Pub Date : 2015-11-26DOI: 10.1163/18747167-12341287
S. Arjomand
{"title":"A Decade of Persianate Studies","authors":"S. Arjomand","doi":"10.1163/18747167-12341287","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18747167-12341287","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41983,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Persianate Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2015-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18747167-12341287","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64838427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-11-26DOI: 10.1163/18747167-12341289
Rıza Yıldırım
Over the past century, one of the most heavily debated topics within Safavid historiography has been the ideological sources of the Qezelbash zeal that carried the Safavid dynasty to the throne of Persia. By now, a near-consensus has been formed about Shah Esmaʿil’s personality as an incarnation of the Godhead armed with a messianic mission of salvation. This article partly challenges this long-entrenched conceptualization by calling attention to a heretofore overlooked mission that the shaykhs of the revolutionary period set for themselves. This was their desire to avenge the spilling of Hosayn’s blood, a mission which was nothing but a reincarnation of the topos of sāheb al-khorūj or the “master of the uprising,” a heroic typology cultivated via a particular corpus of Karbala-oriented epic literature. Based on the idea that the religiosity of the Turkish-speaking milieu that constituted the Safavid movement’s grassroots was primarily shaped by this Karbala-oriented epic literature, this essay argues that Shaykh Jonayd, Shaykh Haydar, and especially Shah Esmāʿil successfully reformulated the Safavid Sufi program to address the codes of popular piety, which already existed, nurtured by Sufism and some Shiʿite elements, a particular mode of Islamic piety that I call “Shiʿite-inflected popular Sufism.”
{"title":"In the Name of Hosayn’s Blood: The Memory of Karbala as Ideological Stimulus to the Safavid Revolution","authors":"Rıza Yıldırım","doi":"10.1163/18747167-12341289","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18747167-12341289","url":null,"abstract":"Over the past century, one of the most heavily debated topics within Safavid historiography has been the ideological sources of the Qezelbash zeal that carried the Safavid dynasty to the throne of Persia. By now, a near-consensus has been formed about Shah Esmaʿil’s personality as an incarnation of the Godhead armed with a messianic mission of salvation. This article partly challenges this long-entrenched conceptualization by calling attention to a heretofore overlooked mission that the shaykhs of the revolutionary period set for themselves. This was their desire to avenge the spilling of Hosayn’s blood, a mission which was nothing but a reincarnation of the topos of sāheb al-khorūj or the “master of the uprising,” a heroic typology cultivated via a particular corpus of Karbala-oriented epic literature. Based on the idea that the religiosity of the Turkish-speaking milieu that constituted the Safavid movement’s grassroots was primarily shaped by this Karbala-oriented epic literature, this essay argues that Shaykh Jonayd, Shaykh Haydar, and especially Shah Esmāʿil successfully reformulated the Safavid Sufi program to address the codes of popular piety, which already existed, nurtured by Sufism and some Shiʿite elements, a particular mode of Islamic piety that I call “Shiʿite-inflected popular Sufism.”","PeriodicalId":41983,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Persianate Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2015-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18747167-12341289","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64838551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-11-26DOI: 10.1163/18747167-12341284
Theodore S. Beers
This paper focuses on Vahshi Bāfqi (d. 991/1583), especially on the sources for the study of his biography and works. The various editions of his collected poems are assessed. Next, all of the known early sources on Vahshi’s biography are presented, including a very important one that has not been published or cited before. Laying out all of these sources allows us to construct a more authoritative biography of the poet than has appeared to date. On a broader level, we learn that the careers and works of poets of Vahshi’s era are best understood in connection to one another. The tremendous growth of the tazkera genre in the Safavid-Mughal period makes possible this kind of research, focused on interconnectivity and cosmopolitanism in literary culture. In fact, the sources not only permit such an approach; they demand it. The paper ends with a series of recommendations for future research on Vahshi, his contemporaries, and the tazkera s themselves.
{"title":"The Biography of Vahshi Bāfqi (d. 991/1583) and the Tazkera Tradition","authors":"Theodore S. Beers","doi":"10.1163/18747167-12341284","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18747167-12341284","url":null,"abstract":"This paper focuses on Vahshi Bāfqi (d. 991/1583), especially on the sources for the study of his biography and works. The various editions of his collected poems are assessed. Next, all of the known early sources on Vahshi’s biography are presented, including a very important one that has not been published or cited before. Laying out all of these sources allows us to construct a more authoritative biography of the poet than has appeared to date. On a broader level, we learn that the careers and works of poets of Vahshi’s era are best understood in connection to one another. The tremendous growth of the tazkera genre in the Safavid-Mughal period makes possible this kind of research, focused on interconnectivity and cosmopolitanism in literary culture. In fact, the sources not only permit such an approach; they demand it. The paper ends with a series of recommendations for future research on Vahshi, his contemporaries, and the tazkera s themselves.","PeriodicalId":41983,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Persianate Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2015-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18747167-12341284","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64837952","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-11-26DOI: 10.1163/18747167-12341288
Ferenc Csirkés
This paper discusses the philological, literary and cultural-historical background of 23 poems that can be found in manuscript copies of the respective divān of both Nesimi (d. 1407), the most prominent poet of the Horufi tradition, and Shah Esmāʿil, the founder of the Safavid state (r. 1501-24) who was also known for his popular Turkic poetry with a heavily messianic veneer. One possible reason for this textually detectable confluence and intermixture might be the partially oral, ritual, homiletic context with fluid notions of authorship in which these poems were performed, but there was also a broader socio-religious context of interaction between various popular messianic traditions of the day, the Horufis, the Bektashis, the Safavids and others.
{"title":"Messianic Oeuvres in Interaction: Misattributed Poems by Shah Esmāʿil and Nesimi","authors":"Ferenc Csirkés","doi":"10.1163/18747167-12341288","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18747167-12341288","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses the philological, literary and cultural-historical background of 23 poems that can be found in manuscript copies of the respective divān of both Nesimi (d. 1407), the most prominent poet of the Horufi tradition, and Shah Esmāʿil, the founder of the Safavid state (r. 1501-24) who was also known for his popular Turkic poetry with a heavily messianic veneer. One possible reason for this textually detectable confluence and intermixture might be the partially oral, ritual, homiletic context with fluid notions of authorship in which these poems were performed, but there was also a broader socio-religious context of interaction between various popular messianic traditions of the day, the Horufis, the Bektashis, the Safavids and others.","PeriodicalId":41983,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Persianate Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2015-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18747167-12341288","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64838496","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-11-26DOI: 10.1163/18747167-12341290
W. Posch
Modern scholars tend to view Ottoman-Safavid relations from a sectarian angle as well as through a military lens. Such a narrow focus often comes at the expense of broader strategic and political considerations. The subject of this paper, the capture of an Indian elephant by Ottoman troops, its handover to the French embassy, and the ensuing diplomatic developments, may not be central to the campaign that the Ottomans launched against Iran in 1548-49, yet it offers unique insight into the relations between these powers. What is more, it sheds light on Safavid-Mughal and Ottoman-Mughal relations as well as on wider rivalries between European powers that were tangentially involved in this struggle, the Habsburgs, France, and Venice.
{"title":"On a Pachyderm’s Voyage from Tabriz to Aleppo: A Light Moment in Persianate “Elephant Diplomacy”","authors":"W. Posch","doi":"10.1163/18747167-12341290","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18747167-12341290","url":null,"abstract":"Modern scholars tend to view Ottoman-Safavid relations from a sectarian angle as well as through a military lens. Such a narrow focus often comes at the expense of broader strategic and political considerations. The subject of this paper, the capture of an Indian elephant by Ottoman troops, its handover to the French embassy, and the ensuing diplomatic developments, may not be central to the campaign that the Ottomans launched against Iran in 1548-49, yet it offers unique insight into the relations between these powers. What is more, it sheds light on Safavid-Mughal and Ottoman-Mughal relations as well as on wider rivalries between European powers that were tangentially involved in this struggle, the Habsburgs, France, and Venice.","PeriodicalId":41983,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Persianate Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2015-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18747167-12341290","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64838201","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-11-26DOI: 10.1163/18747167-12341286
R. Matthee
This essay analyzes the incontrovertible weakening of the Safavid state in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century by putting it in a larger context. It does so by comparing various manifestations of Iran’s “decline” at the time to conditions and developments in the adjacent Ottoman and Mughal states, where similar processes were playing out in the same period. In order to arrive at a measured and balanced view of similarities and differences between these three early modern Islamic empires, it singles out and focuses on four areas: geographical/environmental and economic conditions, political developments, the state of the army, and ideological characteristics.
{"title":"The Decline of Safavid Iran in Comparative Perspective","authors":"R. Matthee","doi":"10.1163/18747167-12341286","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18747167-12341286","url":null,"abstract":"This essay analyzes the incontrovertible weakening of the Safavid state in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century by putting it in a larger context. It does so by comparing various manifestations of Iran’s “decline” at the time to conditions and developments in the adjacent Ottoman and Mughal states, where similar processes were playing out in the same period. In order to arrive at a measured and balanced view of similarities and differences between these three early modern Islamic empires, it singles out and focuses on four areas: geographical/environmental and economic conditions, political developments, the state of the army, and ideological characteristics.","PeriodicalId":41983,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Persianate Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2015-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18747167-12341286","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64838317","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-08-24DOI: 10.1163/18747167-12341278
Paul E. Losensky
The career of the poet Kalim Kāshāni (d. 1061/1651) exemplifies two significant developments in the social and cultural life of the Persianate world of the seventeenth century. First is the oft-noted mobility of poets, scholars, and administrators between Safavid Iran and Mughal India. Second is the revival of the verbal description of architecture (ekphrasis) as a major mode of panegyric poetry. As the ruling elite invested heavily in constructing palaces and cities as a projection of their imperial power, poets increasingly integrated these projects into their celebrations of their patrons. Taking advantage of both of these trends, Kalim rose from being a minor regional poet to the highest rank in the cultural establishment of the court of Shāh Jahān. Close readings of two of Kalim’s architectural inscriptions, from the beginning and end of his career, reveal two different approaches to the verbal representation of architecture and to the expression of political power.
{"title":"“Square Like a Bubble”: Architecture, Power, and Poetics in Two Inscriptions by Kalim Kāshāni","authors":"Paul E. Losensky","doi":"10.1163/18747167-12341278","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18747167-12341278","url":null,"abstract":"The career of the poet Kalim Kāshāni (d. 1061/1651) exemplifies two significant developments in the social and cultural life of the Persianate world of the seventeenth century. First is the oft-noted mobility of poets, scholars, and administrators between Safavid Iran and Mughal India. Second is the revival of the verbal description of architecture (ekphrasis) as a major mode of panegyric poetry. As the ruling elite invested heavily in constructing palaces and cities as a projection of their imperial power, poets increasingly integrated these projects into their celebrations of their patrons. Taking advantage of both of these trends, Kalim rose from being a minor regional poet to the highest rank in the cultural establishment of the court of Shāh Jahān. Close readings of two of Kalim’s architectural inscriptions, from the beginning and end of his career, reveal two different approaches to the verbal representation of architecture and to the expression of political power.","PeriodicalId":41983,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Persianate Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2015-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18747167-12341278","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64837961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-08-24DOI: 10.1163/18747167-12341279
F. Ghoreishi
{"title":"Religious Democracy: Three Contending Interpretations among Iranian Political Thinkers","authors":"F. Ghoreishi","doi":"10.1163/18747167-12341279","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18747167-12341279","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41983,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Persianate Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2015-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18747167-12341279","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64838027","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-08-24DOI: 10.1163/18747167-12341276
Mimi Hanaoka
Authors of local histories composed in Persia during the 10th-15th centuries deftly wove their lands and their communities into Islamic narratives rooted in the Islamic heartlands of Iraq, Syria, and Arabia. They positioned their communities to better fit into the scope of Islamic history and claimed privileged connections to Mohammad and divine or prophetic authority in various ways. City and regional histories from Persia challenge and reconfigure notions of what constitutes “central” or “peripheral” in the medieval Islamic world and articulate identities that are simultaneously deeply local yet enmeshed within the broader Muslim omma. Authors and compilers used several literary strategies that, amongst other things, “centered” their cities and regions by including narratives about the sayyedsand sharifsassociated with the region; incorporating narratives of legitimating dreams and visions; associating sahābawith the land; highlighting sites of pious visitation ( ziārat) and other sources of blessing or sacred power ( baraka); and incorporating sacralizing etymologies.
{"title":"Perspectives from the Peripheries","authors":"Mimi Hanaoka","doi":"10.1163/18747167-12341276","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18747167-12341276","url":null,"abstract":"Authors of local histories composed in Persia during the 10th-15th centuries deftly wove their lands and their communities into Islamic narratives rooted in the Islamic heartlands of Iraq, Syria, and Arabia. They positioned their communities to better fit into the scope of Islamic history and claimed privileged connections to Mohammad and divine or prophetic authority in various ways. City and regional histories from Persia challenge and reconfigure notions of what constitutes “central” or “peripheral” in the medieval Islamic world and articulate identities that are simultaneously deeply local yet enmeshed within the broader Muslim omma. Authors and compilers used several literary strategies that, amongst other things, “centered” their cities and regions by including narratives about the sayyedsand sharifsassociated with the region; incorporating narratives of legitimating dreams and visions; associating sahābawith the land; highlighting sites of pious visitation ( ziārat) and other sources of blessing or sacred power ( baraka); and incorporating sacralizing etymologies.","PeriodicalId":41983,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Persianate Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2015-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18747167-12341276","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64837851","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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