The Renaissance of Shiʿi Islam in the 15Th–17Th Centuries: Facets of Thought and Practice

The Renaissance of Shiʿi Islam in the 15th–17th Centuries: Facets of Thought and Practice

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

3-5 OCTOBER 2018

Aga Khan Centre London, United Kingdom Convener: Janis Esots Academic Advisor: Farhad Daftary

Prospective Publication: The Renaissance of Shiʿi Islam in the 15th–17th Centuries: Facets of Thought and Practice Shiʿi Heritage Series, I.B. Tauris (London) in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London

Front Cover Image: ‘Group of Sages in Discussion’ A folio from a manuscript, watercolour, ink, paper. Courtesy of Aga Khan Museum (AKM186), Toronto, Canada.

2 THE RENAISSANCE OF SHIʿI ISLAM IN THE 15TH–17TH CENTURIES: FACETS OF THOUGHT AND PRACTICE

PROGRAMME

3 - 5 OCTOBER 2018

Room 215 The Institute of Ismaili Studies Aga Khan Centre 10 Handyside Street London N1C 4DN United Kingdom

INTRODUCTION

he 15th century marked the renaissance of the Ismaili and Twelver Shiʿi traditions after centuries of marginalization. It was with the commencement of the imamate of Mustanṣir biʾllāh II around 868/1463– T1464, that the Anjudān revival of the Nizārī Ismailis began. Around the same time, several Shiʿi messianic movements emerged in Iran and spread to the neighbouring countries. One of these, the Safavids, became particularly successful: in 1500, led by the youthful Ismāʿīl I, the Safavid forces defeated the army of the Aq Qoyunlu, and a year later, in the summer of 1501, took their capital Tabriz, thus establishing the Safavid state which then became an empire and the first major Shiʿi power since the fall of the Fatimids in 1171. However, the complexities of the roles of different groups, movements and currents of thought in the complicated process which can be described as ‘the Renaissance of Shiʿi Islam in the 15th and 17th centuries’ remain unexplored. The aim of this conference is to investigate and evaluate these contributions, taking into account the most recent scholarship in the field. In particular, we intend to address the following subjects: --What were the common characteristics of Shiʿi messianic movements active in the 15th–17th centuries? Why was one of them, the Safavids or Qizilbashīs, particularly successful? --What was the substance of the Anjudān revival of the Nizārī Ismailis? --Which developments of kalām and Sufism in this era can be described as the ‘Shiʿitisation of Sunnism’? --How did the School of Isfahan emerge? What were its principal manifestations in different fields of knowledge? --How did the Ismailis interact with Twelver Shiʿism and Sufism? --What were the defining characteristics of Shiʿi exegesis, theology, law and gnosis during this period?

Janis Esots

5 DAY 1 3 October 2018

09.30-10.00 Opening remarks

Keynote Speech I. The Shiʿi Milieu of Post-Mongol Iran 10.00-11.00 Farhad Daftary (IIS)

11.00-11.30 Coffee Break SHIʿI-SUFI COALESCENCE IN THE POST-MONGOL PERIOD SESSION I Chair and Discussant Wilferd Madelung (Oxford-IIS)

Prose and Poetry: A Glance into Post-Alamūt Nizārī Ismaili Literature in Iran 11:30-12.00 Jalal Badakhchani (IIS) From Iran to India: Ismaili Teachers and Teachings in the 11th/17th Century 12:00-12.30 Shafique N. Virani (Toronto)

The Convergence of Shiʿism, Philosophy and Sufism in Quṭb al-Dīn Ashkiwarī’s(d. between 12.30-13.00 1088 and 1095/1677 and 1684) al-Risāla al-mithāliyya Mathieu Terrier (CNRS, Paris)

13.00-14.00 Lunch SHIʿI MESSIANISM SESSION II Chair and Discussant Gerhard Bowering (Yale )

Messianism and Sufism in the Construction of a ‘Shiʿamicate’ Devotion in Early 18th 14:00 -14.30 Century Sindh Michel Boivin (CNRS-EHESS, Paris) Shāh Ismāʿīl’s Resurrection in Alevī-Bektāshī Literature 14.30-15.00 Amelia Gallagher (Niagara )

15.00 -15.30 Coffee Break

6 DAY 1 3 October 2018

LETTRISM SESSION III Chair and Discussant Toby Mayer (IIS)

Hurūfī Disciples versus Faḍl Allāh Astarābādī: The Ḥurūfī Khalīfas’ Interpretations of Faḍl 15.30-16.00 Allāh’s Doctrine Fatih Usluer (TOBB ETU, Ankara) Nuqṭavīs, Safavids and Shiʿism in the 9th to 11th/15th to 17th Centuries 16.00-16.30 Orkhan Mir-Kasimov (IIS) Shiʿizing Iran—with Sunni Occult Science: ʿAlī Ṣafī Kāshifī’s (d. 1533) Ḥirz al-Amān min Fitan 16.30-17.00 al-Zamān as Timurid-Safavid Manual of Lettrist Imperialism Matthew Melvin-Koushki (South Carolina) 17.00-17.30 Break Keynote Speech II. The Confl uence of Mysticism and Messianism in Islamic Theosophy (ʿIrfān) 17.30-18.30 in the 15th–17th cc. Gerhard Bowering (Yale) 19.00 Dinner for Speakers and Chairs

7 DAY 2 4 October 2018

INTELLECTUAL HISTORY SESSION IV Chair and Discussant Devin Stewart (Emory)

From Philosophical Shiʿism to Rafidism: The Dashtaki Circle in Timurid and Safavid Iran 9.00-9.30 Ahab Bdaiwi (Leiden)

The Concept of ʿAql in Safavid Commentaries on al-Kulaynī’s Uṣūl al-kāfī 9.30-10.00 Maria Dakake (George Mason) Majlisī the Second: Ambiguous Scholar and Reviver of Shiʿism in Iran in the 17th c. 10.00-10.30 Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi (Sorbonne-IIS) 10.30-11.00 Coffee Break ḤADĪTH AND FIQH SESSION V Chair and Discussant Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi (Sorbonne-IIS)

The Pre-Modern Renaissance in Shiʿi Ḥadīth Studies: Ḥadīth Criticism the Akhbārī Move- ment and Literary Production in Safavid Iran 11.00-11.30 Devin Stewart (Emory) Establishing the Canonical Text in Late Classical Shiʿi Legal Theory: the Maʿālim al-Dīn and 11.30-12.00 Its Commentaries Robert Gleave (Exeter) The Ijāza as Polemic in Early Safavid Iran 12.00-12.30 Andrew J. Newman (Edinburgh)

12.30-13.30 Lunch

SESSION VI ROUND TABLE 13.30-14.30 Keynote Speakers and Chairs of the Panels

14.30-15.00 Coffee Break

8 DAY 2 4 October 2018

ART SESSION VII Chair and Discussant / Russell Harris (IIS)

The Outburst of Shiʿi Militancy: The Evidence of Safavid and Moghul Metalwork 15.00-15.30 Assadullah Souren Melikian-Chirvani (Aga Khan Trust for Culture)

Shāh Ṭahmāsp’s View of Nature as Refl ected in His Shāhnāma 15.30-16.00 Sheila Canby (Met Museum, New York)

19.00 Dinner for Speakers and Chairs

9 DAY 3 5 October 2018

PHILOSOPHY I SESSION VIII Chair and Discussant Hermann Landolt (IIS)

Mīr Dāmād’s ‘Yemenī Wisdom’ 09.30-10.00 Janis Esots (IIS) What Was the Legacy of Mīr Dāmād in Muslim India? 10.00-10.30 Asad Q. Ahmed (Berkeley)

10.30-11.00 Coff ee Break

PHILOSOPHY II SESSION IX Chair and Discussant Hermann Landolt (IIS)

Some Aspects of the Reception of Suhrawardī’s Philosophy by Mullā Ṣadrā 11.00-11.30 Christian Jambet (Sorbonne) The Imam and the Greek Sage: Neoplatonic Commentaries on Shiʿi Ḥadīth in the Safavid Period 11.30-12.00 Sajjad Rizvi (Exeter) Ismaili Traces in the Works of Safavid Philosophers: The Quotations from al-Risāla al-jāmiʿa in 12.00-12.30 Quṭb al-Dīn Ashkevarī’s Maḥbūb al-qulūb Daniel De Smet (CNRS, Paris) 12.30-13.30 Lunch Keynote Speech III. Henry Corbin and the School of Isfahan 13.30-14.30 Hermann Landolt (IIS) Chair and Discussant Christian Jambet (Sorbonne)

10 ABSTRACTS AND ACADEMIC BIOGRAPHIES

11 MOHAMMAD ALI AMIR-MOEZZI ASAD Q. AHMED (Sorbonne and The Institute of Ismaili Studies) (University of California, Berkeley) Majlisī the Second: Ambiguous Scholar and Reviver of What Was the Legacy of Mīr Dāmād in Muslim India? Shiʿism in Iran in the 17th Century Mīr Dāmād is a significant figure in the history of Muḥammad Bāqir Majlisī (d. 1110/1699) is one of philosophy in Islam and the influence of his works the most remarkable figures of Safavid Iran. As a ma- on Iranian writers has been thoroughly established jor authority among the nascent Shiʿi ‘clergy’ and in secondary literature. This paper examines his im- the one who was primarily responsible for the re- pact on the broader Persianate world, namely, on ligious policy of the state, he played a decisive role the philosophical traditions of Muslim India. What in politics. This role contradicted certain tradition- was the range of his presence within the philosoph- al Shiʿi teachings found in the sayings attributed to ical texts of pre-modern Muslim India? Which of his the Imams. At the same time, Majlisī is known as the texts and doctrines were engaged? In which areas of reviver of these very teachings by dint of his mon- philosophy was he relevant? How were his doctrines umental collection of ḥadīth, Biḥār al-anwār. Are we received? The paper examines a broad range of texts dealing with an ambiguous or perhaps even hyp- from India, biographical accounts and manuscript ocritical attitude, or with an attempt to maintain a evidence, in order to place Mīr Dāmād in his Indian balance between safeguarding and promoting the milieu. Tradition, and establishing Twelver Imāmī Shiʿism as the state religion? Asad Q. Ahmed is Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of California, Berke- Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi is Directeur d’études ley. He is the author of The Religious Elite of the Early Is- at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Sorbonne) lamic Hijaz (Oxford, 2011), Avicenna’s Deliverance: Logic and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Ismai- (Oxford–Karachi, 2012), and of the forthcoming vol- li Studies, London. His publications include Le Guide ume, Palimpsests of Themselves: Philosophical Commen- divin dans le shi’isme originel. Aux sources de l’ésotérisme taries in Postclassical Islam. He has also written several en Islam (Paris, 1992; translated into English as The articles and co-edited collected volumes in the fields Divine Guide in Early Shiʿism: The Sources of Esotericism of Islamic history, philosophy in the Islamic world, in Islam, Albany, NY, 1994), Qu’est-ce que le shî’isme ? and Muslim legal theory. (with C. Jambet, Paris, 2004, translated into Eng- _ _ _ lish as What is Shi’i Islam? An Introduction, Routledge, 2018), La religion discrète: croyances et pratiques spirit- SAYYED JALAL BADAKHCHANI uelles dans l’islam shi’ite (Paris, 2006, translated into (The Institute of Ismaili Studies) English as The Spirituality of Shiʿi Islam: Beliefs and Prose and Poetry: A Glance into Post-Alamūt Nizārī Ismaili Practices, London, 2010), Revelation and Falsification. Literature in Iran The Kitāb al-Qirāʾāt of Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Sayyārī (with E. Kohlberg, Leiden, 2009), and Le Coran par- The remarkable Ismaili tradition of producing reli- lant et le Coran silencieux: sources scripturaires de l’islam gious literature in both prose and poetry, though losing entre histoire et ferveur (Paris, 2011, translated into its momentum after the fall of Alamūt, continued to be English as The Silent Qurʾan and the Speaking Qurʾan: a dynamic means of expressing the religious identity, Scriptural Sources of Islam Between History and Fervor, the tenets of faith, the history and above all highlight- New York, 2016). He is the academic editor of the Dic- ing the lineage of the Nizārī Ismaili Imamate. With tionnaire du Coran (Paris, 2007) and, with M. De Cillis, reference to new discoveries in the field, this study D. De Smet and O. Mir-Kasimov, of the L’ésotérisme aims at producing a brief survey of the bulk of Is- shiʿite, ses racines et ses prolongements (Turnhout, 2016). maili post-Alamūt literature in the Persian language and will introduce a compendium of poetry by the 17th-century Iranian Ismaili poet known as Darwīsh Quṭb al-Dīn.

12 Formerly Deputy Director of the Central Library at rainty (884–957) and in the 15th century, the career of the Firdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran, and Librar- Sayyid Muḥammad Jawnpūrī (d. 1505), who claimed to ian at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, Dr be the mahdī, had a great impact on the religious land- Sayyed Jalal Hosseini Badakhchani is currently a Re- scape of Sindh. Notwithstanding, at the turn of the search Associate at the Institute of Ismaili Studies. He 18th century a new era was initiated when Twelver has published new editions and English translations Shiʿism became a main component of the popular re- of the following Ismaili works by Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī: ligion of the region, practiced not only by Shiʿis but Sayr wa sulūk (London, 1998; 2nd ed. Tehran, 2018), Sunnis and Hindus as well. The renaissance of Shiʿism Rawḍa-yi taslīm (London, 2005; 2nd ed. Tehran, 2014) in this part of the world was concomitant with the and three of his short treatises under the title Shiʿi spread and impact of Ḥusayn Wāʿiẓ Kāshifī’s Rawḍat Interpretations of Islam (London, 2011). He has also al-shuhadāʾ, not only in Persian but also in vernacu- edited two major works by Ḥasan-i Maḥmūd-i Kātib, lar translations. The early Shiʿi devotional literature namely the Dīwān-i Qāʾimiyyāt (Tehran, 2016) and the was produced both in Persian and vernacular Sindhi Haft bāb , published together with the English trans- translations, in the genre of marthiya. But from the be- lation under the title Spiritual Resurrection in Shiʿi Is- ginning, Shiʿi expression was interwoven with Sufi lit- lam: An Early Ismaili Treatise on the Doctrine of Qiyāmat erature. In this paper, I shall try to disentangle the dif- (London, 2017). ferent repertoires as expressed in devotional poetry, _ _ _ for which I have used the neologism of ‘Shiʿamicate’ devotion, derived from Marshall Hodgson’s concept AHAB BDAIWI of the Islamicate. (Leiden University) Michel Boivin is Directeur de recherche at the Na- Ahab Bdaiwi is Assistant Professor of Medieval Ara- tional Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), and bic Philosophy at Leiden University. He received his director elect of the Centre for South Asian Studies PhD in Arabic and Islamic Philosophy from the Uni- (CNRS-EHESS). He teaches the historical anthropolo- versity of Exeter in 2014, and lectured in Islamic and gy of the Muslim societies of South Asia at the School Iranian intellectual history at the University of St An- of Advanced Studies for Social Sciences (EHESS). His drews from 2013 to 2016. His research revolves mainly has published many articles in academic journals, as around the disciplines of philosophy, theology, intel- well as fifteen books, four of which deal with Ismai- lectual history, and oriental manuscripts in Islamicate li Shiʿism. Presently, his research is mostly focused societies. on the encounter between Islam and Hinduism in _ _ _ the context of South Asia, with a focus on the area of Sindh. MICHEL BOIVIN _ _ _ (CNRS-EHESS, Paris ) Messianism and Sufism in the Construction of Shiʿamicate GERHARD BOWERING Devotion in Early 18th-Century Sindh (Yale University) The Confluence of Mysticism and Messianism in Islamic Shiʿi Studies on South Asia have predominantly fo- Theosophy (ʿIrfān) in the 15th–17th cc. cused on the imperial centres and states where Shiʿi devotion was mostly expressed in Persian or Urdu. From the Arab conquest in the 7th century until the More peripheral expressions of Shiʿism in the vernac- rise of the Safavids, the ancient empire of Persia was ular languages have not really generated any great subsumed into the eastern half of an Islamic world. academic interest as yet. The emirate of Sindh was Emerging out of the regional turmoil that followed ruled by Shiʿi dynasties until the British conquest of the Mongol invasions of the 13th century and the con- 1843. Indeed the province had been under Shiʿi rule quests of Tamerlane (ca. 1337–1405) the Safavid state for many centuries including a period of Fatimid suze- (1501–1736) then shaped the region from Central Asia to Mesopotamia by establishing a distinctly Iranian 13 empire and culture, based on the Persian language American Oriental Society (AOS) and a recipient of and Shiʿi law and theology. Alongside great political Guggenheim and Mellon Fellowships. He is the author and artistic achievements, this Iranian culture devel- of The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam (Ber- oped a philosophical vision of Islam that was not only lin, 1980) and Sulamī’s Minor Qurʾān Commentary (Bei- influenced by the expectations and guidance of Shiʿi rut, 1995 and 1997) and co-editor of the Sufi Treatises messianism but also deeply rooted in the experience of al-Sulami (Beirut, 2009), The Comfort of the Mystics and thought of Sufi mysticism. Identified as Islamic (Leiden, 2013) and A Qurʾān Commentary by Ibn Barrajān theosophy, ʿirfān, this philosophical vision reached of Seville (Leiden, 2016). He is also the editor-in-chief its apogee in the works of two principal thinkers, Mīr of the Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought (Prince- Dāmād (d. 1630) and Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1640). ton, 2012) and the editor of Islamic Political Thought: An Mīr Dāmād achieved a remarkable synthesis be- Introduction (Princeton, 2015). His research interests tween Shiʿi doctrines, Islamic metaphysics as elabo- focus on Qurʾanic commentary, the study of Sufism, rated by al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā, and al-Suhrawardī’s the intellectual history of Islam, and Islamic political illuminative wisdom (ishrāq). In a mystical vision thought. (kashf), based on divine revelation (sharʿ) and con- _ _ _ firmed by human intelligence ʿaql( ), he perceived the privileged way to the ultimate truth, which unveils SHEILA CANBY the origin (mabdaʾ) of human selfhood and shows the (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) goal of human destiny, the alpha and omega of divine Shāh Ṭahmāsp’s View of Nature as Reflected in His Shāhnāma wisdom (ḥikmat-i ilāhī). Mullā Ṣadrā merged the Shiʿi notion of the 14 pure Many of the illustrations to Shāh Ṭahmāsp’s Shāh- souls (Muḥammad, Fāṭima and the twelve imams) with nāma, executed between around 1524 and 1537, sug- the active intelligences of Ibn Sīnā’s cosmology as on- gest a reverence for nature. Gardens and wilderness tological archetypes of existence; maintained the exist- settings contain identifiable trees, bushes and plants ence of an independent world of images (ʿālam-i mithāl) that enliven compositions and may shed light on the between the intelligible world and the sensible world; environment of sixteenth-century Iran. Nonetheless, advocated the primacy of being (wujūd) over quiddity the repetition of certain flowers and trees may be at- (māhiya) as the foundation of metaphysics and defend- tributed to artistic norms and poetic imagery rather ed the idea of the soul as the eternal essence of indi- than faithful renderings of the actual environment of viduality while asserting that everything that exists is early Safavid Iran. This paper will explore the repeti- subject to change and perfection. Using the paradigm tion of artistic motifs versus the depiction of actual of the four journeys (asfār), Mullā Ṣadrā envisioned hu- plants known to grow in Iran. As with other types of man cognition as penetrating the Absolute to such an content in the illustrations, this discussion may shed extent that the theosopher ultimately subsists in and light on the extent to which the artists of the Shāhnā- returns from God to guide humanity. ma strove to depict their world faithfully and to what This paper examines how their theosophical vi- degree they depended on artistic prototypes. sion merged the Sufi and mystic emphasis on the azal As the patron of the manuscript, Ṭahmāsp, was es- (eternity a parte ante), rooted in the practice and the- pecially interested in painting and had studied with ory of the dhikr, with the Shiʿi and messianic thrust Sulṭān Muḥammad, the presumed first supervisor of towards the abad (eternity a parte post), envisioned in the manuscript project, little or nothing that appears the expectation and guidance of the mahdī, and united in the paintings would have been taken for granted. the two streams of wilāya, the mystic and the messi- Some images may refer to actual events in the life of anic one, in one intellectual synthesis of Islamic the- Ṭahmāsp or his father, Shāh Ismāʿīl I, while illustrat- osophy (ʿirfān). ing episodes from the epic poem. Others presumably reflect Ṭahmāsp’s growing religiosity in the 1530s. Gerhard Bowering has been Professor of Islamic This paper will focus on the rendering of vegetation in Studies at Yale University since 1984. He is a member paintings from different periods of the manuscript’s of the American Philosophical Society (APS) and the production with the aim of determining whether at- 14 titudes to nature that are specifically Shiʿi can be de- a number of teaching posts, and, since 1988, has been tected. affiliated with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, where he is currently Director and Head (since 1992) In October 2009 Dr Sheila Canby was appointed Pat- of the Department of Academic Research and Publica- ti Cadby Birch Curator in Charge of the Metropolitan tions. An authority in Shiʿi studies, with special refer- Museum of Art’s Department of Islamic Art, having ence to the Ismaili tradition, Dr Daftary has published served as Curator of Islamic Art and Antiquities at the and lectured widely in these fields of Islamic studies. British Museum from 1991 to 2009. Her department’s In 2011 a Festschrift entitled Fortresses of the Intellect was new galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, produced to honour Dr Daftary by a number of his col- Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia opened in 2011. leagues and peers. As well as serving on various edi- Her publications include Shah ʿAbbas: The Remaking of torial boards, Dr Daftary is a consulting editor of the Iran (2009), Islamic Art in Detail (2005), Hunt for Paradise: Encyclopaedia Iranica (for Ismailism), co-editor (with Court Arts of Safavid Iran, 1501-76, co-editor with Jon W. Madelung) of the Encyclopaedia Islamica, and gen- Thompson (2003), The Golden Age of Persian Art, 1501- eral editor of the ‘Ismaili Heritage Series’, the ‘Ismaili 1722 (1999), Persian Painting (1993) and The Shahnama of Texts and Translations Series’ and the ‘Shiʿi Heritage Shah Tahmasp (2011 and 2014). In 2016 she co-curated Series’ published by the Institute of Ismaili Studies. He the special exhibition, ‘Court and Cosmos: the Great has written more than 200 articles and encyclopaedia Age of the Seljuqs’ and co-authored the catalogue entries and several acclaimed books, including The with Deniz Beyazit and Martina Rugiadi. She received Ismaʿilis: Their History and Doctrines (Cambridge, 1990; her PhD from Harvard University. 2nd ed., 2007), The Assassin Legends (London, 1994), A _ _ _ Short History of the Ismailis (Edinburgh, 1998), Ismaili Literature (London, 2004), Ismailis in Medieval Muslim FARHAD DAFTARY Societies (London, 2005), (with Z. Hirji) The Ismailis: An (The Institute of Ismaili Studies) Illustrated History (London, 2008), Historical Dictionary of The Shiʿi Milieu of Post-Mongol Iran the Ismailis (Lanham, Toronto, Plymouth, 2012) and A History of Shiʿi Islam (London, 2013). His edited volumes Hulagu completed the Mongol conquests of south- include Mediaeval Ismaʿili History and Thought (Cam- western Asia in the middle of the 13th century. This bridge, 1996), Intellectual Traditions in Islam (London, included the demise of the ʿAbbasid caliphate and 2000), A Modern History of the Ismailis (London, 2011), the destruction of the Ismaili state in Iran in 1256. (with G. Miskinzoda) The Study of Shiʿi Islam (London, Subsequently, Iran became politically fragmented 2014), Fifty Years in the East: The Memoirs of Wladimir while remaining predominantly Sunni. However, Ivanow (London, 2015) and (with S. Jiwa) The Fatim- certain developments in the religio-political milieu id Caliphate (London, 2018). Dr Daftary’s books have of post-Mongol Iran, investigated briefly in this- pa been translated into Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Uyghur, per, proved conducive to the activities of a number Urdu, Gujarati, Chinese, Indonesian and many Euro- of Shiʿi and Shiʿi-related movements, culminating in pean languages. the extremist, eclectic Shiʿism of the early Safavids. _ _ _ Amongst these developments, particular attention will be given to popular types of Shiʿism and ʿAlid loy- MARIA MASSI DAKAKE alism that spread through Sufi orders which remained (George Mason University) outwardly Sunni. It was in such a milieu that Shiʿi el- The Concept of ʿAql in Safavid Commentaries on ements were superimposed on Sunni Islam, creating al-Kulaynī’s Uṣūl al-kāfī a unique Shiʿi-Sunni syncretism and preparing the ground for the adoption of Shiʿism as the religion of The opening chapters of al-Kulaynī’s foundational col- Iran under the Safavids. lection of Imāmī aḥādīth suggest a constructive tension Farhad Daftary received his PhD from the University between ʿaql (intellect) as salvific guide, ‘proof’ ḥujja)( , of California, Berkeley, in 1971. Subsequently, he held guarantor of true religion, and mediator between God and his creatures, on the one hand, and the Imams who 15 serve the same epistemological and hierarchical func- (d. between 1088/1677 and 1095/1684) includes in his tion on the other. While the Imams represent a fixed history of wisdom and philosophy entitled Maḥbūb and historically particular category of spiritual hierar- al-qulūb a long chapter about the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, chy, the concept of ʿaql in its multivalent invocations along with several quotes taken from their Rasāʾil. in al-Kulaynī’s collection of the sayings of the Imams As Mathieu Terrier has shown recently in his French seems to represent a more universal, dynamic, and flu- translation of the first part of theMaḥbūb al-qulūb, the id basis of spiritual hierarchy. Various degrees of ʿaql chapter on Adam contains long quotations from the in different individuals correspond to their varying Risāla al-jāmiʿa, traditionally ascribed to the Ikhwān degrees of faith, religious understanding, and soterio- al-Ṣafāʾ, although its contents are more overtly Ismai- logical potential – qualities linked directly to devotion li than the Rasāʾil. In my paper, I show how Ashkevarī, to the Imams in many other Imāmī aḥādīth. The ten- through these quotations, presented a typically Is- sion latent in these early traditions is reflected in the maili theory about Adam and his fall, cyclical history, various historical iterations of the intellectual strug- prophecy and imamology. The example of Ashkevarī gle between naqlī and ʿaqlī, externalist and internalist, raises the still unanswered question about the circula- exoteric and esoteric perspectives in Shiʿi intellectual tion of the Risāla al-jāmiʿa and its influence in Safavid history, including ones that emerged during the later Iran. Safavid period. This paper examines Safavid-era Shiʿi commentaries on al-Kulaynī’s Uṣūl al-kāfī and compares Daniel De Smet is Directeur de recherche at the their treatment of the concept of ʿaql in the traditions French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). of the Imams, with a particular focus on the commen- He leads the research unit ‘Livres sacrés: Canons et taries of Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1640) and Muḥammad Bāqir hétérodoxies’ at the Laboratoire d’Etudes sur les Mon- Majlisī (d. 1699). othéismes (LEM, UMR 8584) in Villejuif, France, and teaches Arabic philosophy at the Catholic University Maria Massi Dakake holds a PhD in Near Eastern Stud- of Leuven (KUL), Belgium. His main fields of interest ies from Princeton University (2000), and is current- are Shiʿi Islam (in particular Ismailism), Arabic Neo- ly Associate Professor of Religious Studies at George platonism and Islamic philosophy. He is the author Mason University in Fairfax, VA. She is the director of of La Quiétude de l’Intellect. Néoplatonisme et gnose is- the undergraduate interdisciplinary Islamic Studies maélienne dans l’œuvre de Ḥamīd ad-Dīn al-Kirmānī (Xe/ program at GMU, and a founding member and former XIe s.) (Leuven, 1995), Empedocles Arabus. Une lecture co-director of the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic néoplatonicienne tardive (Brussels, 1998), Les Épîtres Studies, Fairfax, VA. Her research interests and publica- sacrées des Druzes. Rasāʾil al-Ḥikma. Volumes 1 et 2. Intro- tions lie in the fields of Islamic intellectual history, with duction, édition critique et traduction annotée des traités a particular interest in Qurʾanic studies, Shiʿi and Sufi attribués à Ḥamza b. ʿAlī et à Ismāʿīl at-Tamīmī (Leuven, mystical traditions, and in women’s religious experi- 2007), and La philosophie ismaélienne: un ésotérisme chiite ences. She is associate editor of The Study Qurʾan (2015), entre néoplatonisme et gnose (Paris, 2012), and the edi- and author of The Charismatic Community: Shiʿite Identity tor of Controverses sur les écritures canoniques de l’islam in Early Islam (SUNY Press, 2007). She is currently com- (with Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Paris, 2014) and pleting a co-edited volume, the Routledge Companion to L’ésotérisme shi‘ite, ses racines et ses prolongements (with the Qurʾan. Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Maria De Cillis and _ _ _ Orkhan Mir-Kasimov, Turnhout, 2016). _ _ _ DANIEL DE SMET (CNRS, Paris) JANIS ESOTS Ismaili Traces in the Works of Safavid philosophers: The (The Institute of Ismaili Studies) Quotations from the Risāla al-jāmiʿa in Quṭb al-Dīn Ash- Mīr Dāmād’s ‘Yemenī’ Wisdom kevarī’s Maḥbūb al-qulūb Sayyid Burhān al-Dīn Muḥammad Bāqir al-As- The late Safavid philosopher Quṭb al-Dīn Ashkevarī tarābādī, known as Mīr Dāmād (969–1040/1561–1631), 16 used to describe himself as the creator of the ‘Yem- the throne in 1501. This was due in part to his strong enī Wisdom’ (al-ḥikma al-yamāniyya) – a philosophical following among the Qizilbāsh tribes, who coalesced doctrine, which, according to its author, was more co- around Ismāʿīl as a messianic, as well as a political, fig- herent than the ‘approximate’ (takhmīnī) Hellenistic ure. In this paper, the role Shāh Ismāʿīl’s poetry played philosophy (as transmitted to the Islamic world, and in this political achievement will be re-evaluated. It epitomised by Ibn Sīnā) and which he argued to repre- will further address the meaning of Shāh Ismāʿīl as a sent a significant improvement on the latter. sacred figure among the Qizilbāsh as they developed At the heart of the ‘Yemenī’ wisdom lie two inter- into permanent sectarian communities in the Otto- related principles: 1) the Creator makes the essenc- man empire. We will explore the evolution of Shāh es (māhiyyāt) of things by simple making. Their being Ismāʿīl’s image and authority up to the present day is then abstracted from this ‘making’, i.e., the estab- through the literature his followers attributed to him. lishment of the relation with the Maker, and, hence, is treated as a derived meaning, maʿnā maṣdarī, which Amelia Gallagher received her PhD from McGill does not possess any instances but only portions re- University. She teaches in the Religious Studies De- lated to different essences – the stance, which Mullā partment of Niagara University. In addition to Shāh Ṣadrā and, following him, many later Iranian philoso- Ismāʿīl’s poetry, her research interests include re- phers, not quite correctly, interpreted as the ‘primacy ligious architecture and religious tourism. She has of the essence’ aṣālat al-māhiyya and 2) apart from the published in the Journal of Folklore Research and Iranian receptacle of time, there exist the receptacles of eter- Studies. nity (sarmad) and perpetuity (dahr). _ _ _ In my paper, I will discuss these principles and then attempt to trace and catalogue their implications. ROBERT GLEAVE (University of Exeter) Janis Esots is a Research Associate at the Institute of Establishing the Canonical Text in Late Classical Shiʿi Legal Ismaili Studies (London, UK) and the editor of the Is- Theory: the Maʿālim al-Dīn and Its Commentaries lamic Philosophy Yearbook Ishraq (2009–), published jointly by the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian The Maʿālim al-Dīn of Ḥasan b. Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī Academy of Sciences and the Iranian Academy of Phi- (d. 1011/1602) is widely recognised as the most influ- losophy. He received his PhD in Near East Languages ential of late classical (15th–17th cc.) Twelver Shiʿi and Cultures from Tallinn University, Estonia, and has works in the field of legal theory uṣūl( al-fiqh). Origi- published about 50 articles and chapters in collect- nally it was simply an introduction to a work of law ed volumes on Islamic philosophy, Sufism and -Per (fiqh), but soon was subject to separate treatment in sian literature, and translated into Russian the works late classical Shiʿi seminary circles. Its popularity lay of Mullā Ṣadrā, Suhrawardī, Mīr Dāmād, Ṣadr al-Dīn partly in its brevity, making it manageable to teach; Qūnawī and Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī. He has also contribut- but also its style which demands commentary. In this ed articles to several encyclopaedias, including The paper I will explore the doctrinal innovations in the Qurʾan: An Encyclopedia (London, 2006), The Princeton Maʿālim al-Dīn, and their subsequent elaboration in Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought (Princeton, NJ, commentaries and marginal notes, which continued 2012), Encyclopedia Islamica (Leiden, 2013–) and the well beyond 1800. A survey of the reaction in the sem- Springer Encyclopedia of Indian Religions (2018). inary to the Maʿālim al-dīn reveals messianic, theo- _ _ _ logically-informed uṣūl al-fiqh, which at times are too simple for those writing commentaries; their com- AMELIA GALLAGHER mentaries, intentionally I argue, attempt to compli- (Niagara University) cate the text of the Maʿālim. Shāh Ismāʿīl’s Resurrection in Alevī-Bektāshī Literature Robert Gleave is Professor of Arabic Studies at the Shāh Ismāʿīl is known as the first Safavid king who Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of established Shiʿi Islam in Iran, following his ascent to Exeter. His primary research interests include herme-

17 neutics and scriptural exegesis in Islam; Islamic law, the commentary on the opening of the second part of works of Islamic legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh); violence Ḥikmat al-ishrāq. Mullā Ṣadrā substitutes his doctrine and its justification in Islamic thought; and Shiʿism, of being for the ishrāqī metaphysics of light and dark- in particular Shiʿi legal and political theory. He has ness, dismissing the dualistic view which discrimi- organised a number of funded research projects in- nates between the world of the lights and the enig- cluding Islamic Reformulations: Belief, Governance and Vi- matic darkness of matter. He says that being taken in olence and Legitimate and Illegitimate Violence in Islamic its totality is light, even if some of the beings are mixed Thought. He is the author of Islam and Literalism: Literal with non-existences and potentialities. The substitu- Meaning and Interpretation in Islamic Legal Theory (Ed- tion of the language of ontology for ishrāqī doctrine inburgh, 2011) and Scripturalist Islam: The History and allowed Mullā Ṣadrā to reconcile Suhrawardī with the Doctrines of the Akhbārī Shiʿi School of Thought (Leiden, most important inspiration received from Ibn ʿArabī. 2007). His current projects are Understanding Sharīʿa: Mullā Ṣadrā disagreed with Suhrawardī about an- Custom, Gender, State and Violence and Law, Authority and other important topic, the immaterial light ruling Learning in Imami Shiite Islam (funded by the European the human body. Unlike the Shaykh al-Ishrāq, he Research Council). thought that the human soul had an intellectual life _ _ _ before that of the corporeal organism which it gov- erns in this world. The survival of the soul, required CHRISTIAN JAMBET by the divine compensation and retribution for deeds, (EPHE, Sorbonne – PSL University) would be inconceivable if the soul were born for the The Reception of Suhrawardī’s Philosophy by Mullā Ṣadrā sake of governing the body. That is why Mullā Ṣadrā maintained that the human soul had one mode of ex- Two important philosophers and theologians erect- istence in the world of Intellect and another in the ed the most famous metaphysical edifices in Islamic sensible world, although the soul was one by virtue of philosophy during the period of Safavid rule in Iran, its essence. Mullā Ṣadrā quotes many passages from notably during the 17th century. These scholars, Mīr the Theology of Pseudo-Aristotle and substitutes Ploti- Dāmād and Mullā Ṣadrā, applied the lessons of ishrāqī nus and the Universal Soul for the ishrāqī theory of philosophy in their works. For instance, Mullā Ṣadrā the ruling light. claimed that whoever tried to acquire the science of Mullā Ṣadrā’s commentary on the fifth discourse of the divine world (ḥikma ilāhiyya) must first study Ibn the second part of Ḥikmat al-ishrāq places an emphasis Sīnā’s and Suhrawardī’s works. on that original interpretation. The transmigration of Nevertheless, Mullā Ṣadrā does not adopt what the soul, which Suhrawardī discusses, receives a new Suhrawardī proposed in his books without a critical meaning in the theory of the imagination and the res- examination. He emphasises his own originality and urrection developed by Mullā Ṣadrā. claims all the credit for the foundation of the high- In conclusion, we can say that Mullā Ṣadrā read est and best philosophical method in his major work, Suhrawardī accurately and acknowledged his debt to the Four Journeys. Even though he held Suhrawardī in him. Nevertheless, he interpreted the philosophy of high esteem, Mullā Ṣadrā did not consider himself an ishrāq in terms of his own thought, and he adapted ishrāqī. ishrāqī philosophy so that it could be integrated in his Mullā Ṣadrā’s commentary on Ḥikmat al-ishrāq in re- original system, which presents a complete ontology ality consists of glosses (taʿlīqāt) on the linear explana- of Shiʿi Islam. tion (sharḥ) of the synthetic handbook by Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī (d. 1311). Unlike well-known ishrāqī commen- Christian Jambet is Directeur d’études émérite at the tators, such as Shahrazūrī or Quṭb al-Dīn, Mullā Ṣadrā Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris, Sorbonne, expresses his own beliefs, and often moves away from PSL University), Chair: Philosophie en Islam. He is the the main paths of Suhrawardī’s doctrine. Mullā Ṣadrā author of several books, including La Logique des Orien- translates the ishrāqī theses in terms of his own ontol- taux. Henry Corbin et la science des formes (Paris, 1983), ogy and eschatology. La Grande résurrection d’Alamût. Les formes de la liberté We can observe such a means of interpretation in dans le shî’isme ismaélien (Lagrasse, 1990), L’acte d’être. 18 La philosophie de la révélation chez Mollâ Sadrâ (Paris, posed to its diversity at different periods of 2002; translated into English by Jeff Fort as The Act of time and in different ‘schools’ Being. The Philosophy of Revelation in Mullā Sadrā (New 2. Related problems concerning the relationship York, 2006)), Le Caché et l’Apparent (Paris 2003), Qu’est- between Ismailism and Sufism ce que le Shî’isme ? (with Mohammad-Ali Amir-Moez- 3. The ‘Shiʿitisation’ of Sufism during and after the zi, Paris, 2004), Qu’est-ce que la philosophie islamique ? Mongol period, with reference to Mullā Ṣadrā’s (Paris, 2011), Le gouvernement divin. Islam et conception rather than Mīr Dāmād’s Sufi (and possibly Is- politique du monde. Théologie de Mullâ Sadrâ (Paris, 2016) maili) sources and La Fin de toute chose suivi de l’Epître du rassemble- 4. The relative importance of both Averroes and ment de Mullâ Sadrâ (Paris, 2017). Suhrawardī for the ‘school of Isfahan’. He received the Grand Prix de Philosophie de l’Académie Française for his complete works in 2017. Hermann Landolt received a broad academic educa- _ _ _ tion at Basel University, with Fritz Meier as his teach- er in Islamic Studies, and in Paris with Henry Corbin HERMANN LANDOLT in Islamic Religious Studies. In 1964 he obtained the (The Institute of Ismaili Studies) Diplôme EPHE (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes) Ve Henry Corbin and the School of Isfahan Section (Sorbonne) and was awarded his Dr. Phil. from Basel University in 1978. From 1964 to 1999 he taught There is an intimate connection between the title of Islamic Studies and Persian at McGill University, Mon- this conference and the particular subject I was asked treal, Canada. He is now Senior Research Fellow at to speak about. In contrast to the famous notion of the Institute of Ismaili Studies. His main publications the ‘Renaissance of Islam’ introduced into Oriental are: Correspondance spirituelle échangée entre Nūrod- Studies in 1922 by Adam Mez, and the traditional Eu- dīn Esfarāyenī (ob. 717/1317) et son disciple ʿAlāoddawleh ropean approach to ‘Arabic Philosophy’ as being es- Semnānī (ob. 736/1336), texte persan publié avec une in- sentially a continuation of Greek philosophy up to Ibn troduction (Tehran, 1972), Nūruddīn Abdurraḥmān-i Rushd (Averroes) in the 12th century, it was Henry Isfarāyinī, Le Révélateur des mystères (Kāshif al-Asrār), Corbin’s vision of an ‘Islamic philosophy’, a spiritual texte persan publié avec deux annexes, traduction et tradition which would be Shiʿite in its essence, which étude préliminaire, (Lagrasse, 1986) [2nd revised. ed. led him to the recognition of a ‘Shiʿi Renaissance’ in of Kāshif al-Asrār, Tehran, 1980 (reprinted 2004)]; [3rd the 17th century and its culmination in what he—as edition (paperback, French part only, Paris, 2005)], well as S. Hossein Nasr—termed ‘the school of Isfa- and Recherches en spiritualité iranienne. Recueil d’articles han’, including as its major figures Mīr Dāmād and his (Tehran, 2005). He is the editor, with Samira Sheikh by now famous disciple, Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī, in both and Kutub Kassam, of An Anthology of Ismaili Literature: of whom, despite their internal differences, he saw A Shiʿi Vision of Islam (London and New York, 2008). In the genuine achievement of a fresh development that 2005, a Festschrift in his honour was published as Rea- had only started with Averroes’ contemporary in the son and Inspiration in Islam: Theology, Philosophy and Mys- East, Suhrawardī. Along with this went also a new rec- ticism in Muslim Thought. ognition of Persian and Iranian culture as a specifical- _ _ _ ly ‘Iranian’ form of Islam. Needless to point out that Corbin’s vision has itself provoked criticism, not only WILFERD MADELUNG in the West, but also in Iran itself, especially among (Oxford and The Institute of Ismaili Studies) those who (like ʿAli Shariʿati, a student of Louis Mas- signon among others) protested against an identifica- Wilferd Madelung is a leading contemporary Islamic tion of ‘Safawid Shiʿism’ (tashayyuʿ-i ṣafawī) with the Studies scholar. He has made significant contributions ‘true Shiʿism’ which he called tashayyuʿ-i ʿalawī. to modern scholarship on medieval Islamic communi- Problematic issues to be highlighted will include the ties and movements, including Twelver Shiʿism, Zay- following: dism and Ismailism. Educated at the Universities of 1. The notion of the continuity of Shiʿism, as op- Cairo and Hamburg, he became Professor of Islamic 19 Studies at the University of Chicago in 1969 and the cy may have been dictated by political expediency as Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Ox- much as personal conviction. ford from 1978 until his retirement in 1998. Professor Intriguingly, the same militancy comes across on Madelung is at present Senior Research Fellow with the wine vessels executed in the Safavid style in Mo- The Institute of Ismaili Studies. ghul Hindustan. The discovery of a basin cover dated Among his numerous publications are Religious 1023/1614 whose patron ʿAlī Qulī was a Qizilbāsh, and Schools and Sects in Mediaeval Islam (London, 1985), Reli- who was probably the poet Mīrzā ʿAlī Qulī, descended gious Trends in Early Islamic Iran (Albany, NY, 1988), Re- from the Aq-qūyūnlū rulers of Iran, raises the possi- ligious and Ethnic Movements in Mediaeval Islam (Hamp- bility that the Moghul vessels in the Iranian style with shire, 1992), The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of Shiʿite prayers were produced for the many Iranian the Early Caliphate (Cambridge, 1997), and, with Paul E. expatriates who belonged to the Moghul court circles. Walker, An Ismaili Heresiography (Leiden, 1998). He has contributed extensively to The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Assadullah Souren Melikian-Chirvani is an historian Encyclopaedia Iranica, of which he is also a Consulting of Iranian culture and Indo-Iranian interaction. His Editor, and learned journals. In 2003, a Festschrift in his major discoveries include demonstrating the Bud- honour was published as Culture and Memory in Medie- dhist origin of idealised beauty (Bot-e Mahruy) in early val Islam. Persian poetry and Iranian art (Le Roman de Varqe et _ _ _ Golšâh/Arts Asiatiques XXII, 246p., Paris 1970) and the correlation of all shapes and motifs in Iranian art with ASSADULLAH SOUREN MELIKIAN-CHIRVANI Persian literary concepts (Le Chant du Monde [dans] (Aga Khan Trust for Culture) l’art de l’Iran Safavide, 464 p., Paris 2007). In The World The Outburst of Shiʿi Militancy: The Evidence of Safavid and of the Fatimids (London, 2018) Dr Melikian-Chirvani Moghul Metalwork describes the mocking irony aimed at the previously unidentified royal symbols of the Fatimid caliphs bor- Metalwork sheds light on a hitherto ignored aspect rowed from Iran. of Shiʿite militancy in Safavid Iran and Moghul Hin- _ _ _ dustan. In the last third of the 9th/15th century, Shiʿi prayers MATTHEW MELVIN-KOUSHKI began to appear on the vessels displayed at the Irani- (University of South Carolina) an wine banquet (majles-e sharab). The prayer calling Shiʿising Iran—with Sunni Occult Science: ʿAlī Ṣafī Kāshifī’s for God’s blessings upon the Fourteen Protected from (d. 1533) Ḥirz al-Amān min Fitan al-Zamān as a Timu- Error and Sin (chahardah maʿṣūm) and the versified rid-Safavid Manual of Lettrist Imperialism prayer urging the orant to call for ʿAlī’s help (nādi ʿAlī) were calligraphed in large friezes at the top of basins The ad fontes ethos that drove Safavid imperial cul- of three different models and of a drinking bowl bādi( - ture, scene to a philological-philosophical revolution yeh) that were passed around the banquet partici- directly cognate to contemporary European Renais- pants seated in a circle. All four models are sometimes sance developments, involved a textual return to inscribed with Persian verses that designate them as the Imams and the ancient Greeks in equal measure. wine vessels. In some cases, Shiʿite prayers and Per- Yet this distinctive and unprecedented form of Im- sian verses occur on the same vessel. This confirms āmī perennialism was realised by Safavid scholars that these models were indeed wine vessels. in conscious emulation of a fifteenth-century Sunni, By contrast, the Shiʿi prayers are not seen on shal- and specifically Timurid, model. The same model, it- low cups (piyāleh) for individual use. On these, the in- self the culmination of Ilkhanid and Mamluk devel- scriptions are invariably Persian verses. Prayers were opments, combined occultism, Sufism and Alidism therefore reserved for vessels that were prominently as its primary elements—the tripod that served as displayed. This points to a militancy unparalleled in foundation of the new Safavid Shiʿi imperial culture, Iran prior to the intense Shiʿi proselytism of Ḥaydar and those of the rival Mughal and Ottoman Sunnis, and his descendants, the Safavid Shahs. Such militan- through the first half of the 17th century. 20 Safavidology to date, however, has focused almost Matthew Melvin-Koushki (PhD Yale) is Assistant Pro- exclusively on the categories of Sufism and Alidism, fessor of History at the University of South Carolina. and have all but erased occultism as the crucial third He specialises in early modern Islamicate intellectual term. Such attitude has had the effect of exaggerating and imperial history, with a focus on the theory and the degree of rupture in the Timurid-Safavid transi- practice of the occult sciences in Timurid and Safavid tion and the conversion of Iran to Shiʿi Islam with re- Iran and the wider Persianate world up to the 19th spect to immediate Sunni precedent, thereby obscur- century. Melvin-Koushki’s several forthcoming books ing the equally remarkable continuities that made include Occult Philosophers and Philosopher Kings in Ear- the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires an intel- ly Modern Iran: The Life and Legacy of Ibn Turka, Timurid lectual and cultural unit for two centuries, imperial Lettrist and The Occult Science of Empire in Aqquyunlu-Sa- confessionalising rhetoric notwithstanding. But it is favid Iran: Two Shirazi Lettrists, and he is editor of the precisely the examination of occult and experimen- recently published volume Islamicate Occultism: New tal science, I argue, ignored in modern Safavid studies Perspectives (Arabica, vol. 64 (2017), thematic issue 3-4) specifically and Islamic studies generally, that- pro the first such in the field to treat post-Mongol Persi- vides the key to understanding how Safavid society anate developments. could be paradoxically Shiʿi and Sunni simultaneous- _ _ _ ly, how Imāmī perennialism was first constructed and maintained well into the 17th century. For it was only ORKHAN MIR-KASIMOV by means of occult sciences that walāya, as a theosis- (The Institute of Ismaili Studies) ing Alidist imperial Science, could be made common Nuqṭavīs, Safavids and Shiʿism in the 9th to 11th/15th to to the Imams and the ancients as ontological equals. 17th Centuries This rupturous Timurid-Safavid, Sunni-Shiʿi continuity is epitomised by the careers of two Herati preach- The mystical and messianic tendency in Irani- ers and polymaths, which together spanned the last an Islam, extremely active throughout the 8th decades of the 15th and the first of the 16th century; and 9th/14th and 15th centuries, when it was Kamāl al-Dīn Ḥusayn Wāʿiẓ Kāshifī (d. 1505) and his represented by such groups and movements as the son Fakhr al-Dīn ʿAlī Ṣafī (d. 1533). Ḥusayn Wāʿiz is re- Sarbadārs, Ḥurūfīs, Nūrbakhshīs and Mushaʿshaʿ, sig- sponsible for the Rawḍat al-shuhadāʾ, the masterpiece nificantly lost momentum after the foundation of the of Twelver Sunnism (tasannun-i ithnā-ʿasharī), and the Safavid state. The Nuqṭawīs, an offshoot of the Ḥurūfīs, eponymous basis for Shiʿi ritual rawḍa-khwānī from were one of the few groups belonging to this tenden- the Safavid period to the present. Just as importantly, cy that remained active in Iran during the reigns of however, the Kāshifīs—ardent Naqshbandī Sufi imam- the Safavid shāhs, Tahmāsp I (r. 930–984/1524–1576) ophile occultists—also wrote several occult-scientific and ʿAbbās I (r. 995–1037/1587–1628). Looking at the manuals that were to be among the most popular and Nuqṭawī doctrinal positions which inspired their polit- influential of the high Safavid period. ical activity, this paper will reflect on the relationships As a representative case study, I present one of these, between, on the one hand, the mystical and messian- ʿAlī Ṣafī’s Ḥirz al-amān min fitan al-zamān. Written for a ic ideologies situated at the confluence of Sufism and member of the Safavid ruling elite presumably during Shiʿism, of the kind that the Safavids themselves ad- a lull between the Uzbek invasions, and based exclu- hered to before they became a royal dynasty, and, on sively on Sunni and especially Naqshbandī sources, this the other hand, the legalistic Twelver Shiʿism, which manual advances an occultist-imperialist project that eventually became the official religion of the Safavid is distinctively, emphatically Timurid: lettrism as the state. scientific basis for Turko-Mongol Perso-Islamic universal empire. But the Ḥirz al-amān, which is structured ac- Orkhan Mir-Kasimov is Senior Research Associate at cording to a 5-5-12 pattern in honour of the five People the Department of Academic Research and Publica- of the Mantle and the Twelve Imams, is also the first tions, the Institute of Ismaili Studies. His research in- manual in the Arabo-Persian lettrist tradition to be, in terests include the intellectual history of Shiʿi Islam, conception and execution, emphatically Twelver. Islamic mysticism and messianism and their role in 21 the history and intellectual history of Muslim societies Philosophy and exegesis are often considered to be in mediaeval and early modern times. He has published discrete disciplines, divided as it were between the monographs Words of Power: Ḥurūfī Teachings between rival motivations to understand the nature of reality Shiʿism and Sufism. The Original Ḥurūfī Doctrine of Faḍl through rational argumentation and the hermeneu- Allāh Astarābādī (London, 2015), and Christian Apocalyp- tics of revelation. However, in practice there are many tic Texts in Islamic Messianic Discourse (Leiden and Boston, examples in the world of Islam of philosophers com- 2017) as well as edited and co-edited several volumes, menting upon and glossing texts and lemmata extract- including Unity in Diversity: Mysticism, Messianism and the ed from revelation, be they Qurʾanic verses or ḥadīth. Construction of Religious Authority in Islam (Leiden, 2013), In particular, the Shiʿi tradition of ḥadīth commentary, Les Nuṣayris et les Druzes, deux communautés ésotériques à which as a process only really began in the Safavid pe- la périphérie doctrinale de l’islam (with D. De Smet, Arabi- riod, is intimately linked with the attempt of (Neopla- ca, thematic issue, 2011); and L’ésotérisme shiʿite, ses rac- tonising) philosophers to conceptualise the meaning ines et ses prolongements (with M. A. Amir-Moezzi, M. De of revelation and trace its accord with ontological facts Cillis and D. De Smet, Turnhout, 2016). that may be discerned through the exercise of reason. _ _ _ Thus far there has been little study on ḥadīth commentary so I shall begin with a consideration of this tra- ANDREW NEWMAN dition and the role of philosopher-sages (ḥukamāʾ) in (University of Edinburgh) the production of knowledge and conceptualisation The Ijāza as Polemic in Early Safavid Iran of the hermeneutics of reading ḥadīth, beginning with the work of Mīr Dāmād (d. 1631) in his al-Rawāshiḥ The present paper will briefly address the nature and al-samāwiyya designed as an introduction to al-Kāfī of purpose of Twelver Shiʿi ijāzas and then examine in al-Kulaynī (d. 941), and shall also make some prelimi- some detail several examples of 16th and 17th century nary observations on the method of Neoplatonic com- ijāzas which, apparently, fell outside what would seem mentary in the world of Islam. to have been the accepted norms of ijāzas as regularised The main focus of the paper will be an examination of in the Safavid period. The background to these will be a controversial problem, namely what we mean by the discussed and suggestions offered as to why these texts concept of ʿaql, not least because in the Safavid period, apparently breached any of these norms. Majlisī (d. 1699) and his students actively responded to Andrew Newman holds the Personal Chair of Islam- the exegeses of the philosopher-sages and attempted ic Studies and Persian at the University of Edinburgh. to separate the usage of terms in scripture from their He has a PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Neoplatonic ‘distortions’. More recently this debate California, Los Angeles. He came to Edinburgh in 1996, re-emerged with ʿAllāma Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s critique of Ma- having been a Research Fellow at both the Wellcome jlisī on this point and the maktab-i tafkīk’s challenge to Unit for the History of Medicine, Oxford and Green the tradition of Mullā Ṣadrā. I will examine the ways in College, Oxford, whilst researching topics in the histo- which three philosopher-sages understand the use of ry of Islamic medicine. Newman has published books the concept of the ʿaql in the Shiʿi ḥadīth corpus: Mullā and articles on early Twelver Shiʿism, Shiʿi history and Ṣadrā (d. 1636) in his commentary on Uṣūl al-kāfī, Qāḍī thought, and Shiʿism in Safavid Iran. His most recent Saʿīd Qummī (d. 1696) in his commentary on Kitāb al- publication is Twelver Shiism, Unity and Diversity in the tawḥīd of al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq (d. 991) and on al-Kāfī Life of Islam, 632 to 1722 (Edinburgh, 2013). He is also the in his various treatises, and ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Tabrīzī, a founder of Shiʿi News and Resources. little-known student of Mīr Dāmād, in his treatise al- _ _ _ Bawāriq al-nūriyya which is a philosophical and mystical meditation upon Uṣūl al-kāfī. From these analyses, SAJJAD RIZVI I shall draw some conclusions about the strategies of (University of Exeter) glossing the text in search of philosophical insight The Imam and the Greek Sage: Neoplatonic Commentaries which might demonstrate the harmonisation of ex- on Shiʿi Ḥadīth in the Safavid Period egesis and philosophy promoting the notion of a ho-

22 mology between two revelations: the scripture as book akhyār ilā uṣūl al-akhbār, and Bahāʾ al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī’s of God and nature as the book of the cosmos. (d. 1030/1621) al-Wajīza. The monumental collections Sajjad Rizvi is Associate Professor of Islamic Intellec- al-Wāfī by Muḥsin al-Fayḍ al-Kāshānī (d. 1091/1680- tual History at the University of Exeter. He has pub- 81), Wasāʾil al-shiʿa by al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī (d. 1104/1693), lished widely on philosophy in the Safavid-Mughal pe- and Muḥammad Bāqir al-Majlisī’s (d. 1111/1699) Biḥār riod and on Qurʾanic exegesis. His recent publications al-anwār represent attempts to re-assamble and pres- include The Spirit and the Letter (with Annabel Keeler, ent as an integral whole the entire expanse of Shiʿi Oxford, 2017) and Philosophy and the Intellectual Life in ḥadīth literature. Ironically, the attempt to bolster Shiʿah Islam (with Saiyad Nizamuddin Ahmad, Barns- the authority of the standard ḥadīth collections led ley, 2017). He is currently working on a monograph on to the rediscovery of texts that had been rejected on Islamic philosophy in Iran and North India in the 18th ideological grounds, but were now brought back into century. consideration, such as al-Shalmaghānī’s (d. 322/934) _ _ _ legal work Kitāb al-Taklīf, which was repackaged as Fiqh al-Riḍāʾ during the Safavid era and reintroduced DEVIN J. STEWART into the canon. (Emory University) At the same time, the popularity of ḥadīth led Mullā The Pre-Modern Renaissance in Shiʿi Ḥadīth Studies: Ḥadīth Ṣadrā (d. 1050/1640) to present his philosophical the- Criticism, the Akhbārī Movement and Literary Production ories in the form of a commentary on a ḥadīth work, in Safavid Iran Sharḥ Uṣūl al-kāfī. A number of scholars, including Rula Jurdi Abisaab and Robert Gleave, have discussed Safavid Iran witnessed a wide-ranging renaissance the Akhbārī movement in the 17th century in some of Twelver Shiʿi scholarship, but it is important to detail, and they and other scholars, such as Rasul recognise the particular ways in which it was con- Jafariyan and Andrew Newman, have discussed the structed and skewed. This essay examines the revival history of the religious sciences in the Safavid peri- of the focused study of ḥadīth on the part of Twelver od, but the aim in this paper is to provide a broad Shiʿi scholars in the 16th and 17th centuries. The re- overview of the effect radical changes in the study of vival has many inter-related aspects, including the ḥadīth had on Shiʿi intellectual history. production of particular genres of technical writing related to ḥadīth. This scholarship both helped to cre- Devin J. Stewart received his PhD with distinction ate and was shaped by the Akhbārī movement. As this in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of paper will show, it also reveals contested notions of Pennsylvania in 1991. He now teaches in the Depart- scripture and religious authority. The genres affect- ment of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies at ed were many: ḥadīth criticism, commentaries on Emory University in Atlanta. The subjects of his re- the major collections of Shiʿi ḥadīth, super-compen- search include Shiʿi Islam, Islamic law, legal theory dia of ḥadīth, and works devoted to a central core of and legal education, biography and autobiography, legal ḥadīth reports are several of the more obvious dissimulation among the Shiʿa and the Moriscos ones. I will argue, though, that genres further afield of Spain. He is the author of Islamic Legal Orthodoxy such as ijāzas, biographical dictionaries and even au- (Salt Lake City, UT, 1998) and several studies on the tobiographies were also profoundly affected by the Shiʿi legal tradition, including especially scholars of revival in ḥadīth scholarship. For example, although the Safavid period such as Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī (d. Jamāl al-Dīn Ibn Ṭāwūs (d. 673/1274), al-ʿAllāma al- 965/1558) and Bahāʾ al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī (d. 1030/1621). Ḥillī (d. 726/1325), and Ibn Abī al-Jumhūr al-Aḥsāʾī Most recently, he has published Disagreements of the (d. after 878/1479) wrote ḥadīth criticism, a tradi- Jurists (New York, 2015), an edition and translation tional Twelver version of this genre paralleling Sun- of Ikhtilāf uṣūl al-madhāhib, a refutation of Sunni le- ni works in the field was not established until the gal hermeneutics by the tenth-century Ismaili jurist, mid-sixteenth century, when Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī (d. al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (d. 363/974). 965/1558) wrote al-Bidāya, a work that was followed by Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad’s (d. 984/1576) Wuṣūl al- 23 MATHIEU TERRIER Mathieu Terrier earned his doctorate at the École (CNRS, Paris) Pratique des Hautes Études (Sorbonne) in 2014. He is The Convergence of Shiʿism, Philosophy and Sufism in Quṭb currently Chargé de recherche at the French Nation- al-Dīn Ashkiwarī’s (d. between 1088 and 1095/1677 and 1684) al Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), in the- de al-Risāla al-mithāliyya partment of the History of the Ancient and Medieval Worlds. His work mainly focuses on the theological The importance of the concept of ‘imaginal world’ and philosophical ideas in Twelver Shiʿism, especial- (ʿālam al-mithāl) in the history of Islamic philosophy, ly during the period between the 8th to 11th/14th to especially in the ‘Safavid philosophical renaissance’, 17th centuries. His publications include Histoire de la no longer needs to be demonstrated since it was es- sagesse et philosophie shî‘ite. L’Aimé des cœurs de Quṭb al- tablished through Henry Corbin’s pioneering stud- Dîn Ashkevarî (Paris, 2016) and several articles in jour- ies. However, the most comprehensive work of Shiʿi nals such as Journal asiatique, Studia Islamica, MIDÉO philosophy devoted to this topic, despite its being and Ishraq. mentioned by Corbin, remains until now unpublished _ _ _ and unexplored. Written by Quṭb al-Dīn Ashkiwarī or Ishkawarī (d. between 1088/1677 and 1095/1684), FATIH USLUER the Fānūs al-khayāl, also called al-Risāla al-mithāliyya, (TOBB University of Economics and Technology) was written in both Arabic and Persian and com- Ḥurūfī Disciples versus Faḍl Allāh Astarābādī: The Ḥurūfī pleted in 1077/1666-1667. This paper, based on the Khalīfas’ Interpretations of Faḍl Allāh’s Doctrine unique manuscript preserved in the Malik Library of Tehran, aims to present the first historical and philo- Faḍl Allāh, the founder of Ḥurūfism, produced works sophical analysis of this work. Ashkiwarī’s purpose is such as the Jāvidān-nāma, ʿArsh-nāma, Muḥabbat-nā- to demonstrate, by the three means of reason (ʿaql), ma and Dīwān. Of these, the Jāvidān-nāma and Muḥab- transmitted tradition (naql) and spiritual unveiling bat-nāma provide the most detailed account of Ḥurūfī (kashf), the reality of the imaginal world, defined as an doctrine. Perhaps even more importantly, he left intermediate world between the sensory world and behind notable disciples who perpetuated Ḥurūfī the intelligible world, and identified with the Qurʾan- philosophy not least through their writings: ʿAlī al- ic notion of barzakh as an ‘isthmus’ between the life Aʿlā, Kamāl al-Dīn Qaytagh, Amīr Ghiyāth al-Dīn, Mīr of this world and the great Resurrection. According Sharīf and Sayyid Isḥāq all created masterpieces of to Ashkiwarī, this concept responds to crucial philo- Ḥurūfī literature. They remained loyal to the princi- sophical and theological issues. It is also the core of a pal Ḥurūfī tenets formulated by Faḍl Allāh. However, doctrine shared by the ‘Infallibles’ (aṣḥāb al-ʿiṣma), i.e. they reinterpreted certain aspects of the doctrine the Prophet and the Imams, the ‘philosophers of the slightly differently from Faḍl Allāh, thus enriching Orient of Light’ (ḥukamāʾ al-ishrāq), and the ‘Unitari- Ḥurūfī thought. an Sufis’ al-ṣūfiyya ( al-muwaḥḥidūn). Consequently, it This paper will deal with later Ḥurūfī works such as might be the key to a harmonisation between Shiʿi es- the Maḥshar-nāma, Tawḥīd-nāma, Kursī-nāma, Iṭāʿat-nā- otericism, contained in the earliest collections of Im- ma, Istiwā-nāma, Turāb-nāma, Taḥqīq-nāma, Ishārat-nā- āmī traditions, ancient and modern philosophy, from ma and Ism wa Musammā, thereby addressing two Pythagoras to the school of Suhrawardī, and the the- main questions: oretical Sufism of Ibn ʿArabī. In this epistle, Ashkiwarī 1. how the interpretations of the disciples dif- also intended to reactivate the Shiʿi spiritual tradition fered from that of Faḍl Allāh, and by enriching it with philosophy and Sufism, both in- 2. what innovations were brought into Ḥurūfī tellectual traditions commonly considered foreign doctrine by Faḍl Allāh’s disciples? to Imāmī Shiʿism. In this paper, I will try to highlight the audacity of this endeavour in its historical con- The discussion of these two issues will pinpoint both text and the prominent place of this work in what has the developments and the problems that emerged in been described as the post-Mongol Shiʿi gnosis. Ḥurūfī thought after Faḍl Allāh’s death.

24 Fatih Usluer received his PhD in Religious Sciences Shafique N. Virani (PhD, Harvard University) is Dis- from Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and current- tinguished Professor of Islamic Studies at the Univer- ly is a tenured Associate Professor of Faculty of Arts sity of Toronto in Canada, founding Director of the and Sciences at TOBB University of Economics and Centre for South Asian Civilizations, and was previ- Technology in Ankara, Turkey. His multi-disciplinary ously chair of the Department of Historical Studies. research focuses on the history of Sufism, Ottoman Professor Virani’s research focuses on Islamic histo- cultural history and classical Ottoman, Persian and ry, philosophy, Sufism, Shiʿism (Twelver and Ismaili), Arabic literature. He has transcribed and transliterat- Bhakti, as well as Islamic literature in Arabic, Persian ed into modern Turkish several Ottoman Turkish and and South Asian languages. He is the author of The Is- Persian Ḥurūfī manuscripts, dating from the 15th to mailis in the Middle Ages: A History of Survival, A Search the 18th centuries, and has prepared two catalogues for Salvation (Oxford–New York, 2007). His work has of manuscripts (Arabic and Ottoman Turkish manu- been translated into numerous languages, and he has scripts in the Hamidiye Library in Lebanon, and Alevi received awards and recognition from UNESCO, OIC, manuscripts collected from Anatolian villages). His MESA, FIS, Harvard University, and the BRISMES. The most recent project was the transliteration and analy- government of Iran named him the recipient of its sis of postscripts and notes written by Jarullah Efendi, International Book of the Year prize in 2008, and of a famous seventeenth-century Ottoman scholar, on Farabi International Award in 2009, and the American the books of his personal library. Academy of Religion awarded him its highest peda- _ _ _ gogical honour in 2014.

SHAFIQUE N.VIRANI (University of Toronto) From Iran to India: Ismaili Teachers and Teachings in the 11th/17th Century

A recently edited and published Persian ode by an oth- erwise unknown Ismaili poet named Maḥmūd has the potential to contribute significantly to our understanding of Ismailism in the 11th/17th century. Written in the hazaj metre, it begins ghulām-i shāh-i mardānam chih bāk az khārijī dāram, ‘A servant of ʿAlī, king of men, am I. What have I to fear from his enemy?’ Maḥmūd was a contemporary of the Ismaili imam, Nūr al-Dahr ʿAlī (d. 1082/1671). In his poem, he iden- tifies numerous Ismaili leaders living in his time. He gives their names and the places where they were active, and distinguishes them by such titles as pīr, muʿal- lim and dāʿī. Maḥmūd was able to list individuals sta- tioned throughout South and Central Asia, as far away as Gujarat in India. Most of the names in the poem are previously unknown, while others are of significant Is- maili personalities who are almost completely unstud- ied, such as Yaʿqūb Shāh b. Ṣūfī in Iran and Pīr Fāḍil Shāh b. Raḥmatallāh Shāh in India. Using Maḥmūd’s poem as a starting point, this paper will shed light on the Ismaili teachers of the 11th/17th century, their areas of activity and their teachings.

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