The Cosmic Perils of Qadi ?usayn Maybudi in Fifteenth-century Iran (Islamicate Intellectual History, 1) [Lam ed.] 900430231X, 9789004302310

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The Cosmic Perils of Qadi Ḥusayn Maybudī in Fifteenth-Century Iran

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004302327_001

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Islamicate Intellectual History Studies and Texts in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods

Editorial board Judith Pfeiffer (University of Oxford) Shahzad Bashir (Stanford University) Heidrun Eichner (University of Tübingen)

VOLUME 1

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





The Cosmic Perils of Qadi Ḥusayn Maybudī in Fifteenth-Century Iran By

Alexandra W. Dunietz

LEIDEN | BOSTON

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Cover illustration: p.57, Isl. Ms. 260, Special Collections Library (University of Michigan Library), Ann Arbor. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dunietz, Alexandra Whelan, 1961The cosmic perils of Qadi Husayn Maybudi in fifteenth-century Iran / by Alexandra W. Dunietz. pages cm. -- (Islamicate intellectual history ; 1) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-30231-0 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-30232-7 (e-book) 1. Qadi Mir, Husayn ibn Mu’in al-Din, -1504 or 1505. 2. Muslim scholars--Iran--Biography. 3. Judges--Iran--Biography. 4. Sunnites--Relations--Shi’ah. 5. Shi’ah--Relations--Sunnites. I. Title. BP80.Q3184D86 2016 955’.028092--dc23 [B] 2016024967

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 2212-8662 isbn 978-90-04-30231-0 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-30232-7 (e-book) Copyright 2016 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. 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. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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To the Memory of DeWitt Alexander (Dutch) Higgs (1907-1994) Vincent Ambrose Whelan (1904-1979) Vincent Edward Whelan (1934-2005) Committed to Learning, Law, and Public Service

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Contents Contents

Contents Acknowledgements ix Transliteration x List of Abbreviations xi 1 Introduction 1 Sources 6 2 Early Years and Education 14 Yazd from Pre-Islamic Times to the Mongols 14 The Timurid Period 17 The Kara Koyunlu Period 21 The Ak Koyunlu Period 23 Maybudī’s Family 26 Maybudī’s Education 33 3 The Sharḥ-i Dīvān-i -ʿAlī 51 The Favātiḥ 58 The Commentary 96 4 Qadi Maybudī 112 5 Last Years and Safavid Confrontation 154 The Jām-i gītī-numā 156 Death 158 6 Conclusion 169 Bibliography 173 Index 191

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Contents Contents Acknowledgements Transliteration List of Abbreviations Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Early Years and Education Chapter 3 The Sharḥ-i Dīvān-i ʿAlī Chapter 4 Qadi Maybudī Chapter 5 Last Years and Safavid Confrontation Chapter 6 Conclusion Bibliography Index

Contents

vii ix x xi 1 1 Sources 14 14 Yazd From Pre-Islamic Times to the Mongols The Timurid Period The Kara Koyunlu Period The Ak Koyunlu Period Maybudī’s Family Maybudī’s Education 51 51 The Favātiḥ The Commentary 112 112 154 154 The Jām-i gītī-numā Death 169 169 173 191

6 14 17 21 23 26 33 58 96

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Acknowledgements Acknowledgements

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Acknowledgements I am grateful to the many teachers and friends who have educated me in the history of the Middle East. Paramount among them is John E. Woods. He introduced me to Qadi Ḥusayn Maybudī many years ago and supported my efforts when I recently reacquainted myself with that interesting man. In addition to sharing his vast erudition about Islamic civilization, he pushed me to think about history and the historian’s craft, about the records that people leave behind and what they leave unsaid. Heshmat Moayyad and Carl Petry also guided that initial research. My gratitude to Evrim Binbaş is immense, for his interest in my work opened up the possibility of putting together this book. The University of Chicago of my graduate school days was a delightful place to learn. Over the years I have come to realize what a gift I was given in the faculty’s patience and perfectionism and how lucky I was to study with such scholars—and with the remarkable students who were my companions in the academy. My pleasure is all the greater in thanking a current graduate student at the university, Andrew James DeRouin, for his help in preparing this manuscript. Many thanks go to the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, which generously supported my graduate studies. At Brill, an anonymous reader and the editorial board of the Islamicate Intellectual History series— Shahzad Bashir, Heidrun Eichner, and Judith Pfeiffer—helped me immensely, and Teddi Dols provided valuable administrative assistance. I alone am responsible for the inevitable mistakes and I take comfort in the thought that my missteps will prompt others to seek a smoother path to knowledge.

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Transliteration

Transliteration

Transliteration The transliteration system is that of the International Journal of Middle East Studies, with the following exceptions: ‘Thā’ is transliterated as ‘th’ in both Arabic and Persian, while ‘dhāl’ is ‘dh’ and ‘ḍād’ is ‘ḍ’ in both languages. The tā’ marbūṭah becomes ‘t’ in construct forms, and otherwise appears as ‘a.’ The transliteration may seem inconsistent because scribes sometimes used tā’ marbūṭah and sometimes ‘tā’ at the end of Arabic words in Persian. I have transliterated them as they appear on the page. As for vowels, final form ‘ī’ will be written as such, and not ‘iyy.’ Final form ‘ū’ will be written as such, and not ‘uww.’ Some commonly used Arabic and Persian terms are given in English forms rather than in transliteration, unless they are part of an individual’s name. The following are the most frequent: amir imam *mawlana ribat tafsir darvish khan mufti shah ulama fiqh khwaja mulla Sufi vizier hadith mahdi qadi sultan waqf *Mawlana is used exclusively. Even if the source in in Ottoman Turkish, Mevlana is not substituted. Names of dynasties are regularly anglicized, unless they are given as part of an individual’s name. All place names appear without transliteration. Philosophical terminology is transliterated according to the language of the original text. Thus, wājib al-wujūd comes from a sentence in Arabic, while vājib al-vujūd from one in Persian. Because IJMES rules do not cover Mongol names, I have chosen the transliteration of EI 2. All quotations from the Qurʾān are from Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall’s translation, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran.

List of Abbreviations List of Abbreviations

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List of Abbreviations BSOAS EI 2 FIZ IA JESHO JGN JRAS MUN REI SDA

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2d ed. Edited by H.A.R. Gibb, J.H. ­Kramers, E. Lévi-Provençal, et al.. Leiden-London, 1954–. Farhang-i Īrān-zamīn. İslam Ansiklopedesi. Istanbul, 1940–. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. Maybudī, Qadi Mīr Ḥusayn. Jām-i gītī-numā. 1029/1619. Bodleian Library. ff. 21b-30b in Ms. Arab f. 65. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. Munsha⁠ʾāt. Munsha⁠ʾāt-i Maybudī: Qāḍī Ḥusayn Ibn Muʿīn al-Dīn Maybudī. Edited by Nuṣrat Allāh Furūhar. Tehran: Nuqṭa, 1376/ 1997. Revue des études islamiques. Sharḥ-i Dīvān-i Mansūb ba Amīr al-Muʾminīn ʿAlī Ibn Abī Ṭālib. Edited by Ḥasan Raḥmānī and Sayyid Ibrāhīm Ashk-Shīrīn. ­Tehran: Mirāth-i Maktūb, 1379/2000.

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List Of Abbreviations

Introduction

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Chapter 1

Introduction Qadi Kamāl al-Dīn Ḥusayn b. Muʿīn al-Dīn ʿAlī Maybudī (d. 910/1504) has long been my cicerone to a fascinating place and time and this book is an attempt to share some of the knowledge and insights I have gained from him. I began studying him not as an extraordinarily remarkable man, but as a ­representative figure of an elite intellectual class in an area of the world marked by politi­c­al and religious turmoil, coping with tribal rivalries and millennial expecta­tions. Born in Yazd to a wealthy and locally influential family, Maybudī left his native city in his youth to study abroad, as did many young men of his background. In Shiraz he learned with such renowned scholars as a Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Asʿad Davānī (d. 908/1503). After a visit to the center of Ak Koyunlu power in Tabriz during the reign of Sultan Yaʿqūb (r. 883–96/1478–90), he was appointed qadi of Yazd, a position he held for at least six years. During that period he corresponded with many significant intellectual and political men in the Ak Koyunlu and Timurid courts. As an adult he produced substantial works of scholarship about every five years, one of the most important being a commentary on the dīvān of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661), the foundational figure of Shiʿite Islam. Like many of his peers, he was a polymath, with interests in philosophy, metaphysics, cosmology, poetry, medicine, mystical experience, and the traditional Islamic sciences of Scripture and law. His available correspondence ends around 897/1491, and he does not reappear in historical sources until 910/1504, when he participated in a revolt in Yazd against Shah Ismāʿīl, who had only recently conquered the area for the nascent Safavid enterprise. The revolt failed and Maybudī was executed. As I discovered, behind that thumbnail sketch hides a life of anxieties and accomplishments, mystical long­ ings and religious obligations, all expressed with the sophisticated literary techniques of the qadi’s culture. Much attention has been paid to the scholarly elite of the Islamic world in other areas and periods, in large part because they were the ones who produced the written materials on which researchers depend. One approach is the prosopographical, in which the many brief sketches in biographical dictionaries (tadhkiras) are analyzed in order to map the group’s genealogical ties, professional duties, political pull, and so on. Another is to scrutinize those same sketches, along with anecdotes in other historical writings, in order to see how contemporary writers and their successors promoted a particular agenda through narration. That approach examines not only what was said, but why it

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004302327_002

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was said in a specific way.1 The method chosen here is to study the elite through the story of a single man.2 In the intriguing field of Ak Koyunlu or, rather, fifteenth-century Iranian life, a monograph on one man, and little known at that, requires justification. Biography can be an approachable way to determine the outlines of a confusing and complex subject. It provides a starting point in rec­ ognizing trends and identifying values to be refined by further research. In addition, by concentrating on an individual, one can never forget the subtleties of daily life and the role of accident in human history that must temper any penchant for generalization. While biography itself demands no lengthy defense, the choice of Maybudī may. He did not rise to great heights of political power nor did he achieve widespread, enduring fame as an exceptional intellectual or man of piety. None­ theless, he was a qadi in an important city during the political and economic turmoil of the late Ak Koyunlu period, wrote several works of which numerous manuscripts have been preserved, considered himself something of a poet, and failed to survive the transition to the Safavid regime. His life thus encapsulates many of the intellectual and political developments in Iran during the latter half of the fifteenth century. The bounty of normative texts for much of pre-modern Islamic history whets our appetite for the facts of everyday life. The ideal ruler, courtier, holy man, scholar and lover dominate written material, leaving the modern reader to wonder what connection those images had to the quotidian. Every scrap of material that sheds light on aspects of life in the world, which existed in harmony with the life of the mind, clarifies modern perception of times and places in which the recognizable and the surprising mix. An examination of the specific details of Maybudī’s life can lead to greater understanding of a social group which played such an essential role in the political history of a turbulent era. The dynasties that struggled for supremacy and survival depended on close ties with their provincial cities for legitimacy and loyalty, manpower and money. 1 For example, see the studies of Richard W. Bulliet, The Patricians of Nishapur: A Study in Medieval Islamic Social History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972); Michael Cooperson, Classical Arabic Biography: The heirs of the prophets in the age of al-Ma⁠ʾmūn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Carl Petry, The Civilian Elite of Cairo in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981). 2 For example, see İlker Evrim Binbaş, “Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī (ca. 770s–858/ca. 1370s–1454): Prophecy, Politics, and Historiography in Late Medieval Islamic History” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2009); Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest for a Universal Science: The Occult Philosophy of Ṣāʾin al-Dīn Turka Iṣfahānī (1369–1432) and Intellectual Millenarianism in Early Timurid Iran” (PhD diss., Yale University, 2012).

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The danger is that such an examination can easily turn into a whirlwind tour of the highlights of history, a remix of the greatest hits of Sunnis, Shiʿis, and Sufis, Persians and Turks, bureaucrats and soldiers, played on a provincial radio, if I may indulge in anachronism. What I have tried to do is use Maybudī’s life to show, in a concrete way, how the most productive elements of the political and religious history of the fifteenth century were interrelated in a complex network of action and idea. No one element can be understood in isolation from the others. By anchoring religious education and professional advancement, philosophy and poetry, ʿAlidism and confessional ambiguity in the life of one man, my hope is that it will be seen how naturally they all fit together in a fifteenth-century man’s understanding of the cosmos, not just as a sequence of discrete events possibly linked by cause and effect. This study will begin with Maybudī’s early years and education, briefly surveying the geographical and political situation into which he was born and the scholarly environment that enabled him to gain pre-eminence. From the details of his life, we see how the education given to a member of a leading provincial family offered the possibility of political and social security to its recipient. Maybudī’s broad yet structured education was the product of centuries of scholarship and provided him entry to an inter-regional scholarly elite that could bestow respect in times of peace and refuge in times of war. The book will then proceed to focus in detail on Maybudī’s major opus, the Sharḥ-i Dīvān-i ʿAlī, (Commentary on the Poetry of ʿAlī), a fascinating compendium of knowledge and personal opinion that differs considerably from his other writings in length and complexity. It is a work that he could not have composed without his particular kind of education, wrestling as it does with the demands of reason and spirit. Filling over two hundred pages, the introduction builds a cosmological structure around the figure of ʿAlī. We will explore the myriad chambers and alcoves designed to accommodate the First Cause, astral bodies, prophets, the Mahdi, and much more, before turning to features of the poetic exegesis. In the Sharḥ Maybudī presents his intellectual and religious vision of the world and not incidentally, offers insight into the attitudes of the Sunni scholarly elite in Iran towards Shiʿism. Maybudī expresses sincere appreciation of the Imams along with moderate disapproval of certain of their followers. His discussion of Shiʿites lacks vehemence because in his book they are not perceived as an active, organized body that poses any threat to the existing order. McChesney hits the mark in saying, “Devotion to the Family of the Prophet and belief in the efficacy of saintly intercession can coexist quite easily with adher-

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ence to a Sunni-Jamaʿi legal doctrine and with Shiʿi historicism.”3 Coexistence should not be confused with an absence of tension. Maybudī’s commentary articulates the contradictions of ʿAlid loyalism and thereby creates a workable system of belief. Our attention will then turn to Maybudī’s letters and the glimpses they offer into the life of a qadi in western Iran during the late fifteenth century, with its various satisfactions and concerns. As research into the post-Mongol period continues to expand, producing detailed works on local histories and specific historians and more clearly defining religious and scholarly networks and institutions, texts touching on Maybudī’s life help to sharpen our focus on social and cultural developments. Maybudī’s career as a qadi reveals the network of relations between the provinces and the center and the multiple levels on which a civilian administrator operated. He maintained close contact with powerful bureaucrats at court throughout his tenure as qadi, with the goal of thriving as profitable landlord, representative of the inhabitants of his region, both common people and scholarly elite, and friend of men on his own social level. Finally, the story of Maybudī’s death ushers in a new era, with its own continuities and disruptions. A number of Maybudī’s friends and fellow students took advantage of the possibility to leave Ak Koyunlu lands during the Safavid upheaval and found a safe haven elsewhere, but Maybudī himself was not so fortunate. He did not survive into the Safavid period and may, in fact, have resisted the dynastic change, while many of his colleagues chose a different course of action and survived. Although the outlines of his last years and death can be drawn, they essentially remain an enigma. We cannot tell whether circumstances utterly unknown to us—a dying wife, his own poor health, a promising student, a construction project, love for his home, or any number of factors—constrained the choices of this one middle-aged man. He may have been coerced into rebellion or have taken a calculated risk to oppose Shah Ismāʿīl. What we do know is that while membership in the scholarly elite did not dictate his actions, it shaped his options. None of the events in Maybudī’s life or the works he left behind can be understood without appreciating the spiritual excitement of the fifteenth century. It appears in reflections on religious identity, manifestations of mystical charisma, and a fascination with the esoteric qualities of letter, number, magic and medicine, all of which appear in a variety of works in the Islamicate world and Europe at this time. Maybudī’s commentary on the poetry of ʿAlī places 3 R.D. McChesney, Waqf in Central Asia: Four Hundred Years in the History of a Muslim Shrine, 1480–1889 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 34.

Introduction

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him smack in the middle of research into the nature of Shiʿism, Sufism, and ʿAlid loyalty in the period leading up to the establishment of the Safavid empire. Extremist Sufi brotherhoods with their often folkloric expression of devotion to the descendants of the Prophet offer drama and exoticism and, along with those of a more moderate bent, played an unquestionably significant role in religious and political developments of the post-Mongol period. In both the commentary and the collection of his letters, Maybudī reveals that his thought is imbued with mystical perception, although he teaches us next to nothing about Sufi institutions. He speaks the language of the Naqshbandi and Nurbakhshi orders, yet offers no clues about how Sufi organizations operated in his city or his life. Tantalizing details challenge us to explore the entire range of religious expression in order to clarify our understanding of the big picture. We want to know the particulars of why Tīmūr’s tombstone bears a consciously contrived genealogy tracing back to ʿAlī, why a Naqshbandi poet as renowned as Nūr alDīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 898/1492) reportedly engaged in a dispute over the phrase “ʿAlī walī Allāh” (ʿAlī is the friend of God”), and why in 885/1480–81 a descendant of Bāyazīd Bisṭāmī (d. 261/875 or 264/877–78) revived the cult of ʿAlī’s tomb in Balkh with the support of the reigning Timurid, Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Bayqarā (r. 875–912/1470–1506).4 The figure of ʿAlī came to be loaded with tremendous symbolic freight for individuals and groups of varying religious temperaments, so focusing on the details of a specific text or event helps us take its measure. An examination of Maybudī’s life and works invites us to look at subtle shifts in the status quo, in the concerns of people who did not don red cap and pick up sword to follow a charismatic leader, but rather inhabited a solid tradition of careful study, personal piety, and communal obligation. The drive to reconcile contradictions is fundamental to Maybudī’s outlook on the cosmos, and is inextricable from his interest in philosophy. By now the vigor of philosophical thought after Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) is accepted, as is the fact that we know too little about it because vast amounts of material remain unedited and unstudied. Examining Maybudī’s works contributes to a clearer articulation of the concerns of philosophers between Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240) and Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1050/1640). As far as we know, Maybudī did not present a startling new approach, and yet for a more complete understanding of the transformation of philosophical ideas, it would seem necessary to trace subtle changes as well as to concentrate on more dazzling scholarly lights. It is also beneficial to tinker with the framework within 4 Shahzad Bashir, Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003), 181; McChesney, Waqf, 31.

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which we negotiate our analyses of philosophical texts. Uneasy with labeling a particular scholar as purely neo-Aristotelian, Illuminationist, theological, legal or philosophical in his writings, I have to resist falling back on those conceptual categories as separate lenses through which to analyze post-classical ­writings, thereby running the risk of oversimplification. Maybudī himself constantly negotiated among the numerous strands of thought to which his education exposed him and repeatedly acknowledged the inconsistent correlation of words to ideas and the inadequacy of language to articulate and encompass the profundity of the universe. The fifteenth century is important because of the forces that drove the shift from late medieval to early modern Iran. The Safavids developed as one of the three ‘gunpowder empires,’5 spread Shiʿism throughout the area, and generally created an Iran that is more recognizable to us than that of the Turkoman dynasties. In however limited a way, Maybudī contributed to the development of relations between Sunnis and Shiʿis, provincial elites and central authorities, rationalist philosophers and mystics. Drawing constantly on the past to make sense of his present, he demonstrates how every generation must define anew its relation to the divine, to the polity, and to the neighborhood community. The danger of hindsight must restrain our conclusions, but clearly Maybudī played an active role in tumultuous times.

Sources

Among the reasons to study the provincial qadi is the hefty corpus of writings that he left behind. Ranging from scattered tax exemptions to lengthy commentaries, the mixed bag of sources for medieval Iranan history leads to fruitful questions, even as its very fragmentation frustrates reaching definitive answers. The ulama were prolific writers. Scholars such as Davānī and Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Lāhījī (d. 912/1506–07) have left many manuscripts, largely unedited as of yet, and it behoves us to take a look at them because they indicate what the society valued in realms as disparate as education, government, and spirituality.6 5 Marshall G.S. Hodgson, “The Safavid Empire: Triumph of the Shi’ah, 1503–1722,” in The Venture of Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 3:16–58. 6 For a concise overview of Davānī’s life and works, see Reza Pourjavady, Philosophy in Early Safavid Iran (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 4–16; Davānī’s philosophical disagreements with Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Dashtakī in Shiraz, 74; Maybudī’s lack of involvement in them, unlike Ilāhī Ardabīlī who criticized his master, 86.

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Maybudī’s principal writings will be discussed in detail within the text of this work, but as an introduction they can be divided into textbooks on grammar and philosophy, the commentary on ʿAlī’s dīvān, and correspondence.7 Maybudī’s earliest work was a commentary on Athīr al-Dīn Abharī’s (d. 663/1264) work on logic, Hidāyat al-ḥikma or Hidāyat al-Athīrīya, an outline of philosophical principles, completed in 880/1475.8 A unique manuscript of Maybudī’s commentary on Najm al-Dīn ʿAlī b. ʿUmar Kātibī’s (d. 675/1276) work on logic, al-Shamsīya, which was composed in 886/1481–82, is found in the Chester Beatty Library and was copied in 890/1485,9 while that on Ibn al-Ḥājib’s (d. 647/1249) grammar, al-Kāfiya, seems to be no longer extant. Among other works, Maybudī wrote commentaries or marginal notes for the Ṭawāliʿ alanwār of Qadi Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Bayḍāwī (d. 685/1286) on scholastic theology (kalām), the Ḥikmat al-ʿayn, the Gulshan-i rāz of Maḥmūd Shabistarī (d. ca. 740/1340; in Persian), and Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī’s (d. 672/1274) Taḥrīr-i Uqlīdis.10 7

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Raḥmānī and Ashk-Shīrīn’s introduction to the Sharḥ-i Dīvān-i ʿAlī lists 19 works by Maybudī and gives useful information about them and extant manuscripts and editions: SDA, ‘si-u hasht through chihil-u haft.’ Abharī’s work covers logic, physics and metaphysics, the last two forming the subject of many commentaries and glosses. Pourjavady remarks on the popularity of Maybudī’s commentary soon after it was written. A student of Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Dashtakī, Davānī’s rival in Shiraz, also wrote glosses on it. Pourjavady, Philosophy in Early Safavid Iran, 111–12. Gutas points out the importance of Abharī’s books to Arabic philosophy from both thematic and pedagogical perspectives and the need for research on them, their transmission, and their elaboration in subsequent centuries. Dimitri Gutas, “The Study of Arabic Philosophy in the Twentieth Century,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 29, 1 (2002): 16. Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur (Original edition: 2 vols. Weimar: E. Felber, 1898–1902. 3 supplement vols. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1937–42. Revised edition of Vols. I-II. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1943–49), 1:466. Davānī also wrote a commentary on this: MUN, 52. Īraj Afshār, “Qāḍī Mīr Ḥusayn Maybudī,” Yaghmā 1 (1327/1948–49): 221–22. Those four works, while mentioned by Afshār, have not appeared in any of the catalogues searched for Maybudī’s writings. Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur, 1:466. Maybudī cites al-Ṭūsī’s dhayl on the Taḥrīr-i Uqlīdis in SDA, 28. The output of a contemporary, Kamāl al-Dīn al-Ilāhī al-Ardabīlī (d. 950/1543), offers interesting points of comparison. IlāhI was a follower of the Safavid Shaykh Ḥaydar (d. 892/1487), who encouraged him to continue his studies, which he did with Davānī. Like Maybudī, Ilāhī wrote a commentary on the Gulshan-i rāz, based on the commentary of Shams al-Dīn al-Lāhījī (completed by 882/1477) and on al-Ṭūsī’s Taḥrīr-i Uqlīdis. He also wrote glosses on Maybudī’s commentary on the Hidāyat al-ḥikma. Ilāhī benefited from the patronage of Amir ʿAlī Shīr Navāʾī (d. 906/1501), the vizier of the Timurid Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Mīrzā b. Manṣūr b. Bayqarā

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As mentioned above, a commentary of a different nature is that on the Dīvān of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, completed in Ṣafar 890/February-March 1485. It is referred to occasionally as the Favātiḥ because of the seven introductory sections (fātiḥas) which precede the commentary proper. In that part the following subjects are presented: the true path of the elect, God’s essence, His names and attributes, the greater man or macrocosm, the lesser man or microcosm, prophecy and sainthood and, finally, the virtues and history of ʿAlī. The commentary itself takes the poems ascribed to ʿAlī verse by verse and gives philological, historical, philosophical, and mystical explanations of them. In addition to commentaries, Maybudī wrote a philosophical treatise entitled Jām-i gītī-numā (The World-reflecting Mirror) in Shiraz in 897/1492. Dedicated to an unnamed figure of authority in Fars, it is a brief introduction to cosmology. It consists of an introduction, thirty short sections, and a conclusion. The contents discuss existence, theosophy, metaphysics, physiological and superlunary matters, the spheres, stars, and the sublunary elements.11 What gives the work a significant place in the history of philosophy is that an Arabic version with a translation into Latin was published in 1641 in Paris and according to Hans Daiber, it is “the first philosophical text published in Europe, preceding the edition of Ibn Ṭufayl, Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān published by E. Pococke (1671).”12 Over a century after Maybudī’s death, the concise elegance of his writing found an audience many miles and cultures away. A different type of elegant writing reveals aspects of Maybudī’s life outside his academic endeavors—namely, his Munsha⁠ʾāt, which is a collection of some 112 letters to leading political and intellectual figures of the Ak Koyunlu and Timurid realms. Binbaş draws a useful distinction between prescriptive and descriptive munsha⁠ʾāt collections, the former offering theoretical approaches to the epistolary craft and the latter comprising collections of letters along with other bits and pieces, such as introductions to literary works, notices of the construction of public works, and so on.13 Maybudī’s oeuvre falls squarely

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in Herat, and one of Maybudī’s correspondents. Unlike Maybudī, Ilāhī became a respected figure at the Safavid court, where he wrote a treatise on Shiʿi law and other works on Shiʿi subjects. Pourjavady, Philosophy, 41–44. It has been attributed to Mīr Ghiyāth al-Dīn Manṣūr (d. 948–9/1541–42), but that attribution has been rejected. See Carl Hermann Ethé, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office (Oxford: H. Hart, 1903), 1:410. Pourjavady, Philosophy, 35: “An Arabic version of this work, together with a translation into Latin by Ibrāhīm al-Ḥaqilānī (Abraham Ecchellensis, 1605–64), was published in 1641 in Paris.” Hans Daiber, Bibliography of Islamic Philsophy (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 1: 628. Binbaş, “Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī,” 12–15. See also Colin P. Mitchell, “To Preserve and Protect: Husayn Vaʿiz-i Kashifi and Perso-Islamic Chancellery Culture,” Iranian Studies 36/4 (2003): 485–507.

Introduction

9

in the second category. Seventy-one letters are found in the Istanbul University manuscript,14 Īraj Afshār published sections of another,15 and Furūhar used manuscripts in Iran for his edition of the letters. In the manuscripts, the letters are copied without any apparent system and few bear dates, although they seem to have been written primarily in the early 890s/late 1480s.16 Most are written in Persian, but a number are in Arabic or have numerous quotations from the Qurʾān, hadith, and fiqh literature.17 Many fall under the rubric ikhvānīyāt or friendship notes, while others deal with commissions that Maybudī fulfilled for administrators in Tabriz, requests for disaster assistance, and intellectual issues.18 They all provide evidence of links between members of the scholarly and ruling elites in the Ak Koyunlu and Timurid realms. Because Maybudī’s correspondents were such eminent figures, the Munsha⁠ʾāt is important not only for what it reveals about the subject of this biography, but also for what it indicates about the cultural and social life of western and eastern Iran in the fifteenth century. It attests to the vibrancy of the shared PersoIslamic culture that infused the elite literary and scholarly worlds. Since the Munsha⁠ʾāt is such a vital source of information, especially during Maybudī’s tenure as qadi, it is worthwhile to consider why the letters were collected and preserved in the first place. First of all, such collections were a 14 15

16

17 18

Copy lent by John E. Woods. This copy was the only one available to me when I wrote my dissertation and it remains useful when used in conjunction with Furūhar’s edition. Afshār, “Qāḍī Mīr Ḥusayn Maybudī,” 221–22. The excerpt is taken from a manuscript in the Kitābkhāna-yi Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī which contains thirty-three letters. Compared with the number of letters from specific individuals in Navāʾī’s Album, to take one example, the Munsha⁠ʾāt shows that Maybudī’s output was similar to that of his contemporaries in the east. In the former work, which contains 594 letters, are found 337 letters from Jāmī, who has many more letters in other collections, but 128 from Khwaja Aḥrār and less than fifty from the remaining fourteen authors. Nūr al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī, Pis’ma-avtografi Abdarrahmana Jami iz “Al’boma Navoi,” ed. A. Urunbaev (Tashkent: Fan, 1982), 15. There is also no reason to believe that Maybudī did not write more missives, which were not preserved because they were lost or considered inconsequential. Those few which refer to specific events, such as Sultan Yaʿqūb’s ban on wine in 893/1488 or the completion of texts, such as the commentary on the Shamsīya, which was written in 886/1481–82, can be dated with relative precision. Others have a terminus ad quem (Khwaja ʿUbayd Allāh Samarqandī died in 1490 and the Sāvajīs were killed in the early 1490s). The latest seems to be a single letter to Shah Ismāʿīl, who was clearly riding a wave of military victories when Maybudī wrote him. The use of Turkic and Mongol words is minimal: ṭughrā (MUN, 239, 245), suyūrghāl (174) urdū (166, 168). They correspond neatly to the divisions of Jāmī’s correspondence established by Urunbaev: personal letters, petitions on behalf of the subject population and scholars, and encouragement of government leaders to establish law and order. Jāmī, Pis’ma, 32–35.

10

Chapter 1

popular literary genre in Maybudī’s day. Sometimes they served as handbooks for bureaucrats, reference tools in the writing of letters to various functionaries and state dignitaries. Prime examples of that type are the Ṣubḥ al-a⁠ʾshā of alShihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Qalqashandī (d. 821/1418) and Kamāl al-Dīn Ḥusayn Vāʿiẓ Kāshifī’s (d. 910/1504–05) Makhzan al-inshāʾ. Others, while also intended to serve as models of style, were of a more purely literary nature and it is to that category that Maybudī’s Munsha⁠ʾāt belongs. Other examples are the Farāʾid al-Ghiyāthī of Jalāl al-Dīn Yūsuf Ahl (d. ca. 870/1466), the Munsha⁠ʾāt of Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī (d. 858/1454), the three collections of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī’s letters, the Sharafnāma-yi shāhī of ʿAbd Allāh Marvārīd (d. 948/1541), and the Nāma-yi nāmī of Khvāndamīr (d. ca. 941/1535).19 The main reasons for the collection and copying of letters by the educated elites were three.20 First, the celebrity of the author encouraged their preservation. Not all of Jāmī’s letters were models of composition, but they were kept for their associations with a model writer and spiritual authority. Hundreds of letters by Jāmī have been preserved, some being little more than business memos.21 Although he slipped into obscurity in all but academic circles, Maybudī was also an influential thinker and political figure in his own day. Second, the renown of his correspondents ensured the preservation of the letters. Almost without exception, they are significant political, literary, and spiritual figures of the late fifteenth-century Ak Koyunlu and Timurid realms. Again, a comparison with a Timurid writer shows how selectivity operated. Of the sixteen correspondents represented in ʿAlī Shīr Navāʾī’s (d. 906/1501) Album, all but a few can be identified easily in a variety of sources as influential men. Khwaja ʿUbayd Allāh b. Maḥmūd Aḥrār (d. 895/1490), the famous Naqshbandi shaykh of Transoxiana, and his sons figure as prominently there as they do in Maybudī’s correspondence. Finally, the style of the letters would have been a reason to keep them. One of Davānī’s letters was published in a twentieth-century Iranian journal as an example of pure Persian prose, devoid of any Arabic terms or grammatical structures.22 As for Maybudī’s letters, among them are tours de force of quotations from the Qurʾān, in which one verse follows another to create a coherent, 19 20 21

22

Jāmī, Pis’ma, 5–6, 8. These ideas developed from a discussion with Prof. Heshmat Moayyad. Urunbaev notes how the letters in Navāʾī’s Album are less florid than those in the Munsha⁠ʾāt, which are interpreted as more typical examples of Persian epistolary prose. Jāmī, Pis’ma, 31. Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Asʿad Davānī, “Maktūb-i tārīkhī,” Armaghān 13 (1311/1932): 215– 16.

Introduction

11

communicative whole.23 Others open with conceits on the word salām (‘peace’ or ‘greetings’), contain verses by Maybudī and famous poets, or convey gracious sentiments. A letter to a bureaucrat in the financial administration interlaces monetary terminology throughout its salutation, while one to a mystic or a scholar uses a lexicon appropriate to their concerns.24 The letters presume a level of literary and intellectual sophistication that flatters both sender and recipient. Aside from the body of writings left by Maybudī, another reason his biography is an attractive project is that a number of local histories of Yazd were written within reasonable proximity of his life. They have all been edited and published by Īraj Afshār. The Tārīkh-i Yazd by Sayyid Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad b. Ḥasan Jaʿfarī (9th/15th c.) was written during the upheavals connected with the end of Shāhrukh’s reign (850/1447). The history was continued by Aḥmad b. Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī Kātib (after 862/1458) in his Tārīkh-i jadīd-i Yazd, which takes events up to 862/1458 and records the establishment of Jahānshāh Kara Koyunlu’s (r. 843–72/1439–67) authority in Yazd at that time. It is particularly useful concerning Muʿīn al-Dīn Maybudī, the qadi’s father. A third history, the Jāmiʿ-i Mufīdī of Muḥammad Mufīd Mustawfī Bāfqī (wrote ca. 1090/1679), although late, used many materials, including the two previous histories, and provides much valuable information about distinguished scholars, saints, and government officials of Yazd.25 Additional information on the life and times of Maybudī can be culled from narrative sources, biographical dictionaries, and the dīvāns of and writings about other poets. Since the major historians for the period, such as Faḍl Allāh b. Rūzbihān Khunjī (d. 927/1521), Ghiyāth al-Dīn Khvāndamīr, and Ḥasan Beg Rūmlū (fl. 986/1578) have been discussed in detail elsewhere,26 I shall say no more than that they help to establish the context in which Maybudī lived, but 23

24 25

26

MUN, 135, 182. Maybudī uses Qurʾānic quotations throughout his letters, such that Furūhar devotes an index to them. Using a series of Qurʾānic allusions is “a rhetorical practice known as iqtibās, where scribes playfully insert small excerpts of revealed scripture into literary or political textual contexts.” Colin Mitchell, “Am I my brother’s keeper?: Negotiating corporate sovereignty and divine absolutism in sixteenth-century Turco-Iranian politics,” in New Perspectives on Safavid Iran: Empire and Society, ed. Colin P. Mitchell (London: Routledge, 2011), 44. MUN, 226 for letter to financial official. For a thorough analysis of this work, see Derek J. Mancini-Lander, “Memory on the Boundaries of Empire: Narrating Place in the Early Modern Local Historiography of Yazd” (PhD. diss., University of Michigan, 2012). John E. Woods, The Aqquyunlu: Clan, Confederation, Empire (Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 1999), 219–30; Faḍl Allāh b. Rūzbihān Khunjī-Iṣfahānī, Tārīkh-i ʿĀlam-ārā-yi

12

Chapter 1

that they rarely mention him by name. His death received more attention than any other aspect of his career, primarily in Qazvīnī and the Jahān-gushāʾī-yi Khāqān-i Ṣāḥibqirān, a late seventeenth-century work that used to be known as the ‘Ross Anonymous.’ Even though the chronicles largely ignore Maybudī’s career, they do recount episodes which offer parallels to events in his life. In the search for additional stories with narrative similarities, regional histories for Shiraz, Isfahan, Kirman, and other nearby areas can be a gold mine. Other works frequently based on regional criteria are the biographical dic­ tio­naries, another genre that must be treated with sensitivity for its biases and selective arrangement of material. Although Maybudī had the pen name (takhal­luṣ) ‘Manṭiqī’ (the Logician), he apparently was not known as an exceptional poet and is not found in contemporary biographies of poets, such as that by Dawlatshāh. He does appear in later works on poets and in dictionaries of scholars. The story of his appointment by Sultan Yaʿqūb to the qadiship of Yazd is found in Sayyid Nūr Allāh Najm al-Dīn Shushtarī’s (d. 1019/1610) Majālis almuʾminīn, a biographical dictionary of Shiʿis. Maybudī is not mentioned in Taşköprüzade’s (d. 968/1561) Shaqāʾiq al-nuʿmānīya, although the book includes several of Davānī’s other students, lists the titles of works written by late fifteenth-century scholars, and thus offers material for comparison. Additional information appears in hagiographies, in particular the Rashaḥāt ʿayn al-ḥayāt, written by Fakhr al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Ḥusayn Kāshifī Ṣafī (fl. 938/1532) about the powerful eastern mystic, Khwaja Aḥrār, and in the Manāqib-i Ibrāhīm-i Gülşeni by Muḥyī-i Gülşeni, which concerns Shaykh Ibrāhīm Gülşeni (d. 940/1534), an influential mystic in the Ak Koyunlu court who became a prominent figure in Egypt after the Ottoman conquest in 1517. Sources that help define the physical extent of Maybudī’s world rather than its inhabitants are geographies. Simply to know how long the trip from Yazd to Shiraz lasted tells us a little more about the qadi, who made that journey several times. Concerning his correspondence, the detail of how long a letter might have taken to reach Tabriz from Yazd adds another piece to the puzzle of his life. If an army marched through Yazd, it is useful to determine if they followed a well-worn military route or a path taken only under extraordinary circumstances. Among the geographies used are those of Ibn Ḥawqal and Iṣṭakhrī of the tenth century and Yāqūt of the thirteenth. Despite their early dates, the geographers offer background information and relatively fixed matters such as dates.

Amīnī, Persian text edited by John E. Woods with the abridged English translation by Vladimir Minorsky, (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1992); articles in EI 2.

Introduction

13

Finally, the accounts of foreign travelers provide some pertinent details. The Italian envoys to Uzūn Ḥasan’s court, Joseph Barbaro and Ambrogio Contarini, offer rich descriptions of the political situation in the Ak Koyunlu realm and include passing references to the manufacture of precious textiles and swords in Yazd, leaving another clue about Maybudī’s environment. Such random tidbits taken in combination help to refine the picture of the qadi’s life and times. As for secondary sources, it can be seen from the bibliography how difficult it is to offer a complete and coherent listing of relevant works because a person’s life encompasses so many aspects of history that it is hard to determine precisely which fields to cover. An understanding of Maybudī’s life must include the political history of the Ak Koyunlu, Timurids, and Safavids, at the very least, that of Yazd in particular and more generally of Iraq and Fars, medieval urban history, Islamic education, qadiship as a profession, the role of the ulama in Iran, medieval philosophy, esotericism, medicine, poetry, Sufism, relations between Shiʿis and Sunnis, and much more. The choice of books to list must necessarily be scattershot because excellent work has been done on each of those subjects, although often concerning other places and time periods. In some cases the research has been quite extensive and in all cases thought-provoking.

14

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Early Years and Education The difficulties involved in studying the childhood and adolescence of any individual in pre-modern times are acute in the case of the medieval Islamic world. Rarely does a writer reveal anything about his youth, and those scattered instances make it hazardous to risk generalizations. Qadi Ḥusayn Maybudī is no exception. Nonetheless, information about the world in which he grew up does exist, however aggravating in its paucity. Marshaling those facts allows us to draw a sketch of the young man, if not a detailed portrait. When further research permits a comparison of that sketch with those of his contemporaries, we can better appreciate the social sphere in which the Iranian provincial elite developed during the fifteenth century. The three most fruitful subjects of study for Maybudī’s early years are the geographic and political environment in which he matured, his family, and his scholarship, which offers evidence of his education.

Yazd From Pre-Islamic Times to the Mongols

Contemporary references to Qadi Ḥusayn’s name often include either ‘Maybudī’ or ‘Yazdī’ to indicate his place of origin, and it was with the city of Yazd that historians generally associated him. Located in the medieval geographers’ third clime, at the heart of a nexus of roads that crossed the desert to Khurasan, Yazd was an ancient city. According to legend, Alexander the Great founded the city of Katha on Yazd’s present site. The name ‘Yazd’ was adopted under the Sassanians, under whose rule the city was known for its fire temples. Early Islamic geographers record the persistence of the fire temples and Zoroastrianism in general well into Islamic times. Yazd continued to grow and change in character. It acquired Islamic monuments, the most important being the congregational mosque built in the latter half of the eleventh century, as well as a wall and moat.1 Sometimes con­sidered part of Fars and sometimes of ʿIraq-i ʿAjam, it seems to have been subordinate 1 For a thorough analysis of Yazd’s status in the post-Mongol period, see Mancini-Lander, “Memory on the Boundaries of Empire,” 8–9, 13–15. For the mosque, see Renata Holod-Tretiak, “The Monuments of Yazd, 1300–1450: Architecture, Patronage, and Setting” (PhD. diss., Harvard University, 1972), 15–16. Yazd was fortified in 432/1040–41. Holod-Tretiak., 10, n. 5.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004302327_003

Early Years and Education

15

to Istakhr at least until the Mongol invasions. Writers of the thirteenth century and later emphasized the area’s agricultural prosperity and important silk industry. Qazwīnī (d. 682/1283), for example, describes Yazd in Mongol times as a well-populated area producing many cereals and fruits and states that skilled craftsmen in the silk brocade business produced enough to export their wares to other regions.2 One reason for the health of its agriculture was an extensive system of canals, essential in a dry climate where the average annual precipitation is 67.5 mm., most of that falling in the winter.3 Another feature of the city was the renown of its learned men. Abū al-Fidāʾ (d. 733/1333) remarks that many scholars came from Yazd, as well as from Maybud.4 As the remarks about agriculture suggest, most often the name ‘Yazd’ refers to a general region, rather than just the city itself. Seldom is the city discussed in isolation from its surrounding villages. One of those subordinate towns was Maybud, presumably Maybudī’s birthplace. Since pre-Islamic times, Maybud was a relatively large village within the sphere of Yazd. According to legend, it was built by a commander of Yazdigird II (r. 438/9–457 ce).5 The early geographers paid it less attention than they did Yazd, frequently just listing it among the villages in the province of Istakhr, along with Abarquh, Na⁠ʾin, and others. Yāqūt gives the most complete information about it, noting that it had a for­ tified citadel and that the historian and hadith scholar, ʿAbd al-Rashīd b. ʿAlī al-Maybudhī, who studied in Isfahan and Baghdad, came from there. The regional histories of the fifteenth century provide more details, Kātib asserting that most of the people of Maybud were happy, talented, literate, rich, honored, and lucky. Just as it was subordinate to Yazd, in turn twenty-four vilāyats were dependent on it when he wrote.6 2 Zakariyā b. Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd Qazwīnī, Āthār al-bilād wa-akhbār al-ʿibād (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1969), 282; Abū al-Qāsim Ibn Ḥawqal, Kitāb Ṣūrat al-arḍ, ed. J.H. Kramers, Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum, vol. 2 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967), 299, in which textile exports receive mention. See also Abū Isḥāq al-Fārisī Iṣṭakhrī, Kitāb Masālik wa-al-mamālik, ed. M.J. de Goeje, Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum, vol. 1 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967), 153, for exports of cotton cloth and 214, for textile exports. 3 Holod-Tretiak, “The Monuments of Yazd,” 8. 4 Abū al-Fidāʾ, Géographie d’Aboulfeda [Taqwīm al-buldān], ed. M. Reinaud and M. de Slane (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1840), 331. Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad al-Yazdī is given as an example by Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, ed. F. Wüstenfeld (Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus for the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, 1924), 4:1017–18. 5 Jaʿfarī, 29. Although Kātib gives that legend, he later says it is more likely that Shah Qubād b. Fīrūz built Maybud after the recovery there of his son from a serious illness. Kātib, 30, 38. The town’s name is written both Maybudh and Maybud. 6 Kātib, 38–41.

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Chapter 2

While the region as a whole apparently prospered under the Il-Khanids (654–754/1256–1353), the Mongol rulers of Iran, Maybud benefited specifically from Muzaffarid (713–95/1314–93) patronage in the early fourteenth century.7 That dynasty chose it as their burial city and sponsored much construction. Sharaf al-Dīn Muẓaffar was the first of the family to distinguish himself in the Mongol armies. His base during an expedition against Arab raiders in the Kirman area was Shabankara, from whence he sent builders to Maybud to build a hall (khāna-yi ʿālī) and a madrasa at his burial site.8 His son, Mubāriz al-Dīn Muḥammad (r. 713–59/1314–58), successfully maintained his family’s claims in the region, opposing an attempt by the famous vizier Rashīd al-Dīn (d. 718/1318) to place his lands within the jurisdiction of the central administration—that is, to make them dīvānī. The Il-Khanid ruler at the time, Öljeytü (r. 703–16/1304– 16), granted Mubāriz al-Dīn the land and he returned to Maybud. Due to his military prowess, he was able to have the grant reconfirmed by Öljeytü’s successor, Abū Saʿīd (r. 717–36/1317–35). Upon the latter’s death, he took outright possession of Maybud and Yazd.9 Later descendants established villages in the region of Maybud, as well as around other regional centers.10 By the 740/1340s, Mubāriz al-Dīn divided his time between Shiraz and Isfahan, while Yazd fell to a junior member of the dynasty.11 Although its relative importance to the Muzaffarids declined, Yazd continued to grow through the end of the fourteenth century, expanding well beyond the city wall. Suburban quarters mushroomed outside the ancient settlement, each with its own centers, mosques, and educational institutions. The Tārīkh-i jadīd-i Yazd mentions about forty madrasas built during the Muzaffarid and Timurid (771–912/1370–1506) periods.12 Patronage in those architectural endeavors came from both the Muzaffarid dynasty and local families.13

7

8 9 10 11 12 13

Jean Aubin, “Deux sayyids de Bam au XVe siècle. Contribution à l’histoire de l’iran timouride,” Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Geistes- u. Sozialwiss. Klasse, no. 7 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1956), 458. Holod-Tretiak writes that few traces of the Il-Khanids remain in Yazd, “although it apparently profited by being within the imperial economic and political sphere.” “The Monuments of Yazd,” 73. He died in 719/1319. Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:97, 107. For the burial of Mubāriz al-Dīn Muḥammad in 765/1363–64, see 1:116. Jaʿfarī, 47–48; Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:101. Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:121–22. Holod-Tretiak, “The Monuments of Yazd,” 22. Īraj Afshār, Yādgārhā-yi Yazd, Silsila-yi Intishārāt-i Anjuman-i Āthār-i Millī, no. 68 (Tehran: Anjuman-i Āthār-Millī, 1368), 1:28. Holod-Tretiak, “The Monuments of Yazd,” 76.

Early Years and Education



17

The Timurid Period

Tīmūr’s (d. 807/1405) invasions put an end to Muzaffarid power. The Muzaffarids offered their submission during Tīmūr’s Three Year campaign (788– 91/1386–89), but when revolts broke out later in the area under their control, the family was suppressed.14 One of Tīmūr’s grandsons, Pīr Muḥammad b. Jahāngīr (d. 808/1406), was directed to help another grandson, Pīr Muḥammad b. ʿUmar Shaykh (d. 812/1410), quell the rebellion in Yazd in 798/1396.15 The city fell after a siege of four months. During the unrest more than forty notables were killed, including the former vizier of the last Muzaffarid prince, Amir Sayyid Ṣadr al-Dīn Qanbar, without any reason being given by the sources. Approximately three thousand people died from sickness and starvation as the city was besieged, while others were executed once Pīr Muḥammad captured the city. The Shaykh al-Islām, one Taqī al-Dīn Dādā Muḥammad, did succeed in obtaining protection for some.16 After Tīmūr’s youngest son, Shāhrukh (r. 807–850/1405–1447), succeeded his father on the throne and consolidated his power in the east, he put his maternal uncle (khālū), Muḥammad Darvīsh, in charge of Yazd.17 The most influential amir at the time and the one who eventually obtained control of the region was Jalāl al-Dīn Chaqmāq Shāmī, whose name crops up in the histories until 850/1447. He and his wife, Bībī Fāṭima, were active builders of mosques, madrasas, and other charitable institutions, some of which still stood in the seventeenth century.18 Since neither was a native of the region, they brought influences from the broader Timurid state to the provincial city.19 Since the initial capture of the city, the Timurid government in Herat faced the danger that the local authority in Isfahan or Shiraz, especially if he were a 14 15 16 17 18

19

Beatrice Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 71–72, 91. Jaʿfarī, 56–57; Kātib, 88–91; Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:162. The last is the only author not to mention Pīr Muḥammad b. Jahāngīr. Holod-Tretiak, “The Monuments of Yazd,” 96; Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:163. Jaʿfarī, 63; Kātib, 111; Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:168. Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:169–70. Amir Chaqmāq deserves further study. In 838/1435 he and Ghiyāth al-Dīn Ghunāshirīn of Kirman negotiated on behalf of Shāhrukh with Jahānshāh Kara Koyunlu. Tāj al-Dīn Ḥasan Ibn Shihāb Shāʿir Munajjim, Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh-i Ḥasanī, ed. Ḥ.M. Ṭabāṭabāʾī and Ī. Afshār (Karachi: Institute of Central and West Asian Studies, University of Karachi, 1987), 45. In 839/1435–36, he was active in the struggle against Iskandar b. Kara Yūsuf Kara Koyunlu, in battle against whom his brother Salmān was killed. Again, Yazd appears to have been a secure military base. Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 424, n. 4. Holod-Tretiak, “The Monuments of Yazd,” 130.

18

Chapter 2

royal prince, would try to expand his power and territory. Around 1405, Pīr Muḥammad b. ʿUmar Shaykh, while keeping the Friday prayer and coinage (khuṭba and sikka) in Shāhrukh’s name, summoned the commanders of royal garrisons (dārūghas) from Yazd and Abarquh to Shiraz and took the keys to their treasuries.20 Yazd was also caught up in the quarrels between Pīr Muḥammad in Fars and his brother Iskandar, whom he appointed governor of the district of Yazd in 808/1405–06 and who demonstrated unsettling ambitions for Kirman, at the very least.21 In Ṣafar 811/July 1408, another Timurid, Abā Bakr b. Mīrānshāh b. Tīmūr (d. 811/1408), who had been driven from Azarbayjan by Kara Yūsuf Kara Koyunlu (d. 822/1420), camped outside Yazd, since the governor forbade him entry, while he awaited a reply to his request for the governorship from his cousin, Pīr Muḥammad. The latter refused his appeal, claiming that the district of Yazd did not provide sufficient revenue to support Abā Bakr’s troops.22 Thus, in both the cases of Iskandar and Abā Bakr, Yazd was seen as a potential launching pad for wider territorial gains. Circumstances did not favor the princes, but their plans give some indication of the district’s possibilities. While Istakhr was no longer the dominant urban center, Yazd remained subordinate to the larger cities of Fars, namely Isfahan and Shiraz. In addition to the regular payment of taxes, its three principal functions for the Timurid government were to raise special sums for particular occasions, to serve as a stopping place on one of the routes from Fars to Khurasan, and to send troops upon demand.23 When Shāhrukh ordered the decoration of Isfahan in honor of ambassadors from the Mamluk sultan al-Ashraf Sayf al-Dīn Barsbay (r. 825–41/1422–37) on their way to Herat, 25,000 kepekī dinars were levied on that

20

21

22 23

Rosemarie Quiring-Zoche, Isfahan im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert: Ein Beitrag zur persischen Stadtgeschichte, Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, Bd. 54 (Freiburg: Schwarz, 1980), 18. V. Minorsky writes that dārūgha means ‘chief’ in Mongol and was “the lord’s official (bailiff) stationed in a particular village. In towns dārūgha had many other special functions.” “A Soyurghal of Qāsim b. Jahāngīr Aq-qoyunlu (903/1498),” BSOS IX/4 (1938): 950. Jaʿfarī, 59, 164; Kātib, 92; Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 398, n. 1. According to Aubin, Iskandar had a personal interest in the region because Tīmūr had given Maybud to Bīkīsī Sulṭān, his favorite granddaughter, who married Iskandar in 1397. For the quarrels, see Ibn Shihāb, 784–85 (1987), 14–17 (ms.); Jaʿfarī, 59, 164; Kātib, 95. Iskandar was an active builder during his tenure in Yazd: Kātib, 92, 205, 209–10, 218, 227, 282; Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:134, 165. Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 402. See Ibn Shihāb for the raising of troops from Yazd, 17, 42. Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 414 (for 819/1416), 425 (for 840/1437).

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city, with similar orders going to Shiraz, Yazd, and Kashan.24 On at least one occasion its position on an east-west route enabled the city to play a role in Timurid family affairs. When the princess Khvānzāda journeyed to the Holy Cities of Medina and Mecca, she passed through Yazd, which induced Iskandar b. ʿUmar Shaykh (786–818/1384–1415) to return in haste from a raid on Kirman to his center of government.25 Beginning just prior to Shāhrukh’s death in 850/1447 and lasting until Uzūn Ḥasan Ak Koyunlu’s accession to power in Fars in 873/1469, Yazd endured a difficult period as more power struggles erupted. In Muḥarram 850/April 1446 Sulṭān-Muḥammad b. Bāysunghur (d. 855/1452), a grandson of Shāhrukh, openly revolted against his grandfather, who then mounted a campaign against him. Sulṭān-Muḥammad captured Isfahan and proceeded to send envoys to other areas of Persian Iraq, such as Yazd, Abarquh, Kirman, Kashan, Natanz and Ardistan in order to establish his authority. Amir Shams al-Dīn b. Jalāl alDīn Chaqmāq, who was governing Yazd during his father’s absence in Herat, was among those who accepted Sulṭān-Muḥammad’s authority.26 Shāhrukh vanquished the main body of the rebels by Ramaḍān 850/November 1446 and had several notables of Isfahan executed for their detrimental influence on the prince, who meanwhile had escaped to Luristan.27 As for Yazd, Jalāl al-Dīn Chaqmāq was sent from Herat to secure the city and bring his son into line. From Yazd he continued on to Shāhrukh’s camp.28 While still in western Iran, Shāhrukh died.29 His death meant that SulṭānMuḥammad was able to achieve through the vicissitudes of fate what he could not through military skill. Some military commanders, such as Jalāl al-Dīn Chaqmāq, immediately declared their allegiance to him.30 Not content with the provinces of Fars and Iraq, Sulṭān-Muḥammad set his sights on fighting the Turkmen in the north and on seizing the throne in Herat. Once he re-estab24

25 26

27

28 29 30

Quiring-Zoche, Isfahan im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert, 33. See Gerhard Doerfer, Türkische und Mongolische Elemente im Neupersischen (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1963–75), 3:580–81 for “kepekī” and further reading on the subject. Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 400, n. 6. Kātib, 236; Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:188; Abū Bakr Ṭihrānī, Kitāb-i Diyārbakrīya, ed. N. Lugal and F. Sümer, Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, seri 3, no. 7/7a (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1962– 64), 2:286, 317. Kātib, 242, 245; Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:189, 195; ʿAbd al-Razzāq b. Isḥāq Samarqandī, Maṭlaʿ-i saʿdayn va majmaʿ-i baḥrayn, Leningradskii Vostochnyi Institut AN SSR ms. c 443, 412a-b; Quiring-Zoche, Isfahan im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert, 37. Kātib, 238. Kātib, 243; Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:191. Kātib, 244.

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lished himself in Isfahan, young men came from the surrounding regions, including Yazd, to join his army.31 The cities of Fars and Iraq, among them Yazd, were also to be the source of his economic power. They were ordered to produce the money to pay his military expenses, despite the pleas of local officials to spare a population that was unable to come up with substantial sums. Seven hundred kepekī tomans were levied on Yazd and ruthless tax collectors sent to raise the amount. They accomplished their task in only one month.32 SulṭānMuḥammad urgently needed both men and money for his military ventures because he had undertaken a campaign in Khurasan, ostensibly on behalf of his brother ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla (d. 865/1460). At the same time, he received news of the looming threat of Jahānshāh Kara Koyunlu, who was winning battles in the north.33 It was not long, however, before yet another brother, Abū al-Qāsim Bābur (r. 853–61/1449–57), one more participant in the struggle for power, marched west, vanquished Sulṭān-Muḥammad at Chinaran, near Astarabad, on 15 Dhū al-ḥijja 855/8 January 1452, and had him executed.34 Abū al-Qāsim Bābur continued to march west and established himself as ruler of Fars for four months. When he heard of Jahānshāh’s approach, he abandoned his plans to control the area and to conquer Iraq, setting out on his return journey to Khurasan on 16 Rajab 856/2 August 1452.35 On his way he passed through Yazd, where his troops pillaged for several days.36 Before leaving, he appointed Khalīl Sulṭān b. Muḥammad Jahāngīr b. Muḥammad Sulṭān b. Jahāngīr b. Tīmūr and Shāhrukh’s grandson through his daughter, as the governor (ḥākim) of Yazd.37 Khalīl Sulṭān was apparently unjust in his tax collection and had ambitions in Fars.38 He was able to hold Shiraz for no more than 31 32 33 34 35

36 37

38

Ṭihrānī, 2:293–96; Quiring-Zoche, Isfahan im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert, 38. Kātib, 247; Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:196. Kātib, 257; Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:195, 198. Ibn Shihāb, 63, 139; Kātib, 263; Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:200; Samarqandī, 442b-443b. Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 433; Ibn Shihāb, 88–89; Kātib, 265; Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:201. According to Samarqandī, 444a, the fact that Abū al-Qāsim Bābur chose to march west through Yazd, rather than choosing a more northerly route, betrayed to Jahānshāh that he considered his forces too weak to face the Kara Koyunlu in battle. Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 434; Kātib, 266; Samarqandī, 444a-b. Samarqandī, 445a, mentions a meeting between Abū al-Qāsim Bābur and Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī, but no pillaging. Ibn Shihāb, 89, indicates that Khalīl Sulṭān was appointed Abū al-Qāsim Bābur’s representative in all of Iraq. Kātib, 266; Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:201; Samarqandī, 445b: Yazd is given as a suyūrghāl; Ṭihrānī, 2:331, 334.; Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 434. See P. Jackson and L. Lockhart, eds., The Cambridge History of Iran. vol. 6: The Timurid and Safavid Periods (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 6:106. Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 434; Ibn Shihāb, 89; Kātib, 266, 268; Khalīl Sulṭān was in Fars at the end of Ramaḍān 856/September 1452.

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a week and, upon hearing that Pīr Būdāq b. Jahānshāh (d. 870/1466) had begun his march on Fars, fled to Kirman. Pīr Būdāq took Shiraz in Ramaḍān 856/October 1452. Meanwhile, Khalīl Sulṭān failed to subdue Kirman (Shawwāl 856/ October-November 1452).39 He returned to besiege Yazd, causing great consternation among the city’s notables in early 857/1453.40 Famine had begun to spread in the beleaguered city when Pīr Būdāq arrived to save the day, forcing Khalīl Sulṭān to flee to Khurasan. Before he left two days later, Pīr Būdāq appointed as vālī Amir Maḥmūd Gerekyarak.

The Kara Koyunlu Period

Thus began Yazd’s period as a Kara Koyunlu city. While all the troop movements and individual rivalries can obscure the view, it is important not to lose sight of the big political picture. Pīr Būdāq’s arrival in Yazd formed part of the Kara Koyunlu policy of expansion at the expense of Tīmūr’s descendants who were struggling for power in the east, thereby leaving their western frontier vulnerable. By 856/1452 Jahānshāh had conquered Persian Iraq, including Isfahan. He subsequently added Fars and Kirman, putting Pīr Būdāq in charge of the former province.41 Peace did not descend on Yazd with the imposition of Kara Koyunlu rule. Soon after Pīr Būdāq’s departure, the city was attacked by Khwājaka Mirāk, a son of Quldarvīsh who had governed Kirman.42 Khwājaka Mirāk and his brother Jāndarvīsh controlled the region between Yazd and the borders of Kirman and launched raids from their stronghold in Anar.43 When Khwājaka Mirāk found the city gates shut against him, he pillaged the suburbs for a week. Notables who had remained outside the city were dragged off by his forces without provisions, baggage, or pack animals (asbāb/jiḥāt/ūlāq).44 Among them 39 40

41 42 43 44

Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 438; Ibn Shihāb, 90–91; Kātib, 269. Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 439; Ibn Shihāb, 114; Kātib, 281; Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:202. According to Mustawfī Bāfqī, Amīrak Aḥmad, a grandson of Jalāl al-Dīn Chaqmāq, defended the city against Khalīl Sulṭān. Ibn Shihāb says that Yazd was defended by a Kara Koyunlu amir and by Quṭb al-Dīn Varzana. For the latter, see Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 433. Walther Hinz, Irans Aufstieg zum Nationalstaat im fünfzehnten Jahrhundert (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1936), 131–32. Ibn Shihāb, 87: Muẓaffar al-Dīn Khwājaka Mirāk, 856/150: Ghiyāth al-Dīn Khwājaka Bahādur; Kātib, 270: Amīr Khwājaka; Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:203: Amīr Khwājagī. Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 437; Ibn Shihāb, 87. See Doerfer, 2:102–07 for the Turkish word ūlāq, which passed from meaning ‘relay horse’ to ‘ass,’ ‘donkey,’ and ‘pack animal’ in general.

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was Khwaja Quṭb al-Dīn, Qadi Ḥusayn Maybudī’s paternal uncle. The fate of those men is not recorded, although in the summer of 857/1453 Khwājaka Mirāk’s stronghold at Anar was delivered to his uncle and the governor of Kirman, Yār Aḥmad, who seized all the booty collected at Yazd.45 In 858/1454 famine and inflation swept through the region. Mustawfī Bāfqī says the reasons for the desperate state of affairs were the passage of armies, the occurrence of continual calamities, the undermining of agriculture, and the dispersal of the agricultural population. No level of society remained unaffected as hunger and disease continued to spread. Bread became unavailable and the people resorted to eating dogs and cats. Many people died each day, especially the poor, while the rich were reduced to begging as a result of the high cost of foodstuffs. Ruffians attacked people unawares and ate them.46 In Dhū al-ḥijja 858/November-December 1454 Pīr Būdāq came from Kirman to Yazd at the invitation of his mother, Khātūn Jān, who was there with her other son, Muʿizz al-Dīn Yūsuf Bahādur. While in Yazd, Pīr Būdāq appointed Amir Niẓām al-Dīn Shāh Valī Beg governor (ḥākim), while the kharāj and dīvānī taxes were to be collected by Amir Jalāl al-Dīn Maqṣūd.47 The implication of the accounts is that the prince’s mission was to bring relief to the afflicted region and to appoint administrators to continue his work. Despite Kara Koyunlu efforts, Yazd’s troubles were not yet over. Tremendous floods devastated the region in the early spring of 860/1456, after which the city was burdened with heavy taxes, as will be described in greater detail below. Most of the canals were destroyed, along with many orchards and sixteen quarters outside the city. The sun did not shine for three days.48 Kātib wrote that all the signs of the Last Judgment were present. Some thousand tomans of goods were buried in the mud, not including the property damage: “For a hundred years such destruction will not be rebuilt and its effects will remain visible.”49 Kātib further remarked that, curiously enough, no one—whether small or great, old or young—was killed in the flood, but then again no one was left with more than the clothes on his back.50 45

46 47 48 49 50

Ibn Shihāb, 150; Kātib, 270–71; Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:203–04. Whereas Kātib gives the brother’s name as Quṭb al-Dīn, Mustawfī Bāfqī leaves the brother unnamed and indicates that Quṭb al-Dīn was a separate individual. Kātib, 271–73; Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:204–05. Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 451, based on Kātib, 274–75. Mustawfī Bāfqī puts his visit in the spring of 859/1455 and has him stay in Yazd for about a month, 1:206. Kātib, 276–78; Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:188–209. Kātib, 278. Mustawfī Bāfqī disagrees, 1:183.

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Even after such a natural disaster, Yazd faced severe taxation, a possible characteristic of Kara Koyunlu administration in the region.51 The sources must be read with a healthy dose of skepticism because most were written by Ak Koyunlu sympathizers who had little reason to portray their predecessors and rivals in a favorable light. The Kitāb-i Diyārbakrīya recounts that when Abū al-Qāsim b. Jahānshāh left Kirman to conquer Iraq, he reached Yazd, was greeted by the two military commanders and, during the ten days that he camped outside the city, collected the same amount of money that was generally amassed in two years.52 The same source also says that after Uzūn Ḥasan captured the Timurid ruler Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd in 873/1469, he scolded the prisoner for his greed, drawing a parallel between him and Jahānshāh, in whose time a donkey-load of pomegranates could not leave Yazd without the royal seal, clearly obtained for a fee.53 One of the reasons Jahānshāh may have needed money was that he continued to undertake military campaigns, marching as far as Herat in 862/1458. He seems to have overextended his reach and was obliged to leave the city to Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd in Ṣafar 863/December 1458 and return to Azarbayjan, where he faced a revolt by his son Ḥasan ʿAlī. At Nishapur, Pīr Būdāq split off from the main army on his way to Shiraz, for he was governor of Fars, while another son, Abū Yūsuf, headed to Kirman. When Pīr Būdāq reached Yazd, he launched yet another insurrection and once again a monetary contribution was imposed on the city. From Yazd, Pīr Būdāq sent military commanders and tax collectors to Isfahan, Ruydasht, Natanz, and Ardistan, demanding the presence of the notables of those areas and requiring financial contributions from them.54

The Ak Koyunlu Period

While the Kara Koyunlu were faced with internal dissension, Uzūn Ḥasan Ak Koyunlu’s star was in the ascendant. Successful in his long and steady efforts to 51

52 53 54

See Hinz, 103. When Kirman was afflicted with a terrible famine in 820/1417, the tamghā was suppressed and Shāhrukh remitted to the subject population half of the regular taxes. A decree abolished customary rights over the peasants which had been established in the course of time. Thus, examples did exist of sparing the populace after a natural disaster. Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 422–23. For tamghā, see Doerfer, 2:554–65. Originally meaning ‘brand,’ it came to designate customs duties in particular, and non-Qurʾānic taxes in general. Ṭihrānī, 2:448. Ṭihrānī, 2:491. Ṭihrānī, 2:356; Jackson, Cambridge History of Iran, 6:164.

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establish his predominance among the Ak Koyunlu, he went on to dispose of Jahānshāh in 872/1467 and Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Tīmūrī in 873/1469.55 He then engineered campaigns to bring Persian Iraq, Fars, Kirman, and even parts of Khurasan under his sway. He entrusted the province of Persian Iraq with its capital at Isfahan to his second son, Ughurlū Muḥammad (d. 881/1477). The latter conquered Fars and Kirman later that same year and executed Jahānshāh’s last heir, Abū Yūsuf.56 The status of Fars, with its capital in Shiraz, initially remained ambiguous, and the province may have been temporarily annexed to the crown domains in Azarbayjan. Fars was later given to Sulṭān-Khalīl, Uzūn Ḥasan’s eldest son. During his short reign (r. 882–83/1478), the province became the appanage of the heir-apparent, his eldest son Alvand. In turn, Yaʿqūb’s eldest son, Bāysunghur, was designated to receive the revenues of the province during his father’s reign.57 Based on those reports, Fars appears to have filled a specific role in the maintenance of the Ak Koyunlu ruling house. During the Ak Koyunlu period, Yazd enjoyed relative peace and prosperity. According to the Italian travelers Joseph Barbaro and Ambrogio Contarini, Yazd’s primary interest to the reigning dynasty was its textile manufactures.58 Concerning his 879/1474 visit to the court of Uzūn Ḥasan, Barbaro wrote that the ruler: … had several garments (panno) brought out, made of gold cloth, silk, and Damascene camlet, lined with silk or extremely fine ermine and sable furs, saying: “These are some garments from our region of Yazd (Ies) …”59 Later the Italian visited the city itself, which he described as follows: … we came to Yazd (Iex), a town of artificers, who make silks, cotton textiles, camlets, and similar things. Some may think that what I say is not 55 56 57 58

59

Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd had come west to try to regain territory lost to the Kara Koyunlu. Ṭihrānī, 2:524–29; Woods, The Aqquyunlu, 100; Jackson, Cambridge History of Iran, 6:173. Woods, 257–58. Woods, 134, for the importance of the silk trade under Yaʿqūb, and 272, n. 50, for a list of gifts presented by Yaʿqūb’s envoy to Bāyazīd II, which was largely composed of “brocades, silks, and satins of Yazdi manufacture.” Josafa Barbaro and Ambrogio Contarini, I Viaggi in Persia degli Ambasciatori Veneti Barbaro e Contarini, ed. L. Lockhart, R. Morozzo della Rocca, M.F. Tiepolo, Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, Il Nuovo Ramusio, vol. 7 (Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 1973), 7:126; idem, A Narrative of Italian Travels in Persia in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, trans. C. Grey, in Travels to Tana and Persia (London: repr., Hakluyt Society, 1st series, no. 49, 1873), 59.

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true. It is, however, the truth, as those who have seen it know. The town has a circumference of five miles, is walled, and has extensive suburbs. Nonetheless, almost all [the inhabitants] are weavers and fashioners of different kinds of silks which came from Astrabad (Strava) and Azi, and from areas towards Chagatay (Zagatai), towards the sea of Baku (Bachu); the best silks come to Yazd (Iex), which then furnishes finished goods to a great part of India, Persia, Chagatay (Zagatai), Chim and Machim (Icime Macim) [China], part of Cathay (Cataio) [Manchuria and northern China], Bursa, and of Turkey (Turchia). He who wants to buy good garments (panni) of Soria and other beautiful and well-made clothes should take these …60 Barbaro continues with a description of the combination entrepôt and inn (funduq) outside of town and the distinctive method of commerce engaged in by Yazdi merchants. He claims to have heard that for its commercial needs, the city daily required two sumpters of silk, which equalled ten thousand weight, suggesting an extremely lively trade. He urges his reader to guess how much camlet and fustian is produced in addition to the silk. Contarini also mentions the many light articles of silk from Yazd that passed through Tabriz in caravans bound for Aleppo when he visited Tabriz in 879/September, 1474.61 In June of the next year Uzūn Ḥasan showed him the gifts that had been chosen for the patriarch of Antioch, the Doge of Venice, and the Duke of Muscovy. Among them were manufactures from Yazd, two swords and two turbans (tulumbanti), described as “all rather light items.”62 Yazd’s industry placed it in a special position under Uzūn Ḥasan. Not only did it receive royal commissions, but it also merited a special mark of favor in 875/1470–71. By imperial decree, the pilgrimage litter (maḥmil-i ḥajj) was 60

61 62

Barbaro and Contarini, ed. Lockhart, 7:140 and notes on 287 for the identification of place names; trans. Grey, 73. On 7:141 Shiraz is described as being twenty miles in circumference. Barbaro and Contarini, ed. Lockhart, 7:194; trans. Grey, 127. Barbaro and Contarini, ed. Lockhart, 7:201; trans. Grey, 136. Based on the above and on the number of military campaigns that affected Yazd, it is difficult to agree with Holod-Tretiak’s statement about the city in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: “Standing amid the sand dunes at the edge of the desert, Yazd remained a quiet by-water, isolated from the main trade routes and escaping the major invasions.” “The Monuments of Yazd,” 2. It may not have been in the heart of things, but the local histories suggest that the natives considered their city anything but quiet. See Ṭihrānī, 2:294, 323, 325, 445 and Aubin for Yazd as a stop on the Khurasan route as Timurids and the Kara Koyunlu vied for control over Fars. “Deux sayyids,” 410.

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decorated in Yazd before proceeding to Tabriz. One of the prominent men of the city, Sayyid Niʿmat Allāh al-Thānī, led it to Qum where Uzūn Ḥasan greeted it with the prince Maqṣūd Beg, amirs, viziers, all the army, and the natives of the city.63 Uzūn Ḥasan’s brother, Uvays Beg (d. 880/1475), was then appointed leader of the pilgrimage (mīr-i ḥajj).64 It is difficult to find information specifically on Yazd under later Ak Koyunlu rulers, but odd bits and pieces suggest that the city continued to enjoy some prominence. In his correspondence, Maybudī mentions that Yazd is a “big city,” the size of which imposed a heavy workload on him.65 A coin minted in Yazd under Yaʿqūb in 892/1487 indicates that a royal mint operated there.66 When dynastic rivalries and conflicts among the nomadic military elite led to the disintegration of Ak Koyunlu authority after Yaʿqūb’s death, Yazd was under the control of various local governors, including Murād b. Dānā Khalīl, a governor of the city who fled to the Timurid court in 908/1503.67 The story of Yazd will resume with the events surrounding Maybudī’s death, which is discussed in Chapter 5.

Maybudī’s Family

Growing up in this city of textile manufactures and fruit production, Maybudī belonged to the privileged elite. The origin of his family and its wealth remains obscure and the first member of the family to appear in the local histories was the qadi’s father, Khwaja Muʿīn al-Dīn Maybudī.68 He is mentioned in the 63

64

65 66 67 68

See Chapter 4 for a discussion of the two letters sent to Sayyid Niʿmat Allāh b. Shaykh Ẓahīr al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Shāh Ḥabīb al-Dīn Muḥibb Allāh b. Shaykh Khalīl Allāh b. Shāh Niʿmat Allāh. Ṭihrānī, 2:553–54. This episode parallels an occurrence under Shāhrukh, who visited Yazd in 1415–16. He designated Ghiyāth al-Dīn Ḥāfiẓ Rāzī (d. 825/1422), the vizier of Iskandar b. ʿUmar Shaykh, to carry the cloth, woven in Yazd, for the covering of the Kaʿba. Kātib, 148–49. Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 390, n. 1. For Ḥāfiẓ Rāzī, see Ibn Shihāb, 14–15, where he is called Ḥāfiẓ Ra’ī. MUN, 162–63. Hinz, 105. Woods, 159, 166. He was a brother of Ayba-Sulṭān, the military strongman who played a crucial role in the ceaseless fighting that ensued after Sultan Yaʿqūb’s death. Afshār claims that Muʿīn al-Dīn was a scholar of Yazd who wrote the Mavāhib-i ilāhī, a history of the Muzaffarids: “Qāḍī Mīr Ḥusayn,” 221. The same information is found in Aqā Buzurg Ṭihrānī, Dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-Shīʿa, 1st ed. (Najaf: Maṭbaʿat al-Ghurrā, 1936), 26:141. According to Storey/Bregel, the history, also known as the Tārīkh-i Muẓaffarī, was written by Muʿīn al-Dīn b. Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Maybudī (d. 789/1387) and covers events up to 767/1365. C.A. Storey, Persidskaya Literatura: bio-bibliograficheskii obzor, rev. and trans. Yu.

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histories as becoming vizier of Yazd when Jahānshāh Kara Koyunlu rose to power in Azarbayjan, the two Iraqs, and Fars.69 That appointment implies that he was already a figure of some prominence at the time. Whether he enriched himself in office or relied on a previously established fortune, Muʿīn al-Dīn began to commission various building projects. In 859/1455 he had a reservoir (payābī) built between the madrasa and tomb of Imāmzāda Maʿṣūm (d. 424/1033),70 along with pools, private chambers, and a porch for the complex. Good water was made to flow in the new quarter. Muʿīn al-Dīn also commissioned the building of a madrasa outside the tomb as a burial place and memorial for his daughter. Only a year later the whole complex suffered much damage during the 860/1456 floods.71 Apart from his construction and philanthropy, Muʿīn al-Dīn appears in a curious episode after the floods. A messenger from Jahānshāh’s camp apparently came to Yazd and summoned local notables, including Muʿīn al-Dīn, to the royal court in Shiraz. The government administrators clearly knew about the disaster and planned to be lenient about the annual taxes. On the way to Shiraz, however, the notables quarreled among themselves and ended up proceeding to the court individually. They did not describe the region’s desolation and actually accepted a tax increase, which produced a situation “worse than the destruction of the flood,” according to Kātib.72 Furthermore, the tax collection was unusually severe, with vengeful collectors “opening the gates of injustice and oppressing the people,” who simply did not have the wherewithal to pay.73 While the notables were away, a conflict erupted between the Kara Koyunlu governor and the vālī in Yazd. The upshot was that the governor of Yazd became Amir Niẓām al-Dīn Ḥājjī Qanbar Jahānshāhī. Only after that, in 861/1457, did the local notables return.74 Back in Yazd, Muʿīn al-Dīn was one of a handful of citizens who undertook the reconstruction of buildings they had previously commissioned. The Imam-

69 70 71 72 73 74

Bregel (Moscow: Central Department of Oriental Literature, 1972), 2:784. Raḥmānī and Ashk-Shīrīn also identify the qadi’s father as Muʿīn al-Dīn Jamāl b. Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad, giving his date of death as 789, and describing him as a student of ʿAḍud al-Dīn Ījī (d. 756/1355), “bīst u naw”. Clearly the historian and our subject’s father could not have been the same man. See also Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:185 for the earlier Muʿīn al-Dīn. Mustawfī Bāfqī, 3:165. He was Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-ʿArīḍī b. Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq. Kātib, 151. Kātib, 157. Kātib, 279. Kātib strongly disapproved of the turn of events. Mustawfī Bāfqī indicates that the notables went to Jahānshāh’s court on their own initiative in the hopes of receiving several years’ tax exemption, 1:209. Kātib, 281–82.

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zada complex was slowly being restored to its former glory at the time of Kātib’s writing.75 The Tārīkh-i jadīd-i Yazd also says that Muʿīn al-Dīn wanted to repair the pulpit (kursī) of the west oratory of the congregational mosque, which had been installed by the Timurid governor of the city, Shāh Niẓām Kirmānī, in 819/1416. After its restoration, he and his companions used to sit in the oratory every Friday before the noon prayer, distribute alms to the poor, and thereby encourage more people to use the mosque and say their prayers.76 In addition, he arranged to have soup distributed each day to the poor and unfortunate in other parts of the city. Muʿīn al-Dīn also undertook relief work outside the city walls. He had the village of Bafruya rebuilt, on a necessarily different site because the floods had made construction in the original area impossible. He endowed it with wells, mosques, orchards, shops, and baths. The scattered peasants returned and the village became known as Muʿinabad.77 Even after aid for flood victims and reconstruction was no longer a pressing need, Muʿīn al-Dīn continued his philanthropy. In 861/1457, he commissioned the madrasa of Imāmzāda Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad, which was called the Madrasa-yi Muʿīnī. It boasted a high dome, two stories, and running water. In the same year, he built a Sufi hostel (khānqāh) in Firuzabad-i Maybud with waqfs of several villages and farms. The building also had running water, a caretaker, and a soup kitchen. Kātib says that a suyūrghāl for the hostel was issued at 2000 kepekī dinars for feeding the darvishes. Mustawfī Bāfqī claims that Jahānshāh gave a suyūrghāl to the supervisor (mutavallī) for the annual receipt of 10,000 kepekī dinars, which were to be spent in feeding the poor.78 In Ramaḍān of that year, Muʿīn al-Dīn went to Firuzabad with the scholar Mawlana Jamāl al-Dīn 75 76 77 78

Kātib, 158, 283. Kātib, 115. Mustawfī Bāfqī adds that Muʿīn al-Dīn was a friend of darvishes, 3:165. Mustawfī Bāfqī, 3:723. By the seventeenth century, it had resumed its former name of Bafruya. Mustawfī Bāfqī, 3:166, 660. The difference in figures could be a result of scribal error: ‘du’ and ‘dah’ look reasonably similar. In Mustawfī Bāfqī’s time, the suyūrghāl was no longer in effect and the historian mentions that the land revenue no longer went to the khānqāh. For the term suyūrghāl, see Doerfer, 1: 351–53. He translates it as “a hereditary, tax-exempt fief,” but his study of the word shows its meaning to be more complex. It is not clear whether it was a bestowal of land, of the right to exploit that land without outright possession, of money and other gifts, or a combination of the above. In the texts related to Maybudī, the meaning is not defined and remains ambiguous. See I.P. Petrushevskii, “K istorii instituta soyurgala,” Sovetskoe Vostokovedenie 6 (1949): 227–46; V. Minorsky, “A Soyurghal,” 927–60, especially p. 944 where he states that it is a “grant, bestowal,” and that it is dangerous to use European terms as equivalents rather than parallels and p. 960 where he points out the hereditary nature of the grant.

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Abū Isḥāq, who preached in the hostel. Muʿīn al-Dīn organized tremendous festivities that night, offering all sorts of meats, rice, and sweets to his guests.79 In the same village, he also had a public bath constructed. Other buildings commissioned by Muʿīn al-Dīn included the Mazār-i Zangiyān and a nearby madrasa.80 Since they are mentioned in Mustawfī Bāfqī and not in the other local histories, the work may have been undertaken after 862/1458, the last date for events in Kātib. The complex now lies in ruins, but photographs show that it was once an extensive structure.81 Working on behalf of the local population, the Maybudī family engaged in activities that J. Aubin has identified as characteristic of sayyids, those men who claimed descent from the Prophet through his daughter Fāṭima, and whom he considers one of the most powerful forces in post-Mongol social life, especially in the countryside.82 The only evidence that they did belong to that group is Maybudī’s name, generally cited as Qadi Mīr Ḥusayn. The title ‘mīr’ is given to descendants of the Prophet in the Iranian sphere. The sources give no indication that Maybudī operated as a wonder worker, one of the more persuasive reasons for the influence sayyids acquired among rich and poor, or that he ever tried to capitalize overtly on a claim to special lineage. The question remains whether the quality of sayyidship had anything to do with the rise of the Maybudī fortunes—a factor that might not be mentioned by their contemporaries, but which could nevertheless have been important. Given that the local histories provide little information for the years after 862/1458, not much else can be gleaned about the family into which Maybudī was born. It is not yet known whether Muʿīn al-Dīn had brothers other than Quṭb al-Dīn or more than two children, whether he spent most of his time in Yazd or on his properties in the surrounding villages, or when and how he died.83 From the available material, a picture does emerge of a rich, civicminded, and politically active family of absentee landlords. Maybudī will be 79 80 81 82

83

Kātib, 284. The description suggests that Kātib was present. Mustawfī Bāfqī, 3:166, 640–41. Afshār, Yādgārhā-yi Yazd, 2:317. Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 379–80; Aubin, “Un Santon quhistani de l’époque timouride,” REI 35 (1967): 210–14. Mancini-Lander, “Memory,” 315: The Dār al-siyāda, a hospice for sayyids, built in the fourteenth century as part of the Shamsīya mosque complex was apparently the first such structure in Yazd and signals a recognition of the sayyids’ increasingly special status. See also Bashir, Sufi Bodies, 87–89. On the institution of the Dār al-siyāda, see Akio Iwatake, “Ghâzân Khân’s dâr al‑siyâda,” Itoyoshi kenkyû 50 (1993): 48–82. He was apparently still alive when his son wrote his commentary to the Hidāyat al-ḥikma. See Athīr al-Dīn Mufaḍḍal b. ʿAmr Abharī, Hidāyat al-mughtadhī ilā ḥall al-Maybudī, ed. M. Qāsim Nānautvī et al. (n.p.: 1968), 1:4.

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seen to have continued the traditions of his family, while making his own particular mark on the society of his day. Lest it be thought that the Maybudī family had Yazd under its thumb, it will be worthwhile to glance quickly at the other important families in the city during the mid-fifteenth century. The feature that jumps out from the historical record is how sayyid lineage dominated the families who enjoyed prominence as an employment pool for qadis, viziers, and other administrators and for more informal but no less vital roles of religious leadership. Imāmzāda Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad, the great-great-grandson of the sixth Imam of the Twelver Shiʿis, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, was the ancestor of all the imāmzādas of Yazd who gradually evolved as the Rukniya, Shamsiya, Husayni, Radi (ca. 700–841/1301–1437), and Dada⁠ʾi (to at least 860/1456) families.84 One of the dominant figures who emerged from that lineage in fifteenthcentury Yazd was Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī, the native of the city in that period to have achieved the most lasting fame. He had established an international reputation by the time Maybudī was born. Now considered primarily as a historian, he is described in the biographical dictionaries and chronicles of his own time as a polymath, as were many of the educated men of the time. In Yazd he, too, did his part in the construction of monuments. For instance, he completed the dome and hall (ayvān) of the Rukniya mosque.85 In terms of families rather than individuals, the Niʿmatallahis stand out for success with money and marriages, despite some disastrous political adventures and the power of the Safavid Sufi movement. Sayyid Niʿmat Allāh alThānī was mentioned above with regard to the pilgrimage procession ordered by Uzūn Ḥasan. It was his ancestor, Shāh Niʿmat Allāh Valī Nūr al-Dīn Niʿmat Allāh b. ʿAbd Allāh (ca. 731–834/1331–1431), who founded what developed into one of the great Shiʿi Sufi orders, the Niʿmatallahis.86 He began his work in the region of Samarqand, but was encouraged to leave in 770–72/1368–70 by Tīmūr because of his disruptive influence on the nomads.87 The locus of his activities 84

85 86 87

Ibn Shihāb, 73, 93; Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 429, n. 6 for the first two; Holod-Tretiak, “The Monuments of Yazd,” 167. Mancini-Lander, “Memory,” 104–12, discusses the Imāmzāda. His descendants are inextricably intertwined with physical and spiritual changes in the region. Mancini-Lander has done exhaustive research on prominent Yazdi families, tracing marriage ties, teacher-student networks, financial connections, and architectural initiatives. His appendices are particularly useful. Quiring-Zoche, Isfahan im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert, 38. Binbaş, “Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī” is an invaluable resource for the historian and his world. Dhabīh Allāh Ṣafā, Tārīkh-i adabīyat dar Īrān (Tehran, 1983), 4:77–78. J. Aubin, ed., Matériaux pour la biographie de Shāh Niʿmatullāh Walī Kirmānī, Bibliothèque iranienne, no. 7 (Tehran: Département d’Iranologie de l’Institut Franco-Iranien, 1956), 13: “He [Tīmūr] saw the germ of a tribal uprising leavened with religiosity.”

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moved to Taft, a suburb of Yazd, where he built a Sufi hostel. He still enjoyed support from some Timurids, for Iskandar b. ʿUmar Shaykh (d. 818/1415) allowed the taxes of Taft and its dependencies to go to the upkeep of the institution from 812–16/1409–13. Shāh Niʿmat Allāh Valī split his time between Kuh Banan and Taft, where the Niʿmatallahi shrine became a center of wealth and spiritual prestige. He also traveled to Abarquh, where he built a charitable complex (ʿimārat). Eventually he moved to Kirman.88 His son, Shaykh Khalīl Allāh, was killed in Herat for his role in an assassination attempt on Shāhrukh.89 Other members of the family journeyed to India and back, so the range of the family’s influence was extensive.90 Although discussion of Maybudī’s letters to him more sensibly belongs in Chapter 4, it will not be out of place to mention here Shāh Niʿmat Allāh alThānī b. Shaykh Ẓahīr al-Dīn ʿAlī, a great-great grandson of Shāh Niʿmat Allāh, and the leading member of the family in Maybudī’s day. He and his descendants provide an example of a sayyid family that not only survived, but prospered during relatively frequent dynastic changes. He married one of the daughters of Jahānshāh Kara Koyunlu and, after making the pilgrimage to Mecca, returned home via the capital Tabriz, where he remained for some time. When Uzūn Ḥasan rose to power, Shāh Niʿmat Allāh was summoned to Shiraz in order to answer for Jahānshāh’s jewels, but apparently did not suffer from his connections to the Kara Koyunlu. Although he traveled often, Yazd remained his base and he eventually died in Mahan. One of his sons, Amir Niẓām al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Bāqī, moved from Yazd to Herat in 916/1510 where he became head of religious affairs (ṣadr) for the Safavids.91 He died at the battle of Chaldiran in 920/1514. Thus, the family weathered the changes from the Kara Koyunlu to Ak Koyunlu to Safavid dynasties, in a way that Maybudī’s did not,

88 89

90

91

Javād Nūrbakhsh Kirmānī, Zindagī va āthār-i Niʿmat Allāh Valī (Tehran: n.p., 1337/1959), 33. Aubin cites an instance of his insolence. He quoted a hadith learned from his father to Shāhrukh, which stated that whoever insisted on a sayyid’s remaining standing in his presence was a bastard. Whether true or false, the story resonates with the pride of the sayyids. Matériaux, 17. Although the influence was far-reaching, it is worth noting that the same names tend to crop up with reference to them. For example, Jalāl al-Dīn Davānī, central to Maybudī’s story, wrote a risāla in the name of Mīr Muḥibb Allāh (d. 914/1509), a great-grandson of Shāh Niʿmat Allāh. Nūrbakhsh Kirmānī, Zindagī, 102. Nūrbakhsh Kirmānī: marriage: 110; son: 112. See Chapter 4 in Mancini-Lander, “Memory on the Boundaries of Empire,” for the Niʿmatallahi family and their continuing influence throughout the first century of Safavid rule. Binbaş describes Timurid connections in “Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī,” 83–84.

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perhaps because of stronger alliances, more effective religious authority, better luck, or a combination of circumstances. Given the importance of Shiʿism in this century, it would be useful to know the sectarian tendencies of the leading families of the city. ʿAlid leanings clearly permeated the higher echelons of Yazdi society.92 Mustawfī Bāfqī claims that Bībī Fāṭima, the wife of the Timurid amir Jalāl al-Dīn Chaqmāq, in one of her many acts of patronage had clay brought from Karbala to be baked into bricks for the construction of the minbar in the Masjid-i Jāmiʿ.93 Descendants of Imāmzāda Muḥammad b. ʿAlī constituted a recognizable group, Kātib estimating those alive in the middle of the century, including men, women, and children, to number approximately a thousand.94 That their total could be estimated suggests some sense of shared identity, but reveals nothing about where they placed themselves on a religious spectrum. What we do know with certainty is that several of the foremost families were weakened by the sieges, floods, famines, and diseases that plagued Yazd from 850/1447 to at least 860/1456. Concerning the epidemic that followed the famine of 858/1454, Kātib writes: “In this year most of the notables (akābir) of Yazd died.”95 He mentions by name Majd al-Dīn Faḍl Allāh, Jalāl al-Dīn Murshid b. Iftikhār al-Dīn Humāyūn Shāh, ʿImād al-Dīn Masʿūd b. Ḍiyā al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Tamīmī al-ʿIlmī the vizier, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Bāfqī al-Vāʿiẓ, Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad the muḥtasib, and the famous Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī.96 While Kātib claims that no one was killed in the 860/1456 flood, Mustawfī Bāfqī lists at least one notable who died: Khwaja Pīr Ḥusayn Dāmghānī.97 Although Muʿīn al-Dīn had a secure status in society before the disaster, the decimation of the notables may have opened up possibilities for him and his family. Qadi Ḥusayn certainly rose a step or two higher than his father.

92

93 94 95 96 97

As a working definition, I follow Babayan’s description of the term ‘ʿAlid.’ She uses it for “all those who regarded descent in the male line from ʿAlī, not primarily from Fatima, as legitimate. For those who gave precedence to the whole family of ʿAli, any descendant of Abu Talib could become a leader.” “The Safavid Synthesis: From Qizilbash Islam to Imamite Shiʿism,” Iranian Studies 27 (1994): 136. Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:178. Kātib, 153. Kātib, 270. Kātib, 271–73. Kātib, 278; Mustawfī Bāfqī, 1:183.

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Maybudī’s Education

Maybudī’s preserved correspondence, the Munsha⁠ʾāt, which will be a major source for the chapter on his qadiship, also provides clues to his early years. It seems to date from the 890s/late 1480s and beyond. In one letter Maybudī mentions that he is forty years old.98 In another he defends himself against enemies who question his beliefs, negating the value of his thirty years of study and writing.99 Assuming he dates the beginning of his education to when he was somewhere between six and eight years old, the information in the letters is consistent with a birthdate sometime between 853 and 858/1449–54, so he would have been still a child during the flood and the rise of his father’s political fortunes. Before he traveled for his studies, he undoubtedly acquired the rudiments of reading, writing, arithmetic, and the religious disciplines in his native city. In the introduction to his marginal notes on the commentary on Masʿūd Rūmī’s Maṭāliʿ, he says that he left home at an early age to pursue his studies with the famous scholars and pious men of his day.100 He indicates that he traveled widely, but the one place he definitely visited was Shiraz, which required a journey of approximately a week from Yazd. He spent much time there as a student of Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Saʿd al-Dīn Asʿad Davānī, the one teacher with whom his biographers invariably associate him.101 Several reasons would encourage a young man to leave his native city in pursuit of education. One was simply the widespread practice of traveling for one’s studies.102 Yazd was not, however, an intellectual wasteland, some 98 99 100 101

102

MUN, 131. MUN, 166. He mentions that he has been qadi for six years, 170, and points out that the turn of the century is near (1 Muḥarram 900 corresponds to 2 October 1494), 172. MUN, 126–27. Ghiyāth al-Dīn Khvāndamīr, Ḥabīb al-siyār fī akhbār afrād al-bashar, ed. J. Humāʾī and M. Dabīr-Siyāqī (Tehran: Kitābkhāna-yi Khayyām, 1333/1954), 4:604–05; Ḥasan Beg Rūmlū, Aḥsan al-tavārīkh, trans. and ed. C.N. Seddon, Gaekwad’s Oriental Series, vols. 57 and 69 (Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1931–34), 57:71–72; 69:31. About travel times, Boyce says that in the 1920s from Yazd “to reach any of the nearest cities, Kerman, Shiraz, or Isfahan, was an eight-day journey fraught with peril.” A Persian Stronghold of Zoroastrianism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 11. There are too many examples of traveling young scholars who went on to significant careers for it to be necessary to compile a list. To name but one, Ṣāʾin al-Dīn Turka Iṣfahānī (d. 835/1432) followed a superficially similar trajectory of travels for study, lasting in his case fifteen years, writing, a term of qadiship plagued by attacks from enemies who armed themselves with theological accusations and turned the political center against him, and an unpleasant last few years of life. See Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest for a Universal Science.”

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provincial backwater from which to flee at the earliest opportunity. It was a center of learning in its own right, home to the madrasa of Amir Chaqmāq built in 841/1437–38 and to the Madrasa-i Ḥāfiẓīya.103 Academic centers generally flourished around the courts of princes and rulers who sought to gather a glorious entourage in order to extend their cultural largesse.104 With the end of Amir Chaqmāq’s governorship and the various natural and political scourges that afflicted the city, it is likely that Yazd suffered at least a temporary setback, thereby giving additional impetus to the young Maybudī’s decision to set off for Shiraz. A more specifically compelling reason for a student to travel was the attraction of famous scholars such as Davānī. Davānī was clearly the dominant personality in Maybudī’s education.105 Best known to the western world as the author of the Akhlāq-i Jalālī, the revision of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s ethical treatise commissioned by Uzūn Ḥasan, Davānī was a rationalist philosopher, honored in his own generation for his abilities in many fields, including poetry, riddles, religious sciences and especially, philosophy. Sām Mīrzā calls him the second Aristotle and the “philosopher of the age” (faylasūf-i zamān).106 Born the eldest son of Saʿd al-Dīn Asʿad in Davan near Shiraz, Davānī had a model of scholarship in his father. The latter served as qadi of the district of Kazarun in which Davan was located.107 The young scholar studied with his father until going to Shiraz to pursue his education. He distinguished himself at an early age and soon began to attract students from afar. Concurrent with his scholastic life, he embarked on a career in public affairs. For a while he

103 104 105

106

107

Ṣafā, 4:82, 85. Other fifteenth-century centers were Samarqand, Herat, Shiraz, and Tabriz. See Mancini-Lander, “Memory on the Boundaries of Empire,” for the numerous madrasa complexes of Yazd commissioned by a variety of urban leaders from various walks of life. No other teachers are mentioned specifically in connection to Maybudī, although the scholars in Davānī’s circle, as indicated above, were men with whom Maybudī undoubtedly came in contact. In several of his writings he mentions that he studied with a large number of eminent scholars in his avid pursuit of knowledge, but gives no more details. Sām Mīrzā Ṣafavī, Tadhkira-yi Tuḥfa-yi Sāmī, ed. Rukn al-Dīn Humāyūn Farrukh (Tehran: ʿIlmī, [1960]), 76–77. Davānī’s reputation suffered in later centuries. According to Fazlur Rahman, The Philosophy of Mullā Ṣadrā (Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī) (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975), Mullā Ṣadrā made him a persistent target, sometimes using “unusually harsh language,” 8. M. Maʿṣūm ʿAlī Shāh, Ṭarāʾiq al-ḥaqāʾiq, ed. M. Jaʿfar Maḥjūb (Tehran: Kitābkhāna-yi Bārānī, 1960–66), 3:122–24; Amīn Aḥmad Rāzī, Haft Iqlīm, ed. J. Fāḍil (Tehran: n.p., 1961), 178–80.

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served as the chief of religious affairs (ṣadr) of Yūsuf b. Jahānshāh, and eventually became qadi of Fars.108 Davānī’s career was not adversely affected by the downfall of the Kara Koyunlu and the rise of the Ak Koyunlu. He secured the position of qadi at Uzūn Ḥasan’s court and retained his pre-eminent status under Sultan Yaʿqūb.109 While working as qadi, he continued to teach. Taşköprüzade heard about Davānī’s prestige from Muḥyī al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Tabrīzī (d. 963/1556), the son of a Hanafi judge in Tabriz under the Ak Koyunlu. When Tabrīzī was quite young, he saw the great and majestic scholar surrounded by the ulama of Tabriz, who treated him with deep respect, bowing their heads before him.110 At a gathering in Shiraz during the reign of Uzūn Ḥasan, Davānī’s circle included Shaykh Ibrāhīm Gülşeni, who was visiting the city, Sayyid Mir Ṣadr al-Dīn, Muḥammad Shāriḥ, ʿAlī Sh-y-f-ki [sic], Sayyid Murtaḍā-yi Sharīfī, Amīr Fakhr al-Dīn Ḥaydar, Shams al-Dīn Bahrām Baḥḥāth, Shaykh Ḥusām al-Dīn Nūrbakhshī, and other students of Sayyid Sharīf.111 Given his illustrious reputation, Davānī attracted a dynamic circle of scholars, one in which Maybudī flourished. Davānī’s reputation extended beyond Ak Koyunlu frontiers. The Ottoman sultan, Bāyazīd II (r. 886–918/1481–1512), sent him a gift of 500 florins.112 The ulama of the Ottoman Empire also admired his work. For example, during Bāyazīd II’s reign, Mawlana Khaṭībzāda (d. 901/1496) heard that Davānī had sent a book to Mawlana al-Munshī, one of his friends in Anatolia, and that he had included a greeting to himself and to Mawlana Khwājazāda. He obtained the book from Munshī and sent it to the vizier Ibrāhīm Paşa, with whom he was quarreling. He remarked that he was preferred to Mawlana Khwājazāda in Persia (ʿAjam) because Davānī inscribed his name first. The vizier replied that being mentioned first does not mean that one individual is superior to anoth108

109 110

111

112

Rūmlū, 69:31; 57:71–72. Minorsky, V., “A Civil and Military Review in Fars in 881/1476,” describes the ṣadr as “the accredited representative of Islamic law, [who] stood at the top of the provincial organization,” 170. B.H. Siddiqi, “Jalāl al-Dīn Davānī,” in History of Muslim Philosophy, ed. M.M. Sharif (Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1966), 2:883. Aḥmad Taşköprüzade, Al-Shaqāʾiq al-nuʿmānīya fī ʿulamā al-dawla al-ʿUthmānīya, ed. Ahmed Subhi Furat, Istanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Yayınları, no. 3353 (Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakültesi Basımevi, 1985), 488. Muḥyī-i Gülşeni, Manāqib-i Ibrāhīm-i Gülşenī ve Şemleli-zāde Aḥmed Efendi Ṣīve-i Ṭarīqat-i Gülsenīye, ed. Tahsin Yazici (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1982), 41. The name “Sh-y-f-ki” should probably be read “Shīftagī.” See Khvāndamīr, 4:605. Dh. Thābitiyān, Asnād wa-nāmahā-yi tārīkhī-yi dawra-yi Ṣafavīya (Tehran: Kitābkhāna-yi Ibn Sīnā, 1343/1964), 86. A thousand florins went to Jāmī.

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er. Local squabbles aside, the anecdote shows that at least two prominent scholars of the Ottoman Empire valued the good opinion of the distant Davānī.113 Presents from foreign rulers were only one of the sources of Davānī’s prosperity. That he was at least comfortably well-off is suggested by the report that, during the power struggles which preceded the downfall of the Ak Koyunlu, he was pressed for a large sum of money by some of the opponents of Aḥmad Beg b. Ughurlū Muḥammad.114 Whatever fame and fortune Davānī acquired, much of it initially stemmed from his intellectual accomplishments. Brockelmann lists some seventy of his extant works, most of which remain unedited.115 While the young scholar from Yazd could have been only one of his many concerns, from Maybudī’s perspective, the teacher’s influence was paramount. Several of the books written by Davānī find their counterparts in works by Maybudī. For example, Davānī wrote a treatise on riddles, various volumes on philosophy, and commentaries on the Shamsīya, the Ṭawāliʿ, and the Maṭāliʿ—all corresponding to subjects addressed by Maybudī.116 Some of their parallel works seem to have been standard textbooks in grammar and logic, so the similarity is understandable. From what is known of medieval Islamic education, teachers would dictate a standard work along with their own commentary or with their remarks on another scholar’s established commentary. Their students, in turn, would eventually teach the same books to the next generation of pupils, thus perpetuating a particular work and those commentaries proven to be useful.117 The perpetuation of commentaries has exposed late medieval scholars to the criticism that they were unable to transcend imitative or derivative thought.118 According to that line of reasoning, the sciences may have been 113 114

115 116 117

118

Taşköprüzade, 149. Rūmlū, 69:7,9; 57:16, 19; Mīr Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd al-Laṭīf Sayfī Ḥusaynī Qazvīnī, Lubb al-tavārīkh, ed. Sayyid Jalāl al-Dīn Ṭihrānī (Tehran: Muʾassasa-yi Khāvar, 1314/1936), 227–29. Apparently he was on good terms with Aḥmad Beg, who wrote him letters that he sealed himself instead of sending official orders. Brockelmann, SII:306–09. See also Rūmlū, 57:71–72/69:31. See above, pages 9 and 38. Pourjavady makes the point with reference to Najm al-Dīn Nayrīzī that scholars who were active as teachers used their works for teaching purposes, which meant that large numbers of students copied them and ensured their dissemination. Pourjavady, Philosophy in Early Safavid Iran, 70. See below Maybudī’s remarks on why he wrote a commentary on Abharī’s Hidāyat al-ḥikma. Ṣafā, 4:79–83. Browne is also harsh in his judgment, declaring that a decline in prose writing set in with the Mongol invasion. Speaking of the sixteenth century and later, he writes that the bulk of scholarly writing “is so dull or so technical that no one but a very leisured

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pursued by large numbers of scholars, but the quality was poor. Ṣafā, for instance, claims that the scholars were collectors and not original thinkers. They knew their texts well, but remained content to summarize or comment upon them. Rescher describes the period after 1300 as “the era of ossification” for Arabic logic.119 Various reasons are given for the so-called decline. The parlous times supposedly discouraged ambitious intellectual pursuits. Ṣafā says that governments pressured scholars to conform to certain standards.120 With the exception of Ulugh Beg, rulers demonstrated more interest in Sufism than science. At his most condemnatory, Ṣafā complains about scholars’ carelessness, bad taste, imprecision, and failure to pursue intellectual inquiry. In education, the teachers allegedly taught law and Arabic literature from texts of the seventh and eighth centuries Hijra/thirteenth and fourteenth centuries ce by adding their own notes without any deep investigation or new approach. They were chained to repetitive, slavish imitation of their predecessors, with their sole claim to originality displayed in verbal virtuosity. Research in science, literature, philosophy, and historiography after the eleventh century has shown such conclusions to reflect transient academic tastes and values. Creativity and analytical thought were never in short supply after the Mongol invasions. In part, the issue is one of categories. Rather than regretting the absence of what we think we ought to find, we should look at what was actually produced. If the commentaries and supercommentaries served the educational purposes of their authors, then the works should be judged on that basis. Much has been written about the origins of the madrasa

119 120

and very pious Shiʿa scholar would dream of reading it … Many of those writings are utterly valueless, consisting of notes or glosses on supercommentaries or commentaries on texts, grammatical, logical, juristic or otherwise, which texts are completely buried and obscured by all this misdirected ingenuity and toil.” Edward G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia. Vol. 4: Modern Times (1500–1924) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 4:376–77; see also 412–13, 415–16. See also D. Gutas, “Aspects of Literary Form and Genre in Arabic Logical Works,” in Glosses and Commentaries on Aristotelian Logical Texts: The Syriac, Arabic and Medieval Latin Traditions, ed. Charles Burnett (London: The Warburg Institute, 1993): 29–76, and “The Study of Arabic Philosophy”; R. Wisnovsky, “Some Remarks on the Nature and Scope of Arabic Philosophical Commentary in PostClassical (ca. 1100–1900 ce) Islamic Intellectual History: Some Preliminary Observations,” in Philosophy, Science and Exegesis in Greek, Arabic and Latin Commentaries, ed. P. Adamson, H. Baltussen, and M.W.F. Stone (London: Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 2004): 2:149–91. Wisnovsky presents cogent arguments in favor of the continuation of intellectual life in Islamic lands after Ibn Sīnā. Nicholas Rescher, The Development of Arabic Logic (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1964), 73. Ṣafā, 4:81: He cites Faḍl Allāh Astarābādī and Qāsim Anvār.

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system, but how that development affected the writing and reading of books is still a gray area.121 It seems contradictory to describe at length the methods of dictation used in the madrasas, then to turn around and lambast the written by-products of those methods. Rescher offers a clear example of such criticism. After listing works based on the Maṭāliʿ al-anwār [fī al-manṭiq] of Sirāj al-Dīn Maḥmūd al-Urmawī (d. 682/1283) and the Risāla al-Shamsīya of al-Kātibī, he writes: These tabulations bring to light the essentially geological character of the development of Arabic logic after 1400. Based on the compendia of the 13th century, there appeared, first, commentaries, then first-order glosses, and finally second-order glosses. As has already been indicated, this mirrors the program of instruction: the student masters (possibly even memorizes) a standard treatise of the subject under the direction of a teacher who ‘explains the text’ rather than teaches the subject.122 That pedagogical distinction between explanation and instruction is puzzling with reference to a culture where learning was so firmly based on text. The significant point is that scholars of this time established their reputations as philosophers with methodical explanations of a relatively defined canon of works, such as the Shamsīya and the Hidāyat al-ḥikma. George Saliba proposes that the genre of commentaries and glosses should be viewed as “the functional equivalent of today’s periodical literature in the research, where new findings were made public.”123 Detailed studies of commentary technique, the educational goals of such writing, and individual successes in meeting those goals, as demonstrated by contemporary preferences for one commentary over another, have provided fruitful avenues of research for Saleh, Zadeh, and others. The constant interplay of canonical and open texts sheds light on the political, intellectual, and literary dynamics of various times and places. 121

122 123

Walid A. Saleh insightfully distinguishes encyclopedic from madrasa tafsirs. While much overlap existed in terms of audience, the purpose of composition varied significantly. The Formation of the Classical Tafsīr Tradition: The Qur’an Commentary of al-Thaʿlabī (d. 427/1035) (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 148–9, 198–99, 208, 214. Rescher, Development, 75. George Saliba, “Writing the History of Arabic Astronomy: Problems and Different Perspectives,” JAOS 116 (1996): 714. His work offers definitive proof of scientific excellence throughout the Islamicate world after the Mongol invasions. See also his introduction to A History of Arabic Astronomy: Planetary Theories during the Golden Age of Islam (New York: New York University Press, 1994).

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Davānī’s works were not the only ones to guide Maybudī during his student years. Judging from the citations that spring up on every page of Maybudī’s writings, he was well-read. In his introduction to the Sharḥ-i Dīvān-i ʿAlī, which runs to some hundred folios, he quotes approximately eighty authors. At this point it remains unclear whether he studied the original works as a whole or in part, or whether he relied on compendia and summaries that enabled him to refer to the arguments of particular authors and even to quote them verbatim. He could, of course, have done both. In some cases, he specifies that he “saw” in a particular work the passage he chooses to quote.124 Some of his quotations are lengthy, but just as a student could quote long passages from Ibn ʿArabī after reading Maybudī’s Sharḥ-i Dīvān-i ʿAlī, so Maybudī could have taken his excerpts from a similar work. References to commentaries do not necessarily mean that Maybudī did not read the original work. Commentaries were written in such a way that the complete original text was sometimes embedded in the remarks of a later scholar. Maybudī’s own commentary on the Hidāyat al-ḥikma is preserved in copies that contain the entire original work. When Maybudī refers to Shihāb al-Dīn Yaḥyā al-Suhrawardī’s (d. 587/1191) Hayākil alnūr, it is tempting to speculate that his text was Davānī’s commentary on that work. Even if he did use it, that would not mean that he relied on the fifteenthcentury equivalent of SparkNotes instead of the original, but rather that he had his teacher’s comments handy to help him understand the book. Many of the works quoted in the Sharḥ are what would be expected from a traditional education. The Qurʾān provided a framework for thought from an early age, and Maybudī liberally uses verses from it to illustrate his points, whether grammatical, historical, or philosophical. He refers frequently to various Qurʾān commentaries (tafsīrs), such as that of Abū Isḥāq Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Thaʿlabī (d. 427/1035), his student ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-Wāḥidī (d. 468/1076), Maḥmūd b. ʿUmar al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1144), Fakhr al-Dīn alRāzī (d. 606/1209), and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Bayḍāwī (d. ca. 685/1286).125 Given its focus on interpreting historical events as reported by hadith transmitters, the section on ʿAlī constantly refers to the hadith collections of Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870), Muslim b. al-Ḥajjāj (d. 261/875), Abū Dāwud (d. 275/888), Abū ʿĪsā Muḥammad b. ʿĪsā al-Tirmidhī (d. 279/892), and alNasāʾī (d. 303/915). Maybudī rarely quotes historians such as Ibn Khallikān (d. 681/1282) and ʿIzz al-Dīn ʿAlī Ibn al-Athīr (d. 630/1234), presumably because he focuses on ʿAlī and chooses to develop his arguments through scriptural 124 125

He “sees” in ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla al-Simnānī’s (d. 736/1336) ʿUrwa [li-ahl al-khalwa wa-al-jawla] a passage about an encounter between the author and a shayṭān. SDA, 101. Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) is cited only twice.

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texts. Even had he not eventually become a qadi, it is understandable that, as a religious scholar, he would cite the opinions of the founders of the four major legal schools, especially Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfi‘ī (d. 204/820), to whose school he belonged.126 Maybudī’s poetic quotations were also from a firmly ensconced tradition. He sprinkles verses throughout his writings, from the writings of poets such as ʿUmar b. ʿAlī Sharaf al-Dīn Ibn al-Fāriḍ (d. 632/1235), Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 672/1273), Fakhr al-Dīn Ibrāhīm ʿIrāqī (d. 688/1289), Naṣīr al-Dīn Amīr Khusraw Dihlavī (d. 725/1325), Salmān Sāvajī (d. 778/1376), Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥāfiẓ (d. ca. 792/1390), and Jāmī. As a mature scholar, Maybudī complained about the decline in educational standards. Bemoaning the fact that ignorant men depended on family background or sycophancy to be appointed to religious positions, he dismisses his colleagues for lacking familiarity with even so basic a text as the Kāfiya. He claims that students of his day do not study the Islamic sciences, squandering their time with trivialities (muzakhrafāt) and corrupting the pure words of their predecessors.127 He urges his patron to reform the educational system 126

127

Davānī wrote a supercommentary on the Anvār-i Shāfiʿīya: Rāzī, Haft Iqlīm, 179. For Maybudī’s remarks on the founders of the four major Sunni legal schools, see Chapter 3 below. That Maybudī belonged to the Shafiʿi school is evident in the Sharḥ-i Dīvān-i ʿAlī where in his presentation of the four schools he speaks of “our imam, Shāfiʿī Muḥammad b. Idrīs b. ʿAbbās, b. ʿUthmān b. Shāfiʿ b. Sāʾib …,” SDA, 30. In that same passage, he mentions that Ibn ʿArabī transmits in chapter 335 of his Futūḥāt that Shāfiʿī was one of the four poles (awtād). In light of Maybudī’s great respect for Ibn ʿArabī, it is significant that he includes that citation in a relatively short biographical notice. It may serve as much to situate Ibn ʿArabī within the Muslim fold as to elevate Shāfiʿī. In his correspondence he stresses the importance of accepting Shāfiʿī’s authority: MUN, 153, 178–179. In his lengthy defense of his qadiship, Maybudī repeatedly gives proof texts from Shāfiʿī and canonical Shafiʿi scholars such as Abū Zakariyā Muḥyī al-Dīn Yaḥyā Ibn Sharaf al-Nawawī in order to support his understanding of a qadi’s duties, 141. For the curriculum a specifically Shafiʿi scholar should follow, 173. Maybudī refers occasionally to scholars of the Hanafi madhhab; for example, he mentions Shaykh al-Islām Shams al-Dīn Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Sarakhsī al-Ḥanafī (d. 483/1090), 168. MUN, 171. In a letter to Shaykh ʿAlī Sāvajī, Maybudī says it his religious duty (farḍ ayn) to improve educational standards, 192. We must be careful, however, to distinguish convention from conviction, wistful nostalgia from activist concern. Qadi Aḥmad Ghaffārī (d. 975/1567–8) wrote during the Safavid Shah Ṭahmāsp’s (r. 930–84/1524–76) time that in the shah’s eyes: “… they [Shiʿite religious scholars] were turning the ignorant—juhalāʾ— into the learned—fuḍalāʾ—and were attributing the station of the ignorant to the learned. Therefore most of his domains became devoid of men of excellence and knowledge, and filled with men of ignorance; and only a few men of [true] learning are to be found in the entire realm of Iran.” Said Amir Arjomand, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 133.

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and to insist that a potential qadi or teacher study the following legal texts: the Ghurar of al-Rāfiʿī, Jamāl al-Dīn al-Isnawī’s (d. 772/1370) Muhimmāt, and the Rawḍat [al-ṭālibīn], which is a summary of the Sharḥ al-Kabīr, of Muḥyī al-Dīn Abū Zakariyā al-Nawawī of Damascus (d. 676/1277).128 The student should master the principles of fiqh and have complete knowledge of tafsir and hadith, as well as philosophical and revealed subject matter in general. A preacher (vāʿiẓ) should know the Tafsīr-i Qāḍī and the Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn of Ghazālī.129 The books listed barely scratch the surface of Maybudī’s own erudition. His knowledge was broad, and his main interests lay in philosophy, more particularly metaphysics, and in intellectual mysticism. The focus on philosophy in the Sharḥ’s introduction guarantees that the number of quotations from treatises on that subject are many, but citations in Maybudī’s other works show that philosophy is, indeed, fundamental in the types of book that he studied. Few of the quotations come from translations of Greek texts, although the names of Aristotle, Euclid, Plato, and Galen appear within specific arguments.130 Maybudī primarily works from the classics by giants such as Abū Naṣr Muḥammad al-Fārābī (d. 339/950), Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn Ibn Sīnā (d. 427/1037), and Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī, relying even more extensively on Ghazālī, Suhrawardī, and Ibn ʿArabī for their metaphysical models of the cosmos. Maybudī’s great interest in Ibn ʿArabī is worth noting for its social as well as intellectual ramifications, because the thirteenth-century philosopher and mystic was an extremely controversial figure from Andalusia to India long after his death.131 In the hagiography of Shaykh Ibrāhīm Gülşeni (d. 940/1534), anecdotes about those who engaged in disputes about his beliefs give an indication of how intense scholarly debates affected the careers of religious figures. The subject of the hagiography, Shaykh Ibrāhīm, praised the Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, 128

129 130

131

As Shahzad Bashir pointed out to me, Maybudī probably did not choose Nawawī at random. The Damascene scholar stands at the beginning of a Shafiʿi tradition of transmitted learning that eventually passed through Davānī, with whom Maybudī studied. MUN, 173. Maybudī does not identify the tafsir further. Is it that of ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Muʿtazilī (d.415/1025), a Muʿtazilite theologian and judge of the Shafiʿi school? Mention of Greek sources includes a reference to the Theologia which was erroneously ascribed to Aristotle. See Peter Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus: A Philosophical Study of the Theology of Aristotle (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., 2002). Alexander Knysh, Ibn ʿArabi in the Later Islamic Tradition (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999); Th. Emil Homerin, From Arab Poet to Muslim Saint: Ibn al-Fāriḍ, His Verse, and His Shrine (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994), 77: the Ottoman chief judge in Egypt, Muḥammad ibn Ilyās (d. 954/1547) was relieved of a post in the 1520s, “having earned Sultan Sulaymān’s (r. 927–74/1520–66) displeasure for criticizing Ibn al-ʿArabī.”

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despite the opposition of some scholars. The author relates how the mullas of Qarabagh reviled and burned the work, attacked Dede ʿUmar Rawshanī, Shaykh Ibrāhīm’s spiritual guide, and called those who studied the work unbelievers (kāfir).132 Rawshanī managed to clear himself of all charges of unbelief and criticized the book burning as misguided. A related story concerns an Anatolian scholar who, while on the pilgrimage, outshone all the ulama of Egypt during a public debate. In a fit of pique, they accused him before the ruler of Egypt of having a father who had written a commentary on the Fuṣūṣ and of professing himself to follow Ibn ʿArabī’s teachings. The unlucky scholar’s fate was not recorded.133 Even if both attacks were launched for personal and political reasons, Ibn ʿArabī’s views served as volatile weapons. For our purposes, evidence that Ibn ʿArabī’s ideas circulated in the Ak Koyunlu court helps put in perspective Maybudī’s intense interest in his writing. In the following anecdote, the works of Ibn ʿArabī are seen to undergo ­intense scrutiny without personal accusations being leveled against any particular individual. One year Shaykh Ibrāhīm traveled with Sultan Yaʿqūb to winter quarters at Qarabagh, where the ulama and religious leaders from the region spent most of the season in theological disputation. Their goal was to solve a different problem posed by the Fuṣūṣ during each session. At one point, a big debate was held after Shaykh Ibrāhīm challenged the ulama of the four corners of the earth to attack the book. He was able to explain every dubious passage so that it offered no contradiction to the Shariʿa and jurisprudence (fiqh).134 He had already successfully defended the work in a debate before Uzūn Ḥasan.135 Thus, in Maybudī’s time, Ibn ʿArabī’s ideas could be the touchstone for a scholar’s acceptability and the purity of his beliefs. His influence was not only pervasive, but also perpetually troublesome. The fact that adherence to the mystic’s ideas could be used as an effective accusation against someone, leading to charges before a Mamluk or Ak Koyunlu ruler, testifies to his ability to disturb after several centuries and also to the 132

133 134 135

Dede ʿUmar Rawshanī of Aydin (d. 892/1486), called Dede Ḥaḍratları, was a Khalvatī shaykh who was a protege of Uzūn Ḥasan. See the articles on “Gulshanī” and “­Khalwatiyya” in EI 2. Gülşeni, 91, 180. Gülşeni, 181. Gülşeni, 212–13. Ibn ʿArabī was but one of many mystical figures whose multifaceted writings provoked lingering controversy. See Chapter 3 of Homerin, From Arab Poet to Muslim Saint for political and professional repercussions in Mamluk Egypt attendant upon the poet’s reputation. Controversy over the poet reached a climax among the religious elite of Cairo in 874–75/1469–70. It focused on the issues of monism and mystical union, but personal, political, and economic factors also came into play.

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insecurity of any one person’s position in intellectual and political circles. A mystic accesses the divine by intensely personal channels which, consciously or not, can undermine public religious authority. Adherence to a mystic’s teaching might render suspect a public figure’s loyalties and be used as ammunition in settling old scores or jockeying for position. Beliefs were subject to attack as the effort was constantly made to determine what was acceptable theologically, what might upset the ship of state, and what was questionable enough to get someone fired. That said, Ibn ʿArabī is the most frequently cited author in Maybudī’s Sharḥ, as will be discussed in Chapter 3. Maybudī began his own career as a prolific writer with a commentary in Arabic on Athīr al-Dīn Abharī’s (d. 662/1264) Hidāyat al-ḥikma. He states in the introduction that he realized early on in his education that the philosophical disciplines led to an understanding of the truth of matters and were the source of much good. Consequently, he studied them with many famous teachers and read widely in the field. One of the works he found instructive was the Hidāya. Because fellow scholars sought his help in understanding so fundamental a text, he composed his commentary: Those of my companions who were engaged in reading it requested that I prepare for them some explanatory notes about it and that I clarify what is appropriate for every subject in it … I advanced as an excuse the accumulation of obstacles, multitude of concerns, the clash of obligations and waves of worries, but they repeated their requests and intensified their search to acquire knowledge. I wrote it in accordance with their requests and their expectations. I hope that seekers on the path of reason and imbibers of the nectar of good sense will examine it carefully and in friendship … This is the first work I have written in the prime of youth.136

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Abharī, 4–5. Saleh writes with reference to al-Thaʿlabī’s introduction to al-Kashf: “The old trick—‘I wrote the book under the urgent pleading of my fellow friends’—had become too tattered to suffice as a cover. Nevertheless, scholars were still using it and al-Thaʿlabī in the introduction to his commentary does mention ‘the request of some outstanding jurists (fuqahāʾ), erudite scholars (ulama), and honorable dignitaries’ as a reason for writing the work …” Formation, 68. Maybudī’s contemporary, Shams al-Dīn Lāhījī, gives similar reasons for composing his commentary on Shabistarī’s Gulshan-i rāz. Because Maybudī observed a convention does not mean it was not true. For a perceptive discussion of the relation between literary convention and biography, see Paul E. Losensky, Welcoming Fighānī: Imitation and Poetic Individuality in the Safavid-Mughal Ghazal (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 1998).

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Abharī’s work is a skeletal introduction to the basic tenets of philosophy. The various chapters are divided into sections (faṣl). On the subject of celestial bodies, for example, the sections demonstrate that they exist as spheres, that they are simple and not composite, move in perpetual orbits and do not accept generation or corruption, with additional information about the primary elements and atmospheric phenomena. The space allotted to each of those subjects is limited. Maybudī elaborates on the text, which is so spare that it practically demands such treatment, defining terms, bringing in the opinions of various philosophers such as Ibn Sīnā and Rāzī, and presenting his own views. The importance of the work lies in the glimpse it gives of Maybudī as an individual and in its anticipation of his later works, writings entirely of his own composition rather than commentaries on other texts. His interest in philosophical cosmology clearly began early in his scholarly career. His description of how he decided to write the commentary also reinforces the pedagogical nature of the genre. A similar work is the commentary on the Shamsīya fī al-manṭiq of Najm alDīn ʿAlī b. ʿUmar al-Qazvīnī al-Kātibī (d. 675/1276),137 written in 886/1481–82, when Maybudī would have been in his late twenties or early thirties. Like the Hidāya, the original is a systematic outline, in this case of basic definitions and concepts in logic. It was the subject of commentaries and glosses by numerous scholars, one of the more renowned being ʿAlī b. Muḥammad Sayyid al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī (d. 816/1413). The entries on Maybudī in numerous biographical dictionaries list many more commentaries on similarly basic textbooks. The Ḥabīb al-siyār mentions marginal notes or glosses (ḥāshiyas) on the Kāfiya (grammar), Hidāyat alḥikma, Ṭawāliʿ al-anvār (kalām), and Shamsīya.138 Rūmlū adds a tract on the art 137

138

Brockelmann I, 466/612: Risāla al-Shamsīya fī al-qawāʿid al-manṭiqīya. For an essay that focuses on Kātibī’s work, see Tony Street, “Logic,” in The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, eds. Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 247–65. Street describes it thus: “… down to the twentieth century it was commonly the first substantial text on logic which a Sunni Muslim would study in the course of a madrasa education” (247), the book being “a lovely little textbook … perhaps the most studied logic textbook of all time” (250). Street also points out that once Ghazālī declared that “knowledge of logic was indispensable for a proper control of jurisprudence,” its study was widely seen as necessary to a scholar’s training, although not without its critics (253). Maybudī mentions in a letter to Mawlana Muḥammad Tālishī that he has written this commentary and will send on a copy. MUN, 52. This is probably Muḥyī al-Dīn Tālishī (d. ca. 905/1500), who wrote many commentaries of his own. Khvāndamīr, 4:607. There seems to be some confusion about a work called simply al-Hidāya, not a commentary. See Kaḥḥāla, 4:63. I have seen no reference to it in catalogues.

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of cryptographic poems (muʿammā).139 Maybudī wrote a commentary in Arabic on the Risāla-i Ādāb-i baḥth of Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Samarqandī (d. 600/1203–04), which discusses dialectical reasoning.140 Mudarris adds to the list of Maybudī’s works marginal notes on Taḥrīr-i Uqlīdis, a commentary on Ḥadith al-ʿAskarī of Ṣaʿd Nādhirī al-Ḥaqāʾiq, and notes on a commentary of Qāḍīzāda Rūmī (fl. 815/1412), who was active in the court of Ulugh Beg, on the Mulakhkhaṣ fī al-hayʾa, a work on astronomy by Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad b. ʿUmar Chaghmīnī Khwārizmī (d. 745/1344).141 In his correspondence, Maybudī refers to the commentary on Euclid, mentioning that he had taught most of that work on geometry to one Muḥammad Nakhjavānī and written glosses on it at his student’s urging, which makes it reasonable to date it to the early 890s/ late 1480s, when Maybudī was qadi of Yazd.142 That Maybudī did not undertake anything unusual in preparing commentaries on all the above works is apparent after even a cursory glance at several biographical dictionaries that pertain to the fifteenth century, and even more so after looking at indexes of manuscript collections. For example, from the Majālis al-nafāʾis, it is seen that Shams al-Dīn Bardaʿī Ḥamdī (d. 927/1521) wrote marginal notes on a commentary on the Hidāyat al-ḥikma. The Kāfiya was taught to Shaykh Muṣliḥ al-Dīn Muṣṭafā and is also mentioned in connection with ʿAṭāʾ Allāh Nishāpūrī, who wrote riddles as well.143 A commentary on the Ṭawāliʿ was written by Mawlana Masʿūd of Herat in Jāmī’s time. The Ḥabīb alsiyār records that both Mawlana Fāḍil, who was a scholar of Samarqand, and the tutor and late ṣadr of Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd’s son Sulṭān-Maḥmūd (d. 900/1495) wrote notes to a commentary on the Shamsīya, the latter work becoming popular among students. Lastly, Khvāndamīr refers to notes on the Hidāyat al139

140 141

142 143

Rūmlū 69:35; 57:82. See Binbaş, “Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī,” 88; Maria Eva Subtelny, “A Taste for the Intricate: The Persian Poetry of the Late Timurid Period,” ZDMG 136/1 (1986): 75–78, for more information on poetic riddles. Losensky, Welcoming Fighānī, 154–64, suggests convincing ways of appreciating the muʿammā, which has too frequently been dismissed with disapproval by modern scholars. He proposes that we consider it “a form of social and poetic play” (160) and situate it within literary developments of the Timurid-Turkmen period. Over twenty such guides to the poetic riddle were written during the fifteenth century. Ṣafā, 4:100–01. Mudarris, Rayḥānat al-adab, 6:48–50. Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Mūsā Qāḍīzāda Rūmī was teaching in Samarqand when Jāmī was young. ʿAlī Aṣghar Ḥikmat, Jāmī (Tehran: Chāpkhāna-yi Bānkmillī-yi Īrān, 1320/1941), 63, 206–07. Letter to Sharaf al-Dīn Shaykh Abū Isḥāq Kūynāfī. MUN, 72. The verb Maybudī uses is guft, which indicates the oral nature of teaching. Navāʾī, 370. It is to be remarked that he moved from Khurasan to Rum in 917/1511. For the Kāfiya, 266; Ṭawāliʿ, 266; Taḥrīr-i Uqlīdis, 267.

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ḥikma written by Faṣīḥ al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Niẓāmī (d. 919/1513), an expert in mathematics and philosophy.144 How such works fit into the education of scholars in the Timurid realm can be glimpsed in a qaṣīda by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī, who was, incidentally, one of Maybudī’s correspondents. Entitled Rashḥ-i bāl bi-sharḥ-i ḥāl, it was written in 893/1488 and is found in the poet’s second dīvān. Jāmī described his education as including works on grammar, logic, Peripatetic and Illuminationist philosophy, natural science, mathematics, jurisprudence, uṣūl al-fiqh, hadith, Qurʾān reading and commentary. After he had been exposed to all those subjects, he moved on to Sufism.145 As a side note, it is interesting that Jāmī also wrote a treatise on riddles with Navāʾī’s encouragement.146 Jāmī’s education gives some indication of the time required to proceed through the madrasa system. In 840/1436, at the age of nineteen he left Herat to pursue his education in Samarqand. He did not return to Herat until 856/1452, when he was thirty-five.147 Turning from the Timurid to the Ottoman sphere, it appears that the same works attracted scholarly attention there. Taşköprüzade mentions two commentaries on the Hidāyat al-ḥikma, adding that one of them was taught to the future Bāyazīd II. He refers to six commentaries on the Kāfiya, including a copy that was commissioned by Mehmet II (r. 855–86/1451–81), two on the Ṭawāliʿ, and one on the Taḥrīr-i Uqlīdis.148 In conjunction with the fact that a number of Davānī’s students, if not Maybudī, immigrated to Ottoman lands during the Safavid rise to power, the academic popularity of certain books both east and west suggests that late medieval Islamic education could bear further scrutiny. The cursus honorum is the hallmark of Ottoman education, with its specific levels that had to be passed before moving on to a higher level of intellectual challenge, status, and pay. No such system has been identified for Iran, but enough similarity must have existed for Davānī’s students to fare as well as they did in their new home. 144

145 146

147 148

Khvāndamīr, 4:104, 106–07; Riḍā Qulī Khān Hidāyat, Tadhkira-yi riyāḍ al-ʿārifīn ([Tehran]: Kitābfurūshī-yi Maḥmūdī, 1344/1965), 353. See Wisnovsky, “Post-Classical Commentaries,” for a useful overview of the layers of commentary built upon enduring philosophical monographs. Ḥikmat, 61. For more about his education, 62–66. ʿAlī Shīr Navāʾī, “Hamasetu’l-Mutehayyirin,” in Ali Şir Nevaī: Ali Şir Nevaī: Divanlar ile hamse dışındakı eserler, ed. Agāh Sirri Levend (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1965–68), 4:108–09. See Losensky, Welcoming Fighānī, 156, for ʿAlī Shīr Navāʾī’s interest in muʿammā. Jāmī, Pis’ma, 3. Taşköprüzade for the Hidāyat al-ḥikma, 138, 179; Kāfiya, 168, 336, 370; Ṭawāliʿ, 53, 173; Taḥrīr, 553.

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Those students of Davānī who achieved prominence in the Ottoman Empire fall into two categories. The first are natives of the empire who studied with Davānī and then returned home. For example, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAlī b. Muʾayyad al-Amāsī (d. 922/1516), who had been with Bāyazīd when the latter was amir in Amasya, was obliged to flee to Aleppo in 881/1476 when unfavorable reports about him reached Mehmet II. As he sought a teacher there, he was encouraged by Persian merchants to continue his travels as far as Shiraz where he should study with Davānī, whom they praised. He took their advice and proceeded with a company of merchants to Shiraz where he stayed for seven years. Taşköprüzade saw with his own eyes the certificates of study (ijāzas) which Ibn Muʾayyad received for works in the rational sciences, Arabic, Qurʾān commentary, and hadith. When Bāyazīd ascended the throne, Ibn Muʾayyad, or Müeyyed-zāde, returned first to Amasya and then continued on to Istanbul, where the sultan put him in charge of a madrasa. Ibn Muʾayyad married in 891/1486, became qadi of Edirne, then chief judge (qāḍīʿaskar) of Anatolia, and eventually of Rumelia. The final bit of information given about him was that he was with Sultan Selīm (r. 918–26/1512–20) at Chaldiran.149 With the story of Ibn Muʾayyad and, as will emerge in Chapter 3, with that of Davānī and Maybudī, it becomes clear that it is a mistake to lay too much stress on the tight organization of either the Ottoman educational system or of those found in Iran. Although certain books were traditionally studied and certain lengths of time expected for the mastery of a particular subject, the lack of a centralized mechanism for evaluating students’ qualifications in either region gave added importance to the personal relations between teacher and student. The second category of student is the native Iranian who eventually settled in Ottoman lands. For example, Shaykh Muẓaffar al-Dīn ʿAlī Shīrāzī studied with Mir Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī and Davānī in Shiraz, marrying a daughter of the latter. When Davānī once suffered a lengthy illness, Muẓaffar al-Dīn served as his substitute at the Madrasah-i Sharṭ. After his two teachers died and growing Safavid power made life uncertain, Muẓaffar al-Dīn immigrated to Anatolia. It just so happened that the chief judge (qāḍīʿaskar) was the same Ibn Muʾayyad mentioned above and that Muẓaffar al-Dīn had been somewhat ahead of him when they studied with Davānī. Consequently, Ibn Muʾayyad welcomed him warmly and presented him to Bāyazīd, which resulted in his being given two successive madrasas to direct. When blindness afflicted him, he received sixty dirhems per diem retirement pay from Sultan Selīm. He died 149

Taşköprüzade, 292. Uzunçarşılı says he studied with Davānī in Tabriz. İsmail H. Uzunçarşılı, Osmanli Devletinin İlmiye Teşkilati, Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, seri 8, no. 17 (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1965), 232.

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in Bursa in 922/1516. Taşköprüzade finishes his biographical notice by saying that he was a Shafiʿi and that he had mastered mathematics, geometry, engineering, logic, and scholastic theology.150 Another of Davānī’s students, Ḥakīm Shāh Muḥammad Qazvīnī, came from a family of doctors and himself excelled in medicine. After spending some time in Mecca, he was invited to Bāyazīd’s court in Istanbul on Ibn Muʾayyad’s recommendation. He received 120 dirhems daily for his practice and enjoyed at least an equally high position under Selīm. He wrote a Qurʾān commentary and a supercommentary on the Sharḥ alʿAqāʾid al-ʿaḍudīya of Davānī, as well as a commentary on the Kāfiya.151 Taşköprüzade mentions several of Davānī’s students who fall into one of the two categories.152 Whichever group they belonged to, scholars who studied with Davānī apparently bore no stigma—quite the contrary—for the time spent with him. Since most of them were first given madrasa positions and then went on to become qadis, it seems that, although they may have jumped the line upon entering the purview of the Ottoman state, they quickly joined the mainstream in their academic careers. One reason they were able to adapt so quickly was that they studied the same materials during their years in the madrasa. According to Uzunçarşılı, the various academic grades were designated not only by the salary given to teachers at each level, but also by the materials that were read. During the long educational process, students studied many more works than the one or two formally associated with their current level. Uzunçarşılı mentions a number of books which were read in the madrasa system in addition to the standards of the graded course. In logic, they included a Sharḥ al-Shamsīya, Sharḥ Īsāghūjī (Isagogue), and a Sharḥ al-Maṭāliʿ. The historian does not say who wrote the commentaries and remarks that supercommentaries were used as well. The works given for philosophy all date from the end of the fifteenth century and are by such authors as Qāḍīzāda Rūmī and the Ibn Muʾayyad mentioned above. Uzunçarşılı’s list is long, including books on everything from rhetoric to scho150 151 152

Taşköprüzade, 329–330. His studies thus parallel what we know of Maybudī’s interests. It is specified that he studied a book of Euclid with Ṣadr al-Dīn. Taşköprüzade, 330–31. Note the frequency with which these titles appear among scholars of the period. For the Ottomans, see Taşköprüzade on Sinān al-Dīn Yūsuf al-Aydīnī (d. 935–36/1529), 469; Ibn al-Katkhudā al-Kirmiyānī (d. ca. 940/1533), 472. The Iranians are Ismāʿīl al-Shirvānī (went on to Khwaja Aḥrār in Transoxiana), 356, and Muḥyī al-Dīn Muḥammad (d. 963/1556), who was too young to study with Davānī, but his father had known Ibn al-Muʾayyad and the son got an academic job from Bāyazīd based on that acquaintance, 488.

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lastic theology to law, hadith, and other subjects. In the study of religious precepts (ʿaqāʾid), Davānī’s Ithbāt al-wājib is mentioned.153 Students were not supposed to progress to the next higher book without a certificate of study or a teaching license (ijāza) for the book on their level. Furthermore, they were not to rush through their studies, but rather to spend a specified length of time at each level. A 1576 decree designated the minimum time to be spent in the three lower grades as three years each, one year in the two next levels, and finally three years as a dānişmend or advanced student. The total amounts to a minimum of fourteen years.154 Assuming that a boy was thirteen or so when he began his studies, he would not finish his madrasa education before the age of at least twenty-seven. As teachers, the scholars began again at the lowest level and worked their way to the top.155 If the practice in Iranian lands was at all comparable, Maybudī would have been in his late twenties or early thirties when he started to teach and wrote the Hidāyat alḥikma, which corresponds with the information available about him. When students approached the end of their formal education, they had acquired familiarity with a common core of scholarship that transcended political boundaries.156 Uzunçarşılı’s documentation leaves us wondering whether the books were used for centuries, went in and out of vogue, and whether they were widespread throughout the empire or used in a limited area. Another indication that several of the books mentioned above were on the market comes from a request made in 843/1439–40 by Sultan Chaqmāq of Egypt to Shāhrukh. The sultan asked for the following books: Ḥujjat ahl al-Sunnat by Shaykh Abū Manṣūr Māturīdī, the Tafsīr al-kabīr of Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī, the Sharḥ-i Talkhīṣ al-jāmiʿ of Masʿūd Bukhārī, Sharḥ-i Kashshāf by ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Pahlavān, and the Rawḍat dar madhhab-i Shāfiʿī.157 All but the last of those titles appear either in the list of Ottoman textbooks or in Maybudī’s reading list. Just as one teaches the books with which one is familiar, we can assume that the books scholars wrote about were those that they themselves had studied. It is thus possible to determine in some measure the books upon which Maybudī’s 153 154

155 156 157

Uzunçarşılı, 20–23. Cornell H. Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire: The Historian Mustafa Âli (1541–1600) (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 27, using Uzunçarşılı, 13–15. Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī actually spent twelve to fifteen years in the bottom three levels, instead of nine. See also information on Jāmī above. Uzunçarşılı, 19–20. His source is Müverrih Alī’s Künh al-ahbār. Uzunçarşılı, 19. Samarqandī says five books were requested, but lists only the first four, 387b. Khvāndamīr lists five, 3:628.

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teachers—specifically Davānī—concentrated. Since Davānī penned at least seventy treatises, his knowledge was hardly restricted to a few basic works on logic and grammar, but the point is that the works on which his education was founded formed the education he transmitted to a subsequent generation of students. As the discussion of Maybudī’s writings indicates, he, too, passed on the knowledge of his predecessors in subjects such as logic, grammar, and philosophy. In one significant respect, however, he launched into a completely different field. Also a commentary, the Sharḥ-i Dīvān-i ʿAlī dealt not with a familiar educational text, but with a collection of poetry attributed to one of the figures most revered by the Shīʿa. The implications of such a work, penned by a Sunni judge just prior to the rise of the Shiʿi Safavid state in Iran, will be developed in the next chapter.

the Sharḥ-i Dīvān-i ʿAlī

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The Sharḥ-i Dīvān-i ʿAlī The Sharḥ-i Dīvān-i ʿAlī is both Maybudī’s longest work and the one most directly related to religious developments in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Although it was considered his most important book by the judge’s contemporaries and by Iranian scholars of succeeding generations, as is seen in the references to it and the number of manuscripts still extant, and despite its relevance to Iran’s Shiʿi transformation, it remains relatively unstudied and awaited a critical edition until 2000. Completed in Ṣafar 890/February-March 1485—that is, sometime around Maybudī’s appointment as qadi of Yazd—it raises questions about the sectarian sympathies of the Ak Koyunlu court and of the men it employed.1 Furthermore, given that Maybudī was later accused of being a fanatical Sunni who apparently was killed on the orders of Shah Ismāʿīl and assuming that his views remained relatively consistent, the book suggests what kinds of views were unacceptable in the nascent Safavid state. Logically, Maybudī would not have written three to four hundred folios about the main Shiʿi personality had he not shared at least some ʿAlid loyalism. Nonetheless, his writings provided no effective protection against charges of unacceptable belief. In order to know why, it is first necessary to determine what his beliefs were. Whatever his ʿAlid loyalties, Maybudī was not a crypto-Shiʿi.2 He emphatically identifies the Shīʿa as a group unrelated to himself in the Sharḥ, and we 1 Maybudī gives both Hijra and Jalālī dates: Ṣafar 890 and Isfand 406. SDA, 799. For the Jalālī or Mālikī era, see S.H. Taqīzādeh, “Various Eras and Calendars used in the Countries of Islam,” BSOAS 10 (1939–42): 108–17. It began with the vernal equinox in 471/1079. In the Munsha⁠ʾāt Maybudī writes to Qadi ʿĪsā Sāvajī that he has wanted to send a copy of the Sharḥ ever since he finished it and finally managed to do so. MUN, 186. In a verse that extols the life of a Sufi, he says, “Since I left official responsibilities, I have had a hundred delights and untroubled joy,” but it is difficult to extract biographical certainty from that one line. It seems to indicate that he held some official position before a hiatus and his subsequent appointment as qadi. SDA, 14. 2 M. Bāqir b. Zayn al-ʿAbidīn Khvānsārī, Rawḍāt al-jannāt fī aḥwāl al-ʿulamāʾ wa-al-sādāt (Qum: Khiyābān-i Aram, 1391/1971), 3:239. He states that, despite some verses that would lead one to believe the contrary, Maybudī was not a Shiʿi. A passage in the SDA on the legal schools, which is discussed below, is his proof. Mudarris finds those same verses convincing evidence that Maybudī was in fact a Shiʿi. Rayḥānat, 6:50. The uncertainty is perfectly reasonable, for Devin Stewart discusses how Twelver Shiʿi jurists participated in the Shafiʿi madhhab for centuries.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004302327_004

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know from his life that he served as a Shafiʿi judge who cultivated relations with leading figures of the Sunni Sufi order of the Naqshbandis and corresponded with the leader of the Niʿmatallahi order, who was based in his own region of Yazd. Furthermore, an understanding of Maybudī does not come from placing him among the Shīʿa or among the extremist (ghulāt) groups that flourished in the Anatolian Peninsula and Iran during the post-Mongol period. The latter presaged Safavid political success and may not have been as much on the fringes of society as their enemies would lead us to believe.3 No evidence has appeared, however, which would link Maybudī to them. Maybudī did belong to a minority—that of the civilian elite—and it is more useful to place the composition of the Sharḥ in that context. Research by J. Aubin demonstrates that certain types of political power remained in the hands of notable families who had held it steadily for generations as dynasties came and went.4 Some houses rose as others fell, but the structure of civilian notable authority remained unshaken. It can be argued that intellectual and religious authority remained in their hands as well. As far as can be determined, many of the notables prominent under the Ak Koyunlu continued to teach in the schools and serve in the law courts under the Safavids. One of the more interesting problems in Ak Koyunlu and Safavid history is the readiness of that civilian leadership to identify itself as Shiʿi at a particular moment in history. The parameters of religious identification are not well known. What range of belief and practice could be subsumed under Shiʿism or Sunnism is not clear to scholars today, nor does it seem to have been sharply defined for the men of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as evidenced by the arguments over whether Maybudī and Davānī adhered to one religious grouping or the other and by the ambiguity introduced into the biography of a poet such as Fighānī (d. 925/1519) by poems in praise of the Imams.5 The Islamic Legal Orthodoxy: Twelver Shiite Responses to the Sunni Legal System (Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 1998), especially chapter 3, “Conformance to Consensus,” 61–109. 3 See Michel Mazzaoui, The Origins of the Ṣafawids. Šīʿism, Ṣūfism, and the Ġulāt, Freiburger Islamistudien, no. 3 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1972) and Matti Moosa, Extremist Shiites: The Ghulat Sects (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1988), especially chap. 2 for the Bektashis, chap. 3 for the Safavids and Kizilbash, chap. 4 for the Bektashis, Kizilbash, and Shabak. 4 Jean Aubin, “É tudes safavides I: Šāh Ismāʿīl et les notables de l’Iraq persan,” JESHO 2 (1959): 39, 51. 5 Losensky, Welcoming Fighānī, 57–60. The prolific Shafiʿi scholar in Mamluk lands, ʿAbd alRaḥmān Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505), compiled forty hadiths about ʿAlī in Al-Qawl al-jalī fī faḍāʾil ʿAlī (The Clear Statements on the Merits of ʿAlī) and again, context is crucial. The collection was one of four on the first caliphs of the community and Suyūṭī also put together another collection focused on Fāṭima. Burge writes: “Without knowing the religious beliefs of

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terms ‘Shiʿi-Sunnism,’ ‘imamophilism,’ ‘‘Alid loyalism,’ and ‘crypto-Shiʿism’ adopted by a variety of scholars demonstrate that sectarian identities remain hard to pin down. The primary material leads everyone to articulate a variation on one conclusion—namely, that confessional ambiguity prevailed.6 Each form of religious experience had something to offer. Familial and local tradition might dictate Sunni ritual and legal practice, while at the same time intellectual currents might draw a bright young man towards the occult, and his own temperament and personal ambitions might make a Sufi brotherhood a comfortable place to pursue his mystical longings and poetic talents. As more material is mined, we develop a clearer picture of how the individuals saw themselves, what confessional boundaries they negotiated, and under which circumstances it was important to identify oneself as belonging to one group or another. Sectarian uncertainty had been an issue for centuries, with men as different as Thaʿlabī and Simnānī being pegged with a variety of identities. Expressions of respect for ʿAlī, the family of the Prophet, and the Imams made categorization a complicated matter even for an individual’s contemporaries. The fact that Maybudī wrote the kind of work he did offers one means to discover what his audience among the educated notables wanted to hear and to begin to trace the religious and intellectual continuity of the Ak Koyunlu and Safavid periods. The question becomes one of knowing their views in order to see what baggage they carried into the Safavid era and what they jettisoned. Since virtually no studies treat such developments in western Iran during our period, Maybudī’s massive Sharḥ acts as a gateway to determining how scholars integrated the ʿAlid narrative into the intellectual inquiry of the day. However many issues it raises, the Sharḥ is first and foremost a commentary on the poetry of ʿAlī, written to appeal to those who, like Maybudī, journey on the mystical path (darvīshān)—that is, Sufis.7 Writings attributed to ʿAlī, as opposed to traditions about him, fall into two main categories. The first is the prose of the Nahj al-balāgha, the collection of ʿAlī’s sayings, speeches, epi­al-Suyuti, having read the collection, one might suppose that the work was of Shiʿi origin. However, figures like Imam ʿAli and Fatima also have exalted status amongst most Sunni communities, even if they do not extend to incorporate all Shiʿi beliefs about them.” Stephen Burge, “Al-Suyūṭī on the merits of Imam ʿAli,” written for The Institute of Ismaili Studies’ website: http://www.iis.ac.uk (2010), 3. 6 Melvin-Koushki sees the range of orientations along a Sunni-Shiʿi axis as the “normalization of both the pluralism of the Ilkhanid period and the accompanying Sunni-Shiʿi intellectual rapprochement, as well as a symptom—or cause—of politically messianic Sufism.” “Quest,” 73. 7 SDA, 799.

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grams, and similar works. The book has long been admired in the Islamic world as a model of eloquence, one befitting the reputed founder of the science of grammar and a master of rhetoric.8 The most popular edition of the Nahj was compiled by Muḥammad b. al-Ṭāhir al-Raḍī (d. 406/1015), and one of the better known among many commentaries on it was by Ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd (d. 656/1258).9 Maybudī cites the Nahj only three times in the Sharḥ for minor clarifications of meaning and does not indicate whether he used a particular commentary.10 The second group of writings is ʿAlī’s poetic opus, or dīvān. As it appears in the Sharḥ, it comprises some 1700 lines (bayt), and numerous manuscripts exist. Maybudī does not mention which collections of ʿAlī’s poetry he used, although he cites variant readings as will be discussed further on, and scholars disagree about the compiler of the dīvān. In the Rawḍāt al-jannāt, Khvānsārī says Maybudī would have used the collection of Abū al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Ḍajkardī [sic] al-Nīshābūrī (d. 512 or 513/1118 or 1119), known as the Tāj al-ashʿār wa-salwat al-Shīʿa.11 He mentions that some have attributed the collection to Quṭb al-Dīn al-Kaydarī, also known as Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Ḥasan al-Bayhaqī, who also wrote a commentary on the Nahj al-balāgha.12 The centrality of poetry in Islamicate culture must ever be kept in mind while examining the Sharḥ. As is well known, poetry amounted to much more than the demonstration of verbal and intellectual virtuosity or refined sen­ timents. At least as far back as Thaʿlabī’s commentary on the Qurʾān, poetry “is readmitted into the sacred discourse, not as a sanitized philological tool where the meaning of the poetic citation as such is inconsequential, but as a con8

9

10 11 12

Abū Saʿīd al-Ḥasan b. ʿAbd Allāh Sīrāfī, Biographies des grammariens de l’école de Basra (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1936), 18; ʿAllāma Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Shiʿite Islam, trans. Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975), 105. Tahera Qutbuddin, “ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib,” in Arabic Literary Culture, 500–925, vol. 311 in series Dictionary of Literary Biography, ed. Michael Cooperson and Shawkat Toorawa (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005), 68–76. For al-Raḍī, see Brockelmann, SI:132. There is some question whether Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī b. al-Ṭāhir (d. 436/1044) collected the Nahj al-balāgha, or whether it was his brother al-Raḍī. Brockelmann, SI:704–05. For Ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd, see Brockelmann, SI:497, 705 and for other commentaries, see Jamil Sultan, É tude sur Nahj al-Balāgha (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1940), 9–10; Moktar Djebli, “Encore à propos de l’authenticité du Nahj al-Balagha!,” Studia Islamica 75 (1992): 33–56. SDA, 238, 295, 795. Khvānsārī, 3:238; Maʿṣūm ʿAlī Shāh, 3:125. Better is “Fanjgirdī”, for whom see Brockelmann, SI:74. Brockelmann, SI:74.

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tent-poetry, a poetry that can buttress the word of God.”13 Aside from its use within scholarly inquiry, certain works, such as the poetry of Rūmī and Ḥāfiẓ, came to acquire authority of a sacred nature and were interpreted as intimating concealed truths.14 Maybudī’s approach to poetry correspondingly differs from that in his earlier commentaries because his subject possesses so many layers of meaning. An introduction of approximately two hundred pages in the printed edition, the Favātiḥ, precedes the commentary proper and situates ʿAlī’s biography within the context of Islamic philosophy and history. Maybudī’s method of not only clarifying the text but also significantly expanding on its meaning contrasts markedly to his previous writing techniques. The poetry in the body of the work frequently triggers a digression of seemingly tenuous connection to the actual poem and provides themes for a substantial quantity of Maybudī’s own verse. In order to evaluate the text, the course of the arguments in the introduction will be traced in some detail. Given the diversity of subjects in the commentary, main themes will be extracted and discussed topically, rather than in the order in which they appear. One characteristic of the commentary, and certainly not unique to it, is the extensive use of quotations, primarily from the Qurʾān and hadith, but also from scholarly works in the philosophical sections. Maybudī had a vast literature at his command, ranging from Scripture (including quotations from the Torah and the Gospels) to legal documents to hagiography to poetry.15 His artful, purposeful use of quotation produced a documentary collage. The contemporary scholar’s task is to recover meaning from these fragmentary or layered texts. It unnecessarily minimizes his pedagogical purpose to think of Maybudī’s method solely as a virtuosic stringing together of fragments. In Maybudī’s tradition, uncovering truth and perceiving unity in consciously layered material began with opening a copy of the Qurʾān and seeking to understand its lexicon, allusions, historical formation, and much more. Scriptural references confer­ red the legitimacy of divine truth on a wide range of beliefs, so were essential to the development of any argument. Maybudī explicitly draws that connec13 14 15

Saleh, Formation, 175. See Annemarie Schimmel, Deciphering the Signs of God: A Phenomenological Approach to Islam (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 168. He refers to specific books and chapters of the Torah (352) and verses in the Gospels, in one place quoting John 3:3: “He will not enter the kingdom of heaven and earth who has not been born a second time.” SDA, 138. In another section he quotes John’s verses on the Paraclete. SDA, 353. Those are but a few lines in a large work, but it is worth noting that in the case of John 3:3 his use is neither polemical nor apologetic, but simply substantiation of an argument. In all likelihood, Maybudī drew from an intermediary source rather than having a copy of the Jewish and Christian scriptures at hand.

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tion when explicating a poem that mentions the verses of ‘Yā Sīn.’ After citing the hadith in which Muḥammad says, “Everything has a heart and the heart of the Qurʾān is ‘Yā Sīn’,”16 he quotes a few verses from the chapter of the Qurʾān that goes by that name, beginning with the two mysterious, isolated letters. The verses he cites affirm that God’s teaching to Muḥammad is not poetry, and that it is “a Reminder (dhikr) and a ‘Qurʾān’ that makes plain.” The conversation among Qurʾān, hadith, and ʿAlī’s poem demands the engagement of mind, speech, and eye, while eluding finite comprehension. From the very beginning of Islamic religious life, philological, historical, and theological excavations of text were necessary in order to come to a greater understanding of God’s words to mankind. In his use of quotations, Maybudī usually does not give long chains of transmission (isnāds). He more commonly introduces an anecdote with the name of the compiler or commentator—Tirmidhī, Thaʿlabī, Wāḥidī, and so on—and then perhaps that of the witness who actually heard the words of the Prophet or ʿAlī or participated in an event that merited recollection.17 In some cases, for example in recounting Imam Ḥasan’s speech after the death of his father ʿAlī, Maybudī omits any source whatsoever.18 Maybudī prefers to focus on the narrative content of his quotations, so in the rare instances when he does give a more detailed chain of transmission or examine the authenticity of particular stories, the change from his usual procedure demands attention. Just one example concerns ʿAlī’s status as the first convert to Islam after Khadīja.19 After briefly citing ʿAlī Ibn Athīr, Maybudī quotes Thaʿlabī on Qurʾān 9:100 (“And the first to lead the way …”). According to the earlier commentator, the verse refers to ʿAlī as the first convert after the Prophet’s wife, “and that is the word of Ibn ʿAbbās, Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī, Zayd b. Arqam, Muḥammad b. al-Munkadir, Rabīʿa, and Abū al-Jārūd.” Maybudī adds more supporting material from Ibn ʿAbbās, Anas, and Imam Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal on the testimony of ʿAfīf Kindī. When the subject lacks theological or historical ramifications, Maybudī 16 17

18 19

SDA, 765. Qurʾān, 36. Zadeh describes the works of the eleventh-century Shāhfūr Isfarāʾīnī in words that apply equally to Maybudī: “In general, Persian exegetical literature had very little patience for the genealogical sequencing of isnād transmissions … Though [Shāhfūr] Isfarāʾīnī generally dispenses with the chains of transmission, he draws copiously on the early exegetical authorities and usually cites them directly by name or by a generic title, such as the mufassirān (exegetes).” The Vernacular Qur’an: Translation and the Rise of Persian Exegesis (Oxford: Oxford University Press in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2012), 389. SDA, 198. SDA, 446–47.

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generally contents himself with the story: a verbal exchange before a battle, an act of courage, an example of charitable giving, and so on. Where controversy is involved, Maybudī arms himself with authority. The Sharḥ has already shed some light on the extent of Maybudī’s education. In it Maybudī cites hundreds of books and authors, providing us with more insight into his mental library, which implies an extensive physical one as well, given the number of lengthy quotations he includes. His sources range from the giants of hadith collection to a variety of scholars such as Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d. 386/996), Ibn Sīnā, Ghazālī, Ibn ʿArabī, Saʿd alDīn Ḥamuvayī (d. 649/1252), Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī (d. 673/1274), Fakhr al-Dīn ʿIrāqī (d. 688/1289), ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Kāshī (al-Kāshānī) (d. 736/1335), Muʾayyad al-Dīn al-Jandī (d. ca. 700/1300), ʿAḍud al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ījī (d. 756/1355), Sharaf al-Dīn Dāwud al-Qayṣarī (d. 751/1350), ʿAbd Allāh b. Asʿad al-Yāfiʿī (d. 768/1367), Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī (d. 786/1385), Saʿd al-Dīn Masʿūd Taftāzānī, and Ṣāʾin al-Dīn Ibn Turka Iṣfahānī (d. 830/1437). In addition to canonical hadith collections and philosophical works, Maybudī frequently refers to Abū Muḥammad Aḥmad b. Aʿtham, whose Kitāb al-Futūḥ (composed 204/819) is a history of the Arabs from ʿUthmān (d. 35/656) to Hārūn al-Rashīd (d. 193/809) and offers much information about ʿAlī. While mentioning many authors, he rarely refers to more than one or two books by each one. In many cases of translation and grammatical explanation, Maybudī does not name his source.20 Where a work is cited only once or twice, it is possible that Maybudī uses an intermediary source in which that work is cited, rather than having the work itself in hand. A final remark about sources is that few come from his contemporaries. Davānī is cited once in the entire work and only as the beginning of a chain of authorities for a story about a jinn embodied in a snake and the impact of its slaying on a group of pilgrims.21 In this complex jigsaw puzzle of sources, the challenge is to assess the care with which Maybudī chose his references, and to seek with equal care the order behind his selections. What could have been a dry, if erudite, arrangement of ideas with ʿAlī at its core is, on the contrary, an engaging work sparkling with variety. Of all that Maybudī could mention about Ghazālī and Ibn ʿArabī, he includes an anecdote related by the latter about a scholar being struck blind for reading just a few pages of a treatise picked up in a local market. The manuscript vilified Ghazālī

20

21

The excellent edition of Raḥmānī and Ashk-Shīrīn identifies many of the unspecified references, especially to Abū Naṣr Ismāʿīl b. Ḥammād al-Jawharī’s (d. 393/1002 or 397/1006) dictionary, the Tāj al-lugha wa-ṣiḥāḥ al-ʿArabīya. SDA, 100.

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and the heedless scholar did not regain his sight until he repented.22 Reflecting on the practical uses of philosophy, Maybudī not only quotes Shams al-Dīn alShahrazūrī (d. after 687/1288) about how God punished the Children of Israel for neglecting the study of geometry, but gives a lucid, detailed solution to the mathematical problem of duplicating the cube, which they were unable to solve without the help of Plato!23 Variations in tone and topic keep the more abstruse material from stalling the discussion and the more anecdotal selections from meandering into frivolity. Maybudī is a good-natured storyteller whose tales beguile as they instruct.

The Favātiḥ

Divided into seven sections, or fātiḥas (literally ‘start’ or ‘opening’), the introduction was frequently copied as a separate work known as the Favātiḥ. Maybudī briefly says that he will explain in seven chapters some of the more recondite concepts to be met within the commentary proper before he starts it. He then plunges directly into the first chapter. The chapters treat the true path of the pure, God’s essence, His names and attributes, the greater man or macrocosm, the lesser man or microcosm, prophecy and sainthood and, finally, the virtues and history of ʿAlī. Each chapter is further divided into a varying number of self-contained essays (fatḥ), the headings of which are penned in red ink in the more elaborate manuscripts. Maybudī opens the first chapter with the word with which he grapples from beginning to end: ‘knowing’ (dānistan). His goal in stepping out onto the true path of the pure is to compare scholastic and philosophical theologians 22 23

SDA, 21. SDA, 27. His source is the [Nuzhat al-arwāḥ wa-rawḍat al-afrāḥ:] Tārīkh al-ḥukamāʾ of Shams al-Dīn Shahrazūrī: A plague broke out in Plato’s day and one of the prophets of the Children of Israel was informed that an altar in the shape of a cube had to be doubled for the plague to stop. The afflicted nation put a cubic altar of identical dimensions next to the first, but the plague only increased in intensity. God helpfully pointed out that such a solution did not double the cube. Plato’s advice was sought and after remarking that God was punishing the people for neglecting the study of geometry, he guided them to a solution. Maybudī then gives a detailed proof for how to double a cube. See the reference to Shahrazūrī’s tale in Walter William Rouse Ball, Mathematical Recreations and Essays (London: MacMillan, 1896; reprinted, 1905), 206: “In an Arab work, the Greek legend [known as the Delian problem, in which the irritated God is Apollo] was distorted into the following extraordinarily impossible piece of history, which I cite as a curiosity of its kind …”

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(mutakallimūn and ḥukamāʾ) and Peripatetic thinkers (ḥukamāʾ-i mashshāʾiyīn) to mystics (Sufis) and Illuminationists (ḥukamāʾ-i ishrāqiyīn), who call themselves Stoics (rivāqiyīn). Citing Qurʾān 11:24 which sets up a stark contrast of the blind and deaf to the seer and hearer, he indicates from the outset his source for meaningful guidance.24 The sections touch on the path of logic and its insufficiency, the path of mysticism, the belief of the majority that knowledge is limited to the official sciences (ʿulūm-i rasmī i.e., the religious disciplines), the special qualities of dervishes, the possibility of approaching mystical perfection through frequenting accomplished mystics, the path of Illumination, the confusion of ultimate spiritual goals with philosophy alone, differences in interpretation of the Shariʿa and, finally, whether cogent proof comes from designation (naṣṣ) or consensus (ijmāʿ), listing sects that opt for one or the other. Among the many issues raised in the first section, the persistence of the discussion about various methods of knowing stands out. Acquiring knowledge is an activity of forward motion for Maybudī, whether one employs reason in the path of the Mutakallimūn and the Peripatetic philosophers or engages in spiritual exercises in the path of the Sufis and Illuminationists. While Maybudī does not explicitly set out to list his methodological challenges, the issues he tackles lead him to share with his reader the problems an inquiring believer is likely to encounter. In Maybudī’s interpretation of the cosmos, once man begins to examine why things are the way they are, he is led to question the nature of reality and then hits an epistemological wall as he confronts the limits of what he can know. Even if religious thinkers considered that epistemological debate acquired some breathing room with the synthesis of Ghazālī in his Munqidh min al-ḍalāl (Deliverer from Error), the issue never went away. Maybudī’s sensitivity to the need to balance different disciplines of thought and experience should be seen as evidence that each age must learn anew how to speak about the fundamentals of existence, rooting them securely in the Qurʾān and hadith. Maybudī comes down on the side of the mystics by criticizing the path of rational thought (fikra), as opposed to experiential ­mystical discipline (riyāḍat), and by extolling mysticism as the way to attain spiritual truth. Kalam is a method fraught with disputation and guesswork. Accord­ing to Maybudī, the Qurʾān itself hints at kalam’s deficiencies: “Most of them follow nought but conjecture. Assuredly conjecture can by no means take the place of truth.”25 Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī, Shāfiʿī, Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/796),

24 25

SDA, 9. 10:37, quoted in SDA, 10.

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and Ghazālī provide material for his arguments.26 Maybudī does not dismiss all rational endeavors, for they can be used to silence those who oppose true belief, but he does restrict necessary academic knowledge to fiqh, tafsir and hadith. He maintains that “by the lamp of reason one cannot see the path of truth” and that demonstrative proofs will not lead to the primary goal of religious knowledge, for which the light of prophecy is necessary.27 A system of knowledge built entirely on reason can both seduce man away from correct belief and practice and block him from truly experiencing faith. Maybudī’s wariness of Greek knowledge might seem jarring, considering his own interest in the subject as revealed in earlier writings and in the Jām-i gītīnumā of 897/1492. Through his treatment of Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā, whom he singles out from other thinkers who advocated the use of logic, Maybudī shows how it is possible to reconcile different methods of thought, exhibiting a drive to replace disapproval of or at least ambivalence about rational sciences with a comprehensive epistemological framework that accommodates a variety of disciplines.28 After discussing whether or not the two philosophical scholars were unbelievers (kāfir) for their denial of God’s knowledge of particulars, the resurrection of bodies, and the necessity of the eternity of the world, as Ghazālī claimed in his Munqidh min al-ḍalāl, Maybudī cites a verse that supports the orthodoxy of Ibn Sīnā’s views. He admits the possibility that the rational sciences are not necessarily harmful and that they can even provide access to the truth. Throughout the Favātiḥ, Maybudī continues to quote Ibn Sīnā, his method being to present a philosophical notion first in the words of philosophers, then to quote a relevant verse from the Qurʾān or hadith, and to wrap up with Sufi or Illuminationist approaches to the concept. Where possible he demonstrates an underlying agreement among thinkers, but acknowledges that those who encounter contradictory positions are quick to criticize their opponents and may accuse them of unbelief. Most of the time Maybudī avoids taking a

26 27 28

SDA, 10–11. SDA, 12. SDA, 12. Maybudī ends his brief biography of Ibn Sīnā with the philosopher’s repentance, on the authority of ‘Abd Allāh b. Asʿad al-Yāfiʿī (d. 768/1367), Shafiʿi doctor and Sufi hagiographer. SDA, 23. He later definitively states that Ibn Sīnā believed in the resurrection of the body. With his generous spirit, Maybudī clarifies that, if some philosophers came to deny the resurrection of the body, it was not that they accused prophets of lying; rather, they arrived at false beliefs through analogy, which compelled them to interpret prophetic revelation as referring only to resurrection of the soul. According to their line of reasoning, prophets spoke of bodily resurrection and divine physical attributes simply as a way of teaching the masses. SDA, 125.

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definitive position himself. He adroitly negotiates the methods of philosophy, while pointing out the need to address the shortcomings of its metaphysics. In the exploration of the overwhelming array of epistemological choices, Ghazālī emerges as the thinker most compatible with Maybudī’s views, his Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn (Revival of the Religious Sciences) and Kīmiyā-yi saʿādat being recommended to Maybudī’s readers as life-changing. An awareness of how misinterpretation can result in charges of unbelief colors many of Maybudī’s editorial remarks about the great minds of Islamic learning, one that gains poignancy later on when Maybudī himself faces such charges during his career as qadi. In his brief biographical account of Ghazālī, Maybudī quotes Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī’s Sharḥ al-Maqāṣid to the effect that once Ghazālī affirmed the resurrection of the soul, people jumped to the conclusion that he denied bodily resurrection—and ends with an expressive “God forbid!”29 On rare occasions something is categorically condemned as unbelief, but Maybudī’s preference is to see linguistic fluidity as reason to give scholars the benefit of the doubt. He claims that most people—that is, scholars—accept the practical (ethics, economics, politics) and mathematical branches of philosophy (arithmetic, mecha­nics, astronomy, music), while following mysticism in matters of meta­ physics.30 It is, in fact, wrong to shun philosophy altogether, but it is equally mistaken to think that simply because philosophers have made great discoveries in mathematics and astronomy, they therefore have the answers for all other problems.31 Maybudī’s proof texts for this opinion are a remark of Abū Hurayra: “Prayer behind ʿAlī is more perfect, while a meal with Muʿāwiya is more substantial,” and the Qurʾānic verse, “None can inform you like Him who is Aware.”32 Maybudī’s own tendencies in both rational and mystical directions help explain his high opinion of the Illuminationists. He sees them as falling somewhere between the two camps, sharing the merits rather than the weaknesses of each group, and he subsumes many major thinkers under their rubric. The ancient philosophers were all Illuminationists, as were some prophets and saints. Their ranks include Agathodaimon,33 Hermes Trismegistus, Idrīs, Luqmān— whom he describes as the disciple (shāgird) of David—Pythagorus 29 30 31 32 33

SDA, 21. SDA, 26. SDA, 28. Qurʾān 35:14. Probably a mythical figure, one associated with alchemy and the occult sciences and variously identified with an ancient Egyptian sage, an associate of Socrates, a pupil of Ptolemy and others.

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the disciple of Solomon, and Plato.34 Aristotle set off on the path of theoretical inquiry (ṭarīq-i naẓar), one followed by Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā after the translation of Greek books into Arabic. Shihāb al-Dīn Yaḥyā Suhrawardī revived Illuminationist thought in the sixth century [ah].35 Maybudī does not specify what characterizes the Illuminationsts as a group and takes for granted that his audience accepts his categorization and portrayal of historical continuity. Because medieval scholars themselves carefully considered how study based on reason could coexist with that based on revelation, we must guard against assuming that immersion in profound religious experience must necessarily conflict with the sophisticated intellectual structures that derived from classical Greek thought. Philosophy and a mysticism steeped in esotericism can be seen as ‘competing traditions’ that are fundamentally incom­ patible, in which case it would be surprising that someone like Ghazālī or Suhrawardī could be deeply grounded in both Avicennian philosophical ideas and formal Islamic sciences and combine them with mystical experience to shape their understanding of God and man.36 It is more useful to consider the traditional Islamic learning of both philosophers and mystics not as tangential, but rather as absolutely fundamental to their worldview. That illusory conflict misses the mark, as born out simply by the biographies of the various figures, many of whom served as qadis, teachers, and preachers. Whether they be philosophers, mystics, or a unique combination of the two, self-proclaimed seekers of truth are not always what they seem. Maybudī quotes Ghazālī’s Iḥyāʾ to lament the fact that most people are unable to identify the authentic scholars of their day. The so-called scholars actually know little and appear knowledgeable only to the ignorant.37 Although mystics can potentially mirror the essence of the deity, those of Maybudī’s own time are

34 35

36

37

SDA, 23. SDA, 23–24. Interspersed among Maybudī’s arguments are bits of factual information, such as the location of Farab, thumbnail biographies of Ibn Sīnā and Ghazālī (22), including a discussion of whether the ‘z’ in the latter’s name should be doubled, Suhrawardī’s date of death, and his variously reported ages at that time. See essays in The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy: Montada, 155, for “competing traditions”; Marmura, 137, on Ghazālī; Taylor, 197, in his essay on Averroes perceives that the various traditions did not need to be at war. Citing G. Endress and D. Gutas, Adamson describes how the reinterpretation of apparently contradictory ideas kept philosophers engaged long before the appearance of Islam and how it took on particular urgency for Islamic philosophers at least since al-Kindī in the ninth century. Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus, 3, 25. SDA, 17. See Chapter 4 below, for further criticism of contemporary scholars.

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judged to pursue worldly comfort rather than spiritual purity.38 One cannot necessarily weigh the merits of rational inquiry and mysticism by their contemporary practitioners. In this matter, Maybudī did not simply parrot the opinions of his predecessors from several centuries before. He complains in one of his letters to Qadi Ṣafī al-Dīn ʿĪsā Sāvajī that unqualified ulama hold positions solely because their fathers and grandfathers held those positions before them. He embellishes his complaint with a verse by Ḥāfiẓ that takes a swipe at false mystics.39 Not all mystics are frauds, however, and Maybudī encourages the neophyte to seek their company. Just as someone whose nature is well-balanced and inclined to poetry can, in fact, become a poet by frequenting accomplished poets, so can a person inclined to mysticism achieve his goals by spending time with experienced mystics. On the other hand, someone who does not have that innate aptitude and well-balanced nature yet aspires to become a poet through the study of prosody (ʿarūḍ) resembles the person who attempts to become a mystic through the study of books written by mystical masters.40 Similarly, in the sixth chapter, Maybudī warns that one needs a shaykh and not books on ethics and Sufism to cure spiritual ills, just as a sick man finds no cure by reading books such as Ibn Sīnā’s al-Qānūn fī al-ṭibb or ʿAlī b. ʿAbbās al-Majūsī’s (d. 384/994) Kāmil al-ṣināʿa al-ṭibbīya.41 His point is that a Muslim must use the correct tools for the job at hand. His own vast erudition is testimony to the value he places on the intellect, but he recognizes that the impulses of the heart may remain ineffable. After his discussion of philosophy and mysticism, Maybudī abruptly shifts to disagreements about inheritance laws among the early caliphs and legists, linking them to the development of the four schools of law after the death of the Prophet and their positions concerning the Shiʿites.42 His fundamental point is that absent Muḥammad, the early Muslim community had to cope with dissension without the benefit of an unquestioned authority figure, a theme that pervades his reflections on the many conflicts that erupted in subsequent years. Another connection between this apparent digression and the text is that the issue of Fāṭima’s inheritance, especially as it relates to ʿAlī and 38 39

40 41 42

SDA, 18–19. MUN, 54–55. Melvin-Koushki identifies Ṣāʾin al-Dīn Ibn Turka as one of the first writers to quote Ḥāfiẓ frequently in his works and notes that Ḥāfiẓ was particularly useful concerning false Sufis. “Quest,” 398. SDA, 20. SDA, 141. SDA, 28–31.

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his claims to authority, comes up in the commentary; Maybudī here provides background material for that later discussion. With its brief biographies of the eponymous founders of the schools, concentrating primarily on Abū Ḥanīfa and Shāfiʿī, this foray into legal details still seems out of place unless we recall the primacy of Islam and the religious sciences from the preceding arguments. The philosophical sciences hone the intellect for study of fiqh, tafsir, and the like, mysticism is a method of attaining spiritual truth, and both are subordinate to the all-encompassing Shariʿa. The main goal of philosophy and mysticism is to achieve a more perfect understanding of God’s will, and that is most authoritatively presented to the believer in the Shariʿa. Furthermore, once Maybudī introduces ʿAlī as a legist who held a particular opinion in the matter of inheritance in the early years of the Muslim community, he is able to introduce the Shīʿa within the specific framework of the legal schools, a subject germane to the commentary as a whole. When Maybudī comes to the Shiʿi schools after describing the founders of the principal Sunni ones, he says that, because of the accusations and curses of the vile among them (arādhil-i īshān) against the Prophet’s Companions, they have been rejected and the influence of those schools among the majority of Muslims had disappeared (mafqūd) by his day. Just as he mentioned Sunni legists, so Maybudī states that those of the Shīʿa include Jamāl al-Dīn Ḥasan b. Yūsuf b. ʿAlī b. Muṭahhar al-ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī (d. 726/1325) and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, who are described as among the Imamiya.43 Maybudī does not explain what distinguished the Imamiya from other Shiʿi schools, sufficing himself with a quotation from Ibn Athīr about how their renewer (mujaddid) in the second century was ʿAlī al-Riḍā (d. 203/818).44 Maybudī also claims that the most just among the Shīʿa are the Zaydis because they believe that, although ʿAlī was the most virtuous (afḍal) of the Companions, in the best interests of the community it was right that the caliphate devolve upon Abū Bakr, civil strife (fitna) posing such a grave danger. While the inclusion of the Shīʿa in the discussion of Islamic legal schools lends them some legitimacy, the emphasis remains on how the majority of Muslims view them, the assumption being that the latter have a right to sit in judgment upon them and their Imams. A point in their favor comes in a quotation from Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī (d. 402/1013): “There is no disagreement among the Imams about declaring as heretics the exaggerators (ghulāt) among the 43 44

SDA, 30. While Maybudī cites al-Ṭūsī some fourteen times in the Sharḥ, exclusively for his philosophical and scientific views, this is the only mention of al-Ḥillī. Ibn Athīr maintains that the renewer is not limited to one person per century. Every school has a renewer for every century.

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Rawāfiḍ—that is, those who claimed that God becomes incarnate in the prophets and then in the Imams.”45 How the Shafiʿi school treats the professions of faith (shahāda) of those who prefer ʿAlī’s caliphate to that of Abū Bakr is presented as correct. Most Shafiʿis maintain that the shahāda of an innovator (mubtadiʿ) who is not an unbeliever is accepted, although Imam alḤaramayn al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1075) and Ghazālī do not accept the confession of faith from someone who denies the Imamate of Abū Bakr or ʿUmar or who reviles the Companions and slanders ʿĀʾisha. The shahāda of someone who declares a preference (tafḍīl) for ʿAlī over Abū Bakr is incontestably heard. Thus, the Shīʿa possess legitimacy, yet since they are subject to judgment by the majority of Muslims, they occupy a subordinate position. Setting the section apart as a distinct unit, Maybudī wraps it up with a return to the practical matter of inheritance, pointing out that the Shafiʿi school honors legacies made over to the Rawāfiḍ. The emphasis of this section on Islam as a legal framework provides a way to integrate the Shīʿa into the larger Muslim community while setting the parameters of that integration. Maybudī’s insistence on inclusion reappears in his remarks about ijtihād and convincing (dalīl-i qaṭʿī) and presumptive (dalīl-i ẓannī) proofs. After looking at the issues from different angles and citing a variety of sources, he states that the Ashʿari school’s approach is correct (ḥaqq). He follows his conclusion with characteristic caution: “It is possible that the contradictory schools are all correct (ḥaqq).”46 Few opinions are categorically eliminated and the possibility of truth lies concealed in a variety of sources. Maybudī then continues with an admonition against slandering scholars, clearly implying that he means scholars of any madhhab. It will be more appropriate to delay examination of Maybudī’s views of Sunnism and Shiʿism until we reach references to them in the body of the Sharḥ and tackle the story of his death in the early years of Shah Ismāʿīl’s reign. What should be noticed at this point is how carefully Maybudī navigates the seas of sectarian differences. He has to deal with the Shīʿa because of the very nature of the book. That is not particularly problematic, for he obviously holds ʿAlī in high esteem, calling him the closest valī to Muḥammad, just as the closest prophet was Jesus, and exhibits no antagonism towards the Shīʿa as a group.

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SDA, 31. Rawāfiḍ (dissenters or defectors) is a derogatory label imposed by Sunnis on Shiʿites. In what seems to be a rare misattribution, Maybudī lists the source as al-Milal wa-al-naḥal, which is actually by Muḥammad al-Shahrastanī (d. 548/1153). The editors give the correct citation as Bāqillānī’s al-Tamhīd [al-awāʼil wa-talkhīṣ al-dalāʼil]. SDA, 32.

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Muḥammad himself drew a parallel between Jesus and ʿAlī.47 Nonetheless, in Maybudī’s eyes, the Shīʿa did oppose the majority of the community after Muḥammad’s death and set themselves apart. Maybudī’s final argument is that believers should not insult or condemn other Muslims. God is the ultimate Judge and man cannot know which faults He will choose to forgive and which to punish. That reference to the divine leads Maybudī into the second chapter, which considers the essence of God.48 Its sections discuss the approach of the deity through love (ḥubb) and absence or rapture (ghaybat), the nature of the soul, the presence of the divine in His creation, the ramifications of the metaphor of God as light, the dangers of anthropomorphism and incarnation (ḥulūl), and the relation of God’s simplicity and unity to the multiplicity of His creation. Some of the sections are introduced with the phrase: “The Sufis say …,” the mystics’ explanations appearing as the most lucid and convincing.49 Even in those sections, Maybudī mentions the various beliefs about God’s nature held by philosophical theologians, philosophers, and mystics. Whereas the scholastic theologians (mutakallimūn) maintain that knowledge of God’s essence is possible, the others, including Imam al-Ḥaramayn and Ghazālī disagree.50 Maybudī lays out his position at the outset with a verse from the Qurʾān: “Allāh biddeth you beware of Him. And Allāh is full of pity for (His) bondmen.”51 His solicitude embracing all, God considers speculation about His essence to miss the mark. For the most part, Maybudī’s emphasis is on compassionate harmony rather than controversy. As in the first section, he frequently reconciles the views of Greek philosophers with those of the Sufis. For example, in the section on degrees of unity in the cosmos, he says that the ancient sages agree with the Sufis on the subject of existence. Specifically, both consider there to be degrees of existence, just as a solid consists in planes, which are composed of lines, which are in turn made of points.52 Another common metaphor Maybudī employs is the sea, for despite the multiplicity of waves, the reality of one sea is unquestionable.53 The attempt at reconciliation is also seen as Maybudī draws upon the terminology of the various groups. He uses Aristotelian—more accurately, 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

SDA, 32–33. SDA, 35–52. See SDA, 35, 38, 41, 43, 47, 49. SDA, 37. SDA, 35: Qurʾān 3:30. SDA, 49. SDA, 51. This metaphor comes from a long passage taken from the Ḥavāshī-yi Sharḥ-i Tajrīd of Sayyid Sharīf al-Jurjānī.

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Avicennian—philosophy, with terms such as the necessary existent (vājib alvujūd) and the contingent existent (mumkin al-vujūd), side by side with words and images of Sufis and Illuminationist writers. Maybudī’s efforts to synthesize the thought of his predecessors, if not startling in themselves, contributed to an intellectual continuity that bore fruit in the works of the philosopher-theologians Mīr Dāmād (d. 1041/1631) and Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1050/1641).54 It is curious, then, that Maybudī engages so little with the thought of Ghazālī. He writes a thumbnail biography of him, relates that some consider him the renewer of his age, and mentions him over twenty times, which puts Ghazālī near the top of his sources in terms of frequency, but rarely uses his ideas alone to support or develop any complex argument. Generally Ghazālī’s views on matters such as the afterlife or relations between body and soul are lumped together with those of the Peripatetics, or of Abū al-Qāsim al-Ḥusayn b. Mufaḍ­ ḍal b. Muḥammad al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī (d. 502/1108),55 Imam al-Ḥaramayn, and Suhrawardī. His appearance in several places appears tangential, such as when Ibn ʿArabī returns from a mystical experience, which is the focus of the anecdote, to find his companions reading a work by the earlier scholar.56 Ibn ʿArabī’s approval of Ghazālī’s ideas seems to matter more than those ideas themselves.57 In the commentary on the poems, Maybudī points out the lexical distinction between “mithāl” and “mathal” as presented by Ghazālī, indicates where in the Iḥyāʾ he offers variant attributions of a couple of verses, and relates several anecdotes about Muḥammad and ʿAlī, none of which particularly distinguishes Ghazālī from his other sources. What is characteristic of Maybudī’s approach is his reluctance to attribute unbelief to a particular person or group. He acknowledges that Ghazālī opened himself to charges of unbelief with his statements about the resurrection of the spirit, but then gives Taftāzānī’s explanation for the carelessness of that accusation. The inadequacy of language to fully convey complex meanings also exposed the Sufis to such charges. Maybudī cautions that idiosyncratic use of language should not lead his readers to imagine that the Sufis espouse incarnation or mystical union (ḥulūl and ittiḥād), for “their intent is very subtle and cannot be conveyed with either exoteric expressions or esoteric allusions.”58 54 55 56 57 58

See Rahman, Philosophy of Mullā Ṣadrā, 1–2. He may have died in the early 5th/11th century—little is known about his life. See “Al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī” in the EI 2. SDA, 156. SDA, 21–22. SDA, 48. Maybudī is certainly not the first writer to draw attention to the inadequacy of language to explain mystical experience nor to discourage premature conclusions about a fellow Muslim’s orthodoxy. See Homerin, From Arab Poet to Muslim Saint, 70 and

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Every utterance they make is both near to and far from their intended meaning. Maybudī finds support in a quotation from Sayyid Sharīf al-Jurjānī for his position that the complexity of the issues under discussion demands forbearance in accusations of unbelief.59 The subject is the disagreement between the Mutakallimūn and Sufis over whether God is present in creatures such as a dog or cat. The former would see it as imperfection in God if He were present, while the latter would see deficiency if He were not. The important point according to Jurjānī is that neither wants to attribute imperfection to God, so there is no need to brand either one as unbelievers. It must not be thought that Maybudī finds all ideas acceptable, peacefully coexisting in an uncritical mishmash of mindless tolerance. Unbelief (kufr) stands as the boundary that must not be crossed. What Maybudī does insist on is delicacy in establishing that boundary. Because he thinks that the truth behind the veil is ineffable, it makes sense both that each man use the language at his disposal to communicate what is absolutely essential to his existence and that others experience difficulty in grasping exactly what is being said. The underlying assumption connected to all efforts of expression is that God wills man’s knowledge of Him. The ambiguous, poetic lexicon of Ibn ʿArabī and the Illuminationists dominates Maybudī’s discussion of God, Being, and light. Bāyazīd Bisṭāmī, Junayd al-Baghdādī (d. 297/910), Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrā (d. 617/1221), and Sayyid Sharīf al-Jurjānī are other sources upon whom Maybudī frequently draws. They run the gamut from traditionalist theologians to both sober and ecstatic Sufis and their images create a spiritual poetry interwoven with verses primarily by Ḥāfiẓ and Maḥmūd Shabistarī. Light must see itself, since the Beautiful One has a share in His own beauty which He sees in a mirror.60 The light shining on the world is one, but when it shines on something colored, it seems to have color, although it does not. If it shines on filth, it itself experiences no imperfection, nor does it gain honor from the ruby.61 Maybudī uses light and God interchangeably, closing the fourth section with Ibn ʿArabī’s statement that God is too all-encompassing to be confined in a particular creed.62

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footnote 64, where he mentions similar remarks going back at least until the eleventh century. SDA, 47. SDA, 43. SDA, 45. SDA, 46. From Faṣṣ Hūdī of Ibn ʿArabī’s The Bezels of Wisdom, trans. R.W.J. Austin (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), 137.

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A logical sequel to God’s essence, characterized by unity, is the treatment of His names and attributes, multiple ways of grasping that oneness. They form the subject of the third chapter, which contains eight sections.63 Topics discussed include the Sufis’ claim that a name is an essential or a determined attribute (ṣifat-i muʿayyan), that in every age one name becomes dominant, and that just as what is essential in God’s essence is unknown, so is that which is essential to His attributes. Then Maybudī turns to the philosophers’ claim that God knows entirely both universals (kulliyāt) and particulars (juzʾīyāt), God’s will, the disputes of scholastic theologians about whether the speech of God is created or eternal, fate and judgment, causation, and the philosophers’ contention that every created thing is either pure good or its good is at least predominant, which leads into an analysis of what is good in the created world. The fourth chapter addresses the greater man, or macrocosm (insān-i kabīr).64 It consists of fourteen sections which examine the Sufis’ statement that all celestial spheres and elements are one body, the spirit of which is the First Intelligence and the heart of which is the universal soul (nafs-i kullīya). Its faculties (quvā) are the spirits (rūḥānīyāt) of the seven planets (kavākib) and the fixed stars (thavābit). The second and third sections deal specifically with the heavenly bodies (aflāk), of which there are twenty-five. That subject continues through the next few sections, as Maybudī narrows the significant heavenly bodies down to nine, and explicates their composition and motion. He continues with the four elements of medieval cosmology (fire, air, water, and earth), the nature of a composite body (jism-i murakkab), the characteristics of the vegetative and animal souls, the relation of souls and intelligences to the celestial spheres according to Peripatetics and theosophists, and the nine categories of accident (ʿaraḍ). The chapter closes with a return to statements of the Sufis on the correspondence of the human soul to the divine and on the divine universal presences (ḥaḍarāt-i kullīya-yi ilāhīya), which number five. Treating of the cosmos as it does, the chapter is meant to be accompanied by several circular diagrams, which the more complete and richer manuscripts contain. A list of the section headings barely hints at the chapter’s scope, because Maybudī touches on such a variety of subjects in its fourteen folios. He mentions the various characteristics of contingent beings, concentrating on primary matter, the mathematical divisions of all the celestial spheres, the revolutions of those spheres, the connection between the Sufis’ circular dances (samāʿ) and the motion of the spheres, eclipses of the sun and moon, the seven 63 64

SDA, 53–70. SDA, 71–102.

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climes, natural phenomena such as rain, snow, rainbows, and earthquakes, the creation of the world, the jinn, angels, and much else. Maybudī’s presentation is fairly standard for a certain genre of cosmological work, following the order of the Hidāyat al-ḥikma, for example, in its treatment of natural phenomena.65 His intention is not to provide exhaustive coverage for each topic. When offering different opinions about the number of spheres and souls, Maybudī sketches the ideas in the Tuḥfa, then concludes: “If you have lofty aspirations (himmat-i ʿālī), you can seek [more information] in it.”66 Certain themes do hold the chapter together. First, Maybudī weaves the opinions of the philosophic theologians (ḥukamāʾ), Peripatetic philosophers, Sufis, and Illuminationists into an intricate design. Even while drawing the parameters of the different schools of thought, he keeps returning to the fluidity and overlap of the philosophical schools, expressing amazement, for example, that on a particular point Suhrawardī agrees with the Peripatetics.67 It is in this section that Maybudī makes sole mention of ‘Persian philosophers.’ They share the concept of the First Intelligence with the Peripatetics, calling it Bahman, and the concept of a rabb (‘lord’) with the Illuminationists, Plato and Hermes.68 In two short lines, he states that for those philosophers, the rabb of water is Khurdad, of trees Murdad, of fire Ordibihisht, and of earth Isfandarmudh. He does not connect any of those names to their place among the great beings of the Zoroastrians, the Amahraspands, or to the Zoroastrian calendar.69 65

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That genre stands in contrast to what Heinen too restrictively terms “Islamic cosmology.” In the latter, angels are responsible for thunder, the lower earths are storage places for the torture instruments of hell, God’s throne is situated above eight mountain goats of immense proportions, and so on. Anton M. Heinen, Islamic Cosmology: A Study of al-Suyūṭī’s “al-Hayʾa as-sanīya fī l’hayʾa as-sunnīya” (Beirut: Orient-Intitut der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft; In Kommission bei Franz Steiner, 1982), 85, 87, 113–15. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, it hardly needs pointing out that Maybudī was as much a Muslim as Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505), and his type of cosmology as widely accepted. SDA, 80. The work referred to is the Tuḥfa al-shāhīya fī al-hayʾa by Quṭb al-Dīn Maḥmūd b. Masʿūd Shīrāzī (d. 710/1311), who was a student of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī. See Storey, 2:354 and Brockelmann, 2:211. SDA, 73. SDA, 91–92. Given the presence of a significant Zoroastrian community in Yazd, it is appealing to speculate that Maybudī had contact with its learned men, but it is just as likely that he drew this information from an Islamic source. See Boyce, A Persian Stronghold, 16–18. Pourjavady and Schmidtke draw attention to the predeliction for “antiquarianism” that appears in philosophical writings beginning at least with Suhrawardī, including in those of Davānī. Reza Pourjavady and Sabine Schmidtke, “An Eastern Renaissance? Greek Philosophy under the Safavids (16th–18th centuries ad),” Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 3 (2015): 254, 269.

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He agrees most frequently with the Sufis and Illuminationists, not by any outright declaration, but by citing more authorities from those groups than any other. Another indication is that he views Ibn ʿArabī as an ally of the Illuminationists and nowhere does Maybudī question his authority.70 When the matter is more technical, Maybudī presents differences as arising not among schools of thought per se, but rather among individuals. In one instance, Maybudī gives the results of calculations made by Ptolemy, Ibn Aʿlam (d. 374/985?),71 Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, and Muḥyī al-Dīn al-Maghribī (d. 681/1283) to obtain the number of years the fixed stars require to make a complete revolution.72 In contrasting various opinions, Maybudī appears less intent on proving the superiority of one line of reasoning over another than in presenting various ways of looking at the same phenomenon, showing that different types of scholars mean the same thing despite their use of different terminology.73 If the Peripatetics view the motion of the planets using the lexicon of intelligences and actuality, the Illuminationists do not necessarily disagree when they compare planetary movement to a dance. On the contrary, both groups enhance one’s understanding of the cosmos.74 Furthermore, synthesis is found on a level deeper than that of mortal man’s analysis of existence. It can be seen to pervade existence itself, as is seen in Maybudī’s list of correspondences among spiritual and cosmological phenomena, which he takes from Ibn ʿArabī.75 Associated with the planet Mars is the divine name al-Qāhir (the Subduer or Vanquisher), the letter ‘lām,’ the third clime, Aaron, Tuesday, and the constellation Bootes (ʿAvvā), which consists of five stars. The pattern is ­developed for the remaining planets as well.76

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SDA, 72. Mullā Ṣadrā also rarely criticized Ibn ʿArabī, who was an important source of inspiration for him. Rahman, Philosophy of Mullā Ṣadrā, 8, 162. ʿAlī b. al‐Ḥusayn Abū al‐Qāsim al‐ʿAlawī al‐Sharīf al‐Ḥusaynī Ibn Aʿlam, author of an astronomical handbook with tables, now lost. SDA, 79. The Illuminationists’ absolute matter (jism-i muṭlaq) and the Peripatetics’ corporeal form (ṣūrat-i jismīya) are identical. SDA, 74. For different ways of referring to the tenth Intelligence, including a reference to ‘Persian’ philosophers, see SDA, 91–92. SDA, 82. W. Chittick, The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s Cosmology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 87. Other systems appear in the writings of Davānī and others: Melvin-Koushki, “Quest,” 252. SDA, 96–98. Maybudī gives an abbreviated list of correlations between astral bodies and days of the week within the commentary, 250.

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Shāh Niʿmat Allāh replicates this system of correspondences of Ibn ʿArabī in his Risāla dar Asrār al-ḥurūf. Given known ties between Maybudī and the Niʿmatallahis, this chapter and the following pique our interest. Granted that the entire Sharḥ is addressed to those who countenance esoteric thought, we must determine precisely what forms of esotericism Maybudī felt important to include in this work and what to exclude, and whether what is excluded contains an implicit message. At this point in our analysis, the essential point is that precisely because a synthesis of divine names, letters, and planetary phenom­ena reflects the fundamental nature of the cosmos, it in no way undermines the primacy of Islam. Maybudī states that the planetary correspon­ dences can be found in Qurʾānic verses and the Qurʾān remains the essential means of understanding reality, not to be replaced by subordinate texts on philosophy. The fifth chapter discusses the lesser man (insān-i ṣaghīr) or microcosm in seven sections.77 The contents include the soul and the meaning of ‘rational’ (nāṭiqa), the anatomy of the heart, the two faculties of the soul—namely, the one called the theoretical intellect and faculty (ʿaql-i naẓarī and quvvat-i naẓarīya) and the other the practical intellect and faculty (ʿaql-i ʿamalī and quvvat-i ʿamalīya)—virtues and vices, the strange effects of inebriation (primarily spiritual) upon an individual, the Sufi opinion that there is no intermediate state (barzakh) between the world of bodies and that of spirits, the world of archetypal images (ʿālam-i mithāl), the interpretation of dreams, the relation between the spirit and the body after death, the afterlife, the effect of ­behavior in this life on the fate of an individual in the next, hell and the possibility of repentance there, and the question of the physicality of punishment and reward in the next life. Once again, in this introduction to complex subjects, the intent is to summarize and synthesize. Maybudī admits that he cannot provide exhaustive coverage of all the topics mentioned. If the reader would like to continue his inquiry into the virtues and vices, he should turn to the Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī.78 As for philosophical reconciliation, that goal is evident in Maybudī’s discussion of the debate over the eternity of the soul. Rāzī, Illuminationists, legal scholars, Peripatetics, Ghazālī, Suhrawardī, Ṣadr al-Dīn Qūnawī (d. 673/1274),79 77 78

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SDA, 103–29. SDA, 109. He refers to Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s most famous work, the Nasirean Ethics, composed around 630/1233. The only other reference to that book is in a brief discussion on whether dispositions are capable of change. Ṭūsī is said to agree with Ghazālī in the Iḥyāʾ. Note that it is not Davānī’s Akhlāq al-Jalālī, which Maybudī never cites. SDA, 230. Ibn ʿArabī’s disciple and son-in-law.

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and a hadith are cited for their different, often contrasting views. Maybudī then introduces his own opinion: “If we look carefully, there is no quarrel between the Illuminationists and the Peripatetics.”80 He compares the relation between the provenance of divine effluence (mabda⁠ʾ-i fayyāḍ) and souls (nufūs) to that between a cloud to drops of rain.81 The soul can be both eternal and created. The essential synonymity of terminology is revealed, for the ra­ tional soul and the animal spirit of the philosophers is the same as the spirit and the lower soul of the Sufis, while doctors identify yet other shades of meaning in the lexicon of the soul. When Maybudī recognizes that Sufis say certain things that smack of metempsychosis (tanāsukh), he hastens to add that they are in fact far from any such belief.82 If Maybudī disagrees with anyone, it is usually the Greek thinkers such as Galen and Porphyry, but he cites them as authorities more than he criticizes them.83 In the fifth chapter Maybudī directly addresses concepts that we today classify as falling under the rubric of esotericism although, as has been shown, its acceptance as a feature of existence is axiomatic to the entire work and it permeates his depiction of the cosmos in the previous chapter. Especially when he discusses the world of images, Maybudī makes clear that true meaning is hidden, quoting the followers of Abū Hāshim b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafīya: “Every exoteric meaning (ẓāhir) has an esoteric counterpart (bāṭin), every individual (shakhṣ: as in ‘member of a class’) a soul (rūḥ), every revelation (tanzīl) an esoteric exegesis (ta⁠ʾwīl), every image or archetype (mithāl) in this world has its mystical truth (ḥaqīqa) in the next. That is the knowledge that ʿAlī and his son Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafīya alone possessed (ista⁠ʾthara bihi).”84 The discussion develops into one of dreams and their interpretation, for dreams are a form of prophecy that gives insight into what is beyond the visible world. Several obstacles which prevent man from understanding the deep, hidden meaning of the world around him are listed. The final proof of an individual’s success in probing the truth is his fate after death. Those who have pierced the exoteric layers which veil the truth enjoy the pleasures of heaven, while those who have not sought it remain distant from its joys, in a hell intended less to punish than 80 81

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SDA, 106. If the cloud is eternally pre-existent (qadīm), as is divine effluence, it is correct to say that raindrops are too, since the cloud is the same as the drops. It is also correct to say that the drops are created (ḥādith) at the moment of separation from the cloud. SDA, 124. SDA, 105: whether the animal spirit is in the brain as Galen claims; 108: on the subject of the union (ittiḥād) of the soul and intelligible forms as described by Porphyry in the Isagogue. SDA, 113.

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to purify.85 Esoteric exegesis is related to the second chapter on God’s attributes, which appear as exoteric descriptions of an ever elusive truth.86 Binbaş’s groundbreaking work on Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī and MelvinKoushki’s on Ibn Turka place esotericism firmly at the center of fifteenth-century intellectual life. In his masterly exposition of lettrism, Melvin-Koushki shows that Ibn Turka stood apart in attributing supreme value to letters as the key to developing epistemological hierarchies and to understanding the cosmos, but that he belonged to a long tradition of honoring letters as potent phenomena. That tradition included many of the people who figure prominently in Maybudī’s intellectual world. Maybudī quotes Shāh Niʿmat Allāh, and must have known about Davānī’s writings on the subject. He also quotes and suggests to his reader further study of Ibn Turka’s Mafāḥiṣ. It is difficult to know where to discuss Maybudī’s attitude towards esotericism because mention of it is scattered in bits and pieces throughout the Sharḥ, but that may be precisely the point. What can we discern about Maybudī’s views? He unequivocally accepts the purely pragmatic, mainstream use of esoteric knowledge. After briefly mentioning ʿAlī’s mastery of jafr, for which he gives a cursory explanation that would make sense only to someone who was already familiar with the subject, he gives two classic examples of its implementation—namely, al-Ma⁠ʾmūn’s (r. 198–218/813–33) negotiations to appoint Imam ʿAlī al-Riḍā (d. 203/818) as his successor and the prediction of Saladin’s conquest of Jerusalem implied in Qurʾān 30:1–5, the Sūrat al-Rūm. In the first case, ʿAlī al-Riḍā knows that numerology advises against his concluding an agreement with the caliph, but he is prevailed upon to do so anyway; in the second, Maybudī gives no information about who actually made the prediction or whether it became clear only in hindsight.87 The marriage of number and letter finds consummation in poetry, a concept that delights Maybudī. In the section on the microcosm, he devotes a few lines to al-Khalīl’s (d. ca. 175/791) circles of poetic meters, which segues into Ibn 85

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Maybudī cites many authorities on the belief that no person will remain in eternal punishment. Because God is merciful, He would not allow anyone to suffer forever. Evildoers are purified by the fires of hell until they no longer feel the heat or until they leave hell entirely. SDA, 126–27. SDA, 125. Hermeneutic exegesis reappears in the sixth chapter, where Maybudī states the generally accepted view that everyone can understand the exoteric meaning of the Qurʾān and the hadith, while the initiated (khavāṣṣ) also grasp their esoteric meaning, of which there are many levels, attained in proportion to the individual’s progress along the spiritual path and his degree of purity. SDA, 163–64. SDA, 178–79. See Melvin-Koushki, “Quest,” 290–309 for a discussion of this prediction.

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Sīnā’s thoughts about the musicality of the rhythm of the human pulse, and concludes with the physical manifestations of spiritual ecstasy during mystical musical gatherings (samāʿ).88 The very notion of the microcosm rests upon a correspondence between the physical and the spiritual. To decipher that relationship requires mastery of letter and number, which are the basic components of human and cosmic health. From the occasional mention of medicine in his writings, we see Maybudī use the metaphor of doctors and remedies for ailments of the soul, but not in any unusually frequent or abstruse way. Where he does speak at length about a medical issue, it is a practical one where he is called upon to apply his legal knowledge to a common pharmaceutical problem in religions with dietary restrictions—namely, how to proceed when sacred texts declare the most efficacious ingredients to be suspect or forbidden.89 A doctor who had traveled to Mecca and Medina and conversed with colleagues in Cairo, Damascus and Aleppo sought a legal opinion about the use of a theriac that contained snake meat. Maybudī describes the differing opinions of Abū Ḥanīfa and Mālik as presented by Rāfiʿī in al-Ghurar about the medical use of wine, and by extension of other forbidden foods. His ultimate decision is to declare the theriac permissible. Maybudī’s practicality tempers his attitude toward cosmology, especially concerning astrology.90 One of his longest forays into the subject arises within the analysis of a poem about how the days of the week, inseparable from the chronology of Creation, correlate to different human activities such as hunting, travel, phlebotomy and cupping, taking medicine, marriage and so on. After treating the poem in his usual manner (see below), he writes a lengthy essay on astrology. As presented in the Favātiḥ, the days of the week are associated with specific planetary bodies. Depending upon how one interprets that proposition, the conclusion could be drawn that the motion of the heavens controls human activity independent of divine will. The theological and logical pitfalls inherent in attributing causality to the motion of the stars can be avoided by studying relevant sections of the Qurʾān and hadith, where it is made clear that cosmic phenomena must not be credited with independence. 88 89

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SDA, 110–11. Maybudī does not mention Abū ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Khalīl al-Farāhīdī by name and assumes familiarity with his geometrical arrangement of poetic meters. MUN, 187–88. This is one of the few documents with a precise date: 10 Rabīʿ al-Awwal 894/11 February 1489. For a discussion of this problem in responsa literature, see Leigh Chipman, The World of Pharmacy and Pharmacists in Mamlūk Cairo (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 150. Nawawī responded to the same issue several centuries before. SDA, 245–252.

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Here appears the most substantive quotation from Ghazālī, where he identifies attributing independent action to the stars and undeserved sanction to ignorant astrologers as the two main errors of astrology. That God creates astral bodies as causes for certain effects is the proper perspective on the matter. The next source quoted is Ibn Sīnā—the only reference to him in the body of the commentary. The point of the quotation is that astrologers are more poets than scientists and that they often mistake their discrete observations for intelligent insights. Maybudī then relates a lengthy anecdote about how astrologers, including the poet Awḥad al-Dīn ʿAlī Anvarī (d. between 585/1189 and 587/1191), predicted from the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter that a terrible wind would destroy the inhabited world in 581/1185, so many people built underground shelters for themselves. Nothing untoward happened on the designated day, and the Seljuk Sultan Tughrul (d. 590/1194) ordered a lantern in a tower to be lit where it remained burning until nightfall, proving the falsity of the prediction. Maybudī concludes, however, with the statement that on that day Genghis Khan became leader of his tribe and burst forth thirty years later. The literature on conjunctions and their role in legitimizing ruling houses in Persian historiography is vast, but Maybudī leaves the issue dangling. It is picked up again in the commentary proper (see below), where distrust of astrological predictions is the theme of a poem in which ʿAlī scoffs at mentally muddled astrologers who have the temerity to make forecasts about his future.91 Not planets but His Creator is great and victorious. Whereas medicine has the clear goal of healing the sick, which legitimizes the summoning of both manifest and hidden aspects of creation to effect cures, astrology’s goal smacks of polytheism, implicitly impinging on the Creator’s omnipotence and omniscience. Maybudī’s references to esoteric practices and beliefs presume acceptance on the part of his reader. He does not go into long and involved expositions of esoteric subjects, not only because of the genre in which he works, but also because he takes much of it for granted. The question can be asked whether Maybudī’s casual mention of occultist thought reflects the specific goals of the Sharḥ or, rather, acts as a sort of code for those in the know. Melvin-Koushki 91

SDA, 650–51. A. Azfar Moin, The Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship and Sainthood in Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012) perceptively addresses the tremendous sacred significance of conjunctions in Timurid imaginings of sovereignty, which encompassed the figure of ʿAlī and profoundly influenced rulers of subsequent dynasties. For the longstanding tension between astrology and astronomy, see Saliba, “The Development of Astronomy in Medieval Islamic Society” and “Astrology/Astronomy, Islamic,” in A History of Arabic Astronomy, 51–81.

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discusses the technique of the dispersion of knowledge (tabdīd al-ʿilm), which was practiced by writers of esoteric material, most notably Ibn ʿArabī. The initiated picked up on clues left by the author, while those hints passed over the head of those who had not reached a suitable level of spiritual enlightenment. That certainly could be at play in certain passages. Maybudī assumes that he does not need to define jafr before giving familiar examples of its use and he tersely parses the letters of the word ‘qalam’ (pen) as they relate to man’s creation in a way that requires his reader’s pre-existing ability to parse letters and syllables for meaning. In his summary of the transmigration of souls as understood by ancient Greek philosophers and Sufis, he inserts a brief sentence to the effect that the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā agree with those who correlate levels of hell to different types of transmigration, depending upon whether the soul enters animal, vegetal, or mineral bodies.92 That is the sole mention of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā, and it is impossible to know how it was supposed to resonate with Maybudī’s readers, whether solely as a philosophical movement some five centuries past or additionally as code for a contemporary intellectual network. The reference is followed by the one quotation from Muḥammad Nūrbakhsh’s Risālat al-hudā, identified by author and not title.93 Was the reader meant to connect dots hidden from us? It is equally plausible to attribute the dispersion to the genre in which Maybudī works. Orbiting around ʿAlī, the Favātiḥ aims to be comprehensive rather than detailed and the commentary proper lends itself to brief, unsystematic forays into topics of interest because it follows the order of the poems. Given the kaleidoscopic display of subjects, lettrist and astrological explanations might seem to appear at random, but actually they are placed where they best clarify the text under discussion. Maybudī acknowledges that some people know what he is talking about and openly refers those who want more information about certain subjects to appropriate books. He also confronts the revelation of secrets head on, acknowledging that different groups hold conflicting opinions about the wisdom and feasibility of making the unknown accessible.94As will be shown later in the discussion of the Mahdi, he recognizes that the esoteric is not available to everyone in the current age and 92 93

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SDA, 123–24. For current research on the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā in the Ottoman empire and the Isfahan Circle during the fifteenth century, see Binbaş, “Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī,” 99–106. The quotation comes from the Risālat al-hudā and addresses the distinction between tanāsukh and burūz (see below, p. 130). For the source of the quotation, see Shahzad Bashir, “The Risālat al-hudā of Muḥammad Nūrbakš (d. 869/1464): Critical Edition with Introduction,” Rivista degli Studi Orientali 75, nos. 1–4 (2001): 107. SDA, 15.

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envisions a time when exoteric and esoteric will be made equally manifest to all mankind. The language of esotericism suffuses many of his letters as well, implying that regardless of social class or professional identification, the recipients were comfortable with metaphysical and mystical concepts and im­ agery. Familiar with the esoteric writings of his peers, he is a man of moderation who remains ensconced in the tradition of synthesis. Unlike Ibn Turka, he does not consider intellectual lettrism “the only truly universal science” or privilege it over philosophy or Sufism.95 Rather, he is comfortable with “the type of occult philosophy—referring as it does to the neoplatonic-neopythagorean quest to comprehend the cosmos using all available means, whether rational or mystical, scientific or magical, in concert—[which] precisely exemplifies the ‘will to synthesis’ that characterizes so much of later Islamicate intellectual history.”96 Truth lies in letters, but is not limited to them. It also exists in relationships among spiritual seekers, both in the present and throughout history, past, present and future. The most exalted spiritual figures are a vehicle of revelation for the transcendent divine. Treating the virtues and vices and those who are closest to perfection by possessing all the physical and spiritual elements of human makeup in just balance leads Maybudī to speak of prophecy (nubuvvat) and sainthood or spiritual ministry (valāyat), the subjects of the sixth chapter.97 The very first line of the entire text indicated the importance of that pair of concepts, for in his invocation Maybudī wrote: “Thanks founded on happiness and gratitude garbed in worship are due the Worshipped One who raised the banners of prophecy and sainthood in the field of futuvvat and guidance.”98 The chapter comprises ten sections which cover inspiration and miracles, Muḥammad’s role in the guidance of the cosmos and in the reconciliation of opposites within it, the Sufi notion that prophecy is exoteric and sainthood esoteric, the four levels of sanctity and the ‘seals’ (khātims) of each (including a biographical sketch of Ibn ʿArabī), various levels of spiritual purification and of the contemplative or intelligent world (malakūt), a systematization of mystical annihilation (fanāʾ) and epiphany/theophany (tajallī),99 types of spiritual disclosure 95 96 97 98 99

Melvin-Koushki, “Quest,” iii. Melvin-Koushki, “Quest,” i. SDA, 131–67. SDA, 1. Futuwwa is so culturally specific that translating it as ‘chivalry’ or ‘manliness’ is hopelessly inadequate. The translation of terminology is that found in Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Ṣūfism of Ibn ʿArabī, trans. R. Manheim, Bollingen Series 91 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 162: theophanic Image; 169: epiphany.

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(kashf), the ability of perfect souls to enter the contemplative world as do the angels (the example given is that of Ibn ʿArabī), and the spiritual hierarchy of those who experience divine love that descends from the Pole (quṭb) through the seven substitutes (abdāl) and down to the chiefs (nuqabāʾ) of varying number, depending on the source. The tremendous influence Ibn ʿArabī exercised over Maybudī cannot be overemphasized. Maybudī cites Ibn ʿArabī’s works more than those of any other scholar, with more than fifty references or lengthy quotations, which is about three times the number of references to his next most important source, Ghazālī. It is reasonable to conclude that he knew the Fuṣūṣ well, for he cites six chapters by name and refers to it elsewhere without citing specific chapters. He names four commentaries: the widely popular Sharḥ-i Fuṣūṣ of Kamālal-Dīn ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Kāshī (or Kāshānī),100 the commentary of his student Sharaf al-Dīn Dawūd al-Qayṣarī, and to a lesser extent that of Muʾayyad al-Dīn Jandī,101 and of the Kubrawi Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī (d. 786/1385) in Ḥall-i [nuṣūṣ ʿalā al-] Fuṣūṣ. The commentaries are used to clarify Ibn ʿArabī’s terminology and thought in a way that appeals to Maybudī’s interest in different intellectual disciplines. For example, Kāshī equates the sphere of the Throne to the First Intelligence and the world of archetypal images with the philosophers’ ʿālam-i nufūs al-munṭabaʿa.102 Maybudī also refers to the commentators in contexts beyond Ibn ʿArabī’s writing. For example, he uses Kāshī’s Iṣṭilāḥāt-i Ṣūfīya eight times and at one point quotes Qadi ʿAḍud al-Dīn al-Ījī’s statement that he saw Kāshī reject ḥulūl and ittiḥād (‘incarnate indwelling’ and ‘union’), although the source of Kāshī’s statement remains unspecified.103 Maybudī cites 16 chapters of the Futūḥāt, several more than once, and specifies when his source is the last section known as al-Waṣāyā, while the ʿUqla appears four times. The subjects on which Maybudī defers to Ibn ʿArabī are the names of God, valāyat and prophethood, forms of perception including dreams and non-corporeal experiences, and cosmology with all that it encompasses of creation, non-corporeal creatures, the spheres and the afterlife. 100

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There are two citations from Kāshī’s Sharḥ and 14 references to the man. Also mentioned as the author of the Sharḥ-i Manāzil al-sāʾirīn of ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī al-Harawī (d. 481/1089), which is quoted in the passage on love and desire. SDA, 163. Maybudī refers to these commentators in other contexts as well. He was a student of Ṣadr al-Dīn Qūnawī, the influential disciple of Ibn ʿArabī, as was Fakhr al-Dīn ʿIrāqī (d. 688/1289). The latter appears in the Sharḥ only as the author of a poem in the section on love, which relies heavily on Ibn ʿArabī and his disciples and Najm al-Dīn Kubrā. SDA, 162. SDA, 81, 112 respectively. SDA, 48–49.

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As mentioned earlier, Ibn ʿArabī remained a problematic figure in the fifteenth century. He acquired an aura that encompassed much more than religious scholarship, and part of being one of his disciples entailed explaining the ambiguities of his writing. Maybudī himself declares in no uncertain terms that Ibn ʿArabī is the seal of the relative Muhammadean valāyat (khātim-i valāyat-i muqayyada-yi Muḥammadīya), and it is only at this point in the text, after having referred to him over twenty times earlier in the Sharḥ, that he gives the mystic’s full name: Shaykh Muḥyī al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. al-ʿArabī al-Ḥātimi al-Ṭāʾī alAndalusī.104 Maybudī asserts that Ibn ʿArabī’s mystical knowledge exposed him to exaggerated accusations of unbelief and misguidance (taḍlīl), his claim to be the seal of the fourth level of sanctity leading some people to suspect his beliefs.105 As proof of the validity of Ibn ʿArabī’s saintly status, Maybudī describes how al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (d. ca. 297/910) posed 155 questions that only a seal of the saints could answer and it was Ibn ʿArabī who succeeded in responding to them in the Futūḥāt.106 Mysticism grounded in knowledge always appeals to Maybudī. The author then dismisses those who slander Ibn ʿArabī as an unbeliever by remarking that they do not not know what they are talking about and concluding that it is best to let them sink into oblivion. The question arises whether the opponents of Ibn ʿArabī to whom Maybudī refers represented a faction in the safely distant past or whether disputes about him were used by powerful groups active in Maybudī’s day in their conflicts with each other. Was this an academic discussion about the past or a rallying cry in the present? Davānī clearly agreed with at least some of Ibn ʿArabī’s thought, wrote works on the subject, and criticized those who accused Ibn ʿArabī of unbelief, and Jāmī spread the Master’s views in the Timurid lands of the east.107 Maybudī describes the accusations of unbelief in the present tense, 104 105 106 107

SDA, 141. SDA, 143. Brockelmann gives different dates for his death in the Geschichte and its supplement: 1:199 and S1:355. Knysh, Ibn ʿArabi, 163–64. Chittick points out that no author among those who drew from Ibn ʿArabī’s doctrines matched Jāmī for direct, beautiful, and simple expression and calls him a “spokesman for Ibn ʿArabī and his school.” “The Perfect Man as the Prototype of the Self in the Sufism of Jāmī,” Studia Islamica 49 (1979): 140. Bashir looks at the controversy over Ibn ʿArabī as it played out in the life of Khwāja Aḥrār in Herat. On understanding how Sufis of the Persianate world negotiatied social and intellectual tensions, he writes: “While ideas regarding etiquette, hierarchies, and lineages mattered deeply in this milieu, their actual deployment within specific situations was a matter of perspective and finesse of interpretation rather than an imposition of hard and fast categories. Persianate Sufis

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which signals that the debate seethed around him, and the discussion of theological controversy in Chapter 2 also showed that it was eminently relevant in the fifteenth century. What Maybudī does not indicate is what the stakes were for him personally in the debate, to what extent political or religious motives drove the discussion, and whether the disputes were among individual scholars or identifiable factions. Part of the attraction that Ibn ʿArabī’s writings held for Maybudī was that he chose to read them as a reconciliation of philosophy and mysticism anchored in Shariʿa. He relies heavily on Ibn ʿArabī and his commentators for the discussion on hell and punishment, interpreting them as extolling God’s mercy. While those focused strictly on Sharīʿa (ahl-i sharʿ) maintain that unbelievers will remain in eternal fire, Ibn ʿArabī expands that position by explaining that the fire becomes “cold and peace … and that is their bliss.”108 In several sections of the Fuṣūṣ, Ibn ʿArabī emphasizes God’s promises of good over His threat of punishment. His commentators extrapolate from his writings that, in his opinion, punishment purifies evildoers to the point that eventually hell will stand empty, for God is merciful. Characteristically, Maybudī brings the discussion back to practicalities. He admonishes his readers to follow the straight path of commanding the good and forbidding evil in their lives and to remain ever hopeful of a favorable result, because no one knows when his soul will be seized: “Be careful to strive in purifying your external self, for you might be the deputy (khalīfa) of the Truth and you will have made yourself a slave of the appetitive soul (nafs-i ammāra) in the furnace of nature.”109 Maybudī is acutely conscious of the veil between experience and description, and acknowledges that many Sufi statements can legitimately be considered heretical from the perspective of religious legalists (fuqahāʾ-i dīn). It is not that the experience is heretical, but its verbal expression exposes the mystic to accusations of heterodox belief, and the attempt to articulate his experiences may lead the mystic astray. According to Maybudī, among others, ostensibly blasphemous utterances made in mystical ecstasy must be disguised. Perhaps conscious of his own position, Maybudī immediately follows the last statement with a warning against unbelievers who mask their pernicious views with extravagant tales of mystical experiences, such as having journeyed to Paradise where they tasted its fruits and embraced its houris. The Shariʿa is

108 109

holding many different opinions and affiliations worked within a shared world of ideas and practices.” Sufi Bodies, 100. SDA, 126–27. SDA, 128. See Qurʾān 12:53 for the scriptural phrase that is used to designate the “appetitive soul.”

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pivotal and anyone who steps away from it does not belong in the company of those who possess authentic mystical knowledge (ahl-i maʿrifat): “O brother, if you have reached the level of true [spiritual] poverty, what need have you of my counsel? And if you have not reached it, consider deeply the conditions and words of the dervishes. In neither case should you let go of the hem of Shariʿa, because Shariʿa is the one Axis.”110 Maybudī’s position is in the tradition of Junayd-i Baghdādī and ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla al-Simnānī (d. 736/1336), whom he also quotes frequently.111 They all believe that man’s true fulfillment lies in devoting mind and heart to the service of God, and that without the guidance of revealed religion, he can easily lose himself on his path to the divine. A more rhetorical counterbalance to pure mysticism is philosophy, more specifically its scientific disciplines. In his discussion of Muḥammad’s night journey (miʿrāj), Maybudī links the event to the numbing of sensations during sleep as lethargy (kasālat) envelops them and prevents steam (bukhār) from rising to the brain. Whatever is seen in that state is a dream (ruʾyā).112 In mystical absence (ghayba), sensations are also numbed, but this time because of enjoyment (iltidhādh) of the divine effluence which emanates from the superior world (ʿālam-i ʿālīya). Whatever is seen in the world of absence is a vision (mushāhada or mukāshafa). Other types of visions are exclusive to prophet­ hood and sainthood. Polymath that he is, Maybudī considers the various branches of his study to provide insight into one ultimate truth. It is in this chapter that the issue of the Mahdi first surfaces and Maybudī presents a variety of reports about that elusive figure, although more lengthy reflections appear later in the text.113 Some say the spirit of Jesus will manifest itself in the Mahdi, and in agreement with that view is the hadith, “There is no 110

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SDA, 151. The line about the Shariʿa is a Persian/Arabic pun that does not translate easily. For a lucid articulation of the religious outlook of Sharia-minded scholars sensitive to the knowledge attainable only through mystical disciplines, see Knysh, Ibn ʿArabi, 65. It is a line of thought articulated by Ghazālī and pursued by men such as Ibn ʿAbd al-Salām (d. 660/1262). His main source is the ʿUrwa [li-ahl al-khalwa wa-al-jalwa], with two references to al-Falāḥ [li-Ahl al-Ṣalāḥ]. See the study of Jamal J. Elias, The Throne Carrier of God: The Life and Thought of ʿAlāʾ ad-Dawlah as-Simnānī (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995). SDA, 153. SDA, 202–03: Maybudī gives a long quotation from Chapter 366 of the Futūḥāt about the khalīfa being from the family of the Prophet with specific identifying features. In it Ibn ʿArabī links this figure, which Maybudī clearly associates with the Mahdi, to the establishment of pure religion. Maybudī adds: “Bukhārī and Muslim relate from Jābir b. Samura that the Prophet said, ‘There will be twelve amirs after me.’ Then he said something which I did not hear, but my father said it was that ‘all of them will be from the Quraysh.’”

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Mahdi except ʿĪsā b. Maryam.”114 In his remarks about Ibn ʿArabī, Maybudī relates that ʿAbd al-Ghaffār b. Kamāl Ghāzī Qūnawī declared himself the Mahdi, a claim Ibn ʿArabī rejected. After trials and tribulations, the latter induced the self-proclaimed Mahdi to repent.115 The discussion then returns to its primary purpose, which is to present the seals (khātims) of the four different kinds of sanctity. The seal of the third kind—valāyat-i muṭlaqa-yi Muḥammadīya—is the Mahdi, who will be of Muḥammad’s lineage. Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī wrote that the seal of the second kind of valāyat—muqayyada-yi har nabī—is on the level of Muḥammad’s heart (qalb), while the Mahdi is on that of his spirit (rūḥ).116 The issue of the ‘Pole’ (quṭb), that apex of the mystical hierarchy, and the renewer (mujaddid) is both frustrating and tantalizing because Maybudī does not bring the series up to the end of the fifteenth century. He quotes exclusively from Simnānī’s ʿUrwa, which leaves almost two hundred years unaccounted for: “The Pole of our time is ʿImād al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Pārsīnī, Parsin being a village near Abhar in the Qazvin region. After the death of ʿAbd Allāh Shāmī, he became the Pole in Rabīʿ II 716/June-July 1316. He was seventysix years old and the nineteenth Pole after Muḥammad.”117 The quotation goes back in time, saying that Imam Muḥammad b. Imam Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī was one of the substitutes (abdāl) when he went into hiding from his enemies. Upon the death of the Pole of his time, ʿAlī b. Ḥusayn Baghdādī, Imam Muḥammad replaced him for nineteen years. His successor was ʿUthmān b. Yaʿqūb Juvaynī and then Aḥmad Khurdak, one of the sons of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf. The concept of the renewer is much less developed and no one is named after Ghazālī.118

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115 116 117

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SDA, 145. Although Maybudī does not give a source, this comes from Sunan Ibn Māja and is controversial since it was adopted by the Ahmadīya branch of Shiʿism (followers of ʿAlī al-Riḍā’s brother Aḥmad after the former’s death), while most hadiths present the Mahdi and Jesus as two separate figures. For that reason, Maybudī’s inclusion of it is noteworthy, even though his later remarks in the Sharḥ on the Mahdi do not conflate the two and in a letter in the Munsha⁠ʾāt he implies that they are two separate individuals. MUN, 97. SDA, 144. SDA, 145. SDA, 165. See Shahzad Bashir, Sufi Bodies: Religion and Society in Medieval Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 86 for a discussion of spiritual hierarchies among Sufis. Maybudī’s indication that various systems exist for ranking poles, substitutes, friends and so on supports Bashir’s impression “that an exact plan for the hierarchy was not a matter of great concern for many” and what is more important is that “the fact of death means that the structure is constantly in motion.” SDA, 22.

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In Chapter 4 it will be seen, however, that the figure of the Mahdi is made relevant to Maybudī’s time, if not in any detailed way. One of the characteristics of the Poles as described by Simnānī, Ibn Athīr and ʿAbd al-Razzāq Kāshī is that they spend time with the enigmatic figures of Khiḍr and Elias. In a written document Kāshī denied the possibility of the transmission of hadith from Khiḍr and considered “Khiḍr” and “Elias” technical terms for expansion (basṭ) and contraction (qabḍ). He also denied that Khiḍr had been alive and able to assume corporeal form since Moses’ day.119 Maybudī cites Ṣadr al-Dīn Qūnawī as saying that Khiḍr exists in the world of archetypal images (ʿālam-i mithāl) and gives Ibn ʿArabī’s confirmation of his existence in the Futūḥāt. He clearly agrees with the latter and entertains no doubts about Khiḍr’s existence. The subject segues into that of ʿAlī as Maybudī comes to the seventh and final chapter.120 It contains eleven sections, which trace ʿAlī’s life in more or less chronological order. Beginning with ʿAlī’s parentage and early years, the sections treat his virtues, such as charity and piety, allusions in the Qurʾān and hadith to his historical and mystical activities, the extraordinary qualities of the People of the House (Ahl al-Bayt), the consequences of hostility to ʿAlī and his family, the first three caliphs and events immediately subsequent to ʿUthmān’s murder, the struggles between ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya up to the former’s assassination (40/661), the actions of his sons Ḥasan and Ḥusayn and the rest of the imams up to Muḥammad b. Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī, considered by some as the Mahdi, Muḥammad’s foreknowledge of the strife that would ensue after his death and, finally, the succession of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar as preferable to that of ʿAlī. What must constantly be kept in mind when reading this chapter is that we are watching Maybudī shape an image of ʿAlī that responds to the needs of his community, the scholarly elite of the late fifteenth century, at a time of great political turmoil and theological uncertainty during which competing military interests both fed and fed upon the religious beliefs of their sup­ porters.121 Maybudī layers one hadith upon another in order to interpret ʿAlī’s role for his contemporaries. Since he draws upon an enormous body of material, our attention is drawn to the specific hadith collections and tafsirs upon which he relied. Of the canonical hadith collections, he preferred Tirmidhī, Bukhārī and Muslim, in that order, not mentioning Ibn Māja (d. 273/887) at all. His pre119 120 121

SDA, 167. SDA., 169–211. Just to be clear—it is not my purpose nor would it be remotely feasible to re-examine the historical events related to the early Muslim community and the Umayyad caliphate or to assess the validity of Maybudī’s material.

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ferred tafsirs were Thaʿlabī, Zamakhsharī, and Bayḍāwī. Here his use of Thaʿlabī’s al-Kashf wa-al-bayān ʿan tafsīr al-Qurʾān is noteworthy. Among the many significant features of the eleventh-century commentary is Thaʿlabī’s inclusion of traditions that lent themselves to both Shiʿi and Sunni polemics, which inflamed the ire of later scholars such as Ibn Taymīya (d. 728/1328).122 Because of his subject, Maybudī needs to address those traditions and the often unstated controversies they implied. For example, who belonged to the Ahl al-Bayt and what they signified constituted a politically charged topic since the early years of Islam. Maybudī gives Muslim’s account as related by ʿĀʾisha of the circumstances surrounding 33:33, which is the sole mention of the Ahl al-Bayt in the Qurʾān and which was interpreted as referring either to Muḥammad, Fāṭima, ʿAlī, Ḥasan and Ḥusayn, or to Muḥammad’s wives. After presenting a detailed account of the circumstances of its revelation, Maybudī includes only the part of the verse that indicates his preference for the first interpretation. He follows the verse with Muḥammad’s response to Umm Salama’s question about why she is not included as “You too will come to a good end; you are among the wives of the Messenger.”123 That phrasing excludes the Prophet’s wives from the category of ‘Ahl al-Bayt’ without detracting from their merit. Saleh describes the first interpretation as pro-Shiʿi and the second as both anti-Shiʿi and pro-Sunni. Maybudī blurs the distinction because his aim is to preserve Sunni political orthodoxy while incorporating pro-ʿAlid spirituality. The issue resurfaces when the Hashimites appear in a poem, which leads Maybudī to present conflicting opinions among the ulama about who constitutes Muḥammad’s family. The school of al-Rāfiʿī [ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Muḥammad Qazvīnī (d. 623/1226)], the author of the al-Ḥāwī al-ṣaghīr [Najm al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ghaffār al-Qazwīnī (d. 665/1266)], and many other fuqahāʾ hold that it means the Banū Hāshim and the Banū ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, following a tradition of Shāfiʿī. Nawawī disagrees, saying in the Sharḥ-i Ṣaḥīḥ-i Muslim that it refers first to the entire community (umma), then to the Banū Hāshim and the Banū al-Muṭṭalib, and thirdly to Muḥammad’s offspring and the people of his house (ahl baytihi).124 It is not that the membership in the Ahl al-Bayt is in doubt, but 122

123 124

Saleh, Formation, 179–80. See the entire subsection for an analysis of political interpretations of the Qurʾān in al-Thaʿlabī’s work and their relation to what he terms “fictive narrative” technique. Saleh asserts that the use of Shiʿi traditions “ultimately drove the work out of circulation,” but Maybudī certainly quoted it extensively. Maybudī never quotes Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī’s (d 412/1021) Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr, which gives a mystical interpretation of the Qurʾān, and mentions al-Sulamī only once (179), as linked in a chain of exegetes that originates with ʿAlī. SDA, 182–3. SDA, 563.

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attention shifts to the larger picture of the Arabian and Islamic meaning of connection to the Prophet. A second controversial verse is 42:23. Maybudī quotes only the part relevant to his topic, namely “Say (O Muḥammad, unto mankind): I ask of you no fee therefor, save lovingkindness among kinsfolk.” As Saleh points out, that last phrase “has understandably become a lightning rod in a political atmosphere where blood relationship to Muḥammad was seen by one faction as a qualification for leadership.”125 Maybudī’s emphasis is on just one account of Muḥammad’s response to a request for elucidation as recorded by Zamakhsharī and Wāḥidī. According to that tradition, Muḥammad repeated three times that it referred to ʿAlī, Fāṭima, and their two sons. Maybudī then cites al-Suddī (d. 128/745) on the rest of the verse (“And whoso scoreth a good deed we add unto its good for him.”) to the effect that the meaning of “a good deed” is love of the Ahl al-Bayt and “this verse was revealed concerning Abū Bakr and his love for the Ahl al-Bayt.” In one terse line, Maybudī extols the family of ʿAlī while reaffirming Sunni political beliefs. Because Maybudī is not writing a commentary on the Qurʾān but one on the poetry of ʿAlī, he benefits from a certain freedom in his use of sources. When he cites 55:19–22, for example, he is under no compulsion to give a range of interpretations for those verses and can simply state that Anas and Ibn ʿAbbās say that “the two seas” refer to ʿAlī and Fāṭima and “the pearl and the coral-stone” to Ḥasan and Ḥusayn.126 Similarly, out of all that Thaʿlabī has to say about 66:4 (“then lo! Allāh, even He, is his protecting Friend, and Gabriel and the right­ eous among the believers”), Maybudī zeroes in on the tradition recorded by Thaʿlabī that “the righteous” refers to ʿAlī.127 Maybudī’s interpretive fluidity emerges in other cases where he extends an anecdote from a tafsir to some of ʿAlī’s verses. Thaʿlabī attached to 76:8–10 the story of ʿAlī and Fāṭima giving their humble meal to a needy person, an orphan, and a prisoner on three successive days of fasting, thereby earning Muḥammad’s praise.128 Maybudī betrays no interest in the plausibility of the tale, although he relates it from Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s exegetical explanation of those same verses in which the story is slightly more elaborate. What matters to him is that 125 126

127 128

SDA, 186. Saleh, Formation, 183. Maybudī gives an abbreviated version of the discussion on 649. SDA, 171. The question is whether he leaves a fuller range of meanings unstated because he assumes his reader will draw upon his own knowledge. Those verses resonate with a mystic, appearing in Simnānī’s hierarchy of visions and colors. See Elias, Throne Carrier, 135. SDA, 174. Saleh, Formation, 190–1. SDA, 424–25.

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ʿAlī composed poetry each of the three nights, so sacred historical meaning can be derived from moralistic verses. The ostensibly loose organization of the first section, which introduces several themes with little apparent connection to ʿAlī’s youth, such as his foundational role in the development of mysticism, should not obscure its purpose. Maybudī chooses such a discursive structure in order to give an overall coherence to the entire ensuing chapter and to achieve his implicit goal of situating ʿAlī within the cosmos. First, in his discussion of ʿAlī’s parents, he inquires into whether or not Abū Ṭālib converted to Islam, which Maybudī concludes did not happen. Abū Ṭālib believed in Muḥammad’s message, but did not pronounce the words of the shahāda.129 ʿAlī’s mother, on the other hand, Fāṭima b. Asad b. Hāshim, did accept Islam, emigrating to Medina in 1/622. Second, Maybudī stresses ʿAlī’s importance in the realm of mystical knowledge (ʿirfān), citing a hadith to the effect that during his night journey, Muḥammad noticed that his cousin’s name was written on the Throne (ʿarsh). Another hadith shows that ʿAlī was superior to Abū Bakr and ʿUmar and that he strove as much in the esoteric exegesis (ta⁠ʾwīl) of the Qurʾān as Muḥammad did in its revelation (tanzīl).130 Finally, the section closes with praise of ʿAlī’s courage in battle. Thus, Maybudī emphasizes the strength and legitimacy of ʿAlī’s religious convictions, his intimate association with Muḥammad, mystical significance, relation to the successors of Muḥammad, and personal virtues. Those are the principal themes of the entire chapter. For instance, the second section concentrates on ʿAlī’s primacy among Muslims and his close relationship with Muḥammad. Maybudī offers evidence for a whole range of personal virtues from specific verses in the Qurʾān as presented in hadith collections and tafsirs, such as those of Thaʿlabī, Wāḥidī, and Zamakhsharī. Knowing that ʿAlī began to pray six months before various other early Muslims, and that the Qurʾān placed that fact higher in the hierarchy of religious practice than tending the Kaʿba or providing water to pilgrims is clear evidence of ʿAlī’s primacy among the pious.131 As was long established in biographical dic­ tionaries (ṭabaqāt), anteriority contributes to the legitimization of authority. With Maybudī drawing attention to the fact that the Qurʾān and sayings of Muḥammad establish a relationship between the cousins like that of Moses and Aaron, his underlying message is less on the stellar qualities of any particular virtue than on ʿAlī’s legitimacy within the framework of Muslim prophetic history. 129 130 131

SDA, 169. SDA, 172. SDA, 174. Qurʾān 9:19.

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The relationship between Muḥammad and ʿAlī dominates the entire seventh chapter as hadith after hadith is cited to demonstrate Muḥammad’s appreciation of ʿAlī’s elevated status and the close ties between them. In the third section, Maybudī cites a hadith in which Muḥammad, with his hand on ʿAlī’s shoulder, says: “I am the warner, and you are the guide and those who will be guided will follow your lead after me.”132 Clearly, spiritual ties bound the two men and linked Muḥammad to the Ahl al-Bayt as a whole. ʿAlī is compared to Jesus and to Aaron, men distinguished by their spirituality, even if it was not on the level of the Prophet.133 Maybudī makes no effort to downplay those ties; in fact, he takes pains to elaborate on them. He also includes ʿAlī’s statement that “I stood on Muḥammad’s shoulders to pull down idols from the Kaʿba.”134 That physical intimacy progresses to a cosmic level in one of the more remarkable stories about ʿAlī and Muḥammad. It is recounted that one day the Prophet slept so long with his head in ʿAlī’s lap that the latter missed the afternoon prayer. When Muḥammad awoke and realized what had happened, he requested from God that the sun rise yet again, which it did. The relationship between the two men and the divine was such that the cosmic order took second place to the bonds among them.135 Maybudī recognizes the problematic nature of that hadith, for he continues with objections from various sources about its reliability and with speculation on whether affecting the course of the sun is more appropriately linked to other stories about Muḥammad.136 This is one of the rare cases where Maybudī discusses the authenticity of a hadith. What is important is that he does not shy away from including the story, however doubtful it may be. Another repeated motif in the roughly chronological account of ʿAlī’s life which becomes more pronounced beginning with the fourth section is Muḥammad’s forecast of what will happen to ʿAlī and other figures of the Muslim community. Maybudī repeatedly points out that events as varied as ʿĀʾisha’s actions at the Battle of the Camel, Ibn Muljam’s assassination of ʿAlī, Imam Ḥasan’s submission to Muʿāwiya, the thousand-month reign of the Umayyads and so on find their textual reinforcement in statements made by the Prophet during his lifetime, some of which were tied to the revelation of Qurʾānic 132 133 134 135 136

SDA, 176. SDA, 185. SDA, 183. SDA, 182. Another feature of this retelling is that it is one of the few instances where Maybudī ­mentions a fifteenth-century scholar. He says that he saw a comment about the hadith in the hand of Ṣafī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ījī (d. 864/1450). Ījī taught hadith to Davānī. See Pourjavadi, Philosophy, 6.

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verses.137 In the case of ʿAlī’s son Ḥasan, Bukhārī relates that Muḥammad speculated that God might bring peace between the two great factions of Muslims through him, an ambiguous statement depending on whether it was to take effect temporarily or permanently.138 Other predictions are made after Muḥam­ mad’s death in the form of dreams. Various characters see Muḥammad in the oneiric sphere where he emerges as the point of connection between his life and that of his cousin, explaining how predictions made during his lifetime have come true or giving a sign of what is yet to come, including the deaths of ʿAlī and Ḥusayn. However close the bonds between Muḥammad and ʿAlī, Maybudī is quite definite about ʿAlī’s claims to the caliphate and in the ninth section he directly confronts the matter of Muḥammad’s predictions about the factionalism and strife that would ensue upon his death.139 In the second section, he quotes Ibn Ḥanbal as saying that for various reasons Muḥammad considered Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿAlī worthy to lead the Muslim community, but did not think the Muslims would accept ʿAlī as a leader.140 That quotation is followed by a report from Bayhaqī: “If one wants to see Adam’s knowledge (ʿilm), Noah’s fear of God/piety (taqwā), Abraham’s patience (ḥilm), Moses’ reverence (hayba), and Jesus’s submission (ʿibādat), he should look at ʿAlī.” Such a resounding endorsement of his cousin and his status within the chain of prophets justifies all subsequent loyalty to ʿAlī as a guide, but not necessarily as a political leader. It is tempered by a conversation Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafīya, one of ʿAlī’s sons, had with his father. When asked, ʿAlī claimed that the most virtuous man was Abū Bakr, followed by ʿUmar, in that order. Muḥammad b. Ḥanafīya hesitated to press further lest his father say the next most virtuous man was ʿUthmān, so instead he asked where his father placed himself within the hierarchy of the virtuous, to which ʿAlī replied, “As for me, I am but one man among the Mus­ lims.”141 Maybudī chooses hadiths to show that ʿAlī actually supported the first three caliphs, whatever controversies arose after the Prophet’s death.142 In the last section, Maybudī baldly states: “Do not imagine that ʿAlī wanted the caliphate after Muḥammad’s death and that he was defeated by Abū Bakr.”143 137 138 139 140 141 142 143

SDA, 198–99. Maybudī offers numerous explanations of Qurʾānic verses and anecdotes that are highly critical of the Umayyads. SDA, 198. SDA, 203. SDA, 175. SDA, 175. SDA, 189–90, 210–11. SDA, 209.

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Maybudī addresses the ambiguity of ʿAlī’s position head on when he recounts a hadith from Ibn Ḥanbal. Muḥammad says to ʿAlī: “You are like Jesus, for the Jews hated him so much that they slandered his mother, and the Christians loved him so much that they placed him in a position which was not his.” ʿAlī replies: “Two types of people are doomed concerning me: those who love me excessively, extolling me for what I am not, and those who bear such hatred against me that they slander me.”144 Maybudī speaks little here about the episode at Ghadir Khumm, and his emphasis is on the legacy of the Qurʾān and the Ahl al-Bayt, rather than specifically on ʿAlī.145 This is the episode shortly before Muḥammad’s death when he spoke of two weighty things that he was leaving the Muslim community (ḥadīth al-thaqalayn), and revealed other information about his legacy that has been subject to varied interpretations. Near the end of the commentary proper, Maybudī elaborates on the incident, citing hadiths about ʿAlī’s relationship to Muḥammad and the community and citing verses from the Qurʾān which were revealed there.146 ʿAlī’s primacy as expressed in his poem is specifically over Muʿāwiya and his followers. The manner in which Maybudī downplays ʿAlī’s claims puts his mystical significance in a favorable light more than it criticizes his political aspirations. In a rare foray into polemical editorializing, Maybudī issues a thousand warnings against the false belief in the illegitimacy of the first three caliphs’ authority, whose rightful assumption of leadership finds support in numerous hadiths.147 He repeats his warning near the end of the commentary proper with reference to a poem in which the relationship between Muḥammad and ʿAlī could be misinterpreted, referring back to his initial insistence on the distinction between imamate and caliphate.148 Because Muḥammad possessed both the esoteric and exoteric aspects of perfection, those individuals who received the exoteric benefits of his prophethood—namely, the first three caliphs—became his deputies (khalīfa). Other leaders benefited more from Muḥammad’s esoteric side and the spiritual ministry (valāyat) it entailed. The latter assisted travelers on the mystic path in reaching their goals. Two chains of transmission (silsila) thus can be traced from the Prophet. Concerning the first, Maybudī quotes a statement by Muḥammad as found in

144 145 146 147 148

SDA, 185. SDA, 184. A literal explanation of the place name is given and ʿAlī declares his fraternal bond with Muḥammad. SDA, 713. ʿAlī’s poem is on 728–29. SDA, 206. SDA, 741.

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Tirmidhī that if there were a prophet after him, it would be ʿUmar.149 ʿUmar is also extolled as having conquered the most territory for Islam. The chain of saints (awliyāʾ), on the other hand, passed by way of ʿAlī.150 In emphasizing ʿAlī’s spiritual significance, Maybudī expresses ambivalence about his political claims, quoting a statement by Abū al-Qāsim al-Junayd (Baghdādī): “Had ʿAlī turned away from fighting, he would have transmitted more religious knowledge (ʿilm) to us than hearts could contain, for it was he who gave such knowledge to the world.”151 It is not entirely clear from the context whether it was unfortunate that ʿAlī was preoccupied with battles for the caliphate, or whether that was God’s way of preventing the disclosure of too much truth, although the general tenor of Maybudī’s discussion suggests the greater likelihood of the former interpretation. Because distinctly different spiritual stages correspond to the first caliphs and to the Imams, it is futile to try to establish the absolute superiority of one group over the other. One of Maybudī’s authorities is Suhrawardī, who declared in the Aʿlām al-hudā that Muḥammad bequeathed religious knowledge to his Companions and to the Ahl al-Bayt, so one must love both equally and not incline to one side or the other, for that is sectarian passion (hawā), the spiritual evils of which he then goes on to elaborate.152 Even then the matter of the caliphate is not clear-cut, because within the context of a discussion of divination, Maybudī refers to the story of the ʿAbbasid caliph al-Ma⁠ʾmūn’s (r. 198–218/813–33) disruptive decision to make Imam ʿAlī al-Riḍā (d. 203/818) his successor, complete with an oath of allegiance. “Evildoers” prevailed upon the caliph to repent his decision, and ʿAlī al-Riḍā was poisoned.153 The implication is that, even if ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib lacked any legitimate claim to succeed Muḥammad immediately after the latter’s death, his entire line of descendants was not thereby excluded from the possibility of exercising rightful sovereignty. On the contrary, Maybudī criticizes those who persuaded 149 150 151 152 153

SDA, 207. SDA, 177, 207. SDA, 207. See Moosa, Extremist Shiites, 64–65. SDA, 208. SDA, 178. Maybudī’s source is the Kashf al-ghumma fī maʿrifat al-a⁠ʾimma of ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā Irbīlī (d. 693/1294). Note that he gives no cause of death in his listing of Shiʿi Imams on p. 201. See Michael Cooperson, Classical Arabic Biography, for in-depth analysis of the episode as treated by early Arabic historians and biographers. Sunni and Shiʿi sources explain the Imam’s death differently, the former attributing it to natural causes and the latter to poison, perhaps on the orders of al-Ma⁠ʾmūn, so it is noteworthy that Maybudī gives an account compatible with Shiʿi history that simultaneously avoids accusing the caliph of murder.

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al-Ma⁠ʾmūn to order ʿAlī al-Riḍā’s assassination. When Maybudī discusses the early Imams, he passes no judgment on their right to rule and in fact links them to the Sassanian kings of Iran through Ḥusayn’s marriage to Shahrbānū, also known as Kanizak Ghazāla, daughter of Yazdigird.154 He does consider it worth mentioning that Imam ʿAlī Zayn al-ʿAbidīn was the son of Imam Ḥusayn through that marriage and that a chain of eight imams followed him, although he does not at this point identify any specific group as professing loyalty to the genealogical unit of the twelve Imams. Maybudī’s overall framework for discussing the Imams is to place them within the Ahl al-Bayt, the repeated mention of which he enhances with Qurʾānic verses, hadiths, and historical anecdotes. For most of Muḥammad’s descendants after Ḥusayn, Maybudī lists date and sometimes place of birth, mother’s name, date of death—and place, if it is as noteworthy as Hārūn’s prison—and place of burial. The emphasis on the mothers includes drawing a connection to Sassanian royalty or Muslim loyalty (Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq’s mother descended from Abū Bakr) and remarking that from Mūsā Kāẓim on, all the mothers were slave women (kanizak). In this particular discussion of the Twelve Imams, it is interesting to note that he does not speak of the Sevener branch of the Shīʿa at all or other divisions within Shiʿi ranks, although he had mentioned the Zaydis before.155 In this list he also describes the Imams as sinless or infallible (maʿṣūmīn). It is noteworthy that Maybudī makes no reference to current political circumstances. No Ak Koyunlu or Timurid ruler or pretender to a throne is brought into the conversation about the transfer of power, whether material or spiritual, or about renewers of the age. In a potentially overtly political work Maybudī returns to a specific historical time, long past, thereby rendering implicit any judgment about his own period. He steps outside of the present into cosmic universality. Maybudī also does not insist that succession is the only 154

155

SDA, 200. See Babayan, Mystics, 133–34. She demonstrates how the story maintains the honor and dignity of both Iranian nobility and the family of Muḥammad and shows the mingling of Sassanian and ʿAlid genealogies to be divinely ordained (Shahrbānū has a dream in which Muḥammad predicts her marriage to Ḥusayn). It is doubtful that Maybudī intends to evoke the full symbolic resonance of the Iranian princess who is linked to the tradition of the Zoroastrian fertility goddess Anahita, nor is it likely that he approved of the Shiʿi use of the Shahrbānū-Ḥusayn story not just to address conversion, but to legitimize Ḥusayn’s primacy. Another reason to include the Shahrbānū story is its connection to Yazd. Zoroastrians cultivated a cult of Bībī Shahrbānū’s shrines, including one outside Yazd which continued to be visited by Zoroastrians in the 1960s. See Mary Boyce, “Bībī Shahrbānū and the Lady of Pārs.” BSOAS 30 (1967): 30–44. SDA, 201.

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relevant issue in judging ʿAlī’s importance, however much it divided the community from the early days of Islam. As mentioned above, ʿAlī is depicted as the origin (mabda⁠ʾ) of the chain of all the saints. A different aspect of his profound connection to Islamic mysticism reappears within the sequence of Imams. Included within the skeletal, factual list of Imams with its dates and names are bits of information, the choice of which serves Maybudī’s purpose of limning the parameters of the Ahl al-Bayt. For example, tucked among ʿAlī al-Riḍā’s vital statistics is the apparently random remark that Maʿrūf al-Karkhī (d. 200/815) was his doorman, with no mention of the man’s vital role in a number of Sufi silsilas. Without belaboring the point, Maybudī succinctly implies that what matters to him is the Sufi authority intertwined with the ʿAlīd line. ʿAlī also stands at the head of the chain of Qurʾān reciters through the line of ʿĀṣim (d. 127/744)156and plays a foundational role in Islamic law. Maybudī quotes Ibn Athīr to show that the Shafiʿi, Maliki, and Hanafi schools of law trace their lines of authority to Imam Jaʿfar, and ultimately to ʿAlī. Directly following that observation come brief accounts of the Minbarīya and the Dīnārīya, episodes in which certain individuals approached ʿAlī with questions about the division of inheritance when a man dies leaving different configurations of surviving relatives. Also related are episodes where various women accused of adultery are brought before ʿAlī and he passes proper judgment, depending on whether they are pregnant or insane. The anecdotes reinforce the fact that ʿAlī was more than just a figurehead in a traditional line of authority and that he deserved his reputation as a legal decisor. Finally, ʿAlī is considered the founder of the science of grammar. Maybudī shapes the vast amount of information available to him about ʿAlī to demonstrate that what sets ʿAlī above the rest of the early Muslims is profound knowledge of religious text. It is he who knows how to read Scripture, in the form of the Qurʾān, and to decipher its language, interpret its laws, and articulate its esoteric meaning. Since the Prophet so treasured ʿAlī and his family, it was natural that sanctions should exist for those who displayed enmity to them.157 Maybudī elaborates on that theme in the tenth section where he uses hadiths to criticize the Umayyads, especially Marwān b. al-Ḥakam (d. 65/685), whom ʿĀʾisha accused of being a liar who misattributed the origin of Qurʾānic verses. In what emerges as his customary fashion, Maybudī then retreats from too harsh a judgment, concluding that the best policy with regard to such disputes is silence. He cites advice collected by Shāfiʿī that one should not sully one’s tongue by speaking about such cases. In a backhanded maneuver, however, he then proceeds to 156 157

SDA, 179, 180. SDA, 184–85.

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criticize the Umayyads at length for promoting public cursing of—that is, negative speech about—ʿAlī’s family during Friday prayers, which took place at least from the reign of Muʿāwiya (r. 40–60/661–680) to that of ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (r. 99–101/717–720). He says that he saw in a commentary on Bukhārī’s Ṣaḥīḥ that the Umayyads unjustifiably ordered the vilification of a certain group of people during the Friday prayers. Consequently, worshipers used to quit the mosque immediately after the prayers, avoiding the sermon in order not to weep at the injustice. Intent on forcing the congregation to remain, the Umayyads adopted a policy of delaying the prayers.158 After a quotation from the Sharḥ-i ʿAqāyid, which speaks harshly of Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya, Maybudī interjects his own opinion: “The truth of the matter is that if someone is really accursed, what need is there for you to pollute your tongue in cursing him? If he is not accursed, cursing will do him no harm, while you have committed a sin and will be known as a slanderer.”159 In summary, it is most useful to see Maybudī as part of a long tradition of harmonization which pre-dated Islam. Like Fārābī, Ibn Ṭufayl, and Averroes before him, he intimates that there is one metaphysical truth expressed with different rhetorical articulations, depending on the concerns and culture of different thinkers. Each successive generation of inquiring minds faced new sources of thought and new problems—the revelation of the Qurʾān, the encounter with philosophic texts, and historical events such as the conquest of minority populations, the overthrow of political dynasties, and invasions from unfamiliar cultural regions. By Maybudī’s time the syncretic wheel did not need to be reinvented but, as will become clear, the place of ʿAlid loyalty within the cosmic order needed to be stated and reaffirmed. The Favātiḥ is not a complete, systematic, and critical analysis of the wide variety of issues it raises. Yet it is more than a grab bag of philosophical and mystical concerns. Maybudī’s purpose is to focus his exegesis on ʿAlī in order to describe his place in the cosmos, with all that ʿAlī had come to represent in terms of the divine direction of creation and God’s continuing involvement in history. The product of a traditional education anchored in daily religious practice, which had been honed over the centuries, Maybudī explored the 158 159

SDA, 204–05. SDA, 206. See discussion of SDA, 515 below. Because a number of ʿAlī’s verses were inspired by events surrounding the Battle of Siffin, Maybudī has frequent opportunities in the commentary proper to express his disapproval of Muʿāwiya and his cohorts, often simply by glorifying ʿAlī’s companions. In his own verse that follows verses about the noble deaths of a number of ʿAlī’s loyal soldiers, Maybudī speaks of those who find martyrdom for the sake of religion and can expect a great reward in the next life. SDA, 741.

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multitude of paths of knowing that an educated, pious Muslim considered it his duty to master in order to serve God fully. Maybudī first addressed mysticism, where ʿAlī’s role is paramount. After establishing the supremacy of the deity and the difficulty of understanding Him except through mystical means, he presents God’s creation as a whole, then passes to the perfect man, who embodies the elements of an orderly cosmos. Since the perfect man is Mu­ḥam­ mad, the discussion naturally continues with the two primary elements of his life—namely, prophethood and spiritual ministry. In the logical progression of his argument, Maybudī showed how those elements continued to influence the Muslim community after Muḥammad’s death, suggesting that ʿAlī assumed a unique position of leadership, not as one whose rights were usurped or who tried to usurp the rights of others, but as the quintessential mystical guide. One would like to think that Maybudī went into so much detail about ʿAlī, his political rights and his spiritual pre-eminence because the issue was on his contemporaries’ minds. The fundamental question is whether the commentary represents anything exceptional in its integration of ʿAlī’s story into the intellectual inquiry of his day. If the work was primarily an academic exercise, it reveals something about commentaries as a genre of scholarly writing in the fifteenth century. That would not be without value, for the post-Mongol period has been dismissed as a period of intellectual stagnation, during which scholars were unable to do more than rewarm once fresh ideas. If, on the other hand, the commentary is part of an attempt to reassess ʿAlī, to re-interpret traditions in order to promote an appreciation of his position in a Sunni-Jamaʿi present, then Maybudī’s efforts take on a completely different meaning. Why else would a competent scholar with a philosophical turn of mind write such a massive work on the key figure of Shiʿi thought? Why would he serve up so much material that was known to his contemporaries about the early years of Islam? It is tempting to conclude that Maybudī tried to integrate ʿAlī into the religious framework of his day as an indirect response, if not to the proliferation of extremist groups with their suspect views of ʿAlī, at least to the increasing importance of Sufi organizations and political tendencies centered on ʿAlī. Without claiming that Maybudī intentionally set out to provide an alternative to extreme views, it is clear that he offered a textual basis for the integration of ʿAlī’s increasing importance in political and social developments from the perspective of an educated, cultured, and pious man.

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The Commentary

The bulk of the Sharḥ is the commentary on ʿAlī’s verse, which covers some two to three hundred folios, depending on the manuscript. At the end of the Favātiḥ Maybudī sets out the consistent pattern he plans to follow.160 First, he copies lines from the dīvān, varying in number from one to six, two and three being the most common. The dīvān itself is arranged by the final letter of the verses and each poem is preceded by a rhyming couplet in Persian composed by Maybudī that crystallizes its moral message. Then he gives an explanation of words and phrases in those lines, translating certain Arabic words into Persian, occasionally discussing vocalization and presenting basic grammatical and historical background. Fairly frequently the words fatḥ (discourse), nukta (matter), or ḥikāyat (anecdote) introduce longer explanations, generally filling out the poem’s historical context. For example, stories about the Battle of Siffin and Ḥusayn’s death at Karbala, which are discussed in greater length than other episodes, are set off by such words. Next, preceded by the words “it says” (mī-farmāyad) comes a translation into Persian, “neither adding nor subtracting.” To finish up the section, Maybudī includes a verse in Persian of his own composition, introduced in several of the manuscripts by the letter ‘sin’ [sic] which stands for shāriḥ (commentator). The more elaborate the manuscript, the greater the likelihood that ʿAlī’s verses and the introductory expressions are written in red ink. Maybudī moves from Arabic verse through the interface of lexical explanation to simple Persian prose and then completes the circle with Persian verse, before proceeding to yet another verse in Arabic. Because of the structure, a study of the commentary naturally divides into three parts. First, the dīvān itself requires examination, less as poetry from the early years of Islam than as a document that Maybudī chose to study centuries later. Second, the subjects touched upon in the commentary, however wide-ranging, can be grouped into several major themes. Finally, Maybudī’s own verses, almost as numerous as ʿAlī’s, should be integrated into the discussion. One question that has haunted both the prose and poetry of ʿAlī is whether they are genuine. Sultan makes a case for dating doubts about the authorship of the Nahj back to the ninth and tenth centuries.161 The dīvān’s authenticity has also been challenged.162 While Maybudī writes that it is impossible to 160 161 162

SDA, 211. Jamil Sultan, É tude sur Nahj al-Balāgha (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1940), 73–78. H. Ewald, “ʿAlī’s Divan” in “Über die Sammlung arabischer und syrischer Handschriften im British Museum,” Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes Bd. II, Heft 2 (1839), 192–200.

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d­ escribe the poetry and speaks highly of the “dīvān of lofty ayvān and extensive maydān,” he, too, is not convinced that ʿAlī wrote it, or at least not all of it. Yet even in articulating his doubts, he dismisses them: “Although it is not certain that this sea [i.e. the dīvān] has not been made impure by [extraneous] scraps of poetry, if one verse is his [ʿAlī’s], that is enough for me in this world and the next.”163 Maybudī rarely makes further reference to the matter of reliability in the body of the commentary. Concerning a poem written about ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muljam, he does cite Zamakhsharī’s statement in his Asās [al-balāgha] that the verses really ought to be attributed to ʿAmr b. Maʿdīkarib.164 After commenting on a verse composed after the Battle of Siffin, Maybudī relates that Ibn Aʿtham attributes it to Maʿqil b. Qays Riyāḥī.165 In neither case does he himself pass judgment. One verse referring to the Yemen apparently had been interpreted in such a way as to cast doubt on its authenticity, for ʿAlī was by no stretch of the imagination a Yemenite.166 Here Maybudī weighs in with an opinion that resolves the difficulty and preserves the attribution. In other instances Maybudī indicates that the authorship is suspect because its message seems to contradict views ʿAlī was known to hold. Interpreting a verse in which ʿAlī expresses scorn for astrology and agreeing with that assessment, Maybudī continues: “It is clear from that excerpt that the attribution of the following verses to ʿAlī does not conform to reality.”167 A couple of verses are then given in which the attitude toward astrology is more favorable. To show that they were not composed by ʿAlī, the verses are not written in red ink in those manuscripts that use it to distinguish ʿAlī’s poetry. Maybudī devotes most attention to spurious attribution when the subject of the poem concerns succession to the caliphate. In one instance, Maybudī explicates in his usual manner a poem addressed to ʿUthmān that criticizes his accession. He follows it with a lengthy excursus beginning: “It is not hidden

163 164 165 166 167

Ewald maintains that the dīvān is spuriously attributed to ʿAlī. His primary reason is that the thoughts and stylistic characteristics of the poetry are too ordinary to be worthy of ʿAlī. He does not, however, list the writings which he does consider genuine and which enabled him to evaluate ʿAlī’s poetic talents. He also claims that the style of the poems is characteristic of an age later than the seventh century. Mudarris, 6:49 holds that the poems are ʿAlī’s as does Maʿṣūm ʿAlī Shāh, 3:125. SDA, 6. SDA, 449. Zamakhsharī, Asās al-balāgha, 412. I did not verify every citation in the SDA, because spot checking showed the 2000 edition to be both comprehensive and accurate. SDA, 362. SDA, 769. SDA, 651.

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that these two verses are in accordance with the Shīʿa (madhhab-i Shīʿa), while the Ahl-i Sunnat va Jamāʿat maintain that no enmity existed between ʿUthmān and ʿAlī … so it would be surprising if ʿAlī composed them.”168 He asserts that people who want to stir up trouble transfer their own worthless ideas to ʿAlī. As an example, he says they ascribe to ʿAlī the statement, “Praise to Him who knows irrational roots.” He proceeds with a discussion of mathematics to prove how ridiculous that is and how inconceivable that ʿAlī would utter invalid praise to God. While historical truth can suffer from the absence of concrete evidence with the passage of time, mathematical laws remain unchanging and universal, the gold standard against which the statements of an unimpeachable believer such as ʿAlī can be tested. Because Maybudī perceives ʿAlī’s character in such a specific, positive way, he confidently rejects verses which contradict that view. Another of the verses in the dīvān reads: Learn, Abū Bakr, and do not remain ignorant  That ʿAlī is the best of all who go barefoot or shod, And that the Messenger bequeathed him his rights,  And reinforced his words about him [ʿAlī] excellently. Do not disregard his rights; return the people to him,  For truly God is the most truthful of speakers.169 Maybudī follows the exegesis and translation with a section (fatḥ) in which he expresses surprise that such verses would have been written by ʿAlī, given Abū Bakr’s primacy among the Prophet’s Companions. He states that ʿAlī never would have sworn loyalty to Abū Bakr had he doubted that devout man’s right to the caliphate, for the first caliph exhibited the utmost piety and respect for the Shariʿa. Furthermore, had Abū Bakr’s caliphate been illegitimate, ʿAlī never would have accepted it, his integrity being proven when he refused to give up his rights after ʿUthmān’s death and opposed Muʿāwiya. A conversation between ʿAlī and ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbbās is related in which the latter advises the caliph to leave Muʿāwiya in his position in Syria until the upstart swore allegiance to him, at which time ʿAlī would be free to dismiss him. ʿAlī replied that, if he did not discharge him at once, the tyranny he would exercise over the common people would be ʿAlī’s responsibility. Consequently, he ordered his

168 169

SDA, 372. SDA, 653.

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immediate dismissal. Maybudī does not pursue the issue of authenticity any further, leaving the reader to draw his own conclusions.170 The acceptance of cursing one’s enemies suggests the implausibility of attributing another verse to ʿAlī, but in this case, Maybudī gets around the difficulty by saying that the Imam is permitted to voice certain things that would be condemned in another person. After a poem about the cursing of ʿAmr b. ʿĀṣ, Maybudī writes: If you say that the ulama of Sunna and Jamāʿa forbid the cursing of ʿAmr b. ʿĀṣ and the third verse testifies to the permissibility of doing so, we say that even though it seems to be written by al-Murtaḍā [ʿAlī], whatever the Imam can say about rebellious people is not necessarily permitted to other people.171 Similarly, a qadi has the authority to criticize legally prescribed punishments, while if a layman does the same, he becomes liable for punishment. Maybudī warns his reader a thousand times against cursing a Muslim, especially a Companion of the Prophet, for meeting him in the next world will be a fearsome encounter. A story from Ibn Aʿtham, in which ʿAlī forbids two of his followers at the Battle of Siffin to revile their opponents, rounds out the argument that such cursing is unacceptable. In an uncharacteristic foray into theology within the body of the Sharḥ, Maybudī implies that the distinction of ʿAlī’s character and experience offers much latitude in deciphering what he did or did not say and do. After revisiting the matter of divine names, he quotes Qayṣarī’s Sharḥ-i Fuṣūṣ for an anecdote in which ʿAlī makes the extravagant statement during a khuṭba that he is among other things “the point of the “b” in the bismillah, the Pen, the Preserved Tablet, the Throne, the Footstool, the seven heavens and the earth.”172 When sobriety resumed and he returned to the world of human qualities (bashariyat), he apologized. ʿAlī both provides insight into the mysteries of the divine and sets the limits of what ordinary men can say in the normal course of human affairs. In addition to exercising his critical faculties to investigate authorship, Maybudī uses them to evaluate different manuscripts. Some thirty-five times he mentions variations in manuscripts, such as the use of different words or the occasional omission of a particular line, seldom explaining why he chooses

170 171 172

SDA, 651–52. SDA, 515. SDA, 457.

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one reading over another.173 He may have worked from a commentary in which variant readings were offered, much the same way he offers them to his reader, or he might have had several manuscripts in front of him as he worked. No clue is given in the text as to how he proceeded. It seems that in his studies, one of his methods was to note and collate the variant opinions of other scholars rather than engaging in textual analysis himself. In the case cited above where he states that Zamakhsharī attributed a particular verse to ʿAmr b. Maʿdīkarib rather than to ʿAlī, the implication is that Maybudī had a body of tafsir information against which he compared his manuscript of the dīvān. Near the end of the Sharḥ he specifies that Ghazālī in the Iḥyāʾ attributed the two verses under discussion to Abū al-ʿAlāʾ Maʿarrī, but that Ibn ʿArabī in the Futūḥāt said they were ʿAlī’s.174 Not only the text of ʿAlī’s poetry, but also Maybudī’s own work is treated as a textual entity in itself. A stylistic feature of the introduction (Favātiḥ) is Maybudī’s frequent remark that he plans to elaborate on various topics within the main body of the commentary, which shows that he conceived of his monumental work as a unified whole. Both in the Favātiḥ and in the commentary, Maybudī directs his reader to other sections of the text, referring not only to subjects previously discussed, but also to matters which he promises to address later in the book.175 Perhaps aware of the magnitude of the work, Maybudī gives his reader repeated assurances that it possesses coherence. As for the subjects treated in the commentary on each set of verses, they are difficult to categorize because the brevity of each entry precludes any sort of comprehensive treatment and favors short, unconnected comments about 173 174 175

See for example SDA, 6–7, 217, 222, 229, 244, 258, 299, 446, 449, 459, 489, 525, 555, 563, 601, 615, 713, 716, 724, 759, 795. SDA, 699. See also 644 for Ghazālī’s attribution of verses to Abū Turāb Nakhshabī (d. 245/859) and Yaḥyā b. Muʿādh Rāzī (d. 258/871). See SDA, 33 (where the reader is referred to Fātiḥa 7/F7); 36 (letter ‘kaf’); 90 and 93 (F5); 169 (directs his reader for a discussion of Abū Ṭālib and the shahāda to the commentary: “The details will come in sections ‘dal,’ ‘ʿayn,’ and ‘lam,’ God willing.”); 172 (‘lam’); 184 (‘ʿayn’: about ʿAlī being the valī of all the faithful after Muḥammad); 193 (‘ba⁠ʾ’: wars between Muʿāwiya and ʿAlī; the death of several of ʿAlī’s supporters in ‘lam’ and ‘mim’); 194 (‘ra’: negotiations between Abū Mūsā Ashʿarī and ʿAmr b. ʿĀṣ); 202 (‘lam’ on the Mahdi); 237 (F2); 241 (‘ra’); 245 (F4); 247 (F4); 250 (F6); 257 (F6); 282 (F7); 425 (‘mim’ and ‘nun’); 449 (‘ba⁠ʾ’); 481 (where he promises to reconcile apparently contradictory verses about the relative values of poverty and wealth when the second verse appears.); 506 (F5); 512 (F7); 514 (F7); 524 (F3 and 5); 649 (F7); 685 (F4); 740 and 741 (F7); 771 (F7). The phrasing raises questions about the massive work’s composition. Did Maybudī know how he planned to organize it looking forward, or were later sections already written when he gave these references and he expected that it would all appear as one manuscript?

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every­thing from criticism of his contemporaries among the ulama, to women, the role of Eve in mystical knowledge, historical anecdotes about ʿAlī and his family, and the Mahdi. Maybudī follows the lead of the poems and remains faithful to his goal of explicating them, yet he benefits from their brevity as he decides which subjects require fuller treatment and which can be passed over quickly. Beginning with grammar, the earlier verses receive more attention than the later ones. Maybudī goes into great detail in the first few poems, explaining the definite article in Arabic with quotations from classical philologists of the Basran school such as Sībawayh (late 2nd/8th century), Mubarrad (d. 286/900), and al-Khalīl (late 2nd/8th century), discussing different opinions about the etymology of the word nās (people) and whether or not it can be used without the definite article, mentioning that a particular word has a lengthened vowel for the sake of meter and that such adjustments of vowels are common in Arabic words, and that the placement of short vowels differs among the languages of Persia, Khwarazm, and Arabia, and so on.176 He frequently cites a Qurʾānic verse as philological evidence for the point he is making, such as the specific use of ‘fa’ as a conjunction. In his discussion of morphology and syntax, Maybudī occasionally refers to the arguments between the well-known grammarians of Basra and of Kufa on subjects ranging from the letter waw to the word awwal to the conditional to the verb form of a particular word. Those issues were of immediate interest to earlier generations of scholars, but seem to be academic virtuosity in Maybudī’s case.177 He expresses no preference for one school or the other. Within the first fifty folios, grammatical explanations virtually disappear except for clarifications of vocalization and explanations of singular and plural.178 It is not as if Maybudī covered every possible philological point before his interest in the subject waned nor, judging from his commentary on the Kāfiya, is it likely that he ran out of things to say. One possibility is that he had a model commentary in mind, one that offered complete explanations. Having estab­176 177 178

SDA, 213–16. See SDA, 230, 245, 367. He still specifies proper vocalization, even without defining a given word: see 734 for nabhān and muḥarraq. Grammatical discussions do occasionally surface later in the text.. See SDA, 509 for the opinions of al-Khalīl, al-Akhfash (d. 177/793), and al-Kasāʾī (d. 189/805) on the word ashyāʾ (things). Within a few pages of the end, Maybudī cites Abū Zakariyā Yaḥyā al-Farrāʾ (d. 207/822) on the permissibility of dropping the ‘lam’ of the imperative. SDA, 768. That he had other commentaries on the Kāfiya available emerges from scattered quotations, especially that of Shaykh Raḍī [al-Dīn Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Astarābādī (d. 686/ 1287)], about which he mentions a gloss by Jurjānī. SDA, 274.

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lished his scholarly credentials within the first few folios, he may have felt that he had adhered to that model to his satisfaction and constrained by time and space put an end to such comprehensive explanations in order to focus on ʿAlī and his poetry. The practice that does continue throughout the commentary is the translation of various words and expressions from Arabic to Persian, not to be confused with the paraphrases in Persian that follow each segment. Most of the translations are straightforward and helpful, distinguishing, for example, the Arabic words for ‘price’ and ‘value.’179 In many cases it is unclear why Maybudī thought his audience would recognize one word and not another, nor do some of the words chosen for translation seem particularly enigmatic. For example, he explains that rasūl means ‘prophet’, that the expression Kitāb Allāh refers to the Qurʾān, and that arkān-i Islām are the shahāda, prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, and charity—points that seem obvious from the context and simply from general knowledge.180 It is also puzzling why he would need to translate ḥubb (‘love’) as dūstī or, near the end of the work, feel compelled to explain that Damascus is the principal city in Syria after having mentioned it already eight times.181 In the latter case, that is the first time Damascus appears in one of ʿAlī’s poems as opposed to Maybudī’s own commentary, a pattern that shows up with ‘Siffin’ as discussed below. In some cases his discursive comments are not meant as translations and may serve simply to engage the reader. Near the end of the commentary, he cites a relatively lengthy passage on the three main parts of an Arabic name and soon after, the explanation of ‘shaṭranj’ leads to a two-line digression on the Indian origins of chess.182 Even more remarkable in Maybudī’s approach to translation from a contemporary perspective is that in the Favātiḥ he includes lengthy quotations in Arabic from dense texts loaded with technical vocabulary by scholars such as Suhrawardī, Saʿd al-Dīn Taftāzānī, Ibn ʿArabī, and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī.183 The many historical anecdotes he includes from Ibn Aʿtham and others often involve dialogue and clever wordplay in Arabic that he presumes his readers will understand. He clearly worked under the assumption that his audience was equally comfortable with both languages, for in those cases he provides no 179 180 181

182 183

SDA, 221. SDA, 257, 270, 707. SDA, 550, 681. Similarly, Aaron receives an entry only on page 671 after numerous previous references and a repeated emphasis on the parallel between the pairing of Moses and Aaron and that of Muḥammad and ʿAlī. SDA, 760–01. SDA, 68 and 112, for example.

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translation and slips easily from one language to the other. Not infrequently he even explains an Arabic word with a definition in Arabic taken directly from his source.184 That the Favātiḥ and the poetic commentary belong to separate genres may explain Maybudī’s process of translation, but the effect remains disconcerting. As the book progresses, the commentary sections are frequently quite short, sometimes occupying less than a line of text. At other times Maybudī completely omits any commentary after a particular verse, passing directly to the paraphrase; only rarely does he omit the paraphrase.185 He may relate the historical circumstances surrounding the poem, introducing them with the word ḥikāyat or nukta, without addressing the Arabic verse specifically. The most plausible reason is that the verse posed no difficulty for the reader. Since Maybudī went on at some length about metaphysical questions in the Favātiḥ, he frequently contents himself in the commentary proper with referring the reader to previous remarks, thereby reinforcing the purpose of the introduction. In a few cases he introduces a completely unmentioned aspect of cosmology or metaphysics, or elaborates on one previously discussed in greater detail. After one poem he resumes his arguments about the resurrection of the dead from the fifth chapter of the introduction.186 In another case, while he had presented the complex structure of the cosmos in the fourth chapter, he returns to it near the end of the commentary to explain the following verse: [The astrologer] came to me, menacing me with the stars, While from his own evildoing he perceived no threat. I fear my sins more than astral conjunctions And in their [the sins’] evil I do believe. Maybudī discusses the terminology for various kinds of astral conjunctions (qirān). Then he turns to the true purpose of his comments, which is to put the effect of the stars on man’s daily life into perspective.187 Man’s sins should con184

185 186 187

SDA, 568: thaqb is translated as sūrākh kardan (make a hole), and then thāqib is explained in Arabic taken directly from the Mufradāt fī gharīb al-Qurʾān of Rāghib Iṣfahānī (d. 502/1108). 610: The explanation for ‘Qārūn’ (Korach) is in Arabic. Maybudī preserves the Arabic in his extensive use of Jawharī’s dictionary, al-Ṣiḥāḥ. SDA, 689, 701, 749, 757, 768, 770, 772, 789. SDA, 699. SDA, 758–59. See 650–51 for similar sentiments. Maybudī agrees with ʿAlī that awe is due the Creator, and that the fear of astral movements instilled by astrologers is nonsense. It is, however, interesting that when he dates the completion of the Sharḥ in its closing lines, not only does he give Hijri and Jalālī dates, but also mentions that it was the time of the

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cern him more than the secrets of astral movements, for in the one case he exercises a control that he lacks in the other. Only extraordinary individuals remain immune to the power of the heavens: “From these two verses you must not imagine that the celestial bodies lack any influence. No, it is the perfect man who reaches such a degree that the celestial bodies can have no effect on him. Similarly, you have heard that some of the Companions ingested poison and it had no effect on them.” In his own poem, Maybudī emphasizes that excessive interest in the stars and the world of secrets should not distract a man from sins that are clear in the light of day. While Maybudī himself frequently gives scientific or philosophical explanations for various phenomena, he points out that this type of rational inquiry can never reach the intellectual perfection achieved by the pious ancestors. After explaining ʿAlī’s lament over the passing of a more morally exemplary generation, Maybudī veers in a different direction with the following verse of his own: A company that was learned has gone.  In theoretical knowledge (ʿilm-i naẓar) they were skillful and percep tive. Today no trace has remained of those people.  It is as if they were bubbles in a wave in the sea.188 He does not criticize philosophers as individuals—they do not fall under the category of those who sin or are faithless—but does imply that their intellectual efforts do not endure in the way religious truth necessarily will. ʿAlī’s poem suggests that all believers can take warning from the absence of righteousness and return to the main road of moral improvement after having lost themselves on the byways, while Maybudī’s message about theoretical knowledge expresses a finality about the accomplishments of the past. Just as he refers in the commentary to cosmological and philosophical matters mentioned in the introduction, so Maybudī elaborates on historical events as the work progresses. In giving the circumstances for the writing of a particular poem, he frequently provides detailed retellings of stories that must have been thoroughly familiar to his readers. For instance, he recounts the refusal of Muḥammad’s camel to settle in any but one particular place in Medina when

188

conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the sign of Scorpio and the season of the assembly (ijtimāʿ: see 759) of the seven planets (sayyāra), except for Mars, in that fortuitous sign of the zodiac. SDA, 799. SDA, 486.

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the Prophet emigrated to that city in 1/622 and the construction of a mosque on the site.189 While the poem praises those who frequent mosques with devotion—so there is a clear connection to the story—the account must have been well enough known in the fifteenth century not to require such a lengthy retelling. One explanation for the wealth of familiar information provided in the commentary is that Maybudī’s goal was to demonstrate breadth of knowledge, an all-encompassing understanding of the poems which enabled him to give them their proper place in Islamic history and in the larger structure of the cosmos. The balance between the familiarity of the audience and Maybudī’s desire for comprehensiveness suggests why the order of certain explanations can seem haphazard to the modern reader. The word ‘Siffin’ is but one example of a definition that seems almost irrelevant by the time it appears. Maybudī describes the vocalization and location of Siffin long after that battle site is first mentioned and after at least thirteen occurrences of the word.190 His criterion for explanation seems to be that this is the first time the word actually appears in one of ʿAlī’s poems rather than in a historical anecdote or a heading for an ensuing poem. Underlying that criterion rests the assumption that Maybudī’s readers already knew about the place, so that his choice to discuss it well into the commentary is neither careless nor incomprehensible. He does mention it eventually, thus approaching comprehensiveness, trusting his audience to understand his method without unnecessary confusion. Most of the historical themes that are taken up from the introduction naturally concern ʿAlī. The question of Abū Ṭālib’s adoption of Islam reappears in connection with the following verse: O Abū Ṭālib, safeguard of him who seeks refuge,  Abundant rain in years of barrenness, light in darkness, Your loss shattered the community of protectors.  Indeed, you were the best of uncles to al-Muṣṭafā.191 The problem raised by the poem is the description of Abū Ṭālib as the best of Muḥammad’s uncles, considering that he may not have adopted Islam while two other uncles, Ḥamza and Al-ʿAbbās, clearly did. The solution lies in the fact that Abū Ṭālib died two years before Al-ʿAbbās’s conversion, so he was the best at the time of the verse’s composition. As for Ḥamza, he was but one of twelve 189 190 191

SDA, 425–26. SDA, 361. SDA, 709.

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uncles, all listed, and a half-uncle at that. The verse itself does not necessarily demand evaluation of Abū Ṭālib’s relation to Islam—any number of facts about him could have been mentioned instead—but that is the issue on which Maybudī concentrates. History and mysticism coincide in the commentary on another verse. In a nine-line poem ʿAlī criticizes those who are seduced by the world and expresses a healthy fear of eternal punishment, which preserves him from being seduced by the glitter of this earthly existence. Maybudī breaks the poem into three sections and explicates them in his usual manner, then recounts the story that inspired the verses as related by Imam Jaʿfar [al-Ṣādiq]. ʿAlī was engaged in some work, when before him appeared an extremely beautiful woman who resembled Buthayna, daughter of ʿĀmir Jumaḥī. The temptress sought to entice him, but when ʿAlī asked her identity and she admitted to being ‘the World,’ he repulsed her, exclaiming that she should seek a husband elsewhere. Maybudī remarks that there is no doubt that the vision and conversation took place in the world of archetypal images (ʿālam-i mithāl) that was examined in the fifth chapter.192 The historical ʿAlī, who frequented the Prophet and fought numerous battles, is suddenly swept into a completely other dimension, one that Maybudī finds equally significant. Another historical and mystical figure who appeared previously in the Favātiḥ is the Mahdi.193 Maybudī presents different views on the identity of this promised savior. At one point, he relates ʿAlī’s prediction that his son Ḥusayn will be killed, whereupon al-Mukhtār b. Abū ʿUbayda al-Thaqafī will avenge his death. Then Maybudī describes Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafīya, a son of ʿAlī by a different wife. He gives his date of death, adding “but his adherents (shīʿa-yi ū) maintain that he is alive in Mount Radwa, that he is the promised Mahdi, and that when he appears the earth will be filled with justice.”194 Maybudī speaks of the followers of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafīya as if they still cohered as a group with a specific set of beliefs, but had merged with other groups around the time of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, many centuries before. With reference to the Mahdi, the meaning of historical episodes lies not in the past but in the perfected future. That focus on the future acts as a counterweight to historical speculation. Explicating ṣāḥib al-qiyāma, Maybudī equates that figure with the Mahdi, but 192 193

194

SDA, 611. SDA, 201–02 where Maybudī simply says that Imam Muḥammad al-ʿAskarī is said by the Imāmīya to be the promised Mahdi, as will be discussed in ḥarf ‘lam.’ The discussion appears on 651–53. SDA, 284.

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his emphasis is on the time of Resurrection and Judgment: “Some say that every Shariʿa matter has an exoteric aspect, about which both the general population and the initiated are commanded, and an esoteric aspect which is specific to the initiated. When the Mahdi appears, the esoteric will be made manifest and the exoteric realized. Then ‘On the day when hidden thoughts shall be searched out’ will occur.”195 This millennial moment will be one of complete cosmic clarification. Much later in the Sharḥ Maybudī returns to the Mahdi in the context of a different poem, offering other possibilities for that figure’s identity.196 After mentioning the tradition that the Turks, the mass movements of whom will prefigure the coming of the Mahdi, descended from Yāfith b. Nūḥ (Noah), Maybudī goes on to say that this redemptive individual is characterized by the attributes of perfection, descended from Fāṭima, and promised by Muḥammad. Various hadiths show that he will belong to the line of Muḥammad and that during his reign of seven years he will fill the earth with equity and justice as much as it had been previously filled with oppression and tyranny. Opinions differ on the exact nature of the Mahdi. The Ahl al-Sunna maintain that God will send some descendant of Fāṭima when He will in order to protect His religion, while the Imami Shīʿa claim that the Mahdi is Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī (Occultation in 260/874), who hid from men’s sight out of fear of his enemies. There is no problem with the immense age he must have reached, since ancient figures such as Noah, Luqmān, and Khiḍr are widely accepted as believable. After verses of his own which express longing for the coming of the beloved, Maybudī remarks that most of those who specialize in the esoteric meaning of numbers have said something about the Mahdi. He gives the following couplet by Shaykh Saʿd al-Dīn Ḥamuvayī as an example: When, after the fast (ṣawm), the time reaches  ‘Bismillah,’ then shall the Mahdi appear.197

195 196 197

SDA, 282. Qurʾān 86:9. SDA, 651–3. This follows almost immediately on the quotation from Nūrbakhsh’s Risālat al-hudā referred to above. See Bashir, “The Risālat al-hudā,” 107 and the accompanying note 22 on page 99. A marginal note in the Bankipore manuscript explains how the numbers add up to produce the year in which the Mahdi is supposed to appear. The note must have been written after that date, for the note also says that nothing happened and “God knows best.”

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Maybudī offers his own intricate poetry and prose to express the great joy that the light of the Mahdi will bring, but leaves the date and further speculation about the Mahdi’s identity unresolved. Expectation of the imminent, apocalyptic arrival of this promised one about whom so little is known does not propel Maybudī’s interest in ʿAlī or his descendants. We do not know what he told his children or the nature of his private discussions with friends and colleagues, but for the purposes of the Sharḥ, he includes a few bits of information because the Mahdi comes up in Ibn ʿArabī’s discussion of prophecy and in several of ʿAlī’s poems, and that is the ostensible extent of his concern. Intertwined with Maybudī’s historical interests are those in the law. The two are closely linked, for examples from the history of the early Muslim community influenced the evolution of Islamic law. In his treatment of a poem that was written just prior to ʿAlī’s assassination, Maybudī relates at length the story (ḥikāyat) of the caliph’s murder by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn Muljam (ʿalayhi allaʿna), who was motivated by love for a woman who blamed ʿAlī for her father’s death.198 He then treats one particular point (nukta) raised by the account— namely, the disagreement of jurists over the legality of retaliation (qiṣāṣ) against a killer when that man has young children. Abū Ḥanīfa and Mālik consider it permissible, while Shāfiʿī disagrees. To support their position, the first group states that Imam Ḥasan ordered retaliation against Ibn Muljam. The Shafiʿis claim that it was not retaliation, but rather the prescribed punishment for the crime (ḥadd), because death is the appropriate legal punishment for the assassination of an imam. In another case, a verse that begins, “O Hearer of prayers!” triggers a brief discussion about whether an unbeliever’s prayers are heard, less a legal matter than a cultic or theological one. The Ahl-i Sunnat prevail with a reply in the affirmative, while the Muʿtazila disagree; that distinction merits notice for it would appear that the latter do not fall under the Sunni rubric, at least in this context. While the debate may have been of immediate concern in Maybudī’s day, it must be recalled that all his authorities—more precisely, all his examples and his entire time frame—were far from contemporary.199 Mention of the Shariʿa is generally less technical and more connected to the moral choices that regularly challenge all Muslims. One of Maybudī’s verses reads: O you who have become negligent of the secrets (asrār) of the Shariʿa!  How long will you commit sins and remain ignorant? 198 199

SDA, 449–51. SDA, 683.

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It [the Shariʿa] is the delight of the soul, and until the end of time  The imprint of sins will remain on the page of the heart.200 What those verses and the many others like it reveal is how closely and simply are intertwined the language of Muslim morality and the rhetoric of lettrist esotericism. Mystical significance permeates Maybudī’s worldview and merges seamlessly with his exoteric religious obligations. The various compartments of Maybudī’s intellectual outlook were complementary rather than mutually exclusive. Maybudī was not only grammarian, translator, historian, legist and philosopher in the Sharḥ, but also poet.201 While the quality of his verse does not place him in the first ranks of Persian poetry, its sheer quantity evokes admiration for him as a representative of the educated classes. Producing over six hundred quatrains (rubāʿī) for this one work is a remarkable exercise in both versification and devotion. The majority of the verses are in Persian, with only a few being composed in Arabic. The poems offer yet further interpretation of the original text and allow an expansion of meaning.202 Two formal questions are raised by Maybudī’s verses. First, why did he choose the quatrain form? Second, what are the themes of his verse? The second question provides an answer to the first. Almost without exception, the verses are didactic, simple and direct in their morality. They are reminiscent of Saʿdī’s verses in the Gulistān, which illustrate or elaborate on the points made in the preceding anecdote. Another parallel might be drawn with Jāmī’s transformation of forty hadiths into verse form, the Arbaʿīn-i Jāmī (wr. 886/1481), where he used quatrains. His stated goal was to have them easily understood and, indeed, the quatrain form lends itself to such pithy messages.203 There is also the element of practicality. Maybudī could hardly have written a ghazal or 200 SDA, 483. 201 As mentioned in the introduction, Maybudī’s pen name was Manṭiqī. He does not use it in his poems in the Sharḥ, but it appears several times in the poems he wrote in his letters: MUN, 85, 176, 180, 181. In other poems in the Munsha⁠ʾāt he writes his name as “Ḥusayn ibn al-Muʿīn al-Maybudī,” 247, “Ḥusayn ibn al-Muʿīn al-Maybudī,” and “Ḥusayn Maybudī wa wālidī Muʿīn al-Dīn,” 248. The variations result from the demands of meter. 202 See Zadeh, The Vernacular Qur’an, 574 for the use of Persian poetry in Qurʾānic exegesis. 203 Nūr al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī, Arbaʿīn-i Jāmī, ed. Kāẓim Mudīr Shānahchī (n.p., 1363), 21; Abdülkadir Karahan, Cāmī’nin Erbain-i ve türkçe tercümeleri (Istanbul: Osman Yalçın Matbaası, 1952), 6. Jāmī says that his aim was to have the verses easily understood so he chose hadiths with words that could be easily memorized. By extension, we can assume that he sought ease of learning in his own explanatory verses and they are, in fact, quite plain.

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qaṣīda on every few lines of ʿAlī’s dīvān, while the quatrain is economical. Several examples follow: O possessor of perfect perception and propitious fortune,  How long will you exert yourself for the goods of the world? Tomorrow when your soul leaves your body,  Your enemies will consume all that wealth with pleasure.204 O heart, however fine a nature you may have,  You will never attain your goal. If you seek one enemy, you will find a hundred;  Seek a friend for a hundred years and you will not find one.205 Every citadel we built fell to ruin;  Our composure quickly turned to dismay. Everyone who sets his heart on the base world  Suddenly finds it branded with regret.206 O friend, you have the means of cultivation (zirāʿat).  How long will you spend your life unemployed? Since knowledge and practice are as water and earth to you,  If you have a worthy heart, sow the seeds of happiness.207 In part, Maybudī’s verse is as epigrammatic as it is because of the subject matter of ʿAlī’s poems. Many of the latter elaborate on simple, pietistic messages such as the benefits of silence, the wisdom of frequenting virtuous and scholarly people, the need for patience and acceptance of fate’s decrees, the preference for knowledge over wealth, and so on. Others of a more historical nature also provide guidance for mankind, instructing through anecdote rather than admonition. Maybudī’s Persian verses engage the Arabic text attributed to ʿAlī, linking the eternal truths of the past to the present day. Although it has been convenient to follow the two-part division of the Sharḥ, the Favātiḥ and the commentary proper constitute a single work. Ideas appear only in passing in the commentary because they receive more thorough treatment in the introduction. Thematically, the two sections are similar. 204 205 206 207

SDA, 239. SDA, 306. SDA, 555. SDA, 492.

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Unified by the preeminent role of ʿAlī, they concern his place within a cosmological, Islamic framework, his mystical significance, and the proper interpretation of historical events. Underlying the nuts and bolts of the known world, elusive questions about the nature of reality and the limits of human knowledge shift endlessly through language and experience. The inherent inscrutability of the universe is expressed through and reflected by language, which is both multifaceted and constrained. ʿAlī’s life encapsulates the tension between mystical truth and legal norms. Maybudī uses it to elaborate on a fundamental theme in Sufi literature that goes back at least as far as the tenth century, which is that far from contradicting the teachings of the Qurʾān or Muḥammad, mystical insight is inseparable from them. Translation and exegesis emerge as eminently suitable mechanisms to explore a wide variety of intellectual problems, because to translate is to interpret. By its very nature, translation acknowledges the many layers of meaning within reality. Using it to clarify a text, Maybudī creates his own literary document. The Sharḥ ultimately constructs a philosophical and theological structure dominated by the historical figure of ʿAlī, one shaped over time by the selective editing of sayings and anecdotes, all the while confined by historical fact and accepted tradition. Ultimate causation resides with God, but the world is shaped by man’s multiple capacities for action in historical time. If a theme of the Sharḥ can be said to be the status of ʿAlī, it acts as a metaphor for the subject of the next chapter, which concerns Maybudī’s status within the Ak Koyunlu sphere and the larger world of Iran and Transoxiana. Maybudī, too, had to define his place in the government of the state and to decide how to deal with the problems of succession that characterized Ak Koyunlu history in the last few decades of the fifteenth century. That is not in any way to suggest that he placed himself on the same level as ʿAlī. Rather, it opens up the possibility that the issues raised in the commentary offered models of both activism and resignation that Maybudī could apply to his own situation and created a context which could be expanded to include not only the early years of the Muslim community but also developments in that community as they unfolded throughout history.

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Chapter 4

Qadi Maybudī Based on the previous discussion of his education and principal writings, Maybudī might appear to have lived apart from the turmoil of daily life. Born into a relatively rich and powerful provincial family, studying with the leading teachers of his day, and composing weighty tomes of commentary, he might seem to have inhabited the fifteenth-century equivalent of the ivory tower. That image can be corrected by looking at his career as a qadi, which reveals him struggling with natural disasters, communal demands, and personal animosities. He coped with the practical aspects of education and administration on a daily basis, so did not have the luxury of withdrawing into a world of esoteric speculation. Before exploring the multi-layered story of his appointment and the details of his job, I will discuss his correspondence with key figures at the Ak Koyunlu and Timurid courts during his tenure as qadi in order to show the complexity of the larger social and political framework in which his career developed. Concurrent with his life as qadi within the Yazd region, Maybudī cultivated relations that extended from Tabriz to Herat and beyond as evidenced by his correspondence of over one hundred letters, the Munsha⁠ʾāt. That collection is significant for what it uncovers about the qadi’s activities not only within his city, but also within the Ak Koyunlu and Timurid domains. The letters themselves were an essential mechanism in those activities. In his translation of Navāʾī’s Majālis al-nafāʾis, Qazvīnī explicitly states that the reason the author wrote so warmly about Najm al-Dīn Sāvajī (d. ca. 898/1493), but not about his uncle Qadi ʿĪsā, was that the former kept up a friendly correspondence with him while the latter failed to do so.1 Consequently, it is essential to know with whom Maybudī corresponded, for it was those men whose good opinion he wanted to earn and maintain. Taking into consideration Maybudī’s provincial status, it is noteworthy that his correspondents consisted of the leading political and intellectual figures of his day. They included the following thirty-three men, who are grouped in four categories according to profession and region of residence—those of the military, civilian bureaucrats of the Ak Koyunlu administration, provincial ulama, and

1 Niẓām al-Dīn ʿAlī Shīr Navāʾī, Tadhkira-yi Majālis al-nafāʾis, ed. ʿAlī Aṣghar Ḥikmat (Tehran: n.p., 1363/1984), 295.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004302327_005

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Timurid luminaries.2 It would be tedious to include all the bits and pieces of information that can be gleaned from the sources about each man, so I have chosen to focus on those whose lives are known to have had a significant impact on Maybudī and those who shared a connection that reveals something about themes explored in this book, even if the letters give few details about their actual relationship. The lists below indicate that the focus of Maybudī’s attention as presented in the Munsha⁠ʾāt was the Ak Koyunlu court and, more specifically, the ulama and civilian personnel who frequented it. Taking each of the four groups separately, I will consider the identity of the various people, similarities and differences between their stories and Maybudī’s, and the nature of Maybudī’s communications with them. The unique fragmentary letter sent to Shah Ismāʿīl will be examined in the next chapter because it stands apart historically. Beginning with the military class, there are two members of the Ak Koyunlu family among Maybudī’s correspondents. Ibrāhīm b Jahāngīr was a nephew of Uzūn Ḥasan and is first heard of fighting with his father and uncle against Jahānshāh Kara Koyunlu (ca. 871–72/1466–67).3 He and his brother Qāsim Beg held governorships in the province of Kirman and were early supporters of their cousin Yaʿqūb. Not long into Sulṭān-Khalīl’s reign, they revolted against him. In his rebellion, Ibrāhīm invaded Fars, hoping to expel Alvand and the officers who backed Sulṭān-Khalīl. His attack on Shiraz failed, so he and Qāsim Beg fled through Isfahan to Qum and on to Sava, where they hoped to join 2 Numbers in parentheses indicate the number of letters sent to an individual and those in brackets to the group as a whole, but they should not be considered definitive. While useful, Furūhar’s edition needs to be revised with reference to the addressees of the letters and other details. The titles “khwaja” and “mawlana” have been kept. Minorsky says that “khwaja” is an old Iranian title which since Seljuk times was a high title of respect for the Iranian members of the administration and that “mawlana” points to religious qualifications: “A Civil and Military Review,” 170. More study on names and titles may reveal subtle distinctions over time. See Aubin, “Un Santon quhistani,” 202. In addition, the Munsha⁠ʾāt contains some thirty-two letters or fragments without a specified addressee. It can be stated with some certainty that most of them were written to bureaucrats in the Ak Koyunlu court in order to strengthen bonds of loyalty. They thank the addressee for having sent a letter, occasionally confirm that a commission has been fulfilled, and express effusive good wishes. The finessing of language in some of the salutations indicates several were written to officials in the financial administration, while others were to high-ranking officials who had the ear of the ruler. I use the word “luminaries” advisedly. The political uncertainty of the times gave Maybudī ample cause to pursue ties in different centers of power, but his links to the Timurid court seem tenuous and based primarily on admiration from afar. 3 Ṭihrānī, 2:417.

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Military

Bureaucrats

Ibrāhīm b. Jahāngīr (d. 893/1488) (2) Amir Nūr al-Dīn Aḥmad (1) Ilāhī Beg (2) Sultan Yaʿqūb Khān4 (1) Sulṭān-Muḥammad Shāh (1) Pīr ʿAlī Beg (1) Ṣūfī Khalīl Beg Mawṣillū (1)

Qadi Ṣafī al-Dīn ʿĪsā Sāvajī (13) Shaykh Najm al-Dīn Masʿūd Sāvajī (3) Qadi Imām al-Dīn Shaykh ʿAlī Sāvajī (8) Sharaf al-Dīn Shāh-Maḥmūd Jān Daylamī (5) Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū Isḥāq Nayrīzī (3) Sirāj al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Vahhāb (2) Idrīs Bidlīsī [Munshī] (1) Jalāl-Al-Dīn Davānī (5) Unnamed bureaucrats, occasionally designated as a qadi (19)

[9]

Ikhtiyār al-Dīn ʿAbd al- Qādir (1) [60]

Provincial ulama

Timurid court

Darvīsh Maḥmūd (1) or Darvīsh Ḥusayn  Manṣūrī Mawlana Zayn al-Dīn ʿAlī, Qāḍī Khvāfī (2)5

Amir ʿAlī Shīr Navāʾī (1)

Khwaja Ḥusām al-Dīn Ibrāhīm Shāh (1) Khwaja Niẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad [Saʿīdī] (3) Mawlana Sharaf al-Dīn Shaykh Abū Isḥāq Kūynāfī (2) and a preface to his Munsha⁠ʾāt Mawlana Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Lāhījī (3) Mawlana ʿImād al-Dīn Maḥmūd (1) Unspecified scholar Shāh Niʿmat Allāh al-Thānī (2) Sayyid Naṣr Allāh (1) Sayyid Muḥammad Rīsmān Bāz (1) Jalāl al-Dīn Tīrandāz (1) Muḥammad Qavvās and Pahlavān Jalāl al-Dīn Kāshī Mawlana Muḥammad [b. Mūsā] Tālishī (2) [22]

Khwaja ʿUbayd Allāh Samarqandī (2) [Khwaja Aḥrār] Khwaja Yaḥyā b. ʿUbayd Allāh Samarqandī (2) Jāmī (2) [7]

4 It is not clear that the note about a hamam Maybudī built is to him personally or written during his reign. 5 A Mawlana Zayn al-Dīn ʿAlī is mentioned as a poor, pious student in a letter to ʿAlī Shīr Navāʾī. Khwāja Aḥrār, The Letters of ʿUbayd Allāh Aḥrār (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 259.

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forces with their brother Murād, who was the governor there.6 Murād had been executed just before their arrival and Ibrāhīm soon fell prisoner to SulṭānKhalīl. He barely escaped being flayed alive before Sulṭān-Khalīl’s downfall.7 Under Yaʿqūb, Ibrāhīm became military commander (dārūgha) of Tabriz, at least by the summer of 892/1487.8 In that year he fought in the battle that led to the death of Shah Ismāʿīl’s father, Shaykh Ḥaydar.9 Ibrāhīm’s own demise from some disease in Shawwāl 893/September 1488 provides the terminus ad quem for Maybudī’s letters to him.10 In his description of the prince, Khunjī mentions that Ibrāhīm was “interested in scholarship and studied the whole of Euclid and Ptolemy’s Almagest, and wrote poetry.”11 Whether or not Ibrāhīm and Maybudī met at some point, their intellectual interests were at least superficially similar. While Maybudī indicates that Ibrāhīm had ceased writing to him regularly and asks to be remembered once again, that request in itself is not proof of their meeting. The language of the letters does play up their shared familiarity with the sciences and with Sufism. The elaborate intitulatio should not be dismissed as mere verbose flattery, because the precise phrases used to glorify Ibrāhīm’s achievements, however ornate and formulaic, represent deliberate literary choices which refer indirectly to a reality of person or situation. Crafted from stock images and words, salutations to rulers, scholars, poets, and mystics reflect the epistolary artist’s attitude towards his correspondent and his accomplishments. Writing as a scholar, Maybudī emphasizes Ibrāhīm’s intellectual, military, and spiritual attributes through references to the planets, ‘primary matter’ and ‘First Cause,’ and the secrets of gnostic knowledge.12 It is worth noting that the Munsha⁠ʾāt contains no letters addressed to Sultan Yaʿqūb himself. As far as can be determined, high-ranking scholars were in no way prohibited from addressing their ruler. Jāmī, for instance, wrote many missives to the Timurid Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Bayqarā. Until more of Maybudī’s letters come to light, it can be tentatively proposed that he preferred to reach the 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Woods, The Aqquyunlu, 127. Khunjī-Iṣfahānī, Tārīkh-i ʿĀlam-ārā-yi Amīnī, 26–27/135–38. Khunjī-Iṣfahānī, Tārīkh-i ʿĀlam-ārā-yi Amīnī, 48/237. Khunjī-Iṣfahānī, Tārīkh-i ʿĀlam-ārā-yi Amīnī, 66, 68/291, 297, 301. Khunjī-Iṣfahānī, Tārīkh-i ʿĀlam-ārā-yi Amīnī, 73–74/329–30. Khunjī-Iṣfahānī, Tārīkh-i ʿĀlam-ārā-yi Amīnī, 73/330. MUN, 47, 119. One of the more amusing salutations—at least to this reader of Maybudī’s letters who has navigated the profusion of extravagant conceits—is the opening to a letter to Ilāhī Beg: “Since the mention of epithets and such things has no worldly or otherworldly benefit and is even detrimental to both writer and correspondent, I will avoid them and instead say just two words, which will aid both you and me in the next world,” 190.

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military elite through the mediation of fellow civilian scholar-officials.13 For example, in a letter to Qadi ʿĪsā in which he describes an agricultural disaster that hit Yazd, he laments that the people were on the verge of destruction, their only possible salvation being royal assistance (ʿināyat-i sulṭānī).14 A few lines later, he again asked for the ruler’s help (ʿināyat-i pādishāhī). Thus the message is directed to the ruling authority through a fellow member of the ulama. Most of Maybudī’s correspondents among the military class were not members of the Ak Koyunlu family, but high-ranking amirs. Ṣūfī Khalīl Beg Mawṣillū was one of the most influential figures during Sultan Yaʿqūb’s reign, both as general and politician, and played a crucial role in the succession struggle that followed the latter’s death.15 Appointed guardian to Yaʿqūb’s eldest son, Bāysunghur, he was appointed governor (dārūgha) of the province of Fars when Alvand, son of Sulṭān-Khalīl, died in Shiraz (883/1478).16 His independence led to his reassignment to the Georgian frontier from 891/1486 to 896/1490. Under Yaʿqūb it appears that he was an amir (holding manṣab-i imārat) and military administrator (kārsāzi-i sipāh) along with his future enemy, Sulaymān Beg Bījan, who was Yaʿqūb’s guardian, father-in-law, and former chief of staff (d. 897/1492).17 The Ḥabīb al-siyār goes on to portray him as ruthless in acquiring money and power after Yaʿqūb’s death. He was killed near Tabriz in 896/1491 by Sulaymān Beg.18 With Ṣūfī Khalīl Beg, the small world inhabited by Maybudī’s correspondents begins to emerge. For instance, when Jāmī was involved in a controversy over the Silsilat al-dhahab in Baghdad on his way to Mecca, one of those who attended the public session concerning the work was Ṣūfī Khalīl Beg, who also happened to be a brother-in-law of Uzūn Ḥasan.19 In another episode he indirectly ordered the ulama of Tabriz to debate with Qadi ʿĪsā in order to catch the latter up and thereby have an excuse to punish him.20 Eventually he was 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

Jāmī, Pis’ma, 5, 32. MUN, 126. Sām Mīrzā, 117; Navāʾī, Majālis al-nafāʾis, 293–94; Gülşeni, 76, 117–19, 121–22, 150–51, 203– 05, 209, 211–12, 214, 219, 241, 290: critical of Ṣūfī Khalīl Beg’s responsibility for the death of Qadi ʿĪsā; Khvāndamīr, 4:186–87, 431, 436–38; Rūmlū, 69:217 (note); Qazvīnī, Lubb al-ta­ vārīkh, 224–25. Woods, The Aqquyunlu, 146, 160. Minorsky, “A Civil and Military Review in Fars,” 172. Khvāndamīr, 4:431, 436. Woods, The Aqquyunlu, 154. Fakhr al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Ḥusayn Kāshifī, Rashaḥāt ʿayn al-ḥayāt, ed. ʿAlī Aṣghar Muʿīnīyān (Tehran: Bunyād-i Nīkūkārī-yi Nūriyānī, 2536/1977), 1:257. Gülşeni, 209.

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r­ esponsible for Qadi ʿĪsā’s execution and Najm al-Dīn Masʿūd Sāvajī’s ruin. While information about the various members of the military class is scanty in the Munsha⁠ʾāt, it is sufficient to show the interconnectedness of the people with whom Maybudī corresponded. The other military figures remain obscure. A Pīr ʿAlī appears in the Ḥabīb al-siyār during Alvand’s sultanate (r. 903–10/1497–1504–05)21 and the downfall of Mīr Mīrzā. That Pīr ʿAlī supported Mīr Mīrzā and after the latter’s capture by Sulṭān-Murād (d. 921/1514) of Shiraz, he siezed Sava. He was killed after SulṭānMurād and Alvand divided the kingdom in order to establish peace. Pīr ʿAlī went to join Sulṭān-Murād in Qazvin where he was executed.22 There is no definitive proof, however, that the Pīr ʿAlī in Khvāndamīr was Maybudī’s correspondent. The main themes of letters to the military elite are Maybudī’s desire to be remembered, to have his allegiance to the person in question acknowledged, and to strengthen the bonds of patronage. Sometimes the letter had a specific purpose, such as congratulating Ṣūfī Khalīl Beg on a military victory or Pīr ʿAlī Beg on his recovery from an illness, or describing the legal troubles of a friend.23 In other cases, Maybudī appears in the guise of spiritual counsellor, expanding on the matter of self-perfection. A pair of letters to Ilāhī Beg offers advice on the improvement of religious beliefs, which could be accomplished by imitating the perfect man (insān-i kāmil)—that is, Muḥammad—promulgating the Shariʿa, prohibiting evil and commanding the good and, finally, following the Way (ṭarīqa), cultivating praiseworthy virtues and distancing himself from bad habits. Maybudī sketches the aspects of metaphysical knowledge which will then be open to the spiritual traveler, ranging from essences and attributes through annihilation of the self and residing with God (fanāʾ and baqāʾ), resurrection and final judgment, punishment and reward. He insists that they exist on levels which become clear only if acquired in sequence. Then he urges Ilāhī Beg to observe justice by repairing religious buildings, making a plug for a certain ribat.24 This particular letter expatiates on metaphysics in a way that strongly suggests Ilāhī Beg’s familiarity with the topic and perhaps an ongoing spiritual search with which Maybudī is involved, yet even the more purely 21 22 23

24

This is Alvand b. Yūsuf b. Uzūn Ḥasan and not to be confused with Alvand b. Sulṭān-Khalīl b. Uzūn Ḥasan. Khvāndamīr, 4:445–46. MUN, 245; 123; 50: One Khwaja Ikhtiyār al-Dīn Farīdūn, a friend of Maybudī, planned to visit Sultan-Muḥammad Shāh, who had expressed interest in his case. His enemies had accused him of stealing gifts meant for the court. Apparently he was vindicated and the slanderers punished. MUN, 190–91.

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pragmatic letters to military figures contain some reference to the recipient’s fulfillment of his obligation to uproot heresy and suppress evildoers. Operating solely on the exoteric plane has ramifications for the spiritual community at large. Such language is certainly not unusual in fifteenth-century epistolary collections, but it takes on a more personal note because of the accusations leveled against Maybudī himself, which will be discussed below. It is one thing to urge the suppression of evildoers and quite another to be counted among them. While consistently respectful of the military elite in his letters to them, Maybudī revealed to his patrons among the civilian notables a more ambivalent attitude towards the ruler’s entourage. After initially praising the Padishah as just, the provincial qadi complains in a letter to his patron that the royal hangers-on are less admirable. As soldiers and administrators who are accustomed to domination, their goals do not necessarily coincide with those of judicial authorities and they do not pay attention to what is right.25 In that same letter, Maybudī declares that as long as he has been qadi of Yazd, his enemies have repeatedly agitated to get him recalled to the imperial camp (urdū), apparently to accuse him of misappropriation of funds and to investigate his religious beliefs, as if his thirty years of scholarship and publication counted for nothing. Regardless of whether or not his enemies came from among the military elite, the imperial camp was not a place Maybudī wanted to visit when under suspicion for misdeeds. He marshals legal sources to prove that they lack the authority to recall him.26 Turning our attention to the second group, the ulama administrators in Tabriz, we see that many of them belonged to prestigious local Iranian families who had risen to positions of power under Uzūn Ḥasan as officials in the administrative, fiscal, and religious branches of government. The Sāvajīs came from Persian Iraq, the Saʿīdīs from Persian Iraq and Fars, and the Daylamīs from Persian Iraq and Gilan.27 Of all the families, the Sāvajīs were noticeably the most important to Maybudī. Thirteen missives were addressed to Qadi Ṣafī al-Dīn ʿĪsā Sāvajī (d. 896/1491), minister of religious affairs (ṣadr), chief Islamic magistrate (qāḍī-ʿaskar), and one of the most influential men under Sultan Yaʿqūb.28 He rose from the position of Yaʿqūb’s tutor to supervisor of much of

25 26 27 28

MUN, 154. MUN, 166–68. Woods, The Aqquyunlu, 108. The translation of administrative titles comes from Woods, The Aqquyunlu, 17–18.

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the government and Maybudī wrote him during the height of his power.29 Eight more letters were directed to Qadi Imām al-Dīn Shaykh ʿAlī Sāvajī, a brother of Qadi ʿĪsā. Shaykh Najm al-Dīn Masʿūd Sāvajī, son of Qadi ʿĪsā’s sister, received three letters. Although for Maybudī what mattered was to stay in the powerful man’s good graces, Qadi ʿĪsā provoked controversy among later writers. In his translation of Navāʾī’s Majālis al-nafāʾis, Qazvīnī wrote that Navāʾī did not do Qadi ʿĪsā justice when he criticized him for failing to perform good deeds when the opportunity arose. Qazvīnī claims that Qadi ʿĪsā did, in fact, point out the way of justice to his sovereign, contribute to the flourishing of the state, and allow scholars, pious men, and the general populace to live in peace. Indicating rivalry between the two statesmen, he says that poets such as Kamāl al-Dīn Shīr ʿAlī Bannāʾī (d. 918/1512) fled from Navāʾī to Sāvajī. After the qadi’s downfall, intellectuals were scattered as a result of the injustice of unfeeling governors and the lowest Turk [Safavid] was able to kill the highest scholar with no questions asked. What Khunjī and Gülşeni describe as excessive fondness for poetry appears in Qazvīnī in a positive light, as generous patronage of the poetic art.30 Even without considering tensions between Ak Koyunlu and Timurid luminaries, it is clear that Qadi ʿĪsā’s time at court was one of strain. The very beginning of his political career was rocky. According to Gülşeni, Shaykh Ibrāhīm recommended that Qadi ʿĪsā be appointed tutor to Yaʿqūb when he was qadi of Tabriz. Other ulama who had hoped to get the job vilified him and engaged in street fights in which at least one qadi lost an eye.31 Once Yaʿqūb ascended the throne, Qadi ʿĪsā became chief magistrate while remaining the ruler’s advisor. Other events in Qadi ʿĪsā’s life reflect tensions more personal than political. To the dismay of his community, he careened from dissipation to extreme religiosity. Apparently he fell in with disreputable characters who led him to ne29

30

31

Sām Mīrzā, 117–18; Gülşeni, 56 indicates that Qadi ʿĪsā was an intimate of Sulṭān-Khalīl before his assassination. Minorsky says his power peaked in Ṣafar 894/January 1489. “The Aq-Qoyunlu and Land Reforms,” BSOAS 17 (1955): 452. For Qadi ʿĪsā, also see Aubin, “É tudes,” 64–65; Sām Mīrzā, 117–8; Navāʾī, Majālis al-nafāʾis 118–19, 142, 293, 295; many references in Gülşeni. Chad G. Lingwood, Politics, Poetry, and Sufism in Medieval Iran: New Perspectives on Jāmī’s Salāmān va Absāl (Leiden: Brill, 2014) analyzes Jāmī’s poem as an ethico-political, mystical, and historical allegory in which Qadi ʿĪsā figures prominently and he synthesizes much material concerning the Sāvajīs. Navāʾī, Majālis al-nafāʾis, 293, 118; Gülşeni, 103: Qadi ʿĪsā reportedly was so busy with poetry and riddles that he began to neglect the people’s interest (maṣlaḥat). Shaykh Ibrāhīm tried to mend matters. Khunjī-Iṣfahānī, Tārīkh-i ʿĀlam-ārā-yi Amīnī, 78/351. Gülşeni, 65.

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glect his prayers and it was only after Shaykh Ibrāhīm’s intervention that he resumed righteous conduct. The qadi then swung in the other direction, isolating himself with Shaykh Ibrāhīm for fasting and prayer, but failing to perform his duties as qadi. His followers and relatives came to Shaykh Ibrāhīm to get him back on the job. In order to temper his disciple’s zeal, the shaykh quoted the hadith that: “The justice of an hour is better than seventy years of divine worship (ʿibāda),” and prevailed upon Qadi ʿĪsā to resume his administrative duties.32 Not only did Qadi ʿĪsā’s spiritual education affect his public obligations, but it also estranged him from his family. At one point, Shaykh Ibrāhīm urged Qadi ʿĪsā to give up his possessions. That so disturbed the qadi’s relatives that they approached Sultan Yaʿqūb, declaring that Qadi ʿĪsā was crazy. Eventually a reconciliation was effected, the shaykh insisting that, since the qadi had successfully separated himself from worldly matters, they could no longer harm him.33 The problem with such accounts is that chroniclers often shape what appears to be the actual course of a man’s life to serve as a code for larger political issues, but we cannot then assume automatically that behind every story is a deep, hidden meaning. Qadi ʿĪsā may, in fact, have experienced some sort of spiritual crisis. Maybudī, too, constantly referred to his world-weariness in his correspondence. On the other hand, the author could be making an oblique reference to the qadi’s questionable religious beliefs, cloaking them in more acceptable terms. In one of his cases, Qadi ʿĪsā had to assess accusations against ʿUmar Rawshanī, the spiritual guide of Shaykh Ibrāhīm, for following the teachings of Ibn ʿArabī, as we saw in Chapter 2. It will be recalled that the mystic had been attacked in Qarabagh for being a Fuṣūṣī, or adherent of Ibn ʿArabī’s beliefs as expressed in the Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, and thereby an unbeliever. The mystic protested that he was not a representative (vakīl) of Ibn ʿArabī. He was brought to Tabriz for an investigation before Qadi ʿĪsā who, on Shaykh Ibrāhīm’s urging, found no fault in him and made the jealous ulama ask his pardon.34 The tale might be one about three isolated individuals or it could be indicative of widespread religious controversy throughout Ak Koyunlu lands, of internal turmoil that affected the highest echelons of society and trickled down to their subordinates. Maybudī referred to Ibn ʿArabī in his letters to the Sāvajīs and made no attempt to conceal his familiarity with the mystic’s writings in his other works—on the contrary, Ibn ʿArabī is the most frequently cited substantive 32 33 34

Gülşeni, 68. Gülşeni, 82–85. Gülşeni, 88–89.

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source in the Sharḥ after the Qurʾān and hadith—implying that Maybudī perceived no physical danger as a result of his having studied those dubious materials or that he knew the Sāvajīs to be sympathetic to his views.35 From the account above, it can be seen that one of Qadi ʿĪsā’s duties was to act as a liaison among the ulama associated with the court, including everyone from scholars to religious functionaries to mystics. Access to him became indispensable, for those who had complaints against their fellow men as well as for those who needed to defend themselves against such complaints. Maybudī fits both descriptions. In one episode, thirty-four Turkish-speaking ulama came to Shaykh Ibrāhīm in the royal camp, complaining that they did not know Persian while Qadi ʿĪsā did not know Turkish, and reporting that they had urged the grand vizier, Sulaymān Beg, to have Yaʿqūb remove him from office. Shaykh Ibrāhīm counseled against such plotting, but did make sure that a Turkish-speaking clerk was hired.36 Although the intent of the anecdotes in the Manāqib is to display the wonders of Shaykh Ibrāhīm, other sources indicate that it is not far off the mark about intrigues in the Ak Koyunlu court.37 Qadi ʿĪsā did not adjudicate disputes only among the ulama themselves, but also served as middleman between the ruler and the religious figures of the realm. It was his task to get members of the ulama such as Maybudī to pray for Sultan Yaʿqūb’s victory in battle. When a revolt erupted on the western marches, the sultan wanted Qadi ʿĪsā to have Shaykh Ibrāhīm pray for him and give him some sign, but the shaykh was uncooperative, merely urging patience on the ruler. After the chief rebel’s head was brought to Tabriz some twenty days later, Sultan Yaʿqūb was so convinced of the shaykh’s wisdom that he never again opposed him.38 Sometimes the duties of administrator could conflict with those of liaison and friend to the revered mystics of the state. On one occasion ʿUmar Raw­ shanī’s followers were returning to their summer camp in Bardaʿa with textiles that had been given to them by their leader. At the Arghana pass, the customs tax (bāj) collectors said that the dervishes were transporting commercial merchandise and must pay the tax. No matter how much the dervishes begged and implored, it was to no avail. One of them threatened the collectors, exclaiming: 35

36 37 38

MUN, 128, 136, 193 (to ʿAbd al-Vahhāb), 201 (in which Maybudī gives numerous examples of famous scholars, including Ghazālī, Shihāb al-Dīn Yaḥyā Suhrawardī, Ibn ʿArabī, and Shaykh ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla Simnānī (d. 737/1336), who were accused of heresy (kufr). Gülşeni, 66–67. For another attempt to remove Qadi ʿĪsā from office, this time with the sanction of Ṣūfī Khalīl Beg, see 120–23. Woods, The Aqquyunlu, 229–30. Gülşeni, 76–77.

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“You’ll be sent to Qadi ʿĪsā and through Mullā [Shaykh] Ibrāhīm, I’ll have you put in chains and tortured.”39 Eventually the tax collectors came crawling to Rawshanī for forgiveness. The significance of the story for an understanding of Qadi ʿĪsā is that he was seen by the dervishes to lean more to their side than to that of ordinary tax officials. Qadi ʿĪsā also helped Rawshanī’s descendants ward off the financial arm of the state. When the mystic died, unnamed viziers tortured his trusted followers (muʿtamids) and his children in an effort to extort their inheritance, obtaining 170,000 karaca akça in the process. Shaykh Ibrāhīm dashed from Tabriz to Sultan Yaʿqūb’s winter quarters in Qarabagh, and presented the case to Qadi ʿĪsā, who then approached the ruler. The upshot was that Yaʿqūb sent a highranking beg with many gifts of textiles to the aggrieved parties, along with ­instructions that the collectors were to return everything and never again interfere with them or their regular allowance (razaqa).40 In that case, Qadi ʿĪsā easily pleaded his friends’ case before the sultan. At other times, social relations between these powerful ulama and their nominal overlords were tenuous and dangerous. Qadi ʿĪsā became involved in a scandal when the brother of Qadi Ḥasan, one of Rawshanī’s deputies (khalīfa), secretly married the widow of Sulṭān-Khalīl. The murdered sultan’s mother was incensed that a member of the raʿīyat had married her daughter-in-law, so ­plotted the couple’s murder.41 Shaykh Ibrāhīm said that the ulama and shaykhs were the peers of padishahs, for neither had Uzūn Ḥasan objected to the ­marriage of his daughter to Shaykh Ḥaydar Ṣafavī, nor had Jahānshāh Kara Koyunlu been averse to such alliances. On the shaykh’s insistence, Qadi ʿĪsā interceded with Sultan Yaʿqūb to spirit the couple safely out of Tabriz.42 The textual record is too spotty to draw firm conclusions, but unsurprisingly it seems that the stakes were higher in terms of life and death the closer a scholar drew to the center of power. For all his many complaints about his enemies in Yazd, Maybudī does not indicate that he lived in fear for his life in his hometown. His determination to stay away from the urdū suggests that it represented a more treacherous political sphere, with its murders and executions.

39 40 41 42

Gülşeni, 161. Gülşeni, 176–78. Those items were added to their suyūrghāl. Raʿīya is “a term which in later Islam came to designate the mass of subjects, the tax-paying common people, as opposed to the ruling military and learned classes.” EI 2. Gülşeni, 93. The scandal intensified after the wife died in Jerusalem and the widower married the woman in charge of her finances. He was accused of taking Sulṭān-Khalīl’s money and it was some time before the matter was legally settled to all parties’ satisfaction.

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Policies of the center had a direct impact on the provinces during the most important event for which Qadi ʿĪsā was known—namely, what Minorsky designates as the Ak Koyunlu land reforms. Drawing from Khunjī, Minorsky relates that Qadi ʿĪsā wanted to obtain through legal taxes the same amount the state received from tamghās (municipal levies from Mongol tradition), thus enabling the ruler to abrogate those non-Islamic levies. Shāh Sharaf al-Dīn Maḥmūd Jān Daylamī and Shaykh ʿAlī Sāvajī were sent out to regularize taxes throughout Ak Koyunlu lands. The policy was apparently opposed by the ulama and nomadic military chiefs who stood to lose their grants from the state. Qadi ʿĪsā’s plans were cut short by Yaʿqūb’s death and he himself was killed soon after, on 13 Rabīʿ I 896/24 January 1491.43 Echoing a significant theme that runs through Maybudī’s story and that of other members of the ulama, Ṣūfī Khalīl Beg had him indicted on charges of heresy before having him executed. While Khunjī harshly criticizes Qadi ʿĪsā’s actions, Gülşeni casts them in a different light. According to the latter, some viziers encouraged Sultan Yaʿqūb to void all suyūrghāls since the time of Tīmūr, for they afforded no benefit to the treasury; on the contrary, they were a drain upon it. The sultan issued a decree implementing their advice. Qadi ʿĪsā, who along with Shaykh Ibrāhīm had been responsible for the grant of suyūrghāls to members of the ulama, shaykhs, and other religious figures, failed to speak up at the meeting during which the matter was discussed, despite his unhappiness with the decision. The council broke up and the order was written. Soon afterwards Shaykh Ibrāhīm urged Qadi ʿĪsā to go after Sultan Yaʿqūb. After reassuring his ruler that the same attempt had been made under Uzūn Ḥasan, Qadi ʿĪsā was to tell him that the charity of previous rulers should remain in effect. The sultan accepted the qadi’s petition and rescinded the order.44 According to Gülşeni, Qadi ʿĪsā had no desire to withdraw any suyūrghāls and, except for wishy-washy behavior, cannot be accused of any misdeed. Qadi ʿĪsā’s authority extended beyond ulama affairs into those of competing factions among the ruling classes. For example, Gülşeni claims that under Sultan Yaʿqūb, the rulers, viziers and notables unjustly exacted excessive taxes (kharāj) from the subject population, who felt compelled to flee to the lands of other rulers. Shaykh Ibrāhīm and Qadi ʿĪsā went to their sovereign and asked him if he knowingly allowed the situation to occur or whether he was truly ignorant of the state of affairs. Yaʿqūb asked what needed to be done, to which the shaykh replied that he, as well as the viziers and other notables, must give 43 44

Minorsky, “The Aq-Qoyunlu and Land Reforms”. Khunjī-Iṣfahānī, Tārīkh-i ʿĀlam-ārā-yi Amīnī, 78/357, 87/392. Woods, The Aqquyunlu, 151–52. Gülşeni, 111–12.

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up one third of their income for several years. Yaʿqūb apparently agreed and within three years people began to return from abroad.45 Those same concerns about taxation and peasant flight will be seen to have been of concern to Maybudī, too, as will be discussed below. With their crucial role in the land reforms, the Sāvajī family acquired considerable power. Nonetheless, relatively little is known about anyone besides Qadi ʿĪsā. The most troublesome member of the family appears to have been the qadi’s elder brother, Shaykh ʿAlī, who served as his brother’s deputy on the tour to regularize the taxes of Ak Koyunlu lands in 894/1489. Shaykh Ibrāhīm clearly disliked him. In Qadi ʿĪsā’s presence he accused Shaykh ʿAlī of boorishness, claiming that if the courtiers of Yaʿqūb’s mother came to visit, ʿAlī would jump to his feet and rush to meet them. On the other hand, if the most knowledgeable of scholars, Jalāl al-Dīn Davānī, came to an assembly, he would show no courtesy and treat him with contempt.46 When Shaykh ʿAlī urged Qadi ʿĪsā and Sultan Yaʿqūb to bestow a suyūrghāl on Shaykh Ibrāhīm, the mystic refused the gift, even though it gave him revenues not from state land, but from Sultan Yaʿqūb’s personal lands in Bardaʿa. Shaykh ʿAlī expressed disbelief at the shaykh’s eccentricity, upon which Shaykh Ibrāhīm warned him that only evil would result from his attachment to worldly goods. ʿAlī paid the admonition no heed. In Gülşeni’s opinion, it was only just that when Sultan Yaʿqūb died, ʿAlī should fall successively into the hands of Manṣūr Beg Pūrnāk (d. 902/1497) in Shiraz, Sulaymān Beg, and Ṣūfī Khalīl Beg in Tabriz, who expropriated his money and tortured him to get more. Then he was imprisoned for three years, during which time he became pious and prepared for the next world.47 Surveying the careers or both Qadi ʿĪsā’s brother and nephew, it seems apparent that the Sāvajīs considered power to be a family business, and Maybudī’s writing to all three suggests that provincial administrators knew to cultivate relations with them all. Once while Qadi ʿĪsā was involved with Sultan Yaʿqūb’s affairs, he entrusted the job of chief magistrate to Shaykh ʿAlī, to the displeasure of many, including Maḥmūd Jān Daylamī. After a particularly egregious act of injustice, Shaykh Ibrāhīm berated Qadi ʿĪsā for his brother’s appointment and forced him to resume those duties himself.48 Gülşeni claims that soon before his murder, Qadi ʿĪsā wanted to abandon worldly matters and prepare for the next world. He entrusted the vizierate to his nephew, Shaykh Najm 45 46 47 48

Gülşeni, 113–14. Gülşeni, 145–46. Gülşeni, 239–41. Gülşeni, 144–45. For Shaykh ʿAlī, see Khunjī-Iṣfahānī, Tārīkh-i ʿĀlam-ārā-yi Amīnī, 77, 80, 82, 83, 87, corresponds to pp. 350–398 in the Persian text; MUN, 61, 63, 110, 130, 176, 180, 192 for letters to Qadi Imām al-Dīn Shaykh ʿAlī Sāvajī.

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al-Dīn Masʿūd Sāvajī, despite the younger man’s protestations that he did not want Qadi ʿĪsā’s property and position. Najm al-Dīn did not last long in the job, since once Ṣūfī Khalīl Beg did away with his uncle, he made Mullā Jān qadi and had Najm al-Dīn poisoned soon after.49 Until that time, Najm al-Dīn had enjoyed a successful career. He, too, participated in the land reform. According to Khvāndamīr, he was “in charge of civil and financial affairs” and “sowed the seed of attention and kindness in the hearts of the peasants.”50 Navāʾī also mentions his pleasing ways, kindness, and aid to the poor and unfortunate.51 Like his uncle, Najm al-Dīn wrote poetry. He served as royal secretary (parvanachi), then was appointed chief of staff and president of the council (amīr-i dīvān) by Yaʿqūb in Ṣafar 894/January 1489.52 The relationship was closer than an administrative one because Najm al-Dīn was linked to the Ak Koyunlu family as Uzūn Ḥasan’s nephew (yeǧen) and is described as Yaʿqūb’s boon companion (nadīm).53 The captious Shaykh Ibrāhīm disapproved of his inclination to seek high position and the advantages of this world.54 His ambitions came to nought for, supporting Bāysunghur in the succession battles that followed Yaʿqūb’s death, he accompanied the prince to Sharvan and was poisoned there.55 The most influential member of this group of ulama administrators who survived into Safavid times was Shāh Sharaf al-Dīn Maḥmūd Jān Daylamī Qazvīnī, recipient of five letters in the Munsha⁠ʾāt. Coming from a prominent Qazvīnī family, it was an older brother, Shāh ʿImād al-Dīn Salmān, who hosted Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Tīmūrī in Qazvin during his 873/1468 campaign into Azarbayjan.56 Such connections did not prevent either brother from serving SulṭānKhalīl. Maḥmūd Jān began his career as administrator of financial affairs of 49 50 51 52

53 54 55

56

Gülşeni, 98, 204. Khvāndamīr, cited in Minorsky, “The Aq-Qoyunlu and Land Reforms,” 51, 452. Navāʾī, Majālis al-nafāʾis, 119. Najm al-Dīn’s attributes are mentioned in not unfavorable contrast to his friend Yaʿqūb’s glory and magnanimity, 295. Woods, The Aqquyunlu, 270, n. 27 points out that the position of chancellor was usually held by a member of the nomadic military elite. Najm al-Dīn was thus an example of a civilian administrator who crossed over to a traditionally military post. Minorsky, “The Aq-Qoyunlu and Land Reforms,” 452: The parvanachi was the official in charge of correspondence and orders of appointment. Sām Mīrzā, 118–19; Navāʾī, Majālis al-nafāʾis, 119. Gülşeni, 199. Minorsky, “The Aq-Qoyunlu and Land Reforms,” 452; Sām Mīrzā says he died like a qalandar in Gilan. Qalandar refers to some kind of wandering dervish, its precise meaning at this particular period unclear. After the Sāvajī debacle in the mid 890s/early 1490s, the family managed to hold on and even flourish. Qadi Ṣafī al-Dīn ʿĪsā II, a grandson of Qadi ʿĪsā through his mother, became chief magistrate under the Safavids. Sām Mīrzā, 119. For ʿImād al-Dīn, see Hinz, 101–02.

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Persian Iraq and Fars under Sulṭān-Khalīl, then continued as financial controller (mushrif-i dīvān) under Yaʿqūb. He was described by Navāʾī as one of the great viziers under that ruler.57 He also served as the second member of the 894/1489 land reform commission, although he escaped Qadi ʿĪsā’s fate by fleeing to Qazvin.58 During the succession wars that followed Yaʿqūb’s death, Maḥmūd Jān moved in and out of government posts. When Ayba Sulṭān Bāyandur elevated Rustam b. Maqṣūd (r. 897–902/1492–97) to the throne in 897/1492, Maḥmūd Jān was recalled and asked to take charge of fiscal affairs.59 He reappeared in the administration of Alvand b. Yūsuf b. Uzūn Ḥasan.60 ­Finally, his name appears as vizier under Shah Ismāʿīl in 909/1503–04.61 Follower of Khwaja Aḥrār and prominent Naqshbandi in the Ak Koyunlu court, Sirāj al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Vahhāb is the last of the ulama administrators and one who may or may not be linked to Maybudī directly in another source.62 Gülşeni relates an episode in which ʿAbd al-Vahhāb, Shaykh al-Islām Muftī-yi Anām (Magistrate of Mankind), attended one of Sultan Yaʿqūb’s assemblies along with Shaykh Ibrāhīm. Among the mufti’s followers was the qadi of Yazd whose name is not specified. The mufti and the shaykh became caught up in a discussion of a hadith brought to their attention by the qadi. It effectively stated that the declaration “There is no god but Allāh” will enable any individual to enter paradise.63 Shaykh Ibrāhīm maintained that faith and sincerity were necessary beyond mere utterance of the words; otherwise, any unbeliever could enter paradise. For some reason, the qadi from Yazd thought that Shaykh Ibrāhīm had been joking at the Shaykh al-Islām’s expense and reproached him.64 The second episode in which ʿAbd al-Vahhāb appears concerns the pilgrimage. Apparently Sultan Rustam appointed Amir Zakariyā Baghdādī to be the leader of the pilgrimage. The Shaykh al-Islām of Tabriz who was a Sunni on the outside and a rāfiḍī on the inside accompanied the pilgrims, with the intention 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

64

Navāʾī, Majālis al-nafāʾis, 304; Gülşeni, 99; Woods, The Aqquyunlu, 127. Woods, 153. Woods, 155. Woods, 161. Aubin, “É tudes,” 62. Gülşeni, 104–05, 227–36, 253; Khvāndamīr, 4:432. It is ‘amir’ and not ‘mīr.’ This is the ‘silsilat al-dhahab’ hadith, controversial for its chain of transmission and the circumstances of its declaration by Imam ʿAlī al-Riḍā in Nishapur. Some versions of the hadith are used as proof for the essential role of the Imams in Muslim belief. In its simplest form it states that the phrase “There is no Allah but Allah” is a fortress which protects the believer from divine punishment. Gülşeni, 104–05.

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of wresting the leadership from Amir Zakariyā when the party reached Baghdad. Rāfiḍī was a derogatory term assigned to those who reject Islamic authority and leadership and used from an early date by Sunnis to dismiss Shiʿis. Conspiring with ʿAbd al-Vahhāb was Rustam’s full brother, Yaʿqūb Khān Beg, the governor of the city. ʿAbd al-Vahhāb spread rumors that Zakariyā did not know the road and would lead everyone to destruction in waterless wastes. He continually tried to sabotage the trip until Shaykh Ibrāhīm successfully prayed for his repentance.65 In the Rashaḥāt ʿAbd al-Vahhāb is described as the Shaykh al-Islām of Iraq, not just of Tabriz. Once in Mecca he attended upon Shaykh ʿAbd al-Muʿṭī, who claimed that he had conversed with Khwaja Aḥrār many times in the holy city, even though the mystic from Transoxiana never visited the Hijaz physically.66 Yet again, one of Maybudī’s correspondents is found to have some connection to another—here, a leader from Timurid domains linked loosely to one from Ak Koyunlu lands through a spiritually potent figure’s capacity for multilocation.67 Forming the bulk of Maybudī’s correspondence, the letters to the powerful ulama of Yaʿqūb’s court indicate that they were the men most likely either to make or break him. While it is in a letter to a mystic and not a government official, one of the more revealing statements Maybudī writes about his tenuous position is that it is only thanks to the mercy of the great and not through their own accomplishments that the lowly rise.68 In almost every message, there is praise of the recipient, along with some request to think kindly of Maybudī and to disregard the myriad false charges that were incessantly leveled against him. Hope for further correspondence is generally expressed. As many of the letters are labelled ‘replies’ (javāb), this was not entirely fan mail, sent off by a lowly member of the public with no expectation of response. On the contrary, the letters constituted a part, however small, of the administrative and patronage networks of the Ak Koyunlu state. It is this set of letters that is the most informative about the situation in Yazd. Qadi ʿĪsā is the one to hear about drought, flooding, and famine in Yazd and to be implored for aid. He is the official apprised that for some six years Maybudī has been overwhelmed by the number of cases brought in the big city 65

66 67

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Gülşeni, 227–36. See Woods, 108 and 260 for the Amīr al-Ḥajj Rustam who in 877/1473 has the Friday sermon in Medina read in Uzūn Ḥasan’s name, ends up being arrested with one Qadi Aḥmad Ibn Diḥya, and sent to Cairo in chains. Kāshifī, 2:569–70. The last member of the ulama administrators with whom Maybudī corresponded was Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū Isḥāq Nayrīzī who will be described below in the account of Maybudī’s appointment. In a letter to Khwaja Muḥammad Yaḥyā b. Khwaja ʿUbayd Allāh Samarqandī. MUN, 196.

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of Yazd by men who are both ignorant and powerful and who take advantage of the distance between the provincial city and the imperial center to undermine his authority and treat his judgments with contempt.69 It is he who is informed about a garrison commander’s flight and subsequent victory in Firuz­ kuh.70 While few of the preserved messages went directly to rulers and military leaders, it does appear that congratulations and gifts were sent them via civilian members of the government. For instance, Maybudī writes admiringly to Qadi ʿĪsā of Yaʿqūb’s military ventures (ghazā) into Georgia and hopes that his unspecified gift will be accepted.71 We have seen that Davānī’s fame rested on his philosophical teachings and writings, so despite his involvement in Ak Koyunlu administration, he can serve as a bridge to Maybudī’s correspondents who became known more for their scholarly or spiritual activities than their role in government. Ḥakīm alDīn Idrīs b. Ḥusām al-Dīn ʿAlī Bidlīsī (d. 926/1520) does not belong strictly to the group of ulama administrators either, being more of a court bureaucrat, and his Sufi connection to Maybudī moves us in the direction of the third group. He was involved in the daily functioning of the court and the production of documents, but not as a policy planner and implementer, nor as one who had authority over the ulama. He served as state secretary (nişancı, munshī, or kātib-i dīvān) for Sultan Yaʿqūb in Tabriz. His son Abū Faḍl followed in his footsteps as a defterdār.72 Bidlīsī left Ak Koyunlu lands with the rise of Shah Ismāʿīl, choosing to serve the Ottoman sultan Bāyazīd II. In Ottoman lands he achieved fame as the author of several histories written for his new employers and established a reputation as a practiced versifier.73 Among his works are commentaries on Ibn al-Fāriḍ’s Khamrīya and Ibn ʿArabī’s Fuṣūṣ, clear indications of his interest in mystical thought. He died at the beginning of Sulaymān’s reign (r. 926–74/1520–66).74 The Munsha⁠ʾāt contains only one letter to Bidlīsī.75 In it Maybudī asks Bidlīsī to consider him an old friend. He urges him to change his practice and to culti69 70 71

72 73 74 75

MUN, 163. MUN, 57–58. MUN, 107–110. On 109 Maybudī congratulates Yaʿqūb on the Georgian campaign, the dating of which is not completely certain. It seems to have taken place in either 891/1486 or 890/1485, with the latter more likely. See Woods, 138, 273 n. 61. Gülşeni, 152, 166, 173 for examples of his writing out Sultan Yaʿqūb’s orders concerning Shaykh Ibrāhīm. Storey, 1:413. Taşköprüzade, 314. MUN, 118–19. Furūhar lists the addressee merely as “one of the great Nurbakhshi darvishes.”

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vate their friendship. The holy Nūrbakhshīya chain (silsila) is supposed to serve as a link between them. One of Maybudī’s common rhetorical tactics in attracting the attention of his correspondents is to put himself in the position of the darvish and his correspondent in that of his murshid (Sufi spiritual guide or teacher), or at least of someone superior in mystical knowledge. In this case, the fellowship of dervishes of equal status is conceived as establishing a sufficiently strong bond. It is noteworthy that in Maybudī’s mind, the Nūrbakhshīya network could be used as sufficient reason for men to share mutual obligations.76 The Mahdist nature of the Nūrbakhshīya movement introduces an intriguing element into Maybudī’s life. Founded by Sayyid Muḥammad Nūrbakhsh (794–869/1392–1464) when he declared himself the Mahdi in 826/1423, the movement spread throughout Iran and Central Asia, overlapping the trans­ formation of the Safavid order into a military juggernaut.77 In contrast to the Safavids, it had no active military ambitions, espousing a fatalistic view of the Mahdi’s rise. Maybudī refers to Muḥammad Nūrbakhsh in two places in the Sharḥ, without acknowledging any personal involvement with the Sufi movement of his own day. In the first instance, after discussing the separation of body and soul and transmigration of souls in the tradition of Hermes, Agathodaimon, Pythagorus, Socrates, and Plato, Maybudī makes the following statement: “Some Sufis say things colored by transmigration, and they are the most far-out groups within that school (madhhab).” He then immediately quotes Muḥammad Nūrbakhsh at some length about the transmigration of

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Maybudī’s writings should be added to the literary mix to push forward the distinctions Fritz Meier makes between Sufism in the third and eighth centuries in Iran. Sufism in the earlier age is an individual endeavor, barely touched by philosophy and metaphysics, in which the visionary experience is rarely articulated in public, outside the canon of religious studies, mistrusted by political authorities, and expressed in Arabic. By the eighth century it is organized in ṭarīqas and families which demand obedience, permeated by philosophy and metaphysics, closely associated with the visionary, sometimes more salient than theology and jurisprudence in the Islamic canon, courted by government authorities, and intimately associated with the Persian language. Fritz Meier, “Hurasan und das ende der klassischen sufik,” in Bausteine I: Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur Islamwissenschaft, ed. Erika Glassen and Gudrun Schubert, (Istanbul, 1992), 132–156. Originally in La Persia nel Medioevo (Rome, 1971), 546–570. Laury Silvers-Alario modifies Meier’s analysis in, “The Teaching Relationship in Early Sufism: A Reassessment of Fritz Meier’s Definition of the shaykh al-tarbiya and the shaykh al-taʿlīm, Muslim World 93 (2003): 69–97. Shahzad Bashir’s works give a comprehensive treatment of Sufi movements, specifically the Nūrbakhshīya.

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souls (tanāsukh) and the precise terminology to be used to distinguish it from projection (burūz).78 No further editorial remarks are made. The second appearance of Muḥammad Nūrbakhsh comes during the discus­ sion of the poles, nobles (nujabā), leaders (nuqabā), and substitutes (budalā). Maybudī describes the Malāmīya [sic] who keep their true state hidden as the most virtuous of all the different divisions, which he follows with a lengthy poem by Ḥāfiẓ about avoiding worldly rewards for religious devotion. Then he paraphrases an anecdote recorded by Muḥammad Nūrbakhsh in Maʿāsh alsālikīn about the lovelorn Shaykh Abū ʿUthmān Ḥīrī (d. 298/910) and his being sent by his own shaykh, Abū Ḥafṣ Haddād (d. ca. 270/879) to Shaykh Yūsuf b. Ḥusayn in Rayy to learn about true purity of belief despite an outward appearance of impiety.79 Aside from being the source of the charming story, Muḥam­ mad Nūrbakhsh receives no particular attention. That is in keeping with Maybudī’s emphasis in the Sharḥ on abstract ideas within broadly defined philosophical categories, such as those of Peripatetics, Illuminationists, Muta­ kallimūn, and Sufis, rather than on specific, historically conditioned groups such as the Sufi orders. What is important to keep in mind is that our sparse knowledge of the qadi’s involvement in the movement occurred several decades after Nūrbakhsh’s death, when its adherents had had some time to adjust their views to the unsettling passing of their Mahdi. Reactions among its adherents to his death included an emphasis on the founder’s Sufi teachings rather than his messianic expectations. Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Lāhījī (d. 912/1506), another of Maybudī’s correspondents fell into that camp, his writings about the Mahdi passing from specific mention of Nūrbakhsh as Mahdi during the master’s lifetime to more general discussions that do not identify him specifically as the chosen one. Shahzad Bashir concludes from his research that a sizable number of Nūrbakhsh’s followers “either discounted his messianic claim within his lifetime or came to disassociate themselves from the movement’s messianic origins soon after Nūrbakhsh’s death … For these adherents of the order, the designation ‘Nūrbakhshī’ conferred upon them the prestige of a chain of initiation (silsila) going back to Najm al-Dīn Kubrā (d. 617/1221). They regarded Nūrbakhsh as the mahdi in only the literal sense (i.e. one who has received divine guidance), without implying a messianic function.”80 This branch of the order developed an “intellectual stance as a movement transcending the Sunni-Shiʿi sectarian divide,” only later adopting a more Twelver Shiʿite stance 78 79 80

SDA, 124. Bashir, Messianic Hopes, 98–99. SDA, 158–60. Bashir, Messianic Hopes, 176.

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as that became prevalent in the Safavid empire.81 Bashir does not detect any particular devotion to ʿAlī in Nurbakhshi writings until the reign of Shah Ṭahmāsp. Another branch pursued a more radical direction. Sayyid Muḥammad’s descendants seemed to have kept alive an active Mahdist claim, meanwhile gaining economic power and establishing ties with Ak Koyunlu and Timurid rulers and acquiring the patronage of Shah Ismāʿīl when he began to consolidate his power. Given the correspondents whom he identifies as co-Nurbakhshis and his writings about the Mahdi, Maybudī apparently falls in the more spiritual camp. He would not, however, have been perfectly comfortable with the movement’s reformist mission to “shed the accretions of eight centuries of Islamic history and to transcend the sectarian and ideological divisions permeating the Islamic social milieu of the times.”82 One of the themes of the Sharḥ-i Dīvān-i ʿAlī is that those divisions are very real and historically based. Even though various paths of the intellect and the soul may ultimately lead a whole range of committed believers to knowledge of God, a knowledge qualified by their talents and attainments, historically-based divisions fit into a hierarchy that cannot be wished away by harmonizing individual spiritual proclivities. Letters to ulama not completely identified with government posts contain less political information and more about Maybudī’s own writing projects, his desire to see old friends again, and personal wishes for recovery from illness.83 An insistent theme that carries over from the letters to administrators is Maybudī’s agitation over the attacks made upon him by his enemies in Yazd, although no mention of such persecution appears in the two letters to Sayyid Niʿmat Allāh al-Thānī, the sole correspondent known to have been based in the Yazd area (see Chapter 2 above for biographical information). One of those letters is entirely in Arabic, and expresses pure praise by playing repeatedly with the word niʿmat (‘grace’ or ‘favor’), including Qurʾān 16:114 (“Thank the bounty [niʿmat] of your Lord if it is Him ye serve.”).84 Imbued with the Sufi lexicon, the 81 82 83

84

Bashir, Messianic Hopes, 192. Bashir, Messianic Hopes, 185. In tone these letters resemble a number of letters by Davānī, who also frequently ex­pressed the desire to see a particular friend. Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Asʿad Davānī, “Du nāma-yi bāstānī,” Armaghān 22 (1320): 14–16; “Az makātib-i ʿAllāma Davānī,” Arma­ ghān 22 (1320): 523–24; “Maktūb-i tārīkhī,” Armaghān 13 (1311/1932): 215–16; “Maktūb-i tārīkhī,” Armaghān 13 (1311/1932): 235–36. Darvīsh Maḥmūd and the anonymous scholar remain unidentified, while information is available for Niẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad Saʿīdī and Shams al-Dīn Lāhījī. The former can be situated as coming from the well-known notable family of Isfahan and being related to Faḍl Allāh Khunjī, the historian. MUN, 84–85.

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letter mentions how favorably God looks on those who love the family of Muḥammad, not quoting Qurʾān 42:23 directly but clearly referring to it.85 Maybudī alludes to the phrase in the verse that enjoins “lovingkindness among kinsfolk,” words that have been interpreted as an injunction to cherish the Ahl al-Bayt. Combining both Arabic and Persian, the second letter also ends with praise for Muḥammad and his family. It expresses a desire to see the sayyid and to be remembered in his devotions, and includes one of the few poems in which Maybudī integrates his pen name. Nothing in the letters indicates any formal affiliation with the Niʿmatallahi order, however. Given Maybudī’s Nurbakhshi connection, the most plausible candidate for Mawlana Shams al-Dīn Lāhījī is Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā, a Nurbakhshi mystic and poet who survived successive dynasties.86 He began to live in Shiraz sometime around the death of his Sufi master and founder of the Nūrbakhshīya, Sayyid Muḥammad Nūrbakhsh. According to Zarrinkub, he was held in high esteem by scholars such as Davānī and Jāmī. Navāʾī spoke well of him as a Sufi teacher and called him the ‘pole of the age’ (quṭb-i vaqt).87 Among Lāhījī’s writings was a popular commentary on the Gulshan-i rāz of Maḥmūd Shabistarī, the Mafātīḥ al-iʿjāz fī sharḥ-i Gulshan-i rāz, a lucid introduction to Sufi tenets written about 877/1473.88 Shah Ismāʿīl visited him in 909/1503 in Shiraz and he died in 912/1506, just about the time when his son,

85 86 87

88

Qurʾān 42:23 reads in part: “Say (O Muhammad, unto mankind): I ask of you no fee therefor, save lovingkindness among kinsfolk.” Aubin, “É tudes,” 53; Bashir, Messianic Hopes, 66, 173–75; A.H. Zarrinkub, “Lāhīdjī,” EI 2, 5:604–05. Navāʾī, Majālis al-nafāʾis, 390–91; A.H. Zarrinkub, “Lahidji,” EI 2. This is not the Qadi Shams al-Dīn Lāhījī with whom Shah Ismāʿīl studied the Qurʾān during his exile in Lahijan, and who was appointed chief of religious affairs (ṣadr) before Ismāʿīl’s occupation of Tabriz at the end of 906/spring 1501. It was the latter Lāhījī who had to rely on the Qawāʿid al-Islām of Ibn al-Muṭahhar Ḥillī for the teaching of Shiʿi doctrines in the early days of Safavid rule. He gradually withdrew from that position, while continuing to tutor Ismāʿīl’s sons. Sām Mīrzā says he was over ninety at his death. Sām Mīrzā, 82; Aubin, “É tudes,” 53; Mazzaoui, Origins, 80 is aware of two individuals, but in contrast to Zarrinkub gives the mystic’s name as Muḥammad b. ʿAlī Gīlānī. Pourjavady, Philosophy, 42 who says the Mafātīḥ must have been completed by 882/1477– 78. Bashir, Messianic Hopes, 173–75. The last in the scholarly group is Qadi Zayn al-Dīn ʿAlī Khvāfī. A mystic by that name is mentioned in Gülşeni, but no time frame is given and that individual should be identified with Shaykh Zayn al-Dīn Abū Bakr al-Khvāfī (d. 838/1435), a Sufi master in Herat who opposed the views of Ibn ʿArabī and influenced Khwaja Aḥrār, rather than with one of Maybudī’s correspondents. Gülşeni, 197; Taşkö­ prüzade, 70.

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Shaykh Muḥyī al-Dīn Aḥmad Shīrāzī, became a close companion of the shah and rose in his administration.89 Letters sent eastward into the Timurid sphere of influence were directed to literary and religious figures and form a relatively low proportion of the total correspondence known to date. Given the renown of Navāʾī, Jāmī, and Khwaja Aḥrār, there is no need to give extensive biographical information about them and the focus will remain on how their lives may have intersected with Maybudī’s. It is precisely because of their celebrity that we may wonder if Maybudī merely sent fan letters to men he admired, but to whom he had no closer connection. Several factors suggest that that was not the case. First, Maybudī’s letter to Navāʾī (d. 906/1500) and another to Jāmī are described as replies, indicating that even had the qadi of Yazd initiated the correspondence, he did elicit some response. Secondly, a curious episode concerning Khwaja Aḥrār’s second son and spiritual successor, Khwaja Muḥammad Yaḥyā (k. 906/1500) raises the possibility that in his case a personal meeting might have occurred. In the hagiography of Khwaja Aḥrār, the Rashaḥāt ʿayn al-ḥayāt, Kāshifī states that Khwaja Yaḥyā was much beloved of his father, being appointed successor and guardian of his shrine as his father approached death. He was jealous of his father’s love, paradoxically running away from him to Mecca whenever he felt that his father’s companions came between them. The first time he made it to Bukhara, the second to Herat, and the third to Yazd, of all places. Always the advice of his father’s friends and his father’s spiritual powers, manifested in dreams and inexplicable illness, drew him back home. Each time he tried to pursue his journey from Yazd, for example, he was stricken with a mysterious fever, until he finally decided to head back.90 The author of the hagiography made a visit to Khwaja Aḥrār in Transoxiana that coincided with the third return of Khwaja Yaḥyā, so it can be dated to Rabīʿ II 893/February-March 1488. It took him a month at a leisurely pace to reach Samarqand from Herat. It just so happens that a letter to Khwaja Yaḥyā from Maybudī is one of the few that can be dated to a specific year. In it Maybudī mentions that the ruler and nobles have forbidden the drinking of wine, for which he gives thanks. As recorded in Khunjī, Sultan Yaʿqūb forbade wine consumption in Ramaḍān 893/ August 1488.91 It is unlikely to be a coincidence that Maybudī’s letter to Khwaja Yaḥyā was written so soon after the latter’s visit to Yazd. The nature of the 89 90 91

Colin Mitchell, The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran: Power, Religion and Rhetoric (New York: Tauris Academic Studies, 2009), 39. Kāshifī, 1:74; 2:582–84. For more information about Khwaja Yaḥyā, see Jāmī, Pis’ma, 21. Khunjī-Iṣfahānī, Tārīkh-i ʿĀlam-ārā-yi Amīnī, 73/317; MUN, 196.

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Munsha⁠ʾāt does not permit a conclusive statement that this was Maybudī’s first letter to the mystic’s son or that the two letters to father and son were sent around the same time. Still, the probability that Khwaja Yaḥyā and Maybudī actually met is high, the latter being one of the more prominent men of his city and the former a distinguished guest. The letter itself hints at an acquaintance, for Maybudī asks not to be forgotten, but he could just as well have written that if their relationship with each other had developed solely from correspondence.92 Another tantalizing hint is one of the Qurʾānic quotations in the second letter: “… and whoso forsaketh his home, a fugitive unto Allāh and His messenger, and death overtaketh him, his reward is then incumbent on Allāh.”93 While it cannot go beyond speculation, one wonders whether Maybudī and Jāmī also met, perhaps during the latter’s visit to Uzūn Ḥasan’s court in Tabriz in 883/1478 as he returned from the pilgrimage. Both from historical texts and Jāmī’s poetry, we know that the poet maintained strong ties with the Ak Koyunlu and Kara Koyunlu rulers, who held him in high esteem. Jāmī wrote Jahānshāh Kara Koyunlu a poem upon receiving the latter’s dīvān in which he described the ruler as “refuge of mystical knowledge” (ʿirfān-panāh).94 He wrote his allegorical tale of purification and redemption, Salāmān va Absāl, in commemoration of Sultan Yaʿqūb’s repentance.95 Jāmī also corresponded with Qadi ʿĪsā Sāvajī.96 If Maybudī was not personally acquainted with Jāmī, it is nonetheless possible that his name was familiar to the Timurid mystic and poet through other Ak Koyunlu connections. Khwaja Aḥrār was revered by the Ak Koyunlu rulers as well. In the Munsha⁠ʾāt of Idrīs Bidlīsī a tax exemption decree appears, issued in favor of the mystic and his commercial agents and dated 886/1481–82.97 Another example of the intertwining of the elite’s lives is that Jāmī wrote the mathnavi Tuḥfat al-Aḥrār 92 93 94 95

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MUN, 189. Qurʾān, 4:100. Ḥikmat, 34–35. Woods, 274. As Woods points out, that indicates a date of composition after 893/1488, and not in 885/1480–81 as proposed in Ḥikmat, 190. See Ḥikmat, 40–41 for ties between Jāmī and Yaʿqūb. See also Lingwood, Politics, Poetry, and Sufism, especially chapter 4, “Poetry at the Court of Yaʿqūb and its Background in Establishing an Historical Context for Salāmān va Absāl,” 111–31. Ḥikmat, 41–42, 207. Even Navāʾī had some connection to Yazd. He was only about six years old when he passed through the city, but it is curious that during the turmoil that followed Shāhrukh’s death, Navāʾī’s father saw fit to stay in Taft near Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī’s khānqāh. M. Yaʿqūb Vāḥidī Jūzjānī ed., Ba-munāsabat-i 525 sāl-i vilādat-i Niẓām al-Dīn Amīr ʿAlī Shīr Navāʾī Fānī (Kabul: Anjuman-i Tārīkh, 1346/1967), 6. Ḥusām al-Dīn Idrīs Bidlīsī, Munsha⁠ʾāt, İstanbul Ayasofya Kutuphanesi ms. 3986, fol. 46a.

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in honor of Khwaja Aḥrār. In addition to exchanging letters, the two of them met four times, twice in Samarqand, once in Herat, and once in Marv.98 Bringing the relationships farther west, a student of Davānī, one Ismāʿīl al-Sharvānī, went to Khwaja Aḥrār in Transoxiana and became close to him.99 The friendship between Navāʾī and Jāmī is also well-known and amply documented by chroniclers and in their own correspondence.100 We could continue indefinitely with this ‘six degrees of separation’ method, but I think the point is clear. However tight-knit the ties among these outstanding men of their age, an item in Shushtarī’s Majālis al-muʾminīn calls into question Maybudī’s place in their ranks. According to Shushtarī, Qadi Mīr Ḥusayn Yazdī Shāfiʿī was one of those who rejected Jāmī because of the latter’s known hostility to the family of the Prophet.101 He wrote the following sarcastic verse: That rightful imam, the friend (valī) of God, Whom you call the victorious lion of God— Two people afflict him to his very soul: One of them from stupidity, the other from immaturity. Both bear the name ʿAbd al-Raḥmān: The latter is Muljam, the former, Jāmī.102 Shushtarī is keen on the distinction between Sunni and Shiʿi and on placing his subjects in one camp or the other. That does not mean that the modern reader must accept the verse above as evidence of Maybudī’s Shiʿism or of Jāmī’s enmity towards descendants of the Prophet, for there are clear signs to the contrary.103 Nevertheless, the verse cannot be dismissed out of hand. It opens up 98 99 100

101 102 103

Ḥikmat, 9, 71, 194. Taşköprüzade, 356. He spent much of his later life in Mecca until his death around 940/1533. He was in Anatolia during Bāyazīd II’s reign. Jāmī, Pis’ma, 5–6 lists three collections of Jāmī’s correspondence in which the names of Khwaja Aḥrār and Navāʾī figure prominently. Not only did Jāmī write to each of the two men, but they wrote each other as well: 7. They did much of what Maybudī did in his correspondence—namely, inquiring after the health of their friends and asking favors. Shushtarī, 309. There is always the possibility that, given the lack of other defining characteristics, Shushtarī’s Qadi Ḥusayn is a different person than the subject of this work. Quoted by Ḥikmat, 142. He does not list his source. On the subject of Jāmī’’s attitudes toward Shiʿism, Ḥikmat includes at the end of his biography a letter from Muḥammad Qazvīnī, who suggests that the reason Jāmī may have been neglected by Iranian scholars in modern times is that he was prejudiced against the Shīʿa. Qazvīnī claims that Jāmī wrote detailed biographies of such marginal mystics as the Malāmatīya while omitting famous Shiʿi mystics. Ḥikmat, 395–407.

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the possibility that Maybudī changed his opinion of Jāmī over time. Because of the number of subjects his writings address, it is difficult to trace the development of his thought about any one of them. The critical verse hints at a complexity that further research may elucidate. It is certain that Jāmī and Maybudī disagreed on several matters, if not on the Prophet’s family. Jāmī was sharply critical of Ibn Sīnā and the Peripatetic philosophers, while Maybudī found a place for them in his intellectual world.104 The letters to the elite of the Timurid court use Sufism as a form of introduction and Sufi diction permeates the texts. Given his reference to the Nurbakhshis in his letter to Bidlīsī and the absence of the term Naqshbandi in his letters to the prominent Timurid figures in that order, it is not clear how Maybudī placed himself among the Sufi orders and certainly we cannot know how any such affiliation affected the rhythms of his daily life. Nor is anything said about a specific affiliation in the Sharḥ, which is, however, imbued with Sufi images and ideas and insists on the importance of the relationship between spiritual guide and seeker. That may have resonated with his audience in a way that eludes us today. The notes primarily express friendship and Maybudī’s admiration for the recipient. Unlike his practice in the rest of his correspondence, Maybudī neither mentions his personal troubles nor makes any specific request except for prayers. Before turning to Maybudī’s administrative career, we should pause to consider who is missing from among his correspondents. The only resident of Yazd among them is Sayyid Niʿmat Allāh al-Thānī and the letters to him display great respect for the Ahl al-Bayt, so it would be false to detect any neglect of local sayyids because of lineage. Perhaps local families are salient in their silence because letters to one’s neighbors were too infrequent or too inconsequential to survive or merit collection. Beyond regional boundaries, it seems that the polymath Ḥusayn Vāʿiẓ Kāshifī ought to number among Maybudī’s correspondents, but at this point it is hard to see how meaningful conclusions can be drawn from his absence. Now that we have made the acquaintance of some of the major characters in Maybudī’s story, it is time to resume the narrative with his appointment as qadi of Yazd. According to the available account, several factors contributed to his receiving the position. In the entry on Davānī in his Majālis al-muʾminīn, 104

Jāmī’s criticism comes in the mathnavi “Tuḥfat al-aḥrār.” Ḥikmat, 65–66. One line runs: “The thinking of the Shifa’ (The Cure) is completely sick/The tendency of his Najāt (The Salvation) is one of bondage.” But in a letter to ʿAbd al-Vahhāb, Maybudī distances himself from the Peripatetic school’s view of primary matter and explicitly states that he holds the position of the Illuminationists. MUN, 193.

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Qadi Nūr Allāh Shushtarī (d. 1019/1611) recounts how it happened.105 Some time in the 1480s, Sultan Yaʿqūb called Davānī from Shiraz to Tabriz, honored him, and made him chief qadi (qāḍī al-quḍāt) of Fars. One day in the ruler’s court, Davānī engaged in a scholarly debate with Shaykh Abū Isḥāq Nayrīzī, one of the outstanding intellects of his day.106 Gaining the upper hand, Nayrīzī began to use rude language. Maybudī, at this point in his late thirties and one of Davānī’s better students, was sitting on the fringes of the exalted gathering. Upset by the verbal thrashing his teacher was receiving, he could not refrain from exclaiming that he, the lowest of Davānī’s students, requested permission to take his master’s place in the debate. If Abū Isḥāq were to overcome him, Maybudī and his teacher would concede defeat. The sultan accepted Maybudī’s request, and the promising student proceeded with complete decorum and good manners to rout Abū Isḥāq, not allowing his opponent to sidetrack him with abusive speech. Once Maybudī emerged victorious, he was the talk of the assembly. Qadi Ṣafī al-Dīn ʿĪsā Tabrīzī/Sāvajī (d. 896/1491), the sultan’s minister of religious affairs (ṣadr), inquired into Maybudī’s origins and learned that he was a notable of Yazd. Davānī asked the sultan to give his defender the qadiship of Yazd and its dependencies, along with the supervision of the waqfs of the region. Sultan Yaʿqūb sent Maybudī off to Yazd with a suyūrghāl and royal gifts. Shushtarī emphasizes the accidental nature of the appointment. It sounds as if Maybudī just happened to be at the right place at the right time. Whether or not the episode is literary fancy or an accurate report of an actual event, the story rests upon a framework of relations between the central government and the provincial ulama.107 Considering the importance of the qadi as an administrator and as a guarantor of justice in some corner of the realm, it was in the interests of the state to have a reliable man for the job. While he may not have needed stellar scholarly credentials, the qadi had to fulfill competently a ­variety of official administrative functions. As discussed in the chapter on Maybudī’s youth and education, Yazd was not as important as Tabriz or Shiraz, yet it was a significant manufacturing city, one that a Timurid warlord such as Amir Chaqmāq had not disdained as a suitable domain over which to exercise 105 106

107

Nūr Allāh b. ʿAbd Allāh Shushtarī, Majālis al-muʾminīn, lithograph (Tehran, 1299/1881), 347–48; Afshār, “Qāḍī Mīr Ḥusayn Maybudī,” 221 and Maʿṣūm ʿAlī Shāh, 3:122–23. Reza Pourjavady, Philosophy in Early Safavid Iran (Leiden, 2011), 52 addresses the confusion of names among various scholars with the nisba ‘Nayrīzī.’ He rules out the possibility that Abū Isḥāq Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Nayrīzī, the figure in this story, could have been the father of the subject of his monograph, Najm al-Dīn Ḥājjī Maḥmūd al-Nayrīzī. See Knysh, Ibn ʿArabi, 143–44. Tīmūr encourages a public dispute between Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī and Sayyid al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī.

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control. The waqfs were not inconsiderable, given the amount of building that had accompanied the growth of the city. Because of that situation, it will be worthwhile to take a closer look at the story of Maybudī’s appointment. The process assumes greater importance in light of the fact that the new qadi was not sent off to do as he pleased, all ties broken with the center, as shown by his collected correspondence. While the Munsha⁠ʾāt includes letters to high-ranking figures in the Timurid court in Herat and to members of the Ak Koyunlu military elite, the majority of the missives were addressed to the civilian, especially ulama, administrators at the royal court, such as Abū Isḥāq Muḥammad Nayrīzī, Shāh Sharaf al-Dīn Maḥmūd Jān Daylamī, and several members of the Sāvajī family. Since contact was maintained, it becomes of interest to know how Maybudī was appointed, what his patrons expected him to do, and what they would have censured in his behavior. Another question is whether local qadis had subordinates. Was one man able to oversee the waqfs and legal administration of a reasonably large urban center? Did his jurisdiction encompass smaller towns, such as his home town of Maybud? Did he appoint deputies once he arrived back in Yazd, drawing from the local ulama? Were his deputies chosen by the Ak Koyunlu administration? The first significant point in the story of Maybudī’s appointment is the role of public debates as a source of recruits for government posts. Court debates were common practice and it might be suggested that their purpose was not merely to edify the ruler or glorify him by association, but also to allow him to observe the rising intellectuals of his realm. The friendly notes Maybudī later sent Nayrīzī indicate that no hard feelings lingered after the contest.108 On the contrary, Maybudī avers that he looks forward to Nayrīzī’s arrival, speaks highly of him everywhere, and counts on the powerful man’s influence to protect him from slanderers. The outcome of public debates was not necessarily so amicable. In a much later Ottoman case (1176/1763), during the court debates that were regularly scheduled during Ramaḍān, one of the participants used such abusive language that he was exiled to Bozcaada.109 Although Sultan Yaʿqūb observed the proceedings, Qadi ʿĪsā Sāvajī emerges as the person responsible for the actual appointment, acting in the name of Ak Koyunlu authority. Sāvajī was the person in Tabriz with whom Maybudī exchanged the most extensive correspondence, writing him at least fifteen letters. In one he states that all that he has comes from Qadi ʿĪsā and he clearly 108

109

MUN, 68, 70. Furūhar lists him as Mawlana Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū Isḥāq Tabrīzī; 117: Ghiyāth al-Dīn can be tentatively identified as the addressee of this document which is titled “another letter” in the manuscripts. Uzunçarşılı, 217.

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regarded him as his most powerful patron at court.110 Maybudī repeatedly betrays anxiety that the slander his enemies spread about him will make Qadi ʿĪsā cease to regard him with favor.111 Sāvajī’s inquiry into Maybudī’s background, however informally presented, shows one of the primary concerns of the central government in the appointment of provincial qadis. Sāvajī’s request for information was no idle question. One cannot help but wonder if a different answer would have led to a different reward for the debater. It is not explicitly stated that not just any virtuoso scholar would be eligible for the qadiship of Yazd, but it is reasonable to assume that, had Maybudī come from a less important family, he might not have been shunted into the qadiship of his native city as a first major promotion. The element of regional authority is of interest because both Davānī and Maybudī were appointed qadis in their native regions. There is no intimation that either man was expected to move from province to province, with limited periods in each area, finally becoming chief qadi of the state, as came to characterize legal administration in the Ottoman empire. On the contrary, Maybudī apparently had the option to resign but not to seek re-assignment elsewhere.112 Davānī presents a problem, because it is not clear how much time he spent in Shiraz and how much in Tabriz. Did he cease to be qadi of Fars when he resided in Tabriz? The hagiography of Shaykh Ibrāhīm Gülşeni (d. 940/1543) indicates that Shiraz remained Davānī’s base at least through the reign of Sulṭān-Khalīl (d. 883/1478).113 In his entry on Mawlana Ḥusām al-Dīn Ḥasan Tālish, who was born in Tabriz, Taşköprüzade writes that the latter had seen Davānī in Tabriz in the company of Mīr Ḥusayn al-Yazdī, but gives no indication of the length of their stay.114 Although accepting the qadiship meant leaving the government center, the appointment was clearly viewed as a promotion, as a reward for sound scholarship accumulated during years of study and for acquaintance with such powerful men as Davānī. Whatever might have been said and written in the early centuries of Islamic states about such jobs being tainted, as subordinating scholarly independence to lucrative awards from the state, seems not to have applied to Maybudī, or to Davānī for that matter. Maybudī himself recounts stories about early Islamic scholars who refused with good reason to serve as 110 111 112 113 114

MUN, 87. MUN, 59–60, 101, 112, 164. But see MUN, 151 where Maybudī mentions the legal barriers to submitting his resignation. Gülşeni, 41–42. Taşköprüzade, 524.

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qadis, but he offsets those anecdotes with statements about the position being a religious duty incumbent on the community. In other words, it could be a rotten job, but somebody had to do it. Maybudī frequently grumbled about his assignment, but he did not question it as proof of worldly success. That is, in fact, one of his complaints about his peers and students in the legal track. In a long disquisition on the nature of the profession, he states that the goal of many of them in serving as qadis is to earn money and elevate their status.115 His disapproval of that goal is in the tradition of Ibn ʿArabī and mysticism in general. While jurists and mystics were not by definition at odds with each other, the temptations of the legal profession posed a danger to the spiritually inclined. Ibn ʿArabī writes: “God forbid, my brother, that you should think that I blame the jurists for being jurists or for their practice of jurisprudence, for the Law is beyond question … However, I do censure those jurists who, harbouring merely worldly aims, cynically study the Law with the sole object of acquiring fame.” Those sentiments had already been expressed by al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Ghazālī, and many others. To be fair, their disapproval extended equally to Sufis who valued the esteem of men over humility before God.116 In keeping with the values of his time, Maybudī professes complete disinterest in either wealth or fame. It is tempting to find him disingenuous in his Sufi denial of all ambition for wealth and status, because he fights tooth and nail to keep his job throughout years of personal attacks from his enemies. The reason he gives for taking the position in the first place and continuing to serve is obedience to the Padishah and his patron and he asks in exasperation why else he would bring so much trouble into his life.117 He continues the religio-legalistic argument with sources that prohibit an appointee of the state from resigning

115

116

117

MUN, 199–200 for stories about scholars who refused to serve as qadi; 140, 173 for the worldly ambitions of his peers; 166 for his own denial of interest in temporal benefit. This fascinating document of over thirty pages stands out among the much shorter letters that comprise the bulk of the Munsha⁠ʾāt. Not only does it draw attention to itself with its length, but it also is more personal and direct than the many short, flamboyant exercises in stylistic virtuosity. While those are necessary bread-and-butter offerings meant to establish and maintain bonds of loyalty, complete with conventional complaints about the absence of dear friends and the trials and tribulations of the job, this long letter seems to have been a response to a real threat. Josef van Ess, “Sufism and Its Opponents: Reflections on Topoi, Tribulations, and Transformations,” in Islamic Mysticism Contested: Thirteen Centuries of Controversies and Polemics, ed. Frederick de Jong and Bernd Radtke (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 34. MUN, 150.

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his position unilaterally.118 As in much of the correspondence, the issue of how much is self-serving and how much genuine conviction teases the modern reader. Maybudī himself constantly questions his motives and those of his peers, both supporters and detractors, yielding as much insight into his individual psychology as on any other subject. In his tantalizing discourse on a qadi’s job, Maybudī reveals that, at least in retrospect, taking on such an important position was a mixed blessing. A personal source of ambivalence is the loss of time for study once a religious scholar accepts an official position. Maybudī takes pride in his involvement in scholarship since his youth, and regrets that he has had to set his studies aside because his professional duties are so time-consuming.119 Were he relieved of his responsibilities, he would be able to write and publish once again. Furthermore, he would like to perform his duty of going on pilgrimage, and he gives an eminently practical reason for considering his duty to perform the hajj at that stage in his life: when the particular letter was written the weather in the Hijaz was still fine during pilgrimage season, while in a few years it would be too hot.120 Once Maybudī was sent back to his native city in a position of power, his precise duties as a qadi are difficult to determine. The evidence is not systematic and the snippets of information that do emerge from the correspondence are too scattered to allow definitive conclusions. For at least six years of service, one crisis after another triggered Maybudī’s cries for help or protestations of innocence to his patrons, but he seldom goes into detail about his activities.121 The rare outside sources are anecdotal, the anecdotes serving more to astonish than to enlighten. For example, Maybudī once recalled how he was summoned from his qadi’s court to view an unusual newborn girl in a quarter near the clock tower of Yazd. The baby, named Fāṭima Sar-i Buzurg (Fāṭima Big Head), had been in her mother’s womb for seven years and quoted poetry and the Qurʾān at birth. Spurred on by amazement, Maybudī rushed to the house with an escort of scholars. The girl cried out as they approached: “The qadi of the city has come with a company to see us. Open the door so they may enter.” She recited a verse and the gawkers went back to work, astonished. The next 118 119 120

121

Compare MUN, 198: He writes to Ilāhī Beg that he has several times petitioned to resign. MUN, 158–59. As mentioned earlier, however, Maybudī seems to have continued teaching and writing throughout his time as qadi. MUN, 72. MUN, 160–61. Although Maybudī does not specify his level of comfort, Dhū al-ḥijja in 898/1493 fell in September and with each subsequent year occurred earlier in the summer, so that by 905/1500 the pilgrimage month coincided with July. It seems reasonable to date this letter no later than 898/1493 or 899/1494. MUN, 114.

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day it was heard that she had died.122 However intriguing the story, the source does not specify whether the qadi was there in any official capacity or simply as a curious neighbor. Normative texts that discuss qadiship in the abstract shape the outlines of communal expectations, so while we may hesitate to consider them definitive concerning the facts of Maybudī’s daily life, they did mold how he and his peers thought about the qadi’s job. One of the most fascinating aspects of Maybudī’s lengthy defense of his behavior is how he repeatedly interprets his actions within the framework of legal writings from previous centuries. Those texts might not be evidence for his personal experiences, but they do mark the contours of his profession. He most frequently cites Rāfiʿī of Qazwin (d. 623/ 1226) and Nawawī of Damascus (d. 676/1277), magisterial figures in the development of the Shafiʿi school of law. By demonstrating that committed Muslims have voiced complaints similar to his own since the inception of Islam, May­ budī uses the legitimacy of well-established authority to add weight to his grievances. Another reason the precise extent of Maybudī’s duties remains vague is their familiarity to his community. Because they were known to his patrons and friends, he did not have to specify them in his correspondence. Someone from the twenty-first century may not be able to list in detail every responsibility of a judge or a banker, but he will have a general idea of what the job entails, and one judge writing to another would certainly not need to explicate the details of his position. Absent a document with terms of employment, we can sketch only the general contours of what Maybudī was expected to do as qadi from his complaints and concerns, without confidently claiming to understand every aspect of the position. It would also be careless to conclude that the job was a rigid institution, rather than one subject to the fluctuations of personal relationships and the vagaries of political change. As mentioned above, waqf supervision was the only task definitely assigned at the beginning of his tenure, and in several letters it is clear that it constituted an integral part of his job and not a separate assignment.123 His job was apparently to oversee waqf supervisors instead of administering the founda122

123

Mustawfī Bāfqī, 3:354. The story raises all sorts of issues. Among them are those of gender, for the miraculous child born with sacred knowledge is a girl; of theology, for it is unclear what the divine purpose was in creating such a child and why religious authorities felt the need to participate in this unusual event; of medicine, for the translation of the physically monstrous of medieval times into the birth defects of our own age does not seem to apply in this case. That Maybudī had some authority over supervisors of waqfs is mentioned in a letter to Sirāj al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Vahhāb. MUN, 82.

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tions himself.124 After serving as qadi for six years, he pinpoints waqf maladministration as a primary reason for social decline, and it is unlikely he would complain so vociferously if matters lay entirely in his own hands. He claims that waqf income is channelled to the rich either by its fraudulent transfer to private hands (milkiyāt) or through the misuse of long-term leases. In either case, the legitimate beneficiaries of the foundations are cheated. The qadi must either go along with the perpetrators of the fraud against his conscience, in which case he is rewarded by the corrupt administrators, or he opposes their schemes and they expend every effort to get the honest qadi fired.125 In one of his most complete descriptions of his preoccupations, Maybudī writes to Qadi ʿĪsā Sāvajī that he had been attentive to religious matters in Yazd. That meant reprimanding profligates, including members of the ulama, putting a stop to drunkenness and debauchery, spending on the poor the proceeds of waqfs of Sufi hostels (khānqāhs), which derived their revenue from farms and shops, assuring the just of their rights, and re-establishing the Shariʿa.126 Promoting public rectitude was an endless, thankless task. In a clear-eyed exposition of how he could make money from his position were he not supported by his income from agriculture, Maybudī drops more clues about a qadi’s activities. He could increase his income by cultivating court patronage, accepting bribes from litigants, misappropriating waqf funds and those reserved for the welfare of orphans, and charging fees for teaching and fulfilling legal duties such as waqf administration, the care of orphans, and marriage services.127 Maybudī matter-of-factly presents this list as practices that have long been in place and are known to everyone rather than as news that would shock his correspondent. What the qadi does is less at issue for the two of them than the money involved; the discussion is valuable for us on both counts. By listing reasons why any sensible man might resign a qadiship, Maybudī fills out our picture of what the job entailed in late fifteenth-century Iran. He sees it as a tremendous responsibility, a punishment in this world and the next that eminent scholars from the first century of Islam refused to take on, described by Ghazālī as butchery without a knife, subjecting its holders to the whims of rulers whom they must flatter. The qadi reaches decisions which, if not proving acceptable to the powerful, are either ignored or used to fire him.128 124 125 126 127 128

But see MUN, 59 where Maybudī himself distributes proceeds from waqfs. MUN, 172. MUN, 59. MUN, 142–147. MUN, 153, 162.

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While admitting that numerous hadiths describe the benefits of serving as a qadi, Maybudī’s disclaimer is that he himself lacks the excellent qualities that would allow such benefits to devolve upon him. At this point in his reflections about being a qadi, Maybudī’s discussion takes on a more personal cast. Maybudī astutely remarks that the very nature of the job is problematic because at its core it exists as a result of disputes, and litigants will always be better informed than the judge about the details of a case. He explains that he himself prefers reconciliation and compromise and bemoans the fact that in his day and age truthful testimony and respect for oaths are so lacking that a qadi is at a loss to reach a just decision. Not able to make definitive decisions because he does not trust anyone to tell the truth, Maybudī is further handicapped by his soft heart when it comes to capital cases. He is easily upset, especially in cases that lead to corporal punishment. He claims not to have been forced to put anyone to death yet, but is terrified that the day will come.129 It is here that the elusive value of the Munsha⁠ʾāt emerges, for it straddles the fence of normative and documentary texts. As a legal scholar, Maybudī knows the literature of his profession. When he uses it as a window on to his own experience, on a set of injunctions that one particular man may or may not be able to fulfill, history becomes human. Given the nature of the document, the Munsha⁠ʾāt teases us with what it does not say. It reveals almost nothing, for example, about where Maybudī ran his court, how many days a week he adjudicated cases, whether he had a large or small staff, who received a salary and for how much, what kinds of records were kept, and how he enforced his rulings. Information is meager as well about Maybudī’s precise relations with the people of his own city, from his peers in the clerical world to women, minorities, criminals, and law-abiding citizens.130 Yazd’s sizeable Zoroastrian and Jewish communities receive only 129 130

MUN, 157. MUN, 230 complains of the abuse of the census system which inflicts injustice on Armenians, Jews, Magians, and non-observant Muslims (ahl-i jaḥūd az Muslimānān: exact meaning unclear to me). For the Zoroastrian community in Yazd, see Mary Boyce, A Persian Stronghold; and Nile Green, “The Survival of Zoroastrianism in Yazd.” Iran, 38 (2000): 115–122. Boyce claims that after Islam established itself in Iran, “the only two places where Zoroastrians succeeded in maintaining themselves in any numbers were in and around Yazd and Kerman,” 1. She gives evidence that the leader of the community, the Dastūr-i Dastūrān, lived in Turkabad in the region of Yazd at least by the eleventh century and in 1478 was known to receive messengers from the community in India. In Yazd the Zoroastrians numbered some 500 heads of households in 1511 (4–5). Mancini-Lander notes that Mustawfī Bāfqī also rarely mentions the Zoroastrians of the region, who remain conspicuous by their absence: “Memory on the Boundaries of Empire,” 70.

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passing, uninformative mention in one letter, while women figure solely in the abstract in normative legal passages. Frequently it is difficult to decide whether Maybudī acted as qadi, landlord, or friend. Concern for the agricultural population and the ulama can be extracted from the letters, but whether discussing local friends or enemies with his acquaintances outside Yazd, Maybudī does not name names, mention factions, or give any indication of the connection between status, say, and residential locations. He seldom mentions specific buildings or local customs. Any fashionable propensity for convention aside, a sense of unease and dissatisfaction pervades many of the letters, but much is left unhelpfully vague. Based on what is available in his correspondence, Maybudī emerges as an advocate of his city, of its agricultural population, and the local ulama. For example, he asks Sirāj al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Vahhāb in Tabriz for help in repairing pious foundations (buqāʿ) and Sufi hostels, because the responsible parties block his efforts.131 After urging Ilāhī Beg to observe justice by repairing ribats, bridges, mosques, hostels, and madrasas for his good name in this world and the next, Maybudī mentions a specific ribat in the area that could be restored with little effort.132 In another letter, he presents a detailed legal exposition about how government taxes should be distributed in order to support all the necessities of the state from military forces to infrastructure, administration, education, and care for the disadvantaged. Recognizing that the central administration has a certain amount of latitude in allotting tax income, he encourages his patron to distribute the money as religious duty requires.133 Maybudī did not expect the government to cover all communal expenses. Like his father, Maybudī actively involved himself in the construction and improvement of local buildings, commissioning the Ḥammām al-Qāḍī and perhaps other structures.134 Ḥikmat interprets Jāmī’s encouragement of rulers to do good works and sponsor construction as a sign of the poet’s generosity of spirit and fundamental goodness.135 That may very well be, but when so little is 131 132

133 134

135

MUN, 82. MUN, 191. See Mancini-Lander, “Memory on the Boundaries of Empire,” 90–91: “… in the Yazdī historiography, it [the term “ribāṭ”] fairly consistently signifies a walled settlement on the frontiers of the desert, designed to serve as a hostel for travelers to and from the region. The ribāṭāt essentially marked the outermost reaches of the boundaries of the mamālik of Yazd …” MUN, 174. Mustawfī Bāfqī, 3:355. It still stood in the seventeenth century, but cannot be found today. Afshār, “Qāḍī Mīr Ḥusayn Maybudī,” 222. MUN, 251: Maybudī says that he built a hammam in the reign of Nuṣrat al-Dīn Abū al-Muẓaffar Yaʿqūb Bahādur Khān in 887/[1482]. Ḥikmat, 101.

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known about the personality of figures such as Maybudī and they cannot be limned with any great accuracy as distinct individuals, it is just as plausible to view their philanthropy as exemplifying an inseparable concept of both communal and personal responsibility. Philanthropy formed part of the relations between various elements of society, with the civilian elite helping to conduct material benefits from the ruling strata to the ruled, using informal channels such as personal letters. In addition to expressing concern for the physical development of Yazd, Maybudī acted as spokesman for the rural population to the decision-makers at court. He emerges as an important link in the chain of dependence that bound the elites and common people together. Rarely addressing the ruler himself, he worked through powerful members of the civilian authority to inform and implore. In a letter to Qadi ʿĪsā, he indirectly addresses Sultan Yaʿqūb to laud the sultan’s reign as a harbinger of the coming of the Mahdi and encourage him to continue his practice of resting content with the kharāj taxes from his subjects and of strengthening the Shariʿa.136 Another document in the Munsha⁠ʾāt uses conventions of the ‘Mirrors for Princes’ genre, with their pastoral images of responsible shepherds and seditious wolves, while being clearly grounded in the local situation in Yazd.137 For the ruler’s good name and his fate in the world to come, Maybudī reiterates the need for justice. Rather than accuse the ruler personally, he directs his criticism to governmental subordinates who undoubtedly act without the ruler’s knowledge, a problem in itself. Extra exactions imposed on farmers, who serve as the foundation of the world, are self-defeating because the people lose their love of their native land (waṭan) and choose to leave.138 Minority populations of Armenians, Jews and Magians are squeezed for money; merchants encounter difficulties in traveling from place to place because of robbers and officials who misappropriate their goods; 136

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MUN, 101. In another letter to Qadi ʿĪsā, Maybudī says that no sultan or padishah has been as just and the time for the appearance of the Mahdi and the descent of Jesus has arrived, 97. MUN, 228–35. From warnings about the repercussions of tyranny and excessive taxation, we occasionally catch a glimpse of that majority of the population, on whose economic well-being the power of the elites depended but who had limited options when subjected to mistreatment. Maybudī mentions brigandage, although a greater concern is that the common people may move away from oppressive conditions, leaving the kingdom depopulated and unprofitable. That emerges as a warning image throughout the centuries, addressed in writings as far apart as Saʿdī’s Gulistān of 656/1258, for example, and documents attesting to floods of refugees during the political upheavals of Central Asia in the early 18th century. Ron Sela, The Legendary Biographies of Tamerlane: Islam and Heroic Apocrypha in Central Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 126–27.

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small businessmen in the bazaars cannot conduct trade because of rampant bribery, rapacious bureaucrats, and marauding soldiers. Such a document is a flare shot up from Yazd to alert the authorities that the local population suffers. More specific requests to benefit the general population were for aid from the central government after natural disasters. Maybudī informs Sāvajī that heavy rains followed by swarms of locusts had spoiled the crops. The seed supply for the next year had been exhausted and starvation threatened the people. The local governor, Amir Zayn al-Dīn Pīr ʿAlī Beg, had tried to help, but to no avail. Maybudī urges Sāvajī to act quickly in order to prevent widespread famine. Again, Sāvajī is addressed as a representative of the central government and not as a private individual.139 A final example comes in a letter to Shāh Sharaf al-Dīn Maḥmūd Daylamī, who is told of the fragile agricultural situation which resulted from a particularly severe winter. Locusts had revisited the area, milk had dried up in cows’ udders, and wells had frozen over. Unscrupulous buyers were defrauding farmers of their holdings. At the end of the letter comes a plea for help to Daylamī, whose familiarity with the area and commitment to justice are cited as additional reasons for his solicitude.140 While Maybudī’s intercession on behalf of the agricultural population might appear to be disinterested kindness, it must be remembered that his family’s wealth most likely derived from landholdings. His father had been active in a number of villages around Maybud, as mentioned in Chapter 2. In letters to Shaykh ʿAlī Sāvajī, Maybudī himself mentioned agriculture as a source of revenue and a subject of concern.141 The main point of the letter excerpted by Afshār is that the qadi was considering resigning his post, in part because he did not need the money he derived from it. As Afshār translates: “The foundation for my livelihood is agriculture and I am content with the dry bread that I earn from it.”142 Since it is improbable that Maybudī worked out in the fields behind a plow, he necessarily stood to gain from a prosperous and productive peasantry. Lest we go too far in interpreting every action as a calculated political and economic gesture, it is worthwhile to recall that Maybudī also would have exercised charity as part of his conception of the afterlife. To give but one example, Qadi ʿĪsā Sāvajī was worried about one Mawlana Fakhr al-Dīn after the 139 140

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MUN, 124–26. Cold winter in letter to Shaykh Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Lāhījī: MUN, 67b (Istanbul manuscript: only part of the letter is in the published edition); to Daylamī, 67–68. This raises the question of whether Daylamī had visited the region during his survey of Ak Koyunlu lands for Qadi ʿĪsā’s land reforms. MUN, 57, 63. Afshār, “Qāḍī Mīr Ḥusayn Maybudī,” 222. MUN, 141.

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latter’s death. His friend Shaykh Ibrāhīm went to the gravesite and perceived that the deceased was suffering. He told Qadi ʿĪsā that the way to help was through charity and prayer, so the qadi made a special effort to relieve the distress of widows and orphans. Later he had a dream in which the recipients of his kindness were protecting Fakhr al-Dīn from tormenting demons.143 That such concerns and their working out in the world of dreams were an unsurprising subject of conversation among the ulama and were considered worth recording implies that they were not isolated phenomena.144 Inasmuch as he was a qadi who supervised waqfs, a landowner keeping an eye on his revenues, a religious man who valued pious action, and an influential individual who had the power to obtain some relief in times of disaster, to which he and his lands were as vulnerable as the poorest farmer with a small landholding, Maybudī can only be expected to have acted as he did. In addition to his links to the agricultural population, Maybudī maintained close ties to his own social group, the ulama of Yazd, and acted as their spokesman to the authorities in Tabriz. In the letter discussed above in which he praises Yaʿqūb’s policies towards the people, he states that with the situation so good, it would be injustice on the ruler’s part to allow evildoers to belittle and undermine people like himself, the sinews of the Shariʿa.145 He tells Qadi ʿĪsā about scholars who held high positions under previous regimes and whose descendants currently held those positions by hereditary right, rather than by their own qualifications, while those more suited for the jobs remained unemployed.146 To Shaykh ʿAlī Sāvajī, he complains of the decline of tafsir, hadith, and fiqh in the madrasas. He asserts that the students are not really interested and that they quibble over phrases and expressions, with none of the loftier aims of their predecessors. Then he asks for some encouragement, especially for the qadis, muftis, and waqf supervisors.147 Finally, in a letter to an unnamed recipient, he defends a scholarly preacher who faced false accusations that he

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Gülşeni, 119–20. Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 469–70. Aubin places great emphasis on the power of the occult over the imaginations of fifteenth-century men and of the authority that accrued to men who were seen to control the forces of the other world. See also Maybudī’s lengthy riff on the name and qualities of Muḥammad in a letter to Sayyid Muḥammad Rīsmān Bāz. MUN, 91. MUN, 101. MUN, 54–55. MUN, 192.

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did not know Arabic, embroiled himself in disputation, and denigrated the scholars of the Yazd region.148 Another activity that Maybudī describes in his correspondence is the fulfillment of commissions for the civilian personnel in Tabriz. Again, it is not known if this was part of the job, a way of maintaining good relations with powerful patrons, or simply an act of friendship. At one point, he informs Shaykh ʿAlī Sāvajī that a carpet he had ordered for a Dār al-Ḥadīth was being made according to his specifications.149 He also mentions to Abū Isḥāq Nayrīzī that he had settled some case about which Nayrīzī had written him and expresses his willingness to fulfill any other requests.150 An unspecified order received in a letter from Shaykh Najm al-Dīn Masʿūd Sāvajī is reported to have been obeyed.151 One thing we do know about the qadiship of Yazd is that it exposed its holder to repeated accusations from his detractors.152 The majority of the letters from Maybudī to his correspondents in Tabriz mention slander against him and implore his reader not to listen to such falsehoods. In the letter cited above in which he describes his activities to Qadi ʿĪsā, he laments that his enemies overwhelm him with their fabrication of lies about his neglect of duty. He claims not to be greedy and to be rooted in justice. The nature of a qadi’s job exposed the holder to charges of illicit personal enrichment, which, with his oversight of waqfs and involvement in legal cases, was undoubtedly a temptation. In another letter to Qadi ʿĪsā, Maybudī lists three slanderous rumors that are floating around to his detriment.153 The first two are matters of religious opin148

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MUN, 88–89. This was not simply an argument about scholarly credentials, because the requirement or lack thereof for non-Arabic speaking Muslims to know the language concerned validity of ritual practice and authenticity of belief. Inquiry into the primacy of the Arabic language in scripture and learning and its importance in avoiding heresy had been going on for centuries, with Persian gaining acceptance over time. See Zadeh, The Vernacular Qur’an, 129, 331, 352. MUN, 63. MUN, 118. MUN, 98. Ibn Turka also defended himself from attacks against his beliefs and his performance as qadi, objecting that many oppressors of the poor turn to powerful backers in order to subvert his decisions. Melvin-Koushki, “Quest,” 64. Davānī, too, complains about unjust accusations, which might suggest that the subject is fancifully literary rather than anchored in a specific situation: Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Asʿad Davānī, “Maktūb-i tārīkhī,” Armaghān, 13 (1311): 215–16. An alternative is that scholars in Timurid and Ak Koyunlu lands were genuinely nervous about the ramifications of such attacks. I favor the latter interpretation. MUN, 135–39.

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ion, charges that also appeared in a letter to Shaykh ʿAlī Sāvajī in which he reports accusations of unsound belief (takfīr).154 In Qadi ʿĪsā’s letter, they are specified as his views on primary matter (hayūlā) and Muḥammad. His enemies claim that he equates primary matter with God. What is at issue here is whether he believes in creation ex nihilo or in the eternity of the universe. If he equates primary matter with God, he might be claiming that the world is inherent in God’s existence, hence eternal and not created, which would contradict several fundamental principals of Muslim belief including creation and the possibility of God’s unconstrained will. The view that some sort of primary material existed before creation, which God formed into the world, while not without problems, could be considered more compatible with traditional religious belief, because it does not deny God’s will. In his letters Maybudī defends himself by describing primary matter as pure potentiality and well below the rational soul in the metaphysical hierarchy. He briefly quotes Ibn Sīnā to validate his views and the Qurʾān to express his displeasure with his opponents. He urges Qadi ʿĪsā to examine his treatment of the issue in his numerous writings as proof of his innocence.155 The second accusation was that he belittled the Prophet. Again, he protests with righteous indignation, marshaling verse after verse of the Qurʾān in his defense. Given his substantial commentary on ʿAlī’s poetry, it is tempting to see him as the target of a Sunni backlash against ʿAlid sympathies, but as was discussed in Chapter 3, Maybudī in no way attacks the primacy of Muḥammad. On the contrary, the Sharḥ repeatedly declares Muḥammad’s superiority and it is the rare letter that does not begin or end with praise of the Prophet and his family. To put the accusations in perspective, the official charge which led to 154

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MUN, 131. The accusation about unsound beliefs concerning primary matter resurfaces in Maybudī’s lengthy letter about his qadiship, MUN, 168; and in another to Sirāj al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Vahhāb, MUN, 193. In the latter, he defends himself with a lengthy philosophical dis­ cussion of why he would never commit such an error. While he sees himself as following the Illuminationist school (madhhab-i Ishrāqīyān), he gives a detailed explanation of Pe­ri­patetic and Sufi understandings as well, quoting Ibn Sīnā, Ibn ʿArabī, Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī, Niẓām al-Dīn Nishāpūrī, and the poets Shabistarī and Rūmī. In SDA, 94–95 Maybudī wraps up a philosophical discussion by citing legal scholars (fuqahāʾ) who list belief in the priority of the world over the creating form (al-ṣūra al-kāʾina) among other examples of unbelief (kufr). Terminology poses difficulties in determining the parameters of this accusation which rendered Maybudī so vulnerable. The same fluidity of language that he considered in the Sharḥ and an absence of documentation means much of this is approximate. See Kiki Kennedy-Day, Books of Definition (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003) for the variety of ways Kindī, Fārābī, and Ibn Sīnā defined hayūlā—and that was several hundred years before Maybudī.

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Qadi ʿĪsā’s execution in 896/1491 was heresy, specifically holding doctrines of ‘incarnation and deviation’ (ḥulūl and ilḥād), and he, too, defended himself as a loyal follower of the Prophet and his descendants. Although political and economic animosities strike the modern historian as more plausible reasons for his death at the instigation of Ṣūfī Khalīl Beg, the power of religious rhetoric and conviction should not be lightly dismissed.156 The final accusations seem to concern Maybudī’s performance as qadi. Against the complaint that he is hard-hearted, he insists that he has mastered the choleric faculty and disciplined his soul through spiritual exercises. He quotes hadith, ʿUmar, ʿAlī, Ghazālī, and others to underscore his understanding of the need for kindness. What is significant about all the charges is that Maybudī felt the need to defend himself repeatedly to the Sāvajīs and other administrators against accusations that ranged from the theological to the professional. That indicates either that the charges could be substantiated or that they were sufficient, true or not, to cause the disgrace and dismissal of a qadi.157 To sum up the ramifications of Maybudī’s appointment, the picture is not one of an entirely isolated or independent qadi, nor of someone who served only as an extension of the central government in his native city. Rather than belonging to either the provincial or the central government camp, Maybudī experienced the tension of having ties to both groups and of negotiating the ambiguities inherent in those ties. His regular contacts with the central authorities imposed obligations upon him, as well as affording him privilege. He used the latter to protect the peasants of Yazd and, indirectly, the landowners, to which group he belonged, and to represent the concerns of the ulama. The displeasure of his contacts either at the center or in Yazd could adversely affect his reputation with his other patrons and friends. That in itself does not radically change the current picture of the ulama’s role in medieval Islamic society, but the mechanics of a qadi’s appointment under the Ak Koyunlu helps to refine our knowledge of Iranian history and to avoid viewing the entire Middle East as a monolithic whole.158 156 157

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Woods, 151–52. Furūhar and Raḥmānī/Ashk-Shīrīn are certain that Maybudī either tendered his resignation or was fired after six years on the job. MUN, 24; SDA, sī va seh. They cite MUN, 57, 122, 129. On 120 Maybudī does describe himself as experiencing troubles worse then he has ever known. Raḥmānī/Ashk-Shīrīn also cite a verse on SDA, 14, which indicates that once Maybudī turned to Sufism, he regretted his past life and official positions. Knysh’s description of the features of the ulama in Mamluk Egypt in the thirteenth century applies in general outlines to Maybudī, two centuries later and many miles away: the importance of an authoritative mentor in career advancement, the role of the qadi in protecting the population from excessive taxation, the opportunities for financial gain

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The foregoing discussion of Maybudī’s connections to the greater world of the Ak Koyunlu and Timurid states sums up most of what can be known about him until his death. It demonstrates that the provincial ulama both depended on patrons in the administrative and military centers while being deeply ensconced in the politics of their own cities. To investigate only what happened in Tabriz, or only those events which concerned the principal military leaders and their supporters among the ulama concentrated at the court is to miss the complexity of life during that period. Maybudī’s appointment shows that the powers at the center were attentive to their representatives in the provinces and maintained close ties to them. Maybudī had grown up and studied far from the locus of Ak Koyunlu power, and his incorporation into a broad administrative structure signals the powerful provincial families’ simultaneous independence from and dependence on the state. Maybudī’s ties to the center lasted throughout his documented career as qadi and illustrate the services civilian notables at the center and in the provinces performed. Through their network, factual information was exchanged. The notable citizens of a city such as Yazd appear to have been well aware of actions on the state level, informed about the ban on wine and Yaʿqūb’s campaigns in Georgia. Similarly, letters were sent in the other direction to relate events in the provinces to important figures at court. Maybudī told his correspondents about small civil disturbances and more threatening natural disasters. While not invariably requesting government action, in a significant number of cases he did demand immediate assistance. It is through provincial notables such as Maybudī that the affairs of the common people were brought to the attention of the governing elite. Qadis emerging from the city gates to negotiate with nomadic conquerors or traveling to capitals to request disaster aid appear with relative frequency in the chronicles. Their philanthropy was not entirely disinterested, because their own political position could be at stake. In the case of Yazd, we have seen the disagreements among the notables after the great flood of 860/1456 and their individual attempts to deal with the court. Maybudī’s insecurity about his position and his constant demands that the slanders of his enemies be ignored signal that he was obliged to do a good job in order to avoid dismissal. It sounds as if he was constantly on the defensive in Yazd and lived in fear that the from the administration of waqfs and the estates of orphans, dependence on the ruler for appointment and tenure in office, and fierce competition for jobs. What we do not see, which does not mean it did not exist, is that Maybudī’s enemies formed an identifiable faction. Ibn ʿArabi, 56. See Manz, Power, 238, on the need for care in distinguishing individual rivalries from factional conflict.

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calumnies against him would be believed by someone in power at court or among the community of religious scholars. Another element of self-interest in Maybudī’s role as spokesman for the common people is that his prosperity partially depended upon them, for he derived some of his income from agriculture. When he asked for a message of encouragement for the ulama of Yazd who were suffering from dangerously low morale, he acted on behalf, not of the common people, but of his own social stratum. Such action also carried an element of self-protection, as is seen in his complaint that scholars of merit were overlooked for advancement in favor of those who gained their positions through heredity. Although a successful member of the establishment, Maybudī seems to have come from a family of landowners rather than scholars. The civilian notables were not able to mediate between the common people and military rulers because they stood disinterestedly apart from both groups, but precisely because their prosperity and preservation were intimately linked to the smooth functioning of those groups. Maybudī’s correspondence shows that he, at least, cultivated relations with military as well as civilian figures at the center, although the documents available suggest that his business was more frequently conducted with the latter. Furthermore, it is important to bear in mind that, not only did Maybudī correspond with civilian notables at the locus of Ak Koyunlu power, but he also had friends in that social milieu in other parts of the realm and beyond. The breadth of Maybudī’s contacts offsets any notion that he may have been utterly absorbed by his position vis-a-vis the ruling powers in Tabriz. As the Sharḥ demonstrates, Maybudī’s identity as a scholar opens a window on to the social and intellectual lives of the notables, one opened even wider by the information provided in his correspondence. The balance among the various sectors of society and within each of them was precarious, as evidenced by the brutal ends of many of Maybudī’s correspondents. With Sultan Yaʿqūb’s death and that of many of his close advisors, Maybudī’s life entered its fourth and final stage, one sent into upheaval by the rise of Shah Ismāʿīl. While the civilian notables endured as a collective unit, certain individuals, including Maybudī, did not fare so well.

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Chapter 5

Last Years and Safavid Confrontation The approximately fifteen years that separate the last datable events in the Munsha⁠ʾāt from Maybudī’s death are even more difficult to document than his early years or education. By examining the political environment in which Yazd found itself on Sultan Yaʿqūb’s death and considering Maybudī’s one piece of writing from that time, we can at least catch a glimpse of the qadi’s shadow. His unpleasant demise will then carry us into the Safavid period. Two questions arise with the death of Yaʿqūb in 896/1490. First, what happened to the Ak Koyunlu state as a whole? Second, what transpired in Yazd? A detailed answer to the first question is complex and beyond the scope of this work; the interested reader is strongly encouraged to study the research of John Woods. Throughout the subsequent decade, fierce struggles for power persisted, with young princes falling into the hands of ambitious guardians and distant relatives of Uzūn Ḥasan entering the fray. As mentioned in the last chapter, Ṣūfī Khalīl Beg, one of Maybudī’s correspondents, played a key role until his death in 896/1491. No one succeeded in holding power for long and the entire state eventually fell to the Safavids. The strife over succession during that decade was reflected in events in Fars and Persian Iraq. Other developments in those provinces were the repercussions of decisions made earlier under Uzūn Ḥasan and Yaʿqūb. For example, Yaʿqūb continued his father’s policy of dismantling the appanage system, whereby provinces were put under the jurisdiction of members of the Ak Koyunlu family. Under the new system, the major regions fell under the control of either a member of the ruler’s personal retinue or of one of the chiefs of the confederate clans that provided the state’s military power. The last of the provinces to be brought under the central authority of the supreme administrative council were Shabankara and Fars, which ceased to be royal appanages shortly after the coup in Yaʿqūb’s name in 883/1478. It took another decade for such regions to develop into strong bases for local autonomy, the Pūrnāk clan entrenching itself in Fars and Arabian Iraq and the Mawṣillū (to which clan Ṣūfī Khalīl Beg belonged) in Arminiye and Diyar Bakr. According to Woods, the conversion of the appanage system “into a regime of semi-independent tribal enclaves reminiscent of some later Safavid institutions, presaged the devolution and chaos of the period of Confederate Clan Wars and must be accounted one of the most significant internal political developments of Yaʿqūb’s reign.”1 1 Woods, 132–34. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004302327_006

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Those local clan chiefs participated in the succession battles that erupted in 896/1490. Of immediate interest to Maybudī would have been Manṣūr Beg Pūrnāk, the governor of Fars. He initially recognized Yaʿqūb’s son Bāysunghur (d. 898/1493), then shifted his allegiance to Maḥmūd b. Ughurlū Muḥammad b. Uzūn Ḥasan (d. 896/1491), before once again supporting Bāysunghur. The matter was not simply the preference for one prince over another; support for Bāysunghur really meant submission to Ṣūfī Khalīl Beg, the young ruler’s guardian. The effects of such issues of loyalty were felt in Yazd, where Manṣūr Beg Pūrnāk was ordered to suppress the anti-Bāysunghur uprising of the KaraʿUthmānid Qayitmas Bāyandur—that is, of a cousin of Yaʿqūb. The arrival of Qayitmas’s head in Tabriz in 896/1491 thus signified the end of Pūrnāk resistance to Mawṣillū power and marked the extension of Ṣūfī Khalīl Beg’s authority over Arabian Iraq, Persian Iraq, and Fars.2 That insurrection was only one of the several manifestations in Yazd of the political turmoil in the state, for the city continued to be involved in the long struggles for succession. With the death of Aḥmad b. Ughurlū Muḥammad in 903/1497, two sons of Yūsuf b. Uzūn Ḥasan, Alvand (r. 903–910/1497–1504 or -05) and Muḥammadī (r. 903–905/1497–1499 or 1500), were proclaimed rulers of the Ak Koyunlu state. The former reigned in the west and was supported by Qāsim b. Jahāngīr (d. 907–08/1502), among others, including Mawṣillū chiefs, while Muḥammadī had the backing of Ibrāhīm Ayba Sulṭān Bāyandur’s (d. 904/1499) brothers, among them Murād b. Dānā Khalīl, the governor of Yazd.3 Faced with the Safavid steamroller, the Bāyandur governors of Yazd and Kirman abandoned their posts and sought refuge in Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Bayqarā’s court in Herat. It was the descendants of Murād b. Dānā Khalīl, the governor of Yazd, who represented one of the only two branches of the Kara-ʿUthmānids to survive the collapse of the Ak Koyunlu empire, thanks to Murād’s flight to the Timurid court in 908/1503.4

The Jām-i gītī-numā

Maybudī’s connection to the larger Ak Koyunlu state during this period appears in the dedication of the one work he is known to have written after 896/1490. That work is the treatise entitled Jām-i gītī-numā, also known as Waḍʿ-i jadīd. In the abjad system, the latter title produces 897 [1492], which is the year the work was completed in Shiraz. It is a brief introduction to the 2 Woods, 153. 3 Woods, 159. 4 Woods, 166.

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principles of philosophy (ḥikmat), written in Persian for an unnamed member of the elite. Mention of Shiraz actually raises more questions than it answers. Because the work is so short, Maybudī’s presence in that city during its composition is no proof that he had permanently moved from Yazd or even lived in Shiraz for any significant length of time. His position as qadi may or may not have terminated with Yaʿqūb’s death. Another possibility is that he resigned, a desire he certainly expressed more than once in the Munsha⁠ʾāt. It is not known how long he remained in Shiraz, and whether he was merely paying social calls on his former teachers, colleagues, and students, or actively fishing for another position. A second issue is the identity of the patron. In one passage he is described as “ʿālī-ḥaḍrat shāhzāda-yi ʿadālat panāh …”(“The exalted prince, refuge of justice”). The manuscripts differ considerably in other effusive honorifics, but not in a way that reveals his identity. In addition to standard plaudits for the individual’s justice, virtue, and patronage of scholars, conceits based on philosophical terminology are woven through the passage. Although he is described as having reached the pinnacle of intellectual perfection, it does not seem that his interest in philosophy could have been particularly profound prior to the composition of the work because the contents are so elementary.5 While historical matters remain ambiguous, the text itself is concrete. As far as can be determined, the work awaits a critical edition, so a brief description of its contents is not out of place and suggests the continuity of Maybudī’s writings.6 After the customary invocation, Maybudī states that, because man is distinguished from other animals by his reason, the more perfect a person is in reasoning, the higher the degree of humanity to which he attains. Following the tradition of the latter-day philosophers (muta⁠ʾakhkharīn-i ḥukamāʾ), Maybudī decided to describe those various levels of existence in a digest

5 Pourjavady, Philosophy in Early Safavid Iran, says the work “is dedicated to an unspecified Qāsim, who according to a marginal note in one of its manuscripts was [Sayyid Muḥammad] Nūrbakhsh’s son and successor Sayyid Qāsim (d. 919/1513–14),” 36. He refers the reader to the edition of ʿAbd Allāh Nūrānī, 95–96: “Referring to Qāsim as ‘prince’ (shāhzada), Maybudī in the introduction to this work implied that he would attend the majālis of Qāsim from time to time,” 36. The language in the introduction is characteristic of Maybudī’s addresses to political figures. 6 See Pourjavady, Philosophy, 35: “An Arabic version of this work, together with a translation into Latin by Ibrāhīm al-Ḥaqilānī (Abraham Ecchellensis, 1605–64), was published in 1641 in Paris.” According to Daiber, it is “the first philosophical text published in Europe, preceding the edition of Ibn Ṭufayl, Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān published by E. Pococke (1671).” Hans Daiber, Bibliography of Islamic Philsophy (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 1: 628.

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(mukhtaṣar) of basic philosophical information in order to be remembered kindly and generously in the councils of the prince. The treatise is then divided into an introduction (fātiḥa), thirty topics (maqṣad), and a conclusion (khātima). In the introduction Maybudī discusses the necessary existent (vājib al-vujūd) and the contingent existent (mumkin al-vujūd), the latter comprising two parts, substance (jawhar) and accident (ʿaraḍ). He sums up by saying that the basics (uṣūl) of existent beings (maw­ jūdāt) are seven: the necessary existent, intellect (ʿaql), soul (nafs), primary matter (hayūlā), form, material body, and accident. Then he proceeds to the thirty sections in which he gives succinct information about those technical terms, the heavenly bodies, and the elements. In the Jām-i gītī-numā Maybudī did not intend to write more than a brief summary of philosophical topics. Indeed, the work resembles an article in an encyclopaedia. Its subject matter corresponds primarily to various sections of the Hidāyat al-ḥikma and to the fourth chapter of the Sharḥ-i Dīvān-i ʿAlī. In style and organization, correspondences with the former work are fewer and Maybudī does not refer to the Hidāyat directly as a source text. When he discusses the properties of the four elements in his commentary on the Hidāyat, for example, he follows the order dictated by Abharī’s text (air, fire), whereas the Sharḥ and the Jām-i gītī-numā share a different order. That may in part be because the Hidāyat was written in Arabic and the Sharḥ and Jām-i gītī-numā are in Persian, making the Sharḥ a more convenient source. While certain passages are taken verbatim from the Sharḥ, examples being the section on the four elements and the length of days in different climes, the later work is not merely a culling of general statements from the earlier. Lengthy discussions of contrasting views or fine points are omitted in the Jām-i gītī-numā, subjects have been rearranged, and the language simplified. The most significant difference from the Sharḥ is the absence of any reference to the Sufis and their cosmological views. Likewise, much less emphasis is placed on attributing particular opinions to the Illuminationists. Plato, Aristotle, Ibn Sīnā, Ghazālī, and Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī are the only philosophers whose ideas are presented at all, and then only in passing. This offering to a patron was a text for teaching and discussion, whereas the Sharḥ was a more complex, personal, and potentially controversial enterprise. Comparisons may not be drawn to the thought of Sufis and Illuminationists, but Maybudī does return to his theme that Greek-inspired philosophy cannot be pursued without parameters, specifically those imposed by canonical religious texts. In his conclusion to the Jām-i gītī-numā, Maybudī states that although he has presented a number of ideas as expressed by philosophers, it must not be thought that whatever they say is necessarily true. Some of their

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ideas contradict the Sharīʿa, such as the anteriority (qidam) of the world, the impossibility of creation, and the harmony (iltiyām) of the spheres. On the other hand, their views are not necessarily wrong, for they have solved a number of problems in their books. Scholastic theologians tried to object to the proofs of the philosophers and provide their own demonstrations for the order of the universe, but their work was generally weak in comparison. The soundest policy is to follow the path of the Qurʾān and the hadith and to weigh one’s beliefs in their balance. Only after righting (istiḥkām) one’s religious beliefs should one examine the words of the scholastic theologians, philosophers, and mystics. Building a structure of faith in itself sharpens man’s critical facilities, so that when he approaches complex writings, he will have the tools to use them properly and they will strengthen his belief immeasurably rather than undermining its foundations.

Death

From the composition of the Jām-i gītī-numā to the final months of his life, nothing is known about Maybudī. By the time of his death, Maybudī knew that circumstances had changed significantly from those earlier times when he had been able to write to Qadi ʿĪsā Sāvajī that: “It is evident that the foundation of the state [the Ak Koyunlu] and its felicity are enduring and perpetual.”7 The Ak Koyunlu state had disintegrated and the Safavid star was in the ascendant. All that we have to anchor Maybudī in the new era is one letter to Shah Ismāʿīl and much later, perhaps fanciful accounts of the qadi’s death in 910/1504. The rise of that Safavid star was marked by intense violence and a self-consciously apocalyptic blood-thirstiness that was meant to intimidate opponents and validate its leader’s claims to messianic authority. Colin Mitchell cogently presents the story of Shah Ismāʿīl’s rise to power and much useful material about the adaptation of the administrative elite during that tumultuous period. He shows how chancellery practice reflected and shaped the new regime’s identity, its language encompassing an “impressively variegated range of legitimization, which included ʿAlid messianic rhetoric (to mobilize their zealot nomadic adherents); Turco-Mongol symbols and apocryphal legends (to accentuate martial traditions and a sense of loyalty to Steppe); legalistic and orthopraxic aspects of Twelver Shiʿite doctrine; ancient, pre-Islamic Iranian notions of divine kingship and statecraft; and, lastly, a vigorous commit7 MUN, 54. Woods, 151–61 details the confederate clan wars that destroyed Ak Koyunlu power.

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ment to citing Abrahamic Prophetic history.”8 Running a government requires men adept in the use of words, and the Safavids found themselves relying on professionals, as had their predecessors. So it comes as no surprise that epistolary traditions continued as well, with notables outside the center of government sending letters to those with power, assuring them of loyalty, submitting requests, keeping the machinery of state oiled with erudite, symbolically charged language. It is in that context that we should read the one letter in the Munsha⁠ʾāt addressed to Shah Ismāʿīl Ṣafavī. For its particular epithets and unusual contents, it merits inclusion in its entirety: The reason for writing these just (sharʿī) words is that His most exalted majesty, Shah of leadership (imāmat) and majesty, locus of dominion and justice, possessing the status of Solomon and bearing a resemblance to Alexander [the Great] …9 military, shadow of divine imperial grace, the padishah who commands obedience and whom it is obligatory to follow, dispenser of the royal mandates of justice in every quarter, eradicator of the traces of tyranny, oppression and deviance, favored with the guidance of God, the king of great riches, he who is aided by God the AllSufficient and Protecting Friend, Abū al-Muẓaffar Shāh Ismāʿīl al-Ḥusaynī freed from among his personal property a Circassian ghulām of open brow and dark eye, about sixteen years old, named ‘Lāchīn.’10 In drawing closer to God—may He be exalted—and seeking His pleasure, the emancipation [of slaves] is [especially] sound, valid, and lawful (mashrūʿ), although all the legal edicts (aqārīr-i sharʿīya) of His Majesty are heard. Now that created beings have been freed and liberated from the bonds of servitude and slavery and like …11 man who is free by nature has been freed and no creature can take issue with him by reason of being fettered and enslaved. And so was freed in the eighth … While undated, the letter indicates that Shah Ismāʿīl had already attained sufficient power for Maybudī to address him using the rhetoric of lawful, authoritative kingship. The qadi places Shah Ismāʿīl within the Islamic tradition of Solomon and Alexander and repeatedly uses forms of the root ‘sh-r-ʿ’ with its overtones of canonical law. Nonetheless, as an isolated expression of 8 9 10 11

Colin Mitchell, The Practice of Politics, 5. Furūhar explains the ellipsis as illegibile text. MUN, 204. Lachin is a Turkmen tribe. Furūhar: “illegible.”

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admiration, the letter leaves us wondering about the significance of this topic,12 of the precise connotation of a term such as imāmat, and of Maybudī’s decision to address to the young ruler directly.13 What information did Maybudī have about this zealous warrior whose heterodox beliefs make theological disputes about primary matter seem harmlessly mainstream? By positioning the Safavid conqueror within a traditional rhetorical framework, was Maybudī revealing ignorance about the nature of the new regime or engaging in the process of shaping it through conventional epistolary means, however insignificant and ephemeral—the wishful thinking of a solid citizen? That ambiguity calls for interpretive caution. Precisely because it is but one letter, it must remain on the table with the other puzzle pieces to await its proper placement in the larger picture. The account of Maybudī’s death is equally murky.14 Sources for the story pose the first problem because they come from separate historiographical tra12

13

14

Slavery under the Ak Koyunlu, Timurids, and Safavids is too vast a subject to address here and this one letter too fragmentary a source to tell us much about Maybudī’s experiences with it. The interested reader might start with Sussan Babaie et al., Slaves of the Shah: New Elites of Safavid Iran (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004), although its focus is on the Safavids in the seventeenth century; 3–4 for the development of Islamic practices of slavery, which were primarily domestic and military, and ideals of manumission; 29: “Early references in the chronicles to slaves belonging to the Safavid family (ghulaman-i khandan-i Safaviyya) point to the use of household slavery by Shahs Ismail and Tahmasb.” In the Sharḥ, he uses it to cover a range of meanings according to context. At the close of the Favātiḥ, he presents it in the context of Simnānī’s hierarchy of authority. Simnānī characterizes valāyat as esoteric knowledge (bāṭin), varāthat (legacy or inheritance) as exoteric knowledge (ẓāhir), imāmat as both esoteric and exoteric knowledge, vaṣāyat as the preservation of the esoteric chain, and khilāfat as the preservation of the exoteric chain: ʿAlī was valī, vārith, imām, and vaṣī after Muhammd, but not khalīfa until after ʿUthmān: SDA, 210. In a poem near the end of the book, he translates it as pīshvāʾī in the sense of leadership: SDA, 713. He usually uses it with political connotations, unless referring specifically to one of the Shiʿi Imams: SDA, 29, 31, 370. On 29 he also applies it to the founders of the four Sunni legal schools, as he does in MUN, 171. The sources give different dates for Maybudī’s death. One error is to place it in 904/1498– 99, but the person in question is probably Mīr Ḥusayn Muʿammāʾī, a skilled writer of poetic riddles in Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Bayqarā’s court who died of diarrhea (ishāl) in that year. Khvāndamīr, 4:343; Rūmlū, 69:11; 57:23–24. Maybudī also wrote an essay (risāla) on ­riddles, which could account for the confusion as does the similarity of their names. Khvānsārī, Rawḍāt al-jannāt, 3:241 indicates the distinction. Brockelmann II:210 gives 904/1498 as the death date, and is used by Rescher, Development, 239. Afshār gives 910 or 911/1505–06 as possible death dates in “Qāḍī Mīr Ḥusayn Maybudī,” 222. Aḥmad ʿAlī Khān Hāshimī Sandīlavī, Tadhkira-yi makhzan al-gharāʾib (Lahore: Instishārāt-i Dānishgāh-i Panjāb, 1968), 1:642–43, gives 904/1498–99, 911/1505–06, and 909/1503–04. Those dates are taken

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ditions. The standard histories which tell about Shah Ismāʿīl’s activities in the Yazd region are Ghiyāth al-Dīn Khvāndamīr’s (d. ca. 941/1535) Ḥabīb al-siyār, Ḥasan Beg Rūmlū’s (ca. 986/1578) Aḥsan al-tavārīkh, Qadi Mīr Aḥmad Qummī’s (ca. 1014/1605) Khulāṣat al-tavārīkh, and Iskandar Beg Munshī’s (d. 1043/1633) Tārīkh-i ʿālam-ārā-yi ʿAbbāsī, written during the reign of Shah ʿAbbās. They present similar chronological accounts of Shah Ismāʿīl’s attack on the city and focus on the rebellious Muḥammad Karra and his grisly end.15 Recent research has dated the sole source for Maybudī’s involvement in events, the “Ross Anonymous,” to the 1680s, whereas it was once considered a much earlier work. No longer anonymous, its author was Bījan, a reciter of Safavid history, and the book probably bore the title Jahān-gushāʾī-i Khāqān-i Ṣāḥibqirān.16 The other main popular source for Shah Ismāʿīl’s conquest of Yazd is the ʿĀlam-ārā-yi Shāh Ismāʿīl (wr. 1086/1675–6). Written in the popular historiographical tradition of the day, like other works in that tradition it shapes historical and folkloric material to promote a particular agenda—in Yazd’s case to highlight the importance of Shāh Niʿmat Allāh Yazdī and Shah Ismāʿīl’s preference for negotiation over brute military strength. Since Bījan’s history is the sole source for Maybudī’s involvement in the attack on Yazd, we must be sensitive to the fact that it reflected concerns of a much later period of time, not one of charismatic Safavid explosiveness but rather of administrative complexity and economic uncertainty. Bījan’s tale runs as follows. While Shah Ismāʿīl was in the region of Mount Alvand in 909/1503, news came of the activities in Fars of Sulṭān-Murād, the third son of Yaʿqūb (d. 920/1514), and his gathering of scattered Turkmen. Ismāʿīl decided to quash the opposition before Sulṭān-Murād’s forces grew any stronger. He marched from Hamadan to Isfahan and Shiraz and conquered

15 16

from Mudarris, Rayḥānat, 6:50. Rūmlū, 69:35, 57:82 also gives the 909/1503–04 date. ʿUmar Riḍā Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam al-muʾallifīn (Damascus: Maktabat al-ʿArabīya, 1377/1957), 4:63 mentions 870/1466. That is taken from ʿĀmilī, Ayan, 27: 282–83, and is impossible. With the abjad system of assigning numerical value to letters, the word ‘qāḍī’—so closely associated with Maybudī—adds up to 911/1505–06, which may explain the choice of that date. Tārīkh-i ʿĀlam-ārā-yi ʿAbbāsī, 1:30–31/Savory, 49; Qummī, KT, 1:84–85 (dates rebellion to 910/1505). Tārīkh-i Shāh Ismāʿīl-i Ṣafavī. MS. London, British Library, Or. 3248, fols. 107a-b. See Alexander Morton, “The Date and Attribution of the Ross Anonymous: Notes on a Persian History of Shah Ismāʿīl I,” in Pembroke Papers I. Persian and Islamic Studies in Honour of P.W. Avery, ed. Charles P. Melville (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Centre of Middle Eastern Studies, 1990), 179–212. Also Sholeh A. Quinn, “Rewriting Niʿmatu’llāhī History in Safavid Chronicles,” in The Heritage of Sufism, ed. Leonard Lewisohn and David Morgan (Oxford: Oneworld, 1999) 3:201–22.

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Persian Iraq, Fars, and Kirman, including the city of Yazd.17 He appointed Ḥusayn Beg Lālā [Sulṭān-Shāmlū] as dārūgha of Yazd, who in turn delegated authority to one Shuʿayb Aqā. Shah Ismāʿīl then went from Fars to Kashan, and on to Qum. Indicating the close tie between political and spiritual outlooks, at least in the mind of the author of the account, it is mentioned that two sorts of troublemakers needed to be suppressed in the Fars campaign. Some evildoers (badkārān) who fomented rebellion and corruption in Shiraz were executed by royal decree. Also judged subversive were several Sufi masters (mashāʾikh), fervent (mutaʿaṣṣib) Sunnis to whom people used to bring substantial amounts of money every year as votive offerings (nadhr and niyāz). Tombs of other Sufis had become popular places of pilgrimage. Those structures were razed on Ismāʿīl’s orders and it was further ordered that all prayers should be said for the shah rather than be misdirected to unholy purposes.18 While the Safavid troops were off on various campaigns, trouble brewed back in Yazd.19 The garrison commander (dārūgha) of Abarquh under the Ak Koyunlu, Ra⁠ʾīs Muḥammad Karra, attacked Yazd with 4,000 horse and killed Aḥmad Beg Sarūʾī, an appointee of Shah Ismāʿīl in the region.20 He seized Aḥmad Beg’s treasury and equipment (amvāl, asbāb, vujūhāt), and assumed control over the citadel. Bījan accuses him of harboring personal ambitions and satanic delusions (tasvīlāt-i shayṭānīya), such that he stepped outside the path of loyalty (ikhlāṣ). He disregarded the gratitude rightfully owed his sovereign and raised the banner of independence. Oppression of both rich and poor marked his ascent to power, for he tortured anyone who was suspected of possessing even a shred of wealth. Qadi Mīr Ḥusayn Maybudī, “a virtuous and scholarly man, firmly ensconced in the Sunni madhhab,” was courted by Muḥammad Karra, who involved him in his insurrection. Shah Ismāʿīl swooped down on Yazd to quell the revolt (910/1504). Following Maybudī’s advice, Muḥammad Karra fortified the gates of the city (durūb-i shahr) and the citadel (qalʿa) and deployed Lur troops. The siege lasted one month, the armies doing battle each day from dawn to dusk. The Safavid forces had the advantage of firearms and many of Muḥammad 17 18 19

20

Tārīkh-i Shāh Ismāʿīl-i Ṣafavī, fols. 94b-95a. Tārīkh-i Shāh Ismāʿīl-i Ṣafavī, fol. 94b. The revolt in Yazd as related in Tārīkh-i Shāh Ismāʿīl-i Ṣafavī, fols. 107b-110a; Ghulam Sarwar, History of Shāh Ismāʿīl Ṣafawī (Aligarh: Muslim University, 1939), 49. As Sarwar points out, Browne’s account of Maybudī’ death is incorrect in Literary History of Persia, 4:57. Muḥammad Mīrkhvānd, Tārīkh-i rawḍat al-ṣafā [Rawḍat al-Ṣafāʾ fī Sīrat al-Anbiyāʾ va-alMulūk va-al-Khulafāʾ] (Tehran: Markazī-yi Khayyām Pīrūz, 1338–39/[1959–60]), 8:17.

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Karra’s Lurs lost their lives. When the city fell, Muḥammad Karra, Maybudī, and a small group fled inside the citadel, while some Lurs and other rebels fortified themselves in the citadel of Abarquh. The latter group was soon suppressed by ʿAbdi Beg Tuvājī Shāmlū, but Muḥammad Karra and Maybudī held out for yet another month before the citadel of Yazd fell and they were taken prisoner.21 The instigator of all the trouble was shut in a cage and his body was smeared with honey in order to attract bees and increase his torment as a cautionary lesson to others. He was taken to Isfahan where his body was burned in the central square (maydān) in the presence of Ottoman envoys and his ashes scattered. All of his followers were put to the sword. As for Maybudī, Bījan says that because he was so ardently Sunni, he attracted the wrath of Ismāʿīl and was executed.22 Another ulama victim was Shāh Taqī al-Dīn Muḥammad Iṣfahānī who was accused of treason after being sent on a political mission to Muḥammad Karra in Yazd. Ismāʿīl claimed he made common cause with the rebel and consequently had him executed.23 To some extent, the story of Maybudī’s death does shed some light on his activities during the previous fifteen years. Had the qadi disappeared from public view or withdrawn completely from political life to devote himself to his studies and spiritual development, it is unlikely that Muḥammad Karra would have had much use for him or that Maybudī himself would have engaged in such a dangerous undertaking. The extent of his connections as revealed in the Munsha⁠ʾāt also renders any such withdrawal implausible. Simply because the letters that have so far come to light do not seem to date much after the time of Yaʿqūb’s death does not mean that Maybudī cut off his ties to the elite world in which he moved at that time. Since he showed himself interested in the political world around him in his correspondence and wrote to the young leader himself, it is highly unlikely that Maybudī underestimated Ismāʿīl’s military success. Knowing of the shah’s coronation in Tabriz in 907/1501 and of his territorial ambitions, Maybudī was one of the prominent ulama who decided to stay in his native region. Unlike others of Davānī’s students who were discussed in Chapter 2, Maybudī moved neither to Ottoman nor to Timurid places of refuge. In that he was no different

21 22

23

For tuvājī, see Doerfer, 1:260–64. The term refers to an inspector of troops. Sām Mīrzā, 76: his entry on Maybudī makes no reference to his death. ʿAbbās Futūḥī Yazdī, Tadhkira-yi shuʿarā-yi Yazd (Tehran: 1987), 33: his grave is in Yazd near the Ḥaram-i Imāmzāda Jaʿfar. Quiring-Zoche, Isfahan im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert, 212.

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than many other members of elite families, but it is important to note that he had options which he declined. Turning to larger issues implied in the story, they include the transformation of the Ak Koyunlu dispensation, the tension between centralization and decentralization in the nascent Safavid state, and the conflict between Sunnis and Shiʿis.24 Clearly the Ak Koyunlu and those associated with them were not about to disappear without a fight. The revolt in Yazd was a sign of their reluctance to abandon political ambitions in Iran. Muḥammad Karra was not a member of the Ak Koyunlu family, but one of its appointees. He did not join the Safavid enterprise and still held hopes of carving out some territory for himself. Yazd stood on the fringes of western Iran and with Kirman might have seemed a reasonable place to establish an independent regime. In the struggles between the Kara Koyunlu, Ak Koyunlu, and Timurids throughout the fifteenth century, those border regions had passed back and forth. When the Kara Koyunlu absorbed much of western Iran, the Timurids were still able to hold on to Kirman until 858/1454.25 In the early days of the Safavid state, it might have seemed that a similar situation could emerge, with the southwestern regions eluding Ismāʿīl’s grasp, at least for some time. Maybudī’s role in the turmoil of the southwestern provinces is open to several interpretations. On one hand, he could have voluntarily chosen to oppose the Safavid forces and to throw in his lot with a local leader. The puzzling question is why he chose to support an apparently minor warlord.26 On the other hand, he may have had little or no say about his participation in the rebellion. It was not unknown for military leaders to commandeer civilian and religious

24 25 26

Woods, 163–72; Aubin, “É tudes,” 59. Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 451. Parallels can be drawn with Shāhrukh’s execution of many urban notables of Fars, including sayyids, after his grandson Sulṭān-Muḥammad’s unsuccessful rebellion in 850/1446. Mancini-Lander, “Memory on the Boundaries of Empire,” 273: “… the fact that Shāhrukh would have these men of the pen killed, many of them not directly involved in the administration of Sulṭān-Muḥammad’s household, speaks to the power and value these notable men actually wielded in the imperial system. Certainly, this power was due in part to their elevated social standing—many of them were sayyids … It was also due to the close ties these notables fostered with the Timurid princes and administrators who had been installed in Fars … However [they] were important (and potentially dangerous) to the imperial center, not only because of their social standing and their political connections with potentially dangerous rivals of the Timurid house, but also because of the particular configurations of esoteric knowledge and literary skills they possessed.” See also Binbaş, “Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī,” 9, 53–70.

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figures in their campaigns.27 Finally, the thorny matter of sectarian divisions could have influenced Maybudī’s decision to resist Shah Ismāʿīl’s Shiʿi army. Religious issues are tricky and require great care as we try to assign meaning to political chronology, especially because sloppy distinctions between religion and politics create confusion rather than clarity. We run the risk of sim­ plifying the motives of the actors involved in complex events, when they themselves were conscious of the multitude of factors that influenced their decisions, of the “intimate interplay between the spiritual and the temporal.”28 As Colin Mitchell pointedly remarks, it is a mistake to rigidly rely on the ‘SunniShiʿite binary’ as the key to understanding everything in the Islamic world of the sixteenth century: “The medieval Irano-Islamic world was clearly hybridized by a complex array of cultural customs and political traditions. An unsurpassed religious heterogeneity and confessional ambiguity among Sufi, Shiʿite, and Sunni groups in fifteenth-century Iran allowed for the Safavids to emerge with an equally abstruse set of political and doctrinal imperatives.”29 That does not mean that the educated elite of Iran lacked a sense of identity. Maybudī was a Shafiʿi with Sufi loyalties and deep respect for the Ahl al-Bayt. Quantifying how much his actions resulted from ideology and how much from social or regional solidarity is an impossible task. The task of the modern scholar is not to paint the period with one monochromatic brush, but to identify the specific assumptions and intentions of individual authors in order to develop a greater understanding of the elements at play. The conflict between Sunni and Shiʿi probably had some connection to Maybudī’s death, but the evidence is too scarce to specify its precise role. One of the undeniably major changes that the Safavids introduced was the transformation of their territories, which corresponded roughly to modern-day Iran, into a Shiʿi state, and it is tempting to see every event through that filter. Various studies have been undertaken to show that the Safavid mystical order began without Shiʿi connections, that it became indisputably associated with such beliefs at least by the time of Shaykh Junayd (d. 864/1460), and that under Shah Ismāʿīl’s leadership, it might more accurately be described as a ghulāt, or extremist, entity than as strictly Twelver Shiʿi. Shah Ismāʿīl’s poetry reveals that on occasion he equated ʿAlī with God and that he identified himself with various prophetic figures of the past, going so far as to call himself an incarnation 27

28 29

Aubin, “Deux sayyids,” 443; Ibn Shihāb, 120: When Sayyid Shirvānī, governor of Kirman, went out from his city to fight a force besieging Bam in 857/1453, he took with him “all the sayyids, qadis, mawlas, and notables (ahl-i uṣūl).” Babayan, “The Safavid Synthesis,” 148. Mitchell, Colin, “Am I my brother’s keeper?,” 33, 51.

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or manifestation of Muḥammad, ʿAlī, and even God Himself, which enabled him to claim divine rights such as obeisance.30 Such extreme views would have caused Maybudī, Shafiʿi jurist that he was, to recoil in distaste, if not horror. A second characteristic of the early Safavid regime about which much has been made is the reported inability of the leaders of the movement to find anyone deeply versed in Twelver Shiʿi beliefs when the latter were declared official doctrine in Tabriz in 907/1501. In that year Shah Ismāʿīl appointed as highest religious functionary (ṣadr) the scholar with whom he had studied the Qurʾān, Qadi Shams al-Dīn Lāhījī, but apparently his former teacher lacked a thorough grounding in Twelver theology, having to dig up in some qadi’s library a volume of the Qawāʿid al-Islām of the ʿAllāma Ibn al-Muṭahhar al-Ḥillī to use as a reference tool.31 30

31

Vladimir Minorsky, “The Poetry of Shāh Ismāʿīl,” BSOAS 10 (1942): 1006–1053, especially 1025a-26a. Aubin, “La politique religieuse des Safavides”; Arjomand, Shadow of God, 77–82. In “The Safavid Synthesis,” 137, Babayan negotiates the fluctuations in Safavid beliefs: “Ismāʿīl’s public allegiance to the Imamite faith points to an awareness that to unify and centralize his domains it would be imperative to alter the nature of Safavid legitimacy and to forge a uniform religion: heterodoxies like his own had to be contained … After all, as shah of Iran, Ismāʿīl would have an Iranian elite to contend with if he desired to make use of their administrative expertise and consolidate power locally.” Aubin, “É tudes,” 53. Said Amir Arjomand, “Religion, Political Action and Legitimate Domination in Shiʿite Iran: fourteenth to eighteenth centuries ad,” European Journal of Sociology, 20 (1979): 89–90. Arjomand’s source is the Ross Anonymous (fn. 119). Another Twelver Shiʿite scholar who greatly influenced the development of Shiʿism in Safavid lands was Shaykh ʿAlī al-Karakī al-ʿĀmilī (d. 940/1533–34). He accepted Shah Ismāʿīl’s invitation to come to Iran from Jabal ʿĀmil in what is present-day Lebanon, meeting with the ruler in Isfahan in 910/1504–05. Colin Turner, Islam Without Allah? The Rise of Religious Externalism in Safavid Iran (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2000), 82. Several articles in the 1990s about the influence of Twelver Shiʿi scholars from outside Iranian lands on Safavid religious developments demonstrate the usefulness, limitations, and frustrations of proso· po­graphy. Contrary to previous assumptions as evidenced in the work of Jaʿfar al-Muhajir, Andrew Newman claimed that Arabic Twelver clerics did not flock to the Safavid enterprise and certainly did not view it as the advent of a Twelver utopia. In his view, they expressed deep reservations about the speed with which Ismāʿīl adopted Shiʿism, the extremist religio-political discourse of the regime, its lack of understanding of and interest in Twelver Shiʿism, and its chances for achieving political stability. Andrew Newman, “The Myth of the Clerical Migration to Safavid Iran: Arab Shiite Opposition to ʿAlī al-Karakī and Safawid Shiism,” Die Welt des Islams 33 (1993): 66–112. Devin Stewart modifies some of Newman’s statements to add nuance to the interpretation. Devin Stewart, “Notes on the Migration of ʿĀmilī Scholars to Safavid Iran,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 55 (1996): 81–103.

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The identification of the ultimately successful regime with Twelver Shiʿism changed in the course of time. With relation to Maybudī’s death its ambiguous application to the Safavids indicates the need for care in the use of the term ‘Shiʿi’ as diametrically opposed to ‘Sunni’ or as a clear-cut, well-defined description of Ismāʿīl’s beliefs or of that of his followers. We cannot on one hand write studies about the breathtaking heterogeneity of religious beliefs and their expression, encompassing minority religions, mystical brotherhoods, Shiʿi offshoots, and Sunnis, and on the other hand reduce the conflicts that erupted during Shah Ismāʿīl’s rise to power as a simple Sunni-Shiʿi struggle. Maybudī was one of many who were firmly grounded in a Sunni madhhab, with all the learning and adherence to legally permissible and desirable acts that implied, as well as being active in Sufi circles, with their emphasis on a spiritual connection to the divine. On one hand, Sufi self-definition as a product of ʿAlid tradition might make a switch to Twelver Shiʿism seem easy. On the other, a different intellectual and legal tradition of legitimacy made submission to Imami authority a religious stumbling-block. Because of the uncertainty involved in the use of religious terminology, it is tempting to dismiss the religious aspects of Maybudī’s death and to concentrate on more tangible factors such as political ambitions and loyalties. Aubin claims that Maybudī was put to death not as a Sunni, but as a rebel in the revolt of Yazd against Kizilbash authority.32 Undeniably, Maybudī was a rebel affiliated with a military commander’s insurrection. Perhaps Maybudī’s prestige obliged the author of the Jahān-gushāʾī-yi Khāqān-i Ṣāḥibqirān to justify his execution on deep-seated sectarian grounds as a way of driving an extra nail into the argument against clemency. Maybudī’s ignominious end apparently did not adversely affect at least one member of his family, the only descendant mentioned in the sources. That was Mīrzā ʿAbd al-Rashīd, identified by Mustawfī Bāfqī as one of several sons of the qadi, the rest remaining anonymous.33 ʿAbd al-Rashīd is not described as having acquired great fame or fortune, nor does he seem to have met an unpleas32

33

Aubin, “É tudes,” 59. One of Aubin’s main points in the article is that the rise of the Safavids gave many the opportunity to pay off old scores, regardless of religious affiliation. The confusion of explanations for the execution of Shāh Qavām al-Dīn Ḥusayn Nūrbakhshī by Shah Ṭahmāsp in 944/1537–38 parallels those for Maybudī’s. Ties to Timurid and Ak Koyunlu rulers, poor political judgment concerning rebels, and concerns about religious elements asserting independence from the Safavid dynasty were all in play. Aside from the similarities, what is interesting is that Shāh Qavām al-Dīn fared relatively well several decades into the Safavid regime, despite ties to other centers of power. Bashir, Messianic Hopes, 186–92. Mustawfī Bāfqī, 3:355, 166 and 641 respectively.

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ant end or suffered any other difficulties. The references to him in Mustawfī Bāfqī include Munajjim as part of his name, although nothing is said about anything he did or wrote concerning astrology. One reference concerns his poetry and the other two are incidental to Maybudī’s waqfs. It is quite possible that the manuscript is deficient or that a completely different ʿAbd al-Rashīd merited that epithet. If Maybudī’s son was indeed an astrologer, one can only speculate on how seriously he took his father’s reservations about the profession. Was he a mathematical astronomer or a poetic prognosticator? The two events known about Maybudī’s last years—the composition of another work on philosophy and his death—are symbolic of his public life, which is all that is really known to us. Scholarship and political activity were seldom separate during his career, from his politically active teachers to the role of his knowledge in gaining him an appointment as qadi. Whether the views presented in his works had any effect on his execution cannot be determined and is, in fact, too neat an explanation. That contemporary historians drew such a connection demonstrates their awareness of the multi-layered lives of civilian notables, but does not necessarily tell the whole story.

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Chapter 6

Conclusion The treasure troves of manuscripts which remain unstudied and unpublished entice us with the riches of the unknown. It is quite possible, even probable, that in a marginal note or textual variant patiently waits some piece of information that will modify or even dramatically change the picture I have painted of the life and works of Qadi Ḥusayn Maybudī. On the most basic level, we know something about his education, professional life, and network of friends and mentors, and we can draw satisfactory conclusions about his thoughts on a variety of subjects. His education was seen to have been reasonably typical for the time, his written works broad in scope. The book most closely analyzed was the Sharḥ-i Dīvān-i ʿAlī, significant for its social and intellectual implications in the late Ak Koyunlu and early Safavid periods. Maybudī’s career as scholar was pursued simultaneously with that as qadi in the provincial city of Yazd. Maybudī profited from contacts made while a student and protege of Davānī, although the particular network of civilian notables in which he operated appears to have frayed beginning with Sultan Yaʿqūb’s death in 896/1490. Perhaps that was one reason why no one prevented Maybudī’s execution after an unsuccessful revolt against Shah Ismāʿīl. While Maybudī will in many respects remain a mystery, in others his life sheds light on late fifteenth-century Iran, especially on the lives of the provincial elites in that time and place. Glimmerings of the rich lives of the civilian elites shine through even so rudimentary a study as this. The first two chapters indicated the scope of medieval Iranian education. Not only did it engross the minds of its participants, but it also had political and social ramifications that continued to affect the mundane aspects of their lives until their deaths. Students learned about everything from Scripture to law to cosmology, history, and poetry. Maybudī’s confidence in his ability to encompass universal knowledge is evident: “There is no discipline among the speculative and transmitted sciences (ʿaqlī and naqli), the difficult books of which I could not teach without intensive study, and no substantial element of knowledge the essence of which I could not penetrate with some reflection.”1 Furthermore, his education provided him with a moral framework, largely influenced by mystical training, that shaped his relations to his peers and inferiors. After admitting his 1 Letter to Imām al-Dīn Shaykh ʿAlī Sāvajī. MUN, 131. Maybudī was defending himself from accusations of false belief, which apparently were extended to one of his students.

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intellectual prowess, Maybudī goes on to say that his heart is set on a higher goal and his mind is devoid of desire for anything but that goal, such that he does not boast of his knowledge. Exegesis being his primary mode of inquiry and literary creation meant that he spent his life confronting his vast heritage, seeing what he shared with his predecessors in a range of disciplines and making that material intelligible to his contemporaries and future generations. His crowning work, the Sharḥ-i Dīvān-i ʿAlī, offers sufficient testimony to the extent of his intellectual ambitions and achievements. It reflects a particular moment in textual interpretation that perhaps can be generalized into some larger historical and literary understanding once more texts have been studied in depth. Maybudī’s type of education encouraged the creation of multi-faceted religious men who took as a matter of course their involvement in the production of food for the body as well as for the mind, their potential to affect the functioning of the state directly, while they themselves were affected by the progress of the heavens. The main result of this study has been less to analyze provincial notables as a distinct group or class than to illustrate the complexity of a particular representative of that class. The institution of qadis may be studied separately from Sufi orders or poetic developments, but all those elements were frequently combined in a single individual. In conjunction with other monographs on Davānī, the Sāvajīs, and Lāhījī, at the very least, Maybudī’s biography will eventually allow us to determine how an individual was typical of his age and how he stood apart. At present, reaching into the grab bag of chronicles and hagiographies provides interesting parallels here and there, but any conclusions from them rest on shaky, anecdotal foundations. Themes such as lines of patronage and family ties are interesting avenues to pursue in pre-modern Islamic history, but the life of one man does not provide enough information to permit much elaboration on accepted doctrine about the sources of material wealth for the ulama, the self-perpetuation of the civilian elite, and the importance of knowing the right people. It comes as no surprise that land ownership was of interest to Maybudī, that his father was a bureaucrat and his son a scholar, and that he benefited from his ties to such influential people as Davānī. In order to go beyond those generalizations, much additional research will have to be done. Studies of eminent intellectuals of the Ak Koyunlu—or Kara Koyunlu, or Timurid—periods need to be undertaken because, without basing generalizations in fact, the hope of crafting more subtle analyses of the social and intellectual history of the period will remain fruitless. The value of studying Maybudī is that, having identified the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as a period of political, social, and religious ferment that

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was later transformed yet again under the Ottoman and Safavid empires, we gain insight into the accommodating stance of one group among the ulama. Active administrators and politicans, highly educated in a society that demanded intellectual excellence, firmly ensconced in local politics and economies, deeply religious, these are remarkable men who coexisted with other, quite different, men who took messianic, esoteric knowledge as a call to violent action.

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Index Index

191

Index Aaron 71, 87, 88, 102n181 Abā Bakr b. Mīrānshāh b. Tīmūr (Timurid) 18 ʿAbbasids 91 ʿAbbās (Safavid) 161 ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbbās 98 ʿAbd al-Muʿṭī (Shaykh) 127 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf 83 ʿAbdi Beg Tuvājī (Shāmlū) 163 Abharī, Athīr al-Dīn Mufaḍḍal b. ʿAmr 7, 29n83, 36n117, 43, 44, 157 Abraham 89, 159 Abū al-Fidāʾ 15 Abū al-Jārūd 56 Abū al-Qāsim Bābur b. Bāysunghur b. Shāhrukh (Timurid) 20 Abū al-Qāsim b. Jahānshāh (Kara Koyunlu) 23 Abū Bakr, ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Quḥāfa (Caliph) 64, 65, 84, 86, 87, 89, 92, 98 Abū Dāwud 39 Abū Ḥafṣ Haddād 130 Abū Ḥanīfa, Nuʿmān b. Thābit 64, 75, 108 Abū Hāshim b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafīya 73 Abū Hurayra, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān 61 Abū Mūsā Ashʿarī 100n175 Abū Saʿīd (Il-Khan) 16 Abū Ṭālib b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib 32n92, 87, 100n175, 105, 106 Abū Yūsuf b. Jahānshāh (Kara Koyunlu) 23, 24 Adam 89 Agathodaimon 61, 129 Ahl al-Bayt 84, 85, 86, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 132, 165 Aḥmad Beg b. Ughurlū Muḥammad (Ak Koyunlu) 36, 155 Aḥmad b. Mūsā al-Kāẓim 83n114 Aḥmad Ibn Diḥya (Qadi) 127n65 Ahmadīya 83n114 Aḥmad Khurdak 83 Aḥrār, Khwāja ʿUbayd Allāh b. Maḥmūd 9n15, 10, 12, 48n152, 80n107, 114, 126, 127, 132n88, 133, 134, 135 Aḥsan al-tavārikh 161 ʿĀʾisha b. Abū Bakr 65, 85, 88, 93 Akhfash, Abū al-Khaṭṭāb ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd 101n178

Akhlāq-i Jalālī 34 Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī 72 Ak Koyunlu 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 19, 23, 24, 26, 31, 35, 36, 42, 51, 52, 53, 92, 111, 112, 113, 116, 119, 120, 121, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 131, 134, 138, 149n152, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 158, 160n12, 162, 164, 167n32, 169, 170 ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla b. Bāysunghur (Timurid) 20 Al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib 105 Aʿlām al-hudā 91 ʿĀlam-ārā-yi Shāh Ismāʿīl 161 Alexander the Great 14, 159 ʿAlī al-Riḍā (Imam) 64, 74, 83n114, 91, 92, 93, 126n63 ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 32n92, 39, ch.3 passim, 131, 150, 151, 160n13, 165, 166 ʿAlī b. Ḥusayn Zayn al-ʿAbidīn (Imam) 92 ʿAlidism 3, 4, 5, 32, 51, 53, 85, 93, 94, 150, 158, 167 Almagest 115 Alvand b. Sulṭān-Khalīl b. Uzūn Ḥasan (Ak Koyunlu) 24, 113, 116, 117n21 Alvand b. Yūsuf b. Uzūn Ḥasan (Ak Koyunlu) 117, 126, 155 Amahraspands 70 Amāsī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAlī b. Muʾayyad 47, 48 ʿĀmilī, ʿAlī al-Karakī 166n31 Amīrak Aḥmad 21n40 ʿĀmir Jumaḥī 106 Amīr Khusraw Dihlavī, Naṣīr al-Dīn 40 ʿAmr b. ʿĀṣ 99, 100n175 ʿAmr b. Maʿdīkarib 97, 100 Anahita 92 Anas b. Mālik 56, 86 Anṣārī, Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh 56 Anvār-i Shāfīʿīya 40n126 Anvarī, Awḥad al-Dīn ʿAlī 76 Arbaʿīn-i Jāmī 109 Ardabīlī, Kamāl al-Dīn al-Ilāhī 7n10 Aristotle 34, 41, 62, 157 Armenians 144n130, 146 Asās [al-balāgha] 97 Ashʿarites 65 ʿĀṣim 93 Astarābādī, Raḍī al-Dīn Muḥammad 101n178

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004302327_009

192 astral conjunction: see qirān astrology 75, 76, 77, 97, 103, 104, 168 Averroes 62n36, 94 awtād (Poles). See also quṭb 40n126 Ayba Sulṭān Bāyandur Ibrāhīm b. Dānā Khalīl 26n67, 126, 155 Bāfqī, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Vāʿiẓ 32 Baghdādī, Abū al-Qāsim Junayd 68, 82, 91 Baghdādī, ʿAlī b. Ḥusayn 83 Baghdādī, Amir Zakariyā 126, 127 Bahman 70 Bannāʾī, Kamāl al-Dīn Shīr ʿAlī 119 Bāqillānī, Abū Bakr 64, 65 Barbaro, Joseph 13, 24, 25 Bardaʿī Ḥamdī, Shams al-Dīn 45 Barsbay, al-Ashraf Sayf al-Dīn (Mamluk) 18 Battle of the Camel 88 Bāyazīd II (Ottoman) 24n58, 35, 46, 47, 48, 128, 135n99 Bayḍāwī, Naṣīr al-Dīn 7, 39, 85 Bayhaqī, Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad (see Kaydarī) 54 Bayhaqī, Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn 89 Bāysunghur b. Yaʿqūb (Ak Koyunlu) 24, 116, 125, 155 Bībī Fāṭima 17, 32 Bidlīsī, Abū Faḍl b. Idrīs 128 Bidlīsī, Ḥakīm al-Dīn Idrīs (Munshī) 114, 128, 134, 136 Bījan 161, 162, 163 Bīkīsī Sulṭān 18n21 Bisṭāmī, Bāyazīd 5, 68 Bukhārī, Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl 39, 82n113, 84, 89, 94 Buthayna 106 Chaldiran 31, 47 Chaqmāq, Jalāl al-Dīn 17, 19, 21n40, 32, 34, 137 Chaqmāq (Mamluk) 49 Chaqmāq, Shams al-Dīn b. Jalāl al-Dīn 19 Companions of the Prophet: see Ṣaḥāba Contarini, Ambrogio 13, 24, 25 Dāmghānī, Pīr Ḥusayn 32 dār al-siyāda (sayyid hospice) 29n82 dārūgha (military commander) 18, 115, 116, 162 Darvīsh Ḥusayn Manṣūrī 114 Darvīsh Maḥmūd 114, 131n83

Index Davānī, Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Asʿad 1, 6, 7n8, and n9, 10, 12, 31n90, 33, 34, 36, 39, 40n126, 41n128, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 57, 70n69, 71n75, 72n78, 74, 80, 88n136, 114, 124, 128, 131n83, 132, 135, 136, 137, 139, 149n152, 163, 169, 170 Davānī, Saʿd al-Dīn Asʿad 34 Daylamī, Shāh ʿImād al-Dīn Salmān Qazvīnī 125 Daylamī, Sharaf al-Dīn Shāh-Maḥmūd Jān Qazvīnī 114, 118, 123, 124, 125, 126, 138, 147 Elias 84 Euclid 41, 45, 48n150, 115 Fāḍil (Mawlana) 45 Fakhr al-Dīn Ḥaydar 35 Fakhr al-Dīn (Mawlana) 147, 148 Falāḥ [li-Ahl al-Ṣalāḥ] 82n111 Fārābī, Abū Naṣr Muḥammad 41, 60, 62, 94, 150n155 Farāhīdī, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Khalīl b. Aḥmad 74, 75n88, 101 Farāʾid al-Ghiyāthī 10 Farrāʾ, Abū Zakariyā Yaḥyā 101n178 Fāṭima b. Asad b. Hāshim 87 Fāṭima b. Muḥammad 29, 32n92, 52n5, 63, 85, 86, 87, 107 Fāṭima Sar-i Buzurg 141 Favātiḥ 8, 55, 58, 60, 75, 77, 94, 96, 100, 102, 103, 106, 110, 160n13 Fighānī 52 fitna (civil strife) 64 Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam 41, 42, 79, 81, 120, 128 Futūḥāt al-Makkīya 40n126, 79, 80, 82n113, 84, 100 futuwwa 78 Galen 41, 73 Genghis Khan 76 Georgia 116, 128, 152 Gerekyarak, Amir Maḥmūd 21 Ghadir Khumm 90 Ghaffārī, Qadi Aḥmad 40n127 Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad 5, 41, 44n137, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 65, 66, 67, 72, 76, 79, 82n110, 83, 100, 121n35, 140, 143, 151, 157 ghulāt (extremists) 52, 64, 165 Ghunāshirīn, Ghiyāth al-Dīn 17n18 Ghurār 41, 75

Index Gīlānī, Muḥammad b. ʿAlī 132n87 Gospels 55 Greek philosophy 41, 60, 62, 66, 73, 77, 157 Gulistān 109, 146n138 Gülşeni, Shaykh Ibrāhīm 12, 35, 41, 42, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128n72, 139, 148 Gülşenī, Muḥyī-i 12, 119, 123, 124, 125, 126, 139 Gulshan-i rāz 7, 43n136, 132 Ḥabīb al-siyār 44, 45, 116, 117, 161 Ḥaddād, Abū Ḥafṣ 130 Ḥadīth al-ʿAskarī 45 Ḥāfiẓ, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad 40, 55, 63, 68, 130 Ḥall-i [nuṣūṣ ʿalā al-] Fuṣūṣ 79 Hamadānī, Sayyid ʿAlī 57, 79, 83 Ḥamuvayī, Saʿd al-Dīn 57, 107 Ḥamza b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib 105 Hanafi madhhab 40n126, 93 Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr 85n122 Ḥaqāʾiq, Ṣaʿd Nādhirī 45 Ḥaqilānī, Ibrāhīm (Abraham Ecchellensis) 8n12, 156n6 Ḥaram-i Imāmzāda Jaʿfar 163n23 Harawī, ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī 79n100 Hārūn al-Rashīd (ʿAbbasid) 57, 92 Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Jahānshāh (Kara Koyunlu) 23 Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (Imam) 56, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89, 108 Ḥasan (Qadi) 122 Ḥāwī al-ṣaghīr 85 Hayākil al-nūr 39 Ḥaydar (Shaykh; Ṣafavī) 7n10, 115, 122 hayūlā (primary matter) 69, 115, 136n104, 150, 157, 160 Hermes Trismegistus 61, 70, 129 Hidāyat al-ḥikma 7, 36n117, 29n83, 38, 39, 43, 44, 45, 46, 49, 70, 157 Ḥillī, Jamāl al-Dīn Ḥasan b. Yūsuf b. ʿAlī b. Muṭahhar al-ʿAllāma 64, 132n87, 166 Ḥīrī, Shaykh Abū ʿUthmān 130 ḥulūl (incarnation) 66, 67, 79, 151 Humāyūn Shāh, Jalāl al-Dīn Murshid b. Iftikhār 32 Ḥusām al-Dīn Ibrāhīm Shāh 114 Ḥusayn b. ʿAli b. Abī Ṭālib (Imam) 84, 85, 86, 89, 92, 96, 106 Ḥusayn Beg Lālā (Sulṭān Shāmlū) 162

193 Ibn ʿAbbās, ʿAbd Allāh 56, 86, 98 Ibn ʿAbd al-Salām 82n110 Ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd 54 Ibn Aʿlam, ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn Abū al-Qāsim 71 Ibn al-Athīr, ʿIzz al-Dīn ʿAlī 39, 56, 64, 84, 93 Ibn Diḥya, Aḥmad (Qadi) 127n65 Ibn al-Fāriḍ, ʿUmar b. ʿAlī Sharaf al-Dīn 40, 128 Ibn al-Ḥājib 7 Ibn ʿArabī, Muḥyī al-Dīn Muḥammad 5, 39, 40n126, 41, 42, 43, 57, 67, 68, 71, 72, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82n113, 83, 84, 100, 102, 108, 120, 121n35, 128, 132n88, 140, 150n154 Ibn Aʿtham, Abū Muḥammad Aḥmad 57, 97, 99, 102 Ibn Ḥanbal, Aḥmad 56, 89, 90 Ibn Ḥawqal 12 Ibn Ilyās, Muḥammad 41n131 Ibn Khallikān 39 Ibn Māja 83n114, 84 Ibn Muljam, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān 88, 97, 108, 135 Ibn Sīnā, Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn 37n118, 41, 44, 57, 60, 62, 63, 75, 76, 136, 150, 157 Ibn Taymīya, Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad 85 Ibn Ṭufayl, Abū Bakr Muḥammad 8, 94, 156n6 Ibn Turka Iṣfahānī, Ṣāʾin al-Dīn 33n102, 57, 63n39, 74, 78, 149n152 Ibrāhīm b. Jahāngīr (Ak Koyunlu) 113, 114, 115 Ibrāhīm Paşa (vizier) 35 Idrīs 61 Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn 41, 61, 62, 67, 72n78, 100 Ījī, ʿAḍud al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān 27n68, 57, 79 Ījī, Ṣafī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān 88 ijtihād 65 Ikhtiyār al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Qādir 114 Ikhtiyār al-Dīn Farīdūn 117n23 ikhvānīyāt (friendship notes) 9 Ikhwān al-Ṣafā 77 Ilāhī Beg 114, 115n12, 117, 141n118, 145 Il-Khanids 16 Illuminationists: see Ishrāqiyūn ʿImād al-Dīn Maḥmūd 114 imām/imāmat 52, 53, 64, 65, 84, 90, 91, 92, 93, 99, 107, 108, 126n63, 135, 159, 160, 167 imāmzāda 30 Imāmzāda Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad 28, 30 Imāmzāda Maʿṣūm 27

194 Imāmzāda Muḥammad b. ʿAlī 32 incarnation: see ḥulūl insān-i kabīr (macrocosm) 8, 58, 69 insān-i kāmil (Perfect Man) 95, 104, 117 insān-i ṣaghīr (microcosm) 8, 58, 72, 74, 75 iqtibās (rhetorical use of scriptural excerpts) 11n23 ʿIrāqī, Fakhr al-Dīn Ibrāhīm 40, 57, 79n101 Irbīlī, ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā 91n153 Iṣfahānī, Abū al-Qāsim al-Ḥusayn b. Mufaḍḍal al-Rāghib 67 Iṣfahānī, Shāh Taqī al-Dīn Muḥammad 163 Isfandarmudh 70 Isfarāʾīnī, Shāhfūr 56n17 Ishrāqiyūn (Illuminationists) 6, 46, 59, 60, 61, 62, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 130, 136n104, 150n154, 157 Iskandar Beg Munshī 161 Iskandar b. Kara Yūsuf (Kara Koyunlu) 17n18 Iskandar b. ʿUmar Shaykh (Timurid) 18, 19, 26n64, 31 Ismāʿīl (Safavid) 1, 4, 9n16, 51, 65, 113, 115, 126, 128, 131, 132, 153, 158, 159, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169 Isnawī, Jamāl al-Dīn 41 Iṣṭakhrī, Abū Isḥāq al-Fārisī 12 Iṣṭilāḥāt-i Ṣūfīya 79 ittiḥād (mystical union) 67, 73n83, 79 Jābir b. Samura 82n113 Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (Imam) 30, 92, 93, 106 Jaʿfarī, Sayyid Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad b. Ḥasan 11 jafr (numerology) 74, 77 Jahān-gushāʾi-yi Khāqān-i Ṣāḥibqirān (Ross Anonymous) 12, 161, 167 Jahānshāh (Kara Koyunlu) 11, 17n18, 20, 21, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 113, 122, 134 Jalāl al-Dīn Maqṣūd 22 Jamāl al-Dīn Abū Isḥāq 28 Jām-i gītī-numā 8, 60, 155, 156, 157, 158 Jāmiʿ-i Mufīdī 11 Jāmī, Nūr al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān 5, 9n15, 10, 35n112, 40, 45, 46, 49n154, 80, 109, 114, 115, 116, 119n29, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 145 Jāndarvīsh b. Quldarvīsh 21 Jandī, Muʾayyad al-Dīn 57, 79 Jawharī, Abū Naṣr Ismāʿīl b. Ḥammād 57n20, 103n184

Index Jesus (ʿĪsā b. Maryam) 65, 66, 82, 83, 88, 89, 90, 146n136 Jews 55n15, 90, 144, 146 Junayd (Shaykh; Ṣafavī) 165 Jurjānī, ʿAlī b. Muḥammad Sayyid al-Sharīf 35, 44. 68, 101n178, 137n107 Juvaynī, ʿUthmān b. Yaʿqūb 83 Juwaynī, Imam al-Ḥaramayn 65, 66, 67 Kāfiya 7, 40, 44, 45, 46, 48, 101 Kāmil al-ṣināʿa al-ṭibbīya 63 Kara Koyunlu 11, 17n18, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24n55, 25n62, 27, 31, 35, 113, 122, 134, 164, 170 Kara Yūsuf (Kara Koyunlu) 18 Karbala 32, 96 Karkhī, Maʿrūf 93 Karra, Muḥammad 161, 162, 163, 164 Kasāʾī 101n178 Kashf al-ghumma fī maʿrifat al-aʾimma 91n153 Kashf wa-al-bayān ʿan tafsīr al-Qurʾān 43n136, 85 Kāshifī, Ḥusayn Vāʿiẓ 10, 136 Kāshifī Ṣafī, Fakhr al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Ḥusayn 12, 133 Kāshī/Kāshānī, Kamāl al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Razzāq 57, 79, 84 Kāshī, Pahlavān Jalāl al-Dīn 114 Katha 14 Kātib, Aḥmad b. Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī 11, 15, 22, 27, 28, 29, 32 Kātibī, Najm al-Dīn ʿAlī b. ʿUmar 7, 38, 44 Kaydarī, Quṭb al-Dīn (see Bayhaqī) 54 Khadīja 56 khalīfa (deputy) 81, 82n113, 90, 122, 160n13 Khalīl Allāh (Niʿmatallahi) 31 Khalīl Sulṭān b. Muḥammad Jahāngīr (Timurid) 20, 21 Khamrīya 128 khānqāh (Sufi hostel) 28, 29, 31, 134n96, 143, 145 Khaṭībzāda (Mawlana) 35 khātim (seal) 78, 80, 83 Khātūn Jān 22 Khiḍr 84, 107 Khulāṣat al-tavārīkh 161 Khunjī, Faḍl Allāh b. Rūzbihān 11, 115, 119, 123, 131n83, 133 Khurdad 70 Khvāfī, Zayn al-Dīn Abū Bakr (Qadi) 132n88

Index Khvāfī, Zayn al-Dīn ʿAlī (Qadi) 114, 132n88 Khvāndamīr, Ghiyāth al-Dīn 10, 11, 45, 117, 125, 161 Khvānsārī, M. Bāqir b. Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn 54 Khvānzāda 19 Khwājaka Mirāk b. Quldarvīsh 21, 22 Khwājazāda (Mawlana) 35 Khwārizmī, Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad Chaghmīnī 45 Kīmiyā-yi saʿādat 61 Kindī, Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb 62n36, 150n155 Kindī, ʿAfīf 56 Kitāb al-Futūḥ 57 Kitāb-i Diyārbakrīya 23 Kubrā, Najm al-Dīn 68, 79n101, 130 kufr (unbelief) 68, 121n35, 150n155 Kūynāfī, Sharaf al-Dīn Abū Isḥāq 45n142, 114 Lāchīn 159 Lāhījī, Shams al-Dīn (Qadi; ṣadr) 132n87, 166 Lāhījī, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Yahyā 6, 7n10, 43n136, 114, 130, 131n83, 132, 147n140, 170 land reforms (Ak Koyunlu) 123, 124, 147n140 Luqmān 61, 107 Lurs 162, 163 Maʿarrī, Abū al-ʿAlāʾ 100 Maʿāsh al-sālikīn 130 macrocosm: see insān-i kabīr Mafāḥiṣ 74 Mafātīḥ al-iʿjāz fī sharḥ-i Gulshan-i rāz 132 Maghribī, Muḥyī al-Dīn 71 Magians: see Zoroastrians Mahdi 3, 77, 82, 83, 84, 100n175, 101, 106, 107, 108, 129, 130, 131, 146 Maḥmūd b. Ughurlū Muḥammad (Ak Koyunlu) 155 Majālis al-muʾminīn 12, 135, 136 Majālis al-nafāʾis 45, 112, 119 Majd al-Dīn Faḍl Allāh 32 Majūsī, ʿAlī b. ʿAbbās 63 Makhzan al-inshāʾ 10 Makkī, Muḥammad b. ʿAlī Abū Tālib 57 Malāmīya/Malāmatīya 130, 135n103 Mālik b. Anas 59, 75, 108 Maliki madhhab 93 Mamluks 18, 42, 52n5, 151n158

195 Maʾmūn (ʿAbbasid) 74, 91, 92 Manāqib-i Ibrāhīm-i Gülşeni 12, 121 Manṣūrī, Darvīsh Ḥusayn 114 Manṭiqī 12, 109n201 Maʿqil b. Qays Riyāḥī 97 Maqṣūd b. Uzūn Ḥasan (Ak Koyunlu) 26 Maʿrūf al-Karkhī 93 Marvārīd, ʿAbd Allāh 10 Marwān b. al-Ḥakam (Umayyad) 93 Masʿūd (Mawlana) 45 Maṭāliʿ al-anwār fī al-manṭiq 33, 36, 38 Mawlana al-Munshī 35 Mawṣillū (clan) 154, 155 Mawṣillū, Ṣūfī Khalīl Beg 114, 116, 117, 121n36, 123, 124, 125, 151, 154, 155 Maybudhī, ʿAbd al-Rashīd b. ʿAlī 15 Maybudī, Muʿīn al-Dīn 11, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32 Maybudī, Quṭb al-Dīn 22, 29 Maybudī, Mīrzā ʿAbd al-Rashīd Munajjim 167, 168 Maybudī, Muʿīn al-Dīn Jamāl b. Jalāl al-Dīn 27n68 Mehmet II (Ottoman) 46, 47 microcosm; see insān-i ṣaghīr Milal wa-al-naḥal 65n45 Mīr Dāmad 67 Mīr Ghiyāth al-Dīn Manṣūr 8n11 Mīr Mīrzā 117 Mīr Muḥibb Allāh (Niʿmatallahi) 31n90 Moses 84, 87, 89, 102n181 Muʿammāʾī, Mīr Ḥusayn 160n14 Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān (Umayyad) 61, 84, 88, 90, 94, 98, 100n175 Mubarrad 101 Mufradāt fī gharīb al-Qurʾān 103n184 Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh (Prophet) 56, 63, 65, 66, 67, 78, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 95, 100n175, 102n181, 104, 105, 107, 111, 117, 132, 148n144, 150, 151, 166 Muḥammad b. al-Munkadir 56 Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafīya 73, 89, 106 Muḥammad b. Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī (Imam) 83, 84, 106n193, 107 Muḥammad Darvīsh 17 Muḥammadī b. Yūsuf b. Uzūn Ḥasan (Ak Koyunlu) 155 Muḥammad Karra 161, 162, 163, 164 Muḥammad Qavvās 114

196 Muḥammad Shāriḥ 35 Muḥammad Yaḥyā b. ʿUbayd Allāh Aḥrār 114, 127n68, 133, 134 Muhimmāt 41 Muʿizz al-Dīn Yūsuf Bahādur 22 mujaddid (Renewer) 64, 83 Mulakhkhaṣ fī al-hayʾa 45 Mullā Jān 125 Mullā Ṣadrā 5, 67, 71n70 munshaʾāt 8 Munshaʾāt (Kūynāfī) 114 Munshaʾāt (Maybudī) 8, 9, 10, 33, 51n1, 83n114, 109n201, 112, 113, 115, 117, 125, 128, 134, 138, 140n115, 144, 146, 154, 156, 159, 163 Munshī (Mawlana) 35 Murād b. Dānā Khalīl Bāyandur 26, 155 Murād b. Jahāngīr (Ak Koyunlu) 115 Murdad 70 Murtaḍā-yi Sharīfī, Sayyid 35 Mūsā al-Kāẓim (Imam) 92 Muṣliḥ al-Dīn Muṣṭafā 45 Muslim b. al-Ḥajjāj 39, 82n113, 84, 85 Mustawfī Bāfqī, Muḥammad Mufīd 11, 167, 168 Mutakallimūn (scholastic theologians) 58, 59, 66, 68, 69, 130, 158 Muʿtazila 108 Muʿtazilī, ʿAbd al-Jabbār 41n129 Muzaffarids 16, 17, 26n68 Muẓaffar, Mubāriz al-Dīn Muḥammad 16 Muẓaffar, Sharaf al-Dīn 16 mystical union: see ittiḥād Nahj al-balāgha 53, 54, 96 Najāt 136n104 Nakhjavānī, Muḥammad 45 Nakhshabī, Abū Turāb 100n174 Nāma-yi nāmī 10 Naqshbandīya 5, 10, 52, 126, 136 Nasāʾī 39 Naṣr Allāh, Sayyid 114 Navāʾī, ʿAlī Shīr 9n15, 10, 46, 112, 114, 119, 125, 126, 132, 133, 134n96, 135 Nawawī, Muḥyī al-Dīn Abū Zakariyā 40n126, 41, 75n89, 85, 142 Nayrīzī, Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū Isḥāq 114, 127n67, 137, 138, 149 Nayrīzī, Najm al-Dīn Ḥājjī Maḥmūd 36n117, 137n106

Index Niʿmat Allāh al-Thānī, Sayyid 26, 30, 31, 114 Niʿmatallahis 30, 52, 72 Niʿmat Allāh, Shāh Valī Nūr al-Dīn Kirmānī 30, 31, 72, 74, 161 Nīshābūrī, Abū al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī 54 Nīshāpūrī, ʿAṭāʾ Allāh 45 Niẓām al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Bāqī (Niʿmatallahi) 31 Niẓām al-Dīn Shāh Valī Beg 22 Nizāmī, Faṣīḥ al-Dīn Muḥammad 46 Noah 89, 107 numerology: see jafr Nūr al-Dīn Aḥmad (Amir) 114 Nūrbakhshī, Shāh Qavām al-Dīn Ḥusayn 167n32 Nūrbakhshī, Ḥusām al-Dīn 35 Nūrbakhshīya 5, 128n75, 129, 130, 131, 132, 136 Nūrbakhsh, Sayyid Muḥammad 77, 107n197, 129, 130, 131, 132 Nūrbakhsh, Sayyid Muḥammad II 156n5 Nūrbakhsh, Sayyid Qāsim 156n5 Öljeytü (Il-Khan) 16 Ordibihisht 70 Ottomans 12, 35, 36, 41n131, 46, 47, 48, 49, 77n92, 128, 138, 139, 163, 171 Pārsīnī, ʿImād al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān 83 Perfect Man: see insān-i kāmil Peripatetics 46, 59, 67, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 130, 136, 150n154 Persian philosophers 70, 71n73 Pīr ʿAlī Beg 114, 117, [Zayn al-Dīn] 147 Pīr Būdāq b. Jahānshāh (Kara Koyunlu) 21, 22, 23 Pīr Muḥammad b. Jahāngīr (Timurid) 17 Pīr Muḥammad b. ʿUmar Shaykh (Timurid) 17, 18 Plato 41, 58, 62, 70, 129, 157 Porphyry 73 primary matter: see hayūlā Ptolemy 61n33, 71, 115 Pūrnāk (clan) 154, 155 Pūrnāk, Manṣūr Beg 124, 155 Pythagorus 61, 129 Qadi Ḥasan 122 Qalqashandī, Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad b. ʿAlī 10 Qanbar, Amir Sayyid Ṣadr al-Dīn 17 Qanbar, Niẓām al-Dīn Ḥajjī 27

Index Qānūn fī al-ṭibb 63 Qāsim Beg b. Jahāngīr (Ak Koyunlu) 113, 155 Qawāʿid al-Islām 132n87, 166 Qawl al-jalī fī faḍāʾil ʿAlī 52n5 Qayitmas Bāyandur 155 Qayṣarī, Sharaf al-Dīn Dāwud 57, 79, 99 Qazvīnī, Ḥakīm Shāh Muḥammad 12, 48, 112, 119 Qazwīnī, Najm al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ghaffār 85 Qazwīnī, Zakariyā b. Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd 15 qirān (astral conjunction) 76, 103 Qubād b. Fīrūz 15n5 Qummī, Mīr Aḥmad (Qadi) 161 Qūnawī, ʿAbd al-Ghaffār b. Kamāl Ghāzī 83 Qūnawī, Ṣadr al-Dīn 57, 72, 79n101, 84 quṭb (Pole) See also awtād 79, 83, 84, 130, 132 Rabīʿa 56 Raḍī, Muḥammad b. al-Ṭāhir 54 rāfiḍī/rawāfiḍ 65, 126, 127 Rāfiʿī, ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Muḥammad Qazvīnī 41, 75, 85, 142 Rāghib Iṣfahānī 103n184 raʾīya (common people) 122 Rashaḥāt ʿayn al-ḥayāt 12, 127, 133 Rashḥ-i bāl bi-sharḥ-i ḥāl 46 Rashīd al-Dīn, Faḍl Allāh Hamadānī 16 Rawḍat al-jannāṭ 54 Rawḍat [al-ṭālibīn] 41 Rawshanī, Dede Ḥaḍratları ʿUmar 42, 120, 121, 122 Rāzī, Fakhr al-Dīn 39, 41, 44, 49, 59, 72, 157 Rāzī, Ghiyāth al-Dīn Ḥāfiẓ 26n64 Rāzī, Yaḥyā b. Muʿādh 100n174 Renewer: see mujaddid Risāla dar Asrār al-ḥurūf 72 Risāla-i Ādāb-i baḥth 45 Risālat al-hudā 77, 107n197 Rīsmān Bāz, Sayyid Muḥammad 114, 148n144 Riyāḥī, Maʿqil b. Qays 97 Rūmī, Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad 40, 55 Rūmī, Masʿūd 33 Rūmī, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Mūsā Qāḍīzāda 45n141, 48 Rūmlū, Ḥasan Beg 11, 44, 161 Rustam (Amīr al-Ḥajj) 126n65 Rustam b. Maqṣūd (Ak Koyunlu) 126 Saʿdī 109, 146n138

197 ṣadr 35n108 Ṣadr al-Dīn, Sayyid Mir 35 Safavids 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8n10, 13, 30, 31, 40n127, 46, 47, 50, 51, 52, 53, 119, 122, 125, 129, 131, 132n87, 154, 155, 158, 159, 160, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 171 Ṣaḥāba (Companions of the Prophet) 64, 65, 91, 98, 99, 104 Ṣaḥīḥ 94 Saʿīdī, Niẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad 114, 131n83 Saladin 74 Salāmān va Absāl 119n29, 134 Salmān b. Kara Yūsuf (Kara Koyunlu) 17n18 Samarqandī, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad 45 Sām Mīrzā (Safavid) 34 Sarakhsī, Shams al-Dīn Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Aḥmad 40n126 Sarūʾī, Aḥmad Beg 162 Sassanians 14, 92 Sāvajī, Imām al-Dīn Shaykh ʿAlī (Qadi) 40n27, 114, 119, 123, 124, 147, 148, 149, 150, 169n1 Sāvajī, Najm al-Dīn Masʿūd (Shaykh) 112, 114, 117, 119, 125, 149 Sāvajī, Ṣafī al-Dīn ʿĪsā (Qadi) 51n1, 63, 114, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 127, 128, 134, 137, 138, 139, 143, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 158 Sāvajī, Ṣafī al-Dīn ʿĪsā II (Qadi) 125n55 Sāvajī, Salmān 40 sayyid 29, 30, 31, 136, 164n26, 165n27 Scholastic theologians: see Mutakallimūn seal: see khātim Selīm I (Ottoman) 47, 48 Shabistarī, Maḥmūd 7, 43n136, 68, 132, 150n154 Shāfiʿī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Idrīs 40, 59, 64, 85, 93, 108 Shafiʿi madhhab 40, 41n128, 48, 51n2, 65, 93, 108, 142, 165, 166 shahāda 65, 87, 100n175, 102 Shāh Niʿmat Allāh al-Thānī 26, 30, 31, 52, 114, 131, 136 Shahrastanī, Muḥammad 65n45 Shahrazūrī, Shams al-Dīn 58 Shahrbānū (Kanizak Ghazāla) 92 Shāhrukh b. Tīmūr (Timurid) 11, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23n51, 26n64, 31, 49, 134n96 164n26 Shāmī, ʿAbd Allāh 83

198 Shāmlū, ʿAbdi Beg Tuvājī 163 Shams al-Dīn Bahrām Baḥḥāth 35 Shamsīya fī al-manṭiq 7, 36, 38, 44, 45 Shaqāʾiq al-nuʿmānīya 12 Sharafnāma-yi shāhī 10 Sharḥ al-ʿAqāʾid al-ʿaḍudīya 48, 94 Sharḥ al-Kabīr 41 Sharḥ al-Maqāṣid 61 Sharḥ al-Maṭāliʿ 48 Sharḥ al-Shamsīya 48 Sharḥ-i Dīvān-i ʿAlī 3, 7n7, 39, 40n126, 41, 43, 50, ch. 3 passim, 121, 129, 130, 131, 136, 150, 153, 157, 160n13, 169, 170 Sharḥ-i Fuṣūṣ (Kāshī) 79 Sharḥ-i Fuṣūṣ (Qayṣarī) 99 Sharḥ-i Manāzil al-sāʾirīn 79n100 Sharḥ Īsāghūjī (Isagogue) 48 Sharḥ-i Ṣaḥīḥ-i Muslim 85 Shariʿa 42, 59, 64, 81, 82, 98, 107, 108, 109, 117, 140, 143, 146, 148, 158, 159 Sharvānī, Ismāʿīl 135 Shīʿa 37, 40n127, 50, 52, 64, 65, 66, 85, 92, 98, 107, 127, 135n103, 158, 165 Shifaʾ 136n104 Shīftagī, ʿAlī 35 Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad 32 Shīrāzī, Mīr Ṣadr al-Dīn 47, 48n150 Shīrāzī, Quṭb al-Dīn Maḥmūd b. Masʿūd 70n66 Shīrāzī, Muḥyī al-Dīn Aḥmad (Shaykh) 133 Shīrāzī, Muẓaffar al-Dīn ʿAlī (Shaykh) 47 Shirvānī, Sayyid 165n27 Shuʿayb Aqā 162 Shushtarī, Sayyid Nūr Allāh Najm al-Dīn 12, 135, 137 Sībawayh 101 Siffin 94n159, 96, 97, 99, 102, 105 Ṣiḥāḥ: see Tāj al-lugha Silsilat al-dhahab 116 silsilat al-dhahab (hadith) 126 Simnānī, ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla 39n124, 53, 82, 83, 84, 86n126, 121n35, 160n13 Sirāj al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Vahhāb 114, 121n35, 126, 127, 136n104, 145, 150n154 slavery 159, 160 Socrates 61n33, 129 Solomon 62, 159 Ṣubḥ al-aʿshā 10 Suddī 86

Index Sufi hostel: see khānqāh Sufis 3, 5, 13, 28, 30, 31, 37, 46, 51n1, 52, 53, 59, 60, 63, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 77, 78, 80n107, 81, 83n117, 115, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 136, 140, 143, 145, 150n154, 151n157, 157, 162, 165, 167, 170 Suhrawardī, Shihāb al-Dīn Yaḥyā 39, 41, 62, 67, 70, 72, 91, 102 Sulamī, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān 85n122 Sulaymān (Ottoman) 41n131, 128 Sulaymān Beg Bījan 116, 121, 124 Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd (Timurid) 23, 24, 45, 125 Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Bayqarā (Timurid) 5, 115, 155, 160n14 Sulṭān-Khalīl b. Uzūn Ḥasan (Ak Koyunlu) 24, 113, 115, 116, 117n21, 119n29, 122, 125, 126, 139 Sulṭān-Maḥmūd b. Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd (Timurid) 45 Sulṭān-Muḥammad b. Bāysunghur (Timurid) 19, 20, 164n26 Sulṭān-Muḥammad Shāh 114, 117n23 Sulṭān-Murād b. Yaʿqūb (Ak Koyunlu) 117, 161 Sunni [-Jamaʿi] 3, 4, 6, 13, 40n126, 44n137, 50, 51, 52, 53, 64, 65, 85, 86, 91n153, 95, 108, 126, 127, 130, 135, 150, 160n13, 162, 163, 164, 165, 167 suyūrghāl 9n17, 20n37, 28, 122n40, 123, 124, 137 Suyūṭī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jalāl al-Dīn 52n5, 70n65 Ṭabarī, Muḥammad b. Jarīr 39n125 Tabrīzī, Muḥyī al-Dīn Muḥammad 35 tadhkira (biographical dictionary) 1 Tafsīr-i Qāḍī 41 Taftāzānī, Saʿd al-Dīn Masʿūd 57, 61, 67, 102, 137n107 Ṭahmāsp (Safavid) 40n127, 131, 160n12, 167n32 Taḥrīr-i Uqlīdis 7, 45, 46 Tāj al-ashʿar wa-salwat al-Shīʿa 54 Tāj al-lugha wa-ṣiḥāḥ al-ʿArabīya 57n20, 103n184 Tālish, Ḥusām al-Dīn Ḥasan 139 Tālishī, Muḥammad b. Mūsā 114, 44n137 tamghā 23n51, 123 Tamhīd [al-awāʾil wa-talkhīṣ al-dalāʾil] 65n45 Tamīmī, ʿImād al-Dīn Masʿūd b. Ḍiyā al-Dīn Muḥammad 32

199

Index Taqī al-Dīn Dādā Muḥammad 17 Tārīkh-i ʿālam-ārā-yi ʿAbbāsī 161 Tārīkh-i jadīd-i Yazd 11, 16, 28 Tārīkh-i Yazd 11 Taşköprüzade 12, 35, 46, 47, 48, 139 Ṭawāliʿ al-anwār 7, 36, 44, 45, 46 Thaʿlabī, Abū Isḥāq Aḥmad b. Muḥammad 39, 43n136, 53, 54, 56, 85, 86, 87 Thaqafī, al-Mukhtār b. Abū ʿUbayda 106 Tīmūr 5, 17, 18n21, 21, 30, 123, 137n107 Timurids 1, 5, 7n10, 8, 9, 10, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 23, 25n62, 26, 28, 31, 32, 45n139, 46, 76n91, 80, 92, 112, 113, 114, 115, 119, 127, 131, 133, 134, 136, 137, 138, 149n152, 152, 155, 160n12, 163, 164, 167n32, 170 Tīrandāz, Jalāl al-Dīn 114 Tirmidhī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Ḥakīm 80, 140 Tirmidhī, Abū ʿĪsā Muḥammad b. ʿĪsā 39, 56, 84, 91 Torah 55 ṭughrā 9n17 Tughrul (Seljuk) 76 Tuḥfa al-shāhīya fī al-hayʾa 70 Tuḥfat al-Aḥrār 134 Ṭūsī, Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad 7, 34, 64, 70n66, 71, 72n78, 86, 102, 150n154 tuvājī (inspector of troops) 163n21 Ughurlū Muḥammad b. Uzūn Ḥasan (Ak Koyunlu) 24 ūlāq 21 Ulugh Beg (Timurid) 37, 45 ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (Umayyad) 94 ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (Caliph) 65, 84, 87, 89, 91, 151 Umayyads 84n121, 88, 89n137, 93, 94 Umm Salama 85 unbelief: see kufr ʿUqla 79 urdū 9n17, 118, 122 Urmawī, Sirāj al-Dīn Maḥmūd 38 ʿUrwa [li-ahl al-khalwa wa-al-jawla] 39n124, 82n111, 83

ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān (Caliph) 57, 84, 89, 97, 98, 160n13 Uvays Beg 26 Uzūn Ḥasan (Ak Koyunlu) 13, 19, 23, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, 34, 35, 42, 113, 116, 118, 122, 123, 125, 127n65, 134, 154, 155 valāyat 78,79, 80, 83, 90, 160n13 valī 21, 27, 65, 100n175, 135, 160n13 Varzana, Qūṭb al-Dīn 21n40 Waḍʿ-i jadīd 155 Wāḥidī, ʿAlī b. Aḥmad 39, 56, 86, 87 waqf 28, 137, 138, 142, 143, 148, 149, 152n158, 168 Waṣāyā 79 Yāfiʿī, ʿAbd Allāh b. Asʿad 57, 60n28 Yāfith b. Nūḥ 107 Yaʿqūb (Ak Koyunlu) 1, 9n16, 12, 24, 26, 35, 42, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 133, 134, 137, 138, 145n134, 146, 148, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 161, 163, 169 Yaʿqūb Khān Beg b. Maqṣūd (Ak Koyunlu) 127 Yāqūt 12, 15 Yār Aḥmad 22 Yazdigird II (Sassanian) 15 Yazdigird III (Sassanian) 92 Yazdī, Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī 10, 20n36, 30, 32, 74 Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya (Umayyad) 94 Yūsuf Ahl, Jalāl al-Dīn 10 Yūsuf b. Ḥusayn (Shaykh) 130 Yūsuf b. Jahānshāh (Kara Koyunlu) 35 Yūsuf b. Uzūn Ḥasan (Ak Koyunlu) 155 Zamakhsharī, Maḥmūd b. ʿUmar 39, 85, 86, 87, 97, 100 Zayd b. Arqam 56 Zaydis 64, 92 Zayn al-Dīn Pīr ʿAlī Beg 147 Zoroastrians 14, 70, 92n154, 144, 146