Iranian Studies Journal of The Society for Iranian Studies
VolumeVII(1974)
Ali Banuazizi, Editor Jerome W. Clinton, As...
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Iranian Studies Journal of The Society for Iranian Studies
VolumeVII(1974)
Ali Banuazizi, Editor Jerome W. Clinton, Associate Editor A. Reza Sheikholeslami, Associate Editor
Special Volume: Studies on Isfahan Renata Holod, Guest Editor
Published by The Society for IranianStudies, P'.0. Box 89. Village Station, New York, New Yoork10014, U.S.A. Printed in the U.S.A. US ISSN 0021-0862 Copyright, 1974, The Society for IranianStudies
The Society for Iranian Studies COUNCIL Frvand Abraliamiiian AmlinBanani Ali Banuazizi James A. Bill Jerome W. Clinton Paul W. English Gene R. Garthwaite FarhadKazemi, Executive Secretary Kenneth A. Luther Ann Schulz, ex officio, Treasurer
Address all conmmunicationsconcerning the Journal to the Editor, Sttudies, Box K-154, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MassIraniiani sachusetts 02167, U.S.A.
IRANIAN STUDIES Journal of The Society for Iranian Studies
Contents: VolumeVII(1974) -- Renata Holod . PREFACE
. . . . . . . . . .
8-9
-- Oleg Grabar . . . . . . . . . . . . INTRODUCTION
10-17
ARTICLES Algar, Hamid. Some Observations on Religion Safavid Persia .. . .... . . ....
in . .
287-293
Ardalan, Nader. Color in Safavid Architecture: The Poetic Diffusion of Light. Ali.
Bakhtiar,
The Royal Bazaar of Isfahan
Chelkowski, Peter. Isfahan.
Ettinghausen,
Literature
164-178 320-347
....
in Pre-Safavid
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Richard.
Stylistic
Tendencies at
the Time of Shah CAbbas.
Galdieri,
Eugenio.
Les Palais
Golombek, Lisa. Urban Patterns Isfahan .... . . Gregorian, Vartan.
Minorities
112-131
593-628
d'Isfahan.
380-405
in Pre-Safavid 18-44 of Isfahan:
Armenian Community of Isfahan
The
1587-1722.
Grube, Ernst. Wall Paintings in the Seventeenth Century Monuments of Isfahan .5.. . . . .
. .
652-680
.
511-542
.
629-651
Gulick, John. Private Life and Public Face: Cultural Continuities in the Domestic Architecture
of Isfahan. iii
. ........
Hanaway, William.
Commentson Literature Before Period . . . . . . . . . . . . .
the Safavid
Holod, Renata.
Commentson Urban Patterns. A. S.
Melikian-Shirvani, A Study
in
Nasr, Hossein. Robinson, Basil.
45-48
Safavid Metalwork: .
Continuity.
Religion
.........
.
in Safavid Persia.
Savory,
Comments.
508-510
Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Roger.
The Safavid
543-587
271-286
Roemer, Hans. Das Fruhsafawidische Isfahan: Als Historische Forschungsaufgabe. . . . . . . Roemer, Hans.
132-137
State
and Polity.
213-216
.
179-212
Schimmel, Annemarie. The Ornament of the Saints: The Religious Situation in Iran in PreSafavid Times. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
88-111
Shirazi, Siroux,
.
1138-163
.
Bagher. Isfahan, the Old: Isfahan, the New. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5S86-592
Maxime. Les Caravanserais Routiers Safavids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
348-379
.
72-87
Spooner, Brian. City and River in Iran: Urbanization and Irrigation of the Iranian Plateau. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
681-713
Soucek, Priscilla.
Commentson Persian Painting.
European Visitors to the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
421-457
Swietochowski, Marie. The Development of in Traditions of Book Illustration Pre-Safavid Iran . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
49-71
Stevens,
Sir Roger. Safavid
Court.
iv
Weaver, Martin.
Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . .
416-4 20
WelCh1, Anthony.
Wilber,
P'ainting and IPatronage under Shah CAbbas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
458-5(7
Donald. Aspects of the Safavid Ensemble at Isfahan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
406-415
Yar-Shater, Ehsan. Safavid or Decline .
Literature:
Progress 217-270
Zander, Giuseppe. Observations sur 1 'Architecture Civile d'Ispahan . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
294-319
-- Robert Mc. Adams .714-725 CONCLUDING COMMENTARY CONCLllDING REMARKS--
Oleg
Grabar
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. .
BIBLIOGRAPHY.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
v
726-732
733-755
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BA
COMMENTSON LITERATURE BEFORE THE SAFAVID PERIOD WILLIAMHANAWAY
At this colloquium we are trying to understand and culsocial, Safavid Isfahan in its various physical, of is one part of the culture Literature tural aspects. Isfahan. Isfahan as a whole, however, cannot be removed from the context of Persia and its culture and society, point of or a diachronic whether we assume a synchronic comneither can any of the individual Logically, view. of Isfahan be removed from their ponents of the culture status Thus to understand the literary larger context. that or synchronically, of Isfahan either diachronically the larger background against status must be seen in relief within and ultimately of literature on the Iranian plateau, area. the Iranian cultural rather than is relative The idea of literature the outside cannot be considered hence literature absolute; in which it flourished circumstances and social historical is If literature its development. and which influenced of an understanding then perspective, this from viewed of its to the understanding should contribute literature This is and vice versa. and cultural context, social or study of liternot to claim that the history definitely or study of society. ature is isomorphic with the history The two are not the same, but neither can the two be exain isolation. mined totally The definition
of literature 132
at any given
time is
of vital importance. This is so because the definition of literature determines the critical approach taken to it, and by extension, since the historical approach as well, and literary assume the both literary criticism history of a structure of norms and values. existence If this principle is understood, to understand then it is possible why we frame our questions the way we do; for example, the question, "Why did Isfahan not become an important literary center before the Safavid period?" The implicit definition of literature so coumon in the history of Persian studies in the West has extended the boundaries of literature to the point where the question of Isfahan as a center of literary production can become a literary and not question, one of social or political history which it should properly be. From this perspective, we shall proceed to some general remarks about the study of Persian literature. In discussing Persian literature before the Safavid period, we will remove ourselves to a distance in order to view better the entire panorama, thus brining certain problems in relief. Viewing Persian literature is somewhat like viewing the rugged landscape of Persia itself. From almost any place we stand we can see mountain ranges all around us. We can easily identify the highest peaks, which are always in our view and by virtue of being so have a life and perof their own. We can see many lower peaks which sonality to our view are less individual and clearly and defined, which often can be recognized only in their relationship to the highest peaks. Then, if we stand in the right place, we notice misty valleys in which nothing can be seen at all. As students of this landscape, we might have good reason to feel that since we have lived many years with it, we should know the whole range better, and not content ourselves with contemplating only the greatest peaks. And thus it is with Persian literature. We can recognize Firdawsi, Niz&ml, Rimi, Sacdl, HAfiz and some others as major peaks. Some of the lesser figures are
133
known, but many hundreds are not, as a glance at the Fargiants, hang-i Sokhanvar&n1 will show. The great literary peaks of the mountain ranges, dominate the like the highest scene with a life of their own. Since they are great and of "less all others to categories they relegate important, Writers in these categories or "less important." great," and so on. third-rate are then arranged as second-rate, is an of this way of thinking about literature The result Rankand poets. all writers impulse to rank and classify intellectual is a normal and necessary ing and classifying I and we must do it to order our knowledge. activity, there has suggest that in the case of Persian literature been too strong an emphasis on it. Once such a rarnking is agreed upon or generally becomes an obstathe very fact of its existence accepted, from being and it deters attention cle to broader vision, The result ranks within the system. devoted to the lesser Keeping the eyes is that one looks up rather than out. the vision of the lower hills, fixed on the peaks restricts The whole range cannot horizon. and the distant valleys, one theory and criticism, In terms of literary be seen. is "Golden Age" and "Regress from of this attitude result is seen as Literature of literature. theories Perfection" stages to reach a high point through preliminary developing From here there is nowhere or Golden Age. of perfection to go but down, hence the Silver Ages, Ages of Decadence The whole development of etc. Renaissances, and Decline, Thus epic poetry begins terms. genres is seen in parallel and begins its dewith Firdawsi, with Daqiqi, culminates The same sequence of development could cline with Asadi. and other for the verse romances, the ghazal, be posited Jami is often said to be the last of the great genres. The Safavid era is comnonly declared to classical poets. and Such definitions decline. be one of rapid literary and milieus intellectual develop in particular theories But embody in some fashion the values of those milieus. When such change all milieus and their values change. will no longer be theories literary takes place, previous be out of felt to embody the new values and will therefore step with the new march of the literature. 134
has happened in the case of PerSomething similar a particular notion Until the present, sian literature. has shaped the critical and historof Persian literature by both Persian and Western ical study of this literature milieu scholars. About a century ago the intellectual began to change in Persia and has been changing since then It is apparent now that the older at an accelerating rate. the expresses theory of literature no longer adequately of From among the implications values of the new milieu. and generic may be this situation, the geographical above, they have been selected. For the reasons outlined from being examined largely neglected, and could benefit from a new point of view. the geographic. In medieval times the IranFirst, area extended far beyond the Iranian plateau ian cultural of today's Persia. In many of these or the boundaries areasoutside the plateau Persian was the language of culwas produced in this language. For ture, and literature example, before and during the Safavid era a great deal of Persian literature (however we choose to define it) was written in India. Persian poetry began on the sub-continent in the Ghaznavid era, and until the time of Amir Khusraw (d. A.D. 1325) it ran more or less parallel to the Because Persian had been intropoetry of Persia proper. there, and was not indigenous duced into the sub-continent it did not display, at least by the time of Amir Khusraw, the regional variations shown by the Persian of the plateau to the Persian of superiority This fact gave a feeling in poets of India, as is shown by Amir Khusraw' s statement the introduction to his Ghurrat al-Kamal where he says that and India is the pure and origthe Persian of Transoxiana inal Persian Dari) as opposed to the languages of (Farsi-i Khurasan and Sistan which are each different Azerbayjan, the pure Persian. from the other and from what he considers He claimed that because the Persian of India was one and in that invariable, it was natural that the poetry written a clearly indicates language be great.2 This statement and of Persian, pride among Indian poets in their variety of competition even a feeling with the poets of Persia proper. 135
Likewise, a large amount of Persian poetry was written by the Ottoman Turks, but very little is known about it. When the Safavids came to power, the Ottoman Empire, Transoxiana and India became politically and religiously separated from Persia proper, but the production of literature in Persian in these areas did not cease. This literature should be seen as a part of the whole "range" which must be embraced in our widened view of the subject. Second, generic considerations. Because we have fixed our gaze on the peaks, certain generic areas have also been overlooked. One is the prose romances, the popular counterparts of the great verse romances of Fakhr alDin Gurgdni, NizAml, AmIr Khusraw, KhwAji and others. These are durable stories which make up a durable genre. Some probably have their roots in pre-Islamic Iran. They maintained their life in the oral and written traditions, and when the religious and political situation changed so abruptly in the Safavid era, the genre survived in a healand old ones rewritthy state. New romances were written ten, in India and Transoxiana as well as in Persia. That they were the delight of kings is well-known from evidence stretching from Akbar to N&sir al-Din Shah. Their sheer volume should make them difficult to ignore in an expanded context of Persian literature. in the generic tessera Another, albeit smaller, is Judeo-Persian mosaic of Persian literature literature, in the Persian language but in written literature i.e. It is well-known that the earliest Hebrew characters. is also the earliest example of Judeo-Persian example of If we leave aside the numerous the New Persian language. in Judeo-Persian, there reand lexical Biblical writings mains a small body of original poetry and prose which is One example is the Ardashir Book of worthy of study. This is part Shahin, a fourteenth century poet of Shiraz. of a larger epic on the Biblical past composed by Shahin, using the meter, structure, technique and language of clasthat of Firdawsi. sical Persian poetry, principally 136
Because of its early parts which deal with the Kiyanian kings, this text deserves to be considered as one of the post-Firdawsi secondary epics. Another example is a short prose version of the Alexander legend. A further area to which insufficient attention has been paid is poetry which has been "out of style" at any A case in point is the realistic given time. style of poetry of Sharaf JahAn Qumi and others which emerged in the early sixteenth century, lasted for about a hundred years, and formed a link between the lyric poetry of the Timurid era and the Indian style of the high Safavid period. Conc lus ion To no small degree have we been confirmed in our restricted vision and historical evaluation of Persian literature by the diligent efforts of historians', both Western and Persian. By invariably stressing the importance of keeping our eyes fixed on a limited number of "immortals,," they have encouraged us to overlook or underrate the works of other writers. It is possible that if sufficient attention were to be devoted to literature in neglected genres, styles, and geographic areas that excellent qualities fully in keeping with the refined aesthetic sense of the Persians would be discovered. In more immediate terms, we might discover more about the literary status of Isfahan, both before and during the Safavid period. This would not only add to our enjoyment and information but would give us a clearer view of the whole panorama of Persian literature, and of the relationship of the parts to the whole. NOTES 1.
CAbbas Khayy&mpur, Farhang-i 1340/1961).
2.
See Mohanmad Wahid Mirza, The Life and Works of Amir Khusrau (Lahore: 1962), pp. 160-161. 137
Sokhanvar&n (Tabriz:
DAS FRUHSAFAWIDISCHE ISFAHAN: ALS HISTORISCHE FORSCHUNGSAUFGABE HANS ROEMER
Welt haben in StUdte der islamischen Nicht viele so starke Beachtung Reiseliteratur der abendl]ndischen EuropAische Kaufgefunden wie das safawidische Isfahan. Diplomaten und Abenteurer haben es mit leute, Missionare, sich zum Teil lange Motiven besucht, den verschiedensten ihre Erlebund Uber ihre Beobachtungen, dort aufgehalten nisse sowie Uber Persinlichkeiten des iiffentlichen Lebens deren Angaben bei allen Berichte hinterlassen, ungewbhnlich mannigfalt ig sind individuellen Unterschieden Verwendung vorausgesetzt, und zusammengenommen, kritische der Stadt Isfahan und schon fur eine Geschichte allein Uberhaupt Geschichte mancher Aspekte der safawidischen wenn auch in erster Linie f'ur das 17. Jahrausreichen, Teil dieser Aufgabe hat kurzlich Einem wichtigen hundert. zur WirtschaftsSibylla Schuster-Walser ihr? Untersuchungen und Handelspolitik gewidmet . Nun war aber Isfahan auch im 16. Jahrhundert schon Doch ist fUr diese Zeit mit europSischen safawidisch. ganz im Gegensatz zu dem folgenden Berichterstattern Offensichtlich Jahrhundert nicht viel Staat zu machen. der Stadt erst mit der Verlesetzt die Anziehungskraft von Qazwl n nach Isfahan ein, gung des Regierungssitzes zu mit dem Zeitpunkt, also mit dem Jahr 1598, praktisch dem cAbb&s I. mit der schweren Krise des Reiches fertig1587 geworden war, vor die er bei seinem Regierungsantritt zur glanzvollen Isfahans Der Aufstieg war. gestellt 138
Metropole ist mit den innenpolitischen Erfolgen und dem schnell wachsenden internationalen Ansehen des Schahs eng verbunden. Trotzdem ist das erste Jahrhundert der Stadtgeschichte, eben das frUhsafawidische Isfahan, keineswegs ohne Bedeutung, ja seine Kenntnis ist sogar in mancher Hinsicht fUr das Verstundnis der spUteren Entwicklung unerlsslich. Allein schon die Frage, warum Qazwln nicht Sitz der Regierung geblieben ist und weiter, warum die Hauptstadt gerade nach Isfahan und nicht in eine andere Stadt verlegt worden ist, verdient unser Interesse, beschwdrt allerdings zugleich gewisse Schwierigkeiten, mit denen der Historiker bei ihrer Beantwortung zu rechnen hat. Sie liegen in der Eigenart der Quellen.
II
Reiseberichte spielen unter diesen Quellen also keine hervorragende Rolle. Was sie zu bieten haben, ist schnell gesagt. Von den in dieser Zeit in Persien aufEuropgern habe3 Uberhaupt nur wenige Isfahan tauchenlen besucht . Alfons Gabriel , der die erhaltenen europXischen Reiseberichte durchgemustert hat, nennt lediglich vier abendlgndische Besucher der Stadt, von denen drei, alle aus den beiden letzten Jahrzehnten des Jahrhunderts, ein paar Angaben Uber Isfahan hinterlassen haben, ngmlich der Engladnder John Newberie (1581), der Osterreicher Hans Christoph Teufel von Krottendorf (1589) und der Deutsche Georg Christoph Fernberger von Egendorf (1591). Unter den kargen Angaben, die ihnen zu danken sind, erfahren wir von Newberie, der Schah pflege in Isfahan von Zeit zu Zeit Hof zu halten. Teufel berichtet von einer mit Majolika bekleideten Moschee sowie von der Fruchtbarkeit des umliegenden Landes, das zwar nur wenig 4 dafUr aber umso mehr Baumwolle hervorbringe Getreide, Fernberger5 hebt die Handelsbeziehungen der Stadt hervor, deretwegen ihr internationaler Ruf denjenigen anderer PI'tze Ubertreffe. Er berichtet von Kaufleuten 139
aus Indien, Arabien und Khurasan, aus der Tartarei und aus Moskau, aus Armenien und aus anderen LAndern, die Weiter erwghnt er einen Platz und sich dort einfUnden. Araon" gehirt haben einen Garten, der dem "Priester die Anlage Hariin-i wilayat gemeint solle, womit vermutlich ist. Reiseberichte als abendltndische Aufschlussreicher Material, das Lutfull&h Hunarfar6 ist das epigraphische und kommentiert hat. vor einigen Jahren zusammengestellt darin zum ersten Isfahan erscheint Das frUhsafawidische aus dem Jahre 918 (beg. 9. MArz Mal mit einer Inschrift 1512), die an dem soeben genannten H&rifn-i wil&yat anfUr einen Nachkomnmen der BegrUbnisstgtte gebracht ist, des zehnten Imams, CAll NaqI, fur den damals ein Mausolewurde. Schah IsmACil I. wird in einer waqfum errichtet Besonderes InteresInschrift aus demselben Jahr genannt. vom Jahr 929 (beg. 20. November se erweckt eine Inschrift Masjid-i seljuqlschen 1522) an der ursprUnglich CAll, weil darin als Bauherr MlrzA Kam&l ad-din ShAh Husain Isfahant der zuerst auftaucht, ursprUnglich ein Maurerpolier, 909/1503-04 bekannt geworden war, als ihn Durminsh Khan von Isfahan Sh&mlu bei seiner Ernennung zum Statthalter zu seinem Stellvertreter (wazIr wa-n&yib) gemacht hatte, um selbst weiter als eshik aqasi im Gefolge des Schahs zu ki5nnen. SpUter stach MlrzA ShAh Husain bleiben semnen G6nner bei Ismacil aus, n'dmlich als ihm 920/1514 das wakll-Amt Ubertragen wurde, eben jene ausserderen sich der ordentlich eines Vizekinigs, hohe Stellung seiner turkum den UbermUssigen Einfluss Schah bediente, was ihren Inhabern menischen Paladine zurUckzudrgngen, und Hass der Qizilbash natUrlich den t6dlichen eintrug, so fiel denn auch MirzA ShAh Husain nach neunjUhriger Komplott zum einemr turkmenischen Amtsdauer schliesslich Die Errichtung von Bauwerken unter Schah Opfer7. von 950/1543 an der Inschriften Tahm&sp I. betreffen Dii l-Fiq&r, von Masjid-i Qutblya und an der Masjid-i als deren Bauherr Masjid-i Darb-i Jubara, 955/1549 an der Mihtar MuhammadCAll genannt wird, ein SteigbUgelhalter Das Im&mzAdaBuqca-yi Sh&h Zaid des Prinzen Bahram Mirza. vom Jahre 994/1585. trAgt eine Inschrift 140
Herrscherurkunden Unter den auf Isfahan bezUglichen in den Bereich lassen sich funf ermitteln, die zugleich die der Epigraphik fallen. Es sind ktnigliche Erlasse, anals Inschriften an der Isfahaner Freitagsmoschee Einer davon8, aus dem Jahre 911/1504-05, gebracht sind. die Ausfertigverbietet unter Androhung der Todesstrafe ung von Steueranweisungen auf das Gebiet von Isfahan, offenbar eine Massnahme gegen ungetreue Finanzbeamte. die ErhebDrei aus der Kanzlei Schah TahmAsps9 verbieten ung von Handels- und Gewerbesteuern sowie einer Transitsteuer, alles shartCa-widriger Steuern, sowie die zwangsweise Einquartierung militirischer und ziviler WUrdenan trUger des Hofes in PrivathAusern. Ein weiterer der vielleicht demselben GebUude angebrachter Erlass10, auch auf Schah Tahmasp I. zurUckgeht, gewThrt der Isfahaner Bevblkerung aus Anlass eines Sieges Uber die der Viehsteuer O3zbeken die Aufhebung bzw. Verringerung (chobanbegi) und anderer Abgaben. die sich auf das Originale Herrscherurkunden, Isfahan beziehen, hat Jean Aubin herausfrUhsafawidische ntmlich aus den Jahren 1525, 1533 und 1598. gegeben", Alle drei beziehen sich auf die GewShrung oder Erneuerung von ImmunitUten des Typus soyurghAl12. Allerdings, drei was ist das schon? Urkunden fUr ein ganzes Jahrhundert, Dennoch braucht die Hoffnung auf kUnftige Funde und Entdeckungen nicht aufgegeben zu werden. Seit in den letzten zwanzig Jahren der Wert der Urkunden fUr die historische Forschung auch in Persien erkannt worden ist, kommen stAndig neue, bisher unbekannte Archivalien und mitunter sogar ganze Archive ans Licht. Ein gutes Indiz dafUr sind die Urkundenpublikationen in literarischhistorischen Zeitschriften, etwe in den bisher vorliegenden acht stattlichen JahrgAngen der Teheraner Barraslh&-yi t&rikhi. Auch den Wert historischer Urkunden, die nicht im Original, sondern nur in Abschriften erhalten Historiker zu schAtzen, sind, wissen persische neuerdings so dass fUr unser Thema auf einschlTgige persische Verauf bffentlichungen verwiesen werden kann, insbesondere die von Nawaii, Thabiti und ThAbitiyin herausgegebenen Sammelwerke13. - Wegen der MUnzen genUgt emn Hinweis auf 141
Rabino di Borgomale
und Eduard von Zambaur14.
und WirtschaftsVon Bedeutung fUr die Sozialsein, sie zu beschaffen Isfahans wAren, sollten geschichte etwa fUr wie die im $arih al-milk Grundbesitzregister worUber eine demnIchst erscheinende Ardabil enthaltenen, und vor alien Arbeit von A.M. Morton15 unterrichtet, Gattung der wagfbeachtete Dingen die bisher unzureichend eine von CAbd al-Husain Urkunden, fUr die einstweilen zu Rate zu ziehen istl6. Sipanta stammende Verbffentlichung die biographischen liefern Aufschllusse Interessante biographische Partien der Chroniken und die sonstige der berUhmte Abu NuCaim alin der freilich Literatur, weder im 16. Jahrhundert noch seinesgleichen Isfahant sei auf eine Beispielshalber spUter nicht gehabt hat. CAbd al-Karim Jazzis spgte Arbeit verwiesen, bescheidene Man IsfahAn 7. BUchlein Rijal-i im Jahre 1906 verfasstes spKterer Zeiten, findet darin meist PerstUnlichkeiten aber auch einige Vertreter namentlich des 19. Jahrhunderts, Isfahans wie den 933 (beg. 8. des frtuhsafawidischen CAli b. CAbd al-CAl Maisi, eine Oktober 1526) verstorbenen deren Nisbe sich von Mais PersUnlichkeit, wohlbekannte MaisI18 woher ja auch Scheich Lutfullah ableitet, al-Jabal Schah CAbbas' I. und Erbauer stammte, der Schwiegervater Er gehtrte der Moschee seines Namens am Maid&n-i Shan. die aus dem Jabal CAmil im sUdlichen zu jenen Theologen, Libanon nach Persien bschieden wurden, um das theologische SchiCa zu Rttstzeug fUr die von IsmAC1l eingefUhrte Die Erwahnung eines 959 (beg. 29. Dezember liefern 9. 1551) wundert&tigen Mannes20, Ustid Fillad b. Ustad Shujac ad-dtn Halwa'I mit Namen, erweckt den Wunsch nach bisher der Schriften hagiographischen noch nicht aufgetauchten Art, wie sie Jean Aubin fur eine andere Stadt ein Jahhat hundert zuvor mit so grossem Nutzen herangezogen zur Schriften Von den sechzehn selbstandigen die Muhamned Sadr-i H&shimi vor fUnfIsfahans, Geschichte aufgezghlt undzwanzig Jahren in einem Zeitschriftenaufsatz elf aus der Safawiden-Zeit; hat22, stammt keine einzige ftinf im 19. bzw. 20. Jahrhundert davon sind vorsafawidisch, 142
Wiederum eine davon, ein mehrbgndiges entstanden. Humn'i, war damals noch nicht TArikh-i Isfahan von Jalil auch in der Zwischenzeit nicht gedruckt und scheint vier Autoren Die restlichen publiziert worden zu sein. von Bearbeitung findet man auch in Bregels russischer wo auch noch Einzelheiten Storeys Persian Literature, 'Uber den bei Hashimi nur andeutungsweise aufgefUhrten MirzA Haidar CAll Nadim al-Mulk und sein T&rikh-i mukhtazu finden sind23. sar-i Isfah&n vom Jahrel922 Wenigstens Uber einen dieser Autoren und seine Stadtgeschriebenen dieser persisch Arbeiten als Vertreter sind einige klWrende Worte am Platze, nrrmlich geschichten Uber MuhammadIjasai J&birl Ansart (1287/1870-1956-57). eines in zwei verschiedenHashimti nennt ihn als Verfasser en Auflagen gedruckten T&rikh-i awwal-i ban&-yi IsfahAn AkhlAq und gedruckter Btnde Uber Tafslr, sowie einiger fehlt der genannte Titel. TArlkh. Bei Storey-Bregel DafUr werden dem Verfasser zwei BUcher Uber Isfahan zudie bei H&shiml nicht genannt siLd, numlich geschrieben, erstens ein T&rikh-i Nisf-i jah&n wa-hama-yi jahan, in Isfahan ohne Jahres1333/1915, publiziert geschrieben angabe, sowie zweitens IsfahAn wa-Rayy wa-hama-yi jahan, Teheran 1321/1942-43. Diese Angaben sind nicht frei von doch lassen sie sich aufltsen. ZunUchst Widersprllchen; dass T&rikh-i awwal-i ban -yi Isfahan ist festzustellen, sondern eine KapitelUberschrift, ist, nicht ein Buchtitel bezeichdie am Anfang jeder der beliden von Bregel richtig Von diesen zwei aus den steht. neten Vertffentlichungen Jahren 1915 bzw. 1942 stammenden BUchern ist das erste das zweite ein Typendruck ein Steindruck (214 Seiten), stimmen zwar Die beiden Vert5ffentlichungen (447 Seiten). so dass nicht aber in allen, in einzelnen Partien tlberein, auch abgesehen von dem auf mehr als das man die zweite, der Umfang, nicht als eine Neuauflage Doppelte erweiterten ersten bezeichnen Ubereinstirmnend ist in beiden die kann. Strich, der Seiten durch einen horizontalen Aufteilung eine geschichtlichgeographische oberhalb dessen man jeweils wahrend unterhalb beide von Isfahan findet, Darstellung tabellarische GeschichtsMale eine nach Jahren geordnete Ubersicht steht (in dem Buch von 1942, S. 26, als Tarlkh-i 143
hama-yi jaan bezeichnet), nUImlich vom Jahre 23 bis 1332 H. (= 643 - 1913) bzw. vom Jahre 1 bis 1358 (= 622 - 1939). Dieser Geschichtskalender stimmt in beiden BUchern nicht nur nach der Art der Anlage, sondern auch in vielen Einals deren KernsttUck zelangaben tiberein. Die Darstellung, man in dem Buch von 1915 eine nach Dynastien geordnete Betrachtung der Isfahaner Stadtgeschichte bezeichnen kann, ist dagegen in dem Buch von 1942 neu konzipiert: Die Einteilung nach Dynastien ist entfallen zugunsten einer ungegliederten Abhandlung. Jabirts Ausfuhrungen Uber Isfahan lassen sich in dem einen wie in dem anderen Buch als eine polyhistorische Zusanmmenstellung zum Thema Isfahan und Umbebung characterisieren. Sie bringen in bunter Folge historische BetrachEmntungen, topographische AufschlUisse, baugeschichtliche zelheiten, Hinweise auf administrative VerhUltnisse, Als ein prosopographische Angaben, Anekdoten und Verse. fUr die uns interessierende Beispiel Epoche erwahnen wir zu deren seine Angaben Uber die Isfahaner Familie JAbirl, Mitgliedern er sich selbst zAhlt. Angehtrige dieses die im 16. Jahrhundert in der Geschichte Geschlechtes, Zeit Persiens hervorgetreten sind, haben in der letzten das Interesse der historischen Forschung erweckt, darunter vor allem Mlrz& SalmAn Jabiri, der seinen Versuch, die Zentralgewalt des Herrschers gegen die Stammesintrigen der Qtzt lbash-Emire durchzusetzen, 1583 mit seinem Leben bezahlte24. dass JAbiris BUichern Dieses Beispiel zeigt bereits, wertvolle Aufschlttsse zu entnehmen sind. Es zeigt aber auch, dass sie ihren vollen Wert erst dann erhalten, wenn man sie mit den Angaben der anderen Quellen zusammenhalt. Der Mangel solcher polyhistorischer Arbeiten liegt nattiund systematische lich in dem Verzicht auf methodische DokumentaNoch schwerer wiegt die fehlende Grundsutze. Zwar findet sich mitunter der eine oder andere tion. Doch erwartet der Hinweis auf eine wichtige Quelle. Autor in der Regel, dass man seinen Angaben auch ohne Quellenbelege glaubt. Wenn An?&ris Werk als reprusentativ fur die von Hishiml und Bregel genannten persischen 144
zu betrachten so ergibt sich Stadtgeschichten ist, ihre Angaben anhand der zwingend die Notwendigkeit, Dabei komnt den sonstigen Quellen zu UberprUfen. vor allem den Chroniken, erstangige narrativen Quellen, Bedeutung zu. Sie sind zwar noch lungst nicht alle zuggnglich, doch sind bei ihrer Erfassung erhebliche Erfolge zu verzeichnen. WXhrend Storey fur die Safawidengeschichte sind es bei Numnern brachte, fUnfunddreissig Bregel nicht weniger als siebzig. Auch die Herausgabe und Bearbeitung der Chroniken hat merkliche Fortschritte gemacht, so dass die Auswertung der wichtigsten fUr das frUhsafawidische Isfahan in Frage komnenden Werke kein unmtgliches Unternehmen sein dUrfte. Nach diesem zugegebenermasse Uberblick flUchtigen Uber die Quellen sollen nun einige Aspekte des frUhsafawidischen Isfahans ertrtert werden.
III Die GrUndung des Safawiden-Reiches ist im 16. Jahrhundert das spektakulre Ereignis der islamischen Welt, sowohl im Hinblick auf seine politische, als auch auf seine geistesund kulturhistorische Rolle. Vladimir Minorsky nennt es die dritte turkmenische t5aatsgrUndung auf iranischem , ins Leben Boden nach der I4ongolenzeit gerufen durch die letzte der drei grossen Wellen tUrkischer RUckwanderer, die vom 14. bis 16. Jahrhungert von Anatolien nach dem iranischen Hochland fluteten Die Entstehung dieses Staates, das Werk Schah IsmACtls I., hatte ihre Vorgeschichte schon in den Jahrzehnten zuvor, ngmlich in den politischen und militlrischen Unternehmungen seines Vaters, Scheich Haidar, und seines Grossvaters, Scheich Junaid, und wir wissen heute, wie stark deren Nachwirkungen gewesen sind, als dem jungen Ordensmeister bei seinem Auftreten zu Beginn des 16. Jahrhunderts ta sgchlich imner neue Reislgufer aus Anatolien zustrtmten2'.
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Ostwanderungen, Schon die frUheren turkmenischen die der Qara Qoyunlu und der Aq Qoyunlu, begegneten die sich desto starker auswirkten, EinflUssen, iranischen je weiter die Turkmenen nach Osten vordrangen und auf Den Safawiden und ihrem iranischem Boden Fuss fassten28. genannt, ging Qtztlbash turkmenischen Anhang, gewthnlich es nicht anders, wenn wir den Verlauf und die einzelnen auch erst in den Umrissen Phasen dieser Iranisierung Auf der anderen Seite haben aber auch tUrkische kennen. darunter solche aus vorislamischer EigentUmlichkeiten, oder noch lange weitergelebt29 Zeit, im Safawiden-Reich Lande Erbe der persischen sogar Eingang in das kulturelle wechselseitiger Die Untersuchung derartiger gefunden. Gebieten der die sich auf den verschiedensten EinflUsse, lassen, feststellen Kultur der materiellen und geistigen AufschlUsse. interessante ist im Gange und verspricht auf eine bahnbrechende Leistung Hier sei wenigstens Gerhard Doerfers monumentales Werk Uber verwiesen, mongolisches un%otUrkisches Wortgut in der persischen . Historiographie des Reiches ebenso wie bei Bet der Iranisierung auf das iranische EinflUsse tUrkischer der Ausbreitung der safawidischen die EigentUmlichkeiten Milieu spielen eine in mehrfacher Hinsicht Reichs- und Provinzverwaltung Auf der einen Seite Rolle31. nicht zu unterschatzende Generale mit ihrem bewirkte die Entsendung tUrkischer oder PolizeiStatthalter Stammesanhang als Gouverneure, vUgte in die Stadte und Provinzen eine starke Streuung Elements sowie eine mehr oder weniger des tUrkischen Uber das ganze Land. Auf der Verteilung gleichmgssige anderen Seite kam es aber auch trotz mancher Wechsel und QTzTlbash Stgmme Vergnderungen zur Bindung der einzelnen Irans, eine bisher an bestimmte Studte und Landschaften Entwicklung32. noch nicht im Zusammenhang untersuchte am Deutlichkeit Worum es dabei geht, lasst sich mit aller das heute gewiss nicht die Teherans ablesen, Beispiel Persiens ware, hgtte es nicht in einem Gebiet Hauptstadt mit dem der Stamm Qajar seit langer Zeit verbunden gelegen, die von 1794 war, dem der Grunder der Dynastie angehUrte, hat. bis 1925 in Persien geherrscht 146
Um die Wende des 15. bis 16. Jahrhundert waren von Ostanatolien bis weit nach Iran turkmenische FUrsten tonangebend. Man wird kaum fehlgehen, wenn man IsmAcil I., der ja nicht nur ein Sprtssling der Ardabiler Ordensmeister, sondern auch ein Enkel des bis nach Europa berUhmten Aq Qoyunlu-FUrsten Uzun Hasan war, turkmenisches Denken uterstellt33, wenigstens insoweit als es sich um von der weltlichen Vorstellungen Herrschaft handelte, die er erstrebte. Es erklgrt sich daher mnihelos, dass fUr ihn als Tabriz nicht in Frage kam. eine andere Hauptstadt Ardabil, das Zentrum des safawidischen Ordens, dessen Vorsteher IsmACil seit dem Tod seines Bruders SultAn CAll war und als dessen ReprUsentant er auch bei seinen politischen Aspirationen auftrat, scheint er als Sitz seiner Regierung Uberhaupt nicht in Betracht gezogen zu haben. Nicht nur weil die von ihm bekgmpften Vertreter der Aq Qoyunly in TabrIz sassen, sondern weil es fUr die turkmenische Vorstellungswelt, in der er lebte, den Inbegriff einer Hauptstadt schlechthin darstellte. Es war ja nicht nur der Regierungssitz jenes Grossvaters und seiner Nachfolger, sondern auch davor schon derjenige zahlreicher berUhmter Herrscher gewesen. NatUrlich die Besetzung der Aq Qoyunlu-Hauptstadt bedeutete die Legitimation seiner Herrschaft. Hinzu kam aber noch der Reichtum des Platzes und seine Bedeutung als Verkehrsund Handelszentrum34. FUr einen Menschen im Persien des beginnenden war die Idee politischer 16. Jahrhunderts und wirtschaftlicher Macht nicht vom Besitz dieser Stadt zu trennen. war offenbar Diese Vorstellung so fest eingewurzelt, dass sie sich noch ein halbes Jahrhundert bei den Safawiden gehalten hat, obwohl schon bald mancherlei Grunde gegen die Beibehaltung dieser Hauptstadt sprachen. Ihre Preisgabe erfolgte erst unter dem Einfluss wesentlicher Veranderungen, die sich im Lauf der Zeit ergaben. Mit den safawidischen Erfolgen, namentlich mit der Ausdehnung des Staatsgebietes nach Osten, gewissermassen also mit der Iranisierung des Reiches, war Tabrlz imner mehr an den Rand gerllckt, besonders seit der Katastrophe von Jaldiran und der Besetzung der safawidischen Hauptstadt durch die 147
der den Osmanen. Trotzdem, es war nicht IsmiCti, sondern von Tabrlz nach QazwIn verlegte, Regierungssitz von erst Schah Tahmfsp I. Wenn auch die Niederlage dass er in den hatte, 1514 Ismaclil so schwer getroffen ganzen zehn Jahren danach bis zu seinem Tode nie wieder dennoch an mit seinen Truppen ins Feld zog, er hielt fest. seiner Hauptstadt
IV der Hauptstadt Tabriz ist also Die Faszination begann sie sogar schon Villeicht mit der Zeit erloschen. zu Aq Qoyunlu-FUrsten der letzten mit der Ausschaltung so doch wenn auch nicht fUr IsmACI1 selbst, verblassen, gewiss aber mit der fUr manche seiner Zeitgenossen; und zwar in dem Masse, wie die von Jaldiran Niederlage Stadt zum Zankapfel zwischen Safawiden und Osmanen wurde, was sie ja das ganze 16. Jahrhundert hindurch geblieben ist. zunUchst von TabrIlz Die Verlegung der Hauptstadt einen nach Qazwln und dann nach Isfahan kennzeichnet aber auch Etappen auf dem Weg der zugleich Sinneswandel, Nicht als hgtten die des Safawiden-Reiches. Iranisierung Herrscher diesen Vorgang planmassig oder safawidischen Man kann eher sagen, auch nur absichtlich herbeigefUhrt! dass er ihnen in erster Linie von einem machtvollen Eusseren Feind, von den Osmanen, aufgezwungen wurde. dabei eine Rolle haben auch innere Verhaltnisse Allerdings durch Herrscher die safawidischen doch waren gespielt, der mit der Milituraristokratie ihre Auseinandersetzungen mehr oder weniger zu Massnahmen 5gzwungen, die Qizilbash wie die ebenso Vorschub leisteten der Iranisierung des Schwerpunkts der StaatsVerlagerung allmahliche nach den und Nordwestpersien von Ostanatolien interessen Kaum war der religitse Provinzen. zentralpersischen der die AnfXnge Schah IsmACils I. Enthusiasmus verflogen, da er sich auch schon mit den musste hatte, begleitet turkmenischen Offiziere, seiner machthungrigen Intrigen 148
der Qtztlbash mit dem Stammespartikularismus auseinandersetzten. Nicht anders erging es semnen Nachfolgern. Dass sie dabei versuchten, den tUrkisch-iranischen Antagonismus ihrer Untertanen auszuspielen, hat rein politische GrUnde und nichts mit einer wie es scheinen zu tun 6 kUnnte, iranophilen Einstellung Insoweit kUnnte man bei ihnen sogar von einer Iranisierung ihres Reiches wider Willen sprechen. Tahmasp hat seine Hauptstadt wegen der in Tabriz standig akuten Gefahr osmanischer nach Qazwin verlegt37. EinfUlle Ob er darin eine endgUltige Regelung sah oder eine vorUbergehende Notmassnahme, der zu gegebener Zeit die RUckkehr nach Tabriz folgen das sollte oder die Ubersiedlung an einen anderen Platz, sind of fene Fragen. Aus der eher bescheidenen stgdtebaulichen und architektonischen die er Aus estaltung, dieser Hauptstadt angedeihen dUrfen keine zu liess3, weitgehenden SchlUsse gezogen werden, kUnnen doch dafUr auch andere GrUnde ins Feld gefUhrt werden, etwa sein geringes architektonisches Engagement oder Geiz und die ihm nachgesagt werden. Knauserigkeit, Die Faszination einer grossen Hauptstadt, die hatte schon Tabriz auf den jungen IsmaCil ausllbte, frulher in der Geschichte ihre Parallelen in der Anziehungskraft, die glgnzende Metropolen auf tUrkische Man kann den Drang der FUrsten und ihre VUlker ausUbten. als Musterbeispiel osmanischen Sultane nach Konstantinopel dafur nennen. Damit ist aber noch nichts Uber die Neigung und Fahigkeit tUrkischer Fllrsten zur Errichtung eigener nach Macht, nach Sie strebten Hauptstadte gesagt. und oder nach der Weltherrschaft, politischer Herrschaft mit Vorliebe versuchten sie, derartige Ideen dort zu wo Machtzentren bereits von anderen verwirklichen, worden waren, also nicht unbedingt in neu geetabliert grUndeten Hauptstgdten. Auf der anderen Seite f1llt die ungewthnliche Mobilitut der TUrken auf, auch noch in spgteren Zeiten. Der nomadische Anhang, auf den sich die Macht ihrer Fllrsten grUndete, war von den Lebensbedingungen seiner Reittiere und Viehherden abhgngig, was in den meisten Gebieten Vorderasiens zwangslaufig den Wechsel zwischen Somrner- und Winterlager Auch mit sich brachte. 149
Truppen der frUhen Safawiden kamen um die turkmenischen In einem gewissen nicht herum. solche Notwendigkeiten des ktinigInstitution die man kann Zusammenhang damit die das sehen, einer mobilen Hofhaltung, lichen Hoflagers in starkerem Mass als ganze 16. Jahrhundert hindurch, der bildete, spgter, ein Instrument der Reichsregierung wie sie das und zu Zeiten der Befriedung, Stabilisierung Teilen des in den verschiedenen des Herrschers Erscheinen bewirken konnte. Landes und auch auf Kriegsschauplatzen die Idee erscheint Verhgltnissen Unter derartigen Preisgabe der Augenblick vom Hauptstadt der safawidischen Tabr3z unter vergnderten des dafUr nicht mehr tauglichen des Auf die Gefahr der Uberanstrengung Aspekten. b. RUzbihAn Khunjl, Arguments kann man hier Fajlall&h Isfahaner wieder zu Ehren gelangten einen letzthin Emigran n am "Ozbeken-Hof, mit seinem Mihman-nama-yi an der er sich ngmlich eine Stelle, zitieren, Bukhara der ihm bekannten Welt Hauptstadte Uber verschiedene den er Uussert und dabei mit einem Ausspruch schliesst, legt; den Mund in Shaibinli seinem Gastgeber Mu1tammad fUr ihn andere FUrsten hgtten ihre festen Hauptstadte, aber, der die Welt zu erobern habe, gelte die Maxime: seinV' unser Sattel "So soll denn unsere Hauptstadt Wenn bei den Safawiden bis zu Schah CAbbAs I. von einer so extremen UnbekUmmertkeit gegenUber einer festen auch nicht die Rede sein kann, so hat es doch Hauptstadt lange als habe bei ihnen die Hauptstadtfrage den Anschein, jedenfalls Rolle gespielt, Zeit eher eine untergeordnete mit denen sich weit hinter anderen Problemen rangiert, So bedeutend Isfahan die Herrscher zu befassen hatten. hernach unter CAbbAs wurde, es sieht nicht so aus, als Qazwin und Isfahan bestehe zwischen den Hauptstgdten eine scharfe Zasur, aus der sich die Verlegung als ein Ereignis erggbe, fUr das man ein ganz punktuelles ktnne. Datum ermitteln bestimmtes Der damals am Hofe lebende Iskandar Munshif0 Schah CAbbAs habe von QazwIn aus, das bis schreibt, zu seiner Zerstreuung gewesen sei, dahin Regierungssitz 150
durch Reisen und Jagden von Zeit zu Zeit Isfahan aufgesucht, sich vorgenommen, in dieser Stadt langere Zeit und seine Aufmerksamkeit ihrer Pflege und zu verweilen ihrem Ausbau zuzuwendea. es dann 'tDeswegen", so heisst wUrtlich, Irentschloss sich der Schah in diesem Jahr, namlich 1006 H., die erwUhnte DAr as-salta (sc. Isfahan) zum Sitz der immerwghrenden Regierung zu machen und dort hochragende Gebaude zu errichten't. Er sei zur Verwirklichung dieser Absicht nach Isfahan gezogen, habe dort den Winter mit VergnUgungen und Festlichkeiten verbracht. Im FrUhling seien Neubauten projektiert worden, um deren und Baumeister bemUht hatten. AusfUhrung sich Architekten Die hier resUrmierten Angaben Iskandars Munshis leiten einen lngeren Bericht Uber die Bautgtigkeit Schah CAbb&s, I. in Isfahan ein. dass diese Partie Wir wissen, seines Werkes im Jahre 1025/1616 niedergeschrieben worden ist41, also fast zwei Jahrzehnte nach dem genannten Jahr. macht der Bericht Uber die Verlegung des Tatsfchlich Sitzes der Regierung eher den Eindruck einer flUchtigen Die gegebene BegrUndung ist nicht besonders RUckbesinnung. zu welchem Zeitpunkt der Schah eingehend. Offen bleibt, sich fUr die neue Hauptstadt entschlossen habe. Der Wortlaut erlaubt die Annahme, dass dieser Entschluss schon vor dem Jahre 1006 H. entstanden, vielleicht sogar in langerer Zeit herangereift sei. Da das genannte Jahr 1006 am 14. August 1597 begonnen hat, muss der Aufbruch des Schahs im Herbst oder zu Beginn des Winters erfolgt sein. Nur fUr den Beginn der Planung und des Baubeginns wird eine genauere Zeitbestimnung gegeben: Frllhling 1598. Diesen Zeitpunkt hat Laurence Lockhart42 zuerst 1950 und dann wieder 1960 fUr die Verlegung der Hauptstadt gegeben. Vorher hatte MuhammadIjasan Jabir; AnsAri fUr das Jahr 1005 H. (beg. 25. August 1596) plUdiert43. Wahrend man bei Miss Lambton ebenfalls das Jahr 1005/ 1596-7 findet44, hat LutfullAh Hunarfar45 noch vor einigen Jahren 1000 H. (beg. 19. Oktober 1591) angegeben. Von diesen modernen Autoren hat allerdings keiner seine Quelle mitgeteilt.
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es sich, dass Ende Oktober 1598 Sir Nun trifft Anthony und Robert Sherley von Bagdad kommend in Persien um dem Schah eine Aufwartung zu machen. eintrafen46, Dieser war aber noch nicht von seinem "tOzbeken-Feldzug ihn Die Englgnder erwarteten aus KhurisAn zurUckgekehrt. sondern in Qazwin, wo er dann auch nicht etwa in Isfahan, abad-bunyan, wie Iskandar am magarr-i saltanat-i eintraf er seine Truppen, Dort entliess Munshj4} sich ausdrUckt. und gewuhrte Sir Anthony Regierungsgeschgfte verrichtete zog er, so heisst Dann allerdings die gewUnschte Audienz. Isfahan. nach DAr as-saltana-yi es weiter, Diese Angaben legen die Vermutung nahe, dass Qazwin mit hauptstadtischen Zeit nebeneinander und Isfahan einige Funktionen verwendet wurden, was fUr das ohnehin mobile Erst Problem war. ktsnigliche Hoflager kein technisches der HofAusbau fUr die BedUrfnisse mit fortschreitendem haltung wird sich hernach der RUckgriff auf Qazwin allmahlich erUbrigt haben.
V
der wenn nicht sogar die Vorliebe Das Interesse, Herrscher fUr Isfahan lasst sich an frUhsafawidischen dass die Sie zeigen, ablesen. Indizien zahlreichen nicht etwa die Eingebung eines Erhebung zur Hauptstadt war, sonder auf einem Uber Generationen Augenblicks das die beruhte, engen Verhgltnis zuruckreichenden Dynastie mit diesem Platz verband. "In der Provinz CIrAq-i Ajam und besonders in und Isfahan brodeln immerzu Intrigen ihrer Hauptstadt eines aus GerUchte; es geht dort zu wie mit den Blattern dem Einband gelUsten Buches, durch die der Wind fuhrt". erwUhnte sich ggr bereits aussert So anschaulich um die Wende des 15. JahrFadlall&h b. Rizbihfn Khunjt und er als Isfahaner musste es ja wissen. hunderts, dieses kurz darauf die Einverleibung wUre Trotzdem ohne besondere Schwierigin das Safawiden-Reich Gebietes
152
keiten vor sich gegangen,wenn auf die massgeblichen Man liest dieses Vorgangs Verlass Darstellungen ist49. darin, Ismactl sei im Sommer 1503 nach einem Sieg Uber Sultan Murid Aq Qoyunlu, der von Schiras aus Uber die in Isfahan einProvinzen Fars und CIraq-i CAjam regierte, und dort mit grossen Ehren empfangen worden. getroffen Er habe semnen Eshik aqast Durmish Khin Shimlu zum Statthalter gemacht50 und sich im Herbst desselben Jahres nach Schiras gewandt, weil die Aq Qoyunlu in FArs wieder Truppen gegen ihn aufstellten. So harmlos, wie es dieser Bericht darstellt, scheint die Besetzung Isfahans aber doch nicht vor sich uns doch Qidi Nor ad-din gegangen zu sein, berichten Shiushtarl und sein Komnentator Shihdb ad-din Najaflt51, sunnitische der CUlamra der Stadt hatten beim Aufstieg Safawiden ein FatwA erlassen, aufgrund dessen zahlreiche SchiCiten Zur Vergeltung umgebracht worden seien. dafUr habe IsmACtl nach seinem Regierungsantritt ein Da die Stadt bis zum Sommer 1503 in Massaker befohlen, der Gewalt des genannten Sultan Mur&d gewesen war, koimut dafUr nur die Zeit nach der Ankunft Schah IsmiC1l in Frage. Da von solchen Strafaktionen des Schahs auch sonst berichtet wird52, sind Zweifel an diesen Angaben kaum angebracht. Zu tffentlichen Hinrichtungen politischer die der Schah zur Gegner oder unbotnimssiger Gefolgsleute, Abschreckung seiner Feinde 5 ornehmen liess, ist es in Isfahan ebenfalls gekommen . IsmACil eine gewisse Vorliebe fUr Spgter scheint die Stadt gefasst zu haben. Das zeigt sich in seimen haufigen und manchmal ausgedehnten Besuchen, wahrend deren es auch zu ertragreichen Jagdausflugen kam54, sowie 55 . Besonders deutlich in einer gewissen Bautatigkeit dafur auch sein Wunsch, die Niederkunft spricht seiner Gattin Nawwab Begum, die sich ankUndigte, als er mit seinem Hoflager von Hamadan nach Isfahan zog, mt5ge mtglichst nahe der Stadt vor sich gehen56. Es handelte sich dabei um die Geburt des Prinzen Tahmisb Mirzi, der zehn Jahre spUter Nachfolger seines Vaters wurde. ErwUhnen kUnnte man in diesem Zusammenhang auch noch die 153
Isfahaner Notabeln, WUrden kamen57.
die unter
IsmiCil
zu Amtern und
zu Die Zuneigung, die der erste Safawiden-Schah zu beoist auch bei seinen Nachfolgern Isfahan hegte, an ihrer Auch sie haben die Stadt oft besucht, bachten. und unter mitgewirkt58 Ausgestaltung architektonischen Selbst prominente Mitarbeiter gefunden. ihrer Hautevolee eine so ephemere Herrscherg stalt wie IsmaCil II., der in keine insoweit 9, bildet Isfahan MlUnzen prtgen liess nicht weiter nachAusnahme. Wir ktnnen den Einzelheiten erwahnen, der gehen, mtissen aber noch eine Sachverhalt Es ist fUr die spgtere Entwicklung von Bedeutung war. Domanenktniglichen die in Isfahans die Einbeziehung Das genaue Datum, zu dem sie erfglgte, gebiete (kha?a). Klaus M. Ri6hrborn hat ermittelt It ist nicht bekannt. 940 (beg. 23. Juli 1533) oder 941 dass sie spgtestens (beg. 13. Juli 1534), also unter Schah Tahmisp, erfolgt bis zu seinem Tode Bestand gehabt hat. ist und mindestens Aber auch danach wurde Isfahan nicht etwa wieder Stattsondern 985 (beg. 21 MUrz 1577) als Lehen halterprovinz, der ja fUr dem Prinzen Hamza M4irzA Ubertragen, (tiyiil) die Regierungsgeschgfte Muharunad Khudibanda, seinen Vater Nach seiner Ermordung kam es in derselben fUhrte61. an dessen Bruder Abu Talib MirzA, bis dieser Eigenschaft Noch kein Jahr nach wurde. 1587 von CAbbis eingekerkert der junge Schah beseitigte der Usurpation der Herrschaft (wakil) Murshid Quli Khan Ustfljlu, seinen Stellvertreter Kraft bei seinem Staatsstreich der zwar die treibende StUtze seiner Macht gewesen die stUrkste und zunlchst CAbbfs zu einer Marionette war, dann aber versucht hatte, Seine erste Anmassung und in seiner Hand zu machen62. es bei Iskandar Munshi63, so heisst sein erster Fehltritt, dass er sich Isfahan angeeignet habe darin bestanden, Privatland habe, einen Bezirk, der grUsstenteils des Schahs und Domgne gewesen sei. Tahmisps I. Mag dieser Vorgang sich auch zehn Jahre vor der haben, nach Isfahan abgespielt Verlegung der Hauptstadt der innere Zusanmnenhang zwischen den beiden Ereignissen mit der Schwierigkeit, Die grtsste ist unverkennbar. 154
sich der Schah zu Beginn seiner Herrschaft auseinanderund Stammeszusetzen hatte, waren UnbotmUssigkeit der turkmenischen Emire, die dem safawipartikularismus dischen Staat schon unter semnen beiden ersten Herrschern grossen Schaden zugefUgt, seit einem Jahrzehnt aber das Chaos heraufbeschworen hatten. Bevor den Wakil sein Geschick ereilte, hatte er selbst an der Beseitigung zahlreicher Qtz!lbash-Emire und damit die Ausmitgewirkt64 schaltung seiner eigenen Interessengruppe eingeleitet. Die Entmachtung der turkmenischen Generalitgt bedeutete die Preisgabe der bis dahin gUltigen MilitUrorganisation. Sie begann mit der Aufstellung neuer VerbUnde, die nicht mehr dem bis dahin gttltigen Stamnesprinzip unterworfen waren. Bevor die Reorganisation der Armee in Anlehnung an abendlgndische die die BrUder Sherley nach Grundsgtze, Persien brachten65, um die Wende des Jahrhunderts ihren Hthepunkt erreichte, verlegte der Schah seinen Regierungsin dem es seit Jahrsitz nach Isfahan, in ein Gebiet, Statthalter mehr gegeben zehnten keine turkmenischen hatte.
ANMERKUNGEN 1.
"Das safawidische Persien im Spiegel europAischer Reiseberichte (1502-1722)," Untersuchungen zur Wirtschaftsund Handelspolitik (Hamburg: 1970).
2.
In ihrer soeben genannten Arbeit (p. 107-11) zUhlt etwa zwanzig europUische Schuster-Walser Sibylla Reit sende auf, deren Berichte aus der Zeit vor der Ankunft der GebrUder Sherley in Persien (1598) starnmen.
3.
"Die Erforschung Persiens," Die Entwicklung lndischen Kenntnis der Geographie Persiens 1952).
4.
Gottfried Friess, "Die Reise des Hans Christoph Freiherrn von Teufel etc.," XXXXII. Progranmmdes k.k. Seitenstetten (Linz: 1898), p. 34ff. Ober-Gymnasiums
155
der abend(Wien:
SalzTerrae Sanctae, Frau Renate Husseini Dissertation Freiburger Reiseberichtes.
5.
Montis Sinai et Peregrinatio p. 198. burger Handschrift, sich im Rahmen ihrer befasst dieses mit einer Bearbeitung
6.
1344). Isfahan (Isfahan: Ganjilna-yi &_Ar-i tArikhi-yi besonders die In unserem Zusarmenhang interessieren In diesem Zusanmmenhangsei erinnert Seiten 360-89. du Masan die Arbeiten von Andre Godard, "Historique Athar-e Iran I (1936), pp. Djumca d'I4fahAn," djid-e 211-82 (mit Korrekturen und Ergdnzungen ibid. II, pp. sowie "IsfaIII, pp. 313-27, IV, pp. 361-68), 350ff, han," ibid., II (1937), pp. 7-176, und von Yedda A. sur les minarets d'IsfaGodard, "Notes epigraphiques pp. 359-65, sowie "L'Im&mzadb I (1936), h&n," ibid., pp. 339-48. II (1937), ibid., Zaid d'lIsfahin,"
7.
behandelt von Roger Savory, The Principal Ausfllhrlich of the Safawid state during the reign of Ismaoffices pp. BSOAS, XXIII (1960), cul I (907-30/1501-24)," 9 1-105.
8.
Hunarfar,
9.
Zwei davon dUrften aus dem Jahre 1565 stammen (vgl. Heribert Horst, "Zwei Erlasse Shah Tahmasps I," Sie sind verUffentlicht ZDMG110 (1960), pp. 301-09); aus dem mittelvon Walther Hinz,, "Steuerinschriften XIII (1949), Vorderen Orient," Belleten alterlichen pp. 745-69, sowie Hunarfar, Ganjina, p. 154ff, die loc. cit., p. 83ff. nur bei Hunarfar, dritte
Ganjina,
Ganjina,
p. 86.
p. 150ff.
10.
Hunarfar,
11.
Archives persanes commentees 2: Note preliminaire du takya du Tchima-Rud (Tehran: sur les archives 1955).
12.
von I.P. Petruwird eingehend untersucht Der Begriff VostokoSovetskoe "K istorii soyurgala,"11 shevskij, pp. 227-46. vedenie VI (1949), 156
13.
CAbd al-Husayn NawVii, Asnid wa-muk&tab&t-i t&rikhL-yji Iran az Timdr ta Shah IsmiCil (Tehran: 1341); Sayyid cAl1 Mulayyid Tabiti, AsnAd wa-namaha-yi tarikhi az awayil-i dauraha-yi islami ta awAbir-i Cahd-i ShAh D. Tabitiyan, 1346/1967); IsmCill-i gafawi (Tehran: AsnAd wa-n5mahA-yi tArikhl-yi daura-yi ?afawlya, mit einem Vorwort von Dabihall&h Safi (Tehran: 1343/1964).
14.
L. Louis Rabino di Borgomale, Coins, Medals and Seals of the Shahs of Iran (Hertford: 1945); Eduard von Zambaur, Die MUnzprUgungen des Islams (Wiesbaden: In einem Vortwort zu dem zuletzt 1968). genannten Werk hat Bertold Spuler auf einige weitere Ver6ffentlichungen zur islamischen Numismatik hingewiesen. Zambaur gibt fUr das frUhsafawidische Isfahan nur zehn PrUgungen an (6 Gold, 4 Silber), die aus den Jahren 949, 955, 975, 977, 985, 987 und 997 H. stammen. Bemerkenswert ist eine in Isfahan (DAr as-saltana-yi Isfahan) geprggte SilbermUlnze Schah Ismacils II. vom Jahre 984 H., nachgewiesen von Sayyid JamAl TurabITabAtabA&'i. Sikkah&-yi Sh&han-i isl&wm-iyi IrAn (Bd. 2) 1350). (Tabriz:
15.
"The Ardabil Shrine in the Reign of Shah Tahmwsp I," Iran 12 (1974), pp. 33-66.
16.
TArikhcha-yi Isfahan (Isfahan: 1346). FUr auqaf-i die FUlle der AufschlUsse, die den waqf-Urkunden Uberhaupt--und mithin ohne Frage auch fUr Isfahan zu entnehmen sind, sollten sie auftauchen bUrgen diesbezUgliche Vertoffentlichungen aus der letzten Zeit, von denen nur eine genannt sei: al-Rashidlyal-Waqflyya yah, the Act of the Pious Foundation made by Rashid al-din Fa4lullah, Facsimile of the original fourteenth century document drawn by himself and by his order (Tehran: 1972). Vgl. dazu Traj Afshir, I'Mucarrafl-yi nuskha-yi asl-i waqf-nama-yi Rashid al-Din FazlAllah," Barrasiha-yi tarlkhi V/i (1349), pp. 246-68, sowie idem, "The Autograph Copy of Rashid al-din's Vaqfnamehe,"1 CAI XIV (1970), pp. 1-13, und Bert Fragner "Zu einem Autograph des Mongolenwesirs Rashid al-Din
157
Fazllall&h, der Stiftungsurkunde fUr das Tabrizer Festgabe deutscher Gelehrtenviertel RabC-i Rashidi," von Irans, herausgegeben zur 2500 Jahrfeier Iranisten Wilhelm Eilers 1971), pp. 35-46. (Stuttgart: b. Mahdi Chazzl,
Rijil-i
Isfahan
(1328)
17.
cAbd al-Karim (2. Auflage).
18.
Vgl. Iskandar Munshi, TArikh-i C&lam-ara-yi ed. Iraj Afshar, p. 157, 859, 1007.
19.
"Schah Ism&CIl I. Uber ihn ausfUlhrlich Erika Glassen, und die Theologen seiner Zeit," Der Islam 48 (1972), pp.
CAbbisl,
254-68.
20.
Rijal-i
I?fahan,
S. 224.
21.
Deux Sayyids de Bam au XVe sibcle: Contribution de l'Iran Timouride, Abh. AWL (Mainz) l'histoire 1956). (Wiesbaden:
22.
Kitab-i AkhbAr "Qabr-i Hifi; Abui NuCaym,4 sahib-i pp. 54-67. Isfah&n,;' Y&dgar IV/4 (1326-27/1947-48),
23.
Tirlkh-i Eaydar CAll Iefahin ta'lif-i mukhtagar-i Nadim al-mulk Igfahani, ed. Iraj Afsh&r, FIZ 12 pp. 145-73. (1343/1964), Im Ubrigen sei verwiesen Persian Literature,_A auf C.A. Storey, Bio-bibliointo Russian and revised, survey, trans. graphical by Yu. E. Bregel and corrections with additions (Moskau: 1972).
24.
bzw. Jabiri Ansiri Hinweise auf das Geschlecht iabiri p. 85, 88, 94ff und 97, im finden sich im Steindruck Uber die 183 und 254. Typendruck p. 171, 174ff, handelt im einzelnen Jean Aubin, Familie Jibiri "Etudes Safavides I: Shah Ismacil et les Notables de Den l'Iraq Persan," JESHO II (1959), pp. 37-81. er'brtert Untergang des oben genannten Grosswesirs Murder of the Political R.M. Savory, "The Significance of Mirza Salman,"l Islamic Studies III (1964), pp. 158
a
181-91. Einige Angaben auch schon bei H.R. Roemer, Der Niedergang Irans etc. (WUrzburg: 1939). 25.
Tadhkirat al-Muliik1 A Manual of Safavid Administration 1943), p. 30. (London: (circa 1137/1725)
26.
Minorsky, "La Perse ica, Twenty Articles
27.
von Hanna Sohrweide, "Der Sieg Eingehend untersucht der Uafaviden in Persien und seine RUckwirkungen auf im 16. Jahrhundert," Der Anatoliens die Schiiten Islam 41 (1965), pp. 95-223.
28.
Auf die Aq Qoyunlu bezUglicher knapper Hinweis bei zum Nationalstaat im Walther Hinz, Irans Aufstieg (Berlin: 1936), pp. 67ff. fUnfzehnten Jahrhundert
29.
Einzelheiten bei Jean Aubin, "La politique Le Shicisme ImAmite (Paris: des Safavides, pp. 235-44.
30.
Elemente im Neupersischen, TUrkische und mongolische ulterer neupersiBerUcksichtigung unter besonderer vor allem der Mongolen-und schErGeschichtsquellen, 1963Bisher drei BXnde (Wiesbaden: Timuriden-zeit, 67).
31.
von Klaus-Michael VorzUglich dargestellt R76hrborn, im 16. und 17. Provinzen und Zentralgewalt Persiens (Berlin: 1966). Jahrhundert
32.
Bei H.R. Roemer, Der Niedergang Irans nach dem Tode des Grausamen (WUrzburg: 1939), p. 22, wird Ismaclls Qtzilbash-Stgmme auf der einzelnen die Verteilung Iran fUr die Jahre von 1577 bis 1581 durch eine Wenn es gelnge, veranschaulicht. Kartenshizze Phasen des Ulbersichten fUr die wichtigsten derartige ware mit interessanten auszuarbeiten, 16. Jahrjunderts zu Stadtgeschichte zur frUhsafawidischen AufschlUssen rechnen.
au XVe sibcle," zuletzt in Iran1964), p. 324. (Tehran:
159
religieuse 1970),
33.
bguerlichen Wenn auch IsmaCils Ahnen der sesshaften Bev'dlkerung der Ardabiler Gegend angehOrten, also sprach TUrkisch und keine Turkmenen waren, er selbst vgl. MinorDiwan hinterlassen, hat einen tUrkischen BSOAS X (1942), sly, "The Poetry of Shih tsmiCll,lt sowie Il Canzoniere di Shah IsmiCil pp. 1006a-1053a, 1959). TUred. Tourkhan Candjei (Napoli: Khatil'i, kisch war aber auch spUter noch die Sprache des vgl. den Bericht Engelbert Kaempfers Safawiden-Hofes, Am Jahren des 17. Jahrhunderts: aus den achtziger und eingeleitet Grosskt6nigs, Hofe des persischen von Walther Hinz (Leipzig: deutsch herausgegeben 1940).
34.
"Tabriz," Ergunzungen zu Minorskys Artikel Wesentliche von EI IV, p. 621-42 (in tUlrkischer Fassung erweitert Karl Ils. Ans. XII, p. 82-98) bietet Tahsin Yazici, Kulturzentrum Jahn, "Thlbris, ein mittelalterliches Klasse zwischen Ost und West," Anzeiger phil.-hist. p. 201-12. DAW(1968),
35. Vgl. den Hinweis auf das wakil-Amt oben, S. 3, und die Arbeit von Savory. in Anmerkung 7 zitierte 36.
truly der Safawiden als "the first Die Interpretation Blunt, (Wilfrid for centuries" many dynasty Persian 1966), p. 51) ist Isfahan - Pearl of Persia (London: nicht vertretbar. wissenschaftlich
37.
im Jahre 955 H. (beg. 11. FebDie Verlegung erfolgte ruar 1548), vgl. Laurence Lockhart, Persian Cities 1960), p. 69. (London:
38.
die Erforschung apud Cabriel, Teufel von Krottendorf Qazvin, das dem Reisenden ob der p. 65; Persiens, leeren Platze und der GArten sehr ausgedehnt vielen erschien.
39.
Fadlallah b. Rizbihan KhunjI, Mihman-nama-yi Bukhara, Muthammadgiaybani, ed. Minuchahr padshihi-yi Tarikh-i Neuerdings Ursula 1341), p. 54. Sutuida (Tehran: 160
und Turkestan zu Beginn des 16. Ott, Transoxanien Jahrhunderts. Das Mihman-nama-yi BukhAr& des Fal1lallAh b. Riizbihan Khunj4i, Ubersetzung und Kommentar (Freiburg: 1974), p. 74ff. 40.
Tarikh-i
41.
Storey-Bregel,
42.
"Isfahan,," Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society 37 (1950), p. 254, sowie Persian Cities, p. 23.
43.
Steindruck,
44.
"Isfaharn zl5sisch),
45.
In seinem (Tehran:
46.
The Sherley Brothers etc."- by one of the same House (London: 1848; Reprint New York: 1972), p. 19.
47.
Tarikh-i
48.
Tarlkh-i in A.D.
49.
Ghulam Sarwar, History of Shah Ismaicl Safawl (Aligarh: 1939), p. 45ff; Ann K.S. Lambton, "Isfahin,"' EI (2. Auflage, IV (1973), franz6isisch) p. 107.
50.
Cf.
51.
Beide Autoren apud Shiishtari, (Tehran: Iliqgq al-hag 1956-58). Den Sachverhalt diskutiert Michel M. Mazzaoui, The Origins of the Safawids (Wiesbaden: 1972). Dort auch Hinweise auf schicitische Strdmungen in Isfahan in fruheren Zeiten.
52.
Unter manchen anderen
cAlam-ara-yi II,
CAbbasi,
I,
p. 544.
p. 873ff.
p. 99; Typendruck, (I. - Histoire)," p. 107.
p. 189.
EI IV, 2. Auflage
Buch IQfahan (= Kitib-i 1346), p. 99.
CAlam-ara-yi
CAbbisi,
jawanan,
I,
(franNr.
10)
p. 586.
CAlam-ara-yi Amidl apud Minorsky, 1478-1490 (London: 1957), p. 38.
Persia
supra p. 3.
Quellenbelegen 161
sei
hier
auf
Reisenden Ludovico di Varthema den italienischen der 1502 nach Persien kam und sich, wohl verwiesen, Uusserte: folgendermassen "Wir reisten in Schiras, und der Grund war, dass der Soffi nicht weiter, er niederbrannte; durch das Land zog und alles tWctete besonders jene, die an Bubachar, Othman und doch er Aumar, alle GefThrten Mahomets, glaubten; die an Mahomet und Ali glaubten, unbelAstigt, liess Die Erforsie," vgl. Alfons Gabriel, und beschUtzte schung Persiens, p. 61. 53.
Bei Ghulam Sarwar, History, p. 49 und 51, werden deren drei im Jahr 910 (beg. 14. Juni 1504) erwUhnt.
54.
FUr Besuche Ismac'ls in Isfahan werden angegeben die Jahre 909, 910, 915, 917, 918, 919, 924 und 926 H., vgl. Qazi3 Ahmad Qumlni, Khulasat al-tawarlkh, Bayani (Tehran), Blatt 48 a/b, 68 b , Handschrift p. 86, 88 und sowie Shabirl Ansari, Steindruck, Grosse p. 56, 66, 70, 71, 89ff. Sarwar, History, 910 (p. 51), 918 (p. Jagden erwAhnt Sarwar, ibid., 66) and 925 (p. 89).
55.
heute nicht WUhrend eine Moschee, die er errichtete, s'ind Renovierungen bzw. Erweiterungen mehr steht, oben, p. 3, erwUhnten Mausoleums, H&rdn-i des bereits (von 1512) und der CAli-Moschee (von 1522) vilayit auch seiner Initiative seiner Zeit und vielleicht zuzuschreiben.
56.
das anonyme CAlam-a-ra-yi IsmaHierUber ausfUhrlich 1349), p. Sahib (Tehran: ?LJ, ed. Asgar Muntazir-i 82.
57.
in der oben, Anmerkung 24, genannten Einzelheiten Arbeit von Jean Aubin; ferner bei Hellmut Braun, Darstellung Shah IsmaCil, Eine unerschlossene Aval-e Diss. phil. des Lebens des ersten Safawidenschahs, 1947). (G6ttingen: (maschinenschriftlich)
58.
Hier
sei
an Newberies
Feststellung 162
von 1581 (supra,
der Schah pflege in Isfahan von Zeit p. 2) erinnert, - Wegen der Bauten cf. Andre zu Zeit Hof zu halten. Ath&r-e Iran II (1937), p. 7-176. Godard, "Isfahan," supra,
Anmerkung 14.
59.
Cf.
60.
Persiens Provinzen und Zentralgewalt Jahrhundert, p. 118ff, 135.
61.
Cf. Heribert Horst, "Der Safawide Islam 39 (1964), p. 90-94:
62.
Hans Wllier, Die Chronik Khul&sat al-tawaraikh des az4 Ahmad Qumml. Der Abschnitt Uber Schah CAbbas I (Wiesbaden: 1964), p. 48f.
63.
Tarikh-i p. 136.
64.
Einzelheiten
65.
Cf. Roger Savory, "The Sherley Myth," Iran V (1967), p. 73-81, sowie idem, "Safavid Persia,," The Cambridge History of Islam I (1970), besonders p. 413-20.
cA1am-ara-Yi
CAbbisl,
im 16. und 17.
Hamza Mirza,"
p. 381,
Der
apud Ri6hrborn,
bei Hans Willer.
163
COLOR IN SAFAVID ARCHITECTURE: THE POETIC DIFFUSION OF LIGHT NADER ARDALAN
shall be to situate My aim in this lecture the world of color within the traditional context of the Islamic culture of Persia; to explore the conceptual motivations that provoked its intense crystallization and saturation during the Safavid era; and to ultimately follow this world of color as it is annihilated into nothingness within the presence of Absolute Light. We will therefore witness the conceptual birth, life and death of color as a cyclical yet timeless, metaphysical expression of the Absolute within the world of phenomenal forms. 'Cis light makes color visible; at night Red, green and russet vanish from thy sight. So too the light by their contraries are shown. From the dark jungle as a lion bright Color from the viewless Spirit leaps to light. Rimil1 Here RumL evokes the primary tenet of traditional esoteric that the world is born or made known thinking: in light; next that color springs from this colorless light and its existence or "life" is fully dependent upon it; and finally that with the absence of light, there results in the ensuing darkness, the death of color. In brief, is related everything to light and yet that light is but " the Absolute one aspect of the l"viewless Spirit, Light, God.2
164
Obviously at the very source of this kind of thinking, intuition of reality, the roots of there lies an original revelation. From which are firmly planted in the prophetic this original intuition there has developed a traditional world view that has influenced creative expressions, be they in music, art, architecture, poetry or metaphysics3 to It is this unique perspective that I shall strive explore in an attempt to better understand the world of color which is but one of its facets. The approach here shall not be from the technical point of view of an architectural historian, which I am not; rather I shall try to bring to light some of the pervading traditional ideas underlying the conceptions of color and their unique synthesis I in the Safavid era. shall deal with these as aspects of a peculiar type of consciousness revealing one of the most fundamental prinof the Islamic culture of Persia: that of the Unity ciples of Being, wherein the paradox of light and darkness is as complementary aspects resolved of Unity. Islamic culture, it should be noted, sustained the unified character of the pre-Islamic traditional societies which had made no distinction between the sacred and the as is usually made today. profane, The Islamic tradition, instead, perpetuated elaborations of the exoteric and esoteric dimensions of life as complementary aspects of totality. The exoteric to the divine dimension, related law (sharicah) and man's social behavior, will not concern us here;4 rather it is in the domain of the esoteric, the Way (tarlgah) for it is here wherein our interest lies, that the aesthetic which evoke the Islamic use principles of color in art and architecture may be found.5 The "Way" permeated both formal sciences and the crafts and together they were embodied in the traditional craft guilds, which were the organizing bodies that brought traditional art into being. The guilds were invariably directed by masters who inculcated in their very selves both spiritual and temporal knowledge as practicing Sufis and master craftsmen. Thus the created works were, and
165
are, like the arts of nature, at once fundamental, still that exhalt of expression cosmic and imbued with a nobility the Truth, through the Way.6 of the Way is that there is a postulate The central in the sacred As expressed hidden Truth in all things. and wishing traditions (badLi), "I was a Hidden Treasure, form Every external to be known, I created the world."'7 is complemented by an inner reality, which is its hidden, is the sensible, (manifest) The ihir internal essence. the form, such as the shape of a building, quantitative The bitin body of man or the colors of glazed faience. aspects which all or qualitative (hidden) is the essential 8 In order to know a thing in its completethings possess. but also ness, one must not only seek its outward reality, in which the eternal beauty of its inward reality--that "Know that the To quote al-Ghazall, every object resides. as the husk is to world is to the world invisible visible and darkness the kernel; as the form or body to the spirit; to light."19 Darkness and light are among the most profound and images of this traditional archetypical representative this supreme symbolic state They have attained world view. of a as they are natural and immediate self-expressions and for those who of the Absolute Reality; root experience all pervading light that the dazzling, have experienced the associthe golden basin of the Persian plateau, fills In point of understandable. ation will be most readily is so strong that light is conceived the association fact, God. as Absolute Existence, But this light is not to be confused with physical as we know it in the pheno(such as the sun or fire) light too weak and too defined menal world, for it is considered to be "essence." Rather, the Sufi sees through his "eye the overwhelming vision" of spiritual (cayn al-ba?trah)10 as the true concept of light light of the Divine (al-nir) within this created world. and all others are dim analogies Light,
in spiritual
thought,
166
is considered
Absolute
while darkness is analogous to the phenomenal existence describes the world. The master of irf&n, Ibn CArabi,ll manner: "the world is the shasituation in the following inspired dow of the Absolute."112 This image is directly by the Quranic verse, "Hast thou not seen how thy Lord He could make it spreads the shadow? But if He so will, the world stand still.",13 By this, Ibn cArabi interprets vis-aas being only an illusion, having no real existence as a shadow has only a vis the Absolute Reality--just transitory existence. This profound metaphor very simply of the sufi strucdescribes one of the central conceptions for in order that shadow may exist, ture of existence, light, object and a place three things must be present: Were it not wherein the shadow can make its appearance. for the place, then the shadow would remain in potentia in the essence of the object and the "treasure" forever hidden or person who casts of shadow to the object, The relation it, is identical of the world to Absolute with the relation levels or Now as there exist several archetypical Being. stations between the world and Absolute Light, each station upon the lower, until the casts its shadow successively final layers of shadows accumulate in the darkness of the phenomenal world. The world is then merely a place of that shadows of multiple shapes cast by layers of objects as they reach toward the grow conceptually more concrete source, or Absolute Light. in his In the view of the Safavid mystic, Lahiji, this shadowy world Commentary on the Garden of Mystery,14 has the phenomenon of nothingness while light is everybut because the world of Absolute Light and thingness, cannot be experienced except by only a everythingness man to symchosen few, then it is the mandate of creative yet bolically suggest through his works that brilliant, "hidden" world, and thus, the fundamental darkness of this but only to serve as world is turned into apparent light, a symbol for the absolute world of light. Once this paradox of light and darkness is clearly and its parts understood, the empirical world as situated It follows directly we know it unfolds to the sufi mind.
167
are in because man's creations within this perspective, that his realizations inverse analogy with the Absolute, or attempt to create a temporal world of everythingness forth the partial issues which symbolically saturation Thus in the world of darkimages of Absolute Existence. ness and shadow, light appears; and in the world of essentowards everythere is a motivation tial nothingness, through visually of the senses: and a saturation thingness audibly in speech, shapes and colors; spaces, illuminated through silken, tangibly music and divine incantation; odorously in frasurfaces; incised or textured polished, and finally grant rose gardens and musk perfumed bodies; rice offerings (nazr) where in taste, in the saffroned consumes the Divinity one symbolically through invocation into his very being. Thus, within the phenomenal world, the positive It is this are exhalted. reality symbols of the concealed aspect of the world of symbols which plays a dominant role expresuse of colors within the creative in the saturated is viewed The world of colors sions of the Safavid era. Just as a manifest symbol of the concept of multiplicity. is emanated from Unity, so colors are as multiplicity As viewed as emanations from the light of the Absolute. in the world is derived from "Everything states, Sulravard! however, through Falling, the light of His Essence."15 this light the colorless prism of the world of archetypes, refracted into the spectrum of rainbow is metaphorically Thus reaches the phenomenal world. colors that ultimately the true essence of for the beholder a dilemma concerning light and color occurs, but as al-Ghaz&li explains, of knowing God is therefore due to The difficulty He is so bright that men's hearts have brightness; There is nothing to perceive it. not the strength than the sun, for through it all things brighter become manifest yet if the sun did not go down by or if it were not veiled by reason of the night, that there is such a shadow, no one would realize Seeing thing as light on the face of the earth. they would say that nothing more nothing but colors,
168
that light is a However, they have realized exists. the colors becoming manifest thing outside colors, through it; they have comprehended light through its . . He is hidden by His very brightness.16 opposite. from the First to In the process of determination and only by the Last, the world of color is made manifest from the Last to the First can man find the Absoreturning which can conception Within this traditional lute Light. the world of be viewed through the symbol of a triangle, with the expansion of the base, symcolors is associated between situated and becomes clearly multiplicity, bolizing which descends from Unity, and that of the world of light, through which Unity is once again regained. darkness, schemes have been developed in Many metaphysical of Islamic Persia that build upon this view, but one--that has dominated the the system of haft rang (seven colors)-We shall explore further world of art and architecture. work of the through the conceptual aspects its particular NizAmi, who brilliantly thirteenth century poet and mystic, the essence of this system in his epic poem, the depicted 7 Here NizAmI depicts the Haft Paykar (Seven Portraits). stages, progress of the Sufi through the seven spiritual symbolized by the seven colors which are metaphorically to numerous phenomena, such as the seven visible associated the the seven days of the week, the seven metals, planets, education, of traditional the seven levels seven climates, the seven parts of the body and the seven Prophets (from Abraham to Muhammad).18 white, black and In the system of seven colors, group of three colors, sandalwood are viewed as the first green and blue, viewed as the complemented by red, yellow, Together they numerically second grouping of four colors. This numerthe super grouping of seven colors. constitute the tradifor understanding ical distinction is critical color system. Objects or concepts taken in isolational Each phenomenon is tion are adverse to the Islamic view. to which, for the sake viewed as part of a greater totality
169
characnumerical or geometrical clarity, of intellectual is evoked which Thus a totality are assigned. teristics than any of its parts. is larger and more significant three as number, and In the system of three colors, the fundamental concepin geometry, reflects as triangle soul and body, which make up all of creation of spirit, as the three motions of the Viewed alternatively tion. ascent and horiof descent, acts the it evokes spirit, expansion. zontal pure and of all colors, White is the integration it is the color of state, In its unmanifested unstained. before the One the Absolute before individualization, viewed as white, became the many. Light, symbolically Unity. descends from the sun and symbolizes As it is through white that color is made manifest, so through black it remains hidden, "hidden by its very Black is "a bright light in a dark day," as brightness." only through this luminous black can one find the hidden of self, Black is the annihilation of the Divine. aspects the of It is the cloak to reintegration. prerequisite and Majesty, of light the Kalabah, the mystery of Being, Essence." of Divine the "color the It is the neutral Sandalwood is the color of earth. and the base upon which nature (the system of four colors) Symbolically, of black and white act. polar qualities earth in the macrosandalwood is man in the micro-state, the neutral plane to the matter to the artisan, scale, to the architect. floor and the geometrician, four as number, and In the system of four colors, configuthe conceptual as square in geometry, reflects as the active qualities Soul manifested ration of Universal of nature (hot, cold, wet, dry) and the passive qualities 9 The quadrants water, air, and earth). of matter (fire, the four seasons and of the moon, the quarters of the day, of man's temporal life are secondary the four division the primary colors In vision, of this system. reflections
170
are red, yellow, green and blue. Red develops an association with fire. It expresses the vital spirit--active and expansive. it is morning, spring, and Cyclically, childhood. The complement of red is green. It characterizes and contractive. water, the superior soul, passive it is evening, fall and maturity. Yellow is Cyclically, air, contemplative, active and expansive. It stands for noon, summer and youth. It complements blue, which represents earth, the inferior soul, passive and contractive while symbolically it represents the end of the cycles, for it is night, winter and old age. Viewed as a movement through the four quadrants of a circle, the descending and ascending motions of these colors describe a full circle; the end of one cycle only signals the beginning of another. Green is viewed in Islam as the superior of the four colors because it embodies all of the others. Yellow and blue join to form the balanced mixture of green, and its afterimage is red. Green is hope, fertility, and eternity with its two inherent dimension of past (blue) and future and its opposite, (yellow) the present seen as red. Through the science of alchmey man associates himself with the temporal creative process. Alchemy has a two-fold On the one hand, it is the science aspct. of the transformation of the soul of man; on the other, through the traditional arts and crafts, it is a science concerned with the essences and processes of nature.20 Traditional man participates in the creative process through the process of the transmutation of matter, the taking back of matter to its state as "hidden gold," as it were. The miniaturist or glazer of tiles participates in the alchemical as well as spiritually. process physically His choice of color symbolizes a particular state of consciousness. In the same way the mystic seeks the transformation of his soul. The method is one of reaching a state of purity and then internalizing it. Colors become an orientation for the mystic the means by which he judges his level of realization.2i He is beyond time, only the world of color provides for his direction and orientation.
171
way, therein a purposeful use of colors The traditional chaos might exist in order where otherwise fore, creates the mind of the beholder. the qualitahave discussed The preceding sections but color concepts of order in colors, tive and alchemical also exhiarts and crafts in the traditional realization and quantitative bits a keen awareness of qualitative for this A primary source of inspiration integration. I shall, is to be found in nature. sense of integration explore some of the basic color systems briefly therefore, of nature which have had direct analogous interpretations in the art of glazed particularly arts, in traditional faience.22 The color harmonies of nature are many; they exhithat are predominantly bit strong group characteristics Simple or of analogous or complementary harmony systems. in which the are observable, color patterns multi-level color forms and to eye tends to favor the more precise Thus primary colors lines. anything on the border reject appreciated, most are systems observable in distinctly visual clarity. their for particularly or colors that are next to each Analogous colors, the harmony of adjacents, called other on the color circle, the spectrum of colors are commonly found in nature, i.e., red through scale that of the rainbow, autumn colors Most colors in highlight brown and purple. orange, yellow, A red rose will and shadow will scale through adjacents. shadows, while a yellow and purplish have orange highlights nasturtium will scale toward orange in the center to at the stem. yellow-green as in all color emotions, Analogous colors reinforce the simple primary or secondary is supported and instances its neighbors that reflects enhanced by two intermediate basic character. the of opposing colors, contrast The simultaneous nature in appears circle, color the on harmony of opposites
172
Violet flowers as frequently as those of analogous colors. the blue bird has contrasting often have yellow centers; in his wings, while the drama of sparks of yellow-orange a deep, liquid blue sky are but a an orange sunset against few of the examples of nature's superb use of harmonious not The arrangement of opposites contrast. is, of course, but perhaps most outstandingly limited to the color circle in the complements of black and white. is exhibited The is related to esoteric symbolism of "that which is highest in the that which is lowest",23 is profoundly manifested phenomenon of color complements and their afterimages. The latter tend to add apparent chroma and saturation to the vividness of the colors and their symbolic meaning. Nature, then, as a natural symbol has always served as a primary source for the creative lexicon of visionary It is then no wonder that the vast Safavid expressions. synthesis of the arts and sciences relied so much upon for nature's mode of operation, its rhythms and its colors In nature were the conceptual models of reintegration.24 found the basic orders of creation and examples of the perfect harmony that pervades all things. Nature's perennial creations out were viewed as eternal springs of light, of the depths of which all being was constantly emerging and fully saturated resusitated with the pure light of the harAbsolute. It is this very conception- -the essential which motimony and unity of all things (va4dat al-vuj5d) vated the intellection and creative expressions of the a successful Safavid era.25 We witness attempt by the Isfahan school of thinkers, notably in the outstanding works of Mir Damad and Mull& 5adra, to synthesize the preceding centuries of intellectual thought into one vast, all encompassing perspective of the Unity of Being. There is an attempt at bringing man back to an expanded sense of the one spiritual reality from which all the different modes of perception and knowledge have emanated.26 There is a dynamism in the perspective that is not directed towards the achievement of a future state of union with the Absolute, but the realization of a higher state of being that exists here and now. The sensible world is
173
and therea grade of the Absolute Being itself considered fore capable of serving as an immediate guide to the Absolute. of a new, sensual is a crystallization The synthesis the natural multiplieach facet reflecting spirituality, unity of the crystal. within the overall city of existence of the perarchitecture and art the way, same In much the of temporal forms that crystallizations iod exhibits The of the Safavid era. perceptions the multiple reflect the provokes an art that seeks to saturate new synthesis of SultAn senses and produces the heralded miniatures the gardens of Fin and the Muhammad, the Ardabil carpet, ShAh and the harmonic synthesis the Masjid-i Hasht Bihisht, of the Safavid city of Isfahan.27 however, remains language of colors, The traditional of the art remains the unchanged, for the basic intention the role It is principally same as it had always been. of the arts expressions that color assumes in the creative that is expanded and enriched in conformity with the new of the period. sensual spirituality world of color must, howstructured This carefully if transcended and totally destroyed ever, be conceptually art is to be realized. the true purpose of traditional That purpose and the inner secret of this art is an alchemy for just as true alchemy aims at transforming of light, so does the art of Isfahan allow heavy matter into spirit, into the solid matter of the structures light to dissolve realizations.28 of visionary colored crystals glistening, by the first are in turn directed These realizations shahadah) that states: of Islam (the first testimony Thus if it be not the Divinity."29 "There is no divinity, there is a motion in the sufi mind toward Divine Contemif he who seeks the path which is only possible plation, only "All men are asleep; the hada. which states, realizes when they die, do they wake up."r30 This death, however, and event; rather it is a spiritual is not a biological of the very psychic one, where man throws off the shackles 174
in order to soar senses which first caught his imagination To quote Jami: upwards within the arc of spiritual ascent. the mani"Make the phenomenal world the mirror to reflect festations of Thy Beauty, not a veil to separate us from writthee.",31 This veil metaphor, often used in mystical to another of the hadLa, "Verily God is hidings, relates den behind seventy thousand veils of light and darkness.",32 World Here each of the intervening stations (maqam, i.e., of Archetypes, etc.) are seen as veils which hide the Unity of Being from our vision. In the arc of spiritual ascent, however, these veils of darkenes may be successively removed as the journey into light progresses, as described by a saying of the Sufis: "The soul, in its upward sevenfold way to union with Pure Light, is at every stage stripped of ten thousand of these veils, the dark ones first and then the bright."33 This spiritual journey spirals through the world of multiplicity of objects and colors toward an ultimate union, the final stage of which is signaled in some metaphysical systems by a luminous black light in which there is a total annihilation or death (fana') of all images, all colors, all sensations, and most important, an annihilation of one's very self.34 Noth'ing exists of the self; there is not even the awareness of there being nothing. The mystic is fully consumed by the light of the Divine and his soul reunites with the one. There is no separation and thus there are no colors, no shadows, and no need of a place no objects, to receive the shadows. There is simply light. The drop of light that had been hidden in the world of shadows has finally been reintegrated with the vast sea of light.
NOrES 1.
JalaL al-din Riimi, Rumi, Poet and Mystic,trans. Nicholson (London: 1964), p. 118.
175
R.A.
2.
JalAl al-din Riimi, Mathnavi, trans. R.A. Nicholson commentary Book I, p. 89. 1925-40), (London:
3.
The Sense See N. Ardalan and L. Bakhtiar, in Persian Architecture The Sufi Tradition 1973).
4.
to Islamic See S.H. Nasr, Introduction 1964), p. 5. (Cambridge: Doctrines
5.
Unity of Religions, See. F. Schuon, Transcendent p. 84 and S.H. n.d.), trans. Peter Townsend (London: 1964), p. 83. Nasr, Three Muslim Sages (Cambridge:
6.
See A. Coomaraswamy, Christian 1956). ophy of Art (New York:
7.
Titus Burckhardt, 1959), (Lahore:
8.
Imagination Henry Corbin, Creative 1969), p. 304. Ibn Arabl (London:
9.
Margaret p. 174.
Smith,
Cosmological
and Oriental
An Introduction p. 66.
al-Ghazzll
of Unity: (Chicago:
to Sufi
Philos-
Doctrine
in the Sufism of
the Mystic
(London:
1944)
p. 144.
10.
Ibid.,
11.
century of the twelfth writings (irfini) The gnostic Ibn CArabl, have had a profound influence thinker, thought and are lucidly on subsequent esoteric The Key Philosoexplored in the works of T. Izutsu, phical Concepts in Sufism and Taoism--Ibn Arabi and 1966) and (Tokyo: Lao-Tzu, Chuang-Tzu, 2 vols. H. Corbin, op. cit.
12.
Ibid.,
13.
Quran 24:45.
14.
translated by E.H. This commentary has been partially 1880). in The Hystic Rose Garden (London: Whinfield
p. 83.
176
15.
Margaret (London: century Sufism. and his tory of baden:
16.
A.J. Arberry, Classical 1958), p. 78.
17.
See Ni;ami, 1924).
18.
Ardalan,
19.
See Titus (London:
20.
Ibid.
21.
Many different color systems have been used in the multiple spiritual methods employed by the Sufis. Simnani thirteenth for example, used the century), same seven colors, but arranged them differently than with that the result he from moves sandalwood, Ni;ami blue, red to white and then proceeds upwards to yellow, luminous black and finally emerald green. See Henry Corbin,"Physiologie de I'Homme de lumibre dans le Soufisme Iranien," Ombre et lumiTre (Paris: 1961).
22.
Ardalan,
23.
This is from the Emerald Tablet See Burckhardt, op0. cit.
24.
The Safavid period is the apogee of a long development which reaches back centuries, and to the introduction of new intellectual perspectives into Islamic civilization. Four schools of thought gradually approach
Smith, Readings from the Mystics of Islam 1944), p. 79. Suhravardl is a twelfth school of thinker who created the Illuminist See S.H. Nasr, Three Muslim Sages, op. cit. article on Shihab al-din Suhrawardi in A HisMuslim Philosophy, M.M Sharif, ed. (Weis1946&. Persian
Haft Paykar,
op. cit .,
trans.
Literature
(London:
C.E. Wilson
(Tehran:
p. 134.
Burckhardt, 1967).
Alchemy,
trans.
William
Stoddart
op. cit.
177
of Hermes Trismegistos.
school the Illuminist each other during this period: of Suhrawardl, the irfinli school of Ibn CArabi, the school of Ibn Sin& and the school of peripetetic See S.H. Nasr, Science and theology of al-Ghazill. 1968), Three Muslim in Islam (Cambridge: Civilization Sages, op. cit., in A History of and his article pp. 904-960. Muslim Philosohy op, pcit., of Muslim Philosophy,
op. cit.,
pp.
25.
Nasr, A history 904- 960.
26.
Ibid.,
27.
A.U. Pope and Phyllis Persian Art, 14 vols
28.
See Burckhardt,
29.
see S.H. Nasr, For a development of this testimony, 1966). of Islam (London: Ideals and Realities
30.
See Izutsu,
31.
on Sufism, A Treatise CAbdal Rahman Jaml, Lawa'ili. 1914) trans. E.N. Whinfield and M.M. Qazvini (London: p. 2.
32.
al-Ghazali, (London:
33.
in Islamic Illumination Abu al-Mawahib al-Shidhili, 1938). trans. E.J. Jurji (London: Mysticism,
34.
Izutsu,
pp. 932-960. Ackerman, eds., 1965), (London:
Alchemy,
op. cit.,
A Survey of p. 1872-1897.
op. cit.
p. 1.
Mishkat al-anwar, 1924), p. 88.
op . c it.
178
trans.
W.H.T. Gairdner
THE SAFAVID STATE AND POLITY ROGER SAVORY
I regard the arguments about nationalism or the lack of it, and about whether or not the Safavid state can as in many ways sterile. be called a nation-state, What I am much more interested in is the question whether or not in any generally the Safavids created a state at all, accepted sense of the word. I propose in a moment to look at some of the commonly accepted characteristics of the state, and see whether or not the Safavid system possessed these characteristics. It is because I do not want to place primary emphasis on the concept of the "nation-state" that I have entitled this paper "The Safavid state and polity"--the latter an organized socimeaning, of course, ety of which they were a part, for to Plato and Aristotle the pois was more than just a natural organism such as a herd or a hive. In 1968 in a paper entitled "The Evolution of the Safavid State, I argued that since the Safavids did not have a specific word for "state," it was possible to assert that the concept of the state in any Western sense did not for them. exist The term most commonly used to denote the Safavid state durings its formative period, that is to say the sixteenth century, was mam&lik-i mabr4sa, the "divinelyprotected dominions." The word dawlat (now the ordinary word for "state") was, I argued, just beginning in Safavid times to assume a more concrete sense than its abstract meaning of the "bliss" or "felicity" of the ruler, the aura 179
his subwhich surrounded him and sheltered of beneficence power was This concept of the nature of monarchical jects. further developed by the use of such terms as arkan-i which supported this regal dawlat, that is, the pillars of officers canopy, as the standard term for the principal shahl and awlii-yi the terms awliayidawlat-i the state; this conAlso reflecting dawlat-i qghira are also found. "trusty the is, that al-dawlah, ictimid terms the were cept of the vazir as a title support" or "prop of the state," to the state." or "loyalty lpatriotism" and dawlatkhvahI, At the same time I pointed out that during the later Safainto the concept of the state was crystallizing vid period, Instead of mamalik-i mahrusa, form. a much more definite phrases like mamAlik-i we find more and more frequently Iran, the "kingIran, the "dominions of Iran"; mamlikat-i to I am now inclined dom of Iran," or quite simply IrAn. had I than much earlier started had think that this process the of concept a clear very and that thought previously Since I state had developed by the time of Shah cAbbAs I. to write a position on this occasion have been invited I shall adopt. paper, this is the position critiIt is curious that none of those who severely in I adopted that timidly position cautious the cized even 1968 pointed out to me that even in Europe, where the century in the nineteenth development of the nation-state of the Euroto be the supreme contribution was considered the development, pean peoples to the world's political concept of the state did not come into being until the sixwas first (lo stato) The word "state" teenth century. what a did not define he but by Machiavelli, introduced and it was Jean Bodin state was or how it was constituted, If formulated an actual concept of the state. who first to define century Europe was only just beginning sixteenth that the it is hardly surprising the concept of the state, century Safavids had no clear idea of it, and if sixteenth century Europe had only just coined the word sixteenth century Safait is not strange that the sixteenth l"state," vids did not have a concrete word for this concept. Let us now turn to an examination 180
of some of the
characteristics
positive
1.
Territorial
of the state:' boundaries
with clearlyThe state may be said to be associated satisfied The Safavid empire certainly defined boundaries. wellShah cAbbis I had a particularly this requirement. terrihis hereditary developed sense of what constituted with neighboring correspondence tory and in his diplomatic belabouring the point that the monarchs, he was constantly he was engaged in subjugating particular piece of territory time constituted part of his hereditary at that particular dominions; it followed that since he was merely recovering which was rightfully his, the other side had no territory and his action should cause to feel any sense of grievance, He adopted this a causus belli. not be held to constitute in regard to his reconquest line of argument, for instance, of Qandahar from the Mughals in 1031/1622 and in regard to his recapture of Baghdad from the Ottomans in 1033/1624. and the extreme north-east Only in the extreme north-west and of the Safavid empire in dispute, were the boundaries arose because of the incidents even in these areas frontier of the Safavids to maintain an adequate military inability themselves were presence rather than because the boundaries unclear. had no for instance, the Safavids In the north-east, east of the Oxus after Shah Ismacil territorial ambitions the Oxus I. They would have liked to make the frontier boundary between Iran and Turan, but river, the classical they were unable to hold the key city of Balkh; such stawas afforded by defenbility as existed in the north-east sive alliances, nature, with sateloften of a transitory In the north-west the source of lite Uzbeg princes. was the Georgians, who were to the Safavids instability The analogy is a what the Irish have been to the English. power conclose one; in both cases one has an imperial of law and order and good government ferring the benefits on a neighboring in terms of people regarded as inferior of In both cases the recipients civilized development. 181
against by rebelling show base ingratitude these benefits are the occupying power, and in both cases rebellions because of the with more than usual ferocity repressed sense on the part of the imperial power that it has been who, it thought, had expressed their betrayed by subjects problems too, the political In both cases, to it. loyalty Finally, differences. Georgia, were aggravated by religious reputawas the graveyard of many a military like Ireland, Just as the English have never understood the Irish, tion. to understand the Georgians, failed totally the Safavids nature enabled them to exchange a qizilbash whose volatile taj for an Ottoman turban at, if I may be forgiven a pun, Islam sat, as has the drop of a hat and on whose shoulders As far as the sans fa9on. been said, with an extraordinary however, the Safavid actual boundaries were concerned, the Safashahs had a very clear idea of what constituted vid state.
2.
Sovereignty
of a state have been boundaries Once the territorial of sovereignty or even before then, the question settled, that It is essential becomes one of paramount importance. at the local level of city however much democracy exists power in the state should reside ultimate ward of village, in in some person or persons who have the final authority and eighteenth In seventeenth the making of decisions. normally resided in a monarch. century Europe, sovereignty From the end of the Thirty Years' War to the French monarchy reigned almost without a absolute Revolution organias the standard form of political challenge . .; western Europe, for more than a century, zation. soverdeterminate was ruled by a number of clearly monarchs in most cases, who exereigns, hereditary right to make and enforce laws cised an unlimited of the The obligation states. within their respective form of was the highest subject to obey the sovereign duty..2
182
The Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 "lexpressly confirmed the to determine the religious right of secular sovereigns duties of their subjectst"3 as well as to demand their obediance in secular matters. Shah IsmaCil would have found no fault with the conclusion reached by Bodin, the sixteenth century French political theorist already mentioned, "that there ought to be, in every state, a single recognized lawmaker, or sovereign, whose decisions were recognized as having final authority.",4 The point I am trying to make, at the risk perhaps of belabouring it, is that there was nothing unusual in the fact that the Safavid shah was an absolute monarch or that sovereignty resided in the shah. the On the contrary, Safavid shahs were typical of their age, and one of the reasons why Sh&h cAbb&s, for example, was able to maintain such excellent diplomatic relations with the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, France and England was that all these countries were ruled by monarchs whose view of sovereignty did not differ markedly from his own. I find both historically and morally disingenuous inaccurate of the attitude some writers who hold up their hands in pious horror at the absolutism of the Safavid shahs, as though this was in some way worse than the absolutism of European monarchs like the Bourbons and the llapsburgs. one may wonder (In passing, whether Wittfogel did not perpetuate this view by entitling his book "Oriental despotism.") The absolutism of the Safavid shahs was to some extent different in kind, but it was different in degree only in theory. It was different in kind in the sense that the theory of the divine right of kings, held by both the Safavid shahs and by European monarchs, was reinforced in the case of the Safavid shahs by two other powerful factors, namely, their claim to be the of the Hidden Imam and their position representatives as the murshid-i kamil, or supreme spiritual director, of the Uafaviyyah order, demanding unquestioning obediance from their murids or sufi disciples. Let us consider, very briefly, what the theory of Safavid absolutism was and how it was modified in practice. The power of the Safavid 183
shahs had three
distinct
bases: the first was the ancient theory of the divine right of Persian kings, based on the possession by the monarch of the hvarnah/khvaranah/farr or "kingly glory." This ancient, theory was, so to speak, taken out of pre-Islamic the closet, dusted off and reinvested with all its former splendor as the ;ill all&h ficl-arai or "Shadow of God upon earth." The second was the claim of the Safavid shahs to being the representative of the Mahd!. This claim was based on the Safavid family's alleged descent from the seventh Shicite imam, Musa al-Kazim. As the representative of the Mahdt, the Safavid shah was closer to the source of absolute truth than were other men, and consequently opposition to the shah constituted a sin. By virtue of this position (which, as I have shown elsewhere, rested on shaky foundations), the Safavid shahs were entitled to claim the not unimportant quality of ci?ma or infallibility. Thirdly, as the murshid-i kamil of the Safavid order of Sufis (the of irshid had been in the hands of the Safavid office family since 700/1301), the Safavid shahs were able to insist on the absolute obedience of their Sufi followers by virtue of the relationship known as pir-muridi , and their followers were supposed to adhere to rules of conduct termed uiiflgari; the opposite was a of this, na-uiflgari, serious crime punishable by death. For a gizilbash to question the actions of his murshid was tantamount to kuhr ("unbelief ") . This was the theory, and these were the bases of the power of the Safavid shahs which led that astute Huguenot observer Chardin to assert that their power was even greater than that of the Ottoman sultans: "Le Gouvernement tant pour de Perse est monarchique, et absolu, despotique le spirituel, que pour le temporel . . . il nly a assurement aucun souverain au monde si absolu que le roi de Perse."I a century after the fall of the Malcom, writing strikes the same note: Safavids, The word of the King of Persia has ever law; and he has probably never had any restraint imposed on the free exercise authority than what has arisen from his
184
been deemed a further of his vast regard for
his religion, his respect for established usages, an and his fear of exciting desire of reputation, opposition that might be dangerous to his power or to his life. How did this apparently overwhelming power affect and the peasant in the field? Parathe man in the street in the doxically, it was the common people--the peasants and small merrural areas, and the artisans, shopkeepers chants in the cities--who were least affected by it. Innature of the shah's authority was not deed, the absolute a threat to, but rather a guarantee of, the individual freedom and security of the lower classes of society. It of power and influwas those who themselves held positions ence who were at the mercy of the shah's arbitrary power. It was the officials who stood between the shah and the mass of his people--army officers, military governors, the and the serried nobility in general, ranks of the "men of the pen," both lay and ecclesiastic--who were considered to be the slaves of the shah; their lives, their property, of the the lives of their children, were at the disposal shah, who held the absolute power of loosing and binding. as arb&b-i cilm Even then, those who could be classified were usually exempted from capital punishment. In general, it was those who lived by the sword who had to be prepared to die by the sword. that Both Chardin and Malcolm assert the awe in which the shah was held by the court and the nobility was the primary reason for the relative security and freedom from oppression enjoyed by the lower classes. Of course, the life of the common man was not all beer and skittles, but I said he enjoyed relative freedom from in which oppression. In a country as large as Persia, communication was as slow as it was in Safavid times, officials in the more remote provinces could and no doubt a time. did "get away with murder"--for But a ruler like Shah cAbbas was famed for his justice and his remorselessness in punishing misdemeanors committed by his officials anywhere in the Safavid empire. He had an extremely efficient intelligence service and although there might be a time lag of months or even years between the crime and its punishment, the shah had a long memory and sooner or later
185
This is why party would be brought to book. the guilty du Peuple y est beaucoup that "la condition Chardin states et plus douce, qu'en divers Etats Chretiens." plus assuree, depended on the shah's of course, This state of affairs, power over those to whom he delehis absolute exercising of the ordinary and so the security gated his authority, of the to the strength people was in direct proportion monarch. the effect A second important factor in mitigating power on the mass of his subjects of the shah's absolute diversity and social political was the geographic, ethnic, The communication problems posed by the of Safavid Iran. terrain mountainous and, in the north, densely forested, concenmeant that no matter how much power was apparently degree of decentralia considerable trated at the center, The Safavid state was certainly zation occurred in fact. which lies at the nationalism ethnic that by not bedevilled root of so many of our problems today (perhaps it is the absence of this factor that has led some to deny that such apart from the because, a thing as a Safavid state existed) the introduction between Turk and Persian, basic division in large numbers of Armenians, Georgians and Circassians and social as well as political ensured ethnic diversity There were many other factors which in practice diversity. power of the shah, but absolute the theoretical mitigated to the of these would be somewhat tangential a discussion argument of this paper, which seeks to establish central of a "state" did exist in that the basic prerequisites Safavid times.
3.
Legitimacy
If, as I take it, there is no argument about the the requirement of fact that the Safavid state satisfied and that the locus of ultimate power in the ''sovereignty,'' and established, identified state has been satisfactorily of the requirement of we may proceed to a consideration is neutral and merely Power, in itself, "legitimacy." that to make and carry out decisions denotes "the ability
186
are binding on the rest of the population"; "legitimacy," the an excuse for and justifies on the other hand, offers existence of the state.5 more It is hard to imagine a ruling institution of legitimacy than the Safapreoccupied with the question the usurpation of power vid. Why was this so? After all, by the by the khalifah/im&m had long since been justified jurists. The consensus of opinion among medieval Muslim was that "obedience to the imam, whether he was jurists good or bad, was incumbent upon the Muslim because it was Even if God's will that the imam should hold office."6 to the imam behaved like a tyrant, tyranny was preferable to justify anarchy.7 Some jurists even exerted themselves the "imamate of usurpation force,",8 that is, by military of power by sultans, amirs, and the like. the usurpation or have justified, Could not the Safavid shahs therefore of sovereignty by given "legitimacy" to, their exercise claiming to be the "Shadow of God upon Earth," or simply force? by the right of their seizure of power by military for them to devote so much time and Why was it necessary their rule still further? energy to legitimizing one The answer is that the Safavid state possessed of feature which set it apart from all other Muslim states like the small the period (with some minor exceptions states in the Deccan), Shicite namely, it was a Shicite With the accession Ithna cashart state. of the Safavids, Shicism had for the first time since the advent of Islam was the achieved full political power. Not only therefore problem of legitimacy different for the Safavid shahs than it had been for earlier in Iran, but it ruling dynasties was vitally important for them to be able to demonstrate of their claim to power beyond dispute. the legitimacy To this end, the Safavids produced a highly dubious genealogy which purported to establish from Miisa altheir descent a claim K&;im, the seventh Ithna casharI imam; fabricated to siadat had no bearing on the legitimacy (which actually of their rule one way or the other, but was presumably and conthought to add "respectability" to the family); veniently ignored the rules governing the all-important
187
by a ShiCite of na?j, or the designation ShiCite doctrine The dubious nature of the Safavid imam of his successor. isnad from Miis& al-K&zim has, I think, been adequately and anyone who wishes by a number of scholars, demonstrated to follow the arguments which demolish the Safavid claim to In this paper of Kasravi. siadat may do so in the writings of nass, the imporon the question I wish to concentrate of Safavid legitance of which, in regard to the question appreciated. timacy, has not, I think, been sufficiently that one of the three bases of I mentioned earlier of the Safavid shahs was their claim to the sovereignty on earth of the Hidden Imam or being the representatives Mahdi, known as the "Lord of the Age" (?Ihib-i zam&n), the messiah whose return to earth will herald the Day Shicite of Judgment and whose second coming will be foreshadowed No Persian kings before signs. by various eschatological the Safavids had made this claim, nor have any since (pace Why Jacobs and others who hold the contrary opinion9). to make it? for the Safavids was it necessary the problem of the legitiAs I indicated earlier, macy of Sunni rulers had been solved (if not to the satisat least well enough to salve the conof all, faction before the Safavids came to of many) centuries sciences No such accommodation had been made in regard to power. jurist had done for them what No Shicite ShiCite rulers. Ibn Khaldiun and Ibn JamaCa had done for Sunni al-Ghazali, there was a strong tendency among On the contrary, rulers. to regard all secular government as illegiShiCite jurists of the rights of the culamal as timate and as a usurpation a whole and of the mujtahids in particular. imam in from earth of the twelfth The disappearance followed the had been (lunar) year sixty-nine by 260/873-74 sughr), (ghaybat-i period of the "Lesser Occultation" on earth by four during which the Mahdl was represented With one exception, or agents, in succession. vakils, these agents were chosen on the basis of na? ("designaThe fourth vakil, AbuCl-Hasan tion") rather than heredity. to a successor but according did not designate al-Samarri, "with the matter was now that declared Shicite tradition,
188
God." The death of the fourth vakIl in 329/940-41 accordof the "Greater Occultation" ingly marked the beginning in progress. (ghaybat-i kubr&), which is still During this period of more than one thousand years, the Mahdi has been of the on earth, according to the consensus represented Shicite culama', by the general agency of the mujtahids. there were, then, it On the basis of what precedents appeared that designation was more important than heredity a person's in regard to validating claim to be the representative of the Hidden Imam. Indeed, in the case of the is selection of the imams themselves, Shicite tradition on this point: quite specific heredity is insufficient without divine appointment, and divine appointment is obtained by means of designation by the incumbent imam. The Safavid shahs could not possibly claim "right by designation," so how could they make any claim at all to being of the Mahdi, and why was it imperative the representatives for them not only to make this claim, but to obtain its acceptance by the subjects over whom they ruled? in any state, is bound of legitimacy, The question up with the question of sovereignty, and the Safavid state was no exception in this respect. If the Safavid shahs were to retain sovereignty, that is, to remain the ultimate source of power in the state, they had to demonstrate their and the nub of legitimacy legitimacy, in a Shicite state was Cisma, the "sinlessness" or ''infallibility" of the imams. The doctrine of cisma had been promulgated by ShiCite theologians as early as the tenth century A.D., undoubtedly with the object of demonstrating the superiority of the ShiCite imam over the Sunni caliph. By virtue of Cigma, the Shicite of imams were the sole repositories of designation truth, but ci?ma depended on a combination and heredity, and consequently was present in the imams alone, strictly speaking. When, after the termination of of the Twelfth Imam, the mujtahids the "Lesser Occultation" a general agency on his behalf, exercised they did so by virtue not of designation but of the consensus of the ShiCite community and, in the case of those who could prove their descent from one of the imams, of heredity. As long as the mujtahids remained the representatives or agents of 189
if not of this function, the Mahdi, they were, by virtue the seen, just have we (as truth of repositories the sole at least closer to ultimate imams alone could be this), truth than other men were. that the Safavid shahs, in therefore, It follows, had of their authority, the legitimacy order to establish of to show that their claim to being the representatives the Mahdl was at least as good as that of the mujtahids. (na ) any The Safavid shahs could not claim designation Heredity thus assumed crumore than could the mujtahids. for the vital and it became absolutely cial importance, their a genealogy demonstrating to fabricate Safavids descent from one of the imams; as we have seen, they the seventh imam, liisa al-Kazim, as their progenselected however, and having obtained the Having done this, itor. of the community in favor of their claim to being consensus of the Mahdi, the Safavid shahs still the representatives in actual fact, than to this function, claim better had no Uasani or jusaynl sayyid who could prove had any cAlavi, The mujtahids may descent from cAll or one of his sons. that they had at if they considered be forgiven therefore of of representative least as good a claim to the position in the Hidden Imam as had the shah, and, I must reiterate, state this function was crucial the context of a Shicite which in turn ensured the because it assured legitimacy so much hung on this Since of sovereignty. possession this it is obvious that the mujtahids would contest issue, tended to claim of the Safavid shahs, but their objections as Chardin graphically be voiced in private because, explains: et tous les D'evots de la Perse, Les gens d'Eglise, que la domination des Laiques est un etabtiennent et usurpe, et que le Gouvernement violent lissement ' l'Eglise de droit au Sedre [sadr] et Civil apartient la plus generalement regue est .Mais l'opinion est dans la main des qulelle que la Royaute, telle de et son autorite son institution Laiques, tire la place de Dieu, et des ProDieu; que le Roi tient et quant au ph&tes, en la conduite des Peuples:
190
ne se doivent Sedre, et a tous les gens de Loi, qu'ils leur que point meler du Gouvernement Politique: Royale; meme est soumise ua l'autorite Jurisdiction Cette derniTre opidans les choses de la Religion. n'est tenue aue des au lieu que l'autre nion prevaut, auxquels qu'ils et de ceux obsbdent, Ecclesiastiques ii comme la bouche ferment le Roi et les Ministres cette De en tout. obeir font et qu'ils leur plait, tout-a-fait est aujourd'hui manibre, le spirituel soumis au temporel.10 of The Safavid rulers were obliged to "shut the mouth" shah the that assert to those muitahids who were inclined legitimate the to being had usurped their prerogative because of this of the Mahdi, precisely representative on which legitimacy which on depended of ci8ma, question could not shah the state. If the in depended sovereignty but approach to it), claim cisma (or the nearest possible was shah the of sovereignty the then could, else someone threatened. and his position into question called If the Safavid shahs could not claim designation, that their subjects how did they succeed in convincing in the ultimate of power their right to being the source the the mujtahids, that say, of, than state was any better relithe in of or persons group sadr, or any other person who could claim descent from one of the gious institution lies partly in the brilimams? The answer, I believe, propaganda which the Safavid revolutioneffective liantly ary planners had carried on for two hundred years prior of Shah Ismacil I, and partly in the fact to the accession that these same planners had put out a smokescreen of of the people of the attention other issues which diverted The political of designation. issue Iran from the central revolutionary Safavid the genius of those who brought lay in the fact that movement to its triumphant conclusion which they came forward on a religio-political platform something for everywas so wide in scope that it contained the "descent of platforms: one; it was, in fact, a series the"murshid-i k&mil platfrom the seventh imam platform"; if I earth platform," form"; and the "Shadow of God upon
191
may so call
them.
IsmaCil, It is often assumed that the Safavid leader, to a successful the revolution for bringing was responsible that IsmacIl was only but, when one realizes conclusion, seven years old in 1494 when he succeeded his brother cAll movement, it is clear that as leader of the revolutionary When Ismacil emerged from this could not have been so. in to with the dominant conclusions try Gilan 1499, power in Iran at that time, the Aq Qoyunlu state, political and he was barely fourteen when only twelve, he was still Who, then, was he was crowned shah at Tabriz in 1501. the impetus of the Safavid for maintaining responsible in mind movement from 1494 onwards--bearing revolutionary by Aq Qoyunlu forces in that the fact that cAll, killed Safavid leader to lose his year, was the third successive at that moment necessary and it was vitally life in battle, if the whole the morale of the revolutionaries to sustain not a sevenObviously, movement were not to collapse? between 1494 and The people responsible, boy. year-old were a small the person of Ismacil, 1499, for protecting The term band of seven men known as the ahl-i ikhtiA?. out for some means persons who are singled ikhtiXa, ahl-i duty, apart duty, and in their case, their special special the person of their young leader, from that of protecting the Safavid was to maintain in a high state of readiness in Syria, eastern Anatolia, organization revolutionary and elsewhere and to plan the final stages of the revolution. The Safavid propaganda machine, by hammering away fact of the descent of the at the alleged insistently Safavid family from the seventh imam, succeeded in making most people (though not the Culami.') forget that even if so to prove anthing, this were true, it did not in itself speak, because the Safavids had not, any more than anyone as the agents of the infallible been designated else, that they conimams. Their propaganda was so successful vinced at least some of the hoi pOloi that the Safavid shah or ''agent'' of the Hidden was not only the 'representative"1 Mazzaoui has quoted Imam, but was the Hidden Imam himself! 192
the story of the anger of the celebrated philosopher and political theoriest Dav&nl who, when he put to his students the question: "Who is the imam?', got the answer: "ShAh IsmacTllitill
on the absolute By insisting obedience of their Sufi followers to themselves in their capacity as murshid-i kamil or spiritual directors of the Uafaviyyah Order, the Safavid leaders succeeded in transforming the ordinary pjr murld relationship into something outside the range of usual mystical and in arrogating experience to themselves quasi-divine prerogatives. The Safavid family, it is worth noting in passing, had seized the leadership of the order by a piece of purely political opportunism, outmaneuvering their rivals by taking their stand strictly on the principle of designation (this was a perfectly proper posture to adopt), but at the same time asserting that in the matter of the transmission of irshid from one pi to another, the father-son kinship relationship was of no importance whatever. After the Safavids became leaders of the order, it was, of course, a very different story, and the pidarnot only assumed paramount importance farzand3 relationship in deciding who the next leader should be, but was quietly assumed to be the only possible basis for selecting him. Once the Safavids acceded to the throne of Iran, and the silsilah (Sufi order) had become the diidman (ruling dynasty), there was no problem about the succession remaining in Safavid hands, since the principle of succession in the direct male line was clearly asserted in regard to kingship. Finally, and this is where the smokescreen comes in, the Safavids tried to give extra respectability to their family by claiming si&dat, a claim which was not only spurious but irrelevant as far as the legitimization of their sovereignty was concerned. Once the Safavid state was established, the shahs, by making the office of adr an organ of the political branch of the administration, were able to suppress any threat to their sovereignty on the religious plane; such threats might come either from those who claimed to be the murshid-i kamil or from those who claimed to be the representative of the Mahdi . The 193
by and large, were content with their lot up to mujtahids, Shih CAbbis I because, of time the although the shahs had to act as the general agency of usurped their prerogative wielded much more power without this the Mahdi, they still state set up by the Safavids in the Shicite prerogative this prepossessed than they had wielded when they still part of the In the latter under a Sunni regime. rogative away the sovereignty the Culamai so whittled Safavid period, became the dominant power of the shah that they themselves results. with disastrous in the state,
4.
Maintenance of the established of the economy control
social
order
by
that already quoted, states Fried, in the article order social "the use of its power to maintain a specific and that the of the state," is one of the primary aspects notion that a state can exist that plays no role in the and "No such state has yet existed, economy is a fantasy. it imposgrounds for believing there are ample theoretical If the state can use its power to maintain an sible.",12 that order, one may assume as a corollary social existing order, and it can also use its power to change the social in the case of the Safavid state we have a very striking I refer of course to the large-scale example of this. of economic power from the mamAlik or "state" to transfer a the kh__,a or "icrown" branch of the administration, with the sweeping changes in which was associated transfer which started under Shah of Safavid society the structure Shah under accelerated I, and reached a CAbb&s Tahmisp, crescendo under Sh&h SafE. was divided Under Shah Ismacil I, Safavid society division along ethnic lines between Turk and Persian--a to the catebut not entirely, corresponded which largely, gories of the "men of the sword" and the "men of the pen" "like As Minorsky observed, Islamic society. of classical did not mix oil and water, the Turcomans and Persians had a very clear in particular The qizilbash freely.",13 a non-Turk, of a "T&jEk,"' i.e., idea of what the functions 194
term they applied to should be ("Tfjik"1 was the pejorative Taj3iks were fit only "to look after the Persians). in the They had no right, accounts and dlv&n business."l14 to maintain private bodyeither opinion of the qgzilb&sh, If gizilb&sh guards or to comnand troops in the field.15 they consiwere asked to serve under a Perisan officer, The T&jiks had equally definite dered it a dishonor.16 were all right as the qizilbash views about the qizilb&sh: to doing the fighting, themselves long as they confined or but they were not expected to possess much intelligence if gizilconsequently, have any knowledge of statecraft; the Persians posts, bash officers were given political governments it. Under Ismacil I, the provincial resented of the central from the control alienated were largely almost without governors, since the provincial government, held the land under their officers, exception qizilbish of various types in the form of assignments jurisdiction were thus The gizilbash known by the general term tiyil. of the early Safavid state. elite and social the political The events of the period between the death of ShAh in 1588 had convinced Tahm&sp in 1576 and his own accession Sh&h cAbbAs that, whatever else he did, he must drastically in order to maintain his reduce the power of the qizilbash One of the ways in which he achieved this own soveriegnty. a revolution social in the existing goal was by effecting a "third force" in the state composed of order by creating but Armeelements which were neither Turkish nor Persian, The groundwork for this nian, Georgian and Circassian. had been laid by Shah TahmAsp, who made four revolution and 961/1553-54, to Georgia between 947/1540-41 expeditions mainly and brought back to Iran large number of captives, the offspring By the end of his reign, women and children. women (the latter particuof these Georgian and Circassian larly highly prized for their beauty) must have constituted There are a significant new element in Persian society. of Georgian noblemen number of instances also a sufficient formerly held by the gizilbAsh being appointed to positions to indicate that qizilbash supremacy had to some extent of Shah CAbbas I. been eroded before the accession
195
It was Shah CAbb&s I, however, who gave official to these "third force" elements by making the recognition of the royal house(slaves ghul&mAn-i kh&?aQyi sharifah and military hold) an important part of both the civil training, These ghul&ms were given special administration. in one of of which they were either enrolled on completion the newly created ghul&m regiments or given employment in the royal household or some other branch of the kh&?a basis of the ghul&m organiThe financial administration. system from the quasi-feudal different zation was entirely In order to generate were paid. by which the qizilbish funds to pay the ghulAms, cAbb&s transformed an everto from mam&lik (state) number of provinces increasing Ghulams were appointed khai?a (crown) administration. and the revenue from the governors of the khosea provinces, by d&riighas or intendants kh&aa provinces was collected by the shah, and the money was remitted appointed directly The more the to the royal rather than the state treasury. from mam&lik to kh??a transferred number of provinces the greater was the amount of money increased, jurisdiction and the more the shah which accrued to the royal treasury, by strengwas able to change the face of Persian society In short, one could thening the "third force" elements. change for political this policy as one of social describe by economic means. reasons effected of the Safavid state's an instance We have discussed It order. changes in the social using its power to effect also used its power to maintain the status quo--as far as As Mrinorsky of the shah was concerned. the sovereignty pointed out, by the time of Shah CAbbas I the Safavid shahs in the state; they capitalists had become the largest amassed goods in the royal workshops (buyitat-i khAq?a-yi and were themselves major employers of labor; sharifah), European merpolicy to attract they made it a deliberate and favorable them security chants to Iran by offering and they used "their Armenian subjects trading conditions; of the chief exportas their trading agents for disposing able commodity, namely silk."'17
196
5.
State
and religion
in a of the state's The question using religion connected with the closely way is, of course, supportive earlier and, in the case discussed question of legitimacy I was of paramount importance. of the Safavid state, here on the would merely like to comment additionally the ideology of legiin maintaining importance of ritual at Ardabil and timacy. The cult of the Safavid ancestors part in of Imam Riza at Mashhad played a significant namely, different strands of this ideology, strengthening of the the murshid-i kamil strand and the "representative For Shah cAbbis I in Hidden Imam" strand respectively. at Ardaa visit to the tombs of his ancestors particular, mandatory before he embarked on a milibil was virtually or took a decisive step of any sort; the tary expedition the aid of the holy was to enlist purpose of such visits shaykhs of the Safavid Order through prayer and supplithe shah extended his patronage to the cation. Similarly, one might even say shrine of Imam Ri.za on a generous, Whenever he was in Khurasan, he did scale. extravagant, to Mashhad, and he went not fail to make the pilgrimage out of his way to indicate his devotion by keeping vigils Under this and by performing menial tasks at the shrine. head, one must not omit mention of the most spectacular instance of the importance which Sh&h CAbbas I attached to of legitimacy; of the ideology ritual in the maintenance on foot from Isfahan to Mashhad, I refer to his pilgrimage short time of performed in 1010/1601 in the astoni?hingly The T&rikh-i cAlam-&ra-i cAbb5si days.18 twenty-eight claims that since the advent of Islam, no prince had The only remotely comparable achieved such a feat. it asserts, was the walk from Constantinople achievement, to Jerusalem performed by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius; comparable, because Heraclius but even this was not really proceeded by such easy stages that he took two months to in twenty days and en normally traversed cover a distance strewed carpets beneath his feet.19 route his servants of ritual's The other important instance being used was the ritual legitimacy by the Safavid shahs to preserve
197
and officer of uifgarl or "conduct becoming to a qizilbash was associated with This ritual gentleman," so to speak. k&mil or the function of the Safavid shah as the murshid-i director, of the Uafaviyyah Order of supreme spiritual relaSufis. This function was analogous to the pir-muridi tionship between any Sufi and his shaykh, a relationship obedience to the pir' s comwhich required unquestioning The Safavids, or murid. mands on the part of the disciple in two however, developed and extended this relationship place, they ways: in the first extremely significant a plane what was primarily transferred to the political between a l and a relationship religious and mystical traveller taking advantage of the along the via purgativa, that the Safavid shah was not only convenient coincidence the murshid-i kimil but also the a4dishah or secular ruler. kgmil, normally Disobedience to the orders of the murshid-i from the in Sufi orders punished by penance or by expulsion the pAdishAh and a crime order, thus became treason against by death. In my as such punishable against the state, the reason why the Safavid shahs up to the time opinion, with their of Sh&h cAbbAs I preserved the ritual associated kimil long after the basic sufi function as murshid-i of the Safaviyyah had ceased to have any organization in Lhe administrative system of the state organic function was that this ritual enabled them to put down any challenge the Safavid shahs to their authority. In times of crisis found it useful to appeal to the concept of sh&hl-savani a cardinal of all characteristic or "love of the shah, kimil conThe murshid-i good Sufis of the Safavid Order. invoked in order to discipline cept was also freqeuntly individual officers. qjizilbgsh the The second way in which the Safavids transcended was by apotheonormal bounds of the pir-murid relationship It is not clear from which of the two sizing themselves. strands of Safavid ideology basic and inter-connecting for blind obedience to the Safavid leader as the necessity as kimil and the belief in his infallibility the murshid-i in his of the Mahdl) arose the belief the representative of these two Perhaps the interaction actual divinity. stage of the during the fermentation powerful ingredients
198
Whatever the Safavid daCva produced this heady draught. The fact that process, the end product is not in doubt. the emanation of the Godhead Shah Ismacl'l I was considered not only by contemporary Venetian merchants is attested but, incontrovertibly, by the poems composed by Shah IsmaFor example: cll himself under the pen-name of Khataci. I am Very God, Very God, Very God! Come now, 0 blind man who has lost the path, behold the Truth. I am that Agens Absolutus of whom they speak.20 And again, I am always
with
God; now I have come.21
And again, Know for certain
that
KhatacI
is
of divine
nature.22
of divine status to their leader by The ascription the supporters of the Safavid movement during the final to say, of great stages of the revolution was, needless devotion of the gizilbash value in generating the fanatical Once the revolution which swept the Safavids to power. had succeeded, proved a source of however, the doctrine embarrassment to the Safavid shahs and was of no further of their sovereignty. use in regard to the legitimization The reason is obvious. On his accession Shah Ismacil1 of the new state was proclaimed that the official religion form of Shicism. to the the Ithna cashari The attribution nature, leader of divine status or divine or quasi-divine Shicism; such ideas however, had no place in Ithna casharl of the extremist groups were deviant doctrines shicite as a known as ghulat. to use this doctrine To continue of their sovereignty, therefore, basis for the legitimacy would have been to run the risk of alienating the majority of the ordinary people of Iran, some of whom were Sunnis, and others of varying degrees of fervor, other Shicites all of whom again Sufis holding a variety of beliefs--but could find a place under the umbrella of Islam. The ghulat,
199
For this on the other hand, were beyond the pale of Islam. the Safavid propaganda machine played down this reason, of ShAh IsmaciLl I, and it died after the accession doctrine a natural death after the defeat of Shih Ismacil at Chal"Une revolution As Malraux truly observed: diran in 1514. que par une technique opposee aux sa victoire ne maintient Et parfois meie aux sentimoyens qui la lui ont donnee. ments."
6.
State
and law
is state in which sovereignty In a totalitarian for example, the Soviet Union, by an ideology, legitimized of its the law courts are used by the state as an extension ''correct'' behavior own power and as a means of enforcing At this point from this ideology. deviation and preventing the Safadescribe to categories Western use the attempt to vid state breaks down. Although I have argued elsewhere that there are many points of strong resemblance between one point of state, the Safavid state and a totalitarian between any Muslim state and any fundamental difference of Muslim position state is the unique theoretical secular being a canon law in the former, and the Safavid state, In the Muslim to this rule. was no exception Muslim state, as much the revealed law is virtually view the religious In Islam the religious will of God as is the Quran itself. governs the life of every law or sharicah theoretically of law, jurisand the science Muslim in all its aspects, prudence, has been defined as "the knowledge of the rights and duties whereby man is enabled to observe right conduct for the future life." in this world and to prepare himself of the relithe application restricted Such a definition The whole field law." gious law to the realm of "private between of "public law," which deals with the relations and the state and problems in which the public the citizen In was excluded by this definition. is involved, interest the law adminisareas of law not covered by the sharicah, on tered in the courts continued to be based primarily customary law.
200
In the Sunni view customary law continued in force unless expressly amended by the Quran. The shicite jurison the contrary, prudents, held that customary law was abrogated unless specifically endorsed by the Quran, but because there were innumerable points of law on which the Quran was either or unclear, silent they were unable to maintain in practice this theoretical position. In the Safavid state the administration of justice was a complicated affair. During the early Safavid period the ?adr, as head of the religious was ultimately institution, responsible for the administration of canon law. The business of the sharicah courts, however, was in the hands of a number of other religious in addition officials to the sadr, such as the qag'l al-gu &t and the shafih al-islam. As a result there was a considerable degree of conflict of jurisdiction. At some point, a new post was not yet determined, created in an attempt to draw together all these strands under one overriding, secular authority, and the holder of this office was termed divAnbagi. Although the yadr was supposed to possess superior in cases involving authority capital offences, the fact that such crimes were tried in the div&nbagi 's tribunal shows where the supreme legal authority really lay; the dlv&nbag&is court was also the highest court of appeal. During the later Safavid period the div&nbagi was raised to the status of "great amir" and was admitted to membership of the Council of Amirs. Moves to bring the administration of justice under secular control represented attempts by the shah to curb the power of the religious authorities and thereby enhance his own As far as I know, control power. of the courts was never used by the Safavids for ideological purposes.
7.
State
and nation
I have tried to show that Safavid Iran satisfied most of the criteria which have been laid down by political scientists for defining the concept "state." We now come to the vexed question as to whether or not Iran in Safavid times was a nation-state, Of course, if one defines the nation-state in terms of "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer,
201
not a nationthen the Safavid state was most certainly I think that what I have already said sufficiently state. which of the Safavid state, the ethnic diversity indicates started with the basic dichotomy between Turk and Persian elements, Armenian, Georgian and Circassion and introduced but at the highest of society not just at the lower levels The and military administration. of the civil levels of racism, the main product of which is xenophobia, blight of of self-determination and the curse of the doctrine legacy political may be said to be the principal minorities, "The of the West to the world in the last two centuries. rapid emergence of scores of new nations since World War II of what may be expected as today's is only a foretaste tomorrow."123 Again, statehood demand separate minorities as Cottam does, then again one nationalism if one defines must admit that Safavid Iran was not a nation-state. "The in Iran Cottam writes: In his book Nationalism as used in this study is a belief of nationalism definition on the part of a large group of people that they comprise a to indepenthat is entitled community, a nation, political of this group to grant and a willingness dent statehood, In loyalty.",24 their community a primary and the terminal of these two criteria although the first the Safavid state, the qizilmight be held to apply, a major group of people, bash, demonstrated that after ShAh Ismacil by their actions loss of "charismal" through his defeat at Chalhad suffered diran, they were not prepared to give their "primary and war The civil to the ruling institution. terminal loyalty" of leading which broke out in 932/1526 and the defection Takkalu amirs to the Ottomans are just two proofs of this. which Cottam regards as of nationalism Another ingredient life of in the political is the "participation essential but by of the population," the state by a broad section life of the state" he does in the political "participation sense in any democratic participation not mean necessarily correlation as he admits, there is no necessary because, On values. and democracy or liberal between nationalism to "does generate a propensity nationalism the contrary, and individual the to than rather community the look to tendencies collectivist and accentuate hence does reinforce 202
state is In other words, a nationalist in any system.",25 as a democracy; in just as likely to be a dictatorship institutions are weak outside fact, given that democratic western Europe and North America, it is much more likely than a democracy. to end up as a dictatorship that many authorities date the rise of Cottam states nationalism in the world from the French Revolution, since as a phenomenon of mass politics they define "nationalism in the era of the nation-state."26 It is in this sense, in his Cottam says, that he uses the term "nationalism" impact of nationalism," study. "The social and political according to whether "it is a he says, is very different primary value of the very few and when it is a primary of the population."27 At this value of a large section point I must emphasize once again that even if nationalism of the population," is "the primary value of a large section one must not be misled into assuming that this will produce On the basis of democratic or even liberal institutions. that his own criteria, then, Cottam comes to the conclusion nationalism "appeared on the Persian stage at the turn of the century",28 and, by implication, did not exist before of his own criteria, that time. Within the narrow confines But is this the one might be tempted to agree with him. of nationalism? only permissible definition Cottam admits that other authorities, "particularly are too much aware of the evidence of national historians, to be able consciousness prior to [the French Revolution] to accept of the national era."29 [it] as the beginning This type of nationalism, however, was confined to indiruled out of court by viduals in an elite and is therefore In Iran, he says, at Cottam in terms of his own criteria. the turn of the century, of the only a tiny percentage had a frame of reference broad enough to comprepopulation which was hend nationalism, and even this small percentage traditional politically aware was dominated by a basically "It is unlikely," he says, "that nationalism element. could even gain entree to a people if the only channel open to it was the traditional which was constructure elite On the one hand, therefore, tented with the status quo."30 203
must have mass appeal and Cottam argues that nationalism base and must lead to and non-elite must have a populist on the other hand, change; and political social radical society may produce not a democratic or liberal nationalism which may simply mean the replacement but a dictatorship, changes by another and may not produce radical of one elite There seems to me to be a fundamental inconin society. in Cottam's argument here. sistency An even more serious weakness in Cottam's argument came into being that nationalism from his assertion derives He examines factors century. in Iran only in the twentieth language and geography in Iran and tradition, of historical what constitute admits on the one hand that these factors in addition, the "Icohesive base for nationalism"; he calls that he does not seem to disagree with the proposition for nationalism. may be a great source of strength religion On the other hand, at least some of these factors have in Iran the property of the tended to make nationalism in terms of be discounted and must therefore educated elite must have a mass base. that nationalism his own criterion the fact that historians Even though Cottam deplores I consciousness, are aware of the evidence of national consciouswould like to look at the evidence of national ness in regard to Iran before conceding that the Safavid I am only too constate cannot be called a nation-state. another scious of the fact that by so doing, I am inviting In fact, scientists. attack from the social broadside that I everything as worthless Cottam has already dismissed of neglect Commenting on the universal am about to say. scientists prior to World the non-European world by social works of excel"Although a few isolated War II, he states: about this much of the literature lence had been written, in the part of the world was produced by men untrained "The heriis worthless?). (and therefore sciences" social of impressionistic consists largely tage of this literature Cottam of this sad state of affairs, As a result cliches."1 cliches to exploding not only had to "devote much effort but he had as they are tenacious," that are as fallacious investigation."31 to "begin from scratch in his empirical
204
has also comGustav Thaiss, scientist, Another social tendency plained that "there seems to be an exaggerated to explain present and other scholars among many historians and pracbehavior in terms of past institutions social This seems to be an example of spurious contintices. Spurious or not, I suggest that some attention uity."*32 and literary tradition might give more validto historical scientists. of some of the social ity to the lucubrations that nationthat Cottam's thesis It is my contention of the twenalsim appeared in Iran only at the beginning of tieth century makes sense only if one takes cognizance of the tradition the 2,500-year (among other things): of the monarchy; the strong sense of national institution which has tradition preserved by the literary identity between Iranians and their the different always stressed the role of the Persian language and the oral neighbors; engenof pride and superiority tradition; the feelings dered by the fact that alien dynasty after alien dynasty which ruled over Iran was forced to make use of Iranian in order to govern; expertise and financial administrative based on geography which has the clear sense of identity since the time of Darius in the names given been reflected themselves: to the heartlands of Iran by the Iranians aryan&m khshathram (land of the Aryans) in Old Persian; ir&nshahr in Sasanid times; in modern times, iran-zamln; and cultural Iranian social the persistence of pre-Islamic such as the ziurkhanah, and the continued institutions Nawruz, festival, observance of the purely Persian national more than twelve hundred years after Iran was conquered by the Arabs and became a Muslim country; the use made by their Iranians of religion to preserve and strengthen impetus the all-important national and, finally, identity; of the to Persian nationalism given by the establishment Shicism Safavid state and the promulgation of IthnS cashari All these and of that state. religion as the official other factors produced, in my view, a sense of "Iranismus," based not on a feeling among Iranians, of common identity ethnic nationalism but upon a sense of being different This sense of from the Arabs and Turks on their borders. ethnic consider"Iranismus" was strong enough to override
205
the Turkoman For example, even the gizilbash, ations. although they of the early Safavid state, elite military felt extremely "Turkish" when engaged in a confrontation thought certainly Persian official, with a "Tijik,"1 i.e., as "Iranians" when it was a matter of fightof themselves ing the "Turks" of the Ottoman empire of the Uzbeg states and Turkestan. in Transoxania Fortunately, however, we do not have to rely solely earlier, As I indicated on such "impressionistic cliches."' by the time of ShAh cAbbas I there is solid evidence that rather nebulous concept of dawlat had crysthe originally The phrases tallized into something much more definite. dawlat meant the and masalIb-i dawlat [-i qihira] ?ala1-i More sense. of the state" in a very concrete "interests than that, the word "Iran" was being used more and more, in of entity to denote the positive a variety of combinations, The somewhat vague phrase used during the Safavid state. the early Safavid period, mamalik-i mabrusa, had assumed ; mamalik-i more conrete forms: rAn;33mamA1ik-ic The irAn;34 mulk-i irAn;35 or simply IrAn.36 mamlikat-i as sarir-i described royal throne was variously saltanat-i 1ran.39 sultan (sic)-i iran;38 and takht-i Iran;37 takht-i to as of the Safavid empire are referred The inhabitants himself as writing ahl-i irnn,40 and Iskandar Beg describes Iran va attvil-i of the Iranians the history (sharl_-i as farmAnrav&-yi Shah cAbbas I is described ir&ni&n). 3iirn;43 his seat is payitakht-i Irnn42 and shahryaror d&r salAtln-i takhtgah-i Iran, pAdishphjn-i irAn, to as power is referred His sovereign iran.46 al-mulk-i va pAdishaht-yi mulk-i IrAn,47 saltanat farmAndahl-yi of Iran (bil&d-i The cities Iran.49 ir&n,48 padish&hi-yi to a positive entity IrAn)50 are thought of as belonging Ir&n to as ac am-i bil&d-i or state: Herat is referred of Iran)-'31 and Isfahan as of the cities (the greatest part of the realm of khulA_a-yi mulk-i Iran (the choicest to concepts of solely Nor do the terms related Iran). The sense of geographand authority. power, sovereignty is preserved by a to earlier referred ical continuity IrAnzamln, 2 and on the litvil&y&t-i phrase like kull-i as malik alerary scene, Hakim-i Sukhanvar is described
206
shuCara va mumtAz-i lran (Poet Laureate and the most disthe same phrase tinguished [poet] in Iran). Precisely might be used today. The mystique of the continuing monarchical tradition is conveyed by the description of cAbbas I as p2dish&h-i mulk-i cajam va masnad-&r&-yi awrang-i jam (king of the realm of Persia and he who adorns the throne of Jamshid). Affairs of state are referred to as muhimmat-i XIiran.53 To my mind however, one of the clearest indications that the Safavid state had become a state in the full sense of the word is provided by the revival of the ancient title of sipahsalar-i IrAn or "commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Iran." The title sipahsalar is not used during the early Safavid period at all. During the early period the amEr al-umara' was the commander-in-chief of the gizilbAsh forces par excellence. As the position of gizilbAsh amirs in the state declined, the importance of the amEr al-umara' declined pari passu, and we find that the qQrchlor comnander of what was left of the qizilbash bashl, after the rise of the ghulams, becomes one of the principal officers of state, but is now at best primus inter pares. amEr al-umarA', in so far as it denoted an offiThe title cer of the central administration, of lapsed. The title siyahsAlAr-i iran was revived by cAbbas I, and the first man to be appointed to this office was the Armenian ghulam from ErivAn, Qarchaqay Khan. Unfortunately, we do not know when he was first appointed sipahsalar-i kull-i lashkar-i Iran, but he certainly held that rank by 1032/ l622-23.,4 The phrase kull-i lashkar-i iran (all the armed forces of Iran) was no empty title; unlike the amIr alumara', who commanded only qiz4lbash troops, and the who and the qullarcommanded q5rchIbAshi, only giirchis, aq4si, who commanded only ghulAms, the sipahs&lAr-i IrAn in 1032/1622-23 was in supreme command of an army which consisted of amirs (by that date a "ne-utral" term); girchls (Turkomans); ghulams (Georgians, Armenians, Circassians); and tufangchls (mainly local Iranian militia). Admittedly, the revival of the office of sipahsAlAr-i Iran was a military and administrative convenience once Shah cAbbAs had re-organized his armed forces and introduced many new
207
elements into them, but it does seem to me that in the title sipahsAl&r-i kull-i iran, we have the conlashkar-i crete expression of an idea which had by that date become a reality, namely, the Safavid state. To sum up, then, I would adopt the position that a Safavid state without question existed, in the sense of "a geographically delimited segment of human society united by common obedience to a single sovereign,",55 or, if you prefer Max Weber's definition, "a human community that [successfully] claims the monopoly of legitimate [this begs the question slightly] use of physical force within a given territory." It was emphatically not a nation-state like the Third Reich, in which racial purity was of cardinal importance. It was, however (or so I would maintain), a state with strong national consciousness and a sense of national identity. If the social scientists deny that this a nation-state, is sufficient to constitute I am content to let the matter rest there until they can define the concept of nationalism than they have done more satisfactorily hitherto. As an historian given to feeding on myths and uttering "impressionistic and hampered by a cliches," strong sense of tradition, I would like cautiously to suggest a possible in which the diffiway out of a situation culties As seem to me to be largely semantic in nature. we have seen, the concept of the state is ineluctably bound up with the question of sovereignty. Throughout the sevenin most countries teeth century and much of the eighteenth, of Europe with the exception of England, where sovereignty was in the process of being transferred from the king to of the state was parliament, the entire power and prestige After the in the person of the monarch. concentrated French Revolution was vested the concept that sovereignty in the people, not the king, slowly but surely gained ground. Democracy became the order of the day, and the As a from its citizens. state became indistinguishable has shifted interest from the state to government result, of the peoand political If the "sovereignty processes. like Cottam mean by ple" is what political scientists 208
life of the state by a in the political "participation of the population," and if he is unwilling broad section on any polity which fails to bestow the term "nation-state" then perhaps what is needed is two to meet this criterion, sets of terms, one of which can be applied to pre-ninewhen sovereignty vested in the king teenth century states was the norm and another which may be used in regard to in which the century states and twentieth nineteenth to be the norm. I of the people is alleged sovereignty and totally however, that this is a simplistic realize, to find and as such is unlikely solution, unscientific colleagues. science favor with my social
NOTES 1.
in listed I follow the categories For convenience, on the institution of the article Morton H. Fried's Science, of Political state in the Encyclopedia to as "Fried"). referred pp. 143-50 (hereinafter
2.
on the concept of the Frederick M. Watkins, article p. of Science, Political state in the Encyclopedia "Watkins"). to as referred (hereinafter 152;
3.
Ibid.
4.
Ibid.
5.
Fried,
6.
A.K.S. Lambton,,"The Theory of Kingship al-Muldk of Ghaz&ll, Islamic Quarterly, p. 51.
7.
Erwin Theory to the Middle
p. 146. in the NaSitat I/1 (1954),
"The Role of the State in Islam: I.J. Rosenthal,, a paper presented and the Medieval Practice," and Change in the Colloquium on Tradition East, Harvard, 1968, p. 9.
209
8.
Thought in Medieval Political Erwin I.J. Rosenthal, 1958), p. 44. Islam (Cambridge:
9.
Norman Jacobs, The Socioloy 1966), Chapter 7, "Religion
-of Development (New York: Authority." and Political (Amsterdam:
10.
Jean Chardin, Voyages du Chevalier 1711), vol. vi, pp. 249-50.
11.
Michel M. Mazzaoui, The Origins 1972), p. 85. baden:
12.
Fried,
13.
by V. and explained Tadhkirat al-Muliik, translated New Series, Minorsky, E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Series, 1943), p. 188. vol. XVI (London:
14.
Murder of the Political R.M. Savory, "The Significance Journal of the Cenof Mirza Salman," Islamic Studies, of Islamic Research, Karachi, vol. III, tral Institute no. 2 (1964), p. 184.
15.
Ibid.,
p.
16.
Ibid.,
p. 186.
17.
Tadhkirat
18.
If the shah followed the normal route via Kashan and of approximately 800 miles, Rayy, he walked a distance which works out at almost 30 miles a day-an incredible average.
19.
cAbb&sl, Iskandar Beg Munshi, TArikh-i cAlam-Ar-i vol. ii, p. 796. 2 vols (Tehran: 1955-56),
20.
V. Minorsky, "The Poetry of Shah Ismacil I," Bulletin and African Studies, Vol. X, of the School of Oriental no. 4 (1942), p. 1047a.
Chardin
of the
afawids
(Wies-
p. 147.
185.
al-Muluik,
op. cit.,
210
p. 14.
21.
Ibid..,
p. 1048a.
22.
Ibid.,
p. 1043a.
23.
Fried,
p.
24.
Richard W. Cottam, 1964), p. 3.
25.
Ibid.,
p. 4.
26.
Ibid.,
p. 5.
27.
Ibid.
28.
Ibid.,
p. 9.
29.
Ibid.,
p. 4.
30.
Ibid.,
p. 7.
31.
Ibid.,
p. 2.
32.
Gustav Thaiss, Unity and Discord: The Symbol of Husavn in Tran,"11in Iranian Civilization and Culture, C.J. Adams, ed. (Montreal: 1972), p. 114.
33.
Munshi, op. cit., MS. f. 280v; vol.
149. Nationalism
in Iran
(Pittsburg:
vol. i, pp. 50, 124 & 152; Cambridge i, p. 547; vol 2, pp. 616, 761 &
1100.
34.
Ibid.,
vol.
ii,
p.
1101.
35.
, pp. 123 & 154; MS. f. Ibid., vol. 351 & 580; vol. ii, p. 939. pp.
36.
Ibid.,
vol.
i,
p. 220.
37.
Ibid.,
vol.
i,
p. 199.
38.
Ibid.,
vol.
i.
p. 317.
211
281r;
vol.
i,
283v.
39.
Ibid.,
MS. f.
40.
Ibid.,
vol.
i,
p. 530.
41.
Ibid.,
vol.
i,
p. 765.
42.
Ibid.,
vol.
ii,
p. 829.
43.
Ibid.,
vol.
ii,
p. 730.
44.
Ibid.,
vol.
i,
p. 344.
45.
Ibid.,
vol.
i,
p. 307.
46.
Ibid.,
vol.
i , p. 308.
47.
Ibid.,
vol.
iii,
48.
Ibid.,
vol.
i,
p. 211.
49.
Ib id.,
vol.
i,
pp. 220 & 240.
50.
Ibid.,
vol.
ii,
51.
Ibid.,
vol.
i,
52.
Ibid.,
vol.
ii3, p. 974.
53.
Ibid.,
vol.
i , p. 211.
54.
Ibid .,
vol.
ii,
55.
Watkins,
p. 1042.
p. 831. p. 363.
p. 1006.
p. 150.
212
COMMENTS HANS ROEMER
many interesting Savory's paper contains Professor As an example I mention the transition ideas. and original to the Uafavlyah dudman, i.e., from the Safavlyah silsilah sufi masters to the pedigree from the chain of hereditary I think there is an addifamily. of a ruling dynastic tional point which has not yet been treated as far as I of the Ardabil sufi master was handed can see: the office of down from father to son, perhaps with the exception Shaikh Jacfar who replaced his brother Junaid, through of Jahanshah Qar& Qoyunlu, who had exiled the intervention ambitions. the former from Ardabil because of his political in other sufi orders was on appointment by The succession the acting Shaikh and his choice was by no means a son of his. role of the Ardabil sufi masAs to the political Not only ters, we have no need to be too cautious. Junaid, Haydar and his sons Sultan Ibrahim and IsmAcil aims, tut also their ancestor had very clear political questions, Shaikh 5afi concerned himself with political as has been pointed out by Dr. Erika Glassen in her book (1968). on the early Safavids Professor Savory says that by the time of ShAh cAbbas a very clear concept of the state had been evolved. for a much earlier date, because I cannot help pleading of Padish&h-i Iran, and Ism&Cil I already bore the title in this he had been preceeded by Uzun Hasan who had the 213
same title. This question has a bearing on the renaissance of the notion of Iran in the world of Islamic ideas. We should not underestimate the influence of Firdausi who speaks in his Shihn&mah of Iran, whether it be in a political sense or not. In Seljuq times also the conception of Iran is well known as may be seen in the Siyasatn&mah of Nizam al-Mulk. To come back to the Safavids, we may mention a letter of Sultin B&yizid written to ShAh IsmAcil in which he exhorts the Safavid prince not to encroach on Ottoman territory. As he is the Pidishah-i IrAn--these are the very words of the Sultan--he should confine himself to Iranian territory. Last but not least, Yahya Qazvinl, an historian who died in 1555, in his universal history, Lubb at-taw&rlkh, after the Ilkhanid period devotes chapters only to such dynasties that held sway in Iranian territory. No chapter on the Mamluks! No chapter on the Ottomans. I am not quite sure whether the Safavid claim to descent from CAli had bearing on the legitimacy of their rule, but it was presumably thought to add "respectability" to the family. Those who vehemently contest this origin--from Sayyid Ahmad Kasrawi to our regretted friend Ahmed Zeki Velidi Togan--unanimously the underline to prove their cAlid great efforts made by the Safavids descent. Could they have really done this only for "respectability's" sake? is insuffiAdmittedly, it is true that heredity and the Safavids could cient without divine designation from whomsoever. not seriously claim such a designation of Shah But we should not forget that the beginnings and the IsmAcil are deeply rooted in popular religiosity ideas of popular circles were at that time by no means And which were the popular ideas of na insignificant. Shah Ismacll? We can find them in the Anonyconcerning mous Ross, published by Denison Ross in 1895, and also in of the India office There an anonymous chronicle library. from Anatolia lost we read that a dervish on a pilgrimage his caravan in the desert and after three days of wandering was guided to a magnificent tent where a veiled man sat on a throne. Young Ismacil was brought in and the veiled man, 214
who later on was said to be the Twelfth with a sword and crowned him with a tj.
Imam, girded
him
Apart from this legendary account Qadi Almad Qumi a hint at an Arab tradigives in his KhulAiat at-tawArikh tion mentioned by so outstanding a theologian as Shaikh a prediction MuhammadcAmili containing Baha' al-milla of ShAh IsmACills kingship. such accounts do not Of course, a real na, represent but they show that the necessity of a designation was felt even in popular milieu. I think Professor Savory's consideration of the conflict between mujtahid and sh&h is a good point. Some years ago, Hellmut Braun in a Wfrzburg congress paper underlined the necessity of closer investigations of certain tensions in the later Safavid empire between the king and high Shicite dignitaries. The outstanding position of the mu tahid in the years 1684 and 1685 has been pointed out already by Engelbert Kaempfer, a German physician, in his Amoenitatum exoticarum fasciculi quingue. He says that strictly speaking the muj_tahid as the real successor of the last imam had the right to religious leadership among Shicites, whereas it was incumbent on the shah to observe his expert evidence. The critical attitude of theologians towards the shah is, by the way, already proved in earlier times. We may mention Ibr&hlm Qatifi who blamed Shaikh cAll cAmill, the famous mujtahid az-zaman, for accepting gifts from Shah Tahm&sp with whom he was on good terms. It may be illuminating in this context to mention an interesting article of AbduljawAd Falatdri on Shicism in Iran as seen by a Shicite in the Caskel Festschrift. The author, who had a mullah's in Persia before training in Germany, gives inter alia an beginning his studies of the role of the mujtahid in our days. outline A few words on Ismacll's Vladimir Mindivinity. orsky who edited his divan, which is the main source in this respect, says that this poetry belongs to the very I think we should not exclude early years of Ismacll. of the the possibility character of a mere literary 215
Anyhow, so far as I know, neither of this divAn. contents IsmiCil nor any other Safavid has ever asked acknowledgeadherents of the shAh may Of course, ment of his deity. in it, but without having been demanded by have believed one can interpret Last but not least, the shah to do so. claim divAn as the author's in Khat&li's the assertions way, stage on the mystical that he had reached the highest the union with God--the unio mystica. As to the complex problem whether the safavid state was a nation state or not, I have expressed my opinlaid the most ion long ago, namely that the Safavids but that of a Persian nation state, important foundations The reason for this opinion is they did not create it. on nation To my knowledge the discussion very simple. at the time began only after the French Revolution, states It was as a rule in Europe. of the rise of nationalism Of at that time. applied to state organisms existing now want and political scientists if sociologists course, for example the to apply it to organisms of the past, Elam Empire or the state of Montezuma, then we need new unless we accept Professor and agreements, conventions which seems to me as Savory's double state conception as to himself. precarious
216
SAFAVID LITERATURE: PROGRESS OR DECLINE EHSAN YAR-SHATER
"The literature of the Safavid period is usually regarded as a literature of decline." So Jan Rypka begins his chapter on this literature.1 In 1911, in a letter to E.G. Browne, Mirz& MuhammadQazvinl, the noted Persian scholar, pronounced an even harsher judgment on this period: "Under this dynasty," he wrote, "learning, culture, and mysticism poetry, completely deserted Persia...."2 The first question we must face is whether this was, in fact, the case. Did Persian poetry and prose under the Safavids sink into literary doldrums, as so many critics have judged, or, rather, was this an age of positive litAnd if our response should be negative, erary merit? how are we to account for the decline of literature in the face of the political and economic prosperity strength of Persia under the Safavids, and for the flourishing of other arts in this period? The answer to considerations, which and relative merit of of Persian evolution
these questions involves several basic have to do not only with the quality Safavid literature, but also with the as a whole. literature
Definition It would be useful
to define 217
at the outset
what we
mean by Safavid literature. Roughly, this literature comprises imaginative prose and poetry written in Persian during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The time span coincides more or less with the reign of the Safavid dynasty in Persia (1501-1722) and that of the Great Mughals in India up to the death of Aurangzib (1526-1707). One may extend the period for about half a century, during which time Persian literature in both countries continued its previous course. In Persia this would bring us to the establishment of the Zand dynasty (1750); in India to the end of the effective and rule by the Great Mughals(1761); in the Ottoman Empire, to about the death of Mahmud I (1754). From the geographical point of view, this literature was produced in a vast stretch of land extending from Turkey to Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent. In Muslim India the language of poetry was chiefly, and in the north almost exclusively, Persian.3 In the Turkic speaking counboth Turkic (namely, Turkish, Turki, and Chaghatai) tries, and Persian poetry was written, but except for folk poetry, they were both modelled on poetry emanating from Persia. Ottoman poets--and In the words of E.J.W. Gibb, "The first with all their successors through many generations--strove their strength else than Persian to write what is little in poetry Of national poetry in Turkish words... feeling they dreamed not; poetry was to them one and indivisible.14 of non-Arab This is true, in fact, of the whole literature "The question Muslim peoples that Gibb calls West-Asian. he points out, "a writer in this Westas to what language," should use, whether this should be Persian, Asian literature but not Ottoman,, Turki, Urdu, or Pushtu, was generally, in which he happened to always, determined by the locality find himself.",5 To the Ottoman people, poetry was, he conof "a single no more affected tinues, entity, by question or science. Therefore race or language than was theology they might, and they did write these verses sometimes in accident sometimes in Persian, Turkish, generally deciding and the matter were which, but in either case the spirit the same, nothing differing except the words."l6
218
The amount of Persian literature produced during these two and a half centuries is immense. No comparable amount of literature is available from other periods of the same duration. share of this writing is poetry, The greater which heavily towards lyric poetry, with ghazal, gravitates or ode, as its outstanding form. Imaginative prose literature is inconspicuous, almost insignificant, compared to the poetry of the period, and has been deliberately ignored in the following discussion. are available, Although no reliable statistics a general impression that the greater part of this prevails poetry was produced in the Subcontinent.7 Hence the appelation of the "Indian school" or "Indian style" of Persian poetry. Here we may consider the place that India occupies of this period. in the literature The Muslim courts of India from the beginning provided generous support for Persian literature. Of the earlier such Persian poets, major figues as Mascold-i Sacd (d. 1131), Sana't (d. c.1150), Amlr Khusraw of Delhi (d. 1325), and Hasan of Delhi (d. 1327), were attached to the Muslim courts of India. The Safavid period coincided with the establishment and expansion of the Great Mughal Empire, by far the most important and the most cultivated Indian kingdom in Islamic times. Bibur (d. 1530), the founder of the dynasty, was a Timurid prince, brought up in Persian cultural traditions. His descendants expanded their realm, and their courts became brilliant centers of Persian art and culture, but above of Persian poetry. all, Most of these Timurid princes wrote poetry themselves and exercised critical judgment on the poets of their courts. The numerous biographies of poets compiled under the Great Mugha]s are replete with references to the munificence shown by these kings, their viziers, and their nobles toward the poets. On occasion, their largesse extended even so far as to reward a poet with the equivalent of his weight in gold or silver. Their reached not only the poets attached generosity to their courts, but also many more, who, having heard of their patronage, sent them poems from various parts of India, 219
and Transoxania. Akbar (1556-1605), whose reign Persia, coincided with that of Sh&h CAbbis the Great, assembled a So did Akbar's galaxy of Persian poets in his court.8 and Shah Jah&n (1628-1659), successor, Jahangir (1605-1628), In their cultivation of literary who succeeded Jahangir. art, these monarchs were aided by a number of learned whose intrinsic interest viziers, courtiers, and advisors judgment did much to encourage in poetry and whose critical new talents.9 No wonder, then, that anyone in Persia who aspired the desire of travelling to the writing of poetry conceived India became the to India and trying his fortune there.10 A great many Persian talents Mecca of poets and artists. left the country for India, and the great majority of them were well rewarded. Even the poet Vjazin (d. 1766), who found refuge, showed great aversion to India, eventually of Isfahan, in the Subconfollowing the Afghan invasion t'inent. a number of Pers'ian critics have advanced Of late, a case for calling the poetry of the period under discuson the grounds that sion the "Safavid" or "Isfahanill school, in Isfahan at the time of the it was larlely fostered The argument is cogent enough. With the shift Safavids.1 to Isfahan in 1598, the city prosof the Safavid capital the pered and became the focus of the poets who represented of Safavid style. In view of the geographical designation it is both namely Khurasani and Iraqi, the earlier styles, and informative to call the third major style of fitting Persian poetry "Is fahani." reason However, it seems to me that there is little A great many poets of this to press this point too hard. school did live and publish their work in India, and to call their style "Indian" is the least compliment one could and supported received pay a country which so generously and men of letters for several centuries. Persian artists deals with In this paper, though, since the conference I have called the poetry of the Isfahan under the Safavids, without prejudice to the period "Safavid" or "Isfahanill 220
more current
term "Indian."
Controversy
over Safavid
poetry
The quality of this poetry has been a subject of and the views expressed on it by critics of controversy, are sometimes different periods and different orientations diametrically opposed.'1 SAm MIrz&, a brother of Sh&h a biography of his contemporary Tahmasp, who has written the Tuhfa-i S&mi, considers them as excelling poets, the He finds them equal to Khusraw Dihlavi, poets of the past. to Firdawsi and Sacdi and Anvari, and even superior to his view on the status of the poets, Sanaii. 12As he declares of endless them "chosen by God and recipients [divine] to light."1 And to drive his point home, he refers a line by Ni~ami, the sixth century poet, in which he counts the poets second only to the prophets in the hierarchy of men.13 of the exaggerated This is somewhat typical views expressed by the contemporary authors of the tazkirahs ("notices of the poetsrr) concerning the poetry of their time
14
However, we obtain a very different view from Hazin (d. 1766) a brilliant, versatile and encyclopedic writer and poet of the last phase of the Safavid rule, who also compiled a tazkirah of his contemporary poets. He laments the decline of poetry in his time and deplores the banality of hackneyed poets, the abundance of incompetent versiand the currency of plagiarism. fiers, His scathing criticism also extends to the writers of tazkirahs, whose faults include ignorance, distortion of facts, lack of critical aptitude, and inconscionable vulgarity. He sums up his views of the writings of his period by a hemistitch: "The substance is wrong, the meaning is wrong, and the style is wrong; all is wrong."115 His view of the status of poetry itself is no less negative: It is not hidden from the knowledgeable that the art of poetry, in comparison to the lofty arts and higher
221
The is marked by a lowly station.... achievements, and mean worthless lower type of poetry is exceedingly to its composer; the middle and, in fact, derogatory type of poetry is only a waste of time and its exisare equal; to commit oneself tence and nonexistence even if it should issue type of poetry, to the perfect in an uncritical from a pure soul, would be useless and For many years now, [competent] criticism age.... of poetry have become very difficult, understanding [good] in the same way that writing in fact impossible, of the and the pretensions poetry has disappeared, are all based on bombast*16 claimants from his however, derives Much of Hazin's criticism, nature and his gloomy view of his own age. pessimistic of the Safavid a practitioner Otherwise, Ijazin was himself and not only arrange five divans of his own poetry,17 style, his contemporary poets important enough to but considered compile a laudatory biography of them. of Safavid poetry came criticism effective The first poets, who, towards the middle from a group of Revivalist turned away from the Safavid century, of the eighteenth simuand purer diction, more lucid, style to a simpler, A leading Persian poets. lating the style of the earlier Az&r Bigdall (1711-81), figure of the group was Lutfcall the author of the well-known tazkirah called Atashkadah. for the style of of Azir Bigdali distaste The unmistakable the Safavid poets becomes clear in his comments on them, His of their works. as well as in his scanty selections poet of the Safavid percomment on S&'ib, the outstanding of the group: iod, sums up the attitude the way to poetry, of his writing From the beginning the firm imagery of the eloquent poets of the past had rules followed by the and the undisputed been blocked, After ... S&lib, who was old masters had been lost. the style, of this new distasteful the instigator until this level of poetry continued daily in decline, time of ours, when ... thanks be to God, their fabriinto disuse and the fallen have completely cations 222
rule of the old masters revived.... Most of S&'ib's poems were seen by me, and the following lines were selected only with great effort.18 Az&r's comment on Talib-i Amuli, a major poet of the period and the poet laureat of the MughalEmperor Jahangir, is also typical: and compiled a "rHe is among the notables dlyvn. He has a peculiar style in poetry which is not to the liking of eloquent poets.)'19 AzAr set the tone for other critics to assail the Safavid style and to call for a return to the earlier style of poetry. His line of criticism, for instance, was continued by Mafnin Dunb&li (d. 1827), a poet, historian, blographer, and critic of the early Qajar period. In his comment on the poet Musht&q, a champion of the Revivalist cause, Mafnfin in a quite florid vein, airs the same views as those held by AzAr: When the meadow carpet of poetry became trampled by the insiSid metaphors and vapid illustrations of and lost Shawkat,? Sa Xib, Vahld21 and their like, its freshness and splendor, Mushtaq came to stroll in the garden of poetry and rolled up their style like a bud and spread out a carpet of poetry woven in keeping with his own taste.... The sweet-singing nightingales of his time [i.e. his contemporary followed him.22 poets] The most vituperative attack on the Safavid poets and their style, however, comes from RizAquli Khan Hid&y&t, the nineteenth century poet, anthologist, biographer, historian and courtier (1800-1872), in the introduction to his Majmac al-FusAha', which is the best known tazkirah of Persian poets. The language he employes is so harsh as to leave no doubt that aversion to the Safavid style had escalated by his time. Hidayat maintains that: After the Seljuq poets no progress was obtained in poetry; on the contrary, it declined daily from the highest level until it reached a middle stage with the 223
A number of poetry of salmAn Savajt and his like. to this stage attempted lyric poetry poets belonging but except for Khwajii Shams al-Din MuhaamnadHifiz, by the whose ghazals have been well appreciated there is hardly a admirers of form and substnace, from them which could be enjoyed or inherited dlvin would be worthy of hearing. He goes
on to say:
further from the middle Gradually the poetry declined Under the Turkomans stages and reached a low level. appeared ... styles reprehensible and the Safavids, the and since there were no binding rules for lyrics, their sick natures and distorted following poets, began to write confused, tastes, vain, and nonsensical meanings They placed in their poetry insipid poems. ... instead' truths, ugly contents instead of inspired innovations and attrative devices of fine rhetorical But, since every defect is followed by a perfecby a reunion *.. towards tion, and each separation the end of the rule of the Lurs [namely, the Zand their tastes directed individuals dynasty] several the style of the old masters and toward reviving of the awareness of the tastelessness demonstrated style of the later poets and their banal ways *.. and endeavored
worthy
...
to
divert
people
from their
blame-
style.23
into our own time, This trend of thought continued shaped by standards were largely whose taste and critical It found its most of the Qajar poets. the sensibilities contemporary exponent in the last poet-laureate steadfast In a series MuhammadTaqi Bahar (1886-1951). of Persia, which were later Revival," of lectures on the "Literary the in the journal ArmaghAn,24 he denigrated published Shah the period of Fattcali Safavid style and considered to that of Sult&n similar "la brilliant period of poetry, Mahmiid of Ghazna.",25 His views on the subject are poem addressed to a in a polemical succinctly expressed literally stanzas, of which the pertinent fellow poet, 224
translated,
read:
The Indian style possessed novelty, But had very many failings, It was infirm and spineless, Its ideas were feeble, its imagery odd. The poems were crowded with ideas, but unattractive; They were wanting in eloquence.26 of This assessment ever firmer appreciation gained increasing general vailing critical judgment 27 literature.
Safavid poetry, coupled with an of the Khurasani and Iraqi styles, acceptance and became the prein treatises expressed on Persian
This view of Safavid literature, however, has by no means been shared by everyone. Not only the poets of the period considered their age one of great literary merit, but also the Indian and Ottoman critics, who by far outnumber the Persian ones,28 continued to concur with the estimation of Safavid poets. The literary turn-about, which took place in Persia, and which led to the rejection of the Isfahani style did not occur outside the country. On the contrary, in India, Afghanistan, Central Asia and Turkey, where Persian poetry received the added admiration reserved for imported goods, it continued the Safavid trend without any major setback until recent times , when the impact of the West brought about considerable social transformation to these regions. Literary criticism in these countries, when negative, was directed not against the prevailing style, which was considered but valid, against the failings of individual poets within this style. 29 The latest and, by far, the most outstanding of these critics is Shibli Nucm&ni (d. 1914) whose Shicr alcAjam in five volumes, despite some methodological shortcomings, remains to this day one of the most perceptive and most readable general estimates of Persian literature from the earliest times to the end of the seventeenth cenAn indication tury. of Shibli's opinion is provided by the
225
fact that he devotes the entire third volume of his work Contrary to to seven major poets of the Safavid period. these considers he and views expressed by Hidiyat Bahar, that on an improvement style and their poets outstanding, for He shows great appreciation poets. of the earlier and their of subtle feelings expression their concise lyrical delicate and illustrating in expressing ingenuity His enthusiasm for the merits of these poets is thoughts. For instance, in his remarks on them. abundantly reflected "Husayn ThanA'i, Muhtasham, and Sanjar he writes of cUrfi: but cUrfi lifted Kash&ni improved the qa4ldah considerably, Anvarl not a even He considers it from earth to sky."JU for match cUrfi.3l impression one gets the distinct By reading Shibli, in Persian poetry began, not in the fifthat the decline as most modern critics teenth century or even earlier, after the century, would have it, but in the eighteenth era. Mughal and Safavid the of demise of the great poets and Alt, Bidil Nasir of poetry contrived To him only the a decline.32 constituted like their The same exalted view of Safavid poetry prevailed and ShawSa'ib, in the Ottoman Empire, where J&m3, cUrfl, An models.33 literary kat provided in turn the highest toward the Safavid style example of the reverent attitude in E.J.W. Gibb's comment on some of its is reflected poet of the sixOf Fuzuili, a trilingual representatives. known in Persia, is hardly who teenth century (d. 1562-63), all in Turkish name no greater is "There writes: he than Fuzuili of Baghdad,",34 and counts him among literature 'men who in any age and in any nation would have taken Gibb 'He composed,I their place among the Immortals."35 in Turkish, "with equal ease and elegance writes further, and Arabic, his Turkish poems being highly favored Persian, of Rfim, his Persian div&n being the delight critics the by Shawkat of of the poets of every land."136 He describes century (d. Bukhara, a Persian poet of the seventeenth style of the late the exaggerated who represents 1695-96), as "deserknown in Persia, Safavid school and is little in and fertility ingenuity vedly famous for his marvellous 226
of fresh and picturesque images and similes, It the invention for more than half a centur3y and further that "he continued of Ottoman poets., to be the guiding star for the majority shown to Bldil in Central Asia and AfghanTo the respect I have already istan well into the twentieth century, referred.38 Ethe, Browne, and Rypka Of the Western critics, that from the middle of concur with the general estimate century Persian poetry in both Persia and the seventeenth a course which had India entered a course of sharp decline century.A9 Browne, however, already begun in the fifteenth when comparing Sa'ib with the poets of the Revival period, in agreement with Shiblt in his admiration finds himself While for this poet, rather than with Persian critics.40 as a centuries and seventeenth he regards the sixteenth he does not extend this barren period in Persia, fairly group of poets view to India, and speaks of "a brilliant from Persia . * . [who] adorned the court of the 'Great Moghuls' in India.",41 there has appeared a enough, of late, Interestingly against the categorical in Persia itself reaction certain of Azir editors The latest of Safavid poetry. rejection Atashkadah and HidAyAtls Majmac al-FuO&h&' have Bigdall's authors about respective the remarks of their challenged their views.42 Safavid poets and have sought to correct however, The most thorough defense of the Safavid style, lyricist, is penned by Amirl Flruzkuhl, an able contemporary of S&'ib's Div&n. He in the introduction to his edition indeed this over of the facts, "This glossing writes, and bias-peddling the . . . and particuarly injustice judgment of Az&r . . . not only caused ignorant or hostile but poets, to the rank of worthless Sa'ib to be relegated literalso managed to hide half the body of the country's ature under masses . . . of ignorance and neglect.",43 nature of Safavid poetry must have The controversial the critic The problems it poses involve become evident. period. in more than a mere assessment of this particular In order to gain a clearer view of this poetry and its
227
value, we may do well to remember that value judgments on literary products are, to a certain extent, a matter of and taste varies with time. taste, The critical writings of each age inevitably bear the imprint of its norms and follow its aesthetic criteria. Were a a&'ib or Kalim to review the poems of a Vasal or QA'Ani, poets of the Revivalist school, they would have found them most probably wordy, tasteless and destitute of poetic ideas. A clear instance of this divergence of tastes is provided by the comments of Ni&m3i cArjzi (twelfth century) and Dawlatshah (fifteenth century) on RQdaki's well-known poem Buy-iThe former considers it "1inimiJuiy-i maulian ayad hami. table," the latter, llinsipid."i44
Safavid
Literature's
View of Itself
Each age creates its own literary canons, and no apologies are needed for our adherence to the criteria of our own time, so long as we allow for other approaches and points of view. The literary tenets of the Safavid era differed decidedly from our own. The Safavid poet writes with an exalted view of his poetry. Despite his paying homage to some earlier poets, he is very much enthralled with the poetry of his own time. He exhibits greater confidence in the quality of his work than, say, the poet of the Ghazto the pioneer navid court who looked up with admiration poets of much earlier periods. Not only were the poets of their works, but they convinced of the superior quality and also considered their period one of literary prosperity fertile In their estimation, this age had imagination. given birth to thousands of fresh poetic ideas and had of its thought, the excelled other periods by the subtlety richness of its substance and the novelty of its imagery. The major poets of the period, Kalim and notably Fa'izi, ai'ib considered themselves poets of a very high order,45 and cUrfi felt that his own works marked the apogee of Persian poetry.46
228
of the It is also a measure of the self-confidence Safavid poets that they frequently responded to one another's poems, for they considered the verses of their contemporaries important or attractive enough to adopt their meters and rhymes in poems of their own.47 Also explicit praise for contemporary poets is not Within his own lifetime, Sa'ib grew into infrequent. such an eminent figure that many people travelled to Isfahan in order to pay him a visit. Two fellow-poets compiled anthologies of his vast output.49 Anthologies were also commissioned by Indian rulers and notables of the works of poets sponsored by them.50 Again, the Safavid poet repeatedly shows consciousness of an aspect of his poetry which to him appeared and inventive, an aspect which he believed original raised his above the level of earlier poetry. Briefly, this aspect was the discovery and expression of new poetic ideas.51
Nature
and norms of Safavid
poetry
Concern for novel ideas and impressive constructions dates back to the Timurid period.52 But it is in the Safavid period that it reaches its culmination, to the point that it affects the quality of poetry and helps shape a new style.
poetic
The poet can satisfy his search idea in a number of ways:
for an original
1) By hitting upon a novel simile or metaphor. S&'ib, for example, advises his fellow men to be "as openfaced as the secrets of the drunk." Another line by him reads: Like a bow, whose share of the hunt is Whatever I have is for others.
229
a [mere] yawn,
Or consider
the following
by Naziri:
line
candle flame, Like a sputtering to leave me, knowing that Life hesitates in my heart. Or, again,
the following
line
you dwell
by U'ib:
It is a mere line from the book of the wanderings of Majnufn The whirlwind which is afoot on the skirt of this desert. of an older imagery a new variation 2) By creating to thousands of variations There are literally or theme. images introduced by earlier be found of such familiar of dust (dharrah) which, despite the particle poets as: to rise to the sun; the legendary strives its nothingness, bird humi, whose favor may raise a beggar to the throne; the tulip and its black spot which resembles the burnt-out by care-free inhabited heart of the lover; the tavern, drinkers who have washed their hands of our bigoted world; the mirage, eluding us like success; the unattainable blistering desert thorns, which prick and sting the lover's chained in the curls of the heart, foot; the lover's wretched Reason withdrawing before imperious Love; beloved; the dew losing its life to a moment of the sun's kindness; and of fruits the benefit foregoing the noble cypress, lightning seasons; of the hazards the from free standing glance the dried grass just as the beloved's striking . . One can mention, in fact, heart. the lover's strikes of images employed in Persian lyrics the whole repertory on the As an example of variations of the Iraqi school. down like a lover, old theme of the candle burning itself line by Kalim may be cited:53 the following Should I keep thus sinking into myself from the weight of sorrow, I shall end up, like a candle, having my skirt as a collar.
230
on the theme from HazIn,54 as a variation Or the following and more conof love being more burning than lightning suming than fire: flees with burnt breath [in shame] The lightning from my land; The flame is mere dust, arisen from my ashes. who, in his rapture On the theme of the mystic Hallaj, comment offers in a disparaging Saib55 c laimed divinity, this novel variation: Mansur's bowl was empty, thus it reverberated; in the tavern of oneness no one is Otherwise, of himself. conscious
even
and expressing feeling some subtle 3) By capturing line by NazIirI56 may illustrate or situation; the following the point: So as not to shame her by her unfounded I confess to non-committed sins. The following real against this respect:
indignation
lines on the theme of the lover's jealousy may also be quoted in of imagined claimants
me, I died; Though she came to visit Wondering from whom she had asked the way to my house. (cAli Quli Mayli)57 I ask about her from everyone I meet, 0 God, let him be ignorant. But to myself I whisper, (Vahid Qazvinl) desires even He Who fulfills Behold my jealousy; Has not heard your name from my lips during prayer. (cUrfl)
of myself; Out of love for my beloved I am even jealous only of others. I have passed the point of being jealous (NazIrI 231
sigh me everytime I hear a stranger Jealousy kills Fearing he sighs for love of you. (Bah&'i Amuli) I am dying of jealousy; how many times can I witness The wine cup togching its lip to yours and giving up its life.5 (Talib Amull) I would not soften your heart by my laments, lament may sway you. Fearing that someone else's (cUrfi)
4)
By offering
What a profitable It doubles if it
a clever,
witty
remark,59
theft is stealing is reclaimed!
as in:
a kiss;
(S&'ib)
When you left me last night, I did not sense it; For you are life, and the passing of life makes no (Hazin) sound. me about the Day of The only thing which troubles Resurrection is this, That one has to look once more on the faces of mankind. (Sa'ib) If one cannot walk without sight, how then Can you pass the world by when you close your eyes to it. (Kalim) Notice, for 5) By employing a keen observation. line by Kalim,60 in which he cominstance, the following pares the white hair growing under dyed hair to teeth in a mocking laugh at old age: When white roots peep out from under hennaed hair, It is a toothy grin mocking your beard.6l common phenomena through imparting 6) By enlivening to them, as in the explanation an unexpected interpretation 232
offered rosebud
by Faghani ,62 for the presence at dawn:
of dew drops
on the
with dew, Each dawn the rosebud, saturated Cleanses its lips in order to call your name in prayer. Or this line by UA'ib, novel manner:
which
interprets
white
hair
in a
The milk which I had sucked as an infant Turned into white hair and shot out [on my head] of the spheres. through the strains and stresses Or the following contrived:
line
by Ghani KashmirI,
which is highly
The narcissus dared to speak of your eyes; Zephyr struck her in the mouth. Now she suffers from toothache and must suck water through a straw.63 7) By invoking a paradox. For instance, Nazirli, in a supreme masochistic gesture, claims that he gave up challenging Fortune, since he found it infirm in its 64 hostility. I throw down my shield, since Fortune is its hostility, I am not to challenge an unmanly enemy. In another
line
No truth is If you seek Hazfn66 crisy:
uses
he seeks
justice
from enemies,
feeble
in
not friends:
left in friends because of envy justice, seek it from enemies.6t
a fine
paradox
in his
jibe
at religious
O Brahman, you have no weight before us, Since our feigned faith excels your unbelief.
233
hypo-
And ShafA'167 enough:
complains
that
his
beloved
is yet another oppression your lovers enough So that they become accustomed
This
8) By reaching a new level line in the following For instance
that
is
not cruel
you do not hurt
to cruelty." of poetic exaggeration. by Sa'ib:68
So many hearts have melted by beholding you, That it is hard to cross your street without Or this
line
a ship.
of Qudsi:
A flood descended [so mighty] that it sank the sea in its whirlpool; from his drenched Which lover removed his sleeve eyelashes? Or this
line
by Faghani:
dream, and he rubbed your feet You visited the lover's So much to his eyes, that your feet took on the tone of henna.69 Or this
line
by Naz;rl:
I have become so feeble from the agony of awaiting to reach your face. That my glance has no strength Or this
line
by Kalim:
My black fortune has so darkened the spheres That bats now press the sun hard to their bosom. an aphorism or a common belief 9) By illuminating as in the following lines: by an apt illustration a grieved heart more readily: Love befriends A smoke-crowned lamp is more quickly kindled. (NaziriL)
234
you
to lean back on the enemy's obeisance: It is foolish The flood by kissing its feet brings down the wall. (Saiib) the heart: the weak illumines Befriending with wick, it radiates When wax allies itself the gathering.70 (Sd'ib)
in
Leaving this troubled world is better than entering it: The rose-bud enters the garden with constrained heart and departs smiling. (SQ'ib) or have indeed become, Many such lines sound like, proverbs, containing as they do vivid sensory parallels which have both literal and figurative meanings.71 This may be further illustrated by some lines from $Vib, the great master of this art. If God should will it, the enemy will become the source of benefit: The source of the paste in a glass-maker's workshop is stone. *
* *
Everyone who like the candle exalts his head with a crown of gold Will oft-times sit [immersed] in his tears up to the neck.72
Or:
When a man grows old, his greed grows young: Slumber becomes heavy at the time of dawn.
Or:
All this talk of faith and unbelief leads The dream is the same, only interpretations
Or:
Only light-headed people grow excited word: A slight breeze makes a bamboo grove
Or:
to one end: differ.
by every
empty
reverberate.
An old palm tree has more roots than a young one: Older men are more strongly attached to the world.
235
Or:
of dust on top of the wall From the insignificance I concluded That a nobody does not become a somebody by sitting on high places.
Or:
good of the sphere does not distinguish Revolution from evil: does not separate wheat from barley. The millstone
Or:
like a child on a In the field of free choice, hobby-horse, We are mounted in our own eyes, but [in fact] are on foot.
One may mention a few more of such methods as well figures used by the poet with the as a number of rhetorical endeavor to generate And yet the poet's same aim in view. a more cominvolves often admiration and excite surprise To impress his reader, the poet often has plex technique. of the means mentioned above. recourse to a combination In order to This point may need some elaboration. Persian lyric poetry we must remember that the appreciate to express a quest is not merely, or even chiefly, poet's idea in an his formulate to but a thought, or sentiment derived from Persian The pleasure manner. impressive surprise.73 a marked element of aesthetic poetry involves A poet must make his readers admire and marvel at his This mastery consists being moved by it. mastery, besides a poetic idea, but more to conceive not only of the ability to dress it in a sophisticated, an ability important, but < Not expression, construction. witty and well-knit understanding to the key The aim. is the poet's expression In order of aptness in this context is the word ingenuity. the poet draws on a expression, an ingenious to construct Chief among these are devices. large set of rhetorical na4'r (harmony of images or congruence tan&sub or mura'At-i mubalaghah (hypertazadd (antithesis), ideas), of poetic talmlh (alluor amphibology), ihim (double-entendre bole), argument or reasoning (illustrative irsal-i sion), majal (poetic or analogy), busn-i taclil by illustration 236
explanation), terative play
kin&yah (symbolic on words).
statement)
and jin&s
(alli-
A simple image, symbol or trope is hardly sufficient. for more elaborate The poet often uses these as material As the seventeenth constructs. century wears on, the poet but he tends to combine uses rhetorical figures abundantly, and cross them, twist and turn them around, substituting in the process allusion for expression, evocation for and intimation for statement. The final prodeclaration, duct is sometimes reminiscent of some of the paintings in the style of Synthetic Cubism by Picasso, Gris or Braque, where hints of objects and figures, or parts of them are meshed, dovetailed and combined into an evocative picture. Bldil's in which he frequently constructs, breaks, combines and orchestrates his crowded imagery, have often the of an ingenious effect contrapunetal composition, with the various strands of which one has a hard time to keep up. take place generally Such complex constructions within the span of a line, even a mere hemistitch. The line is the unit of lyric poetry and compactness is essenDramatic climax or conclusion tial to its effect. is alien to the artistic design of Persian lyrics. They follow an entirely which consists different literary of a design, of clever, series independent strokes, held together by the f o r m a 1 c o h e s i o n of the poem. To call rhetorical devices "embellishing" devices, as they have often been called, is misleading. Persian poetry is e s s e n t i a 1 1 y rhetorical. Rhetoric is its conceptual rather than its formal feature. The strinof rhythm and rhyme add their own chalgent requirements lenges to the conceptual organization of poetic ideas. The a Sacdi or a effortless ease and fluency of a Firdawsi, H&fiz do not represent an absence of such sophistications. It is their mastery which disguises their inimitable A poet who succeeds craftsmanshlp. in the face of the tyranny of form and exigency of rhetorlcal formulation exour admiration, as does the flawless cites performance of an acrobat or a magician. 237
It is well known that Persian poets, almost without But whereas and conceit. indulge in braggadocio exception, of an Arab poet encompasses a broad spectrum of the conceit the Persian poet boasts of almost exclumanly qualities, Were it his mastery of poetic art. one quality: sively selfsuch art, of his character dexterous for the not and odd. might have struck us as excessive glorification As it is, the poet is only too well aware of the nature of and like his audience marvels from time to time his craft, at his own achievement. concern for creating It is also this overriding which prompted the Timurid poets constructs, "impressive" (d. 1435) Kitibl to achieve feats of formal acrobatics. wrote three maanavIs, one of which has double rhyme in the second combines a rhyme and an alliterative every line, and the third can be read in each line, wordplay (jinas) Ahli of Shiraz (d. meters throughout: in two different by composing a masnavi 1535) responded to the challenge which combined all "White Magic" (Silar-i JalAl) called three of these artifices.74 K5tibiL also wrote a qaiLdah in which he has taken of "camel" to use the Persian equivalents upon himself and (shutur) and "room" (hujnah) in each hemistitch;75 composed a qas?idah LutfullAh Nishiburi, his contemporary, which along with the normal rhyme repeats the names of In the ever the four elements at the end of each line.76 wrote Kamal Kajkuli of Sayyid chronograms, field difficult "Such deeds are in says: of which Amir cAlishir an elegy, believed it is therefore fact beyond human aspiration; that he had conquered the planet Mars.",77 The remark is dates in view, of the fact that multiple not surprising lines of the poem. cAlishir's from several may be extracted into Persian wonders what he would have said if translator he had heard the gasidah that Sahab wrote after cAlishir's the date of hemistitches From each of the first death. and from each of the birth can be extracted, cAlishlris And yet such poems look second the date of his death.78 of muvashshahat79 and virpale when compared to a variety (such as those which employ only dotted tuoso compositions 238
or undotted
letters
throughout).80
of the It is again a measure of the preoccupation became a frequent time that the writing of verse-riddles occupation of the poets. In the Safavid period attempts at formal virtuosity subsided iLn the interest of conceptual sophistication, a blesswhich, from our point of view, must be considered ing. The poets are too busy coining and combining ingenious expressions to play too much with metrics or the formal aspects of the language or writing. However, it is also a fact that the lyric writers of this period are not satisfied with a mere rhyme and generally add a radlf (a or phrase which is repeated throughout the poem after the rhyme). In the whole body of a'ib's DivAn--and it is a copious one, there are no more than a couple of ghazals without
a radif.81
of the poet's The arduousness task should not lead us to believe, however, that his message would be restricted or his tongue tied. It is just that the Persian poet operates within this particular framework, determined by some basic elements of his culture. What cultural character, or social circumstance, has helped shape the formal and conceptual frame of Persian poetry is outside the scope of this paper. It is sufficient to note that certain correspondence between the canons of political behavior and social ethics, on the one hand, and literary norms on the other, is worth investigating. When Persian poetry began, judging by what is left of early Samanid poetry, the content was stressed. Creation of poetic ideas and imagery was more important than Of course, the manner of their formulation. the formal frame was stringent from the beginning. Soon, however, the of thought became the dominant aspect ingenious formulation in lyric poetry, which includes panegyrics. The development of Persian literature as a whole may be studied in or tension terms of the interplay of these two elements. a balance is maintained In Firdawsi, and the figure of the 239
manly figure Sha&namah stands before our eyes, a tall, In Niz&ml, howrobes of noble colors. dressed in elegant endeadominates the poet's craftsmanship ever, conceptual Riumi is more concerned with vor, whereas in the Manavi, even though A new balance, than refinement. expression whose Dlvan in Lafiz, reached is precarious, occasionally us like a woman whose natural beauty is enhanced strikes of her make-up and by the fine by the sophistication embroidery of her dress in harmonious and rapturing tones. are we able to observe that the inspection Only on closer hues are lined with fine and subtle designs. plain-looking
A positive
aspect
of Safavid
poetry
almost during the lifecentury, From the fourteenth in the intellectual, time of Hafiz, a deepening interest Persian poetry has of poetry sets in. witty formulation became mode of expression not known a period when ingenious so major a concern of the poet, or when it reached such There are many lines in this poetry which outheights. and if not in purity of diction poetry, all ptevious shine wittiness at least in keenness of perception, musicality, of ideas within orchestration and skillful of expression, to acquaint himAnyone who would have the leisure a line. output of this period, will self with the vast poetical find gems of glowing beauty in the works of Safavid poets. subtle and ingenious for novelty and for exploring Striving in producing terse, succeeded occasion have on many ideas which are of lines, lines or clusters epigramatic pithy, Anyone not to be found in the poetry of other periods. lines of Persian poets who compiles an anthology of single a large number from this is bound to find in his selection period, with Saiib as the leading or a leading poet. Browne need not have felt ashamed of his choice.82 Safavid poeIn this sense, and only in this sense, One cannot help being awed at a progress. try represents which at times seems beyond dexterity the sheer conceptual with which the Safavid poets The skill human ability. multiweave various strands of thought into an evocative,
240
faceted web, with fine invisible bridges subtly connecting levels of meaning or crossing the different them, leaves one breathless. The impression we receive is reminiscent time from of the one we obtain when we look for the first roads in an a height at a busy cross-section of mutliple American highway system. It is this particular achievement that raises Safavid poetry above the level of a mere continuation of TimuIt is also the intensity of this quality rid poetry. of a new which has bestowed on Safavid poetry the title style, even though its beginning lies in Timurid times.
A negative
aspect
This advance was made, however, at a price. The quality of thought and the directness of expression suffered and the emotive aspect of poetry sank under masses of artifice. Metaphors based on highly tenuous grounds become permissable. Far-fetched conparisons which rest on submerged metaphors and whose comprehension taxes the of the reader, abound. as Proimagination Eventually, fessor A. Bausani points out in his ingenious discussion of the Indian style techniques, as the comparison becomes more and more hyperbolical, even the last thin thread of formal resemblance is snapped and we arrive at totally free images like, for example, in the following by Bidil (d. 1/21) the wave' s pen writes the story of the 'Turbulent, . where the choice seal.. of comparison between wavel and 'pen' is completely free and personal.83 at diverse Pulling images with elusive links and building intricate if dazzling structures on precarious foundations, the poet becomes more of a juggler of images and tropes than an interpreter of feelings. With his deepening pursuit of mental acrobatics and his unrelenting attempt at impressing and amazing, he gets further and further away from real life experience and his poems become
241
more and more abstract. It is in this sense that Safavid poetry represents it is caught in a web of complex Eventually a decline. It ends itself. extricate cannot and devices rhetorical constructions. and in puzzle-like artificiality in contrived To a modern reader this maze of metaphors and forced The sheer intellectual effect. imagery have a cloying relationto catch all the meanings and multiple exercise We search for some simple expression ships wears one out. emotion, but it is only rarely that we find of heartfelt to communipurporting The poet, although ostensibly it. to us, is in fact engaged in a cate his inner feeling becomes so complex and ''game.'' The game eventually the pleasure that it kills so much mental effort requires of playing. for direct and reluctance from simplicity The flight in a number of syntactical are also relfected expression of the of the verse. These include the reversing features an argument or an exposition, order of a sentence, logical so that the poet would not be in danger of being understood and the reader would not be robbed of his pleatoo easily a complex structure and gaining an aessure of unravelling Such the meaning dawns on him. release when finally thetic for example, by placing a condimay be effected, reversing the clause after the main clause, or by transposing tional or by making a verbal compleexpected order of a simile, the normal grammatical order. ment follow the verb against find examples in a ghazal of All these three instances translated here:84 Hazin, partially in the sweat of shame Spring clouds rolled of my tear-raining In the face of the affluence lashes. Even as the dust which springs from the startled of a gazelle, flight heart. from my restless Peace fltees startled heart bleed, The heart of envy makes the tulip's If your brand should blossom on my side.85 242
eye-
Like wild rue, would crackle in the fire of your love, My spark even in the days when it dwelled in f lint.86 Linguistic
shortcomings
Coupled with this contrived mode of expression, there are certain linguistic an aspect which shortcomings, is particularly modern reader. annoying to the cultivated First, the syntax is occasionally impaired. Second, the words are very often inadequate, that is to say, although one gets the meaning of the poem, one fails to find all aspects of the meaning well-expressed. Finally, the poems of the period strike our ears as somewhat drawn out and languid. We miss those well-placed ups and downs and those artistically appealing arrangements of long and short syllables which make the music of the classical poems so attractive. In pre-Timurid periods not only is there a correct correspondence between word and meaning, but also the choice of words is governed by a certain artistic feeling which rejects some words and favors others. Modern taste, in so far as the music of line and the choice of words are is educated by the style of the classical concerned, poets, and therefore the language of the Safavid period strikes us as somewhat wanting. Here we may consider also tration of the popular language critics have associated with the style, although this question is the language deficiency referred
the question of the infilinto poetry, which some erosion of the classical essentially distinct from to above.
It has been suggested that in the Safavid period, because of excessive preoccupation with religious training and a disruption of the normal curriculum, those who wrote poetry were not as familiar with the works of classical writers, as were their predecessors.87 Therefore the language of the streets crept into poetry and robbed it of its more elegant and musical diction. There is some truth in 243
The language of poetry in both India and Iran does this. the of the spoken language, as against reveal many aspects A. Bausani, who Professor language of writing. polished discushas presented us with one of the more comprehensive of this penetration attributes sions of the Indian style, popular language into poetry to a "breakdown of formal harHe writes: in the Safavid period. mony",88 which took effect in the formation One of the most important catalysts from the influof the Indian style was its liberation was Such a liberation environment. ence of a critical one geographical, to occur on two grounds: possible to India, center] [of the literary namely the transfer and social conditions different where there prevailed and where Persian was not the native tastes different and the other social, tongue of many local poets, on the part of the Safavids in namely the disinterest at the court, in the and the replacement poetry, of the class of secreinfluence, sphere of spiritual clergy, men by that of the Shicite and literary taries taste for classical or no particular which had little poetry.89 There is no doubt that the Safavid period did not purity and the same basic concern for linguistic exhibit a Shams-i or an Anvari or a did Ghazl'iri that elegance expressions of familiar introduction Qais, and therefore although did not meet with much highbrow discouragement, had criticism this is by no means to say that literary but even to a greater degree In fact in Persia, abated. in India and Turkey, comments on the merits and demerits and the to flourish, continued compositions of literary in litera keener interest of the period display tazkirahs Their major prethan was wont earlier.90 ary criciticsm of the poetic however, was with the ingenuity occupation, diction. thought rather than with refined culamil under the The emergence of the Shicite group at court and influential pressure an as Safavids helped perhaps to maintain and promote the elsewhere, It would be more of classical restrictions. relaxation 244
to India, since difficult to assign a role in this respect works are bound to command in a foreign country written greater respect as models than the spoken language, as also by the course of poetry in the Ottoman emwitnessed pire. The Persian poets of India did no more than follow the trends set in Persia. Major poets like Fi'izl, cUrfi, Naziri, Zuhuri, Talib, Asir, Kalim,Qudsl and Sa'ib, who are at the same time the best representatives of the Indian style, were all products of a continuous, uninterrupted and F&'izi, Persian tradition, who alone among all these poets was born in India, does not differ on that score from others. In fact his language, like that of his conis closer temporary cUrfl, to that of the earlier masters, since he is closer in time to them. The important point to bear in mind is that the gradual encroachment of popular language and the decline and rhetorical of classical linguistic standards date back to a few centuries earlier.91 The Safavid period even towards its end the culmination though representing of this does not offer a demarcation To realize course, the line. gradual development of this tendency, it is sufficent to remember that: a) the ghazal, which became especially popular from the thirteenth century, by its very nature is more easily susceptible than the qasidah to the use of intimate as are indeed lyric masnavis; b) the language, and the popularity spread of Sufi thought and practice of mystic orders in the period between the Mongol invasion and Safavid supremacy helped further to diffuse these two genres among the ordinary people and make them far less elitist than before; c) the weakening of the literary discipline among the secretarial class had its faint beginnings in the thirteenth century, when the Mongol holocaust caused considerable disruption of normal life, and the and frequent wars subsequent Tatar and Turkoman invasions among rival princes and pretenders hardly helped to restore the situation. No wonder then that the erosion of classical "eloquence" finds frequent examples in the fifteenth century. 92 However it
is
not the admission
245
of popular
idiom
From a literary which should retain our attention. nor meritorious. of view this is neither detrimental use of of his frequent a because poet no lesser is It is the gains by it. and Ir&j visibly language, met in both poetry and prose of the tic "infirmity" one of notice and must be considered which deserves of Safavid literature. features
point Riimi everyday linguisperiod the
of language cannot be sepaHowever, the question the poetry of the period. affecting rated from other issues In a way language is only a mirror of thought. After all, weakthe two are the same. Weakness in language reflects thinking logical In the last analysis ness in thought. from good syntax. cannot be separated progress to Safavid poetry in one Attributing in another may appear an equivocal and decline respect but only to This has not been my intention, estimation. developments, about artistic that questions demonstrate for that matter, can hardly be satisfacor human affairs answered by a simple yes or no. A purist may see torily in the Rococo style a downward trend compared to the clasand yet one cannot deny style of the Renaissance, sical has within its own frame of reference, that this style, to and has contributed tastes some sophisticated satisfied Or again, one might prefer the enrichment of the arts. and firmness of the naskh or thulth style of the clarity but who can deny the fascination calligraphy, Arab-Persian of the shikastah style. of the dancing turns and twists ask the steadfast inquirer may legitimately Still, The of Safavid literature. evaluation for an overall is provided by the simple fact that answer to that question the Safavid era marks the last phase of the full cycle of A brilliant and fertile tradition. Persian classical during this period and makes its last effort literature One might say it is the last then fades out in exhaustion. before the final rout, to borrow from Arnold rallying The rally represents great concenToynbee's terminology. makes for field, of energy and, as in the political tration With this a viable system for a couple more centuries.
246
last effort (and not with Jami, as often assumed) the genuine classical period comes to an end.93 The end is formally and correctly marked by the emergence of the Revivalist school of poets in the eighteenth century and the practical abandonment of the Safavid style in Iran by representative a life cycle poets. This implies assigning to Persian classical literary which has its tradition, beginnings in the ninth century and its end in the eighwith culmination teenth, points in various genres of poetry in the tenth-eleventh and thirteenth-fourteenth centuries. Naturally the assumption of such a cycle cannot be considered as divorced from thle creative energies of the people who produced the literature. The exhaustion which characterizes the tail end of Safavid literature is, in fact, evident in more than one instance and applies not only to the other arts, which decline sharply after Sh&h cAbbas, but to the whole sphere of social and cultural life.
Parallelism
between
poetry
and the other
arts
Here we may briefly consider the question of parallelism between poetry and the other arts. First we may wonder whether the Safavid period, which in its first half was no doubt a conspicuous period for Persian painting, and textiles, was, as is sometimes assumed, architecture, representing the peak of these arts. Would it not be more plausible to think of the Safavid period not so much as the zenith of these arts, but as an artistically prosperous period which followed the high tide of the Timurid era? The decline of these arts did not wait even for the downfall of the Safavids. It is already evident after the reign of Shah cAbbas. In a recent lecture Richard Ettinghausen has drawn attention to the decline of heroic painting and the currency of a more delicate, more decorative, but less robus and less expressive art under the Safavids.94 One wonders whether even the best monuments of the Safavid era could be considered an improvement on the mausoleum of Muhamad Uljaytu (d. 1316), one of the last Ilkhans, in the Blue Mosque of Tabriz (fifteenth Sultaniyy4ror century) which was built by the Qara Qoyunlu Turkomans.
247
However, even if we place the apogee of Persian a cencentury, in the fifteenth and architecture painting we do not still than the rise of the Safavids, tury earlier in terms of time between literdevelopments find parallel century also since the fifteenth ature and the other arts, However, decline. a period of literary happens to represent that difour problem would perhaps be solved if we realize even though they follow the same evolutionary ferent arts, point or the same do not share the same starting courses, with the The mature age of an art may coincide tempo. even though we Therefore, youth or infancy of another. their of the arts, find the same pattern in the progression point in this context, By starting phases do not coincide. I mean the time when an art takes off and begins a rising arts may be stimulated Different movement towards a peak. For instance, times. agents and at different by different from Chinese received the impetus that Persian painting in century is not paralleled in the thirteenth painting of Arabic poetry in the Nor does the stimulus literature. in the ninth century find a of Persian literature rebirth or architecture. in painting parallel The important point, however, is that the Safavid exhaustion, period as a whole betokens a general cultural The of which becomes evident in all the arts. the effect century, sixteenth the is that this half of era, first gives us the last glow, in some areas even the brightest century, that is the seventeenth gleam; the second half, extinction. the inevitable What caused
Persian
literature
to decline?
Now we may take up the question which we put to ourat the start and turn from "how"l to "1why." What selves at this particular of Persian literature caused the decline period?
political feuding
There is no doubt that the Safavid period was one of The country which had been ruled by strength. warfare under continuous princes and had suffered
248
As in was now brought under a firm and unified control. of church and state cemented Sassanian times the unification with a strong conmon cause. the fragmented Persian society The economic situation which had been disastrous prior to and during the earlier the advent of the Safavids period of and the nation began to was stabilized their reign, finally prosper under Shah TahmAsp. ShAh CAbbas the Great's period witnessed the expansion of trade, a large and successful and an program of constructing roads and public buildings, open-minded, economic-oriented How are we foreign policy. to explain the decline of literature despite political stablization and economic growth? Several explanations have been offered to account for this phenomenon and we may review these first. One is in poetry as that the Safavid court was not as interested were the former Persian courts. Their preoccupation with the promotion of Shicism prevented the Safavid kings from and since the advance of poetry in Persia, heeding poetry, the argument goes, has always been largely dependent upon court patronage, the poetry suffered. This view, which is based on a persistent fallacy common to almost all histories of Persian literature, is closely connected to the customary but superficial periodization of Persian literature according to dynastic events. It hardly sheds any light on the subject. For one thing, the Safavid kings were not as insensitive to poetry as some a critics have made them appear. Shah Ismacil was himself poet of considerable merit in Turki. Shah Tahmasp was a patron and promoter of the arts, and even if towards the end of h's reign he preferred religious poetry to panegyrics,9 still his stand did encourage the poets.36 His brother, Bahram x3irza, who was given the governorship of Khurasan in 1549, was a poet, musician and calligrapher. He sponsored many artists who worked in his library.97 Bahram Mirz&'s son, Ibrahim Mirza (d. 1577) who married Shah Tahmasp's daughter and held the position of Master of Ceremonies (cIshshak AghAsi) at the court, was also a a calligrapher man of learning, and poet, with a DivAn of 5,000 verses to his name.98 Sam Mirza, another brother of
249
Shah Tahmasp and the author of Tuhfa-i Sami, a biography of is yet to whom I have already referred, contemporary poets, shown to poetry by the another example of the attention Sh&h of their reign. from the beginning Safavid princes to their listened the poets, CAbbas the Great frequented on ShifA'i of poet laureate and bestowed the title poetry, (d. 1628), a custom he continued to the end of the Safavid At least once he paid a poet (Sh&mi) the equivadynasty. lent of his weight in gold as a mark of his appreciation.99 of all instances has brought togethei Falsafi Nasrullih to the poets. ?? From these and ShAh CAbb&s' attentions one can see that although the Safavid instances similar they patrons of poetry, kings were not perhaps inordinate in literature. for any decline cannot be made the scapegoat the generous courts of the great Mughals in India Besides, If provided all the patronage the poets could wish for. for advance or patronage could be responsible courtly this period should have of poetry, of the quality decline produced poetry second to none. Should one need any further proof of the irrelevance one may consiof poetry, of court patronage to the quality der that neither Nizaml, Sacdl or Hafiz belonged to any Nor courts noteworthy for their patronage. conspicuous did, for that matter, Khayyam or Riimi, who completely to Persian Mahmu5d's indifference ignored court patronage. of the ShAhn&mah. On epics did not hamper the creation the other hand, J&mi, who was honored during his lifetime not only in perhaps more than any other Persian poet--and not produce but also in the Ottoman Empire--did Persia, of the effect Altogether poetry. anything but second-rate in treatises court patronage has been unduly exaggerated of Persian literaThe renaissance on Persian literature. ture in the tenth century was not a product of Samanid but simply another aspect of a patronage or institutions, also gave rise to local dynaswhich development historical ties and their institutions. In fact, during the Safavid period poetry was a very It is enough to remember that Sam Miirza repopular art. cords more than seven hundred contemporary poets of Sh&h 250
and Nasrib&dl, IsmaCil and Shah Tahm&sp's period, who wrote under Sh&h SulaymAn, records seven hundred of his contemporary poets. Abu'l-Fazl the author of A'in-i cAllami, Akbari, a valuable work on Akbar's life, court, and institutions, states that "thousands of poets are continually at court" and mentions 59 poets whom he had personally introduced to Akbar.10l in his Muntakhab al-Tav&rlkh, Bad&'inl, enumerates 38 shaykhs attached to the same court, 69 scholars, fifteen physicians and philosophers, but 167 poets.102 Even Hazin who takes a dim view of poetry and the poets of his time and considers the great majority of the poets hackwriters unworthy of being recorded, manages to record the biography of one hundred poets of his contemporaries, all shicites and all residents of Persia: Therefore, we may put the dynastic explanation of Safavid poetry comfortably to rest. Another explanation offered sometimes, though less frequently, to account for the peculiarities of the Safavid is a geographical style, one. Mirzoev, for instance,103 as well as some Persian critics,104 link excessive subtlety and the far-fetchedness of this poetry with features of Indian life and culture. In the same way but with a different end in mind, Shibli also considers the Indian environment responsible for the superior quality of Safavid poetry. To him, the Indian climate has had a beneficial on everything effect imported to India. For instance, Persian and Turkish physical beauty reach their perfection in India and the British born in India, according to him, turn out handsomer than those born in their homeland. Also, it is in India that Persian architecture, cuisine and embroidery find their refined examples. In the same manner, the Indian climate imparts to Persian poetry a new delicacy and tenderness, which become evident if we compare the poetry of cUrfi, Naziri, Kalim, Qudsi and Ghaz&li, who wrote Talib, mainly in India, to that of ShifVvi and Muhtasham who lived and wrote in Persia.105 On imports
other
than poetry, 251
I am unable
to pass
judgment. But insofar as poetry in concerned, the effect of Indian climate must be considered insignificant. The great majority of the Indian poets received their training in Persia and wrote poetry before they sought patronage on who more than any other poet repreIndian soil. 5i'ib, sents this poetry, did not live in India more than six The fact, however, which works most effectively years. against this explanation, as well as the previous one, is that this style of poetry had its beginning in the neither It began in Persia and was Safavid period nor in India. already noticeable during the Timurid period. In 1953 I a book on Persian poetry of the Shah Rukh period, published half of the fifteenth and subthat is, the first century, of decline titled it "The beginning in Persian literature." of this The chapter which deals with the characteristics modification be equally applied poetry106 could with little the to Safavid poetry. Only Timurid poetry did not possess and imagination of the succeeding perceptual ingenuity age. As Bertels points out: It is characteristic that the movement [i.e. the Indian style] does not adhere to any particular geographic region and that the poets following this style were to be found in Herat as well as in Tabriz and Shiraz. Some of them making their way to India and becoming acquainted with the poetry flourishing there, came to intensify on occasion still further the typical traits of the style, but we can still state that the style could hardly have developed in India as such.107 A third explanation a religious is basically one. It holds the religious policy of the Safavids and the attendant weakening of Sufism responsible for the decline of literature. This view is put forth in its clearest form by the late MuhammadQazvini in a letter to E.G. Browne. He wrote of the Safavid kings: In regard every kind connection one hand,
to the Sufis particularly they employed and vexation. of severity . . Now the close on the between poetry and Belles Lettres, and Sufism and Mysticism on the other, at 252
so that the extinction is obvious, any rate in Persia, and desthe extinction involves of one necessarily Hence it was that under this of the other. truction poetry and Mysticism comculture, dynasty learning, . . In place of great poets Persia. deserted pletely great inthere arose theologians, and philosophers and formal.108 deed, but harsh, dry, fanatical in his explanMinorsky, too, brings in mysticism although ation of the dearth of great poets in this period, In fact, his theory has more of a in a different vein. He favors a search for the social, basis. politico-economic in a given and economic background of mysticism political but in general regards the spread of mystical period,109 of the frustrations in Persia as a reverberation tendencies of Persian hisimposed by the vicissitudes and distresses of literature Unlike Browne, he finds the decline tory. rather cautiously: He writes under the Safavids natural. of this fact would perhaps be that The explanation or gave Persian poetry, the mysticism which penetrated was linked to times of discoloring, it a special At a time when the people and frustration. tresses and when existence for their national were fighting were opening up for useful enterprise possibilities the mystiand the improvement of general conditions, to the conditions cal routine no longer corresponded of the time.110 Rypka, referring fying it) states:
to Minorsky's
view
(and somewhat ampli-
all an intrinsic feature of Persian Mysticism- -after of wretched a reverberation usually literature--is whereas under the Safacircumstances, and necessitous of all engaged in vids the Iranians were first then in expanding their upholding their own position, property and in pursuing other aims of a practical orders died out under the presThe religious nature. and with them the Sufi consure of Safavid policy, and and speculations, which were contested ceptions
253
suspected by the mujtahids hatred. 111
with
the most intense
Such theories are hardly tenable. They may explain the increase in vzolume of religious poetry, but not the character of the period's literature. Mystic orders suffered in Safavid Persia, but not for long. Shicite orders soon began to blossom, as shown by their comfortable existence in the Qajar period. In any event, official religious sanction has never been a necessary condition for the expansion of mysticism. Sufism contains a streak of social protest, and has often prospered under adverse conditions. Besides, mystical themes do continue in the divans of Safavid poets, notably that of $5Aib, even in extreme or at least pronounced forms.112 Even if we accept of atmosphere in Persia for the Sufis, the severity no such restrictions prevailed in the Ottoman empire, Central Asia, Afghanistan or India. And as we have seen, the poetry of the period is indivisible. As to absorption in economic or political activithis did not prevent a plethora of poets in Persia ties, or India from pouring forth numberous volumes of verse. It is hard to see why it should have adversely affected its quality. Yet another theory seeks to explain the literary of the Safavid period by the economic depression climate which affected when the sea passage to India was Persia, discovered by the Portuguese and the Italian trading on the Black Sea disappeared.113 colonies Jiri Becka, and economic resuming this view, regards the political decline at the beginning of the sixteenth century as a highly contrived form resulting in "increased formalism, of poetrz and prose, marked by still stronger Arab influence.11114 This view, which somewhat contradicts Minorsky's in the situation opinion, hardly takes into consideration other than Persia. Nor does it account for the countries the correof poetry in this period. popularity Further, 254
and increased lation between economic depression formalism and artificiality is not entirely clear. One might expect some of the perhaps more expressive poetry, revealing felt by the society. accompanying hardships Two other theories may be mentioned here. One is somewhat marginal and emphasized the general view that strong, central governrments in Persia have always worked against literary prosperity.115 It is supposed to be based on the evidence of Persian history. In fact, it is mainly deduced from the Safavid circumstance. Islamic Persia, however, has been politically fragmented most of the time, and therefore there is little evidence to the contrary on which to build a plausible theory. The other view, advanced by Bertles, of Persian letters to explain any "decline" vids, but tends to explain the character of which he does regard with some sympathy, by ditions of the period. He writes:
does not attempt under the SafaSafavid poetry, the social con-
Whereas at one time poetry was a sort of prerogative of the feudal aristocracy, in the sixteenth century it became (in the ghazal) increasingly associated with the urban population and with the merchants and artisans and hence a whole number of new traits asserted themselves, notable among them the 'lowering of imagery,' the use of similies and metaphors uncommon in court circles, the introduction in the ghazals of motifs which did not entirely correspond to the refined tastes of the feudal strata.116 of social Similarly, assuming a reflection order in poetry, Rypka draws parallels between the treatment of the lover by the beloved, as pictured in the lyrics, and the treatment of subjects by their God-kings.117 no one can deny the impact of social Of course, conditions on literary products. But the social theory offered and others is far too sketchy to provide a by Bertels viable explanation of the development of Persian literature. 255
of the Indian style character the convulted To associate of with common people rather than with the sophistication One credible. the court does not appear particularly Farrukhi and Sacdi were not might expect the contrary. and the Samanid princes were hardly aristocrats, exactly more feudal than the Safavid kings, who were almost worOne may explain the passage of shiped by their subjects. the popular language into poetry by the popular character of the whole character but to ascribe of its practitioners, taxes social conditions Safavid poetry to some ill-defined if it is meant that some new Further, one's imagination. in the Safavid period made for its special condition social it must be borne in mind that Persian character, literary change from significant underwent little conditions social As long as Islam century. the ninth to the twentieth system, the framework of the social remained the effective Neither the frequent Turkish society stayed fairly static. Safanor the advent of the militant and Tatar invasions, century nor the rise of Nadir Shih in the eighteenth vids, as the (which was often dubbed by contemporary writers brought about basic changes in of Persia)118 Revolution of the country. Violent changes in structure the social religious rule, even when backed up by radical dynastic should not be mistaken for basic changes in social slogans, but no great waves. There have been ripples, conditions. of the basic This in itself might explain the continuation molds and concepts of Persian poetry from the time of its century. until well into the twentieth inception Persian
The old age of classical
poetry
to leaves us with no explanation This apparently at the tradition of the classical account for the decline However, it seems to me that end of the Safavid period. has been left in all these accounts a simple explanation reasons for the every possible We have offered out. without mentioning his weakening state of an octogenerian Persian poetry does no more than follow a general age. It begins with pattern of development common to all arts. the which characterize and directness the simplicity
256
earlier stages of an art and leads to the complexity exaggerated formalism which plague all arts towards end, when creative energy is expended.
and their
At the dawn of an art, as in the springtime of a of an active and searching nascent culture, the pulsation If it is spirit give birth to new forms and new ideas. allowed to follow its own course and is not stifled or diverted by other currents, in time it gains the maturity and elegance characteristic of middle age. Elegance leads to refinement and this already contains the seeds of decay. and formalism replace the expresGradually sophistication sion of heartfelt sentiments. Art becomes over-intellecIn the end it tualized; but no longer inspired. clever, is halted in "perpetual turning up of new facets of a now "119 "It crystallized and undevelopable thought-shock. begets no more, but only reinterprets, and herein lies the negativeness common to all periods of this character.",120 to the arts alone. It This pattern is not limited is also discernible in the development of Sufism from the of early mystics to the forsimple and emotive asceticism malism of an cIbn al-cArab! to the conventional, superand lifeless of some late dervishes. stitious practices The course of Islamic sciences provides yet another example. One may well question whether this is an adequate explanation. The answer is that this is only a morphological explanation, rather than a causal one. No art, and indeed no culture, has continued in strength forever. Sooner or later an inward erosion sets in, and the art or style loses its creative capacity and its inner vitality. The explanation offered above only recognizes the Safavid period as the final phase of a sustained effort at literary creativity which constitutes the classical period. This last phase of literary activity coincides with the Safavid politico-economic tour de force. Isfahan, which Herbert described as "Yea, the ureatest and best built City throughout the Orient"1 LI is symbolic of the comprehensive effort which occasions the ascendency of the Safavids. 257
The fuel which feeds the fire, and was also in short supply, remained of the old flame.
however, was far from robust and soon no more than flickers
time span of an art, or the particular What dictates is hard among a people, energies the duration of creative to determine at the present state of our knowledge, but analyses with superficial this is no reason to be satisfied theories. or inadequate After Shah cAbbAs the Great Persian poetry shows By the end of the Safavid rule it has signs of debility. It exhausts all its inward possibilities. actualized and dies ideas and artifices itself in a maze of contrived in 1811 The Isfahan which Morier visited of senility. and evident exhausthe state of inner frailty symbolizes in the wake of to experience tion that Persia was destined the Safavid exuberance: The great city of Ispahan, which Chardin described . . . miles in circumference as being twenty-four would now dwindle to about a quarter of that circumOne might suppose that God's curse had ference. as it did over extended over parts of the city, whole mosques, palaces, Houses, bazaars, Babylon. are to be seen in total abandonment; and I streets have rode for miles among the ruins, without meeting except perhaps a jackal with any living creature, peeping over a wall or a fox running to his hole. 122 There has surely been a Has there been a rebirth? Whether this new start heralds the rise of a new start. headed for a peak is for time to tell. new tradition NOTES 1.
History of Iranian Literature, Jan Rypka et al., 1968), p. 292. Karl Jahn (Dordrecht:
258
ed.
2.
E.G. Browne, A Literary History (Cambridge: 1956-59), p. 26.
3.
For see pp. was
4.
A History of Ottoman Poetry, repr. 1965), p. 29.
5.
Op. cit.,
6.
Ibid .,
7.
Schimmel,
8.
See CAbd al-Qadir Muntakhab al-Tav&rlkh, Badacinl, vol. iii (Calcutta: 1869), pp. 170ff; Shibli Nucmani, Shicr al-ajam, tr. into Persian by Fakhr Daci, vol. iii (Tehran: 1955), p. 4.
9.
In this
of Persia,
vol.
iv
Arabic and Turkish literature produced in India, Annemarie Schimmel, Islamic Literatures of India, 6 ff, 25-26. In 1582 by royal decreee Persian also made the official language of the government.
vol.
ii,
vol.
i (London:
1902,
pp. xxxiv-v.
pp. xxxv-vi. op. cit.,
respect
the
pp.
1 & 8.
names
of
several
individuals
come
immediately to mind. These include Bayram Khankhanan of the court of Humayiln (d. 1555); Abu'l-Fath Gilant, a dignitary of Akbar's period; Shaykh Abu'l Fazl, a learned and liberal vizier of Akbar and a younger brother of the son of father and Atisan, the an account see Shibll, 10.
the poet Faiz;J; cAbd al-Ralim Kh&nkh&nan, to the title of his Bayram, who succeeded served Akbar and Jah&ngir; and Zafar khAn governor of Kashmir under Shah Jahan. For of these and several other personalities, op. cit., vol. iii, pp. 3-15.
The
following lines by Sa'ib: There is no head wherein the desire for thee dances not, Even as the determination to visit India is in every heart. (tr. by E.G. Browne, op. cit., vol. iv, p. 165) and by CAbd al-Razzaq Fayyaz Lahijl, the son-in-law of the
259
philosopher Mulla Sadra Shirazi: Great is India, the Mecca for all in need, for those who seek safety. Particularly A jouney to India is incumbent upon any man Who has acquired adequate knowledge and skill. to the Divin Introduction (quoted by P. Bayza'i, 1957), p. 5). Kallm (Tehran:
of
11.
impassioned argument in See, e.g., cAmlrfl Firizkiihils to the Dilvin of Uaiib, 2nd ed. (Tehhis introduction ran: 1957), pp. 4-5 and R. Bayza 'i, op. cit ., p. 13.
12.
R. Humayin Farrukh,
13.
Ibid1,
14.
out comment: "Poets strike See Abu'l Fazl cAllamils and realm of thought, a road to the inaccessible Acin-i divine grace beams forth in their genius." 1873), Akbari, vol i, tr. H. Blochman (Calcutta: p. 548.
15.
Tadhkirah-i
16.
Ibid.,
17.
M. Sirishk (Mashhad:
18.
1957), pp. Ed. H. Sadat-i Nasiril, vol. i (Tehran: instead have the following Two manuscripts 123-25. "He (i.e. Sa'ib) has of what has been quoted above: a peculiar style in poetry which has no resemblance Although to that of the eloquent poets of the past. and quatrains, to write panegyrics he was not inclined he has a divan of nearly one hundred thousand lines, which was examined by me, and after much consideration, (Ibid., p. 127, lines were selected." the following n. 2).
19.
Ibid.,
ed.
(Tehran:
n.d.),
pp. 3-4.
pP. 3.
jazin,
2nd ed.
(Sfahan:
1955),
pp. 5-6.
p. 7.
vol.
Kadkanli), (M. Shafici 1963), p. 29.
ii,
pp. 870-71. 260
Hazin-i
Lahiji
20.
Shawkat of Bukhara great reputation in as a model to many op. cit., vol. iv,
21.
Muhamnad Tahir Vahld Qazvini (d. 1708-09), a Safavid poet, stateman and historiographer and a contemporary and friend of S&'ib. See H. Ethe, 'Neupersiche Literatur," GrC d. iran, Pil., vol. ii, pp. 312 & 342 and Ch. Rieu's Catalogue of Persian M4SS, vol. I, p. 189b.
22.
Quoted by M.T. Bahir from Hada'iq al-JanAn Sabk Shin&sl III, 2nd ed. (Tehran: 1958),
23.
Majmac al-Fugabi', (Tehran: 1957),
24.
All these lectures are now published together in Bahar-i adab-i farsi, a collection of one hundred of Bahar's articles, edited by Muiammad Gulbun, carefully with an introduction by Ghul&m Husayn Yiisufi, 2 vols. (Tehran: See p. 43ff. 1972).
25.
Ibid.,
26.
Divan, vol. ii (Tehran: 1957), p. 228. a response to Sarmad, who had expressed views.
27.
The latest Arianpiir, pp. 7-13.
28.
See Browne, op. cit., vol. iii, pp. 247-48.
29.
Among the excellent examples of such criticism are Saraj al-Din cAll Khan Arizd's Tanbih al-ghafiln, directed against Hazin's poetry, and the rejoinder to Arizu by Ghulam cAll Az&d Biligrami in his Khiz&nah cAmarah. See Sirishk, op. cit ., p. 40ff.
(d. 1695-96), poet who enjoyed Turkey and Central Asia and served Ottoman poets; see E.J.W. Gibb, pp. 96-97.
ed. Mazahir Musaff&', pp. 9-10.
in his p. 318. vol.
i
p. 49. The poem is different
expression of this view appears Az $aba tA NimA, vol. i (Tehran: vol.
261
iv,
in Y. 1972),
p. 163; Gibb,
op. cit.,
vol.
v,
p. 22.
30.
Op. cit.,
31.
Ibid.
32.
works, however, which have often been singled Bldil's and bombast example of obtuseness out as a notorious in Persian lyric poetry, had a major impact in Central In fact, Bidil's into the 1920's. Asia which continued cult in Afghanworks gave rise to a mystico-poetic in BldilThis was reflected istan and Transoxania. to weekly which referred kh&nt (reading of Bidil) works were read and commeetings at which BIdil's mented upon.
33.
Gibb,
op. cit.,
34.
Ibid.,
p. 70.
35.
Ibid.,
p. 71.
36.
Ibid.,
p. 78.
37.
Ibid.,
vol.
i,
38.
Supra,
note
32.
39.
pp. 309-11; Rypka, op. cit., Ethe, op. cit., p. 24ff. 97; Browne, op. cit.,
40.
OpQcit.,
41.
Ibid.,
42.
See Atashk&dah, vol. Vol. i al-Fusahf', introduction.
vol.
i,
p. 6 & vol.
p. 130 & vol.
iv,
iii,
pp. 247-48.
pp. 95-97,
185.
pp. 496-
See a similar view pp. 164-65, 265ff. earlier by Charles Rieu, who remarks on expressed Sa&'ib: "By common consent the creator of a new style of modern Persian poets," 6f poetry, and the greatest p. 693. op. cit., p. 25. i (Tehran: 1957), p. 124; MajmaC 1957), p. 19 of the (Tehran:
262
43.
2nd ed. (Tehran: 1957), p. 2. CAmiril 's eloquent fense heartened several other admirers of Safavid poetry in their efforts to revive interest in it. e.g. Biyza i, op. cit., p. 12 of the introduction.
deSee
44.
Dawlatshah, Tazkirat al-Shucarat (Leiden: 1901), pp. 31-34; cAruz1, Chahar Maqala, ed. M. Qazviini (Leiden: 1910), p. 32.
45,
See Shibli, Pp. cit., vol. iii, pp. 32, 60 & 152; for Kallim see, for instance, Divan, ed. P. BayzA'i, p. 281 (ghazal no. 484); for *A' 'ib, see DivAn, p. 215 and also p. 871 where in a qa3idah in praise of Zafar Khan, he considers himself excelling the poets of all ages and challenges the boasts of cUrfi, Naucli, and Sanjar, his contemporaries.
46.
op. cit., See Shibll, vol. iii, pp. 70-71, where a number of verses reflecting cUrfi's exaggerated view of himself are brought together.
47.
This is a practice of long standing in Persian literature. One usually responds to a poem which one considers of special and this is always a quality, compliment to the original The poet sometimes poet. mentions the author of the poem to which explicitly he is reacting. This is particularly the case with Sa ib, who generously refers to the poems which have moved him. In less confident periods, the poets respond to well-known poets of the past. In modern times Firdawsi, Sacdl and H&fiz have been the poets most frequently responded to.
48.
For some examples see Shiblt, op. cit., vol. iii$, p. 82 (Falzi's comment on cUrfi in a private letter) and pp. 163-67;cAmIrl Firuizkuihl, introduction to the Divan of Ua'ib, pp. 33-34; cAbd al-Baqi Nahavandi, Ma'athir-i Rahlmi III (Calcutta: 1931), p. 115; the DIvAn of Na;Irl,pp. 618 & 622.
49.
See Firizkiihi, op. cit., pp. 11 & 27. are cAmala of Balkh and Fitrat. 263
The two poets
50.
by Zafar Such an anthology was made, for instance, Al'ib a patron of Quds3i, Kallm, Kh&inAhsan (v. supra), p. 6 See Bayz&'3I, op. cit., and some other poets. Kalam&t Afzal Sarkhush's who quotes from Muhanmmad a contemporary Tazkirah. al-Shucaraia,
51.
merit of their poetry finds Pride in the innovative See, in the works of the poets. adequate expression op. cit., pp. 10, vol. iii, for some examples, Shibli, notes, pp. 80, & 165; M. Musaffa, DIlvin of Naziri, p. 53ff. op. cit., 618 & 620; Sirishk,
52.
in this respect are Kam&l Khujandi, Some forerunners cAm/r Shihi and Azari, all KhiilI, Basati, Katibi, half of the fifteenth century. poets of the first of the The following lines show the consciousness of their effort: poets themselves the beloved's lips by some new 0 ShAhi, describe image in oft-heard words. There is no pleasure (cAmir
0 Kamal, even peers like Are all, When they are It is futile
if
I concur
that
Shahi)
the poems of your
inspired. miracles, divinely void of distinctive images, to imagine that they find renown. (Kamil Khujandl)
of the period were also alive to the issue, The critics as evident from Dawlatand not always in agreement, "The learned men of sh&h's comment on Kam&l Khujandi: of the Shaykh maintain that the subtleties letters feelings [Kamal] have removed his poetry from sincere For p. 328. and passion." Tazkirah (Leiden ed.), and see Yar-Shater, E. examples, further details fars I dar cahd-i Shahrukh (Tehran: 1953), Shicr-i p. 144ff. 53.
Divan,
54.
Sirishk,
p. 90. op. cit.,
p. 86. 264
55.
Divan,
p. 181.
56.
Divan,
p. 231.
57.
lines are taken from an anthology Most of the following which I made for myself when I was a graduate student.
58.
literally, Ghalib tuhi kunad has a double meaning: "that and figuratively, "that it empties its vessel" As is usual in many its soul departs from its body." both meanings apply, the figuraverses of the period, a new level of meaning and tive sense revealing surprise. the reader a pleasurable affording
59.
Recourse to double-entendre (iham), which is very but hardly translatable, frequent in Safavid poetry, Most rhetorical under this category. may be classed manifestly "witty." are fact, in devices,
60.
Div&n, p. 1.
61.
Kalim'ls ga?idah 1-3) is replete of daily life.
62.
Divan,
63.
Traditionally the eyes of the beloved are likened to by saying this cliche the narcissus. The poet twists should not dare to aspire to such that the narcissus Since it has, however, it has been hit resemblance. in the mouth; the idea is to offer a poetic raison stalk. d'letre for the flower's
64.
Divan,
p. 279.
65.
Divan,
p. 42.
66.
Op.4it.,
p. 80.
67.
Shibl!3,
op. cit.,
imam (Div&n, pp. in praise of the first with remarks based on the observation
p. 3.
v, p. 63.
265
p. 216.
68.
Divin,
69.
In the world of blood.
70.
the literally, ShamC-i mahfil has a double meaning: the center of candle of the gathering; figuratively, by the poet. Both meanings are exploited attraction.
71.
in the proverb For instance, both the literal two people," meanings apply.
72.
Tr. by E.G. Browne,
73.
as an element of See Avicenna on "wonder" (taCjib) there is "And in imagination appreciation: aesthetic something of [a sense] of wonder, which is absent in [which is the basis . . Imagination truth. demonstrable to wonder and the of the art of poetry] is a yielding Alitself." that are in the utterance pleasures ed. A. Badawi (Cairo: Al-Man iq, 'IX Al-Shicr,' Shifi', He uses the word mucjib "causing 1966), pp. 22-23. of quality to the pleasurable wonder" in reference approach by Nasir Tfisi, C.f. a similar Ibid. poetry. 1947), p. ed. M. Ragavi (Tehran: Asis al-iqtib&as, 590.
74.
For details,
75.
Ibid.,
76.
Ibid.
77.
Majilis 14.
al-naf'
78.
Ibid.,
p. 207.
79.
names Poems which produce additional poems, lines, or words of the letters or dates, when some specified of each line) are put letter the first poem (e.g. together. 266
p.
of Persian
the
lyrics,
op. cit.,
see Yar-Shater,
lover
sheds
tears
"An empty shotgun scares and the figurative
iv,
p. 276.
op. cit.,
p. 190ff.
122.
is,
ed. A. Hikmat (Tehran:
1944),
p.
80.
For further details, 119ff & 131.
81.
however, vituosity, Examples of verbal and chrographic See Ethe, can be found also in the Safavid period. of a congratulatory IV, pp. 309-11; for the description ga?idah by Vahml, a poet of the court of ShAh JAhan, which puts Sahibls poem to shame.
82.
Op. cit.,
83.
revised del Pakistan e dell'Afghanistan, Le letterature See also his 1968), p. 49. ed. (Florence & Milan: 1968), p. La letterature (Florence & Milan: Persiana 'stile a una definizione dello 294ff and "Contribute Annali SN, VII, indiano' della poesia persiana,' 167ff.
84.
in cannot be brought out easily Language peculiarites a translation. of the syntacOnly an approximation tical haziness may be expected here.
85.
the subject of the verb in the first In the original around The poet is twisting is the brand. hemistitch a simile black spot and the in which the tulip's brand are likened. beloved's
86.
of In the original the spark, which is the subject The idea both verbs, comes at the end of the line. of the scintillation is to give a poetic explanation of wild of the spark. It is likened to the crackling implying that the spark was jumping for rue on fire, joy, knowing that the lover would borrow the fire from of his love. the stone as an expression The line is in lanbut somewhat defective not only complicated, The poet is trying to do too much within a guage. line. single
87.
iv. p. 24ff, See Browne, opo cit., is also cited; view to this effect ii. p. 49.
iv.
see Yar-Shater,
op. cit.,
p.
p. 164.
267
where M. Qazvlnil s and Bahir, op. cit.,
del
88.
p. 296; Le letterature Persiana, La letteratura p. 51ff. Pakistan e dell'Afghanistan,
89.
La letteratura
90.
See below,
91.
view, which also places the erosion of C.f. Bertels' than the Safavid period and style earlier classical of the urban activity it with the poetical associates See the feudal aristocracy. as against population poezii," v persidskoy "K voprosu ob lindiyskom stile' of papers dedicated (Collection Orientalia Charisteria to J. Rypka), ed. F. Tauber, V. Kubickova and I. 1956), p. 59 and below, p. 255. Hrbek (Prague:
92.
See below,
93.
The mistaken view that J&ml (d. 1492) either marks the period or is the last great poet end of the classical is based partly on the onetradition of the classical who chose to critics sided view of the Revivalist
p. 294.
Persiana,
p. 251.
p. 257.
period, the Safavid ignore for the fact appreciation without course its tinues to modification, expected period. at
the
Iran
on the lack of and partly conpoetry that Persian but with interruption, the end of the Safavid
Center,
Columbia
University
94.
Delivered
95.
we owe M4uhtasham's to the above report, According and the events on the martyrdom of Iusayn moving elegy ShAh Tahm&sp reportedly to Shah Tahm&sp. of Karbela sent to him by in his praise frowned upon a qa?idah of the shicite in praise and poems suggested Muhtasham cilam Ara, i Beg Turkaman, See Iskandar saints. p. 178. 1955), (Tehran:
96.
According religious following
to Iskandar poems were Muhtasham's
to some fifty Beg, ibid., offered by various quickly lead.
268
sixty poets,
97.
See Q&ziJAhmad, Calligraphers and Painters, B.N. Zakhoder, tr. V. Minorsky (Washington: pp.3-4.
98.
Ibid.,
99.
Iskandar Beg, cit., p. 212.
100.
by intro. 1959),
p. 5.
Zindigani-i
op. cit.,
i,
Shah CAbbas-i
pp. 515-16;
Avval,
ii
NasrabAdl,op.
(Tehran:
1955),
p. 28ff. 101. Browne, op. cit.,
i, pp. 548-611. He adds, "There are, however, many others who were not presented, but who sent from distant places to his Majesty enconiums composed by them." (p. 611) op. cit.,
iv , p. 249.
102.
Browne,
103.
See Jir;i Be&ka in Rypka et al., op. cit., 537, note 51 and Bausani Le letterature,
104.
For instance,, Y. Arianpiir, Bahar, op. cit., p. 46.
105.
Op. cit.,
106.
Op. cit., p. 104-139. A recent article in the Rahn&mah-i KItab tries to show that chracteristics of the Indian style are already discernible in JAmi's lyrics: sabk-i hindi dar ghazaliyH. Khalaqi Rad, "Payiha-i yat-i Jam'l," vol. xvi (1973), pp. 21-33. C.f. Rypka, p. 295. op. cit,
107.
Op. cit.,
pp. 58-59.
108.
Op. cit.,
iv,
109.
and History," Iranica "Persia: Religion (Tehran: under the 1964), pp. 247-48 (originally published of "Iran: title Opposition, Martyrdom and Revolt," (Chicago: 1955), pp. 183-201). Unity and Variet
v, pp.
op0. cit.,
pp. 496 & pp. 45-46.
p. 8.
See also
163-64.
pp. 26-28.
269
110.
Qp. cit.*,
p. 253.
p. 294. 111. Op. cit., Rypka has perhaps read a little passage more into Minorsky's view than his succinct indicates--possibly on account of his own sympathies. 112.
See, for instance, SV ib, Divan, p. 181, Faghani, p. 145, NaiLriL, p. 2; for HazIn, see Sirishk, op cit ., p. 23.
113. Rypka, op. cit.,
pp. 293-94.
114.
Ibid.,
p. 496.
115.
Ibid.,
p. 293.
116.
Op. cit.,
117.
Rypka, op. cit.,
118.
de Thamas Kouli-kan nouveau roi de Perse E.g. Histoire ou Histoire de la derniTre revolution de Perse arrivee en 1732 (Paris: Jonas Hanaway adds to his 1742). 1754) the title account of the British trade (London: of Persia during the Present Cenof The Revolutions tury.
119.
Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, tr. Charles 1965), Atkinson, abridged by Arthur Helps (New York: p. 244.
120.
Ibid.,
121. Travels 122.
pp. 58-59.
p.
p. 295.
181.
into
Africa
and Asia
(London:
1638),
p. 153.
James Morier, A Second Journey Through Persia . . Between 1810 and 1816 (London: 1818), p. 132. And the "great pride in the improvement of this despite the city and its environ" that was taken by Amin alp. 134) (Ibid., Dawla, the governor of the city.
270
RELIGION IN SAFAVID PERSIA HOSSEIN NASR
turning point in The Safavid period marks a definite of a new phase in of Persia and the beginning the history its Yet, despite of Islam in that country. the history and the break it seems to display with character distinct it, there is definpreceeding to the centuries respect which a long religions and intellectual history itely of a prepared the ground for the sudden establishment of the the and order in Persia transformation Shicite There are Shicite area.1 country into a predominantly and theology of growth of Shicite centuries several the development of Sufi orders with jurisprudence, of Shicite and the establishment poliShi cite tendencies character- -all preof a transient tical power- -albeit ceeding the Safavid period. the advent thought is concerned, As far as Shicite of the major centers of the Mongols and the destruction power in Western Asia enabled Shicism of Sunni political in culminating to flower in Persia more than ever before, for a of Shicism as state religion the establishment brief period under Sulv&n Mu4ammadKhud&bandah. But the most significant aspect of the post-Mongol period as far as Shicism is concerned was the appearance of intellectual merit such as Khw&jah Nasir al-Din of outstanding figures with whom Shi ite and his student CAll&mah Hilli, al-Tosi the Tajrid of Tisi established, theology became definitely systematic being the first as commented upon by Villi Shicite kalam. Other outstanding of Shicite treatise 271
known such as Ibn Makki al-CAmilt, theologians followed, author of the well-known al-LumCat as al-shahld al-awwal, alfollowed by Zayn al-DIn al-CXmilt, al-dimashgiyyah, whose commentary upon this work, SharJ: shahId al-thani, The works of these al-lumCah is famous to this day. were the props of ShiCism at the outset and other figures of the Safavid period; in fact they are of such importance of ShiCism during the Safavid and subsethat the history without them. quent periods would be incomprehensible sciParallel to this development in the religious in ences, one can observe a remarkable spread of activity philosophy post-Mongol Persia in the domain of religious philosophy, illuand in that combination of Peripatetic doctrines and gnosis which came to be known minationist or theosophy and which gradually as al-hikmat al-ilAhiyyah Such figures as Ibn moved into the orbit of Shicism.3 Sayyid Abi Jumhur, Ibn Turkah, Rajah Burst and especially Vaydar Amull, who sought to harmonize and in fact identify the Sufism of Ibn cArabi with esoteric Shicite doctrines, of the remarkable intellectual ancestors are the direct Safavid sages such as MEr DAm&dand Mull& SadrA. As for Sufism the period between the Mongols and the Safavids was witness not only to a remarkable flourishing of Sufism, as exemplified by the appearance of such great as Mawlana Jalal al-Din ROmE, Najm alpoles of sanctity Dtn Kubra, $adr al-Din al-Qunyawl and the like, but it was also the period during which Sufism became a bridge prebetween Sunnism and ShiCism and in many instances The role of pared the ground for the spread of Shicism.5 the Kubr&wiyyah,6 the Niirbakhshiyyah and the Nicmatulldhiyyah orders bears close study in the light of their to the later spread of ShiCism in Persia through relation a dynasty of Sufi origin. This leads in turn to the which to the two and a half centuries Safavi order itself, separate Sha kh Safi al-Din of Ardabil from Shah IsmAcil, to the transformation of a simple Sufi order organized movement with to a militant around a saint and ascetic tendencies under Sultan Junayd and Ijaydar extreme Shicite basis of the military and finally to the establishment which made the Safavid conquest of Persia possible.7 272
as far as political Finally, of religion aspects are concerned, the brief rule of Shicism under Muhamnad Khudabandah as well as such Shicite as the Sarbadaran dynasties in Khurasan, the Mushacshacah in Iraq as well as the Safavid Shaykhs themselves preceedirgShTh IsmAcil present historical antecedents of great importance.8 They point to political and social of a religious transformations nature which are directly related to the whole question of religion in Safavid Persia. In reality the discussion of religion in its vastest sense as tradition (al-din) in the Safavid period includes every facet of life of Safavid society in as much as we are dealing with a traditional world in which all activity is related to a transcendent norm. Whether it be literature as reflected in the poetry of Sacib-i and Tabrizi and city planning as Mutltashim-i Kdshant or architecture seen in the central region of the city of Isfahan9 or even sports as in the case of the ztir-khanah, we are in fact dealing with something that is directly related to religion. Even the cosmic elements, the water that flowed in geometrically shaped gardens and the earth from which the mud walls of structures a religious were made possess significance if seen from the point of view of the men who lived and breathed in the traditional Islamic world, whether it was Abbasid, Seljuq or Safavid. In the context of this paper, however, it is only with religion and religious thought in the strict sense of the word that we shall deal, leaving the ramifications of religion in art and society to other participants in the colloquium. The most noteworthy aspect of religion in Safavid of all the rapid process through which Persia is first Persia became Shicite. Although the ground for this transformation had been prepared by subtle religious changes during the Ilkhanid period, when Shah Ism&cil was crowned probably the majority of Persians were still Sunnis. Certainly the city of Tabriz where the crowning took place was about two-thirds Sunni, although the Shicite element was at that time strongest among the Turkish speaking segments of the population. It was the policy ardently followed by the Safavids to establish Shicism 273
as the state
religion
that
led to the rapid
change.
Iran into a ShiTo make the process of transforming Shicite scholars were Cite land possible, many outstanding to Persia from both Bahrayn and the Jabal cAmil in invited present day Lebanon, both of which had been for some time from seats of Shicite learning. In fact so many scholars these two regions came to Persia that two works, the devoted Lu'lu'at and Amal al-c&mil are entirely al-balrayn to their biographies. ranged from simple These scholars functions to men like mullas who fulfilled small religious and Sayyid Nicmatull&h alShaykh Baha' al-din al-cAmili both of whom came to Persia at a very young age JazW'irt, authroities. but soon developed into leading religious Few modern scholars have examined the effect of the on the presence of all of these Arabic speaking scholars circles at this role of Arabic in Persian intellectual authorities10 in Pertime. Many present day traditional sia, however, believe that because of the great power and prestige of these men, some of whom, like Sultan al-CUlamaI, hardly knew Persian, there came into being a authorities, new emphasis upon Arabic among the religious and it even became fashionable to use Arabic in situations where in earlier times Persian had been commonly used. in the the dearth of Persian prose writings Certainly religious field at this time in comparison with either the Seljuq and Mongol or the Qajar periods bears this More Persian religious works were written in the out.11 Indian sub-continent during this period than in Persia itself. The immigration of this class of Arabic speaking and absorbed scholars, who became rapidly Persianized an had, therefore, within the matrix of Persian society, effect life of the country and upon both the religious the type of religious language employed. of the spread of Shicism, which as already The result mentioned did not completely replace Sunnism but became the most dominant form of Islam in Persia,12 implied the as of such typically institutions Shicite establishment the religious mostly the tragedy of sermons depicting Kerbela or rawzah-kh&ni, held especially during Muharram, 274
or passion play, the religious feast or sufthe tacziyah visits to tombs of holy men rah, religious processions, or imam-zadahs, in addition to the daily prayers, the all of which still pilgrkanage and the fasting, compyise of Persians. the main day-to-day religious activity and practical in As far as the ritual aspect of religion the Safavid period is concerned, it is nearly the same as what one observes during the Qajar period and up to the present day with certain external changes which the difof the modern world have necessitated fering conditions along with the near disappearance of some of the more elaborate forms of the tacziyah. of other aspects of religion The role and function in Safavid Persia after the early period of transformation can perhaps be best understood by studying such elements as classes of religious scholars, the various religious functions in society, the types of religious thought of and finally the period, the position of Sufism and of the guilds which played a paramount role in the religious life As far as the classes of Persians of reliat this time. are concerned, gious scholars it is important to note that during the Safavid period as in most other periods of and even more so because of the particular Islamic history of Shicism, there were two structure politico-religious one the class or CulamAl; of religious scholars classes supported and appointed by the Safavid kings and their representatives, and the other that which remained completely aloof from central political power and gained its authority from the support of the populace.14 As far as the first group is concerned, its members were chosen from the class of 0ulama' and were then appointed to a hierarchy of functions which in a sense paralled the administrative structure of the Safavid state. There was first of all a learned person of high repute called the mulla b&shl whom many Safavid kings chose as a close companion, who would counsel them on religious matters and read various prayers for them on different occasions.15 Then there was the position of the sadr, the highest religious office of the land, whose incumbent was chosen directly by the king and rivalled 275
The Uadr was responsible the rand mufti of the Ottomans. duties of the country, religious for all the official of the endowments (awg&f), the supervision especially as with the help of such officials which he administered Sometimes the mustawfis, mutajaddis and vazirs of awqaf of the sadr was in fact divided into two parts, function which concerned the superone that of ?adr-i mamlik, of the general endowments, and the other that of vision to the royal endowments. sadr-i khay?ih, which was related The ?adr also appointed judges (qa4ts) and the chief of the (shaikh al-islam) dignitary religious official with the consent of the king. lb bigger cities As for the class of culam&I who stood aloof from the power, at their head were the muj tahLds, political central that is give ijtih&d, those who could practice literally of sacred law, men who were and fresh opinion on questions because of both their are highly revered by society still as the consider knowledge and piety and whom the Shicites of the Hidden Imam.17 From among them was representative ulated according to Shicite chosen the person who was and who at times gained a doctrine (marja -i taclid) The mujtahids that of the king himself. power rivaling the tyranny for the people against were often a protection a major and fulfilled of various government officials and social nature. of both a religious function Besides the mujtahids there were other religious relied upon the of lower rank whose authority scholars Foremost people and who catered to their daily needs. among these were the leaders of prayers (imams) of various set conditions ethical Because of the stringent mosques. in Shicism for those who lead the daily prayers in the various mosques, these men behind whom people accepted to needs of the pray and who also catered to other religious populace were never appointed by any government authorRather, they were chosen freely by the members of ities. To this day in fact the community itself. the religious by the in Persia are selected of various mosques imams of the community which the mosque in question faithful were fulsuch functions Of course occasionally serves. and filled by men who also held state appointed offices, 276
level when a leading the highest this reached occasionally but dignitary, religious mujtahid also became an official which did not destroy the basic this was an exception separation between the two types of religious authority just mentioned. thought, however, From the point of view of religious both classes of culamal mentioned belonged to the single and other Islamic in jurisprudence category of specialists and foremost. But legal sciences. They were fagIhs first there developed in the Safavid period upon the basis of scholar who earlier examples another type of religious rather than being a specialist in law and jurisprudence The was a master of Islamic metaphysics and theosophy. or who came to the fore baklm-i il&hl theosopher during this period was successor to earlier Muslim philosophers from al-F&r&bi and Ibn Sina, through Suhravardi and Nasir al-DIn al-Tiisi to Ibn Turkah and Sayyid Vjaydar Amull, who were the immediate predecessors But of the Safavid sages. the change that occurred during the Safavid period is that the attempt begun by Suhravardl and later Ibn Turkah to and harmonize rational philosophy, intellectual intuition revealed religion19 reached its apogee, and hIikmat-i ilahi during the Safavid period became more than ever before a of religious most important if not the central expression thought.20 Therefore the bakim-i il&hi also became a much more central figure in the religious life of the community than before. The founder of this remarkable period of Islamic philosophy, which is coming to be known as the School of of one of is Mir D&m&d,himself the son-in-law Isfahan, the most influential of the early Safavid culamam, Muhaqin the qiq-i Karaki.21 Mir Damad was also an authority "transmitted sciences" including (al-culiim al-naqliyyah), else a jurisprudence, but he was before everything and who was who opened new horizons for Islamic philosophy il&hi through responsible for the rapid spread of kikmat-i his numerous writings and the training of many students. Among his disciples Uadr al-Din Shirazi, the greatest metaphysician of the age and perhaps the foremost haklm in Islamic history stands out in the domain of metaphysics 277
particularly.22 Sadr al-Din also studied with Shaykh Bah&' al-Din al-CAmili 'in the field of the "transmitted sciences" and possibly with another of the outstanding Uaktms of the Safavid period, Mir Abii'l-Q&sim Findiriski. But as far as bikmat-i il&hi is concerned, Mulla Sadr& built most of all upon the foundations laid by Mir DAmAd. He followed the attempt of Mir DAmfd to synthesize the teachings of Ibn Sin& and Suhravardi within Shicite esotericism but went further by making a grand synthesis of all the major intellectual perspectives of nearly a thousand years of Islamic intellectual life before him. The teachings of the Quran, of the Holy Prophet and the Imams, of the Peripatetic philosophers, of the Illuminationist theosophers and of the Sufis were like so many colors of the rainbow which became unified and harmonized in the transcendent theosophy al-mutacaliyah) of Mulli (al-likmat No other figure of the Safavid period character$adrf. izes as well as Mulli Uadri the special genius of this age for intellectual synthesis and the expression of unity in multiplicity, which is also so evident in the extremely rich art of the age. Mulla 5adrA himself was an inexhaustible source for the doctrines of lhikmat-i ilihi and the spread of its and continues to dominate traditional teachings religious thought in Persia to this day. He was at once a prolific writer23 and a peerless teacher, his foremost students Mull& Fayd Kish&ni and CAbd al-Razziq Lihlji being themof selves among the most outstanding intellectual figures Persia. Moreover, these masters themselves taught a generation of important takims like QadI Sacid Qumm;, and the tradition much difficulty continued despite to the very end of the Safavid period. In fact it was revived by Mulli cAli Nunr and Mulla IsmAcil Khijfl'i in the thircenturies . 24 teenth/eighteenth of the religious life of Safavid It is characteristic Persia that a dynasty that began as a sufi order moved so of exotericism much in the direction that Mulli Muhammad the most powerful cilim of the late alBiqir Majlisi, anwar, repudiated the Sufism of his father Mulla Muhammad Taqi and forced the last great 1akim of the Safavid period 278
in Isfahan, the saintly Mull& >Adiq-i ArdistAnl, into exile. Both Sufism and hikmat-i il&hl, which also posan esoteric sesses were finally forced into a character, form of marginal existence at the end of the reign of a dynasty of sufi origin. is concerned, because of the As far as Sufism itself a sufi very fact that the Safavid dynasty was originally made the order, its coming into political power eventually life of Sufism in aicite for several Persia difficult decades. At the beginning of the Safavid period many sufi in Persia. orders were fully active The Nfirbakhshi order founded by Shaykh MuhammadNuirbakhsh was at its height. In fact the student of the founder of the order, Shaykh MuhammadLahiji, who is the author of that ocean of gnosis in the Persian language, the Sharh-i gulshan-i r&z, was a contemporary of Shah Ismacil. The order yielded much influence during the first few decades of Safavid rule but then gradually disappeared from the scene. The Zahabl order, which is still strong in Persia Some of the great today, was also active at that time. Sufis of this age such as Pir-i Pal&ndiz (MuhammadKarandihi), Shaykh Hatam Harawandi and Shaykh MuhammadcAll Sabziwari Khurasanil, the author of the well-known alby later Zahabis Tu4fat al-cabbAsiyyah1, 25 are considered as poles of their order. But although the jahabis survived into the Zand period, they too became less visible toward the end of the Safavid era. Other orders mentioned by various sources, both Persian and European, as being active during the Safavid period include the QAdiris, Baktashis, Khaksars, Mawlavis 2& The case of the Khaksar and the and Nicmatullahis. Nicmatullahi orders, which are still very much alive today, in constrast to the Baktashis and MawlavIs, which no longer have any following in Persia, is of particular interest. The Khaks&rs somehow fell out of favor at the time of Shah CAbb&s and some of their leaders retired to far away cities in the south of the country. As for the Nicmatullahis, their leaders such as NiWam al-Din cAbd al-Baqi and Ghiyath al-Din Mir Miran were closely asso279
of great eminence ciated with the court and held positions and the order itof the Safavid period, at the beginning But soon they too fell out of self had a wide following. that their outward so severely favor and were persecuted They recompletely. in Persia disappeared organization in tired to the Daccan in India and their very history It was in fact from the Daccan Persia was interrupted. in Persia during the that the order was re-established early Qajar period. to opposition The reason for this rather violent il&hi in the late Safavid period Sufism and even bikmat-i lies in part in the fact that the Safavi order which had become a ruling dynasty tended because of this fact to as a Sufi order and to bediscipline lose its spiritual of worldly elements through the intrusion come diluted This fact in turn caused the into its very structure. which were eventually of other Sufi orders, resentment as well as of the exoteric suppressed by the Safavids, In the second case, it was not authorities. religious for the authorities, to suppress the exoteric possible lay in the support of Shicism. very power of the Safavids if not all the members of the Hence the Safavid kings, order, tended to become every more detached from their in authorities sufi background and to support exoteric if before the to Sufism. As a result, their opposition a figure such as Sayyid Haydar Amuli rise of the Safavids could say that "True Sufism is Shicism Sufism,"1 at the between Shicism end of the Safavid period the opposition and the organized Sufi orders became so great that even Sufism could return in later periods of Persian history of shi cite learning only under the name to the centers The ilahi. of cirfan or under the guise of hikmat-i as Najaf and Qum that prevails in such centers situation and from the complete polarity to this day is inherited culamaI and between the most powerful Shicite opposition Sufism at the end of the Safavid period.21 organized a word must be said about the guilds and Finally which were widespread in the forms of craft initiation Safavid period and which bridged the gap between the most of everyday and aspects of the tradition inward principles 280
in the bazar to constructmerchandise from selling life, (futuwwat or of "chivalry" The tradition ing mosques. and artistic social to various as related jawinmardl) period was already strong in the pre-Safavid activities Those remarkable archiinto this period.28 and continued and caratects who designed the various mosques, palaces of this era, the rug weavers who have created vanserais some of the most remarkable color harmonies of any school were and tiles, designs of art, the masters of plaster discipline mostly members of guilds with a spiritual the KhAksAr. especially to various sufi orders, related In fact to this day what has remained of the techniques arts is of an oral nature preserved of the traditional by the guilds and transmitted existing within the still be which can still relationship way of a master-disciple and towns and which is a observed in some Persian cities remnant of the fully active guilds of the Safavid period. even those forms What remains of the art of this period, according to speaking religious which are not strictly way to in the profoundest is related Western categories, No account of relilife of the Safavids. the religious gion in Safavid Persia would be complete without taking nature of the role of the guilds and the deep religious into account. their activity in the Safavid period is not only the key Religion it of the Safavid period itself; for the understanding and a a new chapter in Islamic history also represents inherent within of the possibilities new crystallization The study of the very complex and the Islamic tradition. study life in Safavid Persia--a rich pattern of religious necessary a great deal to accomplish--is which has still of the life of not only Persia but for an understanding of other parts of the Islamic world at a time when the region of this world became divided into three central the Mughal, the Safavid and the Ottoman. major empires, of the Moreover, this study is basic for an understanding to this day, of Persia itself history subsequent religious and forms practices institutions, for the basic religious during the Safavid period still of thought established and intellectual of the religious comprise the foundation tradilife of Persia and are its link with the classical 281
tion of Islam which was dominant in Persia before in the Safavid period. crystallization particular
its
NOTES 1.
Of course if one remembers that much of present day Caucasia and Baluchistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia was part of Persia at that time, it becomes clear that all of Persia did not become Shipart came mostly shicite Cite and that the solidly within what is today Persia.
2.
See M. Mazzaoui, "IShicism in the Medieval Safavid and A Study in Ithn& casharl Continuity," Qajar Periods: 1971), pp. and Variety (New York: Continuity Iran: 39ff.
3.
and Movements, Philosophy See S.H. Nasr, "Spiritual first part, CamTheology in the Safavid Period," bridge History of Iran, vol. VI (in press).
4.
See H. Corbin's prolegomena to Sayyid Haydar Amull, ed. by H. Corbin Jamic al-asrAr wa manbac al-anwar, 1969); also P. Antes, and 0. Yahya (Tehran-Paris: der SchiCa Ein Untersuchung der damiC Zur Theologie jaydar knoll wa manbac al-anwar von Sayyid al-asrar 1971). (Freiburg:
5.
See S.H. Nasr, I'Shicism and Sufism,"' in his Sufi al-Silah 1972); also K. al-Shaybi, Essays (London: (Baghdad: 2 vols. wall-tashayyuc, bayn al-ta?awwuf vol. IV also H. Corbin, En Islam iranien, 1963-64); 1972), livre IV. (Paris:
6.
See M. Mol'e, "Les Kubrawiya entre Sunnisme et Schide l'Hegire," isme aux huitibme et neuvibme sifcles pp. 61-142. XXIX (1961), Revue des Etudes Islamiques,
7.
On the background of the Safavid movement see E. Die Fr'uhen Safaviden nach QAgi Abmad Qumi Glassen, (Freiburg:
1968),
pp.
86-96.
282
On the
exploits
of
and the Shaikh Ijaydar, the rise of the Qizil-bash of Safareligious wars leading to the establishment vid rule, see V. Minorsky, Persia in A.D. 1478-1490 1957), pp. 61ff. (London: 8.
See M. Mazzaoui, The Origins of the Safavids,ShiCism, 1972), chapter III. $iifism and the dulat (Weisbaden:
9.
of the art and archisignificance On the spiritual of this period see N. Ardalan and L. Bakhtecture in tiyar, The Sense of Unity, The Sufi Tradition the 1973), including Persian Architecture (Chicago: introduction by S.H. Nasr.
10.
This, for example, is the view of Sayyid Muhammad Kazim cAssar, one of the leading mujtahids and Jbakims of present day Persia.
11.
Arabic has of course always been the primary language in Persia as in the Arab of the Islamic sciences large number of works But a relatively world itself. of has also been composed in Persian in the fields and the like from the Quranic commentary, philosophy It is this type of fourth Islamic century onward. in number in the Safavid writing which decreased to the periods before and after. period relative There is for example no major Quranic commentary in of Kashf alPersian at this time of the dimensions asrar of Mibudi, and Mull& Sadra wrote only one work in Persian compared with the many philosophical of Suhravardi and Nasir al-Din Persian writings al-Tust.
12.
authorities became Debates between Sunni and Shicite in fact much more pronounced than before as a result of the first with the of the political identification See E. Ottomans and the second with the Safavids. Eberhard, Osmanische Polemik gegen die Safawiden im Handschriften 16. Jahrhundert nach arabischen 1970). (Freiburg:
283
13.
For the meaning of various ShiCite practices, see S.H. Nasr, "Ithna Cashari ShiCism and Iranian Islam" in A.J. Arberry, ed., Religion in the Middle East, vol. 2 (Cambridge: 1969), pp. 96-118.
14.
Concerning the Culam&I of this period, chapter VIII of E.G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia, vol. IV (Cambridge: 1959) on mujtahids and mullis is still valuable. As for first hand sources on biographies of the CulamAt of this period, such works as Rawat al-jannat, Majalis al-mu'minin, Kashf Nujim al-sam&' and Mustadrak al-kujub wa'l astfr, al-wasa'il may be mentioned.
15.
See Tadhkirat al-mulfk, part one, siyaqi 1332 A.H. solar), (Tehran:
16.
Concerning this hierarchy of functions, see the perceptive description of the seventeenth century traveller to Persia E. Kaenmpfer,Amoenitatem exoticarum, politico-physico medicarum fasciculi V, quibus continentur variae relationes, >observationes & descriptiones rerum Persicarum & ulterioris Asiae... (Lemgovia: 1712), pp. 98ff, Relatio VIII, Antistites spirituales, Aedificia sacra. Parts of the traveloque concerning Persia have been rendered into German by W. Hinz as Am Hofe des persischen Grossk5nigs (Leipzig: 1940), pp. 97ff. There is also a fine Persian translation based on Hinz by K. Jah&nd&ri, 1350 A.H. Dar darbar-i shAhan shah-i IrAn (Tehran: solar).
17.
On the class of muj tahids and their importance in see H. Algar, Religion and State in Shicite society Iran 1785-1906 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: 1969); of the Position and A.K. Lambton, "A Reconsideration and the Religious Instituof the MariaC al-Taglid tion,'" Studia Islamica, vol. XX (1964), pp. 115-135.
18.
On the meaning of mariaci tib&'i et al., Marja iyyat 1341 A.H. solar). 284
ed. by M. Dabirpp. 1-4.
taqlid, see cAllamah TabAwa r5ihniyyat (Tehran:
19.
On Suhravardi see H. Corbin, En Islam iranien (Paris: 1971), vol. II; S.H. Nasr, Three Muslim Sages (Cambridge: Corbin,
1964), chapter op. cit., vol.
As for II. III (Paris:
Ibn Turkah 1972), pp.
see 233ff.
20.
On the relation see theology, kal&m,," Studia 139-149.
21.
See S.H. Nasr, "The School of Isfahan," in M.M. A History of Muslim Philosophy, Sharif, II vol. and Corbin, (Wiesbaden: 1966), pp. 904-932; En Islam iranien, vol. IV (Paris: livre 1972), V.
22.
At last Mull& Sadra is beginning to gain the recognition he deserves in the West. Concerning this remarkable figure see H. Corbin's introduction to his own edition of MullA UadrA's KitAb al-mashAcir (Le livre des pen'trations (Tehran: metaphysiques) 1964); Corbin, En Islam iranien, vol. IV, chapitre II; S.H. Nasr, "1Uadr al-Din Shirazi,"l in Sharif
between ilAhl and Islamic Iikmnat-i "lal-Uikmat S.H. Nasr, al-il&hiyyah and XXXIV (1971), Islamica, vol. pp.
A History of Muslim Philosophy, (ed.), vol. II, pp. 932-961. We are presently a book on completing MullA Uadr& entitled $adr al-Din Shlr&zl and His Transcendent Theosophy which we hope will appear shortly. 23.
For a bibliography of Mull& Sadra see our bibliographical study in chapter two of our forthcoming book on him.
24.
The immense richness of the intellectual life of the Safavid period as far as 4ikmat-i ilAhi is concerned is beginning to reveal itself through current research especially the anthology of the writings of the philosophers of this and later periods in Persia being prepared by S.J. AshtiyAni and H. Corbin, two of whose five projected volumes have already appeared. See S.J. Ashtiyant and H. Corbin, Anthologie des iraniens (Tehran-Paris: philosophes 1972).
285
25.
to al-Tutfat See the introduction 1336 A.H. solar). (Shiraz:
26.
the very extensive It is remarkable that despite there of Sufism during the Safavid period, activity sources to go by and one must are very few written that have survived rely mostly on oral traditions sufi orders. within the existing
27.
that Mulla Sadra wrote his It is of great interest 1340 A.H. solar) Sih agl, ed. by S.H. Nasr (Tehran: who did not understand to refute exoteric authorities ed. and the Kasr al-a4nim al-jihiliyyah, esotericism to 1340 A.H. solar), by M.T. Daneshpazhuh (Tehran: There was refute those who "pretended to be Sufis."' often cut a decayed form of pseudo-Sufism definitely the off from the shariicah at that time which incited of exoteric reaction and excessive rather violent at the end of the Safavid period. authorities
28.
des compagnons-chevaliers, See M. Sarrah, Traites par Henry Corbin (Tehranintroduction, analytique ed. by M. Paris: 1973); also TuWfat al-ikhwan, 1351 AH. solar). D&m&dt(Tehran:
286
al-CabbAsiyyah
SOME OBSER VATIONS ON RELIGION IN SAFAVID PERSIA HAMID ALGAR
that the religious It is indisputable history that both of the Safavid period and of the two centuries There existed preceded it remains inadequately explored. and Anatolia, as well as the Iranian plain Transoxania of groups and individuals with diverse teau, a plethora in our and aspirations tendencies that it is difficult, present state of knowledge, to synthesize into a comprehensible whole. There are however a number of minor that I observations on Professor Nasr' s presentation wish to make. The first is an expression of respectful and the others are intended to direct disagreement, attention to matters not mentioned in his otherwise comprehensive paper. that Sufism owes its Nasr's contention Professor essential origin to Shicism, and that therefore its suppression in the Safavid period ought to be regarded as a return to the womb that bore it, is highly contestable. There is a certain tendency, deriving above all from the work of Henry Corbin, to present Sufism as an unacknowledged borrowing from Shicism, which receives its most extreme formulation in the claim that "true Shicism is Sufism, and true Sufism is Shicism.hll Apart from the fact that this view of the "origins" of Sufism is hardly more plausible than Orientalist theories of Christian or Vendantine parentage, it tends too to obscure the rich legacy of Iranian Sunni spirituality, which includes some of the greatest names of Islam, Thus, in his En Islam 287
Corbin makes hardly any mention of sunni figures, Iranien, of RuzbihAn Baqli is preceded by an and his discussion Sunni or, as it mention of that Sufi's almost apologetic The affiliations) put, "non-Shicitell is delicately Iran was assumption that the Sunni Sufism of pre-Safavid of ShiCite in essence and origin has the further effect break with the past that the Safathe radical concealing of Shicism represented. vid establishment in Iran, antecedents That Shicism had historical and that the Mongol and Timurid periods had witnessed But in ShiCism, none would deny. formative developments that the way was prepared for the coming of the assertion pregnant with Shicism is dubious. the Safavids by tarlgats The case of the Kubriviyyah is often adduced in this conand the late Marijan Mole indeed assembled much nection, article in his interesting fresh and important material drawn by him are, howThe conclusions on the subject.3 examined by Of all the figures ever, open to question. him--Najm ad-Din KubrA, SaCd ad-Din Hamuya, cAla ad-Daula SimnAnl, CAll HamadAni, and Sayyid Mutammad b. cAbdull&h Nurbakhsh- - it is only the last that may be regarded with although there is some ambias a Shicite, any certainty The others are shown only to guity surrounding Hamadini. for the Family of the Prophet, particucombine respect to the Four larly the Twelve Imams, with allegiance Caliphs and the Four Imams of the mazAhib--an attitude for the leaders of the iammahby no respect of integral The or their age. to these Kubr&vI means peculiar Najm ad-Din was very marked. Sunnism of the Kubravl as one reason for his choice RUzi D&ya, for example, cites a as place of refuge the supremacy of Seljuq Anatolia too on correct belief He insists there of Sunnism.4 of the People of Sunna defined as the belief (ictigad), for the state of "Imuridhood" and Community, as a condition The- cases of HamadanI and Nfrbakhsh and "sha khhood."5 of the for the evolution should not be taken as typical a were seed of if there not as it is whole Kubraviyyah: its that attained Kubrf ad-Dtn Najm by Shicism planted of The later history natural flowering with Niirbakhsh. unexamined, but we know largely the Kubriviyyah is still in the the Kubraviyyah flourished that in Transoxania 288
same atmosphere of sunni dominance as the Yasawiyyah and the Naqshbandiyyah, two jarigats of unquestioned sunni allegiance, as late as the second half of the sixteenth A certain century. Khaztnt, who migrated from Khwarazm to Istanbul in the reign of SultAn Selim II, was initiated into all three vrtcqats, and wrote a work setting forth their initiatic chains and devotional and making practices it plain that they were three strands of a single tradition bearing an unmistakable sunni stamp.6 The Kubravriyyah later died out in the Ottoman lands, being absorbed like the Anatolian remnants of the Yasawiyyah, into the a process that would hardly have been Naqshbandiyyah, possible for a proto-Shicite In addition, tariqat. several branches of the Kubr&viyyah are known to have flourished briefly in various areas: there is no indication that they were Shicite.7 Elements in KubrivI texts regarded as protoshicite, such as expressions of devotion to the Twelve Imams, are to be found also in the Naqshbandiyyah. Some consideration of this larigat is appropriate here, since the Corbin version of Iranian Sufism omits all mention of it, although it had spread from its Transoxanian homeland as far west as Isfahan and Qazvin before the Safavids it from the Iranian plateau.8 extirpated It is true that the chief initiatic chain of the Naqshbandiyyah leads back to Abu Bakr rather than CAlI, but since that chain passes through Jacfar as-lidiq the Naqshbandiyyah also a secondary silsilah, possesses leading from Jacfar agP&diq through the Imamite line of descent to cAlt, that it designates as the "Golden Chain" (Silsilat az-zahab).9 There is, then, an calavi element in the spiritual ancestry of this purely Sunni jarlyat. The eponymous founder of the Naqshbandiyyah, Bah& ad-Din Naqshband, is moreover related to have beheld visions of cAll at critical points in his wayfaring on the path,10 and numerous examples of similar devotion to the figure of cAll can be supplied from the later history of the tarlqat. Nor is it purely a question of CAll; all of the Twelve Imams are regarded as deserving of reverence and even as capable of functioning poshumonously as spiritual guides. It is noteworthy that the celebrated Rawdat ash-Shuhad&c, a 289
of the martyrdom of Husayn at Kerbela and one description of the ShiCite commemoration of the most important props Husayn b. CAll by a Naqshbandi, of Muharram, was written wrote the CAll ad-Din Saf-1, whose son, Fakhr Kishifi, the of the tartgat, fundamental work on the early history That devotion to the Imams has Rashabit CAyn al-Iay t. with ShiCism is further demonconnection no necessary to by its combination with pronounced hostility strated Shaykh Athmad cases. ShiCism in a number of significant founder of the important Mujaddidi branch of Sirhindi, against treatise polemical the _tariqat, wrote a bitterly the MaktiibAt described the Shica, but in his celebrated the approach who those Twelve Imams as the leaders of the Similarly, Divine Presence by way of sainthood.11 passing when Baghdadi, Khflid MawlAnA saint Naqshbandl through M4ashhad on his way to India in the early ninecomposed one poem in praise of the Imam teenth century, Rix! and another in condemnation of the hiCite culama of the city. 12 on the Kubr&viyyah and From these observations of Naqshbandiyyah we conclude then that the existence of devotion to the Twelve Imams in the jariqats attitudes of the Mongol and Timurid periods was neither a borrowing It is therefore element. from Shicism nor a proto-Shicite that the evolution to accept the assertion not possible from Sunnism to ShiCism mirrored a general of the Safavids or that the Tarigats development among the tarigats, the coming of Shicism for the way prepared effectively in Iran. accomplished of the transformation Any discussion by the Safavids must include some mention of the violent Clearly, applied. methods they liberally and coercive in the Iranian soil as Shicism could not have flourished but to ignore has through mere imposition; it manifestly as state religion nature of its introduction the violent picture the historical by Shah Ism&Cil would be to distort took transition painless and to suggest that a relatively From a campaign of suppression. not a ruthless place, point of view, the rise to power of ShAh IsmAcil certain of Iran from the may be regarded as a Turkoman invasion 290
as prewest that produced almost as violent disruptions In order to impose vious incursions from the east. ShiCism on the Sunni majority of Iran, sunni culama were and the the first three Caliphs, obliged to execrate recalcitrant among them were immolated; the tombs of Sunni saints and scholars and sunni mosques were were violated; desecrated.13 It is important to recall this violently coercive policy of the early Safavids, not only because it demonstrates that Iran was far from ready for a swift passage into Shicism, but also because it was connected with the peculiar and messianic form of Shicism practised by ShAh IsmAcil, one at variance with subsequent Ithal cashari orthodoxy. Ghul&t elements appear to have entered the Safavid doctrine with Junayd and Haydar,14 and to have reached their apogee with Shah Ismacil, who in his Turkish poetry puts forward an ecstatic of claims variety to being, alternatively, cAll reincarnate, the Mahdi come in the fullness of time, and even the deity descended to It was only with the importation earth.15 of Arab Saicite scholars from al-Ahs& and Jabal cAmil that more temperate doctrines came to prevail: an Arab scholarly influx came to complement the Turkoman military as a fundainvasion ment of Shicite Iran. Finally, it should be remembered that the violence used by the Safavids in the establisha shocked and horrified ment of Shicism elicited reaction in the sunni neighbors of Iran that for long determined their whole attitude to Shicism. There is a certain of tone and content in all the Ottoman fatvas consistency calling for war on Iran, down to the eighteenth century: are seen as neglecters of prayer and desethe Shicites of mosques, as persecutors of scholars crators and defilers of tombs.16 could be justified These accusations with reference to Shah Ismacil, and although their repetition became to some extent a matter of scribal tradition, there is no doubt that in general the Shicites of Iran were seen by the Ottomans as irredeemably violent and irreligious. Even contemporary Turkish attitudes to the Shicah may be said unconsciously to be colored by Safavid memories. In conclusion, some of the wider effects on the Islamic world of the conversion of Iran to Shicism may be indicated. With the emergence of a militantly shicite 291
state in Iran, all possibility of territorial continuity between the western and eastern parts of the Islamic world was excluded, It is true that despite the barrier of Safavid Iran the Ottomans communicated sporadically with Central Asia, and had some seaborne contact with India and even Sumatra. It may also be conceded that their Balkan and Mediterranean interests would in any event have precluded a successful eastward expansion of their authority.7 Safavid Iran nonetheless condemned the Sunni of Afghanistan and Central Asia to virtual populations isolation from the Ottomans, the most powerful sunni state, and it may be held in part responsible for the stagnation and gradual decay of the Uzbek khanates, ending in their conquest by the Russians in the nineteenth century. This too was part of the price paid for the minor renaissance of Islamic culture that took place under Safavid patronage.
NOTES 1.
Henry Corbin, I"Sih Guftir dar bab-i Tartkh-i MaCnavtyAt-i IrAn,"1 Majalyla-l Danishkada-yi biyat-i TihrAn, vol. V (1337/1959), p. 56. Iranien
2.
En Islam
3.
"Les Kubrawiya entre Sunnisme et Shiisme aux Huitibme et Neuvibme Si&cles de l'Hegire," Revue des Etudes Islamiques (1961), pp. 61-142.
4.
Mirs&d al-CIbAd min al-Mabdal AmIn RiyAhl (Tehran: Mubjanmmad
5.
Ibid.,
6.
Lujjat al-Abrar dar As&mi-yi Auliy&-yi Kibar, Bibliothbque Nationale, ancien fonds persan, 1226, ff. 103b-173b. Some information on Khazini and another work of his is to be found in Fuad Kt5prUlU, TUrk 2nd ed. (Ankara: Ilk Mutasavviflar, Edebiyatinda 1960), p. 323.
pp. 244,
(Paris:
Ada-
1972),
vol.
III,
pp. 9-11.
ila l-Mac%d, ed. 1352/1973), p. 20.
258.
292
7.
See Bandirmalizade Ahmed MUnib, Mirat (Istanbul: 1306/1889), p. 12.
8.
Muhammadb. Husayn b. CAbdull&h Qazvini, Silsilanama-yi Khwfljag&n-i Naqshband, ms. Laleli (Istanbul: 1381), ff. 9a-llb.
9.
Ibid., ff. 2b-3a. We may note in passing that Imam JaCfar as-Sadiq was also physically descended from was Q5sim b. Abiu Bakr: his maternal grandfather Muhammadb. Abi Bakr, one of the prominent tabici-n.
at-Turuk
10.
Ij&fiz Husayn Karbali'! Tabrlzi, Rault al-JanAn Jannat al-Jinan, ed. Jacfar SultAn al-QurrVlt (Tehran: 1344/1965), I, p. 135.
11.
Maktub&t (Lucknow: 1306/1889), III, pp. 247-248. Ris&la dar Radd-i Rav&fid is printed as Sirhindil's an appendix to this edition of the Maktiibat.
12.
Divan (Bulaq:
13.
See Jean Aubin, "La Politique Religieuse des Safavides," Le Shicisme Imamite (Paris: 1970), pp. 237-238.
14.
See Michel Mazzaoui, The Origins (Wiesbaden: 1972), p. 73.
15.
V. Minlorsky, "The Poetry of Shah Ism&Cil vol. X (1940-1943), pp. 1006a-1053a.
16.
The subject has been examined in detail by Elke Eberhard in Osmanische Polemik gegen die Safawiden im 16. Jahrhundert nach arabischen Handschriften (Freiburg: 1970).
17.
On this topic see the interesting Asrar, Osmanlilarin Dini Siyaseti (Istanbul: 1972).
1260/1844),
293
pp. 41-42,
wa
68.
of the Safavids
I,"
BSOAS,
study of Ahmet ve tslam Alemi
OBSERVATIONS SUR L'ARCHITECTURE CIVILE D'ISPAHAN GIUSEPPE ZANDER
Avant d'essayer de tracer un expose des valeurs de I'architecture safavide, il est utile d'analyser les formes g'eomtriques des vouttes et les systbmes constructifs. Ensuite quelques exemples significatifs de palais et de maisons seront choisis, soit en rapport avec la dialectique de l'ancien et du nouveau, soit dans les relations entre les ouvrages auliques et les demeures bourgeoises, soit dans la recherche d'une relation rationnelle entre la forme et la structure. Enfin se posera le problbme irresolu de la formation culturelle des architectes de l'age safavide. Materiaux
et principes
de construction
Le bois. Le bois, le chanar ou p latanus orientalis, est depuis toujours largement employe dans llarchitecture Les persane pour le soutien des terrasses horizontales. couvertures en forme de toit se trouvent rarement et tout On voit enau plus aux epoques qAjar tardive ou moderne. core dans certaines formes modernes spontanees et paysannes des systbmes h structures de ligne homog&nes, d'ascendance notoirement achemnenide, par exemple dans certains t&ldrs du Mazandaran, comme celui publie par Andre rustiquls Le bois, et resistance Godard. quoique d'extraordinaire duree grace au climat sec des hauts plateaux iraniens, la conn'est pourtant pas assez abondant pour permettre struction de charpentes provisoires pour le soutien des 294
arcs des voiutes et coupoles conme dans l'architecture de la Renaissance romaine ou dans celle Occidentale. Comme on le sait, l'architecture et islamique preislamique persane fit donc tous les efforts possibles pour reussir h construire des vofutes sans echafaudages.2 Le bois fut mixte de employe sous une forme stable en structure ma9onnerie et de bois en quantites beaucoup plus grandes et avec des buts differents et specifiqu'on ne pensait dans le cas de l'cAlt ques, comme on a puCle constater Qapii3 continuent encore aujourd'hui, Les briques non cuites b etre employees et depuis une trbs ancienne antiquite, dans les maisons des villages et souvent aussi dans les au temps des empereurs safavides il nWest pas rare villes; de trouver des murs en briques non cuites, quelquefois recouverts d'un revetement protecteur en briques cuites selon une technique traditionelle. Des murs en briques non cuites apparaissent egalement dans l'architecture "officielle," comme au contact entre le bazar du Maydan-i Shah et le cote sud dcAl3i Qapu.4 Les qualites propres aux briques non cuites mrnent h des murs de grande epaisseur, mais il faut egalement noter que, pour fermer les portes ou arcades une structure creuse avec deux parois fines reliees f intervalles reguliers par des briques disposes horizontalement fut inventee. Cette structure en magonnerie est appelee div&r-i sandili. Les briques cuites, comme d'ailleurs les crues, sont de forme carree, de 20 x 20 x 3.5 centimbtres jusqu ' u Dans les palais il a ete 24 x 24 x 5. royaux d'Isfahan constate qu'en general ces briques sont peu cuites et de ce fait ont une resistance qui ne peut etre comparee aux briques cuites d'Europe. Toutefois, elles sont employees, comme on le verra, de facon trbs ingenieuse tout specialement dans les arcs et les vouites. La possibilite de construire des vo&ites fantasques en coquille sur arcs portants,souvent et entrecroises, d'en decorer les surfaces avec mugarnas, depend du mortier 295
de platre employe. La rapidite de son durcissement et l'augmentation du volume qui l'accompagne permettent de des projets realiser assez audacieux, plus audacieux que ceux qui auraient ete obtenus avec du mortier de ciment ou de chaux et sable ou de chaux et pouzzolane, parce que ces cerniers durcissent plus lentement et, surtout, se contractent. des murs est assure, L'assemblage comme dans la plus grande partie de l'architecture dans islamique presafavide beaucoup de divers pays, de chassis interieurs horizontaux en bois; leur presence dans des localites h des sujettes tremblements de terre est assez opportune; une sorte de dalle stellaire en bois servant k repartir les charges a ete observee par l'architecte concentrees aux Galdieri pieds des colonnes du alar dicAli Q&pu. On y trouve un ensemble avec un grand chassis en poutres de bois qui du palais.5 encercle tout llavant-corps Beaucoup plus curieuse est par contre la methode qu'il a observee avec l'Ingenieur Kustermann,6 inventee dans ce palais pour soutenir quarante deux des quatre vingt quatre piliers du dernier etage qui permet de transferer leurs poids au moyen de doubles poutres en bois sur des fondations en magonneries &loignees. Tout comme en Occident la Perse safavide utilisa dans le meme edifice le principe du linteau et celui de 1'arc et de la vofute. Arc et vofute cependant presentent peu de et sont construits poussees7 1k est sans echafaudages: la difference essentielle avec la majorite des constructions europeennes. (figs. 1-3) Le comportement statique de l'arc h carbne, et des coques minces suspendus b leur intrados, n'a pas ete jusqu'k maintenant etudie avec les methodes de la science des constructions: le premier excursus sur ce sujet a ete rendue possible inedit h la Mission Italienne de de ISMEOauprbs du Department dTArcheologie Restauration d'Isfahan autour des travaux de consolidement diCAli Qapi*8 A ce sujet il faut ouvrir une parenthbse sur les formes geom&triques des vofutes islamiques persanes et sur 296
avec une les methodes employees pour leur construction riche et variee de sur la fioriture speciale attention p'eoque. le lexique Tandis que pour l'architecture gothique francais et allemand est extraordinairement technique riche et arrive avec la plus grande pr&ecision b une nomenil ne semble bien connue et bien datee, clature de dftail persane dispose de quelque chose pas que l'architecture le PerN'ayant pas la chance de connaitre de semblable. d'Isfales maltres-macons san, je n'ai pas pu interroger d'une certaine j'ai eu l'impression han; mais toutefois de langage en ce qui concerne les pauvrete et imprecision qu'une donc necessaire I1 serait termes techniques. et irand'architectes occidentaux commission restreinte la iens puisse trouver au sujet des vouites persanes afin de fournir aux specialistes appropriee, nomenclature commun, base necesun dictionnaire de l'art islamique les etudes ulterieures. saire pour faciliter En dehors de ce que l'on peut lire dans le Survey of que Godard publia Persian Art et dans les precisions dans Athar-e IrAn en ttVoiutes iraniennes" sous le titre manquent h tel point techniques 1949,9 les renseignements que nous somnes amenes d r-esumer avec quelques croquis 1'ensemble des principales et de brefs commentaires h vouftes. de couvertures varietes pour montrer h la fois la Avec ces dessins executes il est facile geometrie des vouites et leurs structures, d'une qu'en levant le regard de l'interieur de concevoir on ne peut pas de la couverture, salle vers l'intrados L'egarement comprendre la vraie nature de la structure. du total de la capacite de pernetrer le sens constructif monument est accentue par la presence de muqarnas, de ces ' typiques tellement en platre, stalactites decorations La salle crucidu gotut musulman et de son horror vacui. avec forme du dernier etage dlcAli Qapu, avec sa, reflbte d'une grande partie de l'architecture exactitude l'esprit safavide. Ces observations
sur les 297
types
geometriques
des
voutes simples et composees empioyees h l'epoque safavide, sont de cette dynastie, mais non seulement I lepoque mesure, non-historiques. et, dans une certaine generiques et opportunes nouvelles les opinions Ii faut leur ajouter des sur la demultiplication Galdieri de notre collkgue ou 1 d fourche les structures h travers realises efforts des "Y" des arcs, sur liamincissement et l'allongement qui assument la forme murs de soutien et des contreforts I lames. de piliers et certicale aplatie
Organismes
architectoniques
royaux de Shah cAbbAs I et pavillons Aux palais Q&pti et Chihil Sutuin, et de Shah Sulai(1585-1628),,CAll par i'architecte etudies Hasht Bihisht, mAn (1667-1694), grace h Pascal Coste au BAzAr Qaysariyahconnu Galdieri, de Mahyar mesure et et b Beaudoin, 10 au caravanserail aujourd'hui s'ajouter viennent revele par M. Siroux" quelques maisons de marchands armreniens de la Nouvelle Julfa. Un jeune iranien de souche armrenienne, Karapet d'archecollaborateur des services technique Karapetian, de ResauprEs de la Mission Italienne ologie d'Isfahan et son livre edite et releves les a etudies tauration, par ISMEO 12 est sur le point de paraitre. architectoniques En observant ici certains caractbres avec et en les confrontant de ces demeures bourgeoises les palais de la mieme epoque nous pourrons faire quelques general. constatations de caractere dissension concerne l'eternelle L'une de celles-ci des elements de nova et vetera et son depassement: traditionnels trbs anciens sont transmis graduellement de sorte que l'on controlees, et avec des innovations vivante. peut parler d'une tradition et du reste bien connue continuite Llextraordinaire persane peut etre demontree de i'architecture historique ' ' fa9ons. Nous en i'age safavide de diverses Isfahan 298
rappellerons
quelques
unes:
h hautes colonnes en bois de proportions a) le tilar trbs elancees et h entablement en bois, est d'origine trbs mais de gouft encore vif dans le peuple; on le ancienne, trouve des palais des Achemenides aux arcades des maisons de villages rustiques contemporains.
Bedros Bedik dans la deuxLe noble "persan-armenien" inme moitie du dix-huitibrme siecle, malgre son style dans son livre Cehil avait vu juste lorsque, rhetorique, ac praeceleberrimi Sutun, seu Explicatio utriusque tiosissimi theatri columnarum in Perside quadraginta ressemblance entre avait remarquae l'importante Orientis,1 une salle hypostyle d'un grand "palais de Cyrus" (Persegolis-Takht-i Jamshid) et les Quarante Colonnes de Shah Abbas I, observation profonde et valable en depit des apparences de detail. b) L'iwan est tres repandu--et de ce fait n'est pas caracteristique--dans les maisons, palais, bazars, madrasahs, mosquees safavides. II se retrouve non seulement dans les antiques maisons du Khurasan, mais egalement dans les palais parthes et sassanides, avec une continuite vraiment admirable et tellem nt evidente n'est pas qu'il de le demontrer. necessaire c) Tendance h un lien de symetrie centralisante, elle aussi trxes ancienne. La symetrie est nettement centrale dans les mausolees h coupole, par exemple celui de Baba Rukn al-D3inl5 h Isfahan, du temps du Sh&h CAbb5s I; la des divers polygones variete qui servent de base ou de tambour h la coupole fait penser b une tendence h la recherche geometrique du phantasque, presque h un "thbme avec variations" semblable, par la proc6edure, au manierisme des architectes de la fin de la Renaissance europeenne. Le pentagone et le decagone de Bab& Rukn al-Din rappellent des inventions analoques de Sebastiano Serlio16 et, plus tard, de Giovanni Battista Nous ne Montano.i7 voulons nullement insinuer la possibilite que des architectes persans aient connu les traites italiens. Non voulons seulement attirer l'attention sur la tendance 299
des possibiconceptuelle d'esprit vers la re'elaboration figures les dans naturelles elementaires expressives lites de la geometrie plane. dans les systbmes La symietrie est en partie centrale sur l'axe longitudinal, avec un leger decalage cruciformes comne au dernier etage de CAlt QApf, dans la maison Jan! ou dans Hasht Bihist. de la Nouvelle Julfa, M. Siroux a Prison sur ce schema h croix la soi-disant d'ej publi'18 de Rayy, sur de HArUn al-Rashid situee b dix kilometres persanes safavides la route du Khurasan et les influences sur les baradars de l'Inde des Moghuls ont ete publiees par 0. Reuther.19 h symretrie Le systbme est souvent mixte, c'est-h-dire comne dans les h la fin radiocentrique et longitudinale, de Sukas, de Akbar dans la Nouvelle maisons de Petros, du parties mosquees, dans certaines dans certaines Julfa, aujourd'hui BazAr Qaysairiyah20 et dans des edifices perdus dont le Prof. L. Honarfar publia de vieilles Ces maisons armeniennes ont une archiphotographies.21 persane. purement islamique tecture
d'un "'seteme h baldaquin" d) La libre re'elaboration La thbse, peutrenouvelant le trbs ancien chahar tag. h demontrer que nous chercherons etre un peu audacieuse, et le dernier etage dyCAli est basee sur le noyau central le Talar Ashraf, de Hasht Bihist, superieur QApO, letage Julfa. les maisons de Sukas et de Jan! de la nouvelle De se formuler de la manibre suivante. Elle pourrait meme que le monde turc ottoman, mille ans aprbs la mort ethnique, aprbs une coupure culturelle, de Justinien, et le conl'heritier deviendra irreparable, religieuse de la fin chretiens constructifs tinuateur dlorganismes islamarchitectonique de maemela culture de l1Antiquite, mille ans aprbs la fin de ique de la Perse safavide, mazdeene, assumera et de la religion l'Empire sassanide h quatre arcs, quatre des systbmes constructifs l'heritage et les faira revivre h sa coupole et ambulatoire piliers, leur systbme avec une fine critique facon, en renouvellant et enrichis. deviendront legers plus creux, qui de soutien, 300
le monde de la fin I1 faut tout d'abord considerer les arcs quadrifrons ou tetrad'occident: de l'Antiquitle romaines et le systbme dit "h baldapyles des provinces d'honneur et de gloire.23 quin" avec sa signification de la grand systbmatisation historique Dans l'esprit effectuee par Andre Grabar dans ses deux volumes fondamentaux Martyrium, Recherches sur le culte des reliques anti ue (Paris 1943 et 1946), ces motifs et l'art chretien Justinienne, en partiseraient passes dans l'architecture de Saints Apotres de Constandans la Basilique culier mesure et Saint Jean d'Ephese (en plus petite tinople Ces organismes apparaissent Sainte Marie d'Ephbse).24 des onzibme-douzibme occidentales dans des interpretations h St. Marc de Venise et h St. Front de Periguex25 sibcles, dans l'architecture mais revivent ottomane. prodigieusement en effet Durant le r4gne de Sulaiman I (1520-1566) les entre autres, Sinan26 en construisant, l'architecte et Sulaimaniyah(1550-1556/ mosquees Sh&hzadah(1543-1548) archi57), lia dans une heureuse symbiose les principes de Justinien, des deux plus c&elbres basiliques tectonique et respectee egalement dans le Sainte Sophie, conservee nomt-Camii Agia Sophia Kempir "Grand Temple de la Divine les Saints Apotres, materiellement detruite, Sagesse"--et mais sans aucun doute admiree commnele demontrent prenombre de mosquees ottomanes. cisement un certain d'une couPar exemple, le pilier d'angle de soutien d'une masse les sifcles, h travers pole se developpe, par he poids h un element lourde, resistante inerte, sur quatre soutiens par verticaux relies creux, articule formant des arcs et des vouites b des niveaux differents, un unique systbme structural. ce noyau central Ce pilier, b oh se concentrent de I'edifice tous les problmes Istamboul et ailleurs en Turquie, demontre dans sa conformation planimetrique et dlespace, la fine critique et protodes grands exemples de la fin de l'Antiquite conduite par Sinan et son ecole. byzantins Aprbs ce regard rapide sur ce qui se produit sur le Bosphore, nous pouvons nous tourner vers une des racines le de l'architecture anciennes irano-mesopotamienne, 301
du tetrapyle chahar T&q, l1equivalent sassanide mediterNous pouvons observer le chemin parcouru par ce raneen. L travers principe architectonique de trZs 1'experience nombreux sanctuaires aux formes de mosquees pour arriver de l'age safavide. de temples du feu prenons celui Parmi tant d'exemples de Jarrah, dans le Fars, du cinquibme siTcle aprbs J.C.; la possibilite de certaines influences sur l'Occident h et sur les futures eglises chretien deutero-byzantines croix grecque inscrite dans un carre fuit illustree par Erdmann27 avec un rappel h 1'edifice extra-muros de Rusafa-Sergiopolis en Syrie, date entre 569 et 592. Mremesi l'on neglige une voie possible entre la Mediteret la Perse zoroastrienne, ranee Orientale l'incessante du principe du chah&r-tAg elaboration irano-islamique ou de l'Atashkadah reste valable et evidente. Les salles d coupole qui couvrent la niche du mi1krab, largement ouverte sur la facade et sur les deux c5tes, celles que Godard appela les mosquees-kiosques28 de l'age seljuqide, du passage entre l'antique sont h l'origine et le nouveau. Quelles que soient les modalites historiques de ces developpements, ils nous mrnent b 11age safavide. Nous pouvons mediter aussi sur l'evidement du pilier, sur l'allTgement sur la concentration et des structures, la distribution des charges, sur 1'enrichissement de l'espace et de la perspective qui dans les ouvrages safavides creent des formes de virtuosite constructive en pleine maitrise des moyens techniques et de haute valeur artistique. h plan carre dicAll Qapfl (fig. Le noyau central 8) qui est aussi la partie plus antique du palais,29 ' montre, inscrites dans la symetrie croix du cube de base, des petites en deux etages qui pi&ces superposees servent d alleger Dans l'avantles enormes piliers. corps ajoute h l'est, les hautes vofutes de l'andron de et de l'aile transversale l'entree formant un "Tv' en du bazar, sont equilibrees relation avec la rue couverte La disposition par un ingenieux des murs et systbme. h l'interieur des arcs des salles des parallelepipMdes 302
de soutien profite du fractionnement en hauteur des De cette facon la solidite espaces. des noyaux resistants actif et non par des est assuree par un systbme cellulaire le dernier masses inertes. Si nous examinons ensuite etage, pour lequel la date plus tardive precise sera et ne nous attardons demontree par l'architecte Galdieri par sur l'apparence des muqarnas et des intrados h couques des vofutes pour rechercher l'intime origine structurale, la savante realisation nous observons de tous les prindont on a dejh parle. cipes constructifs D'autre part, nous remarquerons dans la moitie ouest de la salle cruciforme et surtout dans les angles, le dernier resultat logique du pilier creux et allege, h triple chassis horizontal superpose sur une directrice verticale. A l'exemple admirable dtcAlI38apui on peut comparer le derneir etage de Hasht Bihisht en ce qui concerne les petites pi&ces disposees le long des axes diagonaux avec une certaine par rapport aux octogones liberte h coupole du rez-de-chaussee. Le meme principe se retrouve parmi les maisons armenientes de Julfa, celles de Sukas et de Jan! etudiees par Karapetian.31 e) L'architecture des interieurs. Dans l'art safavide il ne peut jamais arriver que l'on puisse admirer l'aspect externe d'un noble edifice et d'eprouver une desillusion lorsque l'on entre h l'interieur. Comme on peut le voir dans les villages ou survit une tradition plus naturelle et plus spontanee, la maison islamique est toujours plus remarquable pour son aspect interieur: murs fermres vers 1'exterieur, hautes enceintes, fenetres, portes, loges, iwans, pal&rs sur la cour ou sur le jardin, absence de facade sur la rue, un grand soin pour la sym@trie et la r6gularite des salles et des chambres. L'absence, ou plutot le refus, de llidee de l'ameublement distingue l'Islam de l'Occident Europeen du dix-septileme sibcle. Un sentiment de haute dignite marque profondement hi Isfahan l'architecture des inteorieurs. Cela est mieme vrai dans les demeures royales, quoique la priorite logique y ait parfois ete donnee aux facades necessaires h la visibilite de la presence imperiale. 303
des des portes, la repartition Dans les interieurs des cheen bois, des niches, avec des grilles fenetres minees, est concue avec une regularite meditee et avec et les parois Comme les piliers une scrupuleuse symetrie. de servent egalement de soutien aux structures articulees des interieurs ii s'ensuit que l'architecture couverture, constructif est irpenseelt en meme temps que l'organism Ce fait elemendont elle ne peut etre dissociee. entier dans les palais des empertaire est bien reconnaissable On b convaincre. et un seul regard suffit eurs safavides "offid'une construction qu'il s'agit pourra objecter de cour, aulique exprescree par des architectes cielle" La preuve du contraire se trouve, sion de puissance. sur les appropriee d'une documentation malgr'e l'absence datant de cette epoque, des villages maisons islamiques des riches marchands armedans les maisons bourgeoises Toutes sont 6-7). nians de la Nouvelle Julfa (figs. de s'attarder bonnes pour notre but; il est pourtant utile comne les demeures de Petros, sur les plus anciennes, Sukas, et Akbar, avec un complement de riches peintures.32 entre les interf) Le degre de rapport rationnel Les facades des maisons de la ieurs et les exterieurs. de l'iwan et Nouvelle Julfa expriment bien l'.importance des murs princiet de 1'hourdis des salles interieures h l'aide verticaux de piliers paux. Ceux-ci sont projettes de plats et larges domines par une frise horizontale Les arcs b carbne, tantbt h peine descouronnement. sines pour suggerer la presence des voutes internes, dans les des vouites elles-memes tantot en continuation loges et dans les iwans, sont encadres de la meme maniTre. des fait penser h la simplification Cette decoration et du premier dixdu Manierisme tardif ordres classiques tel qu'elle apparait dans les italien, septibme sitcle de Giacomo della Porta, de de Vignola, grandes eglises Martino Longhi et qui sera repris dans les facades seconpar Borromini. (Tour de l'Horloge) daires de l'Oratoire et il faut porter leur origine est diverse, En realite, des Safaqui pr'ecbde l'arrivee le regard sur la culture i expliquer timuride suffit La civilisation vides. des Safavides. du langage decoratif chaque expression 304
Ces formes sobres adhbrent correctement aux ossatures en maqonnerie placees derriZre elles et sont, si l'on peut dire, le reflet de l'organisme architectonique. Un exemple encore plus convaincant est celui de la facade de l'escalier ajoute au sud dicAli Qapu.33 Les alternatives rythmiques dans la scansion de la facade revUlent la distinction interne entre les rampes d'escalier et les la superposition salles d'attente, verticaux d'elements d'epaisseur decroissante donne l'illusion de la diminution interne de l'epaisseur des murs; les arcs-boutants dans les intervalles etroits ref lbtent les brbves vofutes de la meme forme couvrant les rampes d'ascalier; les bandes horizontales adh&rent aux niveaux des sols; les groupements de fenetres selon le schema d'un "IT" renverse projettent en facade les niches de la paroi opposee; leur disposition est semblable h celle que l'on peut observer dans le caravanserail de Mahy&r.34 Bref, on peut avec de bonnes raisons parler d'un rationalisme architectonique safavide. Le rapport entre l'interieur et 1'exterieur n'est evidemment pas total mais mesure de mieme que les muqarnas recouvrent les intrados des vofutes en cachant la vraie structure portante. C'est ainsi que le createur inconnu du dernier etage d'CAll Q&pi, certainement un autre architecte que ceux qui s'occupZrent des autres parties du palais, ne pouvait pas exprimer h 1'exterieur, avec la m'eme brillante harmonie, 1 el'egant dispositif structural de son ouvrage. Les temps nT'etaient pas mturs et il etait absoluement necessaire de continuer les lignes inferieures dejh existantes sur les fagades. Ni la force de la tradition artistique timuride et proto-safavide n'auraient permis d'exprimer k 1'exterieur les fins diaphragmes verticaux de l'interieur, comme cela aurait ete le cas pous les contreforts de l'architecture gothique francaise. Le gotut pour la paroi pleine sly oppo1 meme oli les vides necessaires sait, des fenetres etaient nies dans leur valeur de vide par de fines grilles en bois au maemeniveau des surfaces externes en briques et de couleur analoque. 1l une intuition N'est-ce-pas instinctive et ancestrale liee b l'idee de maison sans b l'exterieur? fenetres 305
le respect pour la valeur de la paroi En realite qui explique par infranchissable ftut une frontiTre pleine creux du dernier etage (jusqu'h 5.50 exemple les piliers et le fait que seulem?tres de vide, d'aprbs Galdieri35) avec une seule ment deux des quatre parois des piliers "travaillent" de briques de 5 centimetres epaisseur ef f ect ivement.
La formation
culturelle
des architectes
faut-il Il y a avant tout un problTme terminologie: ou d'architectes? de maitres, parler de maitres-macons, par des voyageurs europeens Dans les descriptions redigees du dix-septibme siTecle, les termes ustaz et miAnar (toudes artisans) ont une jours compris dans la classe En general, large. tantbt restreinte, acception tantot on avait tendance h occidental, orgueil avec un certain comine le fait en 1660 le p'ere ne pas trop les apprecier, pense par Colbert, capucin Raphadl Du Mans36 qui, invite au Paris du grand si&cle. toujours TMaamar, architectes-pour faire le plan et les entrepreneurs ecrit-il--sont Icy ils ont, selon leur le dessin d'un grand logis. mais, comme un peu le craton pour dessigner; capacite, de faire voir un grand palais par son icnoles nostres, et comme si et sa perspective son orthographie graphie, ils ne scavent habite, capable d'estre desjh il estait non plus que les raison dYune vouste plate, ce que c'est, sa courqui neantmoins a son centre et par consequent II remarque dans les chantiers beure sous entendue."' moulinets pour de "grues, moufles, l'absence totale caracun certain et les et pierres" les poutres enlever En tant des travaux. dans 1'execution tbre d'artisanat la comparaison de Vitruve, il fait toujours que connaisseur "Ce sont divers pays, l'un entre la France et la Perse: l'autre h et le delectable, le necessaire veut lFutile, le necessaire.l peine a-t-il le Cosme certains Un deuxibme probTlme se pose. comment l'edifice pouvait etre trace sur soutiennent, Personsans un precis projet sur un plan? le terrain cela me semble impossible, mais il semble que nellement 306
l'on ne connaisse pas de recueils de dessins, de descriptions precises, de rapports de depenses, comne en Europe. Le troisiTme problbme est celui de la culture d'un architecte et de sa connaissance de la perspective. Le prestige de llarchitecte devait etre grand, si NizAml de dans 1'histoire Ganja (1141-1204 environ) des Sept Princesses (Haft Paykar) raconte la fantastique histoire de Semnar, un fameux architecte du pays de Rum, auteur du chateau de Khavarnaq.37 D'autre part, dans les legendes persanes sur la construction de Sainte Sophie, commentees par Tauer,38 la terminologie usee au quinzitme sThcle est tellement precise que lVon peut supposer un art de faire des plans et de construire conscient de certains operations techniques et de certaines valeurs esthetiques. Si on ref?lechit aux connaissances geometriques necessaires pour concevoir et realiser des idees bien compliquees, on doit supposer une preparation, soit d'atelier soit de chantier, profonde et systematique. Un certain nombre d'edifices h plan polygonal, ou bien certaines coupoles h corbeilles d'arcs entrecroises, se basent sur le nombre 10 ou 5, sur 9, sur 7, sur 6, sur 3, sur 8; le tracement regula et circino n'est pas toujours des plus simples; les systbmes, trbs repandus, sur 10 et sur 5 engagent le nombre d'or et la connaissance dYune grande partie de la geometrie d'Euclide; certaines variations systematiques attestent un Kunstwollen precis. Combien de parties de la science musulman39 connurent les architectes de ShAh cAbbas? Que savaient-ils de l'optique grecque qui devint en meme temps physique et geometrie dans les cownentaires des mathematiciens arabes du moyen age? Les miniatures persanes depuis toujours, meme b l'age safavide, continuent d ignorer la perspective; tout au plus se servent-elles de representations que, avec de la bonne volonte, nous pourrions appeler axonometriques. Nous avons reporte les paroles de Du Mans, non par hasard, quand il nie l'usage de la "rperspective.t Au dans les monuments construits contraire, les valeurs 307
perspectives sont si nombresues et tellement riches qu'elles ne peuvent pas etre accidentelles. Donc le dessin du projet--dont I'existence nlest pas pour autant doit-on pas imaginer une intention demontree--ne geopour obtenir les resultats metrique necessaire desir's? Je pense aux admirables, fantastiques jeux de perspectives qui se revUlent toujours nouveaux h chaque instant b celui qui parcourt, travaux de aprbs les recents restauration, de Hasht Bihist. Je pense, l'interieur b la position comme l'a montre mon collTgue Galdieri, desaxee dIcAll QApO et de la Mosquee de Shaikh Lutfullah ce'sont vues de 1'iwan d'entree du Bazar Qaysariyah0 lh des problTmes qui attendent encore leur solution.
NOTES tome IV, fasc.
II
(Paris:
1.
A. Godard, 1949).
2.
a cupola autopor"Strutture Voir P. Sanpaolesi, Palladio tanti," (1971), pp. 3-64; "La cupola di S. MitteiMaria del Fiore e il mausoleo di Soltanieh,'It in Florenz, Institutes lungen des Kunsthistorischen pp. 221-260; et A. Godard, "Vofutes iranXVI (1972), Iran, tome IV (1949). Athar-e iennes,."
3.
de monuments historISMEO, Travaux de restauration icpues en Iran, Rapports et etudes preliminaires par G. Zander (Rome: 1968), pp. 207-289. edites
4.
Ibid.,
p. 172,
5.
Ibid.,
pp. 260,
6.
Ibid.,
pp. 209-214,
7.
Ibid.,
p. 264,
8.
Ibid.,
pp. 207-289.
9.
A.U. Pope and Ph. Ackermann, A Survey of Persian 1939), t. II, p. 1252 et suivant. Art (London: 308
Athar-e
Iran,
fig. 271,
32 et p. 141, 281,
d.
285.
243 fig.
2, 273 fig.
12.
a.
10.
P. Coste, Monuments modernes de la Perse (Paris: 1867) et E.E. Beaudouin, "Ispahan sous les grands Chahs, XVIIe siTcle,"' Urbanisme, II (1933).
11.
M. Siroux,
12.
K. Karapetian, Isfahan, New Julfa. Le Case degli Armeni ~.
X
,-W
3tt)
:4
o J b4LWW
?
n ?44An46tt4&a ~, 2 4e aGe };^\.~ n*.Sen~ ~ 4.zwVLt tet 4 at 'pun-e, 315 4tA.$6 tE 1;6" ;lo 2 .ae.sit (MS.*R)W IXZ4J Lb
315
2
Figure
t
it
ti
.
316
3
Figure 4
t
I17
317
Figure
Ar
tt
rAt
318
5
Figure
319
6
THE ROYAL BAZAAR OF ISFAHAN ALI BAKHTIAR
Between the Masjid-i Jimic and the Mayd&n-i Shah was a distance of several kilometers, dotted by minarets, mausoleums, mosques and bazaar areas which served the trade of the central plateau of Persia. They had been built over the intervening centuries since Sasanian times, the old town gradually expanding, some of the small clusters of the bazaar still remaining as satellite villages under Shah CAbbasl reign. It was his genius which formed the new city, and it was his conception that linked the new with the old.
The Royal Bazaar but in many Today, the least known to the visitor ways quite the most fascinating aspect of Isfahan is the region that lies between the great mosques: the bazaar. Built by Shah cAbbas, the entrance to the bazaar, the Qaysariyah, stands at the center of the north end of the Maydan-i Shah. Set back from the main plaza in a fiveit forms a courtyard which once embraced a sided recess, large pool. Above the main entrance of the Qaysariyah is where music was the Naqarah Khanah, or musicians' gallery, played every day at sunrise and sunset when the shah was in Isfahan. in residence traditions One of the Zoroastrian which somehow survived the Arab conquest and remained sacred to the Persians, it is performed in every settlement,
320
however
large
or small. (fig.
1).
The Qaysariyt is an impressive as befits structure, a side of the Maydan, but it is more simple and direct than features the principal on the other sides, the indicating and commerical nature of the bazaar business essentially itself. Two centaurs are worked in faience over the main iwan entrance, but generally the decoration is restrained.* Beneath, the ancient timber gate of the bazaar stands open and the darkness indicates the maze of covered streets which extends far back to the north. In fact the market is more extensive, running down the east side of the Maydarn where awnings shade the shops from the full blaze of the noon sun. Beyond and behind the long east side of the in square there is more of the market, which loses itself the vast complex of streets and houses opposite the palace side. But the main area of the Royal Bazaar lies beyond the Qaysariyah. (figs. 2, 3, 7 and 8) . Perhaps the armed centaurs act as guardians over the merchants and shoppers; perhaps they protected the coffers of the shah. For here on the right of the main gate is the Royal Mint, a building dating from the Safavid dynasty, appropriately sited at the focus of the comnerical life of the bazaar. The mint produced coins in copper, silver and of curgold until about a century ago when the production rency was centralized by Na?ir al-din Sh&h Qijir. Served by a hidden but direct route through which pack mules brought in their loads of crude metal for weighing, melting processing and storing, the mint incorporated rooms for smelting, casting, and sorting cooling the coins in a wheel-like arrangement of cells about a central hall. After years as a warehouse, the Royal Mint has regained some of its former use as a center of the currency of the bazaar, by being converted into a bank.
* The team of restorers
ISMEOhas recently ings on the facade
from led by G. Zander and E. Galdieri uncovered a cycle of monumental paintof the bazaar. (ed.)
321
Where the Royal Mint stands the bazaar still reflects in its symmetry the formal order of the Maydin-i Shah and the planned lay-out of the palace gardens, streets and buildings of Shih CAbbist new city. But within two hundred years this regularity gives way to a looser, more confusing plan, which is determined by other factors than the clarity of a grand design: the bazaar begins to respond to the subtle pressures of organic growth over centuries of adaptation. It is a canplex of street and lane, of serai, of hammam, of masjid, of madrasah; a complex which is repeated tens of times in the immense area the market covers, the essential providing elements in Muslim commercial and religious life and extended to the houses of many of the citizens who reside in the bazaar (fig. 6). district. An organism with an active, life of its flourishing won, the bazaar has as its skeleton the lanes and market streets which provide the flowing, linear articulated, structure on which it is built. The market is serviced by the supply routes, long limbs which extend to the outlying country to bring the commodides to nourish the market area. They lead to the stomach of the market, the serai or warehouse which feeds the lifeblood of its own system. And if these are the functioning, physical parts of the organism, the hammamis its cleaning the madrasah its cereliver, brum, the masjid its heart and the maqbarah its memory. the secular to the sacThey are interdependent, relating of the red, the traditional and the past to the realities the bustle and competition of the market-place present, Here beyond the elegant, to the peace and unity of Islam. tailored immaculately garments of the palace and the court but infinitely more of Shah cAbbis is the little-known and which vigorous life of Isfahan which made it possible, has continued as a vital force when much of the splendor of the formal city is now a memory.(figs. 5 and 12) Serais
and Shops
Seven centuries
of trading
322
on the central
plateau
of Iran have caused the bazaars to grow from a scattering of disparate markets to a single, but still interacting loosely connected complex. In the past the various parts of Persia maintained trade with Isfahan, situated strategically at the plateau's center. They traded for goods with materials, of their own, and commodities and supplies each region tended to have its own depots in the Isfahan area with which to trade. When the various markets were linked into one bazaar these trade connections, and the routes by which the goods were brought in, continued to be maintained. On the backs of camels, donkeys and mules, long trains brought the leather, skins and wool, cotton, metals, countless other articles to Isfahan. The raw material for the manufacture of new goods within the bazaar, or the crafts of outlying villages in the desert, from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf and beyond, were brought to the market in a never-ending stream that flowed for centuries. The swaying loads brushed the walls of the approach streets as the camel trains entered the outskirts of Isfahan along the ways exclusively used by the merchants and traders which led directly to the bazaar. The long streets turned blank walls of sun-dried brick to the trains; no doors or windows opened onto these streets, children could not run beneath the uncaring feet of the desert animals and nothing could obstruct the necessary supply chain as it maintained continual contact between the sources of materials and the bazaar itself. The dusty, sand-yellow, unroofed tunnels led to the different serais where the goods were to be costed, bargained for, accounted, and dispersed to their market areas. The serais were of the ubiquitous courtyard pattern, although within that simple constraint there was much in size and treatment, variety meeting the needs and purposes of the sector of the market that each served. A serai might be as small as the Qavah Kashi with its wooden columns supporting the arcade of the second story and the court little more than a graceful, shaded light-well for the receiving and marketing of coffee beans. 323
like Serai Mukhlis, are commerThe largest serais, Caravans are cial complexes with more than one entrance. in admitted through one of them to the warehousing section weighed, accounted and which the merchandise is assessed, stored. Through another the animals are stabled and fed, and barley stores and their their feed stored in haylofts rooms. By yet another accommodated in sleeping muledrivers approaches the shopping entrance the merchant or visitor center which acts as the hub of the and administrative Here wares commercial life of this sector of the bazaar. and distriby the wholesalers for inspection are available butors, and here shopkeepers may choose the commodities which they will retail. are In a large serai the display and sales functions or shopping arcades, where within timchahs, incorporated facilities provide a vaulted entrance to the serai separate with the lower from the bazaar. They may be on two floors, being where the goods are on show and the upper accommoNear the serais are the stalls dating shops and offices. the essence of the bazaar and and shops of the merchants, with the manufacture Often associated its raison d'etre. of goods they sell, the shops might be at the very entrance cobblers of the serai itself. Shoemakers, sandalmakers, by the same serais would be serviced and leather-workers of their trade, and would be available with the materials for the traders to examine and compare their wares, for tend to cluster together. the members of one industry Each sector of the bazaar devoted to one trade would security have its own defined area with its own gates, and adminfire guards, system of arbitration arrangements, istration by the trade guild. of the bazaar, The volumes of the various sections the width and the height of the bazaar lanes were deterthat were mined to a large extent by the trades and crafts Some areas required in the different sections. sustained and circular with low ceilings openings in simple cells Others required higher the roof to admit light and air. but these, and more ventilation; too, had circular ceilings 324
openings in the roof, often at the apex of a vault or dome, and sometimes with the light filtered through thin sheets of alabaster. These admitted a pale yellow light and kept the interiors warm and dry in winter; in summer they were shaded and airy. cool, Many of the old covered streets have lost their roofs, the vaults having collapsed even centuries decades, ago, and only the springing of isolated arches remains of the mud brick structures that once spanned the lanes and alleys. Closer to the market center, however, the bazaar is still covered and except where, as in the case of the dyeing sections, an industry is extended to the use of the roof, there is little indication of the activity below. The view across the roofs similarly tells little of the formal variety beneath, for the chain of domes which indicates the sequence of the bazaar routes is supported by a variety of textural and structural systems which are overlaid with a single, unifying layer of a plaster of sundried mud and straw, kah-gal. Yet, from the roof, with all its obstructions and changes of levels it is nevertheless possible to construct the pattern of the thirty square kilometers or so of the bazaar area, as the long chains of humps indicate the undulating routes of the bazaar streets, the square openings indicate the position of serai, madrasah or merchant's house and the relationship of the mosques and magbarah is revealed in a clarity which is obscured from the visitor attempting to untangle his way through the maze of market lanes. It is also from the roofs that one discovers that the architecture of the great mosques and palaces of Shah CAbbas is unashamedly theatrical. It does not attempt to relate internal spaces to external appearances, nor does it seek to use the decorated facades as expressions of the structure. Frequently the facade will rise far higher than the volume it announces to be supported from behind by half-domes and segments. The rich, decorated faience surfaces are meant to be read, both literally and metaphorias planes, cally, and the interior volumes are treated as spaces in their own right. Like that of the Oxford
325
of covered or open, but it is an architecture Colleges, All this has its complement spaces. internal, essentially in the privacy of the domestic house, which is a sanctuary to the owner and his family, unannounced and exclusive Beyond the plain and undecofrom the exterior. invisible shaded gardens, rated walls may often lie cool and tranquil and arcaded walks, but none of this is evident courtyards seeking To the western trained architect, from without. of a system on the externals of structural the expression to find clues of the way in which the expecting building, to each other from the evirelate parts of the building the deliberate, from outside, dence of its articulation screens artificial use of decorated surfaces, even willful the domes read against of light-framed and grand entrances, with the roof of the volume they sky, not corresponding has been penetrated, once the interior appear to enclose seems to defy the principles much of Iranian architecture which he holds in regard. of the buildings But though these are characteristic which virtues and distinct they have their own special to western concepts of design. alternative offer a positive its own delights: offers The very lack of direct co-relation of the of the exterior and the tranquility the challenge of the house of the mosque, the inscrutability interior that and domestic interiors peaceful wall and the restful, of the bustle and competitive The contrast they screen. courts of the bazaar and the sublime undisturbed activity and condusive to contemplation of the madrasahs is itself prayer. Servicing
the Hammamand the Bazaar
eleis an essential The hammam, public bath-house, within the bazaar ment in the city and many are situated the keepers area for the use of the merchants and traders, the hammam In many respects of the bazaar. and frequenters reminds one of the Roman thermal baths with the complex of hot rooms, vapor or steam rooms, the rooms with pools of The changing hot water, and some with cold water pools.
326
facilities include chamber for dressing and drying, lined often with cupboards and lockers of comparatively recent date. Towels, rich in color and woven in the bazaar area, are hung on the walls, or are to be seen drying after washing, adding brilliance to the scene and enhancing the of the legendary heroes Rustam and Suhrab.(fig. paintings 4) Certain sections of the hammamare set aside for the wealthy who could affort to bathe in private, and in earlier times feasts were held in the baths on a floor scattered with rose petals. The servicing of the bazaar area presented many problems for so large and active a community, problems which were solved in many ingenious ways. Water was needed for mosques and for the private as well as for dwellings baths and had to be raised from wells to provide a gravity feed for the fountains and to supply the buildings. This is nowhere more evident than in the public baths where large quantities of water were needed. Oxen drove water wheels bringing water to the surface by buckets on ropes, while in the smaller buildings similar foot-driven wheels were operated by men who filled the pools by this means. Specially trained, they proclaimed that they were available to those who required their services. Though single men often worked the wheels, at the CAlI QApi water was brought by a team to a level three or four stories above the Maydan-i Shah. In the time of Shah cAbb&s, an underground drainage system of broad conduits served important buildings such as the royal palaces and mosques. But later this system was allowed to deteriorate and was replaced by cesspools. Sewage disposal once again presented a problem but also an for other specialized, opportunity if unpleasant, work for the teams who cleared the cesspools. Donkey-loads of manure were collected from the buildings and dried outside the city gates by men who later sold the product as fertiliser. But the lack of a drainage system meant that soakaway areas were necessary by each hammamwhich would allow soapy water from the baths to evaporate, as water that had thus been used was of no value on the land. 327
Schools
and Mosques
found not far from the hammamis a theoGenerally of Islam are imparted school in which the teachings logical to be mullas or holy men in training to young students to and to the youths who one day will make the pilgrimage and of religion a combination Under the Seljuqs Mecca. within the legal system to was incorporated philosophy there were Subsequently Alsharism. form a new orthodoxy, of this new teaching but all required derivatives several of schools or, madrasahs, in which it the establishment further encouragement in They received could be taught. to Wealthy noblemen were invited Shih cAbbist reign. and to buy off their piety and their loyalty demonstrate a new madrasah. by endowing in perpetuity exile, possible of the same plan as the The schools were generally courtand mosques, with four iwans off a central serais sides of the madrasah The low arcaded, two-storied yard. shade in the high noonday sun and admitted the rays offered In the cenof the evening cooler sun into the buildings. and tral courtyard still pools would keep the air pleasant reminder of the young theologians fresh and be a constant Walking in the shade of the old of the River of Paradise. lofty trees and among the shrubs and planted gardens beside of the the paths of the Madrasah Sadr, they were reassured reminded of enduring nature of their faith and constaatly of formal architecture The setting the works of Allah. of deep rutted the contrast the canopy of leaves, against change of the slow-growing bark texture and the organic, and as rewarding as a Taoist plants is as considered temple in Japan, and far less known. This freedom of of man's works is no less the formality growth against With similar plan, the evident in the small madrasahs. courtyard of Jaddah Ku-chtik, for example, has a spatial which are trained along design drawn in morning glories tented canopy under which the ropes to form a living, The sit to teach and study. mullas and their students new copies of old texts, who write and illuminate copyists and the who care for the aging manuscripts the librarians who study them may work beyond the arcade, or when scholars
328
the weather becomes cooler, the winter room. (fig. 9)
in the warmer prayer
space
of
The madrasah is usually associated with a specific are mosque in the bazaar, and these simple structures scattered throughout its length and breadth, providing for common prayer six times a day, as decreed. sanctuary Though the Masjid-'i JAmic is technically encompassed by the bazaar, it is a mosque which, by virtue of its age, of innumerable scale and importance has been the subject descriptions and analyses. But within the bazaar area there are many mosques which have received little attention though they are often of considerable quality. Among them are some of the mosques which were built especially for the use of the merchants and users of the bazaar. Some of the mosques were built by the guilds for the use of their members, and the wealthier trades were able to endow them. or the Tailor's Typical of these is the Masjid-i Khayat, Mosque, which belongs to the Guild of tailor and Dressmakers. It serves a double duty, with one part set aside for religious and daily prayers while another ceremonies section through a secret door accommodates administration and the storing of documents related to the tailoring trade. entrance it is possible By a separate to enter a large anteroom, which can be used by women without being seen by the men, while elsewhere in the complex is a ladies' chapeL in many of the mosques of Shops were incorporated the bazaar, demonstrating again the essentially practical nature of the relationship of the commercial to the religious life of Isfahan. So the Masjid-i Baghchah cAbbasi embraces within its entrance facade two shops on either It is a small mosque with its main courtyard side. approached by a narrow corridor. But the Masjid-i Payi Darakht Sukhtah is even smaller, with a single shop adjacent to its entrance. Simple and functional, it is characteristic of the local mosque which meets the daily prayer needs of the craftsmen and traders within its purlieu. But if in character,
these there
mosques are small in scale and intimate are others in the bazaar of grander
329
proportions, many rooms and chambers, and sometimes richly decorated with faience tiles. Outstanding among them is the Masjid-i Hakim, a masterpiece of Safavid architecture which was built in the mid-seventeenth Simply but century. painstakingly decorated, the great mosque with its many courtyards, prayer halls, pools and colonnades, situated at the termination of one of the branches of the bazaar, is only excelled by the Masjid-i Jamic and the Masjid-i Sh&h. Some of the mosques are exquisitely decorated, as is the portal of the Masjid cAli; some are uncomplicated and modest. even Some bear evidence of earlier constructions, of fire temples, within their structures, while the Masjid-i Dar al-Shifil absorbed in its plan the ruins of the hospital built by Khwajah Nizam al-Mulk in the reign of Seljuq Malik Shah. (figs. 10 and 11) Many donors and shahs have had their names perpetuated through the alterations and improvements they have made to the mosques and other important buildings through successive generations. In fact this process of restoration and renewal, of new buildings and new facings in faience mosaic, has often made accurate dating of buildbear dates, ings impossible. Though many of the buildings and not of these are frequently those of the restoration the original building. and generally, few names and Islam has no saints, In Iran, however, a historic personages are venerated. large number of shrines and mausoleums have been built in past centuries, which today are often places for meditation and private prayer. Many of these mausoleums have more reliable dates, like the mausoleum of Baba Qasim which bears an inscription giving the date of the mausoleum as in 1340 A.D. A Mongol building which was later restored 1634 during the reign of ShAh cAbbas I, it is a structure Later of Persian bricklayers. which demonstrates the skill in 1453 A.D. the cupolaed sanctuary of the shrine and An outstanding mausoleum of Darb-i ImAmwas completed. the of the Turkoman dynasty, example of the architecture mausoleum shares with the celebrated Blue Mosque of Tabriz of being the finest the distinction example in Iran of the
330
use of faience
mosaic
decoration.
mausoleum of Dardasht, Like the better-known the at the termination of mausoleum of Darb-i Imnamis situated one of tae branches of the bazaar. Many of the principal market lanes have mosques or mausoleums at their end, the importance of giving a conclusion to the emphasizing in quiet prayer. day's activity
The future
of the Isfahan
bazaar
Much is changing in the bazaar, and the deteriorating buildings are being cleared away for other development. Many of the hammams have ceased to function; several of them have been pulled down and only small sections of some of them are now used for public baths with a dozen, perhaps two dozen, cubicles, each with private changing room and shower baths, the inevitable result of the of piped water and drainage. improved facilities Warming of the floors and heating of the hot water pools by the vents and steam tunnels, from furnaces fired by a mixture of thornbushes, dried leaves and cow dung, has virtually gone. The roofs of the hammamno longer act as storage for the thornbush fuel: now the heating system is fired by gas or oil. And when the running of a hammamhas proved uneconomic, soaring land values have caused them to be pulled down, to provide space for new development. (fig. 12) The serais, the main elements of the bazaar from which all else springs, have not escaped change and decay. the majestic Sarutaqi Serai has its main courtyard covered today by a corrugated iron roof where a textile factory has been established. The whole building, but especially the fine recessed main entrance, is in an advanced state of disrepair. New serais have not been built since the nineteenth century, when the Serai Malik was built in the final flowering of bazaar architecture. Since that time open with modern shops and shopping facilities streets have been planned and developed all over the city of Isfahan, reducing the importance of the bazaar as its commercial center. 331
were confined interests At one time the banks and financial it is inevitably now but bazaar, covered of the area to the Large banks becoming poorer and of secondary importance. in other parts of the city have been built and enterprises on a western model and even within the bazaar many of the with new shops and stores have been modernized and rebuilt high, threatstories some several techniques, construction of the old quarter. ening to change the scale and character links with Though the mosques maintain the longest in recent even these have suffered Islam and tradition, that Pierre Loti noted at years, not only from the neglect but also because of the techniques the turn of the century, by Shah cAbbis I and the Safavid that were introduced The old faience mosaic and glazed earthenware builders. but part of the outer structure, bricks were essentially with a gypsum which were affixed the applied faience tiles, have often fallen cement to the outer brick surfaces, away, decorations. leaving damaged and often irreparable of the bazaar is selfMuch of the deterioration much else has become clear only through the proevident; The changes which are taking survey. of detailed cesses in the light of twenplace in the area, perhaps inevitable must be expected which ones are tieth century progress, the bazaar is under presToday undoubtedly, and accepted. that once accommodated camels and sure, the narrow lanes and automobiles. mules are unable to cope with lorries new means of and trading, of accounting New techniques its continued life. communication and supply may threaten though accelerating these processes, Nevertheless, have not by any with the advance of modern techniques, many kiloThere are still the bazaar. means destroyed meters of active market, many serais which are functioning from many trades and industries, fully and effectively, which meet continued to metal-working, weaving to cosmetics stage the time is approAt this transitional demands. of the bazaar, of the activity for consideration the priate that are and the structures the systems of its operation within it. Any moves that may be made to aid the market to
332
while retaining cope with the developing its unique trends, quality as a social organism, any proposals for the restounknown buildings, ration of its many fine and virtually any plans which may facilitate growth and development without exacerbating the problems of the survival of its traditional craftsmen, merchants and modes of trade, must ultimately depend on the surveys made. (fig. 13) Such surveys need to be sociological and economic, as well as ones of planning and architecture. But the present work is based on a survey that was primarily architectural, although in order to understand the inter-dependence of the various activities as expressed through the planning and social considerations were necesbuildings, sari ly observed and recorded. Whatever may be the future of the bazaar as an active market, it is hoped that the material here, and that deposited at the Asia Institute in Shiraz, may offer some indication of the wealth of the bazaar architecture, and that the extensive documentation may act as a tribute to the generations of builders, traders and merchants who, for seven centuries, have lived, worked, traded, bathed, prayed and died within its vast warren of spaces and buildings.
Illustrations Fig.
1
Whole bazaar
Fig.
2
Fragment of bazaar plan showing Qaysariyah and main entrance to Royal Bazaar
Fig.
3
Section crossing
Fig.
4
Plan of HammamShah
Fig.
5
Serai
plan
through Qaysariyah of Royal Bazaar
Sarutaqi
- exterior
333
gate
and Serai
gate
Sh&h
CAli and the dome of the tomb
Fig.
6
The Minaret of Masjid of Hariun-i Vilay&t
Fig.
7
Centaur bazaar
Fig.
8
Entrance
Fig.
9
Madrasah Jaddah Buzurg - courtyard
Fig.
10 Masjid Hakim
- reflections
Fig.
11 Masjid
Hakim
- interior
Fig.
12 Aerial
view of bazaar
Fig.
13 Typical bazaar Four Judges
The illustrations AAdip RIBA.
in faience
mosaic
above Qaysariyah
gate
to
to Royal Bazaar
street
for this
in court
pool
route near the crossing
paper are courtesy
334
of the
of John Donat,
Figure
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3/ L9
395
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397
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398
5
Figure
399
6
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400
7
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401
8
Figure
402
9
Figure
403
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404
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405
12
ASPECTS OF THE SAFAVID ENSEMBLE AT ISFAHAN DONALD WILBER
the plan and the structures to relate Any effort of the royal ensemble of Shah CAbb&s and his successors of remains must draw on the observations with the existing the French jeweler Chardin who was in Persia between 1666 stay coinHis first and 1670 and between 1671 and 1677. cided with the last years of the reign of cAbb&s II and his second with the early years of the reign of Sulayman I. Herbert Diager, "Chef du Commerce In 1666 he and a friend, to produce an account of Isfahan, resolved des Hollandais suf.W digne d'etre "iou rien ne f'ut omis de ce que feroit they piled up voluminous notes, Aided by two local mullas, to some eighty and in 1676 Chardin abridged this material pages. 1 According to Chardin, "La beaute d'Ispahan condans un grand nombre de Palais particulibrement siste de Caravanserais de Maisons gaies & riantes, magnifiques, de fort beaux Bazars , & de Canaux & de Ruids, dont spacieux, de haut platanes."12 les cbtez sont couverts
puzzled
by aspects Chardin was not disturbed For example, modern observers.
which have
of ShAh cAbbasi imperial the curious orientation the Maydan-i Shah. The two imperial centerpiece, to the south and east of the Maymosques built Mosque, Shah and the Lutfallah dan, the Masjid-i awkwardly twist on their axes in order to face 406
for prayer, the qiblah. the proper direction Had Shah CAbbas had a free hand to set out the Maydan as he wished, why should he have given it this peculiar, apparently orienbaseless, tation? No doubt it was the pre-existing patterns of the city that determined this choice.3 of the Seljuq gardens (such And, "No doubt the disposition as the Naqsh-i jahan) and the kuchahs surrounding them predetermined the orientation of Shah cAbbass great Maydan. "4 It is true that the relative of the orientations maydan, the Masjid-i Shah, and the Chahar Bagh are not in and later European traditions accord with the classical of controlled and cross axes. parallel Why was this the case? The statement quoted above that pre-existing patterns influenced the lay-out deserves examination. Chardin mentions no pre-Safavid within the entire structures royal ensemble, while he does indicate that open spaces prevailed. Writing of the Masjid-i Shah, he states, "Le fonds sur lequel elle est edifiee, etoit auparavant une meloniere, laquelle apartenait h une vielle femme."5 And of the general area of the Chahar BAgh he wrote, "Cette Allee s'appelle tchar-bag c'est-bi-dire parce quatre Jardins, qu'autrefois quatre vignobles." c'etoit Even had earlier structures existed anywhere in the area of the royal enif they were semble, they would surely have been demolished in the way of the new scheme. From many references we know that rulers of Islamic Iran were disposed against living in the palaces of their predecessors, prefering to let them fall into ruin and build anew. As concerns the divergence between the long axis of the mayd&n and the qiblah axis of the Masjid-i Shah, a suggestion may be made. Had these axes coincided, the dome over the sanctuary of the Masjid-i Shah would have been concealed from view by the towering entrance portal of the mosque, except from a considerable distance to the north on the maydan. The axial divergence results in the dome and its own minarets being visible from anywhere in the maydan. 407
The axis of the Chahar Bagh does not parallel that of the maydan. It terminated not with a bang but with a whimper, ending abruptly at the base of a pavilion, rather than at a monumental entrance to the palace grounds. What may to us seem vagaries of monumental planning in this ensemble are, in fact, reflections of the lack of such planning in Islamic Iran. With the concentration of architectural details and interest upon the interiors of mosques and shrines which, in most cases, could not be circumambulated, such devices as the opening of vistas, the climactic arrangement of successive structures, and a studied relationship between important structures located in the same general area were rarely practiced. With Chardin as our guide we pass through the CAli Qapu to enter the palace grounds (fig. 1). He was well acquainted with all this area except for the closely guarded residential quarters. And for these he had collected details about the structures from old women who were admitted to sell knick-knacks to the females in residence, as well as from some of the eunuch guards with whom he was on friendly terms. of enclosed In contrast to the tradition religious which he describes structures, the palaces and pavilions were free-standing buildings which could be viewed from all Within the sides and were designed with this fact in mind. palace grounds, the first structure encountered was the Talar-i or Hall of the Stables, the scene of magTavilah, nificent evening receptions. Beyond, and to the south, four buildings were grouped in a harmonious relationship: or BuildMtihm&nKhanah, or Guest House; clm&rat-i Firdaus, Divan Ayanah, or Hall of Mirrors; and ing of Paradise; clmarat-i Dary&-i Shah, Building of the Royal Sea--this were last facing onto a large pool. Pools and fountains of everywhere within the grounds, supplied by a series canals which ran from west to east. To the north, a passageway led to the Chihil Sione a Within its grounds were two other structures, tun. a full five stories in height. Some palace or pavilion 408
distance to the south of the Chihil Siitin was the Hasht Bihisht, ascribed by Chardin to Sulaymran I, and probably Both the Hasht Bihisht completed shortly after 1671. and a striking feature: the Chihil Siitiun (fig. 2) display the manner in which enclosed space is successively opened out to the surrounding gardens in a series of stages. of the palaces grounds Near the southern limits lay, according the apartto Chardin, the king's lodging, ments of his women, the residence of the elderly women of of the king's children. the court, and the quarter's By 1714 most of this area had been replaced by the Madrasah MAdar-i Shah, its bazaar, and its caravanserai--this last as the modern Hotel Sh&h cAbb&s. rebuilt Palaces and pavilions, each set within spacious gardens, lined both sides of the Chahar Bagh. Chardin calls the Chahar Bagh, "la grande Allee ... qui est la plus belle que j' aie viue, & dont j'aie jamais oui parler,"7 and devotes a number of paragraphs to its watercourse, pools and fountains. The entrance to each garden was crowned by a structure of some size: Hunarfar reproduces a photograph of the second half of the nineteenth century a number of these entrance structures.8 which depicts In the middle of each garden stood a pavilion. "Ces Pavillions sont de differente construction & figure, mais ils sont presque tous d'egale grandeur, & tous peints & dorez fort materiellement, le ce qui offre aux yeux l'aspect plus 6eclatant & le plus agreable. "9 Chardin names all the gardens along both sides of the Chahar Bagh, and notes that the walls along the avenue were of a lattice-work construction so that passers-by could admire the pavilions, and their pools and fountains. Surely a far cry from the traditional house of the country a blank wall to the world and featured an which presented enclosed court. Some of these pavilions, including that within the Bagh-i Zirishkh, or Garden of the Barberries (fig. 3), survived until the middle of the nineteenth century. This pavilion deserves the label of "scenographic architecture," employed by Eugenio Galdieri. Rapidly constructed, these pavilions were coated with white plaster 409
and then brilliantly
decorated.
and the palaces, pavilions, Chardin also describes of members of the royal court which residences elegant Only one such will lined both sides of the Zayandah river. be cited here, the Ayanah Kh&nah, or House of Mirrors, Clearly this now4). which stood on the south bank (fig. of the Chihil Siitin was a near duplicate vanished structure also intended to be somewhat larger in size--and --perhaps viewed from all sides.
NOTES 1.
Chardin, en Perse Voyages de Monsieur Le Chevalier 1711), vol. de lOrient (Amsterdam: Lieux et Autres III, pp. 3-84.
2.
Ibid.,
3.
Lisa Golombek, han," p. 18.
4.
Ibid.,
5.
Chardin,
6.
Ibid.,
p. 58.
7.
Ibid.,
p. 56.
8.
Hunarfar, Ganjinah-i Lutfallah Athar-i Tar5ikhi-yi The photop. 483. 1344/1965-66), (Isfahan: Igfah&n to stand reprograph is not of a good enough quality duction.
9.
Chardin,,
p. 5. "Urban Patterns
in Pre-Safavid
Isfa-
p. 31-32. op. cit.,
op. cit.,
p. 20.
p. 57.
410
Illustrations Fig.
1
of the royal ensemble Reconstruction based on the description by Chardin.
Fig.
2
Chihil Sutun; view from the alcove before the main hall looking towards the Masjid-i Shah, and illustrating the manner in which enclosed space was gradually opened out to free space. From E. Flandin and P. Coste, Voyage en Perse: Perse moderne (Paris: 1854), P1. LI.
Fig.
3
The pavilion From Xavier et en Perse
Fig.
4
The House of Mirrors. From Pascal Coste, Monuments modernes de la Perse mesures, et dessines, decrits (Paris: 1867), P1. XXXV.
at Isfahan,
in the garden of the Barberries. Hommaire de Hell, Voyage en Turquie (Paris: 1854-60).
411
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12
MINORITIES OF ISFAHAN: THE ARMENIAN COMMUNITY OF ISFAHAN 1587-1722 VARTAN GREGORIAN
of the Persian nationality" In their "recreation of ShiCite Islam as the official and their proclamation of Persia, the Safavids performed a crucial state religion institutionalized, historical role. They formalized, doctrinal intensified and politicized the Sunni-Shicite Coming in and regional schism within the Islamic world.1 the wake of the four centuries of Turko-Mongol invasions of the which had already helped to "harden the division Muslim lands into separate Arabic, Persian and Turkish communication was confined regions between which literary to the restricted circles of the educated, 12 the triumph of the Shicite the division in Persia formalized revolution of Islamic Asia into three major Muslim political entities: Safavid Persia drove wedges Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal. between the sunni Ottoman empire, the Mughal empire andl Safavid and Shicite Central Asia. however, was not Persia, a monolith. and religious It was an ethnic, linguistic, to Persians there were as ethnic mosaic. In addition Arabs, number of Turkic elements, groups a substantial Armenians and CircasKurds, Baluchi, Afghans, Georgians, sians, as well as small yet viable communities of Jews and all of which ensured the ethnic and social Assyrians, of the Safavid empire. As a matter of fact, at diversity a polarity the Safavid empire represented least ethnically, and the of the two dominant groups, the Persians Turks, a form of of whom were linked by the Ithna cashari majority
652
ShiCism, retained
partook of the Islamic heritage their ethnic consciousness.3
of Iran,
but
Despite the fact that Shah Ismacil I (1501-24) had decreed the Ithna cashari form of Shicism as the state religion of Persia and that his successors and sustained promoted it for the next two centuries, the fact is that of the Safavid empire was almost the ethnic diversity matched by the diversity of its creeds and languages. While the Ithna cashari branch of Shicism became the dominant form of Islam in Persia, it did not displace Sunni Islam completely: the Kurds, the Afghans (except for the Hazaras and certain minor tribes), and the majority of the Arabs of Persia as well as the preponderant majority of the Muslims of the Caucasus and Transcaucasus were Sunni. There were in addition the Christian communities of Persia: the Georgians and the Armenians and the Assyrians. Last but not least there were the Zoroastrians and the Jews. The Safavid religious and "nationality policies" first of all had to deal with the question of non-Shicite Muslims, then the problem of Shicite and non-Shicite Muslim Turkic elements who were extremely powerful, and then with the presence and fate of non-Muslims: in the first rank the ahl al-kitab (People of the Book), namely Christians and the Jews. (Georgians, Armenians and Assyrians) Lastly it had to cope with the Zoroastrians who represented a special and unique problem. In formulating and executing their religious and ethnic policies the Safavid rulers had to take into consideration socio-economic and geopolitical realities on the one hand and the stability of their realm and legitimization and continuity of their sovereignty on the other hand. They could not agree to give a de jure recognition to an historical of a pluralistic phenomenon--the reality Safavid empire and its society--without unleashing centrifugal forces, undermining the unity of their realm and and moral foundations the historical jeopardizing that sustained the edifice of Safavid rulers' legitimacy,
653
sovereignty
and absolutism.
The policies of the Safavids towards non-shiCite Muslims and non-Muslims fluctuated but basically can be summarized as: violent theoretical opposition towards Sunnis coupled with a narrow intolerance and periodic of Zoroastrians persecution and Jews, and a relatively benevolent attitude towards and a comparatively less harsh treatment of Armenians and Georgians. Since Shicism was the basis for religious and historical of the sovereignty legitimization of the Safavid dynasty, it is not surprising that the Safavids had to re-introduce and maintain the theocratic idea that "church" and state were to be conceived of as one. This precluded any possibility on the part of the Safavids of accepting any theories that would challenge the absolute veracity of the Ithna cashari form of Shicism without undermining the of absolutism of the Safavid rulers and introfoundations ducing the dangerous principle of Sunni, of the relativity or other forms of Islam devoid of any eschatology. Shicite Aside from the question of legitimacy, the Safavids had as Ann Lambimposed Shicism as a state religion partially, ton puts it: "in order to differentiate their domains from the Ottoman empire and to create a sense of unity among their
subjects.
.
.
is
It
not
surprising
have tried to impose doctrinal uniformity from the new orthodoxy."t4 any deviation
that
should
they
and to suppress
assumed new conflict the Sunni-Shicite Of necessity, as Sunnis and major political dimensions and implications with the Ottoman and Mughal empires, and became identified In the two centuries with Safavid Persia. of the Shicites battles the members of each off-and-on politico-religious of the opposing religious group under the jurisdiction as fifth columnists: actual or potent. power were treated tial enemies of the state in question. Thus within the Ottoman empire those who had affinities
sidered
with
potential
the
Shia
Safavids
or actual
654
enemies
[were]
.
.
.
of the state
con-
and
the Ottoman Sultan used both repression and reeducaAt the same time a tion to render them harmless. far more effective was carried out in repression this time of Sunnism. . . The one constant Persia, was subversion. of doctrines criterion The followers and practices which threatened the state, the dynasty5 or the fabric of society were outlawed and repressed. therefore that such eminent It is not surprising Shicite theologians as MuhammadBaqir (1628-99) or his Mir MuhammadHusayn, had to wage relentless successor theological battles against the Sunnis of Persia, denouncing and persecuting them. However, while the Safavlds could not make any theoretical or accommodations concessions about the Sunnis of Persia, they could and often did adopt a pragmatic policy towards them. As far as the non-Muslims were concerned, the Safavids had much more room for freedom of action and policy maneuvres. This was due mainly to the fact that outside of the Shicite-Sunni question, the Safavids because of the conception underlying their rule, could not tolerate any independence on the part of the religious and their supervision of institution it was consequently more thoroughgoing than had been that of preceding Sunni rulers. The circumstances of the imposition of Shiism as the state religion made it easy for the state to impose control since the religious institution owed its position if not entirely, to the support of the polilargely, tical institution.6 The religious was from the first institution subordinated to the political one. Hence in matters dealing with nonMuslims, short of granting them legal and social equality with the Muslims, the Safavid rulers had the freedom to experiment and exercise policies that could be based on realpolitik and/or expediency, without threatening the theoretical bases of their authority, sovereignty and its legitimacy. 655
towards the nonThe Safavid policy and attitudes Muslim elements of Persia can be best observed in their to the Ithna cashari capital of Isfahan, where in addition Muslims, we encounter organized communities of non-Muslims: quarter of the Jews who were located in Jubarah, a special Zoroastrians who were located on the south side of city, and the Armenians Zayandah Rud (below the Khwajiu bridge), a suburb of Isfahan. who were settled in New Julfa, The Jews of Isfahan suffered periodic outbursts of persecutions, especially during the period of 1642-1722. or At times, they were offered rewards, high positions, money as a means to induce them to abandon their religion form of Shicite Islam.7 and to embrace the Ithna cashari conversions.8 At other times there were forcible Raphael du Mans, in his Estat de la Perse described the fate of Jews as follows:
en 1660,
ils pour les Juifs, en d'aucunes contrees, au mahometisme; par force et ' l'exterieure sous le d'autres endroits, on les a laisses u l'ombre duquel ils passent leur miserable tout le Levant.9
ont passe en baston vie dans
were attracThe Jews, along with the Zoroastrians, revivalists for conversions tive targets by zealous Shicite to Islam and maniconversion who advocated their forcible notions and prepulated such popularly held anti-Jewish of as the myth that the Jews were practitioners judices of Force and fear were bracketed with visions magic.10 of economic gain and appeals to human greed and prospects as means of inducement to convert the Jews, insecurity of a law that and Christians. Zoroastrians The provisions guaranteed to a conRaphael du Mans called Machiavellian the property and wealth of his vert the right to inherit of Jews deterifamily and his relatives.11 The condition orated further during the rule of the last independent so much as Shah Sultin Husayn (1694-1722), Safavid ruler, the eminent authorto warrant the late Walter J. Fischel, ity on Jews of Persia and Central Asia, to express the 656
verdict that: "Only the downfall of the Safavid dynasty, of the Afghans and the subthrough the successful invasion sequent rise of a new tolerant ruler, Nadir Shah . . . saved the Jews of Isfahan, and the Jews of Persia as a whole from complete annihilation.",12 Later Sir John Malcolm wrote that the Jews in Persia, who are not numerous cannot appear in public, must less perform their religious ceremonies, without being treated with scorn and contempt by Mahomedan inhabitants of that Kingdom a . . This race, who live despised and in poverty in Persia, are not only officially protected, but respected in TurkeT where they enjoy both wealth and consideration. Zoroastrians Laurence Lockhart,
did not fare better. According such shicite as theologians
to
MuhammadBaqir al-Majlisi and MuhammadHusayn and their associates behaved in a particularly brutal manner to Zoroastrians in Persia. The persecution of these unfortunate people had often been serious enough during earlier but it became greatly reigns, accentuated under Shah Sultan Husain. Not long after his accession, he was induced to sign a decree for the forcible conversion of Zoroastrians to Islam. In 1699 the Archbishop of Ancyra was himself a witness of the terrible measures that were then being taken to enforce this decree, in Hasanparticularly abad, the Zoroastrian quarter of Isfahan, where large number were compelled to turn Muhammadan. Their temple was destroyed, and a mosque and school were erected on its site.14 Why the, did the Armenians of Isfahan and Persia, along with the Georgians, enjoy the so many privileges denied to other minorities of Isfahan? Why were they treated less harshly than the other minorities? The purpose of this paper is to study the basis of the unique position of the Armenian community of Isfahan (the largest 657
community of the Safavid and most prosperous Christian in reempire) and the nature and aim of Safavid policies gard to it.*
The establishment Is fahan
of the Armenian communitT in
century histhrough the sixteenth Intermittently constituting territories and the Georgia Armenia, torical Soviet Azerbayjan were the arena of Ottoman present-day Armenia served either as a Historical and Safavid wars. between the two borderland or as a battlefield militant impact Their wars had a devastating empires. contending The intensity on the peoples and economy of the region. duel, fought for reliof the Sunni-Shicite and ferocity was accomeconomic and geopolitical gious, objectives, panied by the adoption on the part of the two formidable and of population of deportation of policies belligerents to deny and towns in an effort of villages devastation For into the conqueror. resources human and material when Sult&n Selim of the Ottoman empire occupied stance, Tabriz in 1514, he took not only booty but some three a majority of whom were Armefamilies, thousand artisan (Istanbul).15 them in Constantinople He settled nian. by were wrought in the Ottoman territories Devastations I and successor Tahm&sp his Shah Ismacil I (1501-24) Shah who pursued what amounted to a limited scorched(1524-76) of the Safavid In the event of the retreat earth policy: had to be accomforces before the Ottomans, that retreat of the harvest and all foodpanied by the destruction For in the of sources of water. off and shutting stuffs that denied one's enemy art of war, he said, everything Such a policy success was both fair and legitimate.17 of populations too. TahmAsp rethe deportation involved Safavid captivity and deporcords the fact that he witnesed who were sub ects of the of Armenian populations tation *This paper is part of a larger study and religious policies. nationality 658
dealing
with
Safavid
Ottoman Empire.18 The Safavid and Ottoman devastations and literaare reflected in the Armenian historiography Hovhannes An Armenian chronicler, ture of the period. of Shah Taha priest, Artchishetsi, bemoaned the invasion masp's forces into the region of Van and the ensuing wars terms: (1531-34) in the following there
came an epidemic
of
death
.
.
.
how many
and fathers and mothers were rendered sonless how many sisters and brotherless daughterless, how many pretty brides and brothers sisterless, and how many brothers bridgerooms were separated, Who can recount and sisters died the same night? the sorrow and misery of parents and families, only God Who loved ones and those of the friends, And all of these came upon created them, knows. us because of our sins.19 The Ottoman historian Pechevi, writing about the 1554 invasion of Ottoman forces into the Garbagh and Nakhchevan wrote that "during the entire regions of the Transcaucasus construclength of four-five days journey all habitations, and fields to such a degree that tions, were destroyed there was no remnant of life."90 Such devastations continued in 1578-90 when garrison food from armies collected the peasantry, and cut fruit tress and removed doors and windows from houses in order to burn them as fuel in the and even Muslims who were fortresses. Many Christians, were adherents of the Ithna Cashari form of Shicism, during those years.21 Describing carried into captivity the events of the years 1578-89, the calamities of death, a Simeon Tigranakertsi, captivity, hunger and disease, either contemporary source, wrote "no one can describe or through speech the difficulties of our through writing In 1586 one who tried to do just that, the times.",22 all the ill to the sea scribe Arakel Sarkavag, attributed of sin accumulated by those who received the wrath of God: the epidemic of death through the sword, and starvation was not the end, he wrote, because after that the wolves dug into the graves and ate the dead.23
659
compounded by heavy taxation, These conditions, wave of immigration of the Armenians in the first resulted According to Arakel Armenia to Isfahan. from historical this first wave historian, contemporary the Davrizhetsi, other included both Armenian notables, of immigration they were: property owners, and peasants; Sarukhan beg and his brother Nazar . . . Jalal beg Oghlan Keshish and Ghalabeg, Melik and his cousins, Sujum, Melik Pashik, Melik Haigazn, Melik Baben and of four Armenian villages inhabitants the entire and asked for the Shah's proemigrated to Persia, in Isfahan. and settled tection Armenian merAt the time there were already individual One of these prominent merchants, chants in Isfahan. a royal edict in 1586 granting Khwajah Nazar, had received and freedom to trade widely protection him individual within the realm of Safavid Persia.25 of the Immigration from the war-torm borderlands was not confined to Safavid empire to its secure interior such as It included Kurdish chieftains, Armenians alone. and various Georgian Ghazi Kh&n and Hayat Beg Ulamayoghli, from the Ottoman camp. Others noblemen disaffected from the chrofleeing peasnats included poverty-stricken persecution.26 and taxation religious heavy wars, nic near in Etchmiadzln, The Armenian Catholicisate Church, iniErevan, the center of the Armenian Apostolic shah with the new rule of Safavid Persia, contacts tiated a bone of contenThe Catholicisate, cAbbas I (1587-1629). indebted and heavily tion between rival Catholicoses, to regain attempt surely would convinced that Shah CAbbas treaty the of a Ottoman-Persian as result lost territories One of the contact with Shah cAbbas. of 1590, established went to Isfahan. along with two Archibishops, Catholicoses, by the shah who, motivated to They were well received to his realm and classes commercial and artisan attract of Shicite Muslim, coalition to forge an anti-Ottoman in his Georgian and Armenian leaders of Transcaucasia 660
forthcoming campaigns against the Ottomans to recapture the lost territories of Armenia, Georgia, Kurdistan, Azerbayjan and Tabriz, its center, encouraged and welcomed 27 disaffected leaders and emigrees from the Ottoman empire. Sh&h cAbbas accepted various Armenians into his service and according to Sherley was impressed with their competence and abilities.28 The second stage of Armenian immigration to Isfahan is closely tied in with the 1603 campaign of ShAh cAbbas That year the Safavid ruler violated I. the treaty of 1590 with the Ottoman empire and invaded Ottoman domains. He entered Iranian Azerbayjan and conquered Tabriz and Nakhchevan. The inhabitants of the Armenian city of Julfa, located on the left bank of the Araxes river, welcomed the shah with open arms and much enthusiasm: they handed him the silver keys of the city, and gave him an impressive a procession reception: of the clergy, nobility and notables of the city, all dressed finely for the occasion, received him with candles, incense, religious and secular songs. The shah was housed in the residence of Khwijah Khatchig, who offered to him trays full of gold coins as his token gift. During the reception wine was offered from golden cups.29 Julfa had emerged as a major commercial center during the second half of the sixteenth century. It had an estimated population of ten to twelve thousand, some two thousand houses and seven churches. It was located on the overland trade route that linked the Transcaucasus to Iranian Azerbayjan, hence the Ottoman empire, and through the Caspian or Khurasan to Central Asia. The commercial activities of this Armenian city were not confined to just those areas. The sphere of its commercial and financial transactions reached to India, Venice and other cities of Italy as well as other parts of Persia and the Ottoman empire. itself, The city served as an important center of east-west trade, and many of the merchants of Julfa served either as representatives or brokers of various European and other commercial firms and interests .30 661
Shah cAbb5s was impressed by what he saw. He must roles that such by the possible been fascinated have also and wide conelement, with its ready capital an active could perform for the development of the realm and tacts, The Armenian merof the Safavid dynasty. the interests of Julfa were well suited for such a chants and artisans in Asia and Europe and the presence their contacts role: commercial and urban of Armenians in many of the strategic with culof the Middle East, their acquaintance centers the langwith familiarity their and tures of the region of the peoples of the East and West uages and traditions to perform well as the economic placed them in a position Persia. of the Safavid dynasty and Shicite entrepreneurs century there were Armenians During the sixteenth In the court of the Mughal emperors, in India and Goa. posts and served as Armenians occupied high administrative century and As early as the fifteenth interpreters.32 merArmenian there were of the sixteenth, the beginning of are There reports chants in Malabar and Cochin.33 Armenian merchants in Central Asia at the turn of the sixand beginBy the end of the sixteenth teenth century.34 English merchants were century, ning of the seventeenth rugs, spices, some of their major wares (silk, purchasing who from the Armenian merchants of Constantinople, etc.) had brought them from India and Persia via the overland There were Armenian merchant communities in route,35 Russia, Pothe Crimea, Kiev and Volga regions, Georgia, Linito I.A. According Rumania.36 and land, Bulgaria chenko, "In southern Russia and Poland it was so customary to see the Armenians in the role of traders of the eastern goods were known of oriental commerce that a whole series There was an Armenian caravanas 'Armenian goods' .37 century and many serai in Moscow in the late sixteenth active merchants trading for Czar Ivan IV.38 According to in 1596 there was an Armenian shop on St. Ghevond Alishan, wool and rugs.39 in cotton, Mark's Square in Venice dealing of the wealth of combination It was the appealing that position the Julfa merchants and their international of the Armenians I to transplant CAbbAs prompted Shah 662
Julfa en masse from their homeland to Isfahan. In doing of short and long so the shah aimed to achieve a variety range goals. His immediate military objective, similar and lay waste to that of Shah Tahmasp's, was to depopulate the territories that lay between the retreating Safavid forces and the advancing Ottoman ones, in that way maki the area a liability rather than an asset for the Ottoman armies. In any event, Shah CAbbas was determined not to let the wealth of Julfa and its dominant position in overland trade be controlled by the Ottomans. By re-locating the merchants who carried on the trade between Persia, Central Asia and India, and the Mediterranean and European world, trade which had until then moved through the Ottoman empire, Shah cAbbas hoped also to change that long established trade route itself, to one which would by-pass the Ottoman empire entirely by coming down through southern Persia and the Persian Gulf, remaining at all times under Persian control. Moving the Julfa Armenians was crucial to this hope. of Isfahan On the transformation of his capital into a major trade center, Shah CAbbas also wanted, through the intermediary of the Armenian entrepreneurs, to control the silk industry which was a state monopoly. At the same time he could establish control or over a class, a specific ethnic element, situated in Isfahan under the immediate eye of the monarch, which could deal with and compete as Persian subjects against European merchants, a degree of independence thus retaining for Persia without of the realm and hurting its trade and the prosperity The conscious or unconscious over-all policy dynasty. of Shah cAbbas I seems to have been to develop objective as secure bases, central Persia's not easily provinces accessible to external enemies, and then later to develop of his empire. the borderlands In pursuit of these objectives, in 1604 Shah cAbbas ordered the move of Armenians and other populations from of Ararat to Persia. the valley Accoding to Davrizhetsi "all the inhabitants of Armenia be them Christian, Jewish or Muslim",40 were ordered to move out of their homes and 663
to a new homeland in Persia proper. to adapt themselves care Of all these people Sh&h CAbb&s took most particular Three days of the Julfa Armenians. of the deportation were allowed to them to cross the River Araxes into PerThis was due, sia, along with their movable belongings. that the to the shah's determination among other things, Julfa Armenians must keep their wealth if they were to perform the economic role for which they were being taken them Persian forces were ordered to assist to Isfahan. In order to destroy any of the river. in their crossing of Julfa that their deporhopes amongst the inhabitants might be a temporary one, Shah transplantation or tation of the city.41 CAbbas I ordered the complete destruction Shih cAbbas succeeded in his short and long range Ottoman forces led by Sinan Pasha crossed the objectives: lands in pursuit of the Safavid forces and devastated they had to return Exhausted, reached the Araxes river. giving Shah cAbbas enough time to to Van for the winter, the year he defeated regroup his armies and the following Ottoman forces. of the Armenians into Persia also Transplantation throughThey were dispersed served its intended purpose. Darband, and Tabriz, Qazvin, Gilan, Enzeli, out the land: Most important of all, Kashan.42 Shah cAbbas successfully removed the Armenians of Julfa to Isfahan. The exact number of Armenians taken to Persia is not clear. during the wars of Shah CAbbas (1603-29) the number at 60, 000 families estimated Arakel Davrizhetsi removed not on one, two, or three, but or 300,000 souls many occasions.4i of course caused mass dislocations Such forcible such as the ArmeContemporary sources, much suffering. Antonio de Govea, the Avgustino Badgetsi, nian chronicler Spanish Ambassador to the court of cAbbas, and Iskandar about the misery and suffering Munshi provide many details disthat were the natural accompaniment to these massive The ravages of the extremely cold winter of locations.
664
producing toll taken by starvation, 1604 and the terrible were reported by Antonio of cannibalism, some instances Many, unable or too weak to swim the Araxes, de Govea.44 Others dies in epidewere driven into it and drowned. at the time, written mics.45 Of the many lamentations perhaps that of Stepannos Vardapet sums up the many feelings of those who were being deported from their homeland; and suffering are expressed humiliation sorrow, nostalgia, in the following terms: innocent and without advice Poor, Armenian people, and naked hungry, thirsty Dispersed, in Khurasan On your way to captivity You endured hundreds and thousands of ills But you did not set foot out of your sweet country. and mothers' Now you are abandoning your fathers' graves your houses and churches to others.6 And surrendering
The FoundinZg of New Julfa in the fate Shah cAbbas took a personal interest of the displaced In 1605 he estabArmenians of Julfa. lished them in a suburb of Isfahan and from 1606 on a small township of their allowed them to being building own bearing the name of New Julfa.47 to The shah ordered Persian masons and engineers the new in building assist their Armenian counterparts many Muslims displaced The shah reportedly township.48 from their houses or other properties to make way for the and affecIn an effort to gain the loyalty Armenians.49 tion of the Armenians of New Julfa, Shah cAbbas granted permitting liberty, and free citizenship, them religious them to construct to elect their own their own churches, processions, and to hold public religious mayor (kalantar) Armenians had their even to the ringing of church bells. own courts and judges to settle and distheir differences were removed. on them as to clothing putes. Restrictions
665
The Armenian kalantar of New Julfa had jurisdicHe of Isfahan. tion over the Armenians in the vicinity taxes and collected the headman of each village selected of New Julfa had the The notables on behalf of the shah. Shah CAbbas also or escort. right to have a retinue diplomacy on the personal front. a friendly demonstrated and of his new sugjects to win the affection In an effort to others the esteem in which he held these to demonstrate to the homes of such visits Armenians, he paid periodic of New Julfa as Khw&jah Safar, Khwajah Nazar, and notables He Malikagha, Sultanum and Sarfraz. their children, He even to follow his example. encouraged his ministers of Easter and on the occasions attended church services the shah gave the kalantar of New In addition, Christmas. useThis was particularly Julfa one of his royal seals. otherwise bypassing travel, a facilitating of means ful as in making transactions and especially red-tape, necessary Finally, them with the shah's own seal. and guaranteeing loans to Armenians in order to the shah lent interest-free and indusof their businesses the establishmert facilitate The of New Julfa were light. Taxes for citizens tries. king also lent to Armenian peasants of the area who were in need of them oxen and other animals so that they might their new lands and build on them. According to till his pitting in cases of disputes Armenian tradition, against his Muslim ones, the Armenian subjects Christian In shah sided most of the time with his new subjects. that thus siding with the Armenians, the shah would stress their riches and their they had left their fatherland, trivial disputes therefore, homes, and had come to Persia; valued were guests. that fact they the not obscure should Furthermore it had cost the king one thousand tGmans to All these sacrifices, bring each Armenian to Isfahan. of the shah used to say, he had done not in the interest Such was the freethe Armenians but for that of Persia. dom Armenians enjoyed that when in the bazaar disputes arose between a Muslim and an Armenian, the Armenian had the equal right with the Muslim to curse and cuss in kind, without fear of retribution.50 Over a score
of churches 666
were built
in New Julfa.
Thirteen are still in existence. The two largest are All Saviours Cathedral, constructed in 1606 and rebuilt in 1655, and the Church of Bethlehem, built in 1627.51 The of New Julfa has been estimated at initial population but their numbers increased so that by 1630 15-20,,000, there were some thirty thousand Armenians in New Julfa, and perhaps some fifty thousand other Armenians in twentyfour Armenian villages of in the vicinity established in the region of Peria.52 Isfahan, The Armenian community of Isfahan and Peria constiunit under the auspices tuted a new administrative of the of Etchmiadzin. Catholicosate It. had its own bishop who assumed jurisdiction over the Armenians of Shiraz, HamadarA Rasht, Anzali, Kashan, Qazvin, Tehran, Basra, and Baghdad. The New Julfa See had jurisdiction over 74 villages.53 New Julfa not only became a religious center for the Armenians of Persia but a cultural center as well. During the seventeenth and eighteenth the centuries, bishop of New Julfa, who oversaw the administrative and religious affairs of the Armenian community, was in charge of its educational too. enterprise During the 1630's an advanced school was founded by Bishop Khachadoor. It was a University called or a Lyceum and its curriculum consisted of religious subjects, "liberal sciences and metaphysics." The school was supported by contributions of the Armenian khwaijahs (notables) of New Julfa and provided education to their children. Among its famous graduates were Hagop Djughayetsi, who later became the Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church; Simeon, the philosopher, who wrote not only a grammar but a number of philosophical treatises on logic and metaphsics, and translated Aristotle; historian Khachadoor Djughayetsi, who wrote a contemporary history of Persia, and Kuchuk who wrote the history of Thamaz Quli Khan. Harootiun, Another graduate of this school was Hovhannes Vardapet. This man was sent by the bishop of New Julfa to Italy to familiarize himself with the art of printing, and he subsequently introduced the first printing press into Persia. The first printed book was the Saghmos (Psalms) 667
incluin 1638, which was followed by only a few others, in 1646, (Lives of the Church Fathers) ding Harants-Vark and in 1647 a Parzatomar. In New Julfa developed who became specialists painters mosaics. Economic Position
a whole school in miniatures
of New Julfa
of Armenian and mosaic
and the Armenians
century New Julfa grew Throughout the seventeenth 1617 Pietro Delle Valle, In wealth. size and in strength, that there were reported Isfahan, of in his discription Georin Isfahan: sects "Syrians, different of Christians number of gians in much greater abundance, and an infinite are extremely rich, carrying on These latter Armenians. with particularly most of the commerce of the country, are allowed to wear green, which Turkey . . . Christians A major portion of forbidden in Turkey."'55 is expressly and Europe was handled trade with India, Russia Persia's in establishments had who trading by the Armenians,56 and Europe57 Russia of cities Persia, all the major almost of the Persian the wool and silk supplies and controlled in the spice and European empire and dealt extensively Since the Indian-Persian-Central traffic.58 clothing Armenian merchants Asian trade passed through Afghanistan, centers as in such focal transit themselves established merArmenian were There Kabul, Herat and Kandahar.59 seventeenth the of the beginning during Holland in chants century and Armenians traded with Hollad as well as Moscow, Sweden Poland and Germany, Tonkin, Java and the PhilipWhen Olearius went to Persia in 1637 with an pines.tO he was struck by the embassy from the Duke of Holstein, and the internaits cosmopolitanism wealth of Isfahan, "There is not any nation of its trade: character tional of Europe, who sends not almost indeed in all Asia, nor above are ordinarily . There . . to Isfahan merchants its these Indians . . . Besides 12, 000 Indians in the city there is at Isfahan great numbers of Tartars . . - Turks, Dutch, French, English, Jews, Armenians, Georgians, 668
Italians,
and Spaniards. "6
about the particular causes Much has been written John of success of the enterprising New Julfa merchants. about Fryer, during his 1677 visit wrote the following them: in all the intricacies and subtilties Being skilled with them into the of trade at home, and travelling and remotest Kingdoms, become by their own industry, of their own kindreds honesty, the by being factors wealthiest men, being expert at bargains whenever and studying they come, evading thereby brokeridge, all the arts of thrift, will travel for fifty6 where we cannot for fifty thomans. shillings, are good characterisWhile thrift, honesty and industry of the New Julfa merchants success tics, the spectacular cannot be attributed solely to them. Three historical factors contributed to their unique position: a) the alliance of and protection afforded by the Safavid rulers, who considered them an asset to Safavid Persia and a major source of revenues; b) the crucial events of 1618, when the British, who held the monopoly on export of raw silk from Persia to Europe, lost that monopoly and, along with other Europeans were outbid by the New Julfa merchants who then obtained that monopoly; and c) Armenian merchants both on the major arteof New Julfa situated themselves ries of overland trade as well as of maritime trade, thus in Indian-Persian, Indian-Ottoman, involving themselves and Persian-RusCentral Asian-Ottoman, Persian-European sian trade. Thus they were competitors of the Levant Company, the Muscovy Company, and the East India Company. The monopoly of the silk trade became the major source source of wealth for the New Julfans and a crucial of revenue for the Safavid rulers. According to Issawi, the silk crop of Persia was estimated in the seventeenth century to be some 4,300,000 pounds, with an estimated domestic valule of some b550,000: the the 1670's the crop At the time the estimate was placed at 6,072,000 pounds.
669
a pound which Dutch Company was paying four to five florins to would have amounted to a total value of L2,000,000 In 1637 Olearius reported that every year 12,500,000.63 20,000 bales of Persian silk were exported to Europe (each This should give some idea of bale weighed 276 pounds). of New Julfa merchants. the magnitude of the transactions of another In 1667 Armenians became beneficiaries who Czar Aleksei Mikhailovych, Russia's major opportunity. had turned down the attempts of the Swedes, the Dutch, the in the Eastdirectly French and the English to participate ern trade through Russia, granted the Armenian merchants of Isfahan the right to travel north from Astrakhan across to (mainly silk) Russia and to sell Persian merchandise of the Armeposition The monopolistic European buyers.64 after nian merchants in Russia was further strengthened 1688 when they concluded a commercial agreement with Sweden dealing with the export of Persian goods via Russia to Scandinavia.65 The master plan of Sh&h cAbbas I seemed to have a Persian community, located in the capital succeeded: of the Safavids and under the immediate control of the allied to the shah as the source of monarchy, closely and patronage which secured their wealth, and protection of their dependent upon him for the continued exercise had become a major economic force in the privileges, between the New relationship The symbiotic Middle East. to Julfa community and the Safavid rulers had contributed foreign trade and the dramatic development of Persia's which had more than doubled the Safavid monarch's revenues, and contritomans yearly,66 now amounted to nine million buted to the emergence of a healthy and opulent center in The silk class.67 New Julfa complete with a large artisan ahd provided the industry and its Armenian entrepreneurs income.68 with an independent shah and his successors tomans for each bale of silk (Armenian merchants paid fifty they bought from the shah and a poll tax of one mithqal Most impor(4.69 grams) of gold per each adult male.)69 of the Armenian merchants stayed in the profits tantly, Persia. 70
670
The merchants had also managed, probably accidenof Shih cAbbas' tally, to accomplish another objective economic and political policies: by outbidding the British and other European merchants for Persia's silk, they staved off for at least fifty years, the direct European control of the Persian economy and the introduction of the system and of capitaulations. They were fierce competitors detractors of English and Dutch merchants and companies. When New Julfa was at the zenith of its power, there was no attempt to institutionalize and update the policies of a policy which had been Shah cAbbas I by his successors, geared to generate and sustain the commercial and economic health of the empire. At a time when European powers and European East Indian companies were embarking upon major offensives to capture the Persian market, the Safavid rulers Shah Sulayman (1666-94) and Shah Sultan Husayn (1694-1722) were either not aware of the challenge or not ready to meet it. Instead of a continued partnership, two embarked upon capricious of these latter policies and open persecution of Armenians, making forced conversion deals with European merchants and firms at the expense of their own subjects, using Armenians and Jews as scapegoats for such things as crop failures and drought, encouraging of the law of apostasy whereby if a Jew or the application a Christian turned Muslim he would claim the property of his relatives. All of these were coupled with increasingly heavy taxes. New Julfa was no longer treated as the economic arm of the Safavid ruler, but rather as an open target and a limitless source of money. All of these things were happening at a time when Russian power was rising in the north, the East India Company's power was increasing in India and both were making overtures to Armenian merchants in an effort to co-opt them into their own service. backed by European governments and European missionaries, of capitulatory the direct beneficiaries agreements, were making a concerted effort to proselytize the Armenians into of Shah cAbbas opposed any mass conversion Catholicism. the Armenians into Catholicism and so did the Armenian and secular religious leadership of New Julfa. The shah's response to the missionaries had been "If they will change their religion [the Armenians] being his subjects, they
671
knowing how dangerous it will shall accept his [religion], be to have at least 50,000 at the devotion of the Church of Rome within his dominions."'71 After Shah cAbbas I, the matter became the subject within the Armenian comstruggles internecine of intense within the However, with the growing insecurity munities. and through it European protecSafavid realm, Catholicism to alternatives also became attractive tion or security some of the leaders and artisans of New Julfa. The attempts of Shah cAbbas I to divert the major overland trade routes from the Ottoman empire to the Persian Gulf had not been complemented by the development of of this Thus the beneficiaries a Persian merchant marine. in the long run, were the European joint stock diversion, of New citizens against whom the dispirited companies, were no match. abandoned by Shah cAbbsr' successors, Julfa, New Julfa was On the eve of the Afghan invasion, way, its traditional but in a declining still performing, role for the trade of the Safavid empire wouthout the beneand visionary however, of the dynamism, confidence fit, plans of Shah CAbbas. The Afghans gave the coup de grace of the post-1666 both to that role and the irresolution Safavid rulers.
NOTES 1.
2nd Edward G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia, vol IV, p. 3; Eugene Aubin, 1956-59), ed. (Cambridge: Persane," Revue du Monde "Le Chiisme et la nationalite 458. p. Musulman IV/2 (March 1908),
2.
of Islamic H.A.R. Gibb, "An Interpretation p. 60. Journal of World History I (1953),
3.
and explained by V. Tadhkirat al-MGluk, translated New Series Minorsky in E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Series. 1943), p. 188: "Like oil and water, the XVI (London:
672
History,"
Turcomans and Persians
did not mix freely."
4.
Ann K.S. Lambton, "Quils Custodiet Some Custodes: on the Persian Theory of Government," Reflections Studia Islamica VI (MCMLVI), pp. 125-126.
5.
Bernard Lewis, "Some observations on the significance of Islam," Studia Islamica of heresy in the history I (MCMLIII), p. 61; Browne, IV, pp. 23, 63, 69, 94-95. See also E. Eberhard, Osmanische Polemik gegen die HandSafawiden im 16. Jahrhundert nach arabischen schriften (Freiburg: 1970).
6.
Lambton, p. 133.
7.
Jean Chardin, Voyages du Chevalier Chardin en Perse et autres Lieux de l'Orient, Langes ed. (Paris: 1811), vol. V, pp. 132-33; Tavernier, Voyages, pp. 68-69. For a survey of the Jewish community of Persia, see Nemiah Robinson, Persia and Afghanistan and their Jewish communities (New York: 1953).
8.
Hebrew chronicles of Babai b. Lutf of Kashan and Babai b. Farhad provide versified lamentations depicting and forcible persecution conversion of Jews to Islam during 1642-1666. See W. Bacher's French translation of their chronicle: "Les Juifs de Perse au XVIIe et au XVIIIe sibcle," Revue des Etudes Juives LII, pp. 77-97, 234-37; LIII, pp. 85-110. According to Robin in Persia (London: Christians E. Waterfield, 1973), p. 72, "By 1678 the persecution of all the minorities reached a peak. Many thousands of Jews were murdered:'
9.
Le P. Raphael du Mans, Estat de la Perse en 1660 (Paris: 1890), p. 46. According to du Mans, such was the hatred of Shah Ismacll towards Jews that wherever he found them, he blinded them (ibid., p. Du Mans also reports 274). pp. 193-94) that (ibid., in certain regions of Persia the Jews were forced to become Muslims but that they secretly frequented their synagoguges.
673
10.
See also L. Lockhart, The Fall Chardin, VI, p. 133. of of the Safavi Dynasty and the Afghan occupation Persia (Cambridge: 1957), p. 73.
11.
du Levant par le relations Nouvelles Du Mans, p. 49. 1668), vol. II, pp. 283-83. (Paris: Sr. Poullet According to Lockhart, p. 73, n. 5: "The law was It Shah cAbbas I. tolerant passed by the usually was
12.
by Shah CAbbas
reenacted
Christians
in Persia
II.
.
the
affected
. It
even more than it
did the Jews."
the story of a Jewish community in Persia" "Isfahan, in the Josua Starr Memorial Volume (New York: 1953), p. 126 as quoted by Lockhart, p. 74.
from the most Early 13. .See his The History of Persia, Period to the Present Time (London: MDCCC), vol. II, p. 425. pp. 72-73.
14.
Lockhart,
15.
The Travels of Sir John Chardin Vol. I, p. 360.
16.
De Hammer, Historie vol. IV, p. 225.
17.
See Tazkirah-i 51-52.
18.
Ibid.,
19.
1912), vol. Divan Hayote Patmootian (Tiflis: 1946), 19ff; Lec,Hayote Patmottium (Yerevan: III, pp. 182-83.
20.
Ibrahim Pechevi, Tarihi Pechevi in Aram Vol. II, pp. 46-48; Sharaf Khan Bitlisi, Hayastani yev Safratian, ed., Turkakan aghbioornere Hayeri masin (Yerevan:
de l'Empire
(London:
1686),
Ottoman (Paris:
Shah Tahmasp (Calcutta:
1912),
1835)
pp.
pp. 58-60.
674
X, pp. vol.
21.
des Kourdes par Scher Scharafnameh ou histoire Prince de Bidlis, publiee par V. Veliaminof-Zernof (St. Petersburg: 1860), vol. II, p. 286 and Iskandar MunshiL, Tarlkh-i CAlam-4r&-i Cabb&sl (Tehran: 1897), vol. I, p. 231 and vol. II, p. 345.
22.
H. Adjarian and H. Manandian, Hayots Nor Vkanere 1903), pp. 413-14. (Vagharshapat:
23.
B. Sarkisian, Matenadarani pp. 667-68.
24.
Hayots Patmootiun (Vagharshapat: Arakel Davrizhetsi, 1896), pp. 16-17; Harootium T. Ter Havhaniants, Patmootiun Nor Djughayu vor Haspahan (Nor Djugha: vol. I, pp. 10-11. 1880-81),
25.
Ibid.,
26.
Davrizhetsi,
27.
Ibid., p. 17. Malachia Ormanian, Azgapatum, Hai Oughapar Yekeghetsvo Antskere Skizben minchev mer 1914), pp. 2291, Orere: 1221-1808 (Constantinople: Leo, vol. III, pp. 237-38. 2293.
28.
Denison Ross, ed., Sir Anthony Sherley and his Persian 1933), pp. 159-63 and passim. Adventure (London:
29.
Hovhaniants,
30.
of Julfa see Leo. Ghevond Alishan, For a description John 1893), pp. 411-13. Siunik Kam Sisakan (Venice: 1905), (London: Cartwright, Purchas His Pilgrims vol. VIII, pp. 498-99.
31.
and Christianity P. Thomas, Christians Pakistan 1954), pp. 55, 87, (London:
32.
Father
vol.
Mayr tsootsak Hayeren Mkhitarian ee Venetik
I,
Pierre
dzeragrats
pp. 11, note 5 and p. 158.
pp. 14,
vol.
I,
16.
p. 13; Davrizhetsi,
du Jarric,
675
S.J.,
p. 16.
in India 122.
and
Akbar and the Jesuits:
an Account of the Jesuit Missions to the Court of Akbar, Sir E. Denison Ross and Eileen Power, eds. (New York: 1926), p. 17. Father Monserrate, The Commentary of Father Monserrate, on his Journey S.J.-, to the Court of Akbar (Oxford: 1922), trans. from the Latin by J.S. Hoyland and annotated by S.N. p. 2. Father Monserrate even reports that Banerjee, the Mughal emperor Akbar "was deceived by the common but erroneous supposition that all of the Christians of Asia are Armenians, " p. 137. Thomas, pp. 106-07. Mesrovb J. Seth., Armenians in India (Calcutta: 1937), p.
1.
33.
Alishan,
34.
of Aghtamar wrote in 1519 about Catholicos Grigoris an Armenian merchant who reached Samarkand and Bukhara and then India. See K. Kostaniants, Grigoris Aghtamartsin yev eer taghere (Tiflis: 1898), pp. 88-91.
35.
George Sandys, 1610 (London:
36.
A.G. Abrahamian, Hamarot urvagids hai Saghtavaireri patmutian (Erevan: 1964); on the colonicsof Georgia, pp. 91-111; on Kiev and Volga regions, pp. 112-25; on Bulgaria, pp. 305-27; on Rumania, pp. 328-61; on For Russia, pp. 302-402; on the Crimea, pp. 157-96. a general survey of the Armenian colonies of the see Arshak Alpoyajian, Patmootiun hai gaghperiod, takanutian 2 and 3. (Cairo: 1955), 1961), vols.
37.
"Haikakan gaghtavayrer Ukraniaium L. Khachikian, See also XVI-XVII DD,"1Teghekagir 4 (1954), p. 50. translated W. Lozinski, Patrycyeti Mieszezanstwo, into Armenian by H. Zavrian, Hairenik Monthly, 7th year, nos. 9-12, who provides the names of Armenian and informs us merchants trading with Constantinople, that Polish Queens often sent Armenian merchants to
p. 475.
A Relation of a Journey 1627), vol. I, p. 86.
676
begun in A.D.
the East to bring specified luxury products and that many Oriental luxury goods in Poland were known as "Armenian goods." 38.
V.K. Vosganian, "iHayere Moskvayum XV-XVII darerum," Patmabanasirakan Handes 1 (1971), p. 31.
39.
Alishan,
40.
Davrizhetsi,
41.
Hovhaniants, I, p. 23-25. L.G. Daneghian, "Hayeri brnagaghtn Iran 17-rd daroom: Araken Davrizhetsu tvyalnerov," Lraber 8 (1969), p. 69.
42.
Hovhaniants,
43.
Davrizhetsi, pp. 52-53. See also Abrahamian, p. 253 and Daneghian, p. 70. H. Arakelian, Parskastani Hayere (Vienna: 1911), Part I, p. 97.
44.
Antonio de Govea, Relation des grandes guerres et victolres obtenues par le roi de Perse, Chah Abbas, contre les empereurs de Turquie Mohamet et Achmets son fils (Rouen: 1646), p. 361. See also Leo, pp. 254-56.
45.
Davrizhetsi, Patkanian, Petersburg:
46.
in Bazmavep Shepanos Vardapet, "Voghb Dzughayetsvots," Also in Knar Haykakan (Venice: 1847), pp. 94-95. (St. Petersburg: 1868), p. 134 and Leo, p. 252.
47.
There are no monographs in European languages on the and evolution history of the Armenian community of Persia in general and that of New Julfa in particular. The best work on the latter is still the two subject volume study by Harootiun T. Her Hovhaniants (in Armenian) published in New Julfa in 1880-81. Soviet
Hai-Venent,
p. 415.
p. 38.
I,
pp. 30-31.
Du Mans, pp.
181-83,332.
in K. pp. 60-61. Avgustino Badgetsi, ed., Neshkhark Matenagrootian Hayots (St. 1884), pp. 6-7, 100.
677
articles have published many valuable Armenian scholars facets and phases of the Armenian community on various but so far no major monograph has replaced of Isfahan, the important work of Leo, Khojayakan Kapital (Erevan: to study the impact of the financial 1934), an effort H.D. Papawealth of the Armenian merchant class. Dokumenti Matenadarana: ed., Persidskiye zian's, 1956, 1959) is a valuable Ukazi, 2 vols (Erevan: pubof the Safavid rulers, edicts the of collection Armenian and Persian, lished in three languages, An important work also is that of L.G. Russian. 1941), Patmootiun Periayi Hayeri (Antilias: Minassian, John near Isfahan. dealing with the Armenian villages The Armenian Churches New Julfa, excellent Carswell's a major 1968), fills (Oxford: and other Buildings monofirst the published recently Raiin Ismail gap. graph in the Persian language dealing with the general those of of the Armenians in Iran including history 1970). ArmanI (Tehran: See his Iranian-i New Julfa. There is a sketchy and general survey of the Armenians in Christians of Persia in Robin E. Waterfield, For a survey of the New 1973). Persia (London: see century, Julfa community in the seventeenth "The Armenian Community of isfahan George Bournatian, Century," The Armenian Review in the Seventeenth and XXV, no. 97, pp. 33-50. 27-45 pp. XXIV, No. 96, Shah cAbbas avval Zindigani-i Falsafi, 1962), vol. III, p. 205.
48.
Nasrullah (Tehran:
49.
Hovhaniants,
50.
For the rights enjoyed by the Armenians of New Ibid. Grigor I, pp. 35-48, vol. II. see ibid., Julfa, 1915), (Jerusalem: Zhamanakagrootiun Daranaghtsi,
p. 39.
51.
I,
p. 45.
Ormanian, Azgapatoom, pp. 2301-02.
al-muluk, op. cit., (London:
L.G. Minasian, p. 202. and L. Lockhart, 474 p. 26. 1960), p.
Carswell,
p. 6-12 passim.
678
Raiin,
Tadhkirah
Lockhart, pp. 34-36. Persian Cities
pp. 82-84.
52.
See Hovnaniants, I, pp. 30-32; Minasian, pp. 28-33; Lockhart, The Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, pp. 474, 477.
53.
See Hovnaniants,
54.
On the cultural life of Julfa, see Khachadoor Djughayetsi, Patmootiun Parsits (Vagharshapat: 1905), pp. 116-20; Abrahamian, pp. 261-63; Raiin, pp. 158-61; "Nor Djughayi Carswell, pp. 90-91; M.M. Ghazarian, XVII dari Hai Nekartchootiune," Patmabanasirakan Handes, no. 1 (1968), pp. 193-202.
55.
Pietro delle Valle, ton, ed., A general Interesting voyages IX, pp. 27,43*
56.
Sainsbury, ed., Calenadar of State Papers, p. 23. Alexander Hamilton, "A New Account of the East Indies" in Pinkerton, op. cit., vol. VIII, p. 293. John Bell of Antermony, "Travels,"ibid., VII, p. 283. Sir T. Herbert, Travels, ibid., IX, pp. 191-92. Travels of Fray Sebastian II, p. 361. Manrique (1629-1643), Alfred C. Wood, A History of the Levant Company (Oxford: 1835), p. 147.
57.
Herbert,
58.
John Bruce, Annals of the Honorable East India Company (London: 1810), vol. II, p. 618 and Willan, The Early History of the Russian Company: 1553-1603, p. 60.
59.
Manrique, II, pp. 342-43. See also Henry Bernford's account of his journey from Agra to Tatta (1639) in The English Factories in India: 1637-1641 (Oxford: 1912), pp. 134, 135; Mesrovt Seth, p. 207.
60.
W.N. Sainsbury, Calendar of State Papers, pp. 211-12; du Mans, pp. 342-53, 368; J.B. Tavernier, Six Voyages of Tavernier (London: 1677), pp. 158-159.
pp.
II,
191-92
pp.
105-08.
in John PinkerTravels in Persia, of the Best and Most collection and travels (London: 1811), vol.
and Manrique,
679
II,
p. 361.
The Voyages
1662).
(London:
and Travels
61.
Adam Olearius,
62.
John Fryer, A New Account of East India 1909-15) vo. II, p. 249. (London:
63.
Charles Issawi, 1914 (Chicago:
64.
XVII "Hai-Rusakan Harabercotiunnere V. Vosganian, Samuel pp. 59-62. no. 1 (1948), darum," Teghekagir, H. Baron, ed., The Travels of Olearius in seventeenth p. ii. 1967), intro., century Russia (Stanford:
65. 65.
66. 67.
68.
The Economic History 1971), p. 12.
V. Parsamian et al., Sbornik v XVII vv: 337ff. Tazkirat
al-m5luk,
and Persia
of Iran:
1800-
otnosheniia ed., Armiano-Russkie dokumentov, vol. I, pp. 224,
p. 175.
among other included, The ranks of these artisans masons, printers, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, things, rug furriers, book binders, watchmakers, carpenters, I, p. 189 and Hovhaniants, etc. tailors, weavers, Raiin, pp. 129-31. Tagkirat
al-muluk,
p. 14.
p. 180.
69.
Ibid.,
70.
yev V.A. Bayburdian, "Nor Djughayi Vatchurakanootiune IranumV, Kapital Antesakan expantsian arevmtayevropakan p. 219. P.H., no. 3 (1966),
71.
Thomas Boys to the Earl of Salisbury, ed., p. 186. in Sainsbury,
680
June 10,
1609
CITY AND RIVER IN IRAN: URBANIZATION AND IRRIGATION OF THE IRANIAN PLATEAU BRIAN SPOONER
I.
Introductor
Isfahan perspective, If viewed in full historical claim to have been the most important city may reasonably It is also the most studied. on the Iranian plateau. monuments may However, although its unique historical of other have (compared with the historiography possibly commensurate attention scholarly received great cities) attenlittle relatively historical with the city's role, history. and ecological tion has been paid to its social What Why did Shah cAbbAs choose Isfahan for his capital? the city of that distinguish factors are the geographical What were their Isfahan from the rest of the plateau? and political history of the for the social implications what was the role of the river, More specifically, city? Is it profitthe Zayandah Rud, in the growth of the city? between the relationship able to seek a cause and effect base of for the agricultural of irrigation organization and economic develeconomy and the political the region's are the discussions More generally, opment of the city? of to the investigation relevant raised by these questions of the Iranian plateau? the development of other cities from studying these quesThat is, what can be learned, and the of urbanization about general processes tions, change?l and cultural interrelation of technological In seeking
answers
to these
681
questions,
this
essay
the relevant approach and discusses takes an ecological and geographical data that are available. Such historical are offered suggested general answers as are tentatively a broader context of Isfahan' s with the aim of illuminating By pointthan is usually place in Persian history noted. that comparisons ing to general ecological (comparisons, to its total of a population is, in terms of the relation on the Iranian environment) between Isfahan and other cities between the plateau and other areas, and contrasts plateau, to the understanding it is hoped to make some contribution status of the city of Isfahan of the economic and political century and also both at its zenith during the seventeenth periods. during less illustrious could of course be asked. More specific questions they I do not believe At the present stage of research is A bibliography answers. would lead to more specific the sources of the more significant appended which includes for more specific lines of inquiry.2 data that are available are of sufficient In the meantime, the general questions as may be such discussion moment to merit discussion--even in what follows. offered
II.
Urbanization
and Irrigation
and ecological geographical What are the significant in the growth of Isfahan that brought it to a posifactors as the capital of tion where it was chosen and embellished academic a major empire? This question bridges several must in general--it urbanization since--like disciplines, in the "context of numerous, interrelated be investigated these are the Specifically, processes .3 developmental of a settled and cultural adaptation of social processes to the range of community, growing in size and density, and subsistence to the resources, productive potential them and to the exifor exploiting technologies available relations of economic and political with other gencies comto extrapolate and it should be possible communities, the development of by reconstructing parable processes of these processes The discussion other plateau cities. 682
falls within the purview of three major bodies of theoretical each of which is to some extent crossliterature, on central disciplinary: place theory and locational analysis, on urbanization, and on irrigation and society. to discuss the value of each It is necessary, therefore, of these briefly in the present context before proceeding further. a. It is a consequence of the cross fertilization of disciplines that has begun in recent years, that any consideration of why a certain social process developed in a certain place must take account of the mathematical developments in regional As with a similar science. mathematical development--game theory--this theory is certainly for the purpose of patterning interesting but its results, heuristic use does not yet appear to have been justified. Perhaps because it originated in northwestern Europe it proceeds from certain implicit presuppositions--in particular, ratio of population to territory, and the uniformity of that territory in relation to the subsistence and communications interests of the population--that are not justified on the Iranian plateau, although, as will be noted later, it is possible to discern some degree of regularity in the historical settlement pattern of the plateau. The most thorough investigation of the application of this body of theory in anthropology and prehistory, made by Adams for the Mesopotamian plains, has led to similar conclusions.4 The uneven and (mathematically) erratic distribution of soil and water supplies that could support settled agriculture, and of such features as march, desert, mountain and river that either preclude or channel arterial communication, reduces formal urban-centered hexagons to topological problems. Perhaps if central place theory could be used topologically by relation to specific maps of resources and other socially relevant features of the natural environment, it would be equally applicable to settlement patterns in all geographical settings. However, the suspicion lingers that after such modification nothing would essentially remain but a truism: ceteris paribus settlement As with the fashion for a partihierarchize. cular type of structural explanation, the fashion for 683
has tended sciences in the social explanation mathematical in favor of differences explanation to neglect generally At any rate it is difficult of similarity. of explanation to see in the context of the Iranian plateau what other can be drawn from the application or insights conclusions approach to the largely geographical of this theoretical asked in this essay. questions in settlement regularities The goal of detecting of a body of formal theory, through the application importance the relative and in this way of testing of course remains as in urbanization, of factors But it is equally important that valid as ever. on which formal theory rests be the assumptions for settlecongruent with the natural conditions ment [in the region under study].5 linked with is inseparably b. The study of urbanization of Robert McC. Adams, and with the developthe scholarship In the same in early southern Mesopotamia. ment of cities of the statement paper6 Adams has provided an excellent in southern of the process of urbanization complexity to the geographical attention Mesopotamia, with special There that concern us here. those factors largely factors-for other statements lack of similar is a conspicuous theorea real danger that abstract areas, and consequently from overwill suffer of urbanization discussion tical from a single source. Despite the paucity generalization this reasoning constiof data from the Iranian plateau, for the present part of the motivation tutes a significant essay. and the limitations the implications Adams discusses the development of cities data concerning of the extensive that have been acquired in the Mesopotamian plains--data methods of archaeological through sophisticated largely These data show changes in settlement surface survey. estabwith "the initial coincided that apparently patterns They have not so far been used to lishment of cities.",7 advanced any of the various theories support definitively in that area and at first to explain why cities developed 684
that
time.
Adams' data have, however, led to much greater sophistication in the discussion of the problem of urbanization, and a major point in this direction is made by Adams in the same paper: that developmental in processes the plains could not have been isolated but must have formed part of a much larger regional development.8 Unforthe state of research in the larger region-tunately, much less advanced for these purGreater Mesopotamia--is poses than on the Plains. The Iranian plateau--the geographical area in which Isfahan probably represents one of urban developments--could the earliest prove to be a most suitable area for comparison with the plains. This at any rate is a subsidiary of this essay. thesis Compared to the plains, on the plateau (as defined in III, below, if not generally) cities developed much later, in substantially different and were based on ecological conditions, somewhat different technologies. For these and other reasons urbanization on the plateau cannot usefully be studied by the same methods as on the plains. The plateau cities are "secondary" rather than "pristine" developments a dichotomy as (though this may prove to be as misleading the time-honored theoretical segregation between studies of primitive and of Western society). Such conspicuous differences may be valuable in that they allow us to approach the same problem from different types of data. But there is one very important factor that operates in both the plateau and the plains: the necessity of irrigation for the essential basis of a city's agricultural economy. However important other factors, such as communications and trade, may have been in the siting and growth of cities in either region, access to a reliable source of water for irrigation was always a primary consideration. A city could not develop without an adequate agricultural base. Because of the great importance of qanat irrigation in historical times, it tends to be forgotten that most plateau cities are sited on riversl0--and probably predate in some form--the introduction of qanats. Obviously, the existence of the Zayandah Rud does not explain why Isfahan developed into one of the most important cities 685
in the history have developed
of southwest Asia, but Isfahan could not where it did without such a water supply.
quesan adaptational introduces c. This consideration of can be drawn about processes what conclusions tion: and political the social and in particular urbanization, of the organifrom consideration development of Isfahan, of irrigation distribution problem of efficient zational Anthropologists source? riverine water from a seasonal tended toward the study of small commuhave traditionally to consider so that even when they are constrained nities, and a technology between an irrigation the interrelation to be on a level of complexity system, it is likely social However, far below that of a city the size of Isfahan. Julian H. Steward, showed special one anthropologist, a thus creating civilizations," in "irrigation interest of Isfahan. inclusive category that might be considered on the relationship theories "geopolitical" Wittfogel's and already current, were government and between irrigation concept his to a stimulus" "tremendous found them Steward evolution: of multi-linear of analysis After devoting many years to detailed aware of the and thoroughly Chinese culture history key world in several importance of water control this type of state (1938) described areas, Wittfogel or Hydraulic State. as an Hydraulic Society formuIn 1949, I undertook to extend Wittfogel's that the hydraulic the possibility lation by exploring with evolution began parallel societies or irrigation the plants and that use of domesticated the first and technology, development of local communities, achieveand religious aesthet'ic even intellectual, patterns ments as well as the economic and political courses. ran similar civilizations" that "irrigation I have argued elsewherel2 alone and that irrigation classification, is a misleading of paralfor the stipulation criterion is not a sufficient statement a summarizing comprehensive In lel evolution.
686
on the same issue,
Adams has written
that
of irriIt has also been argued that the practice gation was directly responsible for the formation of a managerial elite that in time came to exercise a monopoly of political and economic power. According to this "hydraulic the planning, theory," operaand maintenance of large scale irrigation tion, systems necessarily placed despotic powers in the hands of administrative specialists, enabling these specialists to concentrate surpluses in their hands and to consolidate the earliest state apparatuses. This view, however, considerably overestimates the degree of centralized control needed for what were prevailingly canal systems of very limited scale and complexity. Moreover, ethnographic evidence suggests that the problems of irrigation were successfully met at the level of the local community throughout the period when the new elites characteristic of a civilization were being formed. Hence, at least in the Mesopotamian context the managerial of requirements a less important irrigation systems seem to represent historical force in the precipitation of the urban revolution than the differential degrees of access to the main productive land and water, resources, differences that tended to encourage political rival'13 ries and social stratification. The situation if irrigation becomes clearer systems are broken down for analytical purposes into three subsystems: 1) the organization of investment for the development and maintenance of the system; 2) the distribution of water flow among land parcels; and 3) the distribution of water rights among those responsible for cultivation. The of these is economic, the second temporal, first and the third social. All three subsystems are of course closely interrelated, but their relative significance in the relationship between irrigation and society varies according to the total technological context. Large scale systems do not necessarily differ from smaller systems in the economic subsystem.'' They may or may not require a
687
organization-greater degree of centralized significantly or men--for the maintenance or expanof money, materials sion of the system. point of view, therefore, From the sociological according to scale or analytically rather than distinguish or even single size between small scale and large scale, it would seem more community and multi-community systems, on the criteuseful to emphasize an economic distinction between systems where rion not of size but of complexity, and maintain his own operator can control the individual of part of the system, whether or not he knows the details wherein and systems systems"), ("simple the total system and maintenance required to keep the system the engineering of indiviare beyond the ability as a whole in production formed for the purposes of actual duals or of the groupings ("complex systems"). cultivation that most On the Iranian plateau it seems likely base dependent on from an agricultural originated cities known or nothing is definitely Little irrigation. riverine about how that development took place, but in the case of to since the zayandah Rud continues particularly Isfahan, economy, it is role inthe city's play an indispensable in general terms how that development to discuss possible is reconstruction The most likely may have taken place. in the region of Isfahan would have that agriculture until irrigation depended upon simple systems of riverine the political a area (c.f. larger in developments political led to to make Isfahan the Safavid capital) decision which in turn both by imnigration, in population increases the development of complex systems. allowed and necessitated source in the nature of the riverine Despite the difference for to that posited is very similar this reconstruction Similar reconstruction southern Mesopotamia by Adams.15 remainder of this The Helmand. the for seems feasible look at the evidence for and essay is devoted to a closer Such "model buildof such reconstructions. implications for is essential basis, ing," however shaky the factual for further research. of designs formulation the efficient 688
III.
The rim of the saucer'6
If the intramontane agricultural regions on the west are left Azarbayjan) (Fars, Kermanshah, Hamadan, Kurdistan, to conceptualize the Iranian plataside, it is convenient The center of the saucer is mostly eau as a vast saucer. and no or no cultivation flat or rolling desert with little Even isolated oases. habitation except in a scattered and tends to be not nomadic pastoral activity is restricted on the oases for the consumpbut reliant at least partially of tion of stubble and failed crops and the cultivation of these oases, and alfalfa. Our knowledge of the history would be greatly of the human use of the deserts generally, In the meantime archaeological study. improved by detailed and toponymy it is reasonon the basis of textual material cases they date able to suggest that in most, if not all, served as back to pre-Islamic times, and have traditionally between the communications stepping stones for arterial eastern and western halves of the Iranian world.17 It is these communications, not yet possible, however, to discuss or the oases, in the context of the initial development of cities on the plateau. fans The rim of the saucer is formed by the alluvial that slope down from the Alburz and Zagros and the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. fans (The alluvial around the mountains of Quhistan or Qacinat in eastern Iran fans approxiof the alluvial are analogous.) The limits most mate very closely to the lOOOm. and 1500m. contours: of the desert center of the saucer lies below lOOOm., and of the the alluvial fans tend to give waT to the foothills encircling ranges at circa 1500m. 8 many important routes passed Although, historically and both east-west through the desert center of the saucer, routes are those that passed north-south, the most arterial round the northwest and northern sections of the rim of the the "Great Silk Route."119 Alsaucer, and particularly, of the earlicenter of gravity though the major political est historically known period of Iran's culture history was from early well to the west and southwest of the saucer,
689
a matter for speculation--a early is still times--how centers began to develop urban of major agricultural series The importance of these rim around the rim. institutions outside the saucer on the Mesopocompared to cities cities since the but steadily tamian plains has grown gradually Many of them have served at least Achaemenian period. At various periods Tehran, Rayy and as capitals. briefly in the stramajor urban centers Varamin have constituted tegic area between the Jaj Rud and the Karaj river where Then, routes from the south and west converge. arterial around the rim we pass Semnan, Damghan (a moving clockwise Shahrud (which succeeded Bistam successor of Hecatompylos), Sabzaas the urban center at another important junction), var, Nishapur, Mashhad (which succeeded Tus in a process examples illustrating that is one of the best historical urbanization), in of factors religious the role Herat, Other Kashan, Qummand Qazvin. Qandahar, Yazd, Ardistan, less important towns, such as smaller or historically NarFarah, Bampur, Jiruft, Birjand, Khwar, Isfarayin, thus mashir, Khabis and Nacin could be added to the list, of settleafter all some degree of regularity suggesting such Other more important cities, ment (see above, II.a.). fan in an alluvial on a similar as Kirman, are situated Isfahan holds range. basin behond the first intramontane Most of the major focuses of Iranian a similar position. (no Iranian city has enjoyed continuous identity cultural hegemony), since the Arab conquest cut short the cultural have been in Iranian claim to the Mesopotamian plains, languages Turkish and other minority these rim cities. less progress in the saucer have made significantly While it the rim) than in the rest of Iran. (including a special has held always Shiraz must be remembered that it is the rim of the geography, place in Iranian cultural of the Iranian culthe heartland saucer that constitutes ture area. It was not always of the second millennium depend mainly on deficient that when seems certain arrived on the plateau,
Although any reconstruction so. B.C. on the plateau must still it documentary materials,20 the Indo-European speakers forces arose the only centripetal 690
from the cities and those forces never of the plains, entirely assumed an Indo-European identity. Except for data on the changing distrifragmentary archaeological bution of ceramic traditions, almost nothing is known of the plateau as a whole at that time. Why had society suddenly evolved so fast on the plains and not on the plateau? Though the absolute chronology may never be susceptible of detailed explanation, it is logical to hypothesize that the precedence of the plains over the plateau was due to the existence on the plains of a large and reliable water supply. The development of irrigated grain cultivation in a of localized, series simple (see above II.c.) systems (whatever caused it at that particular time) presumably led to an increase in food productivity such as the world had never seen, and (despite recent claims of affluence for numforaging societies) may feasibly have drawn increasing bers of people from surrounding regions. As the population along the rivers increase through immigration, it is reasonable to hypothesize that forms of social, economic and political organization grew more complex, allowing marshalling of labor and resources for canal digging and from simple to complex systems. expansion of irrigation The resulting administrative growth would also have allowed the development of military activities and of empire.21 Stratification and the development of the theocratic aspects of early state formation on the plains suggest comparison with a recent interpretation of processes of politico-religious change in ethnographic sources from Africa.22 The foregoing in the paragraph would be simplistic extreme if intended simply as an explanation of urbanization and political development in Mesopotamia. However, it is not intended to rewrite Adams' excellent discussions of the problems involved, but rather to make use of them for the illumination of development on the plateau and prepare the way for a comparative study of urbanization in both areas.
fore,
if not beBy the time the Indo-Europeans arrived, the urban civilization in the plains appears to have
691
more people than it could absorb and was surattracted Although there were recurrent rounded by nomadic groups.23 of identity problems with nomads, the cultural political until the threatened was not seriously the plains cities this conIt may be useful to consider Persian conquest. model of relato Ibn Khaldun's cyclical quest according For in Islamic history. tions between nomads and settled (rather than vice the Iranians were "Mesopotamianized" eastIranian culture was diffused and a syncretic versa), later to be further from Mesopotamia, wards (and westwards) Although contacts. and Hellenistic enriched by Classical about the plateau almost nothing is known sociologically arguand deductive ecological certain during this period, and may be enlightening. ments are feasible on the technology The development of agricultural If we than on the plains. plateau was more complicated once again to the saucer and its the discussion restrict have been can scarcely rim,,24 s e t t 1 e d agriculture But the plateau anywhere without irrigation. feasible no source of water comparable to the Tigris and contained on the plateau is menWhenever irrigation the Euphrates. q a n a t s and with identified it is usually tioned, tend to be ignored or forgotten. other forms of irrigation that the introBut there is no evidence to suggest either on the plateau duction of q a n a t s and urbanization there did not occur before or that urbanization coincided may be Natural water sources for irrigation q a n a t s. rivers or direct run off. as springs, streams, classified in eastern and The work of Raikes25 and my own observations where qanats are often not profitIran--areas southeastern sheet run off by of direct that the harnessing able--sugest (band) plays a larger role in means of rude earthworks realized than is generally Iranian agriculture traditional methods of irrigation. and was probably among the earliest is on In many parts of Khurasan where the major reliance role.26 bands still play a significant qanat irrigation, and sources on the plateau (rivers Natural channelled than run off but are may have been more reliable springs) to support a either not sufficient almost exclusively or are subject to of urban size and density, population
692
fluctuation and tend severe seasonal during the summer months. Even so it on the initial basis of urbanization been provided by the larger riverine reasons that will be technological27
to dry up completely that seems likely the plateau would have purely sources--for elaborated later.
that the Qayandah Rud is Remembering, therefore, on the one of the largest of the plateau rivers (the largest western half of the rim), let us enumerate the others. from the direction once again in a clockwise Proceeding that convicinity of Tehran and noticing only those rivers water to populations or urban tinue to supply irrigation we must mention: Karaj Rud (Karaj and Tahran density, plain), Jaj Rud (Varamin), HabldiRud (Khwar), Damghan Rud28 Khusf Nishapur Rud, Hashaf Rud (Mashhad), Hari Rud (Herat), Rud (Birjand and Khusf), Farah Rud, Rud-i Hilmand (the historical cities of Sistan), Arghandab (Qandahar), Rud-i Bampur, Halil Rud (Jiruft), Tah Rud (Ban), Zayandah Rud, Rud-i Kashan, QummRud. There may well be other significant examples. Figures for average monthly flow for most of these since the fifties may be found in the Statistical (Tehran). Yearbook of the Independent Irrigation Authority information Other, mostly fragmentary, may be found in the medieval sources.29 But it is difficult to assess as a guide to conditions during value of these figures earlier periods. in hypothesizing that populations If we are correct of urban density and complexity first developed on the preplateau through dependence on riverine irrigation, sumably drinking water would have been assured during the dry season by the use of cisterns or wells. Nevertheless, by agricultural development would have been restricted the regime of the river, and there would not have been adequate insurance against drought to provide economic into stability for dense populations. Diversification pastoralism and dry farming would not have decreased and would have tended to negate vulnerability sufficiently, the process of urbanization. Therefore, although urbanion zation was possible (and almost certainly occurred) the plateau before the introduction of qanats, the resulting
693
to have been restricted towns are likely lity and by problems of water supply.
IV.
in size
and stabi-
The Qanat Revolution
on the plateau, of settlement patterns Historical would by and large not represented, as they are presently Although dry farming, without qanats.30 have been possible may be important spring and even well irrigation riverine, very few is with irrigation qanat in some localities, of paramount importance throughout the saucer. exceptions of Kirman31 and Yazd, and the Gonabad plain are The cities for large extreme examples of qanat development providing where settled in localities of high density populations except in feasible be scarcely would otherwise agriculture the spread of that It would seem, therefore, small oases. fast or was it whether plateau, the over qanat technology demothe and economy the revolutionized have must slow, graphy of the area to a degree comparable to the crossing of change such as domesticaof more general thresholds the carrying increasing Further, by unilaterally tion.32 it must have changed the basis of of the plateau, capacity between the plateau and relations and cultural political The most important aspect of qanat technology the plains. the water supply increasing is that besides in this context for qanat flow it, stabilized it for irrigation available fluctuaannual and seasonal by unaffected is relatively of the qanat revoluThis effect tions in precipitation. growth in an unprecedented tion would have made possible of urban and consequently life, agricultural settled population. revolution It is not known when this technological on the plains channels irrigation Individual took place. con(though not necessarily confidently have been fairly dated,33 but there is so far no proven method vincingly) recent for dating qanats (except of course in relatively The historical cases where there is documentary evidence). and for their introduction, no evidence record contains far so not applied have plateau the of archaeologists
694
of settlement a prehistory to reconstructing themselves evidence.34 that would provide circumstantial patterns economic However, if it is valid to reason that qanat-led expansion on the plateau should lead to a change in the we balance of power between the plateau and the plains, that this is seen in the rise of Iranian might hypothesize Is it power in the middle of the first millennium B.C.35 have might qanats a in which context posit to possible and economic conthe social been invented and to discuss text in which they might have spread, at or somewhat before this general period? was known and practised Although qanat technology from Central Asia through southwest Asia and historically North Africa to Spain and even Latin America, the greatest economic achieveof qanats and the greatest concentration appear always to have been ments based on qanat technology that suggestion Although Goblot's on the Iranian plateau. may have derived from problems of drainage the invention is ingenious, 36 a more comprein ancient mining technology theory would be needed to explain a) the conceptual hensive since most known especially jump from mining to irrigation, for unsuitable sites of early mining on the plateau are development by means of qanats, and b) the agricultural and polilong-term investment of the continuous provision The that qanat development would require. tical security and a both a quantitative represents qanat revolution Each of the investment. jump in continuous qualitative that have been mentioned in technology types of irrigation and each may be elaborated this essay require investment, in order to by means of further investment or intensified the total yield of the system up to or approaching increase However, different the total amount of water available. organizaand the social are required, types of investment is likely to types of investment tion of these different The implications. economic and political have different not the requires factor in qanat irrigation investment for laborers of large numbers of unskilled marshalling and maintenance short periods for the building relatively of canals37 but the long-term support of pairs of skilled A good qanat requires long periods. workmen for relatively
695
labor by two specialists, years continuous at least several reduce of extra labor will not significantly and addition at least a degree of This suggests period. the building not found in stratification of labor and social division would have been An early state authority simple societies. to undertake a large programme of qanat building, unlikely since when compared to even the most complex traditional the ratio of return to engineering irrigation riverine It is worth noting also small. is relatively investment known examples of and ethnographically that historically of private rather the result are generally qanat building suggest as a I would therefore than state enterprise. that the major spread of qanat irrigation viable hypothesis felt secure took place at a time when wealthy individuals within a "feudal" type of system, to make enough, possibly may well have been encoura ed long-term investments--which The case of Kirman3 areas. particular by the state--in In the Kirman to this discussion. relevant is particularly dependent is almost exclusively basin where agriculture upon qanats that require an unusual degree of long-term financed by private those qanats are invariably investment, on the Generally most of whom are city based. investors, pumps, new vilof diesel before the introduction plateau, in a new qanat on investment lages were founded by private city based in a neighboring investor the part of a private center. But the most important point in or large regional of the diversification this argument concerns the effects such as Isfafor plateau cities, of irrigation technology on their (seaexclusively relied han, that had previously is investment Qanats, once the initial sonal) rivers. amount of maintenance work is made, and provided a certain flow of provide a continuous carried out periodically, in precipitation. variations by seasonal water, unaffected would have brought stabitherefore, The Qanat Revolution, systems of to the riverine irrigation lity and reliability the plateau cities. the hypothesis: and restate qanat To recapitulate spread over the plateau by means of private technology or of cities, at a time when the establishment investment for economic centers provided the potential large regional
696
long-term private investment and the social stratification for the employment of specialized labor. The resulting economic expansion would have attracted immigration, perhaps on a larger scale than before, and allowed a qualitaof society on the plative leap forward in the evolution is based on an argument from the teau. This hypothesis and investment factor. It is supported by historical ethnographic evidence which suggests that qanats diffused from cities and other regional centers, but this evidence should perhaps not be overstressed because of the Islamic bias for urban life that is evident in the recent history of the plateau. that primitive While it is possible, therefore, of qanats, mining experience contributed to the invention to have led directly to the qanat revoluit is not likely as that found tion, and other underground channelling--such in association with riverine systems in Mesopotamia39--may also have been important. We should not of course assume on the inifollowed that the qanat revolution immediately As with other technological tial of the qanat. invention innovations (and intellectual invention revolutions40), does not ensure adoption. There are ethnographic examples of foraging populations who know how to produce their own food, and are able to do it, but choose not to. If, thereto date any fore, in the future it should be possible qanat, and to excavate prehistoric qanats, several examples may be uncovered that predate the revolution--which is the historically important technological change. The explanation of when the revolution occurred must be found in the context of the plateau at the time, total sociological41 and in particular in the relations between the plateau and that the relathe plains. It is after all a priori likely with the plains was a deciding factor in the revotionship lution, because of what we may surmise to have been the of the plains over the plateau in total early precedence and administrative terms of technology, organipopulation, zation, and because of the partial integration of the two regions under the Iranians. Having
noted
the economic 697
and political
rise
of the
it tentaand associated to the plains, plateau in relation with the spread of (and by no means surprisingly) tively of Iranian power, and the establishment qanat technology we should perhaps also note that the plateau never of of the course came to supplant the plains in the history from close relations, Despite continuous general area. plateau to the "oil revolution," revolution" the 'anat from different remained distinctively and culture society recent times the in relatively and finally the plains, of by the establishment have been legitimized differences (very roughly) the environborder approximating a national However, it is also mental border line between the two. period between worth noting that in the long historical irrigathe riverine revolutions, these two technological run by, tion systems of the plains have been efficiently then Wittfogellian city states, first, empires, and in the organized pre-modern phase by small scale tribally latest that evidence suggests whereas the available populations,42 with the major qanat systems of the plateau have fluctuated stable paradigm of nonof the relatively the prosperity dominated by economically peasant agriculture, tribal During this urban centers. evenly distributed fairly technological in the absence of any significant period, on the plateau have grown and declined cities innovation, decisions (e.g. in succession, partly because of political of and resultant changes in patterns choice of capital) and partly because and trade and investment communications fluctuations and the resultant on to plateau of migrations factor in the in security. That is, the determining of cities during this period was due growth and decline of water or the not to changes in the basic availability of other environmental problems such as salinity, occurrence pattern. but to changes in the investment
V.
Isfahan:
City
and River
Isfahan has been either the Throughout its history conceived major city or a major city of an area generally province of Fars to the to be bounded by the inter-montane dominated south, the high Zagros mountains (traditionally
698
by tribal of pastoral confederations nomads) to the west, the wetter agricultural of Azarbayjan and Gilan provinces to the northwest., and Qumis and the desert to the northeast and east. The region thus defined enters history as Media. At the beginning of the Islamic period it is known simply as Jibal (The Mountains), and later as Persian Iraq in distinction from the Arab Iraq of the plains. It is now divided into a number of provinces, and Isfahan is capital of a province of the same name. Since Sasanian times this general area has been considered one of the most important in the Iranian world, in which it occupies a central position. The city of Isfahan does not lie in the center of the area, and other towns in the area enjoy better rainfall. However, Isfahan is situated on the most important river not only of this part of Iran but of the entire western half of the plateau. The discussion so far has been concerned with more or less general question which are raised by the consideration of the development of Isfahan in its total historical context. This section provides a brief account of that development with special emphasis on irrigation.43 The city of Isfahan is situated on "an immensely fertile riverain plain"44 at an altitude of 5200 feet. Average annual precipitation is 5 inches in the city and 10 inches in the surrounding mountains. Isfahan is "an old foundation, centered on the village of fDay, originally otherwise called ShahristAn or ShahristAna, two miles to the west of which was Yahudiyya, where Jews are supposed to .
.
have been settled . attribute the
by Nebuchadnezzar. . building of the citadel
. Ancient legends to Kay Ka'ust45
Although no prehistoric sites have yet been reported in the immediate area of Isfahan46 it is inconceivable that this excellent soil and water supply should not have been used before the introduction of qanats. In fact, it is probably the continuous intensive use since prehistoric times that explains the obliteration of the earlier archaeological record. Early historical and medieval sources contain little on the interrelation information of populaland use, irrigation, and administration, tion, and the
699
is period for which we have any degree of detail earliest when the city was at its zenith. century, the seventeenth Economically was highly developed. Craft specialization by the government and were protected minorities specialized system of Isfahan lay at the center of a sophisticated preindustrial any, if Few, trade and communications. in an inland locaenjoyed such economic prosperity cities (or in this case of waterborne tion without the benefit In the second half of the seveneven wheeled) transport. the population teenth century Sir John Chardin estimated to that of London, which would make it to be similar In order to provide an adequate between 600, 000-700, 000.47 which had been base for this population, subsistence enhanced by increase natural by only not augmented rapidly induced by but also by immigration economic prosperity, in the Isfahan plain agriculture trade and royal policy, beyond what was normal considerably had been intensified for the period. The zayandah Rud was the indispensable
water
source.
Between Lindjian, where the Z&yanda-ruid enters the and the GAvkhw&nl (where it ends in Isfah&n plain, it water the buliuks of lake), a&shallow seasonal Baracin, and of Lindj3n, M&rbln, 2jay, Kararidj, as known locally by means of 105 canals, Ridasht, madis.
.
.
Between
Lin4jan
and Givkhwani
the
river
was crossed by twelve permanent and two temporary Below the last of these at Varzana there bridges. are three dykes or dams for the purpose of raising the land on either side.48 the water to irrigate relaalso some of the bridges--represented The dykes--and that improved downstream investment labor-intensive tively the problems of temporal They also intensified irrigation. This led to an intricate (see above, II.c). distribution which comprehended each group of system of water sharing, where it enters the Isfahan from river on the villages century A form of this system (probably a sixteenth plain. of has come down to us over the signature modification49) and spring During part of the year--winter Shaykh Bahaci. 700
--use of the water was unrestricted; during two brief summer and late autumn--it periods--early was restricted to the two lowest groups of villages; and during the to wellremainder of the year it was shared according defined rules. In the form in which it is known this is a system designed explicitly for the most efficient cultivation of particular crops throughout the lands watered by the river in the Isfahan plain. No doubt it has a history of many centuries during which it has been continually modified. The degree of rationalization evident in the system as recorded suggests modification by government with the aim of maximizing agricultural productivity. Moreover, there is some internal evidence of modification and expansion of the system under the Safavids.50 The
.
.
. regulation
to Rud according rights (eshterak), was the basis of divided according district (boluik), lages (qora).
of the waters of the Zayande special rights (ekhte &