The Myth of the Clerical Migration to Safawid Iran: Arab Shiite Opposition to ʿAlī al-Karakī and Safawid Shiism

8/11/2019 The Myth of the Clerical Migration to Safawid Iran: Arab Shiite Opposition to Al al-Karak and Safawid Shiism

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The Myth of the Clerical Migration to Safawid Iran: Arab Shiite Opposition to Al al-Karakand Safawid ShiismAuthor(s): Andrew J. NewmanSource: Die Welt des Islams, New Series, Vol. 33, Issue 1 (Apr., 1993), pp. 66-112Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1571204Accessed: 29/11/2008 18:26

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Die Welt des Islams 33 (1993)

THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATIONTO SAFAWID IRAN:

Arab Shiite Opposition o 'Ali al-Karaki and Safawid Shiism1

BY

ANDREW J. NEWMAN

Oxford

It is a conventional wisdom of Safawid studies that, following theestablishment of Twelver Shiism, the Safawid shahs induced largenumbers of Arab Twelver clerics to migrate to Iran to assist in thepropagation of the faith in Safawid territory. In Western-languagescholarship the assertion that large numbers of Arab Twelver ulamaresponded to invitations by Safawid rulers-particularly the first

two, IsmCil (905/1499-930/1524) and Tahmasp (930/1524-984/1576)-to leave their homeland to settle in Safawid territory datesat least to the work of E.G. Browne. More than fifty years ago,Browne suggested there was a paucity of Twelver scholars in earlySafawid Iran and wrote that Bahrayn and Jabal CAmil "furnishedthe bulk" of the "learned [Twelver] Arabs" introduced by IsmaCilinto Iran following his profession of the faith at the Safawid captureof Tabriz in 907/ 1501.2 More recent scholars have

only echoed thissuggestion,3 at least tacitly assuming IsmaCil's profession of faith

1 The author would like to thank Professor Wilferd Madelung and Drs. YannRichard and Nikki Keddie for their criticism of earlier drafts of this paper. The er-rors herein are his responsibility alone.

2 E.G. Browne, A LiteraryHistory f Persia 4 (London, 1953, reprint of the origi-nal 1924 edition), 360, 406-407.

3 See, for example, Jean Aubin, "Etudes Safavides.I. Shah Ismacil et les Nota-bles de l'Iraq Persan", Journal oftheEconomic ndSocialHistory f theOrient, I (1959),54; idem, "La Politique Religieuse des Safavides", in Le Shi'isme mamite Paris:Presses Universitaires de France, 1970), 239; S.H. Nasr, "The School of Ispa-han", in M.M. Sharif, ed., A History of Muslim Philosophy (Wiesbaden, 1966),906, 906n8, citing Browne; ibid; dem, "Religion in Safavid Persia", Iranian tudies7 (1974), 274; S.A. Arjomand, TheShadow f Godand he Hidden mam Chicago andLondon: The University of Chicago Press, 1984), 131, 136, 107, 122f, esp. 128-133. See also Erika Glassen, "Schah IsmaCil . und die Theologen seiner Zeit", Der


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A.J. NEWMAN

The Problematic spects f Safawid Shiism

Theimpression

of Twelver Shiismconfronting

Arab Twelverclerics resident outside Safawid territory throughout the first fiftyyears after Tabriz can only have been negative. Clerical unease withthe Safawid association with the faith stemmed from the abruptnessof Ismdil' s interest in and conversion to the faith; the extreme na-ture of Safawid religious expression which, after Tabriz, comprisedan unorthodox blend of non-Shii and Shii allusions; the Safawidelite's clear lack of interest in the specifics of the faith; and critical

military defeats suffered by the Safawids less than fifteen years afterTabriz which suggested the transient nature of the Safawid Shii ex-periment.

IsmSCil's interest in Twelver Shiism had no precedence in earlySafawid history. Founded by Shaykh Safi al-Din (d. 735/1334), theearly leadership espoused no Twelver, let alone Shii or other dis-tinctly separatist, religious discourse, nor did they claim CAlid amilyconnections or descent from any of the twelve Imams or other mem-bers of the Prophet's family. Under Safi al-Din the order's adher-ents were in fact mainly Shafici Sunnis, and in its early years theorder enjoyed good relations with the established Sunni politicalauthorities.4

During Junayd's period of leadership of the movement, begin-ning in 851/1447, the order embraced a new extreme religio-political discourse and offensive military strategy. The adoption of

both was the function of and in response to changes in the order'ssocial composition, particularly the influx of supporters drawn fromthe poorer peasantry and tribal nomads, and the antagonism ofthese elements to existing political and socio-economic structures.5

4 Michel M. Mazzaoui, The Origins of the $afawids, Freiburger Islamstudien,Bd. 3.) (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1972), 46-53, 54-56. See also Aubin,"Etudes. I", 42, 45; Adel Allouche, TheOrigins ndDevelopmentftheOttoman-SafavidConflict,906-962/1500-1555 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1983), 32-38; I.P.Petrushevsky, Islam n Iran, originally published in Russian in 1966 and translatedfrom the Russian by Hubert Evans (London: The Athlone Press, 1985), 314; Arjo-mand, ibid, 78.

5 See Petrushevsky, ibid, 316-21; Jean-Louis Bacque-Grammont, Les Otto-mans, esSafavides, t leurs Voisins Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-ArchaeologischInstituut, 1987), 13-14; Jean Aubin, "L'Avenement des Safavides Reconsidere(Etudes Safavides III)", Moyen Orient t Ocian ndien 5 (1988), 4.

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THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 69

The new discourse included praise for Junayd as "the Living One,there is no God but he". Followers from Anatolia and elsewhere alsoviewed Haydar (864/1460 - 893/1488), Junayd's son and successor,as God.6 Such rhetoric encouraged the new offensive militarystrategy which, despite an uneven record, culminated in the captureof Tabriz some fifty years later.

Ismacil was fourteen in 907/1501 - 1502 when the Safawids seizedTabriz and he made his profession of faith. This profession was lessthe result of any profound study and appreciation of the doctrinesand practices of Twelver Shiism by IsmCil or the forces at the centreof the tribal confederation than the culmination of the messianicradicalism adopted underJunayd, further encouraging and cement-ing the profound sense of separation from, and hostility among theorder's followers to, the existing socio-economic and political struc-ture as dominated by Sunni Muslims. The socio-economic outlookof the Qizil Bash political hierarchy itself was, however, fundamen-tally conservative: meaningful changes to the underlying structures

of society were not to be effected, let alone tolerated.7 As formulat-ed by that hierarchy immediately prior to and especially after TabrizSafawid religious discourse was less concerned with compatibilitywith any single religious doctrine than with legitimising a highly hi-erarchical structure within the Safawid order itself and the authorityof the elite within that structure, the primacy of the leader's positionin particular. Such a highly stratified structure of authority assuredthe authority of the elite to articulate and impose its conservativeworldview on and among the order's adherents.

In this context, Safawid religious discourse was necessarily as ex-treme as that of Ismicil's immediate, non-Twelver predecessors.While some elements of this discourse emphasized the affinity with

6 The contemporary Sunni court chronicler Fadlallah b. Ruizbihan al-Khunjialleged the veneration of Haydar was such that the daily religious duty of namaz(prayer) and other public manifestations of Muslim worship were neglected. SeeMazzaoui, ibid, 73, citing al-Khunji's Td rikh-iCAlamArd-yiAminf. Allouche (ibid,43-44) cited an early tenth/sixteenth century Turkish source stating Junayd ex-pressed some Shii tendencies and claimed CAlid ineage. See also Mazzaoui, ibid,54; Arjomand, ibid, 79-80; Momen, ibid, 101-102.

7 On the essential socio-economic and political conservatism of the Safawid sys-tem, see Aubin, "Etudes. I", passim; Petrushevsky, ibid; Aubin, "RevolutionChiite et Conservatisme. Les Soufis de Laihejan, 1500-1514 (Etudes Safavides.


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A.J. NEWMAN

the distinctively Sufi roots of the movement8-encouraging thecontinued allegiance of the order's followers-, that discourse alsofocused on the presence on earth of a superior, implicitly divine,ruler in society who was both political leader and ultimate arbiter inall matters of faith and practice.9 In both its extreme nature and inits non-Twelver references, such rhetoric was certainly incompatiblewith Twelver orthodoxy.

The expression of the Safawids' understanding of Ismi'il's rela-tionship to Twelver Shiism itself was frequently clearly extreme:claims for his

imamate,as his

pretensionsto identification with other

divinities, were a constant feature of IsmS'il's reign.10 In 911/1505,for example, four years after Tabriz' capture, in the Arabic pre-face to a firman inscribed in Isfahan's Masjid-i Jumac, Isma'ilwas described as "khalifat al-zaman (the successor of the age), the

II.)", Moyen Orient t Ocean ndien (1984), passim; idem, "Etudes III", passim,esp. 125f.

8 IsmiCil's appeals to both the earlier egalitarian nature of the movement andthe distinctly militant form of Sufism then prevailing in the order may be seen inhis poetry, where he addressed his followers variously as ghdzi (raider), isuf, andakhi brother), and used such mystical terms as ahl-i iqrar men of recognition) andahl-i haqq men of truth). See Vladimir Minorsky, "The Poetry of Sha.h smicil I",BSOAS, 10(1942), 1042a, 1043a, 1044a, 1047a. Aubin ("Etudes. I", 51) suggestedIsmacil's consistent use of such rhetoric served to blur the distinction between thedecadence of his private conduct in this period and the public image he wished toproject of himself as the fighting leader of a militantly ascetic Sufi order. See alsoidem, "Etudes III", 36-57; Bacque-Grammont, Les Ottomans, 7, 47n80; note 22.

9 By contrast with the references in the previous note, therefore, Ismcil'spoetry also contained references to himself not only as of the same essence as "ofthe adherents of the wall'"-i.e. Imam CAlIYbut also "God's light ... the Seal ofthe Prophets . . . the Perfect Guide . . . the Absolute Truth", and "Jesus, son ofMary", and such earlier, pre-Islamic Persian rulers as Faridufn, amshid, and Za-hak, Rustam and Alexander. See Minorsky, ibid, 1042a, 1048a- 1049a, 1047a, andnote 8. See also Mazzaoui, ibid, 73; Allouche, ibid, 153-156; Arjomand, ibid,80-81; note 16.

10 Secondary-source authors have suggested that soon after Tabriz Ismacil be-came unhappy with the divine status attributed him by his followers. See the ac-count of a Venetian merchant in Iran from 917/1511-927/1520 "that Ismael (sic)is not pleased with being called a god or a prophet", cited in Lambton, ibid,265- 266. See also Roger Savory, "The Principal Offices of the Safavid State Dur-ing the Reign of Ismacil I (907-30/1501-24)", BSOAS23, part 1 (1960), 91; Arjo-mand, ibid, 110. Aubin ("Etudes III", 129) has identified this merchant as Fran-cesco Romano. On concern for the spread of Safawid propaganda in Anatolia, seeBacque-Grammont, ibid, 17-49, and passim. See also note 63.

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spreader of justice and beneficence, al-imam l-'adil al-kamil the just,the perfect Imam), al-hadi (the guide), al-ghazi, al-wdl[ ..."11An inscription on a coin minted in Kashan the next year, 912/1506, referred to him as al-sul.tn al-cddil the just sultan), as did thaton a coin minted twelve years later in Mashhad in 924/1518.12Although such terms as al-imam al-Cddil the just Imam) and al-sul.dn al-Cadil could have secular implications, in Twelver Shiidiscourse they could also refer to the Hidden Imam himself.13Given claims for IsmaCil's identification with other, non-Shii,

11 Lutfallah Hunarfar, Ganjineh-i Asar-i Ta'rnkhi-yi sfahdn (Isfahan, 1344),86-87. On the particular socio-political context of thisfirman, see Aubin, "Etudes.I", 58-59, and idem, "Etudes. II", 11.

12 H.L. Rabino, "Coins of the Shahs of Persia", Numismatic Chronicle, Vthseries, 1908, 368; Sibylla Schuster-Walser, Das Safawidische ersien m Spiegel u-ropdischer eiseberichte, 502-1722 (Hamburg, 1970), 45.

13 The intent of such terms has been the subject of some discussion in the fieldof Twelver Shii studies. Calder has argued they referred to the Imam himself while

Madelung and Arjomand have suggested they referred to a just secular ruler.Madelung in particular has noted the term imam al-asl, as used by Jacfar b.al-Hasan, al-Muhaqqiq al-Hilli (d. 676/1277), was a clear reference to the Imam,in contrast to the terms cited above. More recently Sachedina has suggestedTwelver scholars employed some caution in their discussions of rightful authorityduring the occultation of the Imam, especially when in the minority, and that thespecific legal context determined whether the terms "the just Imam" or "the justsultan" in a legal text referred to the Imam or secular authority. See W. Madelung,"A Treatise of the Sharif al-Murtad. on the Legality of Working for the Govern-ment (Mas'alafi'l-camal maCa'l-Sultian)", SOAS,vol. 43, part 1 (1980), 18-31; Ar-

jomand, ibid, 21-23, and notes therein; Norman Calder, "Judicial Authority inImami Shii Jurisprudence", Bulletin,British Societyor MiddleEastern tudies,Vol. 6,no. 2 (1979), 106; idem, "Legitimacy and Accommodation in Safavid Iran: TheJuristic Theory of Muhammad Baqir al-Sabzevari (d. 1090/1679)", Iran XXV(1987), esp. 91 -92; A.A. Sachedina, TheJust Ruler n Shiite slam New York: Ox-ford University Press, 1988), passim, esp. 89-118, 192, 226, 232-236. For use ofthe term imanm l-asl, see JaCfar b. al-Hasan, al-Muhaqqiq al-Hilli, Shartdii l-Islam(Najaf, 1389/1969), 2:11-12, and Sachedina, ibid, 170, 193, 199, 270n47. It oughtto be noted these clerical authors were all in the Usuill tradition. See also notes 42,43, 46, 48, 50, 51. The intended meanings of these references stand in contrast to

the intentions behind the term al-sultian l-'adil as it appeared on coins issued be-tween 743/1342-1343 and 745/1344-1345 in reference to the Ilkhanid Sulayman,who lacked the messianic aspirations of the early Safawid shahs. See John MassonSmith, Jr., The History of theSarbadar ynasty, 1336-1381 A.D. and its Sources TheHague: Mouton, 1970), 195-196. See also Ismaiil's references in his poetry tohimself as Muhammad Mustaf-a, the seal of the Prophet's "reappearance", andreferences to the sixth Imam JaCfar l-Sadiq (d. 148/765) and the eighth Imam CAllMusai Rida (d. 203/818) in Minorsky, ibid, 1048a, 1049a; Arjomand, ibid, 80.


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mand-no doubt also publicly proclaimed-to build the box ashaving been issued by "al-sultan al-'adil al-kamil ... Shih

Ismiil? .16The radical Safawid religious polemic, denied any possibility of

contributing to some new socio-economic order, did manifest itselfin a militant religious separatism which emphasized the necessity ofconstant struggle against both Shii and Sunni opponents. Theformer included encounters with the MushaCshac nd the Qizil Bashrebellion of Shih Qull, both movements with socio-economic and

religio-politicalcharacteristics similar to those of the Safawids fol-

lowing the accession of Junayd.In southern Iraq, the social origins of the MushaCshac movement

were as tribal-based as the later, militantly messianic Safawid order.Its leadership espoused an aggressively messianic Shiism whichresembled elements of the Safawids' own radical social and religiousrhetoric. Moreover, by the early tenth/sixteenth century, theMushacshac movement-like the Safawids-had adopted clear ex-

pressions of commitment to the Twelver faith.17Given the exclusivity inherent in the Safawid identification withthe faith, such expressions were by definition illegitimate. Followingthe Safawid capture of Baghdad and the shrine cities in 914/1508,the MushaCshac leadership pledged fealty to Ismacil and gifts wereexchanged. Nevertheless, later that year the joint rulers of the con-federation were killed by the new Safawid governor of Shushtar,most likely on Ismacil's orders. The murders provoked an outburst

among the adherents of the MushaCshac, Basra and al-Ahsa ex-periencing especially violent anti-Safawid outbursts.18

16 Shaykh Muhammad Hasan Al Yasin, Ta'rfkh al-Mashhad l-Kd.zim Bagh-dad, 1387/1967), 71. The last two references noted appeared after the Safawiddefeat at Chaldiran, discussed below, and were thus clearly efforts to re-emphasizeIsmacil's divine pretensions as a rallying point for the confederation following thisdisaster. Thus, Ismi'il's apparent turn inwards after Chaldiran, evident in his

poetry (Allouche, ibid, 156), was not evident in post-Chaldiran references to himin the Twelver Shii context. Cf. Arjomand, ibid, 179.17 In 914/1508, for example, coins with distinctly Twelver inscriptions were

minted by the Mushacshac governor of Shushtar. See Jasim Hasan Shubbar,Ta'rikh l-MushaCshaCiyina Tardjim cld'ihim Najaf, 1385/1965), 216-217, 85- 87.Cf. Momen, ibid, 102; Arjomand, ibid, 76-77.18 See the references cited in note 17, and also Shubbar, ibid, 86n2, where924/1518 is given as the year of the leaders' execution. Cf. Arjomand, ibid.


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Several years later, in 917/1511-1512, Shah Quli, of the QizilBash Takkaliu tribe, launched a rebellion in Ottoman territoryagainst Sultan Bayazid II. When the rebellion was crushed, the re-maining rebels fled to Safawid territory, plundering a caravan ofmerchants along the way. Ismiail had offered Shah Quli no militaryassistance and now he received these refugees with some littlewarmth. Eventually he distanced himself further from their causeand subjected them to some persecution.

The Safawid hostility to this rebellion may be traceable to the

Safawid desire to avoid conflict with the Ottomans at this point andIsmdail's dismay at the havoc wrought by Shah Qull's partisans ontrade routes important to the Safawids.19 However, inasmuch asthe supporters of the radical socio-religious message of Shah Quli,like that of the later Safawids and the Musha'shac, were drawn espe-cially from the rural peasantry and nomadic elements and as thatmessage itself paralleled that of the Safawids, the latter themselveswere certainly concerned that same aggressiveness not be rekindledamong their own followers.20

Safawid Shiism's continuing capacity for generating militantanti-Sunni attitudes and activities among its supporters was certain-ly evident in the years following Tabriz. In the ten years followingTabriz Safawid armies captured much of present-day Iran andeastern Iraq from Sunni opponents.

The apparent Safawid commitment to Twelver Shiism was be-

lied, however, by the very limited degree of Safawid interest in andunderstanding of the faith. Indeed, the Safawid identification withTwelver Shiism was generally limited to public profession of faith,scattered, officially-sponsored persecution of Iranian Sunnis, formal

19 Petrushevsky, ibid, 324. On IsmSCil's ttitude during the period before Chal-diran, see also Jean-Louis Bacque-Grammont, "Etudes Turco-Safavides, I. Notessur le Blocus du Commerce Iranien par Selim Ier", Turcica, 6 (1975), 74-75; Al-louche, ibid, 94-95. Ismgal was less concerned with Qizil Bash rebellions in Otto-man territory when these were under Safawid control. See, for example, Allouche,ibid, 96-98. On the Safawid involvement in the later Chelali rebellion, after Chal-diran, see Bacque-Grammont, Les Ottomans, 72-275; Allouche, ibid, 128. See alsonote 27 below.

20 On the social composition of Shah Quli's movement, see Petrushevsky, ibid,316-317, and especially 324. On its messianism, see Bacque-Grammont, ibid,27n42; note 62. Compare Arjomand, ibid, 110, and Momen, ibid, 106.

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cursing of the Sunni caliphs,21 and wars against the Ottomans andthe Uzbegs-the latter as much rooted in military and political, as

religious, conflicts. At the centre of the Safawid polity especially, forexample, there is little evidence IsmiCil's interest in and knowledgeof the doctrines and practices of the faith were ever more than super-ficial. During his five-year exile prior to the capture of TabrizIsmacil's teacher Shams al-Din al-Lahiji (d. 912/1506- 1507) in-structed the future Safawid ruler in the Qur'an and some works inArabic and Persian, but himself appears to have known little ofTwelver doctrine and

practice. The shah's personal behaviour alsosuggested little acquaintance with and interest in that doctrine andpractice.22

As for the ruling political hierarchy, after Tabriz religious creden-tials were not a criterion for holding positions at court. Appoint-ments to such temporal posts as amir al-umard', qurchibdshi, nd wazirin this period depended primarily on status within the broaderSafawid socio-political formation. As a result, none of these appoin-tees were professing Twelvers, let alone Arab Twelver clerics.23Probably more important to the Arab Twelver clerics resident out-side Safawid territory, of those appointed to the post of sadr, the sup-posed head of the religious classes,24 none was a professing Twelver

21 Aubin, "Etudes I", 54-56, 58; Savory, "The Principal Offices . .. IsmicilI", 103; Momen, ibid, 109; Aubin, "Etudes III", 43. See also notes 29, 32, 39.

22 See Aubin, "Etudes III", 48f. See also notes 8, 68. On Lahiji, see the refer-ences cited in note 25.23 Savory, "The Principle Offices . . . IsmaCil", 93-102. On the socio-political

composition of the Safawid leadership, see Aubin, "Etudes. I", 60f, 78; Petru-shevsky, ibid, 322-323; Aubin, "Etudes. II", passim; idem, "Etudes III",112-118, 120. The story that at Ismicil's profession of faith in Tabriz no book ofTwelver doctrine or practice was immediately available as a reference, if not abso-lutely accurate, reflects the degree of the leadership's prior familiarity with the de-tails of the faith. See Hasan-i Rumlu, Ahsdn al-Tawdrikh Tehran, 1357), 86. Seealso Mazzaoui, ibid, 80, 6, 28n2; Arjomand, ibid, 106; Momen, ibid, 108. In a fur-

ther indication of poor Safawid familiarity with key texts of the faith, Qawdcid l-Isldm, attributed to al-Hasan b. Yuisuf, al-Allama al-Hilli (d. 726/1325), eventuallylocated according to court chronicler Rumlu, is not a title listed as a work of al-cAllama. Mazzaoui suggested this work was al-'Allama's Qawdcid l-Ahkdm. Seealso notes 36, 55.

24 On the post of sadr see, for example, Aubin, "Etudes. I", 54; Savory, "ThePrincipal Offices.. IsmaCil I", 103-105; idem, "The Principle Offices of theSafawid State During the reign of Tahmasp I (930-984/1524-1576)", BSOAS,24,


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scholar or lay believer, let alone an Arab. As with other court posts,appointment as sadr did not depend on faith. Indeed, the first sadrwas Isma'1l's teacher al-Lahiji.25

part 1(1961), 79-83; idem, "Safavid Persia", in P.M. Holt, etal., eds., TheCam-bridgeHistory of Islam, vol. 1, "The Central Islamic Lands" (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1970), 402-03; Lambton, "Quis Custodiet Custodes?Some Reflections on the Persian Theory of Government", Studia slamica (1955),134f; idem, State, 268; Gottfried Herrmann, "Zur Entstehung des Sadr-Amtes",in Die IslamischeWelt wischen Mittelalter ndNeuzeit,Festschriftfiir ans Robert Roemer

zum 65. Geburtstag, lrich Haarmann and Peter Bachman, Beiruter Texte und Stu-dien, Bd. 22 (Beirut, 1979), 278-295; Arjomand, ibid, 123-127, 301n7.

25 On those who held the post of sadr n this period, see Rumlu, ibid, 20; Aubin,"Etudes. I", 53-54, 69-71, 73, 76; Mazzaoui, ibid, 86; Savory, "The PrincipleOffices ... IsmaCil", 103-105, 97, 102; Aubin, "Etudes. II", 11-13, 20; Savory,"The Principal Offices ... Tahmasp", 65; Arjomand, ibid, 116, 106-107; Caro-lineJ. Beeson, "The Origins of Conflict in the Safawid Religious Institution" (un-published Ph.D. thesis, Princeton University, 1982), 79-86; Momen, ibid, 108;Aubin, "Etudes III", 115-116. Arjomand (ibid, 107) cited the late tenth/sixteenthcentury court chronicle Takmilat l-Akhbir hat "there was no doubt" of the Shiismof the sixth sadr, Amir Jamal al-Din al-Astarabadi, who held office until931/1524-1525. In fact, al-Astarabadi was not especially well-versed in Twelverdoctrine and practice. He was a student of the Iranian Sunni philosopherJamal al-Din al-Dawwani (d. 908/1502), who himself had rejected IsmaCil's laims to the im-amate. See Mirza Muhammad Baqir al-Khwansari, Raudit al-Jannat, M.T. al-Kashfi and A. Ismacilyin, eds., (Tehran-Qum, 1390- 1392), 8:71; Mazzaoui, ibid,85; Arjomand, ibid, 96, 97-98, 179; Aubin, "Etudes. I", 59. Rumlfi (ibid, 248-249), who completed his chronicle in 985/1577-1578, noted an agreement betweenCAlial-Karaki and al-Astarabadi for exchange of instruction in philosophy by al-Astarabadi for teaching of the tenets of Twelver Shiism by al-Karaki-an accountaccepted by Nfirallah al-Shushtari (d. 1019/1610-1611) in his Majalis al-Mu'minFn2 (Tehran, 1354), 233-234, and such later Twelver biographers as al-Khwansari,ibid, 2:211 -214, Muhsin al-Amin, Acyinal-Shia (Damascus, 1935f), 41:176-177,and al-Husayn b. Muhammad Taqi al-Nfuri, Mustadrak l-Wasd'il 3 (Tehran,1382), 432. See also Mroueh, ibid, 46-47. Having mentioned this exchange,Rumlu wrote "no one rendered greater service to the faith". Lambton understoodthe latter statement as referring to al-Astarabadi. Twelver biographers, however,interpreted it as applying to al-Karaki. See Lambton, "Quis", 134-135; al-Khwansari, ibid, 4:369; al-Amin, ibid, 41:176-177; al-Nfiri, ibid, 3:432; and thesources cited in the discussion on al-Astarabadi below. On remuneration al-Astarabadi received for his services, see Aubin, "Etudes III", 97, 166. In hisKhuldsat l-Tawdrikh (Tehran, 1359, 296-298), completed in 999/1590, the courtchronicler Qa7diAhmad Qummi reported the agreement for the exchange in lessonsas between al-Karaki and Mansur al-Dashtaki (d. 948/1541), appointed co-sadr n936/1529. Although Savory accepted this rendition of the exchange in his "ThePrinciple Offices ... Tahmasp", 82, biographies of al-Dashtaki's life containno mention of such instruction. Cf. the earlier account of Rumlu, ibid, 391-394, al-Khwansarri, bid, 7:176-179, and the discussion of al-Dashtaki below.

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The politico-military fortunes of the Safawids in this period couldonly have been an added concern to Twelver clerics resident outsideSafawid territory. On the one hand, although the first ten years fol-lowing the capture of Tabriz were generally ones of victory forSafawid armies, the depredations suffered by local populations inthe constant warring, among the different Safawid tribes and be-tween the Qizil Bash armies and their Shii and Sunni opponents, ap-pear to have been horrendous.26

Perhaps more importantly, less than fifteen years after Tabriz the

Safawids suffered two important defeats at the hands of their Sunnienemies. At least partly as a result of conflicts internal to the Safawidleadership in 918/1512, two years after IsmSail's capture of Khura-san, Uzbeg armies defeated the Safawids near the Oxus and seizedHerat, Mashhad, and TUis. Although the Safawids retook theseareas two years later, in 920/1514, the Ottomans inflicted a majordefeat on the Safawids at Chaldiran in Azerbaijan. Many highrank-ing Safawid officials, including the former and current sadr, werekilled in this battle. Two years after Chaldiran, in 922/1516, theQizil Bash governor of Khurasan split from the central authorityand retained virtual autonomy for six years. To outsiders, theseevents could only have suggested the continued viability of theSafawid experiment-however extremist and extremely violent-was uncertain.

Sunni fortunes in this period, by contrast, clearly seemed on the

rise. Uzbeg successes against the Safawids have been recounted. Asfor the Sunni Ottomans, three years after Chaldiran, in 923/1517,they gained control over Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and the Hijaz.27

See also our forthcoming entry on Mansuir al-Dashtaki in Encyclopaedia ranica ondisagreements between him and Dawwani.

26 Aubin, "Etudes III", 69f.27 Bacque-Grammont has suggested the psychological warfare waged by Is-

ma.il against the Ottomans following Chaldiran successfully portrayed a strongerimage, to foreign powers for example, of the Safawid position than was really thecase. See Bacque-Grammont, Les Ottomans, .g. 275f, and passim. Especially afterthe fall of Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and the Hijaz to the Ottomans, the extent towhich Shii clerics living in these areas, not formally associated with the Ottomangovernment, were also mislead by Safawid propaganda is not clear, however. Seealso note 16 on Ismiicl's continued extremist Shii rhetoric after Chaldiran. Selim'simposition of a trade blockade against the Safawids after Chaldiran, although its


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In sum, the Safawid identification with Twelver Shiism offeredfew positive images to Twelver clerics resident outside Safawid terri-tory in this period. Relative to the order's historical lack of interestin the faith, Ismaeil's abrupt conversion was problematic. TheSafawid religious discourse after that profession was as extreme asit had been since Junayd's reign and, now combining both elementsof its earlier non-Shii expression together with Shii allusions, clearlyunorthodox. The Safawid elite's interest in and knowledge of the de-tails of the faith was limited and prospects for the continued viability

of the Safawid polity were, at best, uncertain.The unease these aspects of Safawid Shiism generated among or-thodox Twelver clerics was compounded by the very public mannerin which one of their number did associate himself with the Safawidsvery soon after the capture of Tabriz and the profession of faith byIsmdCil.

CAlial-Karaki at the Court of IsmSceil

CAli b. al-Husayn al-Karaki, later given the title "al-Muhaqqiqal-Thani" (the second investigator), is frequently cited in the secon-dary sources as one of the large number of Arab clerics said to havemigrated to Safawid territory in this period.28

Al-Karakl's association with the Safawid court began very soonafter the capture of Tabriz. Born in the late 860s/1450 - 1460s in the

Jabal cAmil village of Karak Nuh, al-Karaki studied in Syria andCairo early in his life. Al-Karaki's association with the SafawidShiism began almost immediately upon Ismicil's profession of faithin 907/1501. In 908/1503, al-Karaki was present at the Safawid cap-ture of Kashan and, presumably with court authority and approval,endorsed the rulings of a local Sunni qada, allowing the latter to keephis post after the qadi had agreed to IsmaCil's call to curse the Sunnicaliphs.29 In 909/1504 al-Karaki settled in Najaf with some finan-

impact on the Safawid economy is unclear, may have contributed to a low imageof Safawid prospects by these clerics. On this blockade, see idem, "Etudes Turco-Safavides. I".

28 See the sources in notes 3 and 94, and Mroueh, ibid, 44.29 Al-Shushtari, ibid, 2:233-234. See also al-Khwansari, ibid, 7:194f; al-Nuri,

ibid, 3:432; al-Amin, ibid, 41:179. See also notes 32 and 39.

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cial support from the court. In 910/1505 he was in Isfahan with Is-ma'il. In 914/1508 al-Karaki and Baghdad's Shii naqib had beenjailed by the Aq-qiuyunlu. When the Safawids captured Baghdadthat year, both were released and joined Ismcil in his tour of theShii shrine cities and al-Hilla.30 Two years later, in 916-917/1511,al-Karaki was with Ismacil at the capture of Herat.31

Al-Karaki did not hesitate to openly utilize his religio-legalknowledge and skills to support specific aspects of Safawid Shiismin this period, including the more extreme manifestations of the

Safawid identification with and expression of the faith. Thus, as willbe discussed in greater detail below, he consistently defended the ex-treme anti-Sunnism of Safawid Shiism. In 916/1511, the year Heratwas captured, for example, al-Karaki completed and dedicated toIsmacil "Nafahat al-Lahut fi LaCn l-Jibt wa'l-Taghfit" in which heargued for the legality of cursing the Sunni caliphs, thereby lendingsupport to a practice already adopted by Ismacil.32

Sometime between the capture of Herat and the battle of Chaldir-an several years later, al-Karaki replied for Ismacil to questions ad-dressed him by the Ottoman Sultan Selim, including questions as towhy Ismacil had destroyed the tomb of the Sunni jurist Abu Hanifa(d. 150/767) in Baghdad at the Safawid capture of the city in914/1508.33 Such efforts not only represented al-Karaki's approval

30 Muhammad Baqir al-Majlisi, Bihar al-Anwdr, 108 (Tehran, 1392/1972),28- 34; Agha Buzurg Muhammad al-Tehrani, al-DharCa ld Tasd.nf al-Sh:Ca(Tehran and Najaf, 1353-1398), 1:124, 122; Rumlu, ibid, 677-678, ad. 914/1508;W. Madelung, "al-Karaki", El2, 4:610. Cf. Arjomand, ibid, 133.

31 Mirza CAbdallah l-Isbahani Afandi, Riyad al-CUlama Qum, 1401) 3:445; al-Khwansarl, ibid, 4:363; al-Nuri, ibid; al-Amin, ibid, 41:176f; al-Tehrani, ibid,24:250-251; Mroueh, ibid, 46. On the conquest of Khurasan and its consequencesfor the Qizil Bash, see Aubin, "Etudes. II.", 15f.32 Al-Tehrani, ibid, 24:250-251; al-Amin, ibid, 41:180; ICjaz Husayn al-Kantfiri, Kashf al-Hujub Calcutta, 1914), 284; Madelung, ibid; Arjomand, ibid,165. On Ismail's policy of cursing the caliphs, see al-Khwansari, ibid, 7:194nl. Seealso notes 21, 39. On actions by Ottoman jurists against the Safawids, see Bacque-Grammont, Les Ottomans, 1-53, 115; Allouche, ibid, 111-112, 170-173. On theOttoman use of Friday prayer services to denounce Ismiail, see Allouche, ibid, 128.33 Anonymous, 'Alam Ard-yi Shah Ismd'il, Asghar Muntazir $ihib, ed.,(Tehran, 1349), 516. On the damage done by Ismail to the tomb and the Ottomanrepairs undertaken following the capture of Baghdad in 941/1534, see 'Abbas al-CAzzawl, Ta'rfkh al-cIraq bayn Ihtilalayn Baghdad, 1369/1949), 4:30-32; Aubin,"Etudes III", 45; note 85.


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for these specific instances of anti-Sunni extremism, but lent furtherlegitimacy both to the Safawid's extreme anti-Sunni rhetoric andconfrontations with Sunnism both at home and abroad and thusalso, more generally, to the Safawid identification with TwelverShiism.

As discussed below, al-Karaki's support for the Safawid identifi-cation with Twelver Shiism extended to support for the extremistclaims made by the Safawids concerning IsmaCl' relationship o thefaith itself. For eight years after Tabriz, at least until 916/1510, al-

Karaki endorsed the Safawids' use of such terms as al-sultin al-Cddiland al-imdm al-ddil to refer to Ismcil, thereby encouraging theshah's exploitation of the ambiguity of meaning of these terms tobolster the shah's claim to the imamate.

Al-Karaki was well-compensated for his association with and theservices he rendered the court. In addition to the remuneration hereceived as early as 909/1504, mentioned above, al-Karaki receivedland grants-including several villages-in Arab Iraq from Ismacil,probably after the capture of Baghdad in 914/1508.34 After the cap-ture of Herat two years later, in 916/1510, Ismacil granted al-Karakiadditional administrative authority in Safawid territories, also ap-parently in Arab Iraq, and an annual stipend of 70,000 dinars,which al-Karaki distributed among his students.35 Between922/1516 and 931/1525, the year after Ismacil's death, al-Karakispent much time in Safawid-controlled Najaf, from where he could

easily oversee his eastern-Iraqi financial affairs.36

34 Al-Karaki completed his khardj ssay in 916/1510 in defense of his acceptanceof land grants in Iraq likely received in this period. See CAli . al-Husayn al-Karaki,"QatiCat al-Lajaj fl Hall al-Kharaj", in, Kalimmat l-MuhaqqiqmnQum, 1402),161- 162. See also W. Madelung, "Shi'ite Discussions on the Legality of the Kha-raj", in, Proceedings f the Ninth Congress f the Union Europeenne esArabisants t Is-lamisants, Rudolph Peters, ed., (Leiden: Brill, 1981),194n4, and the sources citedin the notes above. Both al-Karaki's service to the court and remuneration appearto have predated that of al-Astarabadi, appointed sadr after Chaldiran in 920/1514,on whom see note 25.

35 See the sources cited in the notes above, note 96, and al-Nuri, ibid, 3:431.36 Al-Karaki's movements can be dated by iyazdt: n 924/1518, 928/1521,

929/1522, and 931/1524 he was in Najaf. See al-Majlisi, ibid, 108:58-59, 60f; al-Tehrani, ibid, 1:212, 214-215, 213; Afandi, ibid, 1:26, 30. It is therefore unlikelythe reference to "Shaykh Zayn al-Din CAll" as being in Herat from 928/1521-930/1523, in Habib al-Siyar eferred o al-Karaki. See Afandi, ibid, 3:444-445, and

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The OpenOpposition oSafawidShiism. Criticism rdm theffIyjz, the Gulfand Arab Iraq

The most problematic evidence supporting the migration thesiscited by Browne and echoed by more recent scholars must be thecharacterizations of Amal al-Amul nd Lu 'lu'at al-Bahrayn s biogra-phies "entirely devoted" to those Twelver clerics who came to Iran"tto make the process of transforming Iran into a Shiite land possi-ble".37 Although such characterizations are unjustified,3 they are

probably at least implicitly accepted by other commentators as well.The factors contributing to Twelver clerics' general unease withSafawid Shiism have been discussed. Careful consideration of theactions and movements of Arab scholars in the first half-centuryafter Tabriz discloses specific instances of clerical rejection ofSafawid Shiism. The disapproval of clerics in the H:ijaiz, he Gulf,and Arab Iraq, for example, was open and vocal, and focused espe-cially on al-Karaki-'s onduct in his capacity as an official, openly-acknowledged associate of the court and therefore a representativeof the court's understanding and expression of the faith. Someclerics were particularly concerned with al-Karak-i' clearly Usi:litendency to favour expansion of the role and authority of the faqihiin the absence of the Imiim. In many instances the unease with

note 60. Court chroniclers frequently were not conversant with matters and menof religion. See our "Towards a Reconsideration of the 'Isfahan School ofPhilosophy': Shaykh Bahii'i and the Role of the Safawid CUlamii', Studia ranica,Tome 15, fasc. 2 (1986), 177-178n39, and notes 23, 55. Cf. Arjomand, i'bid, 133.

37 The citations are from Nasr, "Religion", 274. See also Browne, ibid; Aubin,"Etudes. IL", 54. See also Nasr, "Spiritual Movements, Philosophy and Theologyin the Safavid Period", in Cambridge istory fIran, VI, Peterjackson and LaurenceLockhart, eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 661.

38 Amal al-Amil, completed in 1098/1687, contains one section of over 200 bio-graphical notices on cAmili scholars well-known throughout Shii history and asecond of more than 1000 notices on non-cAmili scholars alive from the onset ofTwelfth Imiim's occultation. Of the more than 133 full entries in al-Bahriini's Lu'-lu 'at al-Bahrayn, ompleted a century later, about half are biographies of clerics ofthe Safawid-period or later. Of the latter, less than thirty-nearly all of the secondSafawid century-possess the nisba Bahririni. ee Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-H-urral-c,Amili,Amal al-Amilfi- Tardjim Ulamd abal CAmilBaghdad, 1385/1965 -1966)and Yi?isuf l-Bahriini, Lu'lu'at Ba4raynfl'l-Ijdzdt a Tardjim yjelal-HadzNt Beirut,1406/1986). For details on both works, see al-Tehrainr, bid, 2:350, 18:379-380.See also Hourani, ibid, 139.


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which these clerics viewed al-Karaki's association with SafawidShiism mirrored broader popular discontent.

In the Hijaz, the implementation of policies based on the ex-treme anti-Sunnism of Safawid Shiism produced distress within theTwelver community. Sometime after Tabriz IsmaCil nstituted thepractice of openly reviling the early Sunni caliphs. Al-Karak' s openassociation with this policy began soon after his affiliation with theSafawids commenced. As recounted above, at the capture of Kashanin 908/1503 he allowed a local Sunni qd.di o retain his position afterthe latter

agreedto curse the

caliphs.In

916-917/1511,al-Karaki

authored "Nafahat al-Lahut" in which he approved openly revilingthe Sunni caliphs. Indeed, al-Karaki was generally well-known forhis reviling both of the caliphs and past Sunni scholars and for en-couraging his students to do the same. The cursing of the caliphs ledto complaints from the Hijazi Twelver community to fellow clericsin Safawid territory. According to Sayyid NiCmatallah l-Jaza'iri (d.1112/1710), Twelver clerics in Mecca complained to the ulama inIsfahan "you revile their imams in Isfahan and we in al-Haramaynare chastised for this cursing and reviling."39 The nature of thechastisement is not clear. There could only have been resentmentagainst al-Karaki for his association with and promotion of this poli-cy, however, and, together with the riots in Basra and al-Ahsasparked by Isma'il's murder of the MushaCsha' eadership, the un-ease within the Twelver community in the Hijaz and the Gulf at the

appearanceof Safawid Shiism in

the region was clearly substantial.Al-Karakl's association with and acceptance of remunerationfrom the Safawid court was also the subject of criticism by Twelverclerics. Perhaps the earliest condemnation of al-Karaki's court af-filiations was the censure of his acceptance of financial favours fromthe court by an unidentified group of clerics upon his settlement inArab Iraq, in 908/1503 or 909/1504, soon after al-Karaki hadjoined the court and had settled in Iraq, soon after IsmCail's profes-sion of the faith.40 As this rebuke came after al-Karakl's settling

39 Al-Bahrani, ibid, 153; al-Khwansari, ibid, 4:362; Muhammad b. SulaymanTunukabuni, Qisas al-Ulamad (Tehran, n.d.), 347-348; al-Amin, ibid, 41:178;Mroueh, ibid, 46.

40 In his kharaj ssay, completed in 916/1510, al-Karaki referred to a group of

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in Arab Iraq, it seems likely these clerics were themselves basedthere.

The details and implications of the clerical criticism of al-Ka-raki's acceptance of remuneration from the court are perhapsbest understood by consideration of the exchanges between al-Karaki and Ibrahim b. Sulayman al-Qatifi (d. after 945/1539), be-ginning within ten years of Tabriz. Al-Qatifi, by birth from theeastern Gulf area of Bahrayn, had settled in Najaf by 913/1507, theyear before the Safawid capture of Baghdad. He then moved to

al-Hilla.41The first of the confrontations between the two occurred some-time between the Safawid capture of Baghdad, in 914/1508, and916/1510, when al-Qatifi journeyed to Mashhad, met, and debatedal-Karaki. According to al-Qat.ifi's description of this debate in his"al-RisMla al-Ha'iriyya", an essay completed within several yearsof his return to Najaf, al-Karaki challenged al-Qatifi's refusal ofgifts from al-hukkdm (rulers)-a clear allusion to an attempt byIsmaiil to win favour with al-Qatifi. Al-Qatifi replied acceptance ofsuch gifts was makrih (reprehensible)-a ruling in agreement withthose of earlier Usuli Twelver clerics on the legality of acceptinggifts from al-zalim (the oppressor) or al-j 'ir (the tyrant)-and addedthat al-Karaki ought to have hesitated before pursuing any relation-ship with IsmaCil.42 According to his own record of this encounter,al-Qatifi did not formally define IsmaCil as al-ja'ir or al-.zlim,

clericswhohad challenged isacceptance f financial avours rom he court whenhe had settled n Arab Iraq, ikely a reference o his having settled n Arab Iraq asearly as the dates given. Al-Karaki oted he had replied o their objections, itingsupporting khbdr nd atdwi. See al-Karaki, bid, and note 52.

41 Al-Bahrani, Lu'lu'at, 165-166; al-Tehrani, bid, 1:134; All b. al-Hasan al-Bahrani, Anwdr l-BadraynNajaf, 1377/1957-1958), 282.42Al-Qatifi mentioned his confrontation ithal-Karaki nd explicitly eferredto Ismacil's ttempt o enlist his services n his later khardj ssay. There he notedhe had alsoargued hubhajudicial oubt)ought o have compelled l-Karaki o re-fuse the shah's giftswhich, as the concept of "hesitation", was a clearlyAkhbariline of argument. As will be discussed elow, al-Qatlfi's criticism f al-Karaki nhis later khardj ssaywasmore decidedly, nd openly, Akhbari. Seeal-Qatifi, "Al-Siraj al-Wahhaj", n Kalimdt l-Muhaqqiqin,91 . See also notes 44, 48 and 51. Onpoints of dispute between Usulis and Akhbaris, ee our two-part "The nature ofthe Akhbari/Usuli ispute n late Safawid Iran", BSOAS,LV, part 1, (1992),22-51, part 2 (1992), 250-261.


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although in his use of these terms al-Qatifi was certainly referringto Ism?il.43

According to al-Qatifi, al-Karaki countered acceptance of suchgifts was "obligatory or recommended"- a formulation used byUsull scholars in reference to the legal status of accepting giftsfrom al-sul.tan al-'adil or al-imam al-'adil. Inasmuch as the ambiguityinherent in these terms was being exploited in other instances to bol-ster Ismall's pretensions to the imamate, the use of such terms byal-Karaki-as a religious scholar certainly aware of their alternate

meanings-amounted to a public declaration of his acceptance ofIsma'il's characterizations of himself as the ultimate arbiter of thefaith's doctrines and practices.

Al-Karaki's interpretations were apparently shared by other cler-ics in this period: attending al-Karaki in his encounter with al-Qatifiin Mashhad were a number of other, unidentified clerics.44 ThatIsm-ail had also sent gifts to al-Qatifi suggests a wide-ranging effortby the court to win the adherence of the clerical class. The clerics inMashhad had perhaps accepted some benefaction from the court forhaving performed, or in hope of performing, some court service.

The second confrontation between the two, the well-known ex-change of khardj ssays, began shortly after their Mashhad confron-

43 The Akhbari scholar al-Shaykh al-$aduiq (d. 381/991-992) had definedal-zalim as a false claimant to the imamate. See A.A.A. Fyzee's translation of

al-$aduq's al-ICtiqdddt n A ShiciteCreed Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1942),107. See also Joseph Eliash, "Misconceptions Regarding the Juridical Status of theIranian cUlama", International ournal fMiddleEastern tudies, ol. 10, no. 1 (Febru-ary, 1979), 17; Sachedina, ibid, 34. In later Usfiul writings, however, as with theterms al-sultdn l-cddil, al-sul(idn l-jd'ir and al-imdm l-jd'ir also referred to secularauthority. See, for example, Sachedina, ibid, 93-94, 99, 170. Al-Muhaqqiqal-Hilli made rulings similar to al-Qatifi's, using al-ji 'ir and al-zalim nterchangea-bly, in corresponding sections of his Shardi'i l-Isldm, 2:10 - 12, and al-Mukhtafsar l-NJfiC (Najaf, 1383/1964, 145), as did al-Hasan b. Yusuf, al-cAllama al-Hilli in hisQawa'id al-Isldm Qum, n.d., 1:122) and Tahrfr l-Ahkam Mashhad, n.d., 1:163).See also note 13.44 Al-Qatlfi's essay is summarized in al-Bahrani, Lu'lu'at, 161-163. See alsoAfandi, ibid, 1:15f; al-Khwansari, ibid, 1:25; al-Tehrani, ibid, 6:4. The referenceby al-Bahrani to a further, similar, but undated, confrontation in Iraq between thetwo men specifically over al-Qatifi's refusal of the gifts of Tahmasp most likely alsoreferred to the Mashhad encounter. For details of the other issues debated at thisconfrontation in Mashhad, and the Akhbari-style of al-Qatifi's rejoinders, see al-Bahrani, ibid.

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tation. In 916/1510, al-Karaki completed his kharaj essay "Qatiatal-Lajaj" to refute opposition which had arisen since his confronta-tion with al-Qat.ifi n Mashhad, particularly criticisms arising fromal-Karakl's recent acceptance of villages in Arab Iraq from Ism-eil.45 In this essay al-Karaki attempted to legitimize his receipt ofthis land by declaring it to be kharaj which, as such, belonged to theImam. Al-Karaki ruled the faqih who possessed sifdt al-niydba thequalities of deputyship), by virtue of the principle of niydba dmma(general deputyship)-the general authority possessed on the Im-

am's behalf during the occultation-, was permitted to accept al-kharaj and al-muqdsama rom sultan al-jawr.These references were clearly meant as a defense of al-Karaki's

own acceptance of this land from Ismacil. The legal formulation it-self, however, was clearly different from that used against al-Qatifiin Mashhad not long before; there al-Karaki had identified Ismacilas al-sul.tin al-cadil/al-imdm al-cadil. On one level, al-Karaki' s new for-mulation suggested he now viewed Ismcil an unjust secular rulerand was now justifying his acceptance of remuneration from thecourt as a prerogative of thefaqith s the nd'ib al-imdm the deputy ofthe Imam) allowed to interact with al-jd'ir,-a ruling in agreementwith those of earlier Usufll clerics.46 On a deeper level, however, al-Karaki's abandonment of references to Ismacil as al-Cddil uggests henow also realised his earlier support for Safawid allusions to Is-maCil's imamate was untenable. Both recantations are likely at-

tributable to the opposition to his conduct which had arisen withinthe community since his confrontation with al-Qatifi in Mashhad,to which al-Karaki referred in his essay.

45 Earlier references to the kharaj ssays include Madelung, "Shi'ite Discus-sions", passim; idem, "al-Karaki"; H.M. Tabataba' , Kharij n IslamicLaw (Lon-don: Ithaca Press, 1983), passim, esp. 51-58, 133-136, 157-166, 169-180,190-191, 193-197; Lambton, State, 271-273; Arjomand, ibid, 193-194, 230,134, 136, 137; Calder, "Legitimacy and Accommodation", 96. On the oppositionwhich prompted al-Karaki's composition of this essay, see also note 52. On the ter-minology, see Tabataba'i, ibid, passim.

46 Elsewhere in the essay al-Karaki stated that in the occultation the qualifiedfaqih was permitted to accept al-khardj nd al-muqasama rom al-imim al-ji'ir; slightlydifferent terminology employed to make the same point. See al-Karaki, ibid, 173,180, 188-189. Permission for thefaqth to work for al-jd'ir n the interests of enforc-ing the law had been accepted by Uisullclerics as early as the Buwayhid period. See,


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Al-Qatifi completed his rebuttal to al-Karaki's essay in Najaf in924/1518, eight years after al-Karaki had written his treatise.47 Bythis time, for reasons to be discussed below, al-Qatifi was much lessambiguous in his use of terms to refer to Ismacil and the nature ofhis rule than he recorded himself as having been in his confrontationwith al-Karaki in Mashhad.

In this essay, al-Qatifi formally adopted the definition of al-jd'iras a false claimant to the imamate as set down by the Buwayhid-period Akhbari al-Shaykh al-Saduq. Al-Qatifi then declared illegal

receipt of items such as al-khardj rom al-jd'ir because al-ja'ir had, bydefinition, taken these improperly from their rightful owners. Al-Qatifi ruled al-Karaki ought to have hesitated before participatingin such a transaction-a further, clearly Akhbari line of argument.In any case, al-Qatifi argued, the gifts of al-zalim-a term of whosefrequent substitution with al-ja'ir in Usuli jurisprudence al-Qatifiwas certainly aware-ought to be avoided.48 This line of argumentclearly derived from and revealed al-Qatlifi's understanding of al-Karaki's expression of his own relationship to IsmCail s that of nad'ibto al-imam al-jd'ir, but his denial of the Usuli notion that the na'ibcould serve him.49

In the same essay, al-Qati.fi adopted yet another plainly Akhbaricriticism. Al-Qatifi refused to identify na'ib al-imim as thefaqih, sug-gesting niyaba ad ceased in 329/941 with the death of the fourth safirof the Hidden Imam. Al-Qatifi then declared such items as al-zakdt,

which recent Usulis had ruled was to be delivered to thefuqahd' ordistribution during the occultation, were instead to be given directlyto the intended recipients.50 This repudiation of the authority of the

fuqahd' over al-zakdt during the occultation clearly and openly signi-fied al-Qatifi's blanket rejection of the more general Usiuli concept

for example, Madelung, "A Treatise of the Sharif al-Murtada", 28-29. See alsonote 51.

47 For the dates of both essays, see al-Tehrani, ibid, 12:164, 17:10.48 Al-Qatifi, ibid, 309-311, 249, 295, 291; notes 42, 43. On "hesitation" as aspecifically Akhbari legal concept, see our two-part BSOAS essay.

49 Ibid, 295, 300f. See also the discussion on al-Karaki above.50 Ibid, 308-309. On the historical development of what in fact was the Usull

position concerning the disposition of al-zakit during the occultation, see Calder,"Zakat in Imami Shii Jurisprudence from the Tenth to the Sixteenth Century",BSOAS, 46, part 3 (1981), 468-480.

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of thefaqih's status as na 'ib al-imam during the occultation, a rejec-tion at the core of the Akhbari critique of the Usuli tradition.51

Al-Qatifi's kharij essay also reveals al-Qatifi and his critiqueclearly enjoyed the support of Twelver clerics. In his preface, al-Qatifi noted he had refused an earlier request to rebut al-Karaki's

khardj ssay because he had seen al-Karaki's essay only briefly whilein Simnan; now, he wrote, he had decided to compose such a reply.Though al-Qatifi did not identify the source of the earlier request,it most likely came from someone who, like al-Qatifi himself, was

a cleric based in Arab Iraq.52The condemnation of al-Karaki and his association with SafawidShiism was also at least partly rooted in popular resentment in ArabIraq with Safawid Shiism. In his khardj ssay al-Qat.ifi noted that fol-lowing the Safawid conquest of Arab Iraq, in 914/1508, the poor andproperty holders such as "weavers and other artisans" in Iraq hadbeen forced to pay taxes which al-Qatifi claimed financed the latertour of the area by IsmaCil-and, it will be remembered, by the local

naqib and al-Karaki himself.53The Akhbari/Usuli dimension of the kharaj confrontation between

al-Qatifi and al-Karaki was also evident in other exchanges betweenthe two in this period. The two disagreed on the nature and impactof textual prohibitions against intermarriage between individuals

51 The Akhbari critique of the Usiull understanding of the authority of thefaqihduring the occultation was linked to the Akhbari critique of Usuiill rationalistjurisprudence: development of the rationalist egal sciences both permitted and en-couraged extrapolation of the concept of thefaqih as nd'ib al-imdm. See our BSOASessay. Compare Sachedina, ibid, 203.

52 Al-Qatifi, "al-Siraj al-Wahhaj", 240-241. Madelung ("Shi'ite Discus-sions", 199) suggested the earlier request had come from "a high dignitary in theSafavid state" opposed to al-Karaki. Al-Qatifi, however, described the individualwho had made the request as "one to whom obedience is necessary". By this time,al-Qatifl's hostility to the Safawids was well-known, and given the lack of any bio-graphical information linking him to anyone in the Safawid political hierarchy and

this description of the individual in question, it seems unlikely this was a referenceto some figure in the Safawid political hierarchy. It seems more probable this wasa reference to a senior religious figure, perhaps one of al-Qatifi 's teachers in ArabIraq, who objected to al-Karaki's receipt of land from the Safawids. Such a refer-ence also suggests such a cleric-but not al-Qatifi himself-was among those towhom al-Karaki referred in his kharaj ssay as having objected to his associationwith the court in 908-909/1503-1504-on which see note 40.

53 Al-Qatifi, ibid, 291f. See also note 56 and Madelung, ibid, 198.


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related by blood and also those individuals related by al-ri.d' (wet-nursing). In 916/1510, the same year he completed his kharaj ssay,al-Karaki also produced an essay on al-ridac. Al-Qatifi completed areply to the latter in 926/1520, two years after completing his rebut-tal to al-Karaki's kharaj ssay. Al-Qatifi's essay was as much a criti-cism of the course of Usuli jurisprudence-in particular the use oflogical reasoning and presumptions of permission al-Karaki appliedwhen the legal sources appeared unclear or not immediatelyrelevant-and a demand for more litteral readings of the texts as it

wasa

discussion of issues relating to al-ri.dC.54The two also clashed over the question of the legality of the perfor-mance of Friday congregational prayer during the occultation. In917/1511, a year after his completion of his essays on al-khardj ndal-ri.dac, nd while with IsmaCil on his Khurasan campaign, al-Karaki completed a general prayer essay entitled "al-JaCfariyyaf'l-Salat". In this essay al-Karaki ruled that during the occultationthe prayer was lawful bi shart l-faqih l-jdmic i'l-shard it (on condition[of the presence] of the qualified faqih) and based on istishab con-tinuance). This was a formulation in agreement with both the rul-ings on this issue of earlier Usuili clerics and the general Usuili ten-dency to argue for an expansion in the authority of thefaqih as na'ibal-imam during the occultation. Al-Karaki's completion four yearslater, in 921/1515, of a separate essay specifically addressing the le-gality of the prayer in the occultation, however, suggests his earlier

ruling had been controversial.In his rebuttal to al-Karaki's position on congregational prayer inthe occultation, al-Qatifi specifically addressed al-Karaki's rulingthe prayer was legal in the presence of a qualifiedfaqih. The essay,although not extant, appears to have been as distinctly Akhbari asal-QatifiT s essays on al-kharij and al-ri.dac.Given al-Karakl's opensupport for the Safawid identification with the faith and al-Qatifisrejection of that support and identification, the naming of the ruler in

54 Al-Bahrani, ibid, 161, 154n5; al-Tehrami, ibid, 11: 188, 192; al-Am[n, ibid,181f. These essays were discussed by the present writer in "The Foster-ParentRelationship: Religion and Politics in Sixteenth Century Shii Thought", deliveredat the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association ofNorth America, Chicago, November 3-6, 1983. The essays are presently the sub-ject of additional, detailed study by the present writer.

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the khutba of the prayer and the tendency in these prayers to addressmatters on the ruler's agenda-both lending the shah's authorityadditional legitimacy-may have been the subtext in the clash overthe prayer.55

The timing of these written-and thus relatively public-ex-changes between al-Karaki and al-Qatifi coincided with the chang-ing fortunes of Safawid politico-military authority in the region. Al-Karaki completed his kharaj and ri.dc essays in 916/1510 and "al-JaCfariyya" in 917/1511, when Safawid politico-military power inthe

regionwas on the

ascendancy.In

914/1508 the Safawids hadcaptured Baghdad and the Shii shrine cities and in 916/1510 Heratfell to Safawid armies.

By contrast, al-Qatifi completed his reply to al-Karaki's kharaj es-say eight years later, in 924/1518, and his rebuttal on al-ri.ddc twoyears later, in 926/1520-both well after the stunning Safawiddefeat at Chaldiran in 920/1524, following which Safawid regionalauthority, indeed the very viability of the Safawid polity itself, be-

came increasingly problematic. Clearly, on the issue of kharaj, for

55 CAll al-Karaki, "al-JaCfariyya fi'l-Salat", in Cairo, Dar al-Kutub al-Mi,riyya, MS 217/2 Fiqh Shia, fol. 84a. See also Qummi, ibid, 237; Afandi, ibid,1:17, 3:448; al-Bahrani, ibid, 161; al-Tehrani, ibid, 5:110-111, 15:62, 75-76; Ar-jomand, The Shadow, 136. See also al-Karaki's discussion on this question in thesection on prayer in his laterJamic al-Maq4sid, as cited by Calder, "Zakat", 479;Sachedina, ibid, 177-204, and esp. 180- 181. The importance of the performanceof this prayer to the ruling political power is clear. The reading of IsmaCil's namein the Friday khufba o demonstrate the allegiance of an area seized for the Safawidsto the Safawid throne, for example, is noted by court chroniclers. See Allouche,ibid, 96-97, citing Rumlu and CAlam rd-yi Shah smdCil. he incident referred toin the latter, said to have occurred in Aleppo, is considered a false report, however.The importance of this prayer to the court is further attested to by the definitionby Rumlu and Qummi of the niydba f thefuqahda n terms of the conduct of Fridayprayer, itself another example of court chroniclers' lack of familiarity with Twelverlaw and practice, cited by Arjomand in his "Two Decrees of ShSh Tahmasp Con-cerning Statecraft and the Authority of Shaykh CAll l-Karaki', in Arjomand, ed.,

Authority ndPoliticalCulture n Shi'ism Albany: State University of New York Press,1988), 262n6, 261n4. Cf. Arjomand's suggestion (ibid, 251) that al-Karaki himselfinstituted Friday prayer after the 939/1532firman discussed below. See also notes23, 36, and 86, and the discussion of the religio-historical roots of the debate onthis question in our "Towards a Reconsideration", 194-196. For an instance ofthe Ottomans' use of Friday prayer to name the sultan and thus legitimise his rule,see Allouche, ibid, 137. See also note 32. On the 'qualifications' of thefaqih andistishab, ee further our BSOAS essay.


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example, clerical and popular discontent with both al-Karaki andSafawid Shiism expressed in al-Qatifi's khardj essay had beenpresent earlier.56 Only in the aftermath of Chaldiran, however, didal-Qatifi return to al-Karaki's khardj essay to compose the rebuttalhe had declined to write earlier and subject al-Karaki, IsmaCil andthe Safawid association with Twelver Shiism, and, indeed, thecourse of Usuili jurisprudence to date to criticism from a more open,explicitly Akhbari position than he had apparently expressed in hisconfrontation with al-Karaki in Mashhad. Al-Qatifi's similarly

Akhbari-style reply to al-Karaki on al-ri.ddC as also composed afterChaldiran. Al-Qatifi's essay on Friday congregational prayer, like-wise a challenge to al-Karaki and the Usiull interpretation of thefaq-ih's authority, may also have been completed sometime in thisperiod.

Although he was resident in Safawid-controlled Najaf during theperiod he authored the essays on al-kharaj and al-ri.dd, the court tookno action against al-Qatifi. This inaction probably stemmed froma combination of factors, including a weakened post-Chaldirancourt structure more concerned with political and military than reli-gious affairs, perhaps also coupled with the feeling overt actionagainst al-Qatifi, like-minded clerics, and potentially large portionsof the local, large Shiite population would not only fail to crush, butmight actually lend further publicity and/or legitimacy to their op-position. The court may also have continued to entertain the hope

the manifestly generous financial remuneration enjoyed by al-Karaki would attract to court other scholars who themselves could,more effectively, assist in muting further criticism.

The anti-Safawid riots in the Gulf, the criticisms of the Hijaziclerics, that of al-Qatifi, a native of the Gulf transplanted to ArabIraq, and fellow clerics and lay believers based in Arab Iraq illu-strate both the widespread clerical and lay discontent with SafawidShiism and al-Karaki's manner of association with it in particular,

56 On the question of khardj, al-Qatifi (ibid. 249) noted that people of the vil-lages given al-Karaki after the Safawid conquest of the area, having just been con-quered, were too afraid to complain about their being unjustifiably exploited. Headded, however, the granting of the villages to al-Karaki would have been illegaleven had the villagers been content with the transaction.

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and show this discontent arose immediately following al-Karakl'sdecision to attach himself to and accept remuneration from theSafawid court within months of Ismiail's profession of faith.

The CAmiliResponse to Safawid Shiism

Al-Karaki's advancement in Safawid service might at least be ex-pected to have served as an example to the ulama of his native Leba-non. In the event, these scholars, certainly aware of both the gener-

ally problematic aspects of Safawid Shiism and the particulars ofal-Karaki's association with the court, rejected many, if not all,aspects of both. During Ismiicl's reign the expression of this rejec-tion was more indirect and circumspect than that of the clerics andlay-believers discussed above. Both established and younger CAmiliTwelver scholars clerics avoided prolonged contact and long-termassociation with the Safawid court during IsmaCil's reign. If moreguarded, the Lebanese reaction nevertheless amounted to the same

clear repudiation of both Safawid Shiism and any legitimacy lent itby al-Karaki's association.

CAll b. Hilal al-Jaza'iri and CAl1al-Maysi were among the Twel-ver clerics so well-established by this time that their avoidance of theSafawids represented a rejection of the Safawid identification withthe faith. Al-Jaza'iri was born in Iraq and eventually settled in theJabal CAmil region. It may have been here al-Jaza'iri gave an jiazato al-Karaki himself in 909/1504.

Although al-Jaza'iri lived at leasttwo and perhaps as many as eight years after Tabriz' capture, thereis no evidence he ever made any further contact with al-Karaki orthe Safawid court itself.57

Shaykh CAll b. cAbd al-CAli al-Maysi (d. 938/1531) was from al-Mays, near al-Karaki's home village of Karak NIuh in the Jabal

57 Al-Hurr al-CAmill, bid, 2:210; Afandi, ibid, 4:280-283; al-Khwansari, ibid,4: 357-359; al-Tehrani, ibid, 8:19. H.M. Tabataba'i, in his An Introduction oShiiLaw, a bibliographical tudy London: Ithaca Press, 1984, 50) gave al-Jaza'iri's deathas 909/1504-915/1510. Al-Kantiiur (ibid, 13), probably in error, noted an iyazafrom al-Jaza'iri to al-Karaki dated 900/1495. Al-Jaza'iri's reputation was suffi-ciently established within the community by 916/1510 that in his kharaj ssay com-pleted that year al-Karaki attempted to legitimise his arguments by quoting al-Jaza'iri, an effort rejected by al-Qatifl. See al-Karaki, ibid, 190; al-Qatifi, ibid, 308.


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CAmil. He can be placed in Damascus in 903/1497, but there isno record he made contact with the Safawids during IsmiCil'sreign.58

Shaykh al-Hasan b. Jacfar al-Karaki al-CAmili d. 933/1526) wasa student of al-Maysi. Al-Hasan had first-hand experience withSafawid Shiism, actually journeying to Safawid territory in thisperiod and seeing IsmaCil. Al-Hasan chose not to remain in Safawidterritory, however, but returned to Lebanon and died in JabalCAmil.59

Younger, less well-established clerics from the region were alsoreluctant to associate with the Safawids. Shaykh Zayn al-Din b. cAllal-cAmili, for example, was a student of both al-Maysi and al-Hasanal-Karaki and, as such, certainly aware of his teachers' attitudestoward the Safawids. Although Arjomand suggested the Shaykh notonly entered but held a post in Safawid territory during Ismtcil'sreign, in fact, Zayn al-Din never entered Safawid territory.60

Zaynal-Din's student and close associate

al-Husaynb.

cAbdal-Samad al-CAmill (d. 984/1576), the father of Shaykh Baha'i(d. 1030/1620-1621), was born in 918/1512 and, as Zayn al-Dinhimself, studied under the same al-Hasan al-Karaki. Neither he nor

58 Al-Majlisi, ibid, 108:38-39, 35-38. 54-57; Afandi, ibid, 4:119, 122; al-Bahrani, ibid, 170, 170n26; al-Khwansari, ibid, 4:374-375; Tunukabuni, ibid,347;

al-Tehrani, ibid,1:230.

59 CAll b. Muhammad al-CAmili, Al-Durr al-Manthur, A. al-Husayni, ed.,(Qum, 1398), 2:159; al-Hurr al-CAmili, ibid, 1:56; Afandi, ibid, 1:165, al-Khwansari, ibid, 2:294-295. See also the discussions of al-Maysi and al-Hasanbelow.

60 According to Arjomand, Shaykh Zayn al-Din served as Shaykh al-Islam ofHerat from 928/1521 -930/1523, when the city was under Safawid control. See Ar-jomand, ibid, 302n30, citing the reference to the Arab scholar "Shaykh Zayn al-DinCAll" in the contemporary court chronicle of Ghiyath al-Din Khwandamir, Habibal-Siyar Tehran, 1333/1954-1955), 4:609-610. According to his student and bi-

ographer al-Jazzini, however, the Shaykh, who was seventeen in 928/1521, was inal-Mays from 925/1519 to 933/1526. For al-Jazzini's biography, see al-CAmill, al-Durr, 2:158, 168, and its Persian-language abridgement in Tunukabuni, ibid, 259.Afandi (ibid, 3:444- 445) also suggested the individual named by Khwandamir wasnot Shaykh Zayn al-Din. Much later, in 965/1557, the Shaykh was executed by theOttomans and subsequently called al-Shahid l-Thdn[ the second martyr). See al-Khwansari, ibid, 4:374; al-Tehrani, ibid, 1:218; our discussion of Shaykh Zayn al-Din below; notes 36, 87, 94, 97.

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his own father 'Abd al-Samad (d. 935/1528) is recorded as havingmade contact with the Safawids in this period.61

Even as Safawid Shiism was so problematic for these clerics, fornone was Sunni policy toward Arab Twelver clerics resident in theirterritories sufficiently repressive to provoke emigration to Safawidterritory. Prior to the Ottoman conquest of the region in922 -923/1516- 1517 al-Karaki himself, for example, travelledthroughout the area to study. After the Ottoman conquest, ShaykhZayn al-Din and al-Husayn b. CAbd al-Samad were not restricted in

their travels in Ottoman territory. Between 925/1519 and the end ofIsmail's reign in 930/1524, Zayn al-Din travelled fromJabal CAmilto Damascus, Cairo, and the Hijaz and even visited Istanbul severaltimes.62

By such natural clerical movement Twelver scholars throughoutthe region became aware of the manner of al-Karaki's associationwith the Safawids and the reaction of fellow Twelver clerics in theGulf, the Hijaz, and Arab Iraq both to Safawid Shiism and al-Karaki's association with the court. Al-Hasan al-Karaki's visit toSafawid territory, for example, served to familiarize him, and,through him, other CAmill clerics with Ismacil's extremist unortho-dox religious discourse and personal behaviour, the limited degreeof Safawid interest in and understanding of the faith, and aspects ofal-Karaki's association with the court. Zayn al-Din's trip to theHijaz no doubt acquainted him with the discontent of Hijatzi clerics

with such extremist Safawid policies as the cursing of the caliphs, apolicy supported by al-Karaki.

61 On al-Husayn, see our "Towards a Reconsideration", 169-171, and ourdiscussion below. On CAbd al-$amad, see al-Hurr al-'Amili, ibid, 1:109; Afandl,ibid, 3:128; al-Khwansari, ibid, 2:346; al-Amin, ibid, 38:41.

62 On al-Karaki's travels, see, for example, Afandi, ibid, 3:441f. On ShaykhZayn al-Din, see al-CAmili, al-Durr, 2:158-176, 182; Tunukabuni, ibid, 258. Seealso the discussion of Shaykh Zayn al-Din below. The failure of the Ottoman crush-ing of Shah Quli in 917/1511-1512 and subsequent efforts under Selim I to rootout Shiism in eastern Anatolia-involving the massacre of thousands of Qizil Bash(see, for example, Momen, ibid, 106)-to have alarmed these clerics is best ex-plained by the extreme socio-religious message and the social composition of ShahQuli's movement and the Qizil Bash themselves. More similar to those of the post-Junayd Safawid movement than not, the radical message and peasant and nomadicroots of both were likely viewed with little sympathy by relatively more conserva-tive, urban-based clerics. See also the reference to Bacque-Grammont in note 10.


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In sum, during IsmCail's reign Safawid Shiism presented few posi-tive images to Twelver clerics resident outside Safawid territory.Among the factors in these clerics' rejection of Safawid identificationwith the faith were Ismacil's abrupt conversion to the faith, theSafawids' consistently extreme, unorthodox religious discourse, theSafawid hierarchy's lack of interest in and understanding of the doc-trines and practices of the faith and, in contrast with Sunni success-es, the uncertainty of the future of the Safawid polity. The treatmentTwelver clerics received from Sunni political institutions rulingtheir homelands was not

sufficientlyharsh or

repressiveto drive

them to emigration. cAl1 al-Karaki was one of the few clerics in thisperiod who can categorically be shown to have left his homeland spe-cifically to associate himself with Safawid Shiism and the Safawid ef-fort to propagate the faith in the territory under their control. Thatassociation itself also contributed to the aversion of many clerics,and laybelievers, for Safawid Shiism during Ismacil's reign.

The Accession of Tahmasp

The general aspects of Safawid Shiism problematic for ArabTwelver clerics living outside Safawid territory during IsmCcil'sreign remained so in the years immediately following the accessionof ten-year-old Tahmasp in 930/1524.

Safawid religious discourse continued as extreme as before even

as the interest in and understanding of the doctrines and practicesof Twelver Shiism by members of the ruling political hierarchy re-mained as limited. As in the case of IsmaCil, public proclamationof Tahmasp's superior, implicitly divine, status never entirelyceased.63 A coin minted in Yazd in 955/1548 referred to Tahmasp

63 Western-language scholars have suggested Tahmasp attempted to moderateor even suppress veneration of himself as divine. As evidence these scholars havecited later copies of Tahmasp's diwdn n which were omitted both earlier referencesto his having proclaimed himself mahdi nd similar claims of his predecessors, andTahmasp's suppression of a group of Sufis who proclaimed him mahdi in962-963/1554-1555. See Hans R. Roemer, "Comments", Iranian Studies 7(1974), 216; Lambton, ibid, 265n7, 276-277; Arjomand, ibid, 110; Momen, ibid,109. The suppression of the Sufi revolt probably had causes similar to those under-lying the Safawid attitude toward the uprising of Shah Quli described above.

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as al-sul.tn al-'adil. An Arabic-language inscription dated 962/1554at a shrine in Isfahan, for example, described Tahmasp, then in his

forties, as sahib al-zamdn (lord of the age),64 a term which, like theother religious terms discussed above, could refer both to the Imamand secular authority.65 Claims for Tahmasp's standing as a sayyidand an 'Alid also continued.66

Such rhetoric emphasized the extremist religious message ofSafawid Shiism since Junayd even as the radical socio-economic andpolitical agenda implied by that earlier messianism was beingminimized. Focusing on the person of the shah, such discoursemight also counter-balance the centrifugal forces within the Safawidconfederation producing the internal disorder which marked theearly years of Tahmasp's reign, as discussed below. In the event,Safawid tribal levies, for example, venerated their leader as di-vine.67

The Safawid hierarchy's interest in and understanding of the faithin this period remained as perfunctory as it had during the reign of

Ismail. As then, none of the chief officers of the Safawid polityduring Tahmasp's reign was a convicted believer, let alone aTwelver cleric.68 Indeed, Sunnism persisted in certain prominentareas of Safawid territory. Qazwin remained a pocket of Sun-nism, for example, and a Qazwlni notable was twice vizier during

64 Rabino, ibid, 370. Hunarfar, ibid, 388. For an undated coin minted in Qaz-

win referring to Tahmasp as al-sul.tn al-Cddil, ee Rabino, ibid, 369.65 In his Kitib al-Ghayba Najaf, 1385, 74, 3, 63) Muhammad b. al-Hasanal-Tusi (d. 460/1067), for example, had referred to the absent Imam variously assultan al-waqt sultan of the time) and sahib al-zaman. See also notes 11, 13, and 43,and Sachedina, ibid, 100, 102-105.

66 Togan, ibid, 356; Mazzaoui, ibid, 48. See also the reference to the Safawid as"the house of Prophethood and vilayat" in an undated decree of Tahmasp translat-ed in Arjomand's "Two Decrees", 261. The phrase implicitly referred to thereligio-political egitimacy of the rule of CAll and his family, i.e. the Imams. Its usein Tahmasp's decree emphasized Safawid claims to cAlid ineage and authority. See

also the following note.67 As late as five years before his death in 984/1576 a Venetian report notedTahmasp's subjects regarded him as "not a king, but as a god, on account of hisdescent from the line of All''. See Lambton, ibid, 266;; Arjomand, TheShadow, 79.

68 Savorv, "The Principle Offices ... Tahmasp", passim, esp. 71-79. Onthose holding the post of sadr see the discussion below. The personal behaviour ofTahmasp appears to have been as problematic as that of his predecessor as well.See Aubin, "Etudes III", 49-50, and notes 8 and 22.


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the early years of Tahmasp's reign, the second time for fifteenyears.69

Finally, the political-military viability of the polity could not haveseemed any more certain in the early years of Tahmasp's reign thanit had following Chaldiran. The first ten years of Tahmasp's rule,from 930/1525 to 940/1533-the last decade of al-Karaki's ife-wasone of nearly continuous jockeying for pre-eminence by differenttribal elements within the Safawid confederation. A period of civilwar between the Ustajlu and other coalition members occurred from

932/1526 to 933/1527. There followed a brief Rumlu/Takkaluduumvirate, Takkaluf domination from 933/1527 to 937/1530, andShamlu domination from 937/1530 to 940/1534. Both the Uzbegsand the Ottomans seized the opportunities offered by these internalstruggles to attack Safawid territory. The Uzbegs launched at leastfive major efforts against Khurasan in this period. The Ottomansundertook several campaigns against western Safawid territories,and, in 941/1534, seized Baghdad and the shrine cities from theSafawids.70

Al-Karaki t the Court f Tahmasp

In 931/1524- 1525, the year after Tahmasp's accession, Safawidregional power was on the wane and al-Karaki was under open at-tack in Arab Iraq-by al-Qatifi and his clerical associates and ele-

ments of the lay community-and faced the implicit disapproval ofmany of his fellow Lebanese. In these circumstances, al-Karaki leftArab Iraq to make what the Twelver biographers referred to as his"second trip" to Safawid Iran. Given the opposition his open as-sociation with the Safawids had generated among clerics and lay be-lievers, the Safawid court was his only remaining source of sup-port.71 If not his "second trip", certainly from this point al-Karaki

69 Arjomand, ibid, 119-120.70 For a summary of these events, see Savory, "The Principle Offices ... Is-

mail?", 101; idem, "The Principle Offices .. . Tahmasp", 65-71; idem, "SafavidPersia", 403-404; Allouche, ibid, 133-140.

71 In 932/1526 al-Karaki was in Yazd, in 936/1529 in Mashhad, and in937/1530 he was in Isfahan and Qum. See Rumlufi, bid, 245f; Afandi, ibid, 3:454;al-Khwansarl, ibid, 7:178. Al-Karaki maintained connections with Arab Iraq in

96


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totally cast his lot with, and spent the majority of his time at, thecourt.

Al-Karaki's position at court in this, the next and last ten yearsof his life, was by no means assured, however. Within three yearsal-Karaki became the focal point of several court controversies. Os-tensibly religious, these disputes coincided with the internal politicaldisorders threatening of the bases of the polity itself, however, and,accentuated by and reflective of these political struggles, became ve-hicles for the factional infighting. Al-Karaki's victories in these dis-

putes more corresponded with and were the product of the triumphof certain factions within the confederation than they representedthe vindication of al-Karaki's religious authority at court or withinthe Twelver community.

Al-Karaki's confrontations at court in this period seemingly in-volved disputes between himself and those in the post of sadr. In931/1524, the year after Ismacil's death, that shah's last sadr, al-Astarabadi, died. Shah Qawwam al-Din al-Isfahani was appointedsadr. The latter was from an important family in Isfahan, a poet,and, like his predecessors in the office, not known for any Twelverproclivities. Al-Isfahani held the post about five years, during theUstajlfi civil war administration, the Rumlu/Takkalu coalition, andinto the Takkalu period.72

In the middle of the Takkalu period, however, in 935/1528-1529, Nicmatallah al-Hilli (d. 940/1533) was appointed co-sadr o al-

Isfahani. Al-Hilli was the first genuine Twelver scholar to hold theoffice under the Safawids. He had received an iydza rom al-Karakihimself in Najaf in 929/1522, was a sayyid, and claimed the rank ofmujtahid.73 t al-Isfahani's death in 936/1529, Mansur al-Dashtakiwas appointed co-sadr n his place. Al-Dashtaki was a sayyid,a native

this period, however, allowing him to supervise his affairs in the area. In 933/1527and 935/1528, for example, he was in Najaf, in 934/1527 he gave an iyjza to 'AIi

al-Maysi in Baghdad, and in 940/1533, the year of his death, he was again in Iraq.See al-Majlisi, ibid, 108:28-34, 69-81, 81-83; Afandi, ibid, 3:441-442; al-Tehrani, ibid, 1:215-216; al-Amin, ibid, 41:180. Cf. Arjomand, ibid, 133.

72 Savory, "The Principles Offices .. . Tahmasp", 80; Beeson, ibid, 90, 95.See also al-Majlisi, ibid, 108:69f; al-Tehrani, ibid, 1:213, 215.

73 Al-Hilli was also a student of al-Qatifl. See Afandi, ibid, 1:15, 5:250-253;al-Bahrani, ibid, 165n20; al-Khwansarl, ibid, 1:26, 7:176-178; al-Amin, ibid,5:187-188, 50:20; al-Bahrani, Anwdr, 288; and notes 75-77.


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of Shiraz and, although like the sixth sadr, al-Astarabadi, a studentof the Sunni philosopher al-Dawwani, al-Dashtaki was at least anominal Twelver.74

While al-Hilli and al-Dashtaki, by their acceptance of positions atcourt, obviously approved of some degree of clerical association withthe Safawids, both also clearly had doubts about the manner inwhich al-Karaki-who, if he had received many favours from Is-mail as yet held no official position at the present court75-had de-fined certain elements of Twelver doctrine and practice. Al-Hilliwas apparently specifically concerned with al-Karakli's Usull expan-sionist view of thefaqih as na ib al-imam with which, as a student ofal-Karaki, he was certainly familiar. His position at court perhapsgiving him additional confidence, al-Hill

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