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The ornament of the saints:the religious situation in Iranin pre‐Safavid timesAnnemarie Schimmel aa Professor of Indo‐Muslim Culture, HarvardUniversity and the University of BonnVersion of record first published: 02 Jan 2007.

To cite this article: Annemarie Schimmel (1974): The ornament of the saints: thereligious situation in Iran in pre‐Safavid times, Iranian Studies, 7:1-2, 88-111

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THE ORNAMENT OF THE SAINTS:

THE RELIGIOUS SITUATION IN

IRAN IN PRE-SAFAVID TIMES

ANNEMARIE SCHIMMEL

Shortly after the year 1000, Abu Nucaym al-Isfahanl(948-1037), the author of a historical study, about hishometown, called a ten volume work on Muslim hagiographywith a poignant title, flilyat al-auliya, "The Ornament ofthe Saints." At that moment, the learned and pious author,grandson of a noted aesthetic, could scarcely foresee thatIran would indeed deserve the epithet of being "decoratedby saints" during the centuries to come even more thanbefore Abu Nucaym's lifetime. Therefore, it seems notimproper to take this charming title as a starting pointfor some deliberations about the religious situation inearly Muslim Iran.

Abu Nucaym was one of the numerous disciples of IbnKhafif, the great saint of Fars who died, a centenarian, in982 in his hometown Shiraz. We may single out this mysticfor our purpose to give a short survey of pre-Safavid reli-gious life in Iran. Being "the seal of the first genera-tions and the seedbed of later generations," Ibn Khafif isa pivotal figure in whose life and teachings the differentaspects of Islam in Iran seem to converge, and whose influ-ence can be felt again in later centuries among widelydivergent groups.

When Ibn Khafif was born around 882, Persia hadalmost completed (at least outwardly) the transition fromZoroastrism to Islam. The battle of Nihawand in 642

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opened the country to the Arabs; the assassination ofYazdigird III in Merv in 651 was the final act of thisshort drama. Soon, Arab colonies were implanted in Iran;Ziyad ibn Abi Sufyan is reported to have settled 50,000people in Khurasan. Due to them, Islam slowly spread inthe country and many of the Zoroastrians converted forpractical reasons. Centers of Zoroastrian settlements wereSistan, Azerbayjan and Fars, but as early as in the eighthcentury, some groups migrated to India. It seems worthmentioning that still in the fourteenth century a tomb inShiraz of a certain Dawlat ibn Ibrahim was venerated, whohad once come to fight against the Zoroastrians in theirstronghold in the citadel of Fahandar.

Already before the advent of Islam, Zoroastrianreligion had become extremely ritualized, resulting inrigid formalism; suffice it to mention the meticulousprescriptions for the rituals of purification. Hence, theacceptance of the new faith was not too difficult for manyIranians.

It should not be forgotten that the second strongestreligious group in Iran at the time of the Arab conquestwere the Christians. An independent Nestorian Church ofIran came into existence in 484, slightly more than half acentury after the condemnation of Nestorius by the EphesianCouncil. In addition, monophysite currents were also foundin Iranian Christianity. The shab-i yalda, "night ofNativity" at the winter solstice was celebrated in variousparts of the country, and it is said that the Daylamiteruler Mardavij, notwithstanding his Shicite creed, cele-brated this holy night with gorgeous fireworks near Isfahanin 935.

Zoroastrian sects existed side by side with gnosticgroups. Manichean trends remained alive under the surfaceof all the religions in Iran and were recognized by theMuslims as the greatest threat to the pure monotheistteaching of Islam.

On the whole one cannot highlight enough the role

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which the newly converted Persian Muslims played in thedevelopment of Islamic culture. Suffice it to mentionthat the legislator of Arabic grammar, Sibawayh, was aPersian and is buried in Shiraz (d. 796). During the Abba-sid period, when the Iranization of the government and ofdaily life waxed stronger, numerous translations from Per-sian were introduced into Arabic (the name of Ibn al-Muqaffac stands for this tendency); the genre of andarz-namah was reproduced in the Mirror-for-Princes like Qabus-namah, Siyasatrnamah and Naslhat al-Muluk which becamefashionable once more particularly in eleventh centuryIran, and blended Islamic ideals with the political wisdomof ancient Iran. Yet, from among the Pahlavi books thatwere translated into Arabic, only a few were of a reli-gious character. We may assume that during this transitionperiod people in Iran generally spoke Persian; but whereasthe Muslim divines and scholars were proficient in Arabic,the native Zoroastrians still cultivated Pahlavi.

We need not dwell upon the Shucubiyyah movementwhich aimed at putting the Persians and the Arabs on thesame level in all manifestations of life, nor upon thebattle against the "Iranian" and particularly Manicheantendencies which Muslim theologians detected in many as-pects of religious life in the early Abbasid period, ten-dencies against which the muctazilite system developed.These facts are well-known.

One should remember, however, the bifurcation ofIran itself into different zones of cultural development.Eastern Iran became a refuge of traditional religiousforms; even relics of Buddhism were found there. That maybe one of the reasons why popular religious mass movementsemerged in this very border zone of Iran, movements inwhich the personality of a strong, divinely inspired leaderwho might even claim to be a prophet were apparently com-bined with undercurrents of popular religion. When theUmayyad power weakened, Bihafrid rose in Nishapur as therepresentative of an offspring of Zoroastrism; the Mobedsincited Abu Muslim against him, and Bihafrid, surroundedby legends, was later executed in 749. Abu Muslim himself,

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the leader of the revolutionary Abbasid movement, thoughfirst in close contact with Shicite circles, then suppressedthe Shicite revolt in Balkh; but he himself inspired hisfollowers to praise him as a kind of Messiah. At least,after his treacherous execution in 755 (or after his "dis-appearing in the guise of a white dove") the battle-cry"Revenge for Abu Muslim" was taken up by leaders likeSunpad and Ishaq-i Turk. We count five major uprisingsbetween 755 and 780. A former secretary of Abu Muslim,Hlshim, surnamed al-Muqannac, the Veiled Prophet of Khura-san, had been the head of Abbasid propaganda under thecaliph al-Mahdl, but now according to his claims, he oncemore manifested Divinity after his master's death andcalled people towards himself until fate reached him in783. The story of the artificial moon which he producednear Nakhshab has furnished Persian poets with a lovelyimage.

The hoisting of the black flags of the Abbasids byAbu Muslim had, as Bernard Lewis says, indeed a messianicsignificance in those days; and messianic movements, whoseleaders believe in rajca (return of the soul through manydifferent manifestations) and in an all-pervading inspira-tion which manifests itself in various prophets, are foundin the following decades in Iran. Babak (executed 837)carried the so-called KhurramI movement to Azerbayjan,although its strongholds were found everywhere in Iran.

It would be wrong to assume that the Eastern fringeof Iran was exclusively the center of more or less hereticpseudo-prophetic movements in which the admination for acharismatic leader who posed as a Divine manifestation isreminiscent of old syncretistic currents. The same Easternprovince was simultaneously the home of the earliest asce-tic movements in Islam. The name of Ibrahim ibn Adham,alledgedly prince of Balkh (the ancient center of BuddhistBactria) stands for this trend. Small wonder that theBuddha legend about the prince's migration "from home intohomelessness" was applied to his vita. The "ascetics ofMerv and Taliqan" became almost proverbial. Among them wemay mention Shaqiq al-Balkhl (d. 809) along with the former

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highway robber Fuzail ibn Iyad. There is also Abu Turabal-Nakhshabi, the master of tawakkul, who paid his completetrust in God with his life. Wandering alone and withoutprovisions in the desert, he was devoured by lions (849).These men and their disciples practised perfect poverty andtrust in God, following the injunctions of the religiouslaw even more strictly than the rank and file of theMuslims. Due to their absolute submission to God, theyimplanted some of the basic tenets of Sufism into thehearts of the following generations. When the hero of ourpaper, Ibn Khaflf, composed his first book about the vir-tues of fasting and hunger, the young mystic was faithfulto the tradition of the Khurasanian ascetic school.

This is not surprising, for Ibn Khaflf's mother camefrom a KarramI family in Nishapur. Abu cAbdallah Muhammadibn Karram (d. 868) was trained by Ahmad ibn Harb (d. 848),one of the leading ascetics in the East. Though accusedof some untenable theological concepts, the Karramls werenoted for their piety. They played a certain role inNishapur still in the late eleventh century so that evensome internal feud arose between them and the unitedHanabalite-Shaficite faction of the city, though on otheroccasions the Hanballs and Shaficls of Nishapur workedagainst each other. Later, the pietistic approach of theKarramls revealed itself in their attack against the phil-osopher-theologian Fakhr al-din RazI (d. 1209) who was adetermined enemy of Sufism and whose name is mentionedwith contempt by Baha' ad-din Walad and his illustriousson Jalal al-din Ruml.

Ibn Khaflf imbibed the strict KarramI piety fromhis mother. This lady had married a Daylamite soldier whohad resigned, at least for a while, from military serviceunder cAmr ibn Layth. Thus, in the great saint of Fars,the Western Iranian tradition is blended with the Khurasa-nian element.

The situation in northwestern Iran was quite differ-ent from that in the East and in the central provinces.The conversion in the Caspian area was slower, and it was

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in this part of the country that the Shi^ites had gained abetter footing, being "a convenient banner under which tounite in hostility to the ruling class," as Ann Lambtonputs it. Shortly before Ibn Khaflf's birth, the firstShicite kingdom of the Zaydites was founded in 865. TheDaylamite dealer Marda Ij later declared himself indepen-dent. In 932 CA1I, the son of his compatriot Buwayh,conquered Isfahan; Shiraz became a Buwayhid city in 934.The Buwayhids professed the Shicite creed in its Zayditeform, although Mardavlj had first supported the notedIsmacili missionary Abu Hatim al-Razi (d. 934). SultancAzud al-dawla, residing in Shiraz, was only too happy tomarry his daughter to an cAlid husband. The same Buwayhidruler is related to have felt a deep veneration for IbnKhafif: at that time the contrast between Sunni andShicite Islam was less outspoken than in later days. Itseems almost symbolic that the son of a Daylamite fatherand a Nishapuri mother was born and spent most of his lifein the very heart of Fars, in Shiraz. Here did Ibn Khafifbegin his studies of prophetic traditions which he laterpursued in other Persian and Arab cities. With this primeinterest in hadith, he is a representative of one side ofearly Persian Muslim activities. Were not some of theforemost collectors of hadlth, like Bukhari and TirmidhI,born in the Eastern fringe of Iran?

Young Ibn Khafif was a Shaficite, as this rite pre-vailed in Iran. Like many of his co-Shaficites, he acceptedAshcarite theology. He had met al-Ashcari (d. 923) inBaghdad and was as energetic a defender of Ashcarite dog-matics as later two of the great Persian Sufis were tobecome, i.e., al-Qushayri and al-Ghazali. It should notbe overlooked that al-Baqillani, who elaborated the Ash-carite system, was for a short time Ibn Khafif's disciplein Shiraz. Thus, the shaykh's pivotal role in the Shafi-Cite-Ashcarite tradition of early medieval Iran is quiteconspicuous. But much more important is his role in theveritable mystical tradition.

Iran has produced not only the stern ascetics ofKhurasan during the first centuries of Islamic rule but a

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remarkable number of mystics each representing a differentfacet of Sufism. There was the weird and lonesome BayazldBisfaml (d. 874) whose shathiyat (paradoxes, theopathiclocutions) were to occupy the interest of later generationsof mystics. It was he who dwelt upon the "negative" exper-ience of fana and who for the first time described themystical experience under the image of the flight throughthe heavens, corresponding to the Prophet's micraj. Baya-zid's spiritual silsilah leads to the illiterate Abu'l-Hasan al-Kharraqani in Eastern Iran, a strange personalityof unleashed spiritual power. Both mystics belong to thespiritual pedigree of the Naqshbandiyyah. There was alsoBayazld's contemporary, Yahya ibn Mucadh from Rayy whospent most of his life in Khurasan. He was the preacherof hope, full of warm and trusting piety and love, moreaccesible than the ascetic of Bistam. One must not forgetal-Hakim al-Tirmidhi, the first to introduce concepts ofhellenistic philosophy into Sufism and to attempt a classi-fication of the stages of saintship. And there are manyother early masters of the path hailing from Iran.

It is known that Junayd, the head of the Baghdadianschool, was of Persian origin (d. 910), and so was Hallaj.But Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj, the martyr of Divine love,was unable to speak his mother tongue, which resulted ina strange accident during his stay in Isfahan when he andthe "intoxicated" Sufi CA1I ibn Sahl (d. 909) entered intoa heated argument. Our Ibn Khafif was the last to visitHallaj in prison in Baghdad (922); he considered him to bea calim rabbanx, a divinely inspired wise man. Thanks tohim, Hallaj's last days have been described in extenso, andmainly thanks to him the Hallajian tradition reached Cen-tral Iran. The revival of Hallaj took place in the Shirazichain of transmission. It was Ruzbihan Baqll of Shiraz(d. 1209), initiated in the S.uhravardiyyah order, the"model of the lovers and paragon of the saints" who under-took the task of commenting upon Hallaj's works and thusmade them accessible for a wider public. He used the mys-tic's sayings in the form that had been transmitted by IbnBakuya (d. 1050). This disciple of Ibn Khafif lived inthe same cave on the hillside of Shiraz where formerly the

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Alid leader cAli ibn Hamza had hidden himself from hisAbbasid persecutors until he was killed in 831. IbnBlkuya also frequented the shaykhs of Eastern Iran andvisited Abu Sacxd ibn Abi'l-Khayr in Mihana. He thus knewthe different trends in Persian Sufism shortly after theyear 1000. According to some sources the Shirazi mysticdid not fail to visit Sulam£ (d. 1021); this prolific Sufiwriter composed his Tabaqat al-gufiya at approximately thesame time as Abu Nucaym wrote his "Ornament of the Saints."Sulamx's concise but reliable book on early mysticalleaders was shortly afterwards translated into Persian bycAbdallah-i Ansarl, the Hanbalite saint of Herat andreworked, four hundred years later, in the same city ofHerat by JamI in his Nafahat al-uns. How far the IbnKhaflf-Ibn Bakuya tradition of interpreting Hallaj's workhas influenced these later writers cannot be said withcertainty.

We need not go to Sulami to establish close rela-tions between Ibn Khaflf and the authors of theoreticalwritings on Sufism. Not only was Abu Nucaym his disciple,but what is more important, Abu Nasr a-Sarraj of Tus alsobelonged to his school. Sarraj's (d. 988) Kitab al-lumac

is the first systematic treatise on Sufism; it was fin-ished at almost the same time as the more widely readKitab al-tacarruf by KalabadhI, a Hanafite jurist born nearBukhara and, in the Arab world, the Qut al-qulub by AbuTalib al-Makki.

Further, our Ibn Khaflf was the spiritual master ofAbu Ishaq al-Kazarunl, a mystic who is related to himthrough Akkar. This KazarunI (d. 1034) was the first toorganize welfare and social work on a mystical basis. Hisactivity probably had its roots in the generosity of IbnKhaflf himself, who, for all his poverty, "took and gave"with equal ease. KazarunI's grandfather was a Zoroastrian,and from the mystic's biography the role of Zoroastians inFars during the late tenth century becomes quite clear.At that time the Zoroastrians, just as the Christians andJews, had a leader to represent them at the Buwayid courtand in legal matters. Kazerun near Shiraz had a particu-

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larly strong Zoroastrian population; it was even adminis-tered for a while by a Buwayid governor of Zoroastrianpersuasion (majus-i daylaml). A Zoroastrian rebellion inShiraz in mentioned shortly before Ibn Khaflf's death in979. Abu Ishaq is said to have converted 24,000 Zoroas-trians to Islam, but even though we concede him a greatactivity in building mosques and hostels and attempts toconvert his compatriots, this amount would be far outnumberthe whole of Kazerun. Yet, Abu Ishaq's fame attracted manyadmirers, and if the poet Sacdl lived in Shiraz in the latethirteenth century not far from the sanctuary of Ibn Khaflf,then, in the fourteenth century, we find Khwaju Kirmanxcomposing his Rawdat al-anwar and his Kamalnamah on Kaza-runi's tomb.

Besides, it is worth mentioning that the tendencyfor a properly organized mystical grouping and the crystal-lization of Sufism into fraternities set in among thefollowers of Kazarunl. The Kazaruniyyah was to developinto a large order whose branches were active not only inIran and the Ottoman empire but in Indian and Chinese portsas well. The order (sometimes, particularly in India,called Khaflfiyyah) was for a while as influential as someof the more famous orders that developed slightly later onIranian soil.

Here, the name of Abu Sacld ibn Abi'l Khair (d.1049) deserves mention. Though mainly renowned as theauthor of the first Persian mystical quatrains which, how-ever, are not his, this mystic drew up the first "monastic"rule for Sufis in Mihana and thus laid the foundations forthe later organizations of Sufi brotherhoods. The leaderswho channelled the mysticial movements into proper orderslikewise come from Iran; the most famous names are thoseof cAbdul Qadir al-Gilani (d. 1166), the anbalite preacherof Baghdad who came from Gilan, and the Suhravardls, AbuNajlb (d. 1168) and his nephew Abu Hafs cUmar (d. 1234).It seems that in the fourteenth century the Suhravardiyyahwas the leading order in Shiraz. From Iran proper themystical leaders migrated to India where the first Sufisaint had arrived as early as in the mid-eleventh century

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(Hujwlrl in Lahore, d. ca. 1071). Sistan was the startingplace for both the §uhravardl and the Chishtl missionarieswho introduced classical tasawwuf to the Subcontinent fromthe early thirteenth century onwards.

But our Ibn Khafif was not only a mystical teacher.As much as he was interested in direct mystical experienceattained by means of asceticism and mystical love, likewisehe participated in theological discussion. Not only in hispurely Ashcarite Ictiqad, his Credo, but also in othertheoretical works, like Al-minhaj fi'l fiqh, has he contri-buted, at least to a small extent, to Islamic theology.This side of his activities reminds us of many of his com-patriots who devoted their lives to the understanding andexplanation of the Quran and prophetic tradition. Sufficeit to mention here Baydawl with his Anwar al-tanzll or theMuctazilite Zamakhsharl with his Kashshaf; both thesecommentators of the Quran were born Iranians. One may add,for a later period, the name of cAzud al-dxn al-ljl whosynthesized the theoretical basis of Islam. There isalmost no end to scholars of Iranian origin in this field.

Ibn Khafif also composed a book refuting the Mucta-zilites who had risen to defend the pure unity of Godagainst every possible trace of Persian dualism that mightencroach upon Islam. In another book he attacked theRafizls, e.g., the Shicites who share some theologicalviews with the Muctazilites. To be sure, during Ibn Kha-fif's lifetime the Shicites in general, and the Imamiyyahin particular, did not play a very conspicuous role inIran, notwithstanding the Shicite persuasion of the Buway-hid rulers, and the activities of the Ismacili mission-aries. The veritable centers of Shicite propaganda werealmost exclusively in the Arab world. The Qarmathians inBahrain, the Fatimids in North Africa, the Hamdanids inSyria belonged to the Shicite persuasion, and most of thesacred places of the Shicites were also located in Arabterritory, like Najaf, Kerbela, Hilla, Kazimain. OnlyNukan, soon called Mashhad, the last resting place of boththe caliph Harun al-Rashld and the Imam CA1I Ri^a (d. 818)soon turned into a veritable center of veneration of the

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imams and became "the mine of scholars and wise men." Asecond Shicite sanctuary was Qumm where Fatimah, Musa al-Kazim's daughter, was buried; this place, too, became ahome of outstanding Shicite scholars, beginning with thetheologian Ibn Babuya. In Fars proper, Shicite tendencieswere apparently not too strong. A certain veneration ofmembers of the house of the Prophet was common, as inalmost every good Muslim environment. cA^ud al-dawladeccwrated the place where the cAlid CA1I ibn Hamza had beenkilled in 831. However, Mahmud Ghaznavi's persecution ofShicites probably also affected the Shicite population inthe heart of Iran.

In Ibn Khaflf, various trends are still united whichwere to separate in his disciples. Sarraj is a represen-tative of the theoretical aspect of Sufism; KazarunI of itspractical aspects. Another of the shaykh's disciples, andin fact his biographer, was a certain Abii'l-Hasan al-Daylamx. He is known as the author of a booklet on mys-tical love with the charming title Kitab catf al-alifal-ma'luf cala '1-lam al-mactuf which deals with a problemthat had constituted one of the main issues in the theo-logical discussions during the early tenth century. It issaid that Daylaml's master, Ibn Khaflf, had himself com-posed a treatise on this subject. With these books beginsthe long chain of literature produced particularly in Iranabout the theories of mystical love. We may think, on theone hand, of Ibn Sina's Risala fi'l-cishq which discussesthe problem of love in the setting of religious philosophy,and on the other hand of the subtle musings of poeticalsouls among the Sufis of Iran. There are the sawanih ofAhmad Ghazall (d. 1126), Imam Ghazall's younger brother,and the Tamhldat of his favorite disciple, cAyn al-quzatHamadhani, executed (like Hallaj) in 1132. This currentof exposing the most subtle secrets of love in a languagewhich almost defies translation because of its tendernessculminates in Ruzbihan Baqll, the spiritual disciple ofIbn Khaflf in Shiraz. Baqll's cAbhar al-cashiqin as muchas his inspired Sharh-i shathiyat belong to the mostfascinating attempts to express the ineffable mystery ofmystical love.

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Ibn Khaflf's role in the history of moderate Sufismin Iran is, thus, palpable in various facets of PersianIslam. Notwithstanding his ascetic bent of mind, he appar-ently inclined toward divine love, and although he was nota poet himself, his attitude towards spiritual love andmystical music was typical of early Sufism. The one verseattributed to him is certainly not genuine,but shortlyafter his death mystical poetry began to flourish in Iran.Abu Sacld, though not the author of mystical rubaciyat, isthe first to whom verses could be attributed. One centurylater the master of didactic poetry appears on the scene.It is Hakim Sana'I of Ghazna (d. 1131) whose Hadiqat al-haqlqah in its matter-of-fact style ushered in the goldenage of Persian mystical poetry and whose lyrical effusionsare partly of breathtaking beauty. Then follow cAttar andRumi, like Sana"I,born in Khurasan. All of these masterswere Sunni Muslims. The story of cAttar's conversion toShicite Islam has been dismissed by Ritter as a laterlegend. Rather, Sana'i, cAttar and Rumi represent theclassical ideals of Sunni Islam, tinged by the love mysti-cism of Hallaj and his Persian interpreters.

One may ask how far this religious (and also non-religious) poetry was influenced by the Persian indigenoustradition. Did the poets know anything about the religionof the country before the advent of Islam? Are theretraces of popular ideas and beliefs visible in their works?We may safely assert that they had no more than a super-ficial knowledge of the outward forms of Zoroastrism. Thatholds true even for those who, in the very beginning ofPersian poetry, started singing of the heroic deeds of theancient Persians, like Firdawsl's forerunner Daqlql. Thefire-temple was reduced to a poetic image; the fire-wor-shipping Zoroastrian could even be mixed up with the "fire-worshipping" Hindu. Some figures of Persian mythology andlegendary past were gratefully accepted by Muslim writersas surrogates for the non-existent pre-Islamic mythology.Jamshid thus became interchangeable with Solomon, both ofthem being rulers over jinn and men; Rustam and CA1I wereconsidered the two model representatives of true manhoodeven by Sunni authors; Ibrahim could at times be identified

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with Zoroaster since the concept of Nimrud's pyre led thepoet to ponder upon the Zoroastrian sacred fire. Hafiz'sverses are perfect examples of this blending of imagesfrom different religious traditions. The equation ofIbrahim with a mythical ancestor of the Indian Brahmins,barahima, was almost as normal for a Persian poet as theidentification of the guhuf-i Ibrahim with the Avesta orthe Vedas respectively. The only Persian mystic in whosework a genuine interpretation of the Persian tradition canbe detected is the shaykh al-ishrlq Suhravardi Maqtul(executed 1191). His angelology bears a distinct Zoroas-trian flavor and his whole system aims at a unification ofthe Mediterranean and the Iranian tradition in esotericwisdom. That certain trends of the old Iranian religionhave survived in Sufi and Shicite concepts has been shownrecently by H. Corbin and S.H. Nasr.

Let us return once more to our Ibn Khaflf whose rolein the development of mystical love theories, and hence oflove lyrics, is small but not unimportant. He was cer-tainly a typical representative of Persian Islam in earlydays. Mystics like Qushayri and Abu Hamid Ghazall belongto the same category of comparatively sober scholars witha thorough theological education who found eventually thefulfilment of their souls' longing in Sufism. Like IbnKhaflf, these two Sufis were Ashcarites and, living duringthe Seljuq supremacy in Iran, they complied perfectly withthe religious ambitions of the ruling class who took toAshcarism after its initial persecution by Tughrul Beg andthe vizier al-Kundurl. Nizam al-mulk was their great pro-tector. But besides the shaficite-Ashcarite masters, therole of the Hanbalites in Iran should not be overlooked.We know about their activities in Nishapur and Herat. Atthe same when Ghazali and Qushayri enjoyed the protectionof the Seljuqs, another mystic of sublime rank and authorof the most beautiful books of devotions written in thePersian tongue, cAbdallah-i Ansari, was persecuted by thatvery government for his strict Hanbalite persuasion.

But the Seljuq government had to fight against muchmore powerful enemies that the pious Hanbalite community

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who, in their steadfast clinging to the tenets of pristineIslam, represented Muslim faith at its most orthodox.Theirs was the struggle against the Ismacllls whose move-ment had developed into the greatest threat to the sunnicommunity, but also to non-Ismacili Shicite groups in Iran.

As already mentioned, it seems that western Iran wasmore open to cAlid-Shicite ideas than the center or theEast. The hicite movement had primarily grown in Arablands, though it did so in the border zone between Arab andPersian culture, Iraq, where, no doubt, it assumed manyfeatures of ancient oriental religions. Particularly con-spicuous among them are the stress on martyrdom and themyth concerning the hiding of the last religious leader(one is tempted to compare him, in terms of phenomenology,to the dying and resurrected deity of old Mesopotamianrites). It is only natural that some Persian circles triedto combine Persian and Muslim tradition. Did not cAlx,according to one legend, marry a daughter of Yazdigird?The central figure in this new picture was Salman al-Farisi,adopted by the Prophet into his house. He became theprototype of the Persians who were adopted into Islam bya special act of grace, and therefore felt particularlyclose to the family of the Prophet.

During the political unrest in the first two and ahalf centuries of Islamic history, the Zaydiyyah underYahya ibn cAbdall5h caused a rebellion in Daylam in 793.In 865 Husan ibn Zayd founded the first Shicite kingdomin Tabaristan, where Zaydite rule lasted until 1126. Themoderate viewpoint of the Zaydites who accepted imams fromamong the descendants of both Hasan and Husayn and evenconceived of the possibility of a time without an imam orof a time with two imams simultaneously was rather closeto Sunni Islam. Their theology developed under Muctaziliteinfluence as did that of the Ithna cashariyyah. Smallwonder that the Buwayhids, of Daylamite origin, took tothe Shicite persuasion and were later extinguished by thedefender of Sunni Islam, Mahmud of Ghazna. During thattime the Imamiyyah played a rather insignificant role inIranian politics and theology. It was the Ismacills who

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constituted a major issue in the political life of pre-Mongol Iran. Clashes between the Zaydiyyah and the Isma-cilis are recorded from the time of Mardavij and Abu Hatimal-RazI. Abu Hatim1s successor in the daCwa of Rayy andlater also in Khurasan, Abu Yacqub al-Sijistani' (d. after971) deserves special mention as a prolific author on Isma-cili theology (in Arabic). The Samanids in Khurasan wereconverted, for a while, to Ismacilism by Muhammad ibn Ahmadal-Nasafi (Nakhshabi) (executed 943.) His poisonous rolein eastern Iran has been denounced by Nizam al-mulk in hisSiyasafcnamah. From the surnames of the Ismacili dacis, oneunderstands that the chain of their mission permeated thewhole of Iran. Besides the above-mentioned missionarieswe may single out Hamid al-din Kirmanl and al-Mu'ayyad al-Shirazi who enjoyed a remarkable influence in Fars about1038. The most famous author to lay down the tenets ofIsmacili theology and philosophy in a larger framework wasNasir-i Khusraw, the traveller who may have been convertedIsmacillsm during his visit in Egypt, the Fatimid country.His treatises show a highly interesting combination ofhellenistic philosophy with a sophisticated interpretationof Islam. So, some modern Western scholars are inclined toregard the classical lsmacili method as the most "modern"or at least "renaissance-like" path by which Islam couldbe adapted to the exigencies of modern thought.

Shortly before Nasir-i Khusraw's death in distantBadakhshan, Hasan ibn Sabblh visited Egypt in 1078. Hasan,born in Qumm from imamite parents, left the Ithna cashariy-yah for the Ismaciliyyah but sided with Nizar after thecaliph Mustansir's death in 1094. "Our lord," sayyidna,Hasan captured Alamut near Qazvin where Nizar's younggrandson was later educated. Alamut was not the firstmountain castle of the Ismacilis. Dizkuh near Isfahan,one of the most famous strongholds, was ruled by IbncAttas, who was Hasan-i Sabbah's nominal superior, and itwas subsequently conquered in 1170 by the Seljuqs. Hasan-iSabbah, in the meanwhile, remained the leader of most ofNizar's followers until he passed away in 1124. Slowlybut diligently he had tried to extend the realm of hisspiritual and wordly power.

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One of the first victims of his faithful followers,known as the Assassins, was Nizam al-Mulk, the defender ofSunni Islam. In its last chapters his Siyasat-namah con-tains a dramatic description of the different heretic sectsin Iran, from the Khurramis to the Batiniyyah who arelumped together with the Mazdakis; all of them enemies ofIslam who deserve complete destruction. And the grandvizier was helped in his struggle against the "subversive"powers by al-Ghazall's pen.

Nonetheless, the Ismacili momement grew in Iran.In 1164 the so-called qiyamah took place: Hasan II ibnMuhammad ibn Buzurgmirh, who claimed descent from Nizar,announced the advent of paradise for his followers and theabolishment of the externals of the sharlcah, which was nolonger required in the spiritual world of the elect.Hasan, however, was murdered two years later. Henceforththe ruler of Alamut claimed to be the imam of the commu-nity. The third Hasan in the history of Alamut returnedto orthodox Islam in 1210 and is called naw-musulman.

Whatever the changes in the movement may have been,its impact on the Iranian political scene was certainlyremarkable, both in the negative and the positive. It isprobably more than a sheer coincidence that the formationof sufi orders sets in at the very moment that the powerof the Ismacllxs began to fade away. The masses, appar-ently attracted by some facets of Ismacili doctrine, nowprobably needed another organisation to express their emo-tional needs. They found it in the newly emerging Sufiorders. It can be assumed, too, that some of the gnostictheories and certain neo-platonic trends in Ismacili phil-osophy, banned from "official" Sufism thanks to Ghazlll'srelentless fight, continued under the surface and becameinfluential once more, in a different guise in the theoso-phical systems of Sufism that developed about one centurylater. Did not quite a number of Ismacili leaders pose asSufi leaders in post-Mongol Iran as well as in India?

The rulers of Alamut lost their paramount politicalimportance approximately at the time of the caliph al-Nasir,

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the last active member of the Abbasid dynasty. Nasir'sattempts to unite the kings of the territories surroundingIraq by means of the futuwwa organization proved abortivealthough one of the leading Sufis of his time, Abu HafscUmar SuhravardI assisted him in the task. His activitiescoincided with the outbreak of the Mongol cataclysm andit was the Mongols who destroyed not only the whole struc-ture of Muslim civilization between Khurasan and Anatoliabut wiped out Ismacili power as well. Alamut was conqueredin 1256.

This happened in the very year when Sacdl, residingnear Ibn Khaflfs tomb in Shiraz, wrote his Bustan. Thisevent, and even more the destruction of Baghdad and theexecution of the last Abbasid ruler two years later, marksthe beginning of a new era of religious and political lifein Iran. The weakening of the feeling of unity among theSunnis, resulting from the death of the last caliph whowas, at least, a sort of figure-head for the community ofthe faithful, certainly prepared the way for the develop-ment of a Shicite state.

The Mongols were basically indifferent to religiousissues; their attitude toward Islam was changeable in thebeginning. Certain Christian influences were visible.The newly established trade relations with Italy contri-buted to this development as much as did the visits ofsome European clerics who travelled to Central Asia in thehope of achieving the formation of a Mongol-Christian alli-ance against the Muslims. Naturally enough, the CentralAsian heritage of the Ilkhans was even more conspicuous.Not only Rashid al-dln Tablb's remarkable account of Chinain his World History but also the Chinese and Turkomantraces in the developing miniature painting should beunderlined here. But, more important for the later devel-opment in Iran is the resurgence of the imami Shicites.For the first time in Persian history some representativesof the Imamiyyah took part successfully in world politics.Naslr al-dln TusI (d. 1274) who had lived in Alamut for awhile encouraged Hulagu to destroy the Ismacili castle.He accompanied him also to Baghdad where the last Abbasid

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caliph and his family were killed in order to extinguishthe ruling family who, according to Shicite claims, hadusurped the power from the legitimate heirs of CA1I andgusayn. Naslr al-dln Tusi's disciple Ibn Mutahhar al-Hillieven succeeded in converting Uljaytu to Imamiyyah Shicismin 1309. The inscription in superb plaited Kufi in theIlkhanid part of the Masjid-i Jamicin Isfahan still bearswitness to Uljaytu's profession of faith with its closingwords CAII wall Allah' (cAli is the Friend of God).

Still, the Imamiyyah consisted at that time merelyof isolated groups in various parts of the country. Rather,the activities of Shicite theologians flourished in Iraq,and many a scholar from Iran settled in the neighborhoodof the sacred places of Kerbela and Najaf. A leading Per-sian scholar, al-Fazl al-Tabarsi (d. ca. 1155) to whom theImamiyyah owes its first comprehensive commentary of theQuran had settled, for a while, in Sabzavar in Khurasan.This place was a stronghold of the Imamiyyah through outthe centuries as can be seen from Ruml's story in theMathnavtaccording to which the Khwarazmshah promised tospare the city from destruction provided the inhabitantscould produce one person by the name of Abu Bakr. (Asimilar story is told about Qumm and a man called cUmar.)

There must have been a slow extension of thesescattered imami groups in Iran in post-Mongol times. Stilla book written in the late fourteenth century about thevenerated tombs of Shiraz, Junayd-i Shlrazl's Shadd al-izar, gives us the impression that the whole of Shiraz con-sisted exclusively of pious Sunnis. Although CA1I ibnHamza's tomb had been decorated by cAzud al-dawla, it wasonly in the thirteenth century that the tomb of Ahmad ibnMusa, Imam CA1I al-Ri.z.a's brother, was "discovered" inShiraz. It seems typical of the situation in Fars in thefourteenth century that a good IjanafI scholar, ShaykhMuhammad al-Zarandl, composed books about the virtues andhigh qualities of Muhammad, cAlx, Fatimah, and the twograndchildren, whereas his own disciple Jalal al-dln Yahya(d. after 1364) tried "to shake the necks of the stubbornghulat (exaggerators) among the Shicites." Tashayyuc

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hasan, showing marked sympathy for the Prophet's family,was common; the veneration of the sayyids was normal amongall parts of the population, particularly under Sufi influ-ence. Only the exaggerated repudiation of the righteouscaliph and some extreme theories were condemned.

It seems that on the theoretical level the bordersbetween Shicite and Sunni Sufism were often blurred inthose centuries. A typical example of this rapproachmentis that of Haydar cAmulI, a leading representative of theImamiyyah who was, at the same time, a Sufi and excellentinterpreter of Ibn cArabi. Born in 1320 in Amul, hevisited the Shicite sanctuaries in Isfahan and stayed forsome time in Astarabad where the Hurufi movement originatedduring those decades; he then settled in Iraq. The shiftin Sufism from the more practical and voluntaristic atti-tude of the early mystics towards cirfln, the gnosticapproach to the truth, was in some of its expressionsacceptable to the Shicite theologians as well. To be sure,the word "Sufism," used already for some eleventh centurymystics in not a very flattering sense, became a depreca-tory term in later shicite Islam. Yet, some of the great-est masters of the Imamiyyah built parts of their systemsupon the works of Ibn cArabi and his followers and haveinterpreted even Rumi's poetry in the light of this parti-cular philosophy.

We may ask ourselves in how far a wedding betweenShicite and Sunni Sufism in Iran had taken place alreadyin earlier periods and how far Shicite thought may haveinfluenced the various sufi groups. There is little doubtthat the links between the two movements in early dayswere rather close. The tafslr of Jacfar al-Sadiq (d. 765)was one of the most important sources for the mysticalinterpretation of the Quran in the first centuries of thehegira. Strangely enough, Jacfar has even a place in theNaqshbandi silsilah.'

Both movements agree in the importance of martyrdom,and the more emotional approach to religion is common toboth. It is certainly no accident when Sufi poets sometimes

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combine the figure of the martyred mystic Husayn ibn Mansural-Hallaj with that of Husayn ibn cAli, the martyr of Ker-bela, or when they enumerate in their poems the long chainsof "martyrs of love" in a style similar to that of Shiciteauthors who praise the martyred cAlids. The "epiphany ofGod through man" was the point on which both groups agreedto a certain extent but which constituted the decisivepoint of difference as well. The epiphany of God in theimam and the veneration of the imam as the veritable leaderof the community could not be combined with the venerationof the pir who has reached, for himself, union with God.The expressions used for the pir by a strictly Sunni Sufilike Jalal al-dln RumI are reminiscent of shicite descrip-tions of the imam: "Who does not know his pir, dies as aninfidel]" The legend that Ruml's mystical master andbeloved Shams-i Tabriz! was of Ismacllx origin cannot beverified. It is a strange coincidence that a certainShams-i Tabriz! acted as the foremost missionary of theIsmacllxs in Sind and Multan during the fourteenth century.

One of the borderlines in which Sufism and Shicismoften met was the art of jafr, the prediction from lettersand letter-groups. This technique is attributed to Jacfaral-Sadiq, and tendencies for a meaningful use of the let-ters of the Arabic alphabet, as found in the writings ofthe very first mystics of Islam, were to develop later inthe Hurufiyyah. The practice of determining the futurefrom the numinous letters of the Arabic alphabet—numinousbecause they convey the divine message--or of using theletters in magic practices was widespread from at leastthe ninth century onwards; but it found its most perfectexpression in the system of the Hurufiyyah, found byFazlullah. This mystic from Astarabad, a place in northernIran noted for some heterodox trends, worked for a whilein Isfahan and Tabriz in the second half of the fourteenthcentury. He claimed to be not only the maghar-i ilahi butas the successor of al-Hasan al-cAskari, also the promisedmessiah and MahdI. He was executed in 1394. In his move-ment extreme Shicism, blended with sufi tendencies, oncemore tried to gain political power. It is not surprisingthat the Hurufiyyah extended soon to Turkey where itsmost prominent representative was the ardent poet NisimT.

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(executed in Aleppo in 1417); his poetry is an enthusiasticcry of the mystic who has experienced the unity of every-thing created and in whom the prophets and Sufis, goodand evil, heaven and earth are united. Hurufi ideas werealso echoed in many of the practices of the Turkish Bek-tashi order in which the heritage of letter-magic is pre-served best.

This development is characteristic of the strangeand often confusing relations between the Turkish and Per-sian groups of people between Anatolia and Herat in thepost-Mongol period. The Turkoman groups on both sides ofwhat is now the border were inclined to adopt differentforms of sectarian and un-orthodox forms of Islamic teach-ings rather than sticking to the fossilized normative Sunnitradition. A good example of this tendency is the emer-gence of the so-called ahl-i haqq, again an extreme Shicitegroup whose roots can be traced back at least to the fif-teenth century. They were mainly located in northwesternIran, the old Shicite center, and were probably linkedwith the Turkoman tribe of the Qaraqoyunlu. Besides theirShi ite claims and their incarnationism, they use Sufiterminology; like the Hurufls, their members were alsorecruited from tribes in Anatolia.

It is regrettable that the development of thevarious Sufi orders and currents in post-Mongol times isstill not sufficiently known. In any case, the inter-relations between Sufis and Shicite groups in Iran werenot restricted to the syncretistic sects whose theology isdifficult to reconstruct. They can be witnessed also inthe more sophisticated orders. For example, Naj al-dinKubra, killed in Khwarazm during the Mongol invasion, wasthe founder of an order which lingered, at times, betweenunni and Shicite Islam. It is well-known that a prominent

member of this order, cAla al-dawla Simnanl (d. 1336), wasa Sunni with warm sympathies for the family of the Prophetand thought it unwise to revolt against the Shicites asrepresented by the Mongol ruler Uljaytu. The order of theDhahabiyyah, derived from the Kubrawiyyah in Iran, iscounted by R. Gramlich among the three veritable Shicite

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dervish orders, the other two being the Nicmatullahl andthe more recent Khaksariyyah. Shah Nicmatullah Wall ofKirman (d. 1431) is regarded as a great saint also by theSunni Sufis, and his descendants have played a role in thecultural life of Indo-Pakistan as Sunni Sufis. Yet, theclose connection between this order and the Ismacili branchof Shicite Islam becomes clear from the fact that the for-tieth Ismacili imam, Shah Nizar II (d. 1722) was a memberof the Ni matullahl order.

A similar case is that of the Niirbakhshiyyah whosefounder Muhammad ibn cAbdallah Nurbakhsh (1393-1464) tracedback his pedigree to Musa al-Kazim. A disciple of IshaqKhuttalani (d. 1423) who was, in turn, a disciple of theKubrawl saint CA1I Hamadhanx (d. 1385), he proclaimed him-self the khalifa of the time and aimed at combining poli-tical and religious authority which of necessity broughthim into conflict with the Timurid Sultan Shah Rukh. ForNurbakhsh, Sufism was the veritable Islam in all its as-pects, and the veneration shown to him is reflected in thewords of Shabistari's commentator Lahlji who called himkhatam al-auliya', the "seal of the saints." Against apowerful wordly prince like Shah Rukh, however, his casewas lost, and he was persecuted and eventually killed,although the type of charismatic leadership and the pre-mises of his mission very much ressembled the situation ofIsmacll the Safavid not even half a century later.

To be sure, there are also other trends in PersianIslam and particularly in the Sufism of the post-Mongolperiod. Some of the Sufis, dismayed by too much mixing,stressed the true Sunni tradition. Here, the protagonist ofthe Naqshbandiyyah, Yusuf Hamadhani (d. 1221) and hisfollowers are worth mentioning. Instead of tracing backthe silsilah to CA1I ibn Abl Talib, as even most Sunniorders do, the Naqshbandl silsilah goes back to Abu Bakr(though, strangely enough, through Jacfar al-Sadiq). Thesilent dhikr which is characteristic of the Naqshbandiyyahwas alledgedly taught to Abu Bakr by the Prophet when theywere hiding in the cave during the hijrah. The Naqsh-bandiyyah developed into a highly political order which

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worked hand in hand with the Timurids and whose leadersattained an amazing political influence in Herat and Cen-tral Asia. Throughout the centuries they maintained astrictly anti-Shicite attitude and are largely responsiblefor the persecution of Shicites in India during the seven-teenth and eighteenth centuries.

The blending of Sufi and Shicite tendencies seemsto have responded to an inner need of the Persian popula-tion in the war-ridden centuries that followed the Mongolconquest. One of these mixed groups was to develop intoa more comprehensive community in the city of Ardabil innorthwestern Iran, a place which once had been the refugeof Babak. In this town, which had been largely destroyedby the Mongols in 1220, a mystic by the name of Shaykh§afl al-dln (1252-1334) founded a sufi order in the latethirteenth century. He claimed descent from Musa al-Kazim,and his successors soon succeeded in gathering adherentsfrom among the rural population of Turkish and Persianstock in both Iran and the adjacent Anatolian provinces.Timur presented Safx al-dln's grandson Khwaju cAli with theplace of Ardabil after the battle of Ankara in 1402.Junayd, who became head of the order in 1447, gave hisdisciples a military training to lead them against theTurkoman tribe of the Qaraqoyunlu although these Turko-mans, his own in-laws, were Shicites. Later, Junaydmarried the sister of Uzun Hasan, the leader of the Aqqoy-unlu Turkomans, and can be considered the first among theArdabil shaykhs to seek wordly power. His son Haydar, bornone month after Junayd's death in April 1469, grew up underUzun Hasan's protection and later married his daughter fromDespina Khatun. Out of this union a son named Ismacll wasborn in 1487. It was Haydar who invented the distinctivered Haydar cap with its twelve parts to commemorate thetwelve imams. The growing Shicite propaganda among theTurkoman tribes dismayed the Aqqoyunlu, and the relationsbetween the family members turned into enmity; Haydar losthis life in 1488.

Around 1500, tremendous changes are visible in thepolitical scene of the Muslim world. The map that we have

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known for almost four hundred years crystallized out of therestless areas between North Africa and India. The lastMuslim resort in Spain, Granada, was wrested from the Nas-rids in 1492 (the year of the discovery of America). TheOttomans — already ruling the Balkans and Anatolia—even-tually succeeded in conquering Egypt, Syria and the holycities and extinguished the Mamluks (1516-17). The Timuridkingdom broke down under the attacks of the Uzbegs, and outof its ruins the young Babur went to Kabul and down to theplains of Panipat to found the glorious Mughal empire inIndia. And Ismacll, the youngest offspring of the house ofthe shaykhs of Ardabil, at the age of fourteen fulfilledthe seemingly impossible task of conquering the whole ofIran and imposing upon the largely sunni population theImamI Shicism as their official creed. The sermons weregiven in the name of the twelve imams, and the formulaCA1I wall Allah was added to the call to prayer.

Shah Ismacll's verses in Azeri Turkish (not in Per-sian!) reveal a strange blending of Sufi and shicitetenets. He praises himself as united with the deity andas the beginning and end of creation in the same style asthe enraptured mystical poets of Iran and Turkey had donebefore. (Small wonder that he was accepted as one of theleading poets of the Turkish Bektashiyyah!)

Under Ismacil the first Shicite treatises in thePersian language were composed by Husayn ibn Abdul haqqal-Ardablli. Surrounded by the staunch defenders of SunniIslam, the Ottoman Turks in the west, the Uzbegs in thenortheast, and the Mughals in the east, Iran now became athoroughly Shicite country. Previous to the Safavid periodone cannot speak of "Iranian Islam" properly; the country,multicolored in its religious expression, was predominantlySunni, and the indigenous Persian tradition was reflectedmerely in some poetical topoi and in mystical undercurrents.The typically "Persian" Islam emerges only after Ismacil,that king who voiced his religious claims in the Turkishlanguage; that king who is called by both his Arab contem-poraries and European authors al-Sufl, "The Great Sophy."May we call him, therefore, a unique gem in the Ornamentof the Saints of Iran.

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