood’, 1911), Bədbəxt milyonçu yaxud Rzaqulu firəngiməab (‘Ill-fated millionaire or the European-like Rezaqulu’, 1914), and the drama Əndəlisin son

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günləri, yaxud Qranadanın təslimi (‘The last days of Andalusia or the surrender of Granada’, 1914), all published in Baku. In 1915, Ordubadi was arrested by the Russian authorities and exiled to Tsaritsyn (present-day Volgograd), where he lived until mid-1919. There, he became involved in Bolshevist activities. In 1918, he joined the Communist Party and started working with the political branch of the Red Army. He was relocated to Astrakhan, where he worked with the Muslim Bolshevik newspaper, Hümmət (‘Endeavour’), soon becoming its editor-in-chief. In Astrakhan, he published Bolşevizm və aləmi islam (‘Bolshevism and the world of Islam’) in 1919. When the Red Army’s eleventh division set out for the Caucasus, Ordubadi was dispatched to Dagestan. After the Bolshevik conquest of Azerbaijan and the establishment of a Soviet Socialist Republic in the country in April 1920, he moved to Baku, where he was active as an editor and published numerous articles and several books. Ordubadi survived the 1936-8 wave of ‘The Great Terror’, one of the darkest pages of Soviet Azerbaijan’s history, when many intellectuals were killed. In 1938, he was awarded the Honour Medal in Moscow. He was elected twice as a member of Parliament in Soviet Azerbaijan, in 1938 and 1947. He died on 1 May 1950 and is buried in the public cemetery in Baku. Ordubadi played a significant role in the social, cultural and literary life of Azerbaijan in the first half of the 20th century. A prolific writer who tried his hand at different genres, he is considered a pioneer of the historical novel in Azerbaijani literature. Through his works, Ordubadi sought to advance enlightenment and combat superstitions and material and spiritual backwardness. A pro-modernism intellectual, he paid due attention in his works to the education and improvement of the status of women as an essential prerequisite for social progress (Sadıkov, ‘Mehmet Sait Ordubadi’, pp. 94-6). In his later years, he propagated socialism and contributed to the establishment of Bolshevism in Azerbaijan.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Məmməd Səid Ordubadi, Həyatım və Mühitim, ed. and intr. İsa Həbibbəyli, Nakhchivan, 2012 Secondary İsa Həbibbəyli (ed.), Məmməd Səid Ordubadi. Taleyi və sənəti, Nakhchivan, 2012 İsa Həbibbəyli, Böyük ədəbiyyat nəhəngi Məmməd Səid Ordubadi, Baku, 2012

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Ramin Sadıkov, ‘Mehmet Sait Ordubadi’nin (1872-1950) Azerbaycan milli kültür ve sosyal hayatındaki yeri’, Istanbul, 2009 (PhD Diss. Marmara University; it includes a comprehensive list of Ordubadi’s works on pp. 181-201) Yavuz Axundlu, Məmməd Səid Ordubadi (Həyatı, mühiti və yaradıcılığı), Baku, 1997 Tofiq Rüstəmov, Alovlarda bərkiyən qələm, Baku, 1981 Əkbər Məftun, Məmməd Səid Ordubadi, Baku, 1987 Fəridə Vəzirova, ‘Introduction’, in Məmməd Səid Ordubadi, Əsərləri, ed. Fəridə Vəzirova, 8 vols, Baku, 1964-7, vol. 1, pp. v-xx Fəridə Vəzirova, Məmməd Səid Ordubadi, Baku, 1972

Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Qanlı sənələr Qanlı illər ‘Years of blood’ Date 1911 Original Language Azerbaijani (Arabic script) Description Qanlı sənələr (in full, Qanlı sənələr. 1323-cı sənə hicride [1905 sənə miladidə] Qafqazda sərzədə zühur olan erməni müsəlman davasının tarixi, ‘Years of blood. A history of the Armenian-Muslim clashes that occurred unexpectedly in 1905 in the Caucasus’) was completed in 1908 and first published in 1911 in Baku with the financial support of the Azerbaijani entrepreneur and philanthropist Murtuza Muxtarov (1857-1920) in an edition of 215 pages. It presents a detailed chronological day-by-day, in some cases hour-by-hour, report of religious and inter-ethnic clashes between the Armenians and the Muslims of the Caucasus in 1905-6. In some sources, the clashes are also referred to as Armenian-Tatar or Armenian-Azerbaijani massacres. In 18 chapters Ordubadi depicts the conflicts in different regions and also provides three preliminary plans of the conflict sites (pp. 35, 87 and 170 in the English translation of the work), and he portrays in minute detail the dramatic atmosphere in which peace negotiations took place. Around the time of the publication of Qanlı sənələr some other books on the subject also appeared. For instance, one by the Armenian author I. Alibegov, Elisavetpolʹskie krovavye dni pred sudom obshchestva: zavravshiĭsia ‘publitsist’ [Agaev] i ego obshchestvennye spodvizhniki (Tbilisi, 1906). It preceded Ordubadi’s work, and Ordubadi acknowledges reading

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this ‘arrogant collection of information in Russian [… that] blamed the Muslims for the conflicts’ (p. 126). Another work, by Vladimir Mayevskiy, Armyano-tatarskaya smuta na Kavkaze, kak odin iz fazisov armenskoogo voprosa, Tbilisi, 1915 (repr. Baku, 1993), was published a year later. (For more, see Tale Heydarov, The Armenian question in the Caucasus. Russian archive documents and publications, Reading, 2011). Ordubadi starts the book with a prefatory statement, ‘Our purpose’, in which he explains that he had been collecting his source materials for two years, and states his purpose in writing: ‘I want my compatriots to learn from the misfortunes of the past’ (p. 15). He adds, ‘I want all the nations of the Caucasus, be they Armenian or Muslim, to know that this historical essay is not by any means written from any personal or national hostility or bias. I have tried to describe all the tragedies and events in every location and to present them to readers in full and as they actually occurred’ (pp. 15-16). In the preface and all through the work, Ordubadi repeatedly claims that he has struggled to set out the facts objectively: ‘My goal is not to clear

Illustration 18. Front cover of Qanlı sənələr

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my nation of responsibility, to present it as a humane nation and to hold Armenians responsible for the grave events, to describe them as brutal, inhumane creatures. […] My goal is to write about the errors, misdeeds and crimes of Armenians and Muslims in those two years’ (p. 16). He says that the work is mainly based on 245 reports and items of correspondence from local reporters and some 400 pieces of information from different regions of the Caucasus, as well as material from periodicals such as articles published in the Baku daily newspaper Həyat (‘Life’). In the introductory section, entitled ‘Disclosure of the causes’, Ordubadi observes that many reasons have been given for the conflicts. He highlights first the brutal attitude and despotic actions of the Armenian Dashnaksutyun Party, which have led to terrorism and the many atrocities in the Caucasus. Dashnaksutyun, also known as the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), was an Armenian nationalist and socialist political party founded in Tbilisi in 1890. It was openly involved in armed activities and terrorism as necessary methods for achieving its political goals (see Anahide Ter Minassian, ‘Nationalism and socialism in the Armenian revolutionary movement [1887-1912]’, trans. A.M. Berrett, Cambridge Mass, 1984, repr. in R.G. Suny [ed.], Transcaucasia, nationalism, and social change. Essays in the history of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, Ann Arbor, 1996, pp. 141-86). Ordubadi’s blaming of ARF as the first major element responsible for the 1905-6 clashes, destruction and massacres is supported by the report of the Russian tsar’s envoy in the Caucasus, Count Vorontsov-Dashkov (1837-1916) in 1905-15 (see Illarion Ivanovich Vorontsov-Dashkov, Vsepoddaneyshaya zapiska po upravleniyu kavkazskim krayem generala-adyutanta grafa Vorontsova-Dashkova, St Petersburg, 1907, p. 12). Ordubadi also cites the indifference and corruption of the central, as well as local, government authorities involved in the Russian Revolution of 1905-6. He states that ‘they supported one party, but acted dishonestly towards the other out of fear of Armenian terrorism [,…] they suppressed one party and compelled the other to seek revenge’ (pp. 19-20). Many civil servants and deputies were intimidated, receiving threatening messages which caused them to act unjustly. Ordubadi also mentions that many Cossack commanders acted in concert with Armenians. The third key factor he highlights is the ignorance and lack of knowledge and military training on the part of the Muslims of the Caucasus. They had no understanding of politics or tsarist administration in the provinces, and the Armenians exploited these for their own ends. Ordubadi stresses that Muslims had to suffer because of their illiteracy and lack of education.

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He specifically stresses that they did not know any foreign languages, not even Russian, and so could not understand the laws or their rights (p. 105). The fourth key factor was the Armenians’ desire for autonomy and the establishment of an Armenian state. Ordubadi asserts that the Armenians ‘have been the victims of the illusions and empty, injurious dreams of some of their writers’ (p. 17), dreams which led to territorial claims and acts of terror. After their appeal to Britain to support them in establishing autonomy in Turkey failed, and after they had received encouragement for the war from Germany at the Congress of Berlin (13 June-13 July 1878), the Armenians organised the Dashnaksutyun Party in the Ottoman state. When Catholicos Mkrtich Khrimian (1820-1907), who was the head of the Armenian delegation at the conference, returned from Europe, he encouraged the peasants to launch an armed struggle to gain autonomy from the Ottoman Turks. The Ottoman state then began to monitor and severely restrict their activity. This led them to turn to the Caucasus as a place for the revival of Armenia and the realisation of their ‘long-standing dream’ (p. 23). Ordubadi mentions Grigor Artsruni (1845-92), an influential Armenian publicist, and also founder, writer and editor-in-chief of the Armenian newspaper Mshak (‘The Toiler’), as one of the ideologues behind this move. Artsruni also supported militant Armenian nationalism as a solution to the Armenian question. Ordubadi warns his readers about the unreliability of articles on the clashes published in Russian, Caucasian, European and American publications: ‘Articles published in the foreign press are full of contradictions and differences’ (p. 11). The partiality of the press is confirmed by other studies. For instance, Tadeusz Swietochowski observes, ‘The events were reported in the world press, generally in a tone of partiality towards the Armenians, as if echoing the shock of the 1890s massacres in Turkey’ (Russian Azerbaijan, 1905-1920. The shaping of a national identity in a Muslim community, Cambridge, 2010, pp. 41-2). Ordubadi covers incidents as early as 2 February 1905 in Baku and ends his chronological account with the happenings on 16 September 1906 in Saggarsu, in the village of Pansulu. The clashes took place during the 1905 Russian Revolution, and came to a halt through the intervention of Cossack regiments. Ordubadi notes, ‘The government also awoke from its slumber and sent Cossacks and troops to those parts of the country to ensure order and security. The population breathed with some relief’ (pp. 190-1). Ordubadi claims that he has striven to provide his readers with unbiased details without taking sides. Qanlı sənələr reports the events in dramatic language and Ordubadi reveals his sympathy for Muslims in many places.

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He repeatedly praises them as kind, honest, virtuous by nature and fighters of great valour, and invariably refers to Muslims killed by Armenians as martyrs. In contrast, Armenians are depicted as malevolent, cunning and insidious people, lacking courage and fortitude and constantly involved in all sorts of schemes and trickery. Armenian soldiers cannot fight properly and bravely because they ‘drink a lot of wine and vodka and other alcohol’ (p. 45). In Qanlı sənələr, Azerbaijani Muslims are portrayed as oppressed and abused victims of the Armenians, who consider themselves the superior nation in the Caucasus. As Ordubadi sees it, Muslims were victims of the Armenians’ ‘desire’, ‘corrosive dream’ and ‘illusion’ to establish an autonomous and independent state. The Armenians, mainly detachments of Dashnaktsutyun, influenced the fair judgment and just behaviour of government officials, civil servants and judges by sending them death threats. The reader is reminded that, while the Muslims lacked supplies, arms and ammunition, ‘Dashnaksutyun provided the Armenian fighters with the most up-to-date arms’ (p. 42). Nevertheless, Ordubadi almost invariably gives a much higher number of Armenian losses in the various battles, though this is contradicted by other studies which estimate a higher number of Muslim losses (Swietochowski, Russian Azerbaijan, p. 41). Ordubadi also complains that it is impossible to know the facts because the Armenians always hide the numbers of their losses. Composed in a lucid and readable style, Qanlı sənələr is a significant source for the history of a particularly brutal clash between Christian and Muslim protagonists. It was written in the immediate aftershock of the events – within two years – and is based on reports and documents sent to the author, at his request, by local reporters and eyewitnesses from different areas of the conflict. Ordubadi reconstructs the events and also depicts the confused psychological atmosphere in which Armenians and Muslims came into contact with one another. He also provides the reader with the motivations and incentives for the actions. Significance Qanlı sənələr should be compared with many other works published in Russia or the West which mainly favour the Armenian version of the story. To have a holistic view of this turbulent historical moment in the Caucasus, which has remained unresolved even to this day, one has to consider the various and sometimes competing narratives, and Ordubadi’s Qanlı sənələr cannot be dispensed with in this regard.

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Despite its historical significance, the book was ignored or censored for almost 80 years for its incompatibility with the official ideology of the time. At the third congress of the Soviet Azerbaijan Writers’ Union held on 27 March 1937 it was criticised and accused of being a nationalist work, though no mention was made of the author’s name (Axundlu, Məmməd Səid Ordubadi, p. 63; Sadıkov, ‘Mehmet Sait Ordubadi’, pp. 60-1). This occurred during the time of ‘The Great Terror’ when authors were executed on charges of support for Islam, anti-state sentiments and nationalism. The only studies on Qanlı sənələr from these Soviet years are by Yavuz Axundlu (1927-2017), who published articles on it in various periodicals, such as Azərbaycan (‘Azerbaijan’), Açıq söz (‘An Open Word’) and Vətən səsi (‘The Voice of the Motherland’) (see Sadıkov, ‘Mehmet Sait Ordubadi’, p. 121). The onset of the territorial and ethnic conflict of Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1988 awakened a new interest in Ordubadi’s book. In 1992-3, it was published under the title Qanlı illər in Arabic script by the Association Maison de l’Azerbaidjan (Paris) in Cologne, and a steady stream of editions and translations have appeared since. Publications Məmməd Səid Ordubadi, Qanlı sənələr. 1323-cı sənə hicride (1905 sənə miladidə) Qafqazda sərzədə zühur olan erməni müsəlman davasının tarixi, Baku: Səda Mətbəəsi, 1911 Məmməd Səid Ordubadi, Qanlı illər. 1905-1906-cı illərdə Qafqazda baş verən erməni-müsəlman davasının tarixi, Baku, 1991 (in Cyrillic characters) Məmməd Səid Ordubadi, Qanlı illər, Paris, 1992 (in Arabic characters) Məmməd Səid Ordubadi, Qanlı sənələr (Sālhā-yi khūnīn), ed. Buyūk Rasūlvand, intr. Javād Heyʾat, Tehran, 1993 Məmməd Səid Ordubadi, Sālhā-yi khūnīn: nuktihā-yi nāgufti az sarāghāz-i dargīrīhā-yi musalmānān va arāmani dar qafqāz (19051906), trans. ʿAlī Riḍā Naqīpūr, Tabriz, 2001-2 (Persian trans.) Məmməd Səid Ordubadi, Qanlı illər. 1905-1906-cı illərdə Qafqazda baş verən erməni-müsəlman davasının tarixi, Baku, 2007 Məmməd Səid Ordubadi, Krovavye gody. Istorija armjanomusul’manskoj vojny na Kavkaze v 1905-1906 gg., trans. Mirza Huseynov, St Petersburg, 2010, 199 pages (Russian trans.) Məmməd Səid Ordubadi, Krovavye gody, trans. Mirza Huseynzade (Huseynov), Baku, 2010, 182 pages (Russian trans.)

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Məmməd Səid Ordubadi

Mammad Said Ordubadi, Years of blood. A history of the ArmenianMuslim clashes in the Caucasus, 1905-1906, ed. T. Heydarov, trans. I. Peart and Q. Bayramov, Reading, 2011 (English trans.) Məmməd Səid Ordubadi, Qanlı illər. 1905-1906-ci illərdə Qafqazda baş verən erməni-müsəlman davasının tarixi, Baku: Elm və təhsil, 2012 Məmməd Səid Ordubadi, Qanlı sənələr. 1905-1906-cı illərdə Qafqazda baş verən erməni-müsəlman davasının tarixi, Baku, 2019 Studies Əkrəm Bağırov, ‘M.S. Ordubadi və 1905-1906-ci illərin qanlı hadisələri’, Elm, 24 February 2012 Sadıkov, ‘Mehmet Sait Ordubadi’nin (1872-1950) Azerbaycan milli kültür ve sosyal hayatindaki yeri’, pp. 117-21 Axundlu, Məmməd Səid Ordubadi, pp. 138-58 Yavuz Axundlu, Həbibov i̇, ‘Qanlı sənələr’, Vətən səsi, 6 February 1992 Tofiq Rüstəmov, ‘Qanlı illərin salnaməsi. Dünənki və bugünkü faciələr barədə düşüncələr’, Xalq qəzeti, 6 February 1992 Yavuz Axundlu, ‘Qanlı sənələrin ibrət dərsi və ya tarix təkrar olunur’, Azərbaycan 6 (1990) 155-64 Leila Rahimi Bahmany

Contributors Contributor

Affiliation

Scott Ayler Independent Researcher Leila Rahimi Bahmany Visiting Scholar Historical Studies Institute for Advanced Study Princeton NJ Leila Chamankhah Visiting scholar, Punjabi University, Patiala, India John Chesworth Researcher, Department of Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham S. Peter Cowe

Seta B. Dadoyan

Saeid Edalatnejad

Amin Ehteshami

Narekatsi Professor of Armenian Studies, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, University of California, Los Angeles Independent scholar, previously Professor of Humanities, American University of Beirut Associate professor, Department of Law and Jurisprudence, The Encyclopaedia Islamica Foundation, Tehran Research fellow, Berlin Institute for Islamic Theology, Humboldt University of Berlin

Entries Henry Martyn Mir Möhsün Nəvvab; Mirzə Fətəli Axundzadə; Məmməd Səid Ordubadi Mullā ʿAlī-Akbar Izhihī Iṣfahānī Introduction: Iran, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in the 19th century; Church Missionary Society – Persian Mission Gēorg Axverdean; Mgrdič‘ Bešigt‘ašlian; Ełia Dēmirč‘ibašian; Yovhannēs Karnec‘i; Siamant‘ō

Mik‘ayēl Ch‘amch‘eants‘

Iran’s first Constitution and the Supplement to it

Āqā Najafī Iṣfahānī

548

Contributors

(cont.) Contributor

Affiliation

Entries

Hamed Naji Esfahani

Associate professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Isfahan Faculty member, Research Institute of the Quran and Hadith (RIQH), Qom

Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī

Heidar Eyvazi

Ghazaleh Faridzadeh

University assistant, Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies, Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Vienna Sara Faridzadeh Assistant professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran Mohammad Ghafoori Independent researcher Nana Gonjilashvili

Urs Gösken

Dennis Halft

Denis Hermann

Associate professor, Institute of Georgian Literature, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Georgia Scientific assistant, Asia Orient Institute, Department of Near Eastern Studies (Islamwissenschaft), Zurich University Professor of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions, with a focus on Islam and Inter-Religious Dialogue, Faculty of Theology, University of Trier Research fellow, National Centre for Scientific Research, Paris

Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Marʿashī Shahrastānī; Muḥammad ʿAlī Dāʿī l-Islām; Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn ibn Muḥammad Mīrzā ʿĪsā Qāʾim-Maqām Farahānī

Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī ʿAbbās-Qulī Khān Sipihr Kāshānī Giorgi Avalishvili

Mīrzā Malkum Khān

Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī

Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī; Muḥammad Khān Kirmānī; Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn Khān Kirmānī

Contributors

549

(cont.) Contributor

Affiliation

Entries

Rasul Jafarian

Professor, Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences, University of Tehran Assistant Professor of History and Near Eastern Studies, University of Massachusetts, Amherst MA Imam Ali Chair, Professor in Islamic and Interreligious Studies, Hartford International University for Religion & Peace, Hartford CT Doctoral candidate, Faculty of Humanities, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Georgia Senior researcher, Shota Rustaveli Institute of Georgian Literature, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Georgia Independent researcher

Mir Muḥammad Ḥusayn Khātūnābādī

Hadi Jorati

Hossein Kamaly

Oktai Kazumov

Manana Kvataia

Jonathan L. Lee

Majid MontazerMahdi Darejan Menabde

Research associate, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford Senior scientific staff, Shota Rustaveli Institute of Georgian Literature, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Georgia

Alexander Kazembeg

Muḥammad Taqī Kāshānī

Ioane Batonishvili

Akaki Tsereteli

Christians of Afghanistan under the Mughals and Durrānī monarchy, 1700-1901 Mīrzā Muḥammad Akhbārī Tʻeimuraz Bagrationi

550

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(cont.) Contributor

Affiliation

Entries

S. Yaser Mirdamadi

Researcher in Muslim Bio-medical ethics, Institute of Isma’ili Studies, London Assistant professor, Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, Waseda University, Japan Associate professor, Department of Religion and Comparative Mysticism, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran Doctoral candidate, Department of History, University of Delaware, Newark DE Senior scientific member,  Shota Rustaveli Institute of Georgian Literature, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Georgia Retired professor of Islamic Studies, South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies, Bangalore, India Chief scientific researcher, Shota Rustaveli Institute of Georgian Literature, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Georgia

Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qummī

James Harry Morris

Mansour Motamedi

Mehdi Mousavi

Ada Nemsadze

Gordon Nickel

Maia Ninidze

Joseph Emin

Mīrzā Muḥammad Ṣādiq Fakhr al-Islām

Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah; Muḥammad Shah Qajar; Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah Qajar Grigol Orbeliani

William St Clair Tisdall

Ilia Chavchavadze

Contributors

551

(cont.) Contributor

Affiliation

Entries

Reza Pourjavady

Patricia Crone Member, Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton NJ

Roman Seidel

Research associate, Center for Religious Studies, Ruhr-Universität, Bochum Associate Professor of History, Emory and Henry College, Emory VA Professor, Department of Georgian Literature Faculty of Humanities, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Georgia Minister, Assemblies of God, Dearborn MI Postdoctoral fellow, Department of History, Brock University, St Catherines, Ontario Senior researcher, Part-time lecturer, and specialized cataloging editor of Islamic manuscripts, rare books and special collections, McGill University, Montreal

Introduction: Iran, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in the 19th century; RussoIranian wars 1804-13 and 1826-8; Āqā Muḥammad ʿAlī Bihbahānī; Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī; Henry Martyn Mīrzā Āqā Khān Kirmānī

Matthew Shannon

Tamar Sharabidze

Adam Simnowitz Reza Tabandeh

Eliza Tasbihi

Christian missionaries and the foundation of modern schools in Iran, c. 1830s-1910s Vazha-Pshavela

William St Clair Tisdall Ḥusayn ʿAlī-Shah Iṣfahānī

Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī

552

Contributors

(cont.) Contributor

Affiliation

Entries

Alberto Tiburcio

Guest Professor of Iranian Studies, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich  Assistant professor, Department of the Study of Religion, University of Religions and Denominations, Qom Senior scientific researcher, Scientific Department of Georgian Literature, Shota Rustaveli Institute of Georgian Literature, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Georgia Researcher, Department of Georgian Literature, Shota Rustaveli Institute of Georgian Literature, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Georgia

Ḥājj ʿAlī Akbar Navvāb Shīrāzī

Fatima Tofighi

Tamar Tsitsishvili

Zoia Tskhadaia

Mīrzā Najaf ʿAlī Khān Dānish Tabrīzī

Daniel Chonkadze

Aleksandre Chavchavadze

Index of Names Numbers in italics indicate a main entry. ʿAbbās I, shah of Iran 6, 16, 31, 150, 389, 398, 436, 512-13 ʿAbbas II, shah of Iran 486-8 ʿAbbās Mīrzā 4, 13, 24-5, 51, 80, 85-6, 93, 114, 121, 127, 133, 138, 145, 152, 154, 170-1, 176-7, 187-8, 189, 194, 202, 205 ʿAbbasid dynasty 294, 376, 378-84 ʿAbbās-Qulī Khān Sipihr Kāshānī 249-53 ʿAbd Allāh Bihbahānī, Sayyid 310, 333, 351 ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, Ottoman sultan 516 ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn Mūsavī 320 ʿAbd al-Karīm Naẓam al-Aṭibbāʾ 340 ʿAbd al-Masīḥ, see Tisdall, William St Clair 10, 15, 285-309, 320, 322, 341-3, 358-9, 364 ʿAbd al-Raḥman Khān, amīr of Afghanistan 39-49, 42-4, 46-8 ʿAbd al-Razzāq Dunbulī 121, 171, 178-9, 185 ʿAbd al-Razzāq Lāḥījī 82, 145 ʿAbd al-Sattār Lāhūrī 73 Abdul Hamid II, Ottoman sultan 22, 535 ʿAbdullāh al-Turjumān, Anselmo Turmeda 333 Abel, scriptural character 302 Abovian, Khachatur 18 Abraham, scriptural patriarch 133, 139, 217, 302, 353, 380 Abraham, Jaure 11 abrogation of the Bible 155, 216, 224, 237, 3221, 468 Abū l-Qāsim Qummī 25, 93, 131, 157-66, 179, 184 Acts of the Apostles, New Testament book 414 Adam, first human 133, 134, 216-17, 250, 293, 344 Adom Earčania, see Siamant‘ō 22, 529-37 al-Afghānī, Jamāl al-Dīn 64, 277 Afghans and Afghanistan 3, 5, 29, 30-2, 34-5, 38, 40, 41-2, 44, 46-7, 48, 121, 219, 359 Aḥmad al-Aḥsāʾī 122, 211, 217, 469 Aḥmad ʿAlavī, Sayyid 73 Aḥmad Khan, Sir Sayyid 291, 295 Aḥmad Narāqī 25, 93, 118, 136-42, 184, 258, 272

Akaki Tsereteli 19, 484-9 Akhbārī legal school 14, 93, 121-2, 128, 130, 133, 157 Akiva, Rabbi 87 ʿAlā Dhikrihi al-Salām, Nizārī Ismāʿīlī leader 468-9 Aleksandre Chavchavadze 433-7 Alexander I, tsar of Russia 24, 413 Alexander II, tsar of Russia 19-20, 477 Alexander III, tsar of Russia 20-1 Alexander Kazembeg 196-7, 198-204 ʿAlī, fourth caliph and first Shīʿī Imām 125, 128, 136, 190, 259, 280, 377 ʿAlī-Akbar Izhihī Iṣfahānī 121-9 ʿAlī Akbar Navvāb Shīrāzī 81-4, 93 ʿAlī Khān Shīrāzī, Sayyid 12, 90, 93 ʿAlī ibn Mūsā al-Riḍā, eighth Shīʿī Imām 257, 333 ʻAlī Muḥammad Shīrāzī, founder of Bābism 7, 206, 358 ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Sayyid 76, 136, 179, 181 ʿAlī Nūrī 80, 93, 143-9, 184 Alibegov, I. 540-1 ʿAlī Qulī Jadīd al-Islām 73-4, 139-40, 257-8 ʿAlī Qulī Mīrzā Iʿtiḍād al-Salṭana 185, 212 Alison, Charles 6, 261 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) 8-9, 50-4, 208, 358 American Presbyterian Mission 9, 10, 61, 62, 64, 332 Amīr ʿAlī, Sayyid 292, 294 Amīr Kabīr, see also Mirzā Taqī Khān Farāhānī 4, 7, 51, 264 Anatolia 11, 16, 18, 20, 22, 90, 389, 441, 529, 535 Andrae, Tor 303 Anselmo Turmeda, ʿAbdullāh al-Turjumān 333 Apcar, Amy 394, 397 apostates 98, 124, 131 Apostles of Jesus 73, 100, 240, 246, 256 Āqā Khān Kirmānī, Mīrzā 276-84, 472 Āqā Mīr Muḥammad Davānī 329 Āqā Muḥammad ʿAlī Bihbahānī 69-75

554

Index of names

Āqā Muḥammad Khān 3, 4, 24, 69, 76, 157, 176 Āqā Najafī Iṣfahānī 14, 234-41, 318 Āqā Nūrullāh Iṣfahānī 318, 321 Aras (Araxes) River 15, 50, 56 Archbishop of Canterbury 11, 54, 264 Arewordik‘, Armenian sun worshippers 379 Armenia 16-18, 20, 22, 36, 173, 374-84, 380, 386, 388, 390-1, 394-5, 400, 402, 452, 453, 455, 458, 543, 545 Armenian language 19, 21, 371, 373, 375, 406, 439, 440, 452, 453, 493, 531 Armenian Constitution 451, 453, 457 Armenian Dashnaksutyun Party, see also Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) 529, 530, 542 Armenian Genocide 531 Armenian-Muslim war, see also ArmenoTatar war 21-2, 525-8, 540 Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), see also Armenian Dashnaksutyun Party 529, 530, 542 Armeno-Tatar war, see also ArmenianMuslim war 21-2, 525-8, 540 Armeno-Turkish language 406-7 Artsruni dynasty 381, 382, 383, 385 Asadullāh Kharaqānī, Sayyid 349 Ashot I Bagratuni, king of Armenia 380 Ashot II Erkat, king of Armenia 383-4 Ashot III, king of Armenia 383-4 Assyrian (Nestorian) Church 6, 11 de Ataides, Maria 31 Atchakhan 400-1 atonement 100, 128, 293 Avalishvili, Giorgi 419-26 Axundzadə, Mirzə Fətəli 20, 277, 461-76 Axverdean, Gēorg 438-44 Azalīs 276, 282, 310 Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis 6, 8, 9, 11, 15-18, 19-20, 22, 24, 51, 113, 117, 152, 177, 187, 199, 202, 206, 207-9, 264, 333, 381-2, 384, 419, 461-2, 516, 523, 525-6, 538-9, 545 Azerbaijani or Azeri language 19, 439-41, 462, 465, 471, 523-4, 525, 538-9   Bāb, see ʻAlī Muḥammad Shīrāzī and Bābīs 7, 206 Bābīs and Bābīsm 7, 9-10, 206, 271, 276-7, 281, 282, 345, 351, 358 Babylonian Talmud 87 Baghdad 7, 12, 85, 86, 116, 130, 133, 230, 359, 365, 371, 376, 379, 382, 387, 394, 398 Bagrat V, king of Georgia 484

Bagrationi (Batonishvili), Tʻeimuraz 17, 413-18 Bahāʾīs and Bahāʾism 7-8, 9-10, 281, 351, 358 Bahāʾullāh, see also Mīrzā Ḥusayn ʿAlī Nūrī 7, 276, 281, 358 Baku 17, 19-21, 131, 471, 516, 524, 525, 528, 530, 538-9, 540-1, 542-3 Baptism 32, 79, 217, 279, 357, 359, 367, 398, 424, 484 Barnabas, Gospel of 339, 342 Basel Evangelical Missionary Society 50-1, 214 Basil I, emperor of Byzantium 381 Basil II, emperor of Byzantium 385, 484 Basra 212, 371, 395, 403 Bassett, James 54, 264-5, 268 Batonishvili, Ioane 17, 427-32 Batonishvili (Bagrationi), Tʻeimuraz 413-18 Batumi 19-20, 517-20 Bell, Richard 303 Benjamin, Samuel 265 Berlin, Treaty of 20, 535 Bešigt‘ašlian, Mgrdič‘ 451-60 Bihbahānī, ʿAbd Allāh, Sayyid 310, 333, 351 Bihbahānī, Āqā Muḥammad ʿAlī 69-75 Bird, Mary 358, 363-5 Boré, Eugène 10, 11, 53, 207 British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS)  13, 89, 101, 102, 103, 104, 107, 330, 358 Browne, Edward Granville 277, 313 Browne, George 32, 40, 41, 42, 48 Bruce, Emily 56, 58, 357 Bruce, Robert 9-10, 13, 56-7, 58, 104, 265, 357-9 Buckle, Henry Thomas 469-70 Buddhists and Buddhism 3, 29, 240, 303, 344, 491, 496, 513 Burnes, Alexander 35, 37, 47 Bushehr, Iranian port 4, 118, 218-19 Byzantium 377, 380-2, 384-6   Cain, scriptural character 302 Calcutta 4, 12, 16, 37-8, 45, 55, 58, 89, 102, 103, 108, 116, 215, 244, 372, 394-6, 397 Carey, William 290 Carless, Henry 364-5 Carr, Donald William 362, 363, 365 de Castro, Joseph 31 Catherine the Great, empress of Russia 17, 173, 442 Ch‘amch‘eants‘, Mik‘ayēl 371-93 Chavchavadze, Aleksandre 18, 433-7 Chavchavadze, Garsevan 419, 433



Index of names

Chavchavadze, Ilia 481, 510-22 Chonkadze, Daniel 445-50 Church Missionary Society (CMS) 9, 10, 39-41, 45, 48, 55-8, 104, 107, 108, 214, 285-6, 289, 304, 357-68 Church of England 45, 54, 89, 108, 264 Cilicia 371, 375, 384, 385-9, 530 Cilician massacres 22, 532 Clark, Adam 245 Cluzel, Augustin 209 Colebrook, Robert Hyde 12, 102 Comte, Auguste 226, 231 Congregation of the Mission, see also Lazarists 50 Congress of Berlin 517, 543 Constantinople, see also Istanbul 387, 389, 408-9, 424-5, 451-3, 490, 492, 493, 529-31 Constitution and Constitutionalism (Iran) 5, 8, 60, 62, 221, 228, 229, 231, 232, 263, 276, 310-17, 333, 350-1, 354, 355 Constitutional Revolution (Iran) 7, 59, 65, 234, 327, 331, 351, 359, 538 conversion to Christianity 10, 14, 37, 40, 41, 45, 57, 89, 102, 163, 196-7, 198, 200, 265-6, 285, 288-9, 291, 294, 300, 303, 304, 365-7, 388, 425, 487, 488, 513, 517-20 conversion to Islam 13, 28, 32, 39, 47, 73, 85, 139-40, 145, 162, 225, 238, 256, 305, 316, 320, 322, 330, 332, 333, 376, 379, 382, 386, 389, 398, 402, 408, 410, 423, 425, 443, 446-8, 501, 517, 535-6 1 and 2 Corinthians, New Testament letters 290, 353, 399 Corrie, Daniel 102, 103, 105, 107 corruption of the Bible, see also abrogation 223 Cossaks and Cossack regiments 312, 527, 542-3 da Costa, Donna Juliana Diaz 31 Crimean War 19, 262 Crucifixion of Christ 134, 302, 325, 333 Crusades 288, 290, 386-7   Dagestan and Dagestanis 400, 477, 479, 480, 497, 500, 501, 507, 539 Damascus 371, 376-9, 425 Daniel Chonkadze 445-50 Daniel, Old Testament book 145, 299 Darnis, Joseph 209 Davānī, Āqā Mīr Muḥammad 329 David III Kuropalates, king of Georgia 484 David IV, king of Georgia 435, 512

555

David, scriptural king and prophet 133, 387 Dēmirč‘ibašian, Ełia 490-6 Deuteronomy, Old Testament book 87, 299 Dhimma and dhimmīs 6, 162-4, 313 Dhū l-Qarnayn 221 Dimitri II, king of Georgia 513 divinity of Jesus 145, 294, 297-8, 321 Dōst Muḥammad Khān 33, 37-9, 41, 47 Draskhanakertts‘i, Yovhannes 376, 380, 381, 383 Durrānī kingdom 46 Duz-Oġli, Stephan 425 Dwight, Harrison Gray Otis 8, 51 Dwin, or Dābil 377, 378, 380-4   East India Company 38, 55, 89, 101, 105, 108, 112, 116, 395 Eastern Armenia 16, 18, 20, 386, 530 École Jeanne d’Arc 11, 61 Egypt 62, 318, 384, 386-7, 420, 422-3, 465, 529 Ējmiatsin 389-90, 531 Əli bəy Husnəyzadə 20 Ełia Dēmirč‘ibašian 490-6 Elijah, Aratoon 37-8 Elizbar 486-7 Emin, Joseph 16, 394-405 Enlightenment (European) 225, 277, 282, 394, 429, 430, 538 Episcopal Church in Iran 57 Erekle II (Heraclius), king of Georgia 17, 395, 399, 413, 419, 427, 436, 440, 442, 477, 479, 500 Erzinjān 386-7 Erzurum (Karin) 172, 406, 408-11 Esselstyn, Lewis 338 Eucharist, see also Lord’s Supper 48, 79, 279 Euphrates, river 384, 386, 529 Eve, the first woman 216, 217, 293   Faḍl Allāh Nūrī 311-12 Fāḍil Khān Hamadānī 13 Farahānī, ʿĪsā Qāʾim-Maqām 13, 14, 25-6, 85, 86, 93, 121, 123, 127, 145, 168, 170, 176-86, 187, 189 farmāns 5, 6, 10, 115-16, 118-19, 207-9, 261, 263-7 Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah, shah of Iran 4, 14, 24-5, 27-8, 70, 71, 74, 81, 90, 93-4, 104, 112-20, 121, 123, 125, 130, 136, 138, 145, 150, 152, 154, 157, 167, 171, 176, 189, 192, 194, 205, 211, 413, 417

556

Index of names

Fāṭima, daughter of Muḥammad 84 fatwā 25, 28, 76, 121, 131, 152, 160, 161, 178-9, 181, 194, 195, 313, 527 Ferdowsi (Abul Qāsem Ferdowsi Tusi) 114, 466, 516 Fətəli Axundzadə 20, 277, 461-76 First World War, see also World War I 11, 22, 46, 50, 54, 58, 63, 327, 360, 391, 531, 538 Fiske, Fidelia 53 Forster, George 33-6 Fraser, James Baillie 34, 113-14 Freemasonry 174, 225, 467 French language 10, 53, 58-9, 171, 199, 206, 261, 276, 279-80, 316, 332, 413, 419, 433, 452, 470, 490, 532 French, Thomas Valpy 109, 288, 291, 294   Gabriel, angel 329 Gagik I Artsruni, king of Armenia 382 Gagik II, king of Armenia 380, 385 Ganja (Elizavetpol) 24, 402, 416, 461, 525 Garagashean, Anton Matat‘ia 392 Gat‘rjean, Yovsēp‘ H. 392 Gaudagnoli, Filippo 140 Gauntlett, Annie 366 Geiger, Abraham 295, 302 Genesis, Old Testament book 87, 197, 217, 353 Genocide of Armenians 22, 517, 531 Georgia 16, 19, 22, 24, 26, 32, 112, 173, 395, 400-1, 413-14, 416, 419-20, 425-6, 427, 429, 430, 433, 435-6, 439, 446, 448, 477, 479, 481, 484-5, 486, 488, 490, 497, 500, 504, 507, 510, 512-13, 514-15, 517, 519 Georgian language 414, 429, 433, 439, 499 Georgian Orthodox Church 17, 511 Georgievsk, Treaty of 17, 419, 442 Gēorg Axverdean 438-44 Ghewond, Armenian historian 376 Gilchrist, John 89, 101-2 Giorgi XI, prince of Kʻartʻli 32 Giorgi XII, king of Georgia 413, 419, 427 Giorgi Avalishvili 419-26 Glen, William 13, 198 de Góes, Bento 31 Goethe, Johann von 490 Goldziher, Ignaz 300 Goliath, Old Testament character 387 Gordon, George Maxwell 109 Gospels 12, 13, 102, 109, 116, 128, 134-5, 190, 200, 223-4, 237, 240, 245, 246-7, 256, 257-8, 274, 288-9, 290, 325, 339, 352-3, 411, 518

Gospel of Barnabas 339, 342 Gostashabishvili, Nikolooz 514 Grant, Asahel 209 Gray, John Alfred 42, 43-4 Griboedov, Alexander 28, 171 Grigol Orbeliani 477-83 Gulistān, Treaty of 17, 26, 114, 119, 179, 194   Haas, Christoph Friedrich 51 Hadiths 69, 83, 125, 126, 130, 157, 180, 211, 235, 271, 280, 282, 294, 300, 328, 331, 348 Hagarenes for Muslims 375-7, 379 Haggai, Old Testament book 299 Ḥājj ʿAlī Akbar Navvāb Shīrāzī 81-4, 93 Ḥājj Muḥammad Ḥusayn Iṣfahānī, see Ḥusayn ʿAlī-Shah Iṣfahānī 93, 167-9, 184, 187 Hamadān 6, 8, 9, 264-6, 394 Hamadānī, Fāḍil Khān 13 Hamadānī, Muḥammad Riḍā 79, 80, 93-4, 97, 100, 184, 187-97, 202, 214, 241, 258, 272 Hamidian massacres 22, 529 Ḥanīfism 302 Harlan, Josiah 33-4 Hebrew language 74, 85, 86, 87, 139, 145, 198, 199, 223, 237, 241, 257-8, 285, 286, 291, 294, 296, 298, 302, 332, 338, 342 Hebrew Bible 145, 237, 298 Henry Martyn 12, 13, 14, 55, 58, 64, 77-80, 82-4, 89-111, 116, 118-19, 127-8, 133, 135, 138-40, 145-6, 154-5, 164-5, 168-9, 184-5, 189-91, 192, 214, 217, 240-1, 247, 257-8, 272, 357-8, 364 Heraclius II (Erekle II), king of Georgia 17, 395, 399, 413, 419, 427, 436, 440, 442, 477, 479, 500 Herat 4, 5, 29-31, 33, 205-6, 218-19 Het‘um I, king of Armenia 387 Hidden Imām 134, 161, 280 ḥijāb 327, 353, 468-9 Hindustani language 89, 101, 286, 288 Hoernle, Edward 357 holy war, see also jihād 124, 152-3, 480, 533, 536 Hughes, Thomas Patrick 40-1 Hugo, Victor 455 Ḥusayn, third Shīʿī Imām, also Husein 84, 243, 246, 250, 362, 363, 398, 469, 507 Ḥusayn ʿAlī-Shah Iṣfahānī 93, 167-9, 184, 187 Ḥusayn al-Khwānsārī, Sayyid 69, 157 Ḥusayn ibn Sayyid Jaʿfar Yazdī, Sayyid 270, 327  



Index of names

Ibn Ḥawqal, Muḥammad Abū l-Qāsim 29 Ibn Ḥazm, Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī 300 Ibn Isḥāq 303 Ibn Hishām 302, 303 Ibn Kammūna, Saʿd ibn Manṣūr 72-4 Ibn Khallikān 249 Ibrahim I, Ottoman sultan 390 Ibrāhīm Khān Iʿtimād al-Dawla 176 Ilia Chavchavadze 481, 510-22 ʿImād ud-Dīn 291, 294, 300 Imām Ḥusayn, son of ʿAlī and third Shīʿī Imām 84, 243, 246, 250, 362, 469, 507 India 35-8, 43-5, 47-8, 56, 58, 90, 94, 99, 101, 103, 108, 109, 113, 116, 118, 130, 146, 205, 215, 229, 230, 238, 244, 279, 281, 285, 288, 290-1, 295, 299, 300, 304-5, 319, 357-9, 395, 396, 465, 469, 471 infallibility (of Muḥammad and the prophets) 126, 128, 216, 217 Infancy Gospel 339 inimitability of the Qur’an 92, 139, 145, 154-5, 164, 203, 240, 252, 346-7 Ioane Batonishvili 17, 427-32 Iranian Constitutional Revolution 234, 327, 331, 538 ʿĪsā for Jesus 298 ʿĪsā Qāʾim-Maqām Farahānī 13, 14, 25-6, 85, 86, 93, 121, 123, 127, 145, 168, 170, 176-86, 187, 189 Isaiah, Old Testament book 190, 299 Isfahan 3, 6, 9-10, 15-16, 31, 34, 48, 55-8, 81, 114, 116, 121-2, 125, 143, 150, 157, 167, 179, 187, 208, 225, 229-30, 234-5, 254, 265, 286, 310, 318, 320-2, 325, 341, 343, 345, 350, 357-9, 364, 389-90, 395, 442 Iṣfahānī, ʿAlī-Akbar Izhihī 121-9 Iṣfahānī, Āqā Najafī 14, 234-41, 318 Iṣfahānī, Muḥammad Ḥusayn 93, 167-9, 184, 187 Ishmaelites for Muslims 375 Ismāʿīl, son of Abraham 197 Ismāʿīl, Shah, ruler of Iran 436, 441 Istanbul, see also Constantinople 7, 16, 22, 221, 225, 276-7, 278, 337, 371-2, 375, 390, 392, 447-8, 470, 519 Iʿtimād al-Salṭana 176, 243   Jaʿfar ʿAlī Khān 98, 102, 107 Jaʿfar Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ, Sayyid, see also Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ 25, 131, 136, 179, 181 Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, sixth Shīʿī Imām 329 Jaʿfar Najafī, Shaykh, see also Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ 25, 131, 136, 179, 181

557

Jalāl al-Dawla, character in a work by Mirzə Fətəli Axundzadə 465-6, 469 Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī 342 Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī 64, 277 Jawad (Nathaniel) Sabat 90, 102, 103, 104 Jeffery, Arthur 306 Jeremiah, Old Testament book 299 Jerome Xavier 73 Jerusalem 37, 230, 378, 384, 387, 406, 422, 424, 440 Jesuits 30-2, 36, 46, 73, 208, 452 Jesus Christ 78, 92, 96, 98, 99, 100, 102, 128, 133, 134, 139, 145, 164-5, 173, 190, 196-7, 216-17, 222-4, 238, 240-1, 245-7, 253, 257, 274-5, 279-80, 290, 294, 297-8, 347, 354, 363, 366, 410, 413, 441, 519 Jews 6-8, 13, 15, 34, 37, 59-60, 62, 72-3, 85, 87-8, 128, 133-4, 138, 140, 145, 155, 184, 196, 201, 213-14, 216, 223, 229-30, 237, 239-41, 256, 257-8, 259, 261, 265-7, 273-5, 278-80, 299, 302-3, 310, 312-14, 320, 324, 344, 342, 354-5 jihād 25, 27, 76, 123-4, 152-3, 160-1, 177, 178-82, 188, 194-5, 197, 219, 229-30, 271 jizya 6, 162, 164, 261, 314 John the Baptist, scriptural character  224, 403, 441 John, Gospel of 197, 247, 257, 258, 299, 332 1 John, New Testament letter 299 Jolfa (Nakhchivan), see also Julfa and Julpha 16, 56, 389, 403, 538 Jolfa (Isfahan), see also Now Jolfa, New Julfa and Julfa 6, 9, 10, 13, 15, 16, 31, 34, 35, 37, 48, 56, 116, 265, 320, 341, 357-8, 363-6, 389 Jones, William 396-7 Jordan, Samuel Martin 62-4 Joseph Emin 16, 394-405 Judah ha-Nasi 87 Judaism 70, 72, 74, 79, 85, 134, 140, 145, 196, 236, 256, 293, 302, 343-5 Jude, New Testament letter 299 Julfa and Julpha, see also Jolfa (Nakhchivan) 16, 56, 389, 403, 538 Julfa (Isfahan), see also Jolfa, Now Jolfa and New Julfa 6, 9, 10, 13, 15, 16, 31, 34, 35, 37, 48, 56, 116, 265, 320, 341, 357-8, 363-6, 389 Jukes, Worthington 39-40   Kabul 16, 30-44, 46, 48 Kakhetʻi, Georgian kingdom 3, 17, 24, 395, 413, 419, 427, 433, 447, 481, 485, 486-7, 504

558

Index of names

Kamāl al-Dawla, character in a work by Mirzə Fətəli Axundzadə 465-9, 471 Kandahar 16, 30-3, 34-5, 42 Karbala (Karbalāʾ) 27, 69, 76, 86, 130, 136, 150, 157, 167, 211-12, 242-3, 362-3, 469 Karīm Khān Zand, see Mohammad Karim Khan Zand 3, 112, 157, 399 Karin, see also Erzurum 172, 406, 408-11 Karl Gottlieb Pfander 14, 165, 214-15, 222-3, 236-8, 244-7, 257-8, 259, 272, 274-5, 291, 294, 300, 335, 340, 364 Karnec‘i, Pali, Christian martyr 408 Karnec‘i, Yarut‘iwn, Christian martyr 408-9, 411 Karnec‘i, Yovhannēs 406-12 Kars 20, 22, 423-4 Kʻartʻli, Georgian kingdom 3, 17, 32, 395, 413, 419, 427, 440, 486, 487 Kʻartʻli-Kakhetʻi, Georgian kingdom 3, 17, 24, 433, 440, 442 Kāshān 6, 8, 136, 138, 179, 237, 254, 314, 398 Kāshānī, ʿAbbās-Qulī Khān Sipihr 249-53 Kāshānī, Muḥammad Taqī 254-60 (see also 15, 238) Kāshānī, Taqī Khān Ḥakīmbāshī 265 Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ, see also Jaʿfar Najafī 25, 131, 136, 179, 181 al-Kayrānawī, Raḥmat Allāh (Raḥmat Allāh Hindī) 238, 245, 300, 336, 339-40, 349 Kazembeg, Alexander 196-7, 198-204 Kāẓimayn 85, 86, 130-1, 133 Kepler, Johannes 342 Kerman 6, 7, 10, 55, 57, 70, 188, 204, 211-12, 213, 220, 230, 270-1, 276, 280, 327, 359 Kermanshah 9, 69-70 Khāksārīn (Kathleen) Kīnūsī 46 Khansar (Khwānsār) 157, 167 Khātūnābādī, Mir Muḥammad Ḥusayn 25, 93, 150-6, 179 Khevsureti 504, 506, 507 Khevsurs 501-4, 507-8 Khorenats‘i, Movsēs 372-3, 380, 391 Khwānsār (Khansar) 157, 167 K‘ič‘ik-Ōłlan 442 Kirchgesner, Jerome 41, 43 Kirmānī, Āqā Khān 276-84, 472 Kirmānī, Muḥammad Karīm Khān 14, 211-20, 272, 327 Kirmānī, Muḥammad Khān 270-5, 280, 327 Kirmānī, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn Khān 270, 327-31

Knotishvili, Martkopeli (Muḥammad Agha Muṣṭafā Kaya Raz) 425 Kurdistani, Sa’eed Khan 304-5 Kyriake, Archpriest 425   Lahore 30-2, 35, 38, 41, 43, 45-6, 47, 295, 297, 359 Latin language 13-14, 33, 74, 140, 171, 258, 291, 294, 463, 528 Latins (people) 386, 387-8, 424 Łazar, Georgian martyr 411 Lazarist brothers 10, 24, 50, 53-4, 206, 207-9, 264, 265, 267 Lazguis or Lezgins, Georgian Muslim tribe 400, 402, 416-17 Lee, Samuel 84, 90, 94, 100, 164, 191 Leopoldo Sebastiani (Mullā Yūsuf) 115-17, 125 Levi ibn Jacob ibn Habib 87 Leviticus, Old Testament book 85, 87 Lewon I, king of Armenia 387 Lewon V Lusignan, king of Armenia 387 Lezgins or Lazguis, Georgian Muslim tribe 400, 402, 416-17 Llull, Ramon 290 London 13, 55, 89, 94, 104, 170-1, 173-4, 225, 226, 263, 277, 351, 394-5, 397 Lord’s Supper, see also Eucharist 48, 79, 279 Luarsab II, king of Georgia 512-13 Luke, Gospel of 12, 240 Lūqā (Lukka, Lucas), also Sarwar al-Dīn, Sahir ul din Khan, Lucas A. Joseph 40-3, 45-6 Luther, Martin 279 Lutheran Churches 11-12, 524   Mahdī 281, 363 Mahmēt for Muḥammad 375 Maḥmūd II, Ottoman sultan 423 Mahomed Khan 401 Mahomed and Mahomet for Muḥammad 400, 403 Mahomedan and Mahometan for Muslim 42, 397, 400, 401, 402 Mahomedanism and Mahometanism for Islam 79, 94, 96, 404 Maimonides 87 Malalah, Arab servant 398-9, 404 Malcolm, John 55, 70, 103, 112 Malcolm, Napier 57-8, 366 Malkum Khān 225-33, 263, 277, 470-1 Mamlūks 387 al-Ma ʾmūn, ʿAbbasid caliph 294



Index of names

Manichaeans 379, 385 Manrique, Fray Sebastien 32 Marcionites 223 Marians, Muslim name for Christians 344 Mark, Gospel of 299 Marrable, Harold 363 Martyn, Henry 12, 13, 14, 55, 58, 64, 77-80, 82-4, 89-111, 116, 118-19, 127-8, 133, 135, 138-40, 145-6, 154-5, 164-5, 168-9, 184-5, 189-91, 192, 214, 217, 240-1, 247, 257-8, 272, 357-8, 364 Martyrs, Christian, and martyrdom 84, 124, 160, 179, 219, 246, 362, 380, 388, 390, 408-9, 411, 425, 439, 441, 487, 501, 526, 544 Mashhad 6, 9, 34-5, 76, 87, 130, 151, 152, 187, 242-3, 333 Maryamiyyūn, Muslim name for Christians 344 Masson, Charles 32, 43, 35-8, 47 Matthew, Gospel of 12, 102, 223, 236, 240, 246, 290, 299, 353 Mayevskiy, Vladimir 541 Mazār-i Sharīf 42 McKim, Henrietta Dora 363 Mecca 69, 76, 187, 197, 293 Mehmed al-Fātiḥ, ‘Mēhēmmēt’, Ottoman sultan 389 Mehmed Talaat Pasha 22, 531 Melikshāh, Seljuk sultan 386 Melk‘ō, Šamč‘i 442 Məmməd Səid Ordubadi 20, 528, 538-46 Messiah for Jesus 96, 134, 244 Methodists, Christian denomination 173, 174, 245, 264 Mgrdič‘ Bešigt‘ašlian 451-60 Middle Persian language 72, 276 Mik‘ayēl Ch‘amch‘eants‘ 371-93 Mingana, Alphonse 29, 306 Mir Möhsün Nəvvab 21-2, 523-8 Mir Muḥammad Ḥusayn Khātūnābādī 25, 93, 150-6, 179 miracles 79, 83, 91-2, 94, 98, 100, 125, 128-9, 133, 135, 138-9, 145, 154-5, 168, 185, 189, 192, 196-7, 224, 237, 240, 254, 259, 274, 298, 346-8, 410 Mīrzā ʿAbdullāh Jadīd al-Islām, formerly Benjamin 320 Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim, son of Mīrzā ʿĪsā Qāʾim-Maqām 176, 185 Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qāʾim-Maqām Farāhānī 80, 94, 187, 192-3, 214

559

Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim Qummī 25, 93, 131, 157-66, 179, 184 Mīrzā Āqā Khān Kirmānī 276-84, 472 Mīrzā Āqāsī 185, 205-6 Mīrzā Fiṭrat 12, 89, 102, 110 Mīrzā Ḥusayn ʿAlī Nūrī, Bahāʾullāh 7, 276, 281, 358 Mīrzā Ḥusayn Khān Sipahsālār, Qajar foreign minister 265 Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Fasāʾī, see Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī 14, 55, 76-80, 90, 94, 145, 164, 189, 190 Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī 14, 55, 76-80, 90, 94, 145, 164, 189, 190 Mīrzā ʿĪsā Qāʾim-Maqām Farahānī 13, 14, 25-6, 85, 86, 93, 121, 123, 127, 145, 168, 170, 176-86, 187, 189 Mīrzā Jawād Shīrāzī 281-2 Mīrzā Mahdī Shahrastānī 136, 242 Mīrzā Malkum Khān 225-33, 263, 277, 470-1 Mīrzā Muḥammad Akhbārī 93, 130-5 Mīrzā Muḥammad Khān Kirmānī 270-5, 280, 327 Mīrzā Muḥammad Ṣādiq Fakhr al-Islām 14, 15, 238, 305, 332-56 Mīrzā Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī 84, 94, 170-5 Mīrzā Muḥsin Khān Tabrīzī (Muʿīn al-Mulk) 221, 470 Mīrzā Najaf ʿAlī Khān Dānish Tabrīzī 14, 221-4, 238 Mīrzā Saeed Khān, Qajar foreign minister 266 Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī 84, 94, 170-5 Mīrzā Sayyid ʿAlī Khān Shīrāzī 12, 90, 93, 98, 102 Mīrzā Sayyid Muḥammad Ṭabāṭabāʾī 333, 350, 351 Mirzā Taqī Khān Farāhānī, see also Amīr Kabīr 4, 7, 51, 264 Mīrzā Yaḥyā Ṣubḥ-i Azal 7, 276 Mīrzā-yi Buzurg, see Mīrzā ʿĪsā QāʾimMaqām Farahānī 13, 14, 25-6, 85, 86, 93, 121, 123, 127, 145, 168, 170, 176-86, 187, 189 Mīrzā Yūsuf Khān 470-1 Mīrzā Yūsuf Mustawfī al-Mamālik 265 Mirzə Fətəli Axundzadə 20, 277, 461-76 Mismer, Charles 230 Mkhitarists, Armenian Catholic monastic order 451, 452, 458 Mkrtich Peshikt‘ashlean 451-60

560

Index of names

Mohamedan for Muslim 397 Mohammad Karim Khan Zand 3, 112, 157, 399 ‘Mohmat’, see also Mahmet 378 Möhsün Nəvvab 21-2, 523-8 Mongols 3, 113, 375, 387-8, 435-6, 481, 513-14 monotheism 293, 302, 336, 339, 343-4 Monserrate, Fr Antonio 30 Monteith, William 202 Moses, patriarch and prophet 78, 87, 91-2, 98, 100, 128, 133, 196, 216, 223, 238, 240-1, 245, 274, 330 Moulvi Muhammad Ali 305 Muʿāwiya, first Umayyad caliph 336, 376, 377 Muḥammad, Prophet 13, 27, 75, 78-9, 83, 92, 94, 96, 118, 125-6, 128-9, 133-5, 138-9, 145, 154-5, 163, 164-5, 169, 185, 189-90, 192, 196-7, 200, 201, 202-4, 216-17, 224, 346-7, 239-41, 246, 251-3, 255-6, 257, 259, 274-5, 278, 280, 282, 288, 293-4, 296, 298-9, 302-3, 305, 314, 321, 329-30, 332, 336, 339-40, 344, 346-7, 362, 365, 375, 377-8, 441, 470, 515-16 Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Nabī Nayshābūrī, see Mīrzā Muḥammad Akhbārī 93, 130-5 Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb 131 Muḥammad Akhbārī 93, 130-5 Muḥammad ʿAlī Dāʿī l-Islām 15, 318-26, 345, 350-1 Muḥammad ʿAlī Kāẓimbey, see Alexander Kazembeg 196-7, 198-204 Muḥammad ʿAlī Pasha, Ottoman governor of Egypt 423, 425 Muḥammad ʿAlī Shah, ruler of Iran 5-6, 310-12 Muḥammad ʿAlī Bihbahānī 69-75 Muḥammad Bāqir Bihbahānī, known as Waḥīd 69, 150, 157 Muḥammad Bāqir ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn Khwānsārī 121-2, 131, 150, 158 Muḥammad Bāqir Majlisī 83, 134, 140, 155 Muḥammad Bāqir Salmāsī 13, 26 Muḥammad Ḥusayn Iṣfahānī, see Ḥusayn ʿAlī-Shah Iṣfahānī 93, 167-9, 184, 187 Muḥammad Ḥusayn Khātūnābādī 25, 93, 150-6, 179 Muḥammad Ḥusayn Marʿashī Shahrastānī, Sayyid 242-8 Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Khān Ẓahīr al-Dawla 211, 270

Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī, see Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī 14, 55, 76-80, 90, 94, 145, 164, 189, 190 Muḥammad Isḥāq Khān 39-40, 42-3, 47 Muḥammad Ismāʿīl Maḥallātī 313 Muḥammad Javād, Sayyid 320 Muḥammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī 14, 211-20, 272, 327 Muḥammad Khān Kirmānī 270-5, 280, 327 Muḥammad Mujāhid Karbalāʾī, Sayyid 93 Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā 305 Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī 79, 80, 93-4, 97, 100, 184, 187-97, 202, 214, 241, 258, 272 Muḥammad Riḍā Jadīd al-Islām 257 Muḥammad Ṣādiq Fakhr al-Islām 14, 15, 238, 305, 332-56 Muḥammad Saʿīd Urdūbādī, see Məmməd Səid Ordubadi 20, 528, 538-46 Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī 84, 94, 170-5 Muḥammad Shah Qajar, ruler of Iran 4, 8, 10, 51, 171, 205-10, 218, 249, 254, 261, 263-5, 267 Muḥammad Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Sayyid 27 Muḥammad Ṭāhir al-Tannīr 306 Muḥammad Taqī Iṣfahānī, Shaykh, see Āqā Najafī Iṣfahānī 14, 234-41, 318 Muḥammad Taqī Kāshānī, d. c. 1895  254-60 (see also 15, 238) ‘Muḥammadan controversy’ 289, 291 Muḥammadans for Muslims 375 Muḥammadzay dynasty 34, 37, 47 al-Muḥaqqiq al-Ḥillī, Abū l-Qāsim Jaʿfar 254 Muḥarram, see also ‘Passion play’ 361, 362, 507 Muḥsin Khān, Shaykh 221, 470 Muir, Sir William 96, 294, 300-6 mujtahid (jurist) 28, 55, 76, 130, 131, 133, 153, 158, 161, 181, 243, 267, 305, 311, 318, 333, 527 Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī 25, 93, 118, 136-42, 184, 258, 272 Mullā ʿAlī-Akbar Izhihī Iṣfahānī 121-9 Mullā ʿAlī Akbar Izhaʾī 93 Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī 80, 93, 143-9, 184 Mullā Fatḥullah Kāshānī 257, 354 Mullā Ḥājjī Bābā Qazvīnī Yazdī 134, 140, 145, 190, 256, 257 Mullā Ibrāhīm Kalbāsī 93 Mullā Moshe Halevi 138, 140, 237



Index of names

Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī 79, 80, 93-4, 97, 100, 184, 187-97, 202, 214, 241, 258, 272 Mullā Ṣadrā 143, 145 Mullā Sayyid Taqī Burghānī 93 Mullā Yūsuf Leopoldo (Sebastiani) 115-17, 125 Murad IV, Ottoman sultan 436, 453 Mūsā ibn Jaʿfar Najafī 93 Mussa, Chouchol 400 Musulman for Muslim 397, 399 Muẓaffar al-Dīn Shah, ruler of Iran 5, 310-11   Nādir Shah, formerly Nādir Qulī Bīg 3, 31, 34-6, 198 Nahman, son of Phineas and Rachel 140, 190 Najaf 69, 86, 130, 136, 176, 234, 254, 280, 333 Najaf ʿAlī Khān Dānish Tabrīzī 14, 221-4, 238 Nakhchivan 16, 27, 525, 538 Napoleon Bonaparte 25, 113, 173, 206, 433, 456 Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah Qajar, ruler of Iran 4-7, 55, 60, 209, 219, 225, 227, 234, 242, 249, 254-5, 255-6, 257, 259, 261-9, 276, 310, 333, 359, 516 ‘Nathaniel’ Jawād ibn Sabat 90, 102, 103, 104 Nestorians and the Nestorian Church 6, 8, 11, 29, 54, 134, 206, 208-9, 264, 305 New Julfa (Isfahan), see also Now Jolfa, Jolfa and Julfa 6, 9, 10, 13, 15, 16, 31, 34, 35, 37, 48, 56, 116, 265, 320, 341, 357-8, 363-6, 389 New Nakhijivān, Christian quarter of Mashhad 34 New Testament 12-13, 26, 38, 47, 55, 89-90, 93, 98-100, 102, 103-4, 107, 118, 139, 196, 200, 201, 216, 224, 237, 246-7, 272-5, 297-9, 313, 321, 324, 330-1, 336, 339, 341, 344, 347, 348, 353, 357-8, 366 Nicholas I, tsar of Russia 435 Nicolas, Jean Baptiste 466, 470-2 Night Journey of Muḥammad 302, 347 Noah, scriptural character 133, 259, 458 Nöldeke, Theodore 300, 304 Norwegian Lutheran Mission 12 Numbers, Old Testament book 87  

561

Old Testament 13, 26, 72, 74, 98, 100, 102, 134, 138-9, 196, 200, 201, 216, 224, 256, 272-5, 313, 321, 336, 339, 341-2, 344, 347-8, 353, 355 Ōłli, Bałer 442 Orbeliani, Aleksandre 449 Orbeliani, Grigol 477-83 Ordubadi, Məmməd Səid 20, 528, 538-46 original sin 128, 216, 293 Orthodox Christianity 16, 416, 429, 430, 431, 512, 514, 517, 520 Ossetians 19, 445, 500 Ottoman Turks 3, 7, 16, 18, 20, 22, 23, 30, 45, 117, 177, 227, 229, 276, 277, 375, 385, 388-9, 390-1, 394-5, 408, 423, 425, 435-6, 447, 448, 451, 453, 455, 458, 479, 488, 495, 515, 516, 517, 519, 526, 530, 531, 535, 536, 543 Ottoman constitution 227, 530, 535 Ouseley, Sir Gore 26, 90, 94, 100, 102, 104, 118, 119, 170, 174, 191   Padre Puigi 33 Pahlavi dynasty and era 15, 61, 65, 316, 327 Pahlavi language 30, 303, 319 Palacios, Miguel Asin 306 Paley, William 171, 224 Panagiotis, Christian martyr 425 Paraclete 128, 196, 224, 247, 332 Paradise 200, 293, 302, 458, 533 Paris, Treaty of 4-5, 54-5, 218 Parkinson, John 306 Paskevich, Ivan 18 ‘Passion play’, see Muḥarram 362 Patkanean, Rap‘ayel 18 Patkanean, Serovbē 442 Paul, Apostle 134, 245, 246, 256, 258 Paulicians 377, 379 Pentateuch 13, 86-7, 190, 298 People of the Book 224, 340 Perkins, Justin 8, 51, 52, 208-9 Pērpērean, Awetis 392 Persia Mission (CMS) 56, 286, 357-68 Peshawar 30, 32, 38-41, 43, 45-8 Peshikt‘ashlean, Mkrtich 451-60 Peter the Great, tsar of Russia 16, 173, 198 Pfander, Karl Gottlieb 14, 165, 214-15, 222-3, 236-8, 244-7, 257-8, 259, 272, 274-5, 291, 294, 300, 335, 340, 364 Pietro della Valle 73 polygamy 468

562

Index of names

Potter, Joseph Lewis 338, 343 Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions 305, 358 Presbyterian Church of the United States of America (PCUSA) and Presbyterians 8-9, 51, 54, 55, 60-1, 64, 198, 206, 208, 266, 304, 332, 338, 340 Presbyterian Evangelical Church 54, 57 Presbyterian Missionaries 9, 54, 60, 64, 208, 266, 304, 332, 338, 340 Propaganda Fide, Sacra Congregatio de  451 the Prophet for Muḥammad 81, 83, 84, 124, 125-6, 128-9, 134, 139, 154-5, 158, 163, 180, 189, 190, 194, 196, 201, 211, 216-17, 222-3, 224, 245, 247, 251-2, 257, 274, 278, 280, 296, 314, 332, 336, 339, 344, 346-8, 362, 375, 377-9, 441, 466, 469-70, 493, 494 prophethood of Muḥammad 13, 75, 77, 79, 83, 118, 128, 133, 135, 138, 145, 154, 164, 165, 169, 185, 189-90, 192, 197, 202, 236, 237, 239, 241, 252-3, 255, 274, 296, 298, 321, 336, 340, 346-7 Protestant Islam and ‘Protestantism in Islam’ 20, 465, 467, 469-72 Protestant Christians 12, 48, 50-1, 53-4, 82, 108, 113, 118, 146, 173, 200, 208, 222, 262, 264, 266, 279, 290, 332, 341, 342, 344, 358-9, 451, 467, 468, 524 Proverbs, Old Testament book 13 Prussia 394 Psalms, Old Testament book 13, 90, 102, 245, 414   Quilliam, Abdullah 322 Qummī, Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim 25, 93, 131, 157-66, 179, 184 Qur’an 7, 78-9, 81, 83, 86-7, 92, 94, 96, 103, 118, 125, 128-9, 133, 139, 145, 154-5, 164, 168, 180, 185, 189, 192, 196, 199, 201, 203-4, 212, 216, 223-4, 236-7, 239-41, 252, 256, 259, 274-5, 280, 293-5, 298-300, 301-4, 312-13, 316, 318, 321, 336, 339, 342, 346-8, 350, 353-4, 375, 391, 402, 441, 461, 467, 512, 518, 520, 533, 536 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī 74   Rafiuddin Ahmad 305 Raḥmat Allāh al-Kayrānawī (Raḥmat Allāh Hindī) 238, 245, 300, 336, 339-40, 349 Rashi 87 Rashīd Riḍā, Muḥammad 305 Ramaḍān 243, 361, 362, 423, 480 Rasht 9, 69, 198, 461

Razikashvili, Luka, see Vazha-Pshavela 19, 497-509 Read, Isabella (Mrs Aidinyantz) 56, 357 Rebekah, Old Testament character 353 Renan, Ernest 64, 470 resurrection 125, 169, 246, 255, 344-5, 468 Revelation, New Testament book 299 Rice, Walter Ayscoughe 297, 365 Riḍā Qulī Khān Hidāyat 169 Riḍā Shah, ruler of Iran 327 Roiz, Fr Gregorio 31 Romans, New Testament letter 245 Rudolph, Wilhelm 306 Russia and the Russian Empire 4, 5, 16-17, 20, 22-3, 24-5, 28, 40, 54, 113-14, 116-17, 119, 123-4, 146, 152-3, 161, 171, 173, 194, 195, 198, 205-6, 209, 262, 264, 267, 348, 395, 413, 419-20, 423, 425, 427, 428, 433, 435-6, 442, 446, 470, 477, 479-81, 510, 511, 516-17, 519, 525-6, 544 Russian language 199, 419, 433, 445, 461-2, 470-1, 489, 523, 541, 543 Russian Bible Society 12 Russian Orthodox Church 12, 17, 20, 54 Russian Revolution 12, 199, 542-3 Russo-Iranian wars 14, 24-8, 50, 74, 121, 123, 145, 152, 177, 178, 182, 194, 195, 198, 205, 413 Russo-Japanese War 348, 527 Russo-Turkish War 20, 488, 517 Rustʻaveli, Shotʻa 414 Ryleyev, Kondraty 479   Sabat, Jawad (Nathaniel) 90, 102, 103, 104 Saʿd ibn Manṣūr ibn Kammūna 72-4 Saʿdī, Persian poet 281, 516 Safavid dynasty 3, 6, 16, 19, 30, 31, 32, 34, 50, 81, 83, 115, 121, 150, 158, 181, 208, 238, 375, 385, 388-90, 469, 486 Safdar ʿAlī 291, 294, 300 Sahak, Christian martyr 407-8, 411 Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn (Saladin) 378, 387 Sale, George 223-4, 342, 347-8 Samawʾal al-Maghribī 73-4 Samuel, Jacob 59 Sargent, John 105, 106, 109 Sarwar al-Dīn see also Lūqā 40-3, 45-6 Sayat‘-Nova, formerly Arut‘in 438, 439-43 Sayyid ʿAbd Allāh Bihbahānī 310, 333-4, 351 Sayyid Aḥmad ʿAlavī 73 Sayyid Aḥmad Khan, Sir 291, 295 Sayyid ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad Ṭabāṭabāʾī  76, 136, 179, 181



Index of names

Sayyid ʿAlī Khān Shīrāzī 12, 90, 93 Sayyid ʿAlī Muḥammad Shīrāzī, founder of Bābism 7, 206, 358 Sayyid Amīr ʿAlī 292, 294 Sayyid Asadullāh Kharaqānī 349 Sayyid Ḥusayn al-Khwānsārī 69, 157 Sayyid Ḥusayn ibn Sayyid Jaʿfar Yazdī  270, 327 Sayyid Jaʿfar Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ, see also Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ 25, 131, 136, 179, 181 Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Marʿashī Shahrastānī 242-8 Sayyid Muḥammad Javād 320 Sayyid Muḥammad Mujāhid Karbalāʾī 93 Sayyid Muḥammad Ṭabāṭabāʾī 27 Schopenhauer, Arthur 491 Scott, Sir Walter 206 Scottish Presbyterian Mission 198 Seal of the Prophets for Muḥammad 128, 196, 223, 344, 347 Sebastiani, Leopoldo (Mullā Yūsuf) 115-17, 125 Sebēos, Armenian historian 376-7 Second Afghan War 32, 47 Seljuk Turks 381, 385-7, 435-6 Sell, Edward 295, 304 de Sercey, Count Félix 206, 208 Seth, Mesrovb J. 30, 35, 38, 39, 40, 42 Seyyid Ali Mohammad, founder of Bābism, see also ʻAlī Muḥammad Shīrāzī 7, 206, 358 Shah ʿAbbās I, ruler of Persia 6, 16, 31, 150, 389, 398, 512-13 Shah ʿAbbās II, ruler of Persia 486-8 Shah Sulṭān Ḥusayn, ruler of Persia 32, 34, 514 al-Shahrastānī, Abū l-Fatḥ Muḥammad  134 Shahrastānī, Muḥammad Ḥusayn Marʿashī  242-8 Shamil, Imam, resistance leader 480-1 Shaykh Sāliḥ (ʿAbd al-Masīḥ), Christian convert 90 Shaykhī school and doctrine 121, 211, 212, 213, 217, 218, 243, 270-1, 327, 328, 329, 331 Shēr ʿAlī Khān, amīr of Afghanistan 39-40 Sherwood, Mary 107 Shiraz 6, 10, 12, 14, 55, 57, 76-7, 81, 82, 90, 91-3, 94, 98, 102, 104, 112, 118, 130, 145, 157, 170, 189, 206, 310, 320, 323, 357, 359, 364, 366, 442 Shīrāzī, ʿAlī Akbar Navvāb 81-4, 93

563

Shīrāzī, ʿAlī Khān 12, 90, 93, 98, 102 Shīrāzī, ʻAlī Muḥammad, founder of Bābism 7, 206, 358 Shīrāzī, Ibrāhīm 14, 55, 76-80, 90, 94, 145, 164, 189, 190 Shīrāzī, Jawād 281-2 Shīrāzī, Muḥammad Ibrāhīm 14, 55, 76-80, 90, 94, 145, 164, 189, 190 Shīrāzī, Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ 84, 94, 170-5 Shīrāzī, Ṣāliḥ 84, 94, 170-5 Siamant‘ō, see also Adom Earčanian 22, 529-37 Sidersky, David 303, 306 Simeon, Charles 89, 105 Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan 291, 295 Smbat I, king of Armenia 381-3 Smbat II, king of Armenia 384 Smith, George 90, 103, 106-7, 109, 118 Society for Missions to Africa and the East (CMS) 357 Society for Promoting Female Education in the East 56, 357 Society for the Amelioration of Conditions in Iran 57 Society for the Dissemination of Literacy among Georgians 519 Solomon, scriptural character 330 Song of Solomon, Old Testament book 299 Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem 424 Southgate, Horatio 208 Spencer, Herbert 491, 506 Speyer, Heinrich 303 Sprenger, Aloys 300, 303, 304 St George 413, 486, 501 St Jerome (‘Jarānīm’) 74, 140, 258 St John the Precursor, see also John the Baptist 441 St Paul, apostle 134, 245, 246, 256, 258 St Petersburg 12, 17-18, 102, 104, 171, 173, 199, 414, 419-20, 427, 429, 433, 435, 438, 470, 484, 497, 510 Stanton, Herbert U.W. 304 Stileman, Charles 366 Stuart, Anne Isabella 358, 362 Stuart, Edward 358-9, 364, 367 Stuart, Emmeline 358, 363, 366 Stuart, Gertrude Ethel 363, 368 Subḥ-i Azal, see Mīrzā Yaḥyā Ṣubḥ-i Azal 7, 276 Sulṭān Ḥusayn, ruler of Persia 32, 34, 514 Supplement to Iran’s first Constitution 8, 65, 310-17

564

Index of names

Surami, fortress of 446 Syriac language 13-14, 52, 257-8, 302-3, 332, 337, 342   Ṭabarsī, Mīrzā Ḥusayn 275 Tabriz 9, 10, 26, 51, 53, 90, 96, 104, 113, 118, 167, 170-1, 172, 174, 176, 187, 202, 206, 207, 212, 221, 276, 310, 312, 333, 442, 461, 467, 469, 471, 525-7 Tabrīzī, Mīrzā Najaf ʿAlī Khān Dānish 14, 221-4, 238 Talaat Pasha 22, 531 Tamar, Queen of Georgia 435 Tamerlane 29, 375, 388, 436, 484 Tanzimat period and reforms 451, 457 Targums 303 Tatars, Tartars, used for Muslims in Georgia 20, 375, 388, 422, 424, 427, 501, 505, 515 tawātur 78, 83, 256 Tbilisi (Tiflis) 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 420, 422, 428-30, 433, 438, 439-40, 442, 445-6, 477-8, 484-5, 498, 510, 517, 530 Tehran 4, 9, 10-11, 27-8, 32, 35, 50, 53, 59-63, 64, 69, 71, 76, 112-13, 118, 130-1, 165, 167, 176, 196, 211, 230, 243, 251, 254, 261, 264-6, 270, 310, 312-13, 318, 322, 333-4, 338, 340, 415-17, 516 Tʻeimuraz Bagrationi (Batonishvili) 17, 413-18 Thomason, Thomas 102-3, 105 Tiflis, see Tbilisi  1 Timothy, New Testament letter 353 Tīmūr Shah, amīr of Afghanistan 33, 36, 38 Tisdall, William St Clair 10, 15, 285-309, 320, 322, 341-3, 358-9, 364 Torah 128, 134, 185, 216-17, 223, 237, 245, 274, 350, 352-3 Torrey, Charles 303, 307 Trinity 100, 128, 134, 145, 223, 238, 298, 302, 321, 344 Tsereteli, Akaki 19, 484-9 Turkmenchay, Treaty of 18, 27, 28, 171, 205 Twelfth Imām 7, 158, 160, 162, 179, 190, 271, 363 Twelver Shīʿīs 3, 6, 15, 122, 125, 133, 143, 145, 217, 255, 280, 313   ʿulamāʾ 6, 10, 25, 57, 64, 84, 121, 150, 158, 167, 169, 179, 180, 189, 195, 212, 267, 312, 327, 467 ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, second caliph 377, 424

Umayyad dynasty 336, 355, 376, 377-8, 379, 507 unicity or unity of God, see also Oneness of God and tawḥīd 128, 222, 255, 293, 336, 343, 344 Unitarians (Unit‘oṛs) 173, 388 universalism 282, 283 Urdu language 89, 101-2, 103, 107, 109, 236, 285, 291, 304, 319, 323 Urmia 8, 9, 11, 12, 51, 53, 54, 60, 61, 206, 208, 209, 264, 332, 333, 351 Uṣūlī jurists 124, 130, 131, 212, 327   Vakhtang V, king of Kʻartʻli 486, 487 Varužan, Taniēl 492, 530, 531 Vaṙvaṙ, Christian martyr 409-11 Vazha-Pshavela 19, 497-509 Venice 16, 371, 372, 373, 451 Victor Hugo 455 Virgin Mary 173, 344, 413, 424, 513   al-Wāqidī, Muslim historian 303 Ward, Samuel, American missionary  338-9, 340, 343 Weil, Gustav 300, 303 Wherry, Elwood Morris 297, 304 White, Henry 362, 363-4 Wilberforce, Samuel 55, 93, 94, 96, 98, 106, 108, 109 Wilberforce, William 89, 105, 106, 108 Willock, Henry 172-3 Wolff, Joseph 8, 37, 47, 59, 93, 104 Word of God, Bible as 365 Word of God, Jesus as 99, 298 Word of God, Qur’an as 339 World War I, see also First World War 11, 22, 46, 50, 54, 58, 63, 327, 360, 391, 531, 538   Xavier, Jerome 73   Yaḥyā ‘Khan’ 43-5 Yazd 6, 7, 10, 55, 57-8, 121, 179, 230, 314, 359, 362, 363-4 Yerevan 17-18, 19, 26, 27, 36, 378, 390, 406, 439, 478, 525, 526 Young Turks 22, 530 Young, Herrick Black 305 Yovhannēs Karnec‘i 406-12   Zand dynasty 76, 143, 150, 176 Zayd ibn Ḥārith 129 Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn Khān Kirmānī 270, 327-31



Index of names

Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn ibn Muḥammad 13, 85-8 Zaynab, wife of Muḥammad 126, 129 Zephaniah, Old Testament book 190 Ẓill al-Sulṭān, governor of Isfahan 9, 234, 265

565

Zoroastrians and Zoroastrianism 6-8, 29, 57-8, 62, 123, 128, 133-4, 140, 229, 230, 237, 239, 261, 276, 279, 293-4, 302, 310, 312-13, 314, 316, 319, 351, 352, 358 Zwemer, Samuel Marinus 297, 306

Index of Titles Numbers in italics indicate a main entry. An account of the kingdom of Caubul 33 Açıq söz 545 Aġcera mokled acindelisa sparsetʻis mpqrobeltʻa šahtʻa gvareulobisa qajartʻasa 413 Aġsareba 479 Al-ʿahd al-jadīd al-mansūb ilā rabbinā wa-mukhallisinā ʿĪsā al-Masīḥ 103 Aḥkām al-jihād wa-asbāb al-rishād (Mīrzā ʿĪsā) 123-4, 178-84 Aḥkām al-jihād, see also Jihādiyya-yi kubrā 179, 182 ‘Akaki’s collection’ 485, 486 Akakis krebuli 485, 486 Akbar and the Jesuits 30 Akeydat Yitzchak 87 Akhtar (newspaper) 221, 228, 277 Ałjgan mə ōrakirə 491 Aluda Ketelauri 499, 501-3, 507-8 Amālī-i ʿAbbāsī, see also Ayīna-yi ʿAbbāsī 133-5 Anahid 529 Anbāʾ al-anbiyāʾ 145 Angełn erg 491 Anīs al-aʿlām fī nuṣrat al-Islām 238, 332, 335-7 Annual Letters (CMS) 360-8 Annual report (Imam Shah) 40, 41 ‘Aphkhushooba’ 506 Al-ʿaqāʾid al-wathaniyya fī l-diyāna l-Naṣrāniyya 306 aqdas, Kitāb-i 7 ‘Arak‘si artasuk‘ĕ’ 18 Ararat (periodical) 19 ‘Armenian sons’, see Hayortiner 530, 535 ‘The Armenian-Muslim war of 1905-1906’, see 1905-1906-cı illərdə erməni-müsəlman davası 22, 525-8 Armyano-tatarskaya smuta na Kavkaze, kak odin iz fazisov armenskoogo voprosa 541 Asbedi erkə 530 Aṣl al-uṣūl fī ḥuṣūl al-wuṣūl 169 ‘Ašuł Arut‘iwn of Tiflis (Sayat‘ Nova)’ 439-44 At the court of the amir 42, 43

Autumn 453 Axali motʻxroba 415 Ayīna-yi ʿAbbāsī dar namāyish-i ḥaqq-shināsī 133-5 Azadamard (periodical) 529 Azərbaycan (periodical) 545   Báb and the Bábis. Religious and political unrest in Persia, 1844-1852 199 Babert‘ kałakoǰ Łazar anun omn eritasard nahatakeal 407-12 ‘Bagrat Didi’ 484 Baḥr al-ḥaqāʾiq fī maʿrifat al-rumūz wa-l-daqāʾiq 77 Baḥr al-liʾālī 81 Bakhtrioni 19, 501, 503-4 Bakuri 500 ‘The balance of balances on the matter of religion’, see Mīzān al-mawāzīn fī amr al-dīn 222-4, 238 ‘The balance of truth’, see Mizān al-ḥaqq 14, 165, 222-4, 236, 238, 245, 257, 258, 259, 272, 300 ‘Bare-headed’ see Bashi-Achuk 486-9 Bashi-Achuk / Baši-Ačʻuk 486-9 Bayān-i Fārsī 7, 276 Bayān al-ḥaqq wa-l-ṣidq al-muṭlaq 305, 346-9 Bədbəxt milyonçu yaxud Rzaqulu firəngiməab 538 ‘Bibliograpiuli shenishvna’ 506 Biḥār al-anwār 235 ‘The blind man’, see Goyrə 533-7 Bolşevizm və aləmi islam 539 ‘The book of the late Mullā ʿAlī-Akbar in response to the sophistries of the missionary’, see Kitāb-i marḥūm Mullā ʿAlī-Akbar dar Jawāb-i Shubuhāt-i Pādrī 127-9 ‘The brave Armenian son’, see Hay k‘aǰortin 454-60 The brave Armenian woman’, see Hay k‘aǰuhin 454-60 Brief memoir of the life and conversion of Mahomed Ali Bey 201 Bruto Primo 452



Index of Titles

Burhān al-milla, see also Ḥujjat al-Islām (Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī) 80, 144-9 Burhān al-Muslimīn 15, 338-41 Burhān al-nubuwwa-yi Nāṣirī 251-3 Burhān-i buṭlān Fakhr-i nādān 341-3 The burial of Sir John Moore 456 ‘Burial of the brave son’, see T‘ałumn k‘aǰortwoyn 454-60   Le café de Surate 278, 281, 282 ‘The call of Islam’, see Daʿwat al-Islām (periodical) 319, 323-6, 350 La chaumière indienne 278, 281 Chemi tavgadasavali 484, 485 Chemi Tsutisopeli 498 Children of Persia 58 Christianity and other faiths 286 Chronicle of Petros di Sargis Gilanenc‘  438 The Church and School 41 Church Missionary Gleaner 35, 40, 48 Church Missionary Intelligencer and Record 35 Chveni sopeli 504 Cʻiskari, see also Tsiskari (journal) 446, 478, 510 ‘The companion for leading figures in supporting Islam’, see Anīs al-aʿlām fī nuṣrat al-Islām 238, 332, 335-7 Comparative religion 286 A compendium of the Book of Common Prayer, translated into the Hindoostanee language 101 ‘Confirmation of [particular] prophethood, see Ithbāt al-nubuwwa [al-khāṣṣa] (Mīrzā ʿĪsā Qāʾim-Maqām Farahānī) 184-5 Controversial tracts on Christianity and Mohammedanism 84, 94, 100, 164, 191 ‘The convention of witnessing, in refutation of the Jews’, see Maḥḍar al-shuhūd fī radd al-Yahūd 134, 140, 190, 256, 257 Correspondance et mémoires d’un voyageur en Orient 207 Correspondence, despatches and other papers of Viscount Castlereagh 37 court of the amir, At the 42, 43 A cycle of four poems devoted to the Zēyt‘un Affair 454-60   Dabistān-i madhāhib 469 Danabarebi 500 ‘The dance’, see Parə 534-7

567

Daʿwat al-Islām (periodical) 319, 323-6, 350 ‘The day of the Lashar cross, or Lasharoba’, see ‘Lasharis jvaris dgheoba anu lasharoba’ 506, 507 Death of Caesar 452 ‘Death of the brave son’, see Mah k‘aǰortwoyn 454-60 ‘A demonstration of the falsity of Fakhr the ignorant’, see Burhān-i buṭlān Fakhr-i nādān 341-3 Dhakhīrat al-najā fī mīrāth al-amwāt 81 Diary of a march through Sinde and Afghanistan 37, 38 Diex li vuelt! (‘It is the will of God’) 285, 288-92, 295 Divān-e she‛r 114 Dndes (newspaper) 490 Droeba (newspaper) 19, 484, 517, 518-20 Dzaghlika Khimikauri  501 ‘Dzveli da akhali pshavelebis p‘oezia’ 506   Ein Yaakov 87 ‘The elegant discussions’, see Rādd shubuhāt al-kuffār bar dhikr-i abḥāth-i milal-i thalāth 71-5 Elisavetpolʹskie krovavye dni pred sudom obshchestva 540 Encouragement to missionary effort among Mohamedans 208 Əndəlisin son günləri, yaxud Qranadanın təslimi 538-9 L’enfant (Victor Hugo) 455 Enquiry into the obligations of Christians, to use means for the conversion of the heathens 290 ‘The epitome of speech on the superiority of Islam’, see Khulāṣat al-kalām fī iftikhār al-Islām 334, 343-6 Erek‘ K‘ač‘er 452 Erek’les sizmari 500 Ergrakunt 490 Ertguli megobari 504 ‘The essence of insights’, see Zubdat al-maʿārif 122, 125-7, 128, 129 ‘Evidence for Islam’, see Ḥujjat al-Islām (Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī) 80, 144-9 ‘Examination of the inquiries into the three faiths’, see Tanqīḥ al-abḥāth li-l-milal al-thalāth 72-3, 74 ‘Exposing the impotence of the Christians and affirming The proof of Muslims’, see Taʿjīz al-Masīḥiyyīn fī ta ʾyīd Burhān al-Muslimīn 341-3

568

Index of Titles

‘Exposition of the truth and absolute veracity’, see Bayān al-ḥaqq wa-l-ṣidq al-muṭlaq 305, 346-9 Extracts from the annual letters of the missionaries (CMS) 360-8   Fāraqlīṭā 334 Farhang-i niẓām 319 Farmān to Gore Ouseley 118-20 farmāns (Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah) 115-20 Farmāns (Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah) 263-9 Farmāns concerning Christian missionaries (Muḥammad Shah Qajar) 10, 207-10 Farmāns related to the missionary activities of Leopoldo Sebastiani 115-17 Faṣl al-khiṭāb fī taḥrīf kitāb rabb al-arbāb 275 Faṣl al-maqāl fī radd maqālat Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb 131 ‘The fate of the Georgian Muslims’, see Mahmadian kartvelta bedi 519 Fatḥ al-bāb ilā l-ḥaqq wa-l-ṣawāb 131 Fatwā darbāra-yi jihad, see also Risāla-yi jihādiyya (Izhihī) 122, 123-4 ‘The first treatise [in response to Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī]’, see Risāla-yi awwal [dar javāb-i Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī] 91-5 Five years in a Persian town 58 ‘The fool’, see Khent‘ 20 The foreign doctor. A biography of Joseph Plumb Cochran 53 ‘The fortress of Surami’ 445, 446-50 Frontier folk of the Afghan border and beyond 43   Gadagerkut‘iun Avazagac‘ 452 Gadui mə yišagirk‘ə 491 Gahnamak 438 Galashkreba Lasharis jvris droshit 500 Gamk‘i irigunnerə 531 Ganatleba 506 Ganmarteba poema vepʻxistqaosanisa 414 Garmir lurer paregamēs 22, 530, 532-6 Geschichte des Qorâns 300 Ghāyat al-masʾūl wa-nihāyat al-ma ʾmūl  242 ghaybī, Kitābcha-yi 228 Gigi 500 Giglia  501, 506-7 ‘A girl’s diary', see Ałjgan mə ōrakirə 491 Glext‘a gant‘avisup‘lebis pirvel-droebis sc‘enebi 510

‘Gmiris ideali pshaur p‘oeziis gamokhat‘ulobit’ 506 Goyrə 533-7 ‘The good and bad sides of PshavKhevsureti’, see ‘Pshav-khevsuretis av-k‘argi’ 506-7 Grammar of three principle Oriental languages 170 ‘Grandpa’s thoughts about the world’, see P‘ap‘as msoplio pikrebi 505 ‘Guidance’, see Kitāb al-hidāya 346-7, 349 ‘Guidance for seekers’, see Hidāyat al-ṭālibīn 254, 255-6 ‘Guidance for the disclaimers’, see Hidāyat al-jāḥidīn 259-60 ‘Guidance for those seeking direction, in rebuttal of those who have gone astray’, see Hidāyat al-mustarshidīn, fī radd al-muḍillīn 238, 257-9 ‘Guide to those who err, on the confirmation of the prophethood of the Seal of the prophets’, see Irshād al-muḍillīn fī ithbāt nubuwwat Khātam al-nabiyyīn 80, 94, 97, 100, 189-91, 192, 197, 214, 241 Gulzari tevarikh. Hay millet‘inē dayir hik‘ayēler ilē dōnanmish 373 Gusank‘ 439   Haftād u du millat 278-84 Hamburger Fremdenblatt 467 Ḥaqq al-yaqīn 155 Ḥāshiyaʾī bar Kitāb-i Shifā-yi bū ʿAlī Sīnā 151 Hasht bihisht 276 Ḥavārī-nāma 73 Hay k‘aǰortin 454-60 Hay k‘aǰuhin 454-60 Hayakhan Ashkarkh (newspaper) 19 Ḥayāt al-qulūb 83, 155 Hayortiner 530, 535 Hayreni ałpiwr 529 Hayreni hraver 530 Hayrenik‘ (newspaper) 530 Henry Martyn. Saint and scholar 103, 106-9, 118 Həyat (newspaper) 542 Al-hidāya, Kitāb 346-7, 349 Hidāyat al-ḍāllīn wa-taqwiyya al-muʾminīn 73 Hidāyat al-jāḥidīn 259-60 Hidāyat al-mustarshidīn, fī radd al-muḍillīn 238, 257-9 Hidāyat al-Shīʿa 254



Index of Titles

Hidāyat al-ṭālibīn 254, 255-6 Al-Hilāl (magazine; Quilliam) 322 Hindistan şahzadəsi Kamal əd-Dövlənin öz dostu İran şahzadəsi Cəlal əd-Dövləyə üç məktubu və Cəlal əl-Dövlənin ona cavab, see also Kəmalüddövlə məktubları 465-76 Historical and descriptive account of Persia 113, 114 ‘History of the Armenians from the beginning of the world to the year 1784 of the Lord’, see Patmut‘iwn hayots‘ i skzbanē ashkharhi minch‘ew ts‘am 1784 Deaṛn 371, 372-93 The History of the Church Missionary Society 56, 358 Hokevark‘i ew hoysi čaher 530 ‘Host and guest’, see St‘umarmasp‘indzeli 499, 501-3, 507 Al-hudā ilā dīn al-Muṣṭafā 349 Ḥujjat al-ilāhiyyīn fī radd al-ṭabīʿiyyīn 334 Ḥujjat al-Islām (Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī) 80, 144-9 Ḥujjat al-Islām fī radd al-khiṣām min al-Yahūd wa-l-Naṣārā wa-l-Majūs (Āqā Najafī) 238, 239-41 Hümmət (newspaper) 539 Ḥusām al-dīn dar ithbāt-i taḥrīf-i Tawrāt u Injīl 272-5   Ifḥām al-Yahūd 73, 74 Al-iḥtijāj 257 I‘jāz e ‘Īswī 300 ‘Illumination of the gloom in commentary on the Torah’, see Miṣbāḥ al-ẓulumāt fī tafsīr al-Tawrāt 13, 85, 86-8 Imedi Razikauli 500 I nahadagut‘iun Vartananc‘ 452 India’s women and China’s daughters. The magazine of the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society 46 Injīl yaʿne vas̤īqah jadīd Ḥaz̤rat ʿĪsā Masīḥ ʿalai-hissalām kā 102 Iqāmat al-shuhūd fī radd ʿalā l-Yahūd 257 Īqāẓ al-nabīh 131 Irak’li brdzolis ts’in 500 Iran’s first Constitution 5, 8, 65, 310-17 Iran’s first Constitution, Supplement to 8, 65, 310-17 Irshād al-ʿawāmm 216 Irshād al-muḍillīn fī ithbāt nubuwwat Khātam al-nabiyyīn 80, 94, 97, 100, 189-91, 192, 197, 214, 241 Irshād ʿibād bi ḥukm-i jihad, see also Jihādiyya-yi ṣughrā/ṣaghīr 179, 182

569

Irshād nāma 157 Al-Islām (journal; Quilliam) 322 Al-Islām (periodical; Dāʿī l-Islām) 15, 318, 320-2, 350 The Islamic Review (journal) 506 Istoria dacqebitʻgan iveriisa 414 Italiur-sparsult ʻurkʻuli lekʻsikoni 413 Ithbāt al-nubuwwa [al-khāṣṣa] (Mīrzā ʿĪsā Qāʾim-Maqām Farahānī) 184-5 Ithbāt-i nubuwwat-i khāṣṣa (Hamadānī)  196-7, 202 Ithbāt al-Wājib taʿālā 82 Ittiḥād-i Musalmānān-i Shanghāʾī 325 Ivane K‘ot‘orashvilis ambavi 501 Iveria (newspaper) 19, 497, 506, 510-13, 514-17 Iẓhār al-ḥaqq 238, 245, 300, 336-7, 339, 340, 349   Jallaledin 20 Jāmāsb-nāma 72, 140 Jāmiʿ al-mawāʿiẓ 255 Jāmiʿ al-saʿādāt, see also Miʿrāj al-saʿāda 136 Jāmiʿ al-shatāt 158, 159-61, 162 Jawāhir al-kalām 254 Jihādiyya (tracts) 114 Jihādiyya (Khātūnābādī) 151, 152-4 Jihādiyya-yi kubrā, see also Aḥkām al-jihād 179, 182 Jihādiyya-yi ṣughrā/ṣaghīr 179, 182 Journal (Charles Masson) 35 Journal and letters (Martyn) 79, 84 A journal of the disasters in Afghanistan, 1841-42 38 Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall 107 Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute 295, 301 Journals and letters of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D. 55, 93, 94, 96, 98, 106, 108 ‘Journey for the collection of supplies’, see Kalmasoba 428-32 A journey from Bengal to England through the northern parts of India, Kashmir, Afghanistan and Persia 33, 34, 35, 36 ‘Journey from Tbilisi to Jerusalem’, see Mgzavroba Tʻbilisidan Ierusalimamde 420, 422-6 Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan 266   Kabul newsletter 42-4 Kacia-adamiani? 510 Kạ̄ ghadh-i Akhbār (newspaper) 171

570

Index of Titles

‘Kakhetʻis tskhovreba’ 485 Kalām al-molūk molūk al-kalām. Dīvān-e Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah, see also Divān-e she‛r 114 Kalmasoba, see also Khumarscavla 428-32 Karnec‘i omn Yarut‘iwn anun eritasard nahatakeal 407-12 Kʻartʻli 500 Kasb al-athar fī ithbāt shaqq al-qamar 334 Kashf al-ghawāya 359 Kavkaz (newspaper) 19 Kavkazskiy plennik 18 K‘awut‘iwnə 532-3 Kəmalüddövlə məktubları 465-76 K‘erakanut‘iwn haigazean lezowi 371 Kəşkül / Kashkūl (periodical) 19 ‘The key of prophethood’, see Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa  80, 94, 191, 192-4, 197, 214, 258, 272 Khalq al-afʿāl 151 Khatʻma gvibrdzana 500 Khātima-yi Nāṣiriyya 219 Khayrātiyya 70, 72 Khent‘ 20 ‘Khevsurebi’ 506 ‘Khevsuris tavi’ 506 Khevsuruli korts‘ili 506 Khulāṣat al-kalām fī iftikhār al-Islām 334, 343-6 Khulāṣat al-manhaj 354 Khumarscavla, see also Kalmasoba 428-32 ‘King Dimitri the self-sacrificer’, see ‘Mep‘e Dimitri t’avdadebuli’ 513, 520 The kingdom of Georgia 19 Kitāb al-hidāya 346-7, 349 Kitāb al-maghāzī 303 Kitāb al-mubīn 271, 328 Kitab musammā bih yanābīʿ al-Islām, see also Yanābīʿ ul-Islām 286, 294, 301, 303-4, 305, 306 Kitābcha-yi ghaybī 228 Kitāb-i aqdas 7 Kitāb-i marḥūm Mullā ʿAlī-Akbar dar Jawāb-i Shubuhāt-i Pādrī, see also Risāla-yi raddi pādrī (Izhihī) 127-9 Kitāb-i muqaddas (ʿAhd-i jadīd) 247 Khrakhchan patmut‘ean hayots‘  373 K‘nnakan patmut‘iwn hayots‘ ēst noraguyn patmakan, lezuabanakan ew banasirakan teghekut‘eants‘ 392 The Koran (Sale) 223, 342, 347, 348

Kragan ev Imasdasiragan Šaržumə (periodical) 491 Krebuli (magazine) 471 ‘K‘rit‘ik‘a b.ip’. vartagvasi’ 506 Kvali (magazine) 485, 486   ‘Lasharis jvaris dgheoba anu lasharoba’ 506, 507 ‘Lasharoba’ 506, 507 ‘The latest Muhammadan mare’s nest’ 306 Lavāmiʿ-i rabbānī dar radd-i shubha-yi Naṣrānī 73 ‘The letter of Muḥammad ʿAlī to the judge of Khiva’, see Risāla-yi Muḥammad ʿAlī bi qāḍī-i Khīva 201-2 Letters from the front (CMS) 361, 363, 366 The Letters of Henry Martyn, East India Company Chaplain 107, 109-10 ‘The letters of Kamāl al-Dawla’, see Kəmalüddövlə məktubları 465-76 ‘The letters that the Indian Prince Kamāl al-Dawla, the son of Aurangzeb, wrote to his friend, the Iranian prince residing in Egypt, Jalāl al-Dawla, and Jalāl al-Dawla’s reply to him dated 1280’, see Kəmalüddövlə məktubları 465-76 Life among the Afghans 41 The life and adventures of Emin Joseph Emin 16, 394-5, 396-405 The life and adventures of Joseph Émïn, an Armenian 16, 394-5, 396-405 The life of Abdur Rahman Amir of Afghanistan 42 The life of Mahomet 294 The life of Napoleon Bonaparte 206 ‘The light of guidance in the proof of prophethood’, see Nūr al-hidāya fī ithbāt al-risāla 82-4 ‘The lights of inspiration’, see Shawāriq al-ilhām 81-2 Lit‘erat‘uruli Sakartvel 506 ‘The lives of the hearts’, see Ḥayāt al-qulūb 83, 155 Luarsab the martyr 512-13 Al-lumʿa l-Dimashqiyya 77 The lyre and the grave 453   Maʿālim al-uṣūl 77 al-maghāzī, Kitāb 303 Mah k‘aǰortwoyn 454-60 Maḥḍar al-shuhūd fī radd al-Yahūd 134, 140, 190, 256, 257 Mahmadian kartvelta bedi 519



Index of Titles

Majmaʿ al-awṣāf 221 Majmaʿ al-rasāʾil 328 ‘The major treatise on jihād’, see Jihādiyya-yi kubrā 179, 182 A Maktūbāt-i Kamāl al-Dawla, see also Kəmalüddövlə məktubları 465-76 Maktūbāt-i shāhzādi-yi Hindūstān Kamāl al-Dawla farzandi Awrangzīb ki bi dūst-i khud shāhzādi-yi Irānī Jamāl al-Dawla sākin-I Miṣr nivishta ast wa jawāb-i Jalāl al-Dawla bi ū bi tārīkh-i hizār u divīst u hashtād-i hijrī, see also Kəmalüddövlə məktubları 465-76 Al-Manār (journal) 305 ‘The manifestation of truth’, see Iẓhār al-ḥaqq 238, 245, 300, 336-7, 339, 340, 349 A manual of the leading Muhammadan objections to Christianity 286, 291, 297-301 Maqāmiʿ al-faḍl 69 ‘The mare’s nest again’ 306 marḥūm Mullā ʿAlī-Akbar dar Jawāb-I Shubuhāt-i Pādrī, Kitāb-i 127-9 ‘Martyrology of Sayat‘ Nova’, see Ašuł Arut‘iwn Tp‘łisec‘i (Sayeat‘ Nova) 439-44 Mary Bird in Persia 358 Maṣābīḥ al-qulūb 151 Mathnawī maʿnawī 342 ‘Matters of holy war’, see Jihādiyya (Khātūnābādī) 151, 152-4 Memoir of Asahel Grant 51 A memoir of Mrs. Judith Grant 51 Memoir of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D. 105-11 Memoir of the Reverend David Tappan Stoddard, missionary to the Nestorians 53 ‘Memoirs of a cat’, see Gadui mə yišagirk‘ə 491 Memoirs of the life of Sir James Mackintosh 33 Memorials of Afghanistan 38 ‘Mep‘e Dimitri t‘avdadebuli’, see also ‘King Dimitri the self-sacrificer’ 513, 520 ‘Messiah versus Muhammad in Bombay’ 285, 287-92 Mgzavroba Tʻbilisidan Ierusalimamde 420, 422-6 Miftāḥ al-asrār 258 Miftāḥ al-khazāʾin 201 Miftāḥ al-nubuwwa 80, 94, 191, 192-4, 197, 214, 258, 272

571

Al-milal wa-l-niḥal 134 ‘The minor treatise on jihād’, see Jihādiyya-yi ṣughrā/ṣaghīr 179, 182 Miʿrāj al-saʿāda, see also Jāmiʿ al-saʿādāt 136 ‘The mirror for ʿAbbās to exhibit the knowledge of the truth’, see Ayīna-yi ʿAbbāsī 133-5 Miṣbāḥ al-ẓulumāt fī tafsīr al-Tawrāt 13, 85, 86-8 Mishkāt al-ḥayāt 221 Mishneh Torah 87 ‘Mission in Persia' 357 Missionary journal (Wolff) 93, 104 Mizān al-ḥaqq 14, 165, 222-4, 236, 238, 245, 257, 258, 259, 272, 300 Mīzān al-mawāzīn fī amr al-dīn 222-4, 238 Mkhedarta dzveli simghera 500 Mohammedan controversy 96 Mokhutsis natkvami 501 Mokvetili 505-6 Molla Nəsrəddin 538 The Moslem World 40, 286, 306 Mshak (newspaper) 543 Mtsʻqʻemsis simghera 500 al-mubīn, Kitāb 271, 328 Munshaʾāt 185 Munyat al-murtād fī dhikr nufāt al-ijtihād 131 muqaddas (ʿAhd-i jadīd), Kitāb-i 247 Muslim controversy 304 musammā bih yanābīʿ al-Islām, Kitab, see also Yanābīʿ ul-Islām 286, 294, 301, 303-4, 305, 306 Mustanad al-Shīʿa fī aḥkām al-sharīʿa 136   Nafathat al-maṣdūr 131 Nangrevta shoris 501 Narrative of a journey into Khorasan in the years 1821 and 1822 34 Narrative of the campaign of the army of the Indus in Sind and Kaubool in 1838-9 37 Narrative of various journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan, the Panjab and Kalat 32, 34, 37 Nāsikh al-tawārīkh 69, 115, 131, 176, 177, 179, 206, 207, 249, 250 Natela 485 Nevuat ha-yeled 140 Nikolooz Gostašabišvili 514, 520 1905-1906-cı illərdə erməni-müsəlman davası 22, 525-8 The Nineteenth Century (journal) 304

572

Index of Titles

The Nineteenth Century and After (journal) 305 Ninth report of the Peshawar mission 40 Nirvana 496 The noble eightfold path 286 Nor Geank‘ (newspaper) 490 Notes and reminiscences of E[leanor] L[ydia] M[itcheson] of Peshawar 45 Nūr al-hidāya fī ithbāt al-risāla 82-4 Nuṣrat al-dīn 213-18, 272, 273, 274   ‘The offspring’, see Zawagə 534 ‘On a certain brave-hearted girl named Vaṙvaṙ’, see Yałags Vaṙvaṙ anun umemn ariasirt ałǰkan 407-12 ‘On a certain youth Sahak called Msər’, see Yałags umemn Msər koč‘ec‘eal Sahak mankan 407-12 ‘On the gallows’, see Sarč‘obelazed 514-15 Ori ambavi mepe erek‘lesi mtashi darchenili 504 Oriental Sketches, or reminiscences of travel in India etc. 33, 37 Les orientales 455 The original sources of the Qur’ân 286, 294, 295, 301-9 ‘Ottoman Georgians’ 488   P‘ap‘as msoplio pikrebi 505 ‘A polemical discussion between the priest and the Ingilo effendi’ 518-19 P‘olemik‘uri saubari ghvdlisa ingilot ependistan 518-19 Panper (periodical) 529 Parə 534-7 ‘The path of deliverance’, see Sabīl al-najāt 244-8 Patmut‘iwn hayots‘ i skzbanē ashkharhi minch‘ew ts‘am 1784 Deaṛn 371, 372-93 Patmut‘iwn Hayots‘ Skseal i 1772 Amē P‘rkch‘in minch‘ew Ts‘amn 1860 Zhamankagrut‘eamb Ereweli Irats‘  392 Patmut‘iwn i Heraclē 376, 377 Paymān-i jadīd-i Khudāvand va Rahānandah-ʾi mā ʿIsá-yi Masīḥ 103-5 Persia and the Persian question 264 Persia and the Persians 265 Persia, Eastern mission 265 Persia. The land of the imams 54 ‘Persian diaries’, see Sparsuli Dġiurebi 413, 415-18

Persian life and customs 208 The Persian revolution of 1905-1909 313 Philosophical dictionary 491 ‘Pikrebi vepkhist‘q‘aosnis shesakheb’ 506-7 The poems of Charles Wolfe 456 Political diaries of Lieutenant H.B. Edwardes, assistant to the Resident at Lahore, 1847-1849 38 Political letter from the government of India at Fort William 37 ‘The proof of Islam. A refutation of the opponents, Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians’, see Ḥujjat al-Islām fī radd al-khiṣām min al-Yahūd wa-l-Naṣārā wa-l-Majūs (Āqā Najafī) 238, 239-41 ‘Proof of [Muḥammad’s] particular prophethood’, see Ithbāt-i nubuwwat-i khāṣṣa (Hamadānī) 196-7, 202 ‘The proof of Muslims’, see Burhān al-Muslimīn 15, 338-41 ‘Proofs of the prophethood of [Muḥammad] for Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah’, see Burhān al-nubuwwa-yi Nāṣirī 251-3 ‘Proof of the religion’, see Ḥujjat al-Islām  80, 144-9 ‘Pshavelebi’ 506 ‘Pshaveli dedak‘atsis mdgomareoba da ideali pshauris p‘oeziis gamokhat‘ulobit’ 506 ‘Pshav-khevsuretis av-k‘argi’ 506-7 ‘Pshavlebis dzveli samartali da saojakho ts‘esebi’ 506 ‘The Pshavs’, see ‘Pshavelebi’ 506 Punjab Government Records, Lahore Political Diaries, 1846-1849 39   Qāmūs al-lugha 72 Qanlı sənələr 528, 538, 540-6 Qanlı illər 528, 538, 540-6 Qānūn (journal) 225, 277 Al-qawānīn al-muḥkama fī l-uṣūl al-mutqana 158 Qəflət 538 Qiwām al-umma fī radd shayāṭīn al-kufra 236-9, 241   Radd-i pādrī, see also Ḥujjat al-Islām (Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī) 80, 144-9 Rādd shubuhāt al-kuffār bar dhikr-i abḥāth-i milal-i thalāth 71-5 Rasāʾil va fatāwā-yi jihādī 152



Index of Titles

Recollections of the Kabul campaign, 1879 and 1880 42, 48 ‘Red news from my friend’, see Garmir lurer paregamēs 22, 530, 532-6 ‘Refutation of a Father’, see Ḥujjat al-Islām (Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī) 80, 144-9 ‘Refutation of some Christian sophistries in response to the deceased Āqā Mīr Muḥammad Davānī’, see Risāla dar radd-i baʿḍ-i shubuhāt-i Naṣrāniyya dar javāb-i marḥūm Āqā Mīr Muḥammad Davānī 329-31 Register of missionaries and native clergy (CMS) 357, 358, 362, 363, 364, 365, 366 ‘Rejecting the sophistries of the unbelievers by presenting inquiries into the three faiths’, see Rādd shubuhāt al-kuffār bar dhikr-i abḥāth-i milal-i thalāth 71-5 The religion of the crescent 286, 290-1, 292-6, 301, 305 ‘Religiosity', see Tadayyun (periodical) 334, 349-52 Reminiscences of forty-three years in India 39 Reminiscences of missionary work in Amritsar, 1872-1873, and on the Afghan frontier in Peshawar, 1873-1890 40 ‘Report of the Persia and Baghdad Mission’ (CMS) 359, 364, 366 Report on India and Persia 59 ‘Report on the Armenians of Cabul’ 35-7, 38, 39, 41 Researches and missionary labours 37 ‘Researches of the Rev. E. Smith and Rev. H.G.O. Dwight in Armenia’ 51 A residence of eight years in Persia among the Nestorian Christians with notices of the Muhammedans 51, 208-9 ‘Response to Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī’s “Proof of [Muḥammad’s] particular prophethood”’, see Risāla dar javāb-i Ithbāt-i nubuwwat-i khāṣṣa-yi Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī 202-4 The Review of Religions (journal) 305 Revue de Philosophie Positive 230 Risāla […] dar baʿḍī umūr-i dīn-i masīḥiyān 73 Risāla dar iʿjāz-i Qurʾān 164-6 Risāla dar javāb-i Ithbāt-i nubuwwat-i khāṣṣa-yi Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā Hamadānī 202-4

573

Risāla dar qibla 81 Risāla dar radd-i baʿḍ-i shubuhāt-i Naṣrāniyya dar javāb-i marḥūm Āqā Mīr Muḥammad Davānī 329-31 Risāla dar raddi pādrī Naṣrānī 122 Risāla dar tawḥīd 151 Risāla dar wujūb-i niqāb u ḥurmat-i sharāb 352-6 Risāla fī aḥkam al-jizya fī zamān al-ghayba 162-4 Risāla fī ithbāt nubuwwa khāṣṣa 77-80 Risālaʾī dar jawāz-i intiqāl-i naʿsh-i murdagān bih ʿAtabāt 151 Risālaʾī dar qaḍā wa-qadar 151 Risāla-yi awwal [dar javāb-i Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī] 91-5 Risāla-yi duvum [dar takmīl-i javāb-i Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī] 96-7 Risāla-yi ḥaqīqat-namā 196, 200-1 Risāla-yi Ithbāt al-nubuwwa khāṣṣa 196-7, 202 Risāla-yi iʿtiqādāt 122 Risāla-yi jihādiyya (Hamadānī) 194-5 Risāla-yi jihādiyya (Izhihī) 122, 123-4 Risāla-yi jihādiyya (Khātūnābādī) 151, 152-4 Risāla-yi Kunsṭīṭūsiūn 227-33 Risāla-yi Muḥammad ʿAlī bi qāḍī-i Khīva 201-2 Risāla-yi Nāṣiriyya dar jihād/ jihādiyya 218-20 Risāla-yi nuṣrat al-dīn 213-18, 272, 273, 274 Risāla-yi radd-i pādrī (Izhihī) 127-9 Risāla-yi radd-i pādrī (Khātūnābādī) 151, 154-6 Risāla-yi radd-i pādrī (Muḥammad Ḥusayn) 168-9 Risāla-yi sivum [dar radd-i ṭarīq-i ahl-i taṣawwuf ] 96, 98-101 Risāli-ya shams al-hidāya 524 Robert Clark of the Panjab, pioneer and missionary statesman 40 ‘The rules of jihād and the means of guidance’, see Aḥkām al-jihād wa-asbāb al-rishād (Mīrzā ʿĪsā) 123-4, 178-84   Sabīl al-najāt 244-8 Sadghegrdzelo 478-83 Safarnāma (Mīrza Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī) 172-5 Sak‘art‘velos Moambe (journal) 510 Sakartvelos mok‘le ist‘oriuli nark‘vevi 1801-dan 1831 ts‘lamde 435-7

574

Index of Titles

Sakhalkho Purtseli (newspaper) 506 Samocʻeuli 413 Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti (newspaper) 519 ‘Sarč‘obelazed’ 514-15 Sasuliero poezia da publicʻistika 512, 513 Saul 452 Sayf al-muʾminīn wa-hidāyat al-ḍāllīn 139, 140, 257, 258 Sayf al-umma wa-burhān al-milla 118, 138-42, 241, 258, 272, 273 ‘The scattered collection’, see Jāmiʿ al-shatāt  158, 159-61, 162 A second journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Constantinople, between the years 1810 and 1816 55, 94 ‘The second treatise [on completing the response to Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī]’, see Risāla-yi duvum [dar takmīl-i javāb-i Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī] 96-7 Sefer Raziel ha-malʾakh 87 Şərqi-i Rus (newspaper) 19, 538 1795 tsʻlis sakhsovrad 500 ‘Seventy-two sects’, see Haftād u du millat 278-84 Shāhanshāhnāma 114 Shāhnāma (Ferdowsi) 114, 441, 466 Shalvas nanakhi khat‘i 504 Sharāyiʿ al-Islām 254 Sharḥ-i sī faṣl 81 Shawāriq al-ilhām 81-2 ‘Shield of faith’, see Vahan hawatoy 371-2 ‘Short essay on the history of Georgia from 1801 to 1831’, see Sakartvelos mok‘le ist‘oriuli nark‘vevi 1801-dan 1831 ts‘lamde 435-7 Sik’vdili gmirisa 500 ‘Silencing the Jews’, see Ifḥām al-Yahūd 73, 74 Al-sīra al-nabawiyya 303 Al-siyāsa l-Islāmiyya yā siyāsī-I Islāmī  334 The sketches of Persia 113 The sources of Christianity 306 The sources of Islam, see also Yanābīʿ ul-Islām 286, 294, 301, 303-4, 305, 306 Souvenir d’un voyage en Perse 264 Sparsuli Dġiurebi 413, 415-18 The spirit of Islam 292, 294 St‘umar-masp‘indzeli 499, 501-3, 507 Storia do Mogor, or Mughal India, 1653-1708 31 ‘The strength of the community in refuting the devils of the unbelievers’, see Qiwām

al-umma fī radd shayāṭīn al-kufra 2369, 241 Sula da k‘urdghela 501 Sunnat al-hidāya li-hidāyat al-sunna 70 Supplement to the Iranian Constitution 8, 65, 310-17 Suramis cʻixe 445, 446-50 Sweet first-fruits 359 ‘The sword of religion in proof of the corruption of the Torah and the Gospel’, see Ḥusām al-dīn dar ithbāt-i taḥrīf-i Tawrāt u Injīl 272-5 ‘Sword of the believers’, see Sayf al-muʾminīn wa-hidāyat al-ḍāllīn 139, 140, 257, 258 ‘The sword of the nation and proof of the religion’, see Sayf al-umma wa-burhān al-milla  118, 138-42, 241, 258, 272, 273   Tadayyun (periodical) 334, 349-52 Tadhkirat al-aʾimma 134, 140 Taʿjīz al-Masīḥiyyīn fī taʾyīd Burhān al-Muslimīn 341-3 Tajrīd al-uṣūl 136 T‘ałumn k‘aǰortwoyn 454-60 ‘Tamar the sly’ 484-5 ‘Tamar tsbieri’ 484-5 Tanqīḥ al-abḥāth li-l-milal al-thalāth 72-3, 74 Ṭāqdīs 136 Ṭarīq al-ḥayāt 214-15, 244-5, 247, 335 Tanqīḥ al-masāʾil fī maʿrifat uṣūl wa-l-daqāʾiq 77 ‘A task for the Church of the twentieth century’ 289-92 Tavārīkh-i razm u shūrish-i ṭāʾifa-yi arāmana bā musalmānān-i Qafqāz, see also 1905-1906-cı illərdə ermənimüsəlman davası 22, 525-8 Taʿyīn al-ḥudūd ʿalā l-Naṣārā wa-l-Yahūd 334 Tazkira-yi dilgushā 81 ‘Teaching through games or almsgathering’, see Khumarscavla 428-32 T‘ergdaleulebi 510 Testimony borne by the Corân to the Jewish and Christian scriptures 300 Tetro giorgi, shvili ra miq‘av? 501 ‘The third treatise [on rejection of the path of the Sufis], see Risāla-yi sivum [dar radd-i ṭarīq-i ahl-i taṣawwuf ] 96, 98-101 ‘Thoughts about “The knight in the panther’s skin”’, see ‘Pikrebi vepkhist‘q‘aosnis shesakheb’ 506-7



Index of Titles

A thousand and one nights 206 ‘Three letters of the Indian Prince Kamāl al-Dawla to his friend, the prince of Iran, Jalāl al-Dawla, and Jalāl al-Dawla’s reply to him’, see Kəmalüddövlə məktubları  465-76 ‘Tianeturi pellet‘oni’ 506 Tiezerakan patmut‘iwn i skzbanē minch‘ew ts‘mer zhjamanaks 392 Tiuc‘azunk‘ Hayoc‘ 452 Tiwts‘aznōrēn 529 To the zephyr of Alemt‘ał 453 ‘A toast’, see Sadghegrdzelo 478-83 ‘A toastmaster or a feast and a toast after the war in 1827’, see Sadghegrdzelo 478-83 T’olubashi anu omis shemdeg lkhini da sadghegrdzelo 1827 ts’elsa t’olubashi, see also Sadghegrdzelo 478-83 ‘Tornike Eristavi’ 484 ‘Traces’, see Kvali (magazine) 485, 486 Trans-frontier Journal 44 ‘Travelogue’, see Safarnāma (Mīrza Ṣāliḥ Shīrāzī) 172-5 Travels into Bukhara; being the account of a journey from India to Cabool, Tartary and Persia 35, 37, 47 ‘Treatise about rulings on jihād’, see Risāla-yi jihādiyya (Izhihī) 122, 123-4 ‘A treatise in refutation of the priest’, see Risāla-yi radd-i pādrī (Muḥammad Ḥusayn) 168-9 ‘A treatise in refutation of the priest’, see Risāla-yi radd-i pādrī (Khātūnābādī) 151, 154-6 ‘Treatise on jihād for Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah’, see Risāla-yi Nāṣiriyya dar jihād/ jihādiyya 218-20 ‘Treatise on poll tax regulations in the period of occultation’, see Risāla fī aḥkam al-jizya fī zamān al-ghayba 162-4 ‘Treatise on proof of Muḥammad’s prophethood’, see Risāla fī ithbāt nubuwwa khāṣṣa 77-80 ‘Treatise in refutation of the priest’, see Kitāb-i marḥūm Mullā ʿAlī-Akbar dar Jawāb-i Shubuhāt-i Pādrī 127-9 ‘Treatise in refutation of the priest’, see Risāla-yi raddi pādrī (Izhihī) 127-9 ‘Treatise on revealing the truth’, see Risāla-yi ḥaqīqat-namā 196, 200-1 ‘Treatise on the Constitution’, see Risāla-yi Kunsṭīṭūsiūn 227-33

575

‘Treatise on the inimitability of the Qur’an’, see Risāla dar iʿjāz-i Qurʾān 164-6 ‘Treatise on jihād’, see Risāla-yi jihādiyya (Hamadānī) 194-5 ‘A treatise on the obligation of the veil and the prohibition of wine’, see Risāla dar wujūb-i niqāb u ḥurmat-i sharāb 352-6 T‘rk‘uhi 493-6 Trošag (journal) 530 Tsiskari (journal), see also Cʻiskari 446, 478, 510 Tsnobis Purtseli 506 Tuḥfat al-arīb fī radd ahl al-ṣalīb 333 Tuḥfat al-safar li-nūr al-baḥr 81 ‘The Turkish woman’, see T‘rk‘uhi 493-6 T‘xzulebat‘a sruli krebuli oc‘ tomad 513, 515, 517, 519, 520   Uighblo ighbliani 501 ‘Unlucky lucky’ 501 Uts‘q‘alo senman 434   Vah, droni, droni 434 Vahan hawatoy 371-2 Vahan Hawatoy ughghap‘aṛowt‘ean hayastaneats‘ ekeghets‘woy 372 Vałuan Dz‘aynə (newspaper) 529 Ved Afghanistans Grænse, Teltmssionens Historie til 1917 46 Vērk‘ Hayastani 18 Vətən səsi 545 Vətən və hürriyyət 538 ‘A victory’, see Yałt‘anag mə 534-7 ‘The victory of religion’, see Nuṣrat al-dīn 213-18, 272, 273, 274 Vis emukreba (simghera)? 500 Visats gsurt 434 Vsepoddaneyshaya zapiska po upravleniyu kavkazskim krayem generala-adyutanta grafa Vorontsova-Dashkova 542   Waage der Wahrheit, see also Mizān al-ḥaqq 222, 236 Wafayāt al-aʿyān 249 A walk on the giant mountain 453 Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen? 295, 302 ‘The way of life’, see Ṭarīq al-ḥayāt 214-15, 244-5, 247, 335 Woman and her saviour in Persia 53 A word to the wise 305 ‘Wounds of Armenia’, see Vērk‘ Hayastani 18 ‘The writing for ʿAbbās’, see Ayīna-yi ʿAbbāsī 133-5  

576

Index of Titles

Yałags umemn Msər koč‘ec‘eal Sahak mankan 407-12 Yałags Vaṙvaṙ anun umemn ariasirt ałǰkan 407-12 Yałt‘anag mə 534-7 Yanābīʿ ul-Islām, see also The sources of Islam 286, 294, 301, 303-4, 305, 306 ‘Years of blood’, see Qanlı sənələr 528, 538, 540-6 ‘A youth named Łazar was martyred in the city of Babert‘’, see Babert‘ kałakoǰ Łazar anun omn eritasard nahatakeal  407-12

‘A youth named Yarut‘iwn Karnec‘i was martyred’, see Karnec‘i omn Yarut‘iwn anun eritasard nahatakeal 407-12   Al-ẓarāʾif, see also Rādd shubuhāt al-kuffār bar dhikr-i abḥāth-i milal-I thalāth 71-5 Zawagə 534 Zawāʾid al-fawāʾid 242 Zeytun poem cycle 454-60 Zohar 87 Zposank‘ Artašēsi Aṙaǰnoy 452 Zubdat al-maʿārif 122, 125-7, 128, 129

The History of Christian-Muslim Relations, Volume 48 Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History 20 Christian-Muslim Relations, a Bibliographical History 20 (CMR 20), covering Iran, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in the period 1800-1914, is a further volume in a general history of relations between the two faiths from the 7th century to the early 20th century. It comprises a series of introductory essays and the main body of detailed entries. These treat all the works, surviving or lost, that have been recorded. They provide biographical details of the authors, descriptions and assessments of the works themselves, and complete accounts of manuscripts, editions, translations and studies. The result of collaboration between numerous new and leading scholars, CMR 20, along with the other volumes in this series, is intended as a fundamental tool for research in ChristianMuslim relations. Section Editors: Ines Ašcˇeric´-Todd Clinton Bennett Luis F. Bernabé Pons Jaco Beyers Emanuele Colombo Lejla Demiri Martha T. Frederiks David D. Grafton Stanisław Grodz´

Alan M. Guenther Vincenzo Lavenia Arely Medina Diego Melo Carrasco Alain Messaoudi Gordon Nickel Claire Norton Reza Pourjavady Douglas Pratt

Charles Ramsey Peter Riddell Umar Ryad Cornelia Soldat Charles Tieszen Carsten Walbiner Catherina Wenzel

David Thomas FBA PhD (1983) in Islamic Studies, University of Lancaster, is Emeritus Professor of Christianity and Islam at the University of Birmingham. Among his most recent works are CMR vols 1-19 (Brill, 2009-22). John Chesworth PhD (2008) in Religious Studies, University of Birmingham, is Research Officer for Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History 1500-1900 at the University of Birmingham, co-editing CMR vols 6-14, 16-19 (Brill, 2014-22). He has published on ChristianMuslim Relations in Africa, most recently Mixed Messages: Using the Bible and Qur ʾa¯ n in Swahili Tracts (Brill, 2022).

9 789004 471689

ISSN 1570-7350 brill.com/hcmr